5 Things You Must Know Before the Market Opens Tuesday
Updated from 6:04 a.m. EDT with corporate earnings information.
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Here are five things you must know for Tuesday, July 26:
1. -- Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) - Get Report , the maker of Budweiser, raised its offer for SABMiller (SBMRY) after SABMiller shareholders called for an increased offer due to the significant fall in the pound after the U.K.'s Brexit referendum.
AB InBev lifted its offer by 1 pound to 45 pounds a share ($59). AB InBev said this is its final offer and it won't lift either the cash offer or the partial share alternative again.
The deal is now worth about 79 billion pounds ($104 billion). The acquisition will create the biggest brewer in the world.
The pound has declined by more than 10% since the June 23 referendum.
2. -- BP (BP) - Get Report posted underlying replacement cost profit of $720 million for the second quarter, down from $1.3 billion a year earlier and below analysts' predictions of about $840 million as an improvement in oil prices failed to compensate for weaker earnings from its refining business.
The stock was down about 3% in London trading.
BP's oil and gas production operations returned to a slim pretax underlying profit of $29 million for the quarter, up from a loss of $747 million in the first quarter, as oil prices climbed to an average $46 a barrel over the quarter, up from $34 in the previous three months.
BP's downstream business, which includes refining, lubricants and petrochemical operations, saw pretax underlying profit fall to $1.5 billion, down from $1.8 billion in the first quarter.
"The results ... reflect a significantly weaker refining environment, partially offset by lower costs from simplification and efficiency programs," BP said in a statement. "Refining margins were the weakest for a second quarter since 2010."
3. -- The Federal Reserve is preparing to bring an enforcement action against Goldman Sachs (GS) - Get Report and one of its former executives over a case concerning the theft of central-bank secrets two years ago, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.
The planned action, reported earlier by the New York Times, shows the Fed is advancing its own investigation into the incident, in which confidential regulatory materials were leaked to a Goldman staffer from one of his former colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Fed last year permanently banned from the banking industry the former Goldman staffer who obtained the sensitive documents, and the central bank is now expected to pursue a similar ban for that staffer's former supervisor, according to the Journal.
The Fed is expected to seek to ban former Goldman executive Joseph Jiampietro from the banking industry, the Journal reported. Jiampietro was fired by Goldman Sachs in October 2014, and his most recent role was as a managing director in the investment-banking division.
4. -- Amazon.com (AMZN) - Get Report announced a partnership with the U.K. government to expand drone testing.
Amazon has been granted permission to explore certain aspects of drone technology such as "beyond line of sight operations in rural and suburban areas (and) testing sensor performance to make sure the drones can identify and avoid obstacles," Amazon said in a statement.
The tests are to begin immediately, according to the New York Times. The move could allow drones to deliver packages to British homes far earlier than in the United States, the Times noted.
5. -- U.S. stock futures on Tuesday traded mixed following earnings from Verizon (VZ) - Get Report , McDonald's (MCD) - Get Report , Under Armour (UA) - Get Report and DuPont (DD) - Get Report and ahead of the first day of the Federal Reserve's two-day meeting.
Investors are fairly certain the Fed won't announce a move on interest rates at the conclusion of its meeting on Wednesday. A rate hike in July currently has a 2.4% probability, according to CME Group Fed funds futures.
DuPont exceeded forecasts in its second quarter thanks to lower input prices and cost cuts and it raised the low end of its full-year forecast. Verizon topped second-quarter profit estimates by 2 cents a share. It predicted that full-year adjusted earnings would be similar to 2015.
U.S. stocks on Monday declined as crude oil settled at a three-month low on an expected decline in U.S. refinery activity.
The economic calendar on Tuesday includes the Case-Shiller 20-city Index for May at 9 a.m. EDT, Consumer Confidence for July at 10 a.m., and New Home Sales for June at 10 a.m.