US Economy Growing at a Fast Pace – Morning Premarket News

1. TKAI: $TKAI Otic Pharma to Become Majority Owner of Tokai Pharma – SI

2. MU:  $MU Micron Rises on Quarterly Sales Forecast, Restored Growth – BBG

3. XOMA:  $XOMA XOMA Sells Two Royalty Streams, Reduces Headcount and Names New CEO – SI

4. HSY:  $HSY Hershey names COO Michele Buck as chief executive – Reuters

5. DB: $DB Trump May Have a $300 Million Conflict of Interest With Deutsche Bank – BBG

6. RDI: $RDI Heth Consortium Hikes Offer for Reading – TheStreet

7. GOOG, HMC: $HMC Google $GOOG and Honda Are Teaming Up on Self-Driving Cars – Wired

8. AGN, IRWD: $IRWD Ironwood, Allergan $AGN Announce Phase IIb Data for Linaclotide; Plan to Advance to Phase III – SI

9. BABA: $BABA US puts Alibaba’ Taobao website back in its list of ‘notorious marketplaces – CNBC

10. CAMP:  $CAMP CalAmp Corp. Is Heading Lower After Q3 Profit Fell Short – RTT

11. BBBY:  $BBBY Bed Bath & Beyond drops after disappointing earnings, forecast – MW

12. MLHR:  $MLHR Herman Miller Earnings, Outlook Disappoint – WSJ

13. RHT:  $RHT Red Hat Plunges: CFO Calderoni Departs for CEO Role; FYQ3 Rev Misses – Barrons

14. OVAS:  $OVAS OvaScience Plans to Slow Commercial Expansion and Cut Workforce; CEO and COO to Step Down – SI

1. INCY, MRUS:Merus upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citi $MRUS $INCY

2. MAG:Raymond James Upgrades MAG Silver Corp $MAG to Strong Buy

3. MU:Needham & Company issues two-level upgrade to Buy on Micron Technology

4. SCMP:$SCMP upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Mizuho. PT $16

1. AAAP:JMP Securities Downgrades Advanced Accelerator Applications S.A. $AAAP to Market Perform

2. BBBY:Raymond James Downgrades Bed Bath & Beyond $BBBY to Market Perform

3. FINL:BofA/Merrill Lynch Downgrades Finish Line $FINL to Neutral

4. GEF:Greif Inc was Downgraded to a Sell Rating at BMO Capital $GEF

5. PG:Procter & Gamble downgraded to hold from buy at SunTrust. Price target $85. $PG 12/21 close: 84.28 #stocks

6. RHT:UPDATE: BMO Capital Downgrades Red Hat $RHT to Market Perform

7. SSI:B. Riley Downgrades Stage Stores to Sell $SSI

8. ZUMZ:#Zumiez downgraded to neutral from buy at B. Riley. Price target trimmed $2 to $25. $ZUMZ 12/21 close: 22.80 (-3.18…

1. RAD:$RAD reports FQ3 earnings of 2c EPS and $8.09B Revs –

2. CAG:$CAG reports FQ2 earnings of 49c EPS and $2.09B Revs –

1. TKAI:$TKAI halted news pending

2. IONS:$IONS is ON FIRE! Earns 3rd Big Pharma milestone in 1 week for advancing program. GI autoimmune target validation:…

3. WTW:Here we go again… $WTW

4. MU:Hearing Evercore upping $MU tgt to $30 from $25

5. AUPH:$AUPH raises $25m at $2.25/share, with warrants at $3

6. VCEL:$VCEL initiated with an Overweight at Piper. $6 PT

1. Trump May Have a $300 Million Conflict of Interest With Deutsche Bank

2. JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, on Detroit’s Revival

3. Ligand Enters into Worldwide OmniAb® Platform License Agreement with ONO PHARMACEUTICAL CO., LTD.

4. Tokai Pharmaceuticals and Otic Pharma Enter into Share Purchase Agreement | Business Wire

5. 14 for ’17: Key Clinical Data To Watch For Next Year (Part 2) | Xconomy

6. Imperial Capital Raises Price Target on JetBlue Airways (JBLU) to $31 After Adjusting Estimates

1. only Uber could lose a PR battle to the DMV

California has forced Uber to remove its vehicles from the road canceling the controversial pilot program in San Francisco after a week of embarrassing reports of traffic violations and repeated legal threats from state officials.

The department of motor vehicles DMV announced late on Wednesday that it had revoked the registration of autonomous Uber cars which the corporation deployed without proper permits last week and which were caught on numerous occasions running red lights.

Uber which had previously declared that its rejection of government regulations was an important issue of principle confirmed that it has stopped its pilot in a statement adding now looking at where we can redeploy these cars but remain percent committed to California and will be redoubling our efforts to develop workable statewide.

2. WhatsApp has become the lingua franca among people who have left their homes for the unknown

This is happening as the world is increasingly at war over migration was among other things a prolonged and pitched battle over the rights and privileges of migrant people whether Syrians in Europe Europeans in fight over Brexit or the issue of Mexican and Muslim immigration that dominated the American presidential race.

Beyond the headlines what has often gone unnoticed in the politics of migration are the shifting dynamics of migrant life particularly the surprising and subtle ways in which technology especially smartphones and social networks has altered the immigrant experience.

recognize how important it is for people to connect with family thousands of miles away because something we think about a Every feature in the app he added designed in part by someone living the immigrant experience every.

3. Countries are attempting to block the encryption app ‘Signal’, but the company is refusing to let that stop them.

On Wednesday Open Whisper Systems which created and maintains Signal announced that added a feature to its Android app that will allow it to sidestep censorship in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates where it was blocked just days ago.

use of TLS encryption means that contents of the traffic including that redirect request are hidden and the internet service provider can see only that someone has connected to.

But in both cases the block was a few countries like China Iran and North Korea have been willing to permanently censor large swathes of the internet wholesale.

4. US state police have spent millions on phone-cracking tech from Israeli firm Cellebrite

State police forces and highway patrols in the US have collectively spent millions of dollars on this sort of technology to break into and extract data from mobile phones according to documents obtained by Motherboard.

Agencies also spent tens of thousands of dollars on other Cellebrite products including Link Analysis a piece of software that visualizes data pulled from phones into easy to understand graphs allowing investigators to quickly map out relationships between multiple individuals contacts or a GPS location across time.

In one document from the Colorado State Patrol justifying the purchase of an UFED Major Packard writes the force needs the device because investigators are reliant upon partners in the FBI ICE and DEA for access to this.

5. The White House’s report on AI and the economy warns of increasing inequality

report focuses on the potential economic effects of AI and while far from a dark outlook it does warn that with improper handling automation could drive further inequality in this already deeply divided country.

If the United States fails to improve at educating children and retraining adults with the skills needed in an increasingly economy the country risks leaving millions of Americans behind and losing its position as the global economic leader.

With a new technology threatening to produce huge numbers of displaced workers it behooves us to invest in unemployment and healthcare to make sure these people can stay on their feet while finding or training for the next opportunity.

6. Exodus of Twitter executives puts pressure on @Jack Dorsey

For more than a year Dorsey has relied on a mix of meditation exercise morning coffee and afternoon tea to get through his workdays overseeing Twitter TWTR and Square SQ.

Twitter has lost six of the execs who were part of its leadership team at the beginning of the year including the heads of product engineering human resources and media.

It possible Twitter progress with live video and Donald Trump love for the platform may give Dorsey and his dwindling leadership team some breathing room says James Cakmak an analyst with Monness Crespi Hardt Co.

7. Ahead of Trump, the Obama admin is not trying to restrict surveillance on Americans–they’re trying to expand it.

Yahoo Inc secret scanning of customer emails at the behest of a spy agency is part of a growing push by officials to loosen constitutional protections Americans have against arbitrary governmental searches according to legal documents and people briefed on closed court hearings.

Civil liberties groups and some other legal experts said the attempt to expand the ability of law enforcement agencies and intelligence services to sift through vast amounts of online data in some cases without a court order was in conflict with the Fourth Amendment because many innocent messages are included in the initial sweep.

While details of the Yahoo search are classified people familiar with the matter have told Reuters it was aimed at isolating a digital signature for a single person or small team working for a foreign government frequently at odds with America.

8. White House says AI could cost U.S. millions of jobs if education and social services are not improved

Artificial intelligence will be essential to the future economic growth of the United States but if education and social services are improved American workers could lose millions of jobs.

Advances in AI technology hold incredible potential to help the United States stay on the cutting edge of innovation the report says.

Donald Trump pick for secretary of labor has been a vocal critic of increasing the minimum wage and Republicans have previously opposed expanding unemployment and other services.

9. Snap Inc. says it has opened a technology office in Shenzhen to focus on Spectacles

Snap says it has opened a technology office in the southern city of Shenzhen to focus on Spectacles the startup sunglasses that can send footage to users Snapchat accounts.

The southern Chinese city just across the border from Hong Kong is home to a thriving startup scene and some of the country biggest technology companies such as smartphone maker Huawei and Tencent which owns WeChat.

Understanding what Alibaba WeChat Baidu Netease and smaller players in China are up to is helpful to keep up with local trends that can influence the global market said Duncan Clark founder of consulting firm BDA.

10. Wherever there are people leaving their homes for uncharted shores, you are likely to find them on WhatsApp.

This is happening as the world is increasingly at war over migration was among other things a prolonged and pitched battle over the rights and privileges of migrant people whether Syrians in Europe Europeans in fight over Brexit or the issue of Mexican and Muslim immigration that dominated the American presidential race.

Beyond the headlines what has often gone unnoticed in the politics of migration are the shifting dynamics of migrant life particularly the surprising and subtle ways in which technology especially smartphones and social networks has altered the immigrant experience.

recognize how important it is for people to connect with family thousands of miles away because something we think about a Every feature in the app he added designed in part by someone living the immigrant experience every.