Catch up on the weekend’s top five stories with this list compiled by The Fly: 1. Visa (V) is suspending its Russia operations. “Effective immediately, Visa will work with its clients and partners within Russia to cease all Visa transactions over the coming days. Once complete, all transactions initiated with Visa cards issued in Russia will no longer work outside the country and any Visa cards issued by financial institutions outside of Russia will no longer work within the Russian Federation,” the company stated. MasterCard (MA) MasterCard also announced that, “For more than a week, the world has watched the shocking and devastating events resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (…) we have decided to suspend our network services in Russia. This decision flows from our recent action to block multiple financial institutions from the Mastercard payment network, as required by regulators globally. With this action, cards issued by Russian banks will no longer be supported by the Mastercard network. And, any Mastercard issued outside of the country will not work at Russian merchants or ATMs. ” According to Bloomberg’s Susanne Barton and Jackie Davalos, American Express (AXP) is also suspending its operations in Russia and Belarus, becoming the latest credit card giant to respond with measures denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. Globally issued American Express cards will no longer work at merchants or ATMs in Russia, while cards issued locally by Russian banks will no longer work outside of the country on the American Express global network, the company said in a statement Sunday. 2. Ryan Cohen, the billionaire co-founder of online pet-products retailer Chewy (CHWY) has a big stake in Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) and is pushing the housewares retailer to streamline its strategy and explore strategic alternatives, The Wall Street Journal’s Cara Lombardo reported. Cohen, who also serves as chairman of videogame retailer GameStop (GME), owns a 9.8% stake in Bed Bath & Beyond through his investment company, RC Ventures LLC, according to a copy of a letter sent to its board Sunday that was viewed by The Wall Street Journal. That makes him a top-five shareholder in the New Jersey-based chain, which has a market value of roughly $1.6 billion. 3. As Tech stocks have been put in a tough spot and are under pressure to sustain pandemic-era boosts, with many of them struggling to meet the challenge, including Zoom Video (ZM), Peloton (PTON), Shopify (SHOP) and Chegg (CHGG), Eric J. Savitz wrote in this week’s edition of Barron’s. But cloud computing is here to stay and is even gaining strength, the author noted. This past week of earnings news brought a fresh wave of data points from enterprise tech companies, the publication added. HP Enterprise (HPE) posted 2% revenue growth for the quarter, while Pure Storage (PSTG) crushed expectations for the January quarter and Broadcom (AVGO) said its April-quarter results would accelerate from 16% growth in the January quarter. The trend is more obvious on the software side, Savitz writes, with Salesforce (CRM) expanding its cloud-based offerings from its core customer relationship-management software into a host of new areas. The same pattern is playing out at Workday and Box (BOX). Finally, there’s Snowflake (SNOW), the fastest-growing of the major cloud stocks, the author contended. 4. AT&T (T) subsidiary Warner Bros.’ “The Batman” won this weekend’s box office with a huge $128.5M debut, the second-best opening of the pandemic era behind “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” Overseas, the movie starring Robert Pattinson opened to $120M from 75 markets for a worldwide cume of $248.5M. AMC Entertainment (AMC), the world’s largest exhibitor, is using the film as a chance to experiment with variable pricing and charge from $1 to $1.50 more for a ticket. But higher prices at some cinemas didn’t seem to keep consumers away. 5. Foot Locker (FL), EQT (EQT), Chesapeake Energy (CHK), Coterra Energy (CTRA), Antero Resources (AR), Range Resources (RRC), Southwestern Energy (SWN), Tourmaline Oil (TRMLF) and Wizz Air (WZZAF) saw positive mentions in this week’s edition of Barron’s.
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