1. Starting Monday, the 87M Facebook (FB) users who might have had their data shared with Cambridge Analytica will get a detailed message on their news feeds, according to Associated Press. In addition, all 2.2 billion Facebook users will receive a notice titled “Protecting Your Information” with a link to see what apps they use and what information they have shared with those apps, the report noted, adding that they will be able to shut off apps individually or turn off third-party access to their apps completely. Over the weekend, Facebook also said it had suspended Canadian political consultancy AggregateIQ and data firm Cubeyou in wake of the privacy scandal.
2. After threatening to slap China with new tariffs, the Trump administration officials softened some of the rhetoric, noting that the penalties are not imminent and there is ample time to work out a deal and step back from a possible trade war, according to The Wall Street Journal.
3. Alphabet (GOOG; GOOGL) has the world’s dominant search engine in Google, as well as valuable businesses like YouTube, the Android cellphone operating system, and Waymo autonomous vehicles, but investors are not giving the company enough credit partly because of worries that it, like Facebook, will soon face greater government regulation, Andrew Bary wrote in this week’s edition of Barron’s. Alphabet trades for almost 25 times projected 2018 earnings, but its effective P/E is lower because of nearly $100B in net cash and losses in its “other bets” businesses, he added.
4. Paramount’s (VIAB) high-concept horror-thriller “A Quiet Place” opened to a booming $50M from 3,508 theaters in North America, ahead of expectations. Rated PG-13, the movie directed by John Krasinski, earned a B+ CinemaScore and sports a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score. Overseas, “A Quiet Place” opened to $21M from its first 40 markets for a global take of $71M.
5. IAC/InterActiveCorp (IAC) and Spotify Technology (SPOT) saw positive mentions in Barron’s while Skyworks (SWKS), Qorvo (QRVO), Qualcomm (QCOM), and Synaptics (SYNA) were mentioned cautiously.
