“I’m still short Wayfair … Wayfair shares rallied 21 percent Tuesday after the company reported better-than-expected first-quarter results. Wayfair’s short interest is 13.6 million shares, or 37.5 percent of its float, according to FactSet. Short-sellers lost $150 million in Wayfair Tuesday, bringing the total loss to $366 million this year in the stock, according to S3 Partners estimates. Wayfair shares traded up 3 percent midday Wednesday.

The “buy the dip” trade is also one big reason market volatility is so low. This is reflected in a low VIX — the market’s so-called fear gauge — which is calculated based on those options. Right now, the VIX, or the CBOE Volatility Index, is flashing very low expectations for big swings in the S&P 500. There are plenty of reasons behind the low volatility, such as the fact the stock market is near highs and interest rates are low. The options market participants are just not willing to pay a sig

A new poll shows a drop-off in public support for the GOP’s controversial Obamacare replacement legislation in the days after the House passed that bill by just a single vote. “These latest polling numbers on the American Health Care Act could spell trouble for Republicans,” Kyle Dropp, Morning Consult’s chief research officer and co-founder, told Politico. “There is a notable enthusiasm gap: 29 percent strongly oppose the bill, but only 13 percent strongly support it.” But senators have indicat

The Trump administration is likely to expand a ban on laptops on commercial aircraft to include some European countries, but is reviewing how to ensure lithium batteries stored in luggage holds do not explode in midair, officials briefed on the matter said on Wednesday. Any expansion of the ban could impact U.S. carriers such as United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines Group. Six U.S. and European officials said they expect the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to make an

Best known for his roles in movies such as “National Treasure” and “Leaving Las Vegas,” Nicolas Cage was once a top earner in Hollywood, worth $150 million. But Cage didn’t hold on to his fortune for long. He squandered it away on a string of expensive and often eccentric purchases, eventually facing foreclosure on several properties and owing the IRS $6.3 million in property taxes. Now worth around $25 million, Cage is taking roles left and right to help pay off his debts. As chronicled in CNBC

U.S. Steel CEO Mario Longhi is stepping down from the company’s top job, effective immediately. David Burritt, who most recently served as president and chief operating officer of the Fortune 250 integrated steel company, will succeed Longhi. The board of directors elected Burritt to the role of president and chief executive on Monday. Prior to joining U.S. Steel, Burritt served the chief financial officer at Caterpillar, where he worked for 32 years until he retired in 2010. He served as execut

Aetna won’t offer individual Obamacare plans in Virginia Wednesday, 3 May 2017 | 3:11 PM ET | 01:14Aetna had previously announced plans to exit the individual commercial market in Virginia and Iowa. It has now “completely exited the exchanges,” the company said in an emailed statement. Republicans in the House of Representatives last week voted to undo the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, the signature domestic achievement of former President Barack Obama. Aetna projected more than $

Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah drew some clear distinctions between his company and online retail behemoth Amazon, he told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Wednesday. Shah said he believes the online furniture category is different from other specialized online categories that face pressure from Amazon. Shares of Wayfair surged more than 20 percent on Tuesday after the online furniture company reported better-than-expected earnings, hurting short sellers. Nevertheless, short-sellers such as Andrew Left at Citro

Part of what’s driving these potential moves is the frustration many staffers feel from the pending lawsuit, sources say. Uber might have to stop work on its autonomous cars entirely or just stop using technology that Alphabet claims was stolen. As part of his decision to move away from leading the company’s self-driving efforts, Levandowski put Meyehofer in charge. In fact, an Uber engineer testified on May 4 that Meyehofer continued to work with Levandowski on a daily basis. Raquel Urtasun, a

The move could lead companies that need these services to forgo the biggest cloud companies and go directly to Nvidia. Naturally, those big cloud companies that are buying GPUs from Nvidia now aren’t going to look favorably on this move, and will likely try to enhance their offerings or lower their prices. To be clear, Nvidia isn’t building a whole cloud infrastructure from scratch. Instead it will rely on public cloud providers like AWS to run its service. The new service will become available

Shares of Whole Foods Market rose by as much as 3.5 percent Wednesday after the company named five new board members and a CFO, and released fiscal second-quarter earnings that met expectations. Whole Foods had been expected to report earnings of 37 cents per share on $3.73 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Reuters estimates. It was the seventh consecutive quarter of negative comparable store sales for Whole Foods. In late 2016, Whole Foods implemented a new board succession plan that was

Microsoft is successful around the world in large part because it gives back to local communities and creates lots of businesses there, CEO Satya Nadella told financial analysts on Wednesday. Microsoft operates in more than 190 countries, and Nadella said the ability to compete in so many places is vital to the company’s “overall long-term growth.” “Every head of state only cares about one thing: it’s about their country first,” said Nadella. Microsoft booked more revenue from outside the United

The first thing management turned to in order to re-vamp the company was its list of priorities, where Hartung said there was too much value placed on company culture. Of course you need a great culture. But we emphasized culture over and above the customer and over and above great training,” he told Cramer. Now, Chipotle’s customer satisfaction measures are improving month to month on every single count, and some stores in the central United States are seeing even better traffic than they were

Snap CEO: Have to enjoy when people copy your products 2 Hours Ago | 03:52Snap CEO Evan Spiegel isn’t worried about Facebook. On an earnings conference call with analysts late Wednesday, when an analyst asked if he was scared of Facebook, Spiegel laughed. But Snap’s Q1 earnings report suggests that Facebook’s strategy is working. The comments came after Snap’s first report as a public company fell short of expectations on users and revenue. “When we talk about growth … we want to use creativit

Cramer also interviewed the CFO of Chipotle, Jack Hartung, for his take on how the company is recovering from its 2015 E.Coli outbreaks. “Even before the crisis, we were losing our edge in terms of what it takes to run a great restaurant, and we’re getting that edge back,” Hartung told Cramer on Wednesday. “We’ve seen volatility in different cycles all over the period, and we’re just going to have to live with some of that,” he told Cramer on Wednesday. Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBCWant to take a

Snap’s hardware play, Spectacles, had people lined up around the block to pick them up. CEO Evan Spiegel said that “over 5 million Snaps” have been created with Spectacles to date. In total, Snap saw more than 3 billion Snaps taken each day in the first quarter, according to its earnings presentation. “I think in terms of our hardware strategy, our approach when we’re exploring new technology is to usually work on it ourselves,” Spiegel told analysts in an earnings conference call. “That’s our w

Tesla said Wednesday that the first two styles of its solar roof will be priced at about $21.85 per square foot. Tesla CEO Elon Musk had announced on Twitter Wednesday morning that Tesla would begin selling its solar roof tiles. Previously, Consumer Reports had determined that a textured glass tile solar roof should cost no more than $73,500, including installation, to be competitive with an asphalt roof. The company also created a “Solar Roof calculator” that allows customers to gauge the cost

President Trump firing FBI Director James Comey is a scandal worse than Watergate, and represents an abuse of power, according to George W. Bush’s chief ethics lawyer. “Of course it’s worse than Watergate,” Richard Painter told CNBC. Painter said this controversy also has echoes of the Alger Hiss scandal, where a high-ranking State Department official was accused of being a communist spy. “This is as if you took Watergate, rolled it into the Alger Hiss scandal and put it all in one,” Painter sai

Whole Foods Markets co-founder and CEO John Mackey insisted the company’s smaller-format 365 stores are generally doing well as he provided an update on the retailer’s turnaround strategy Wednesday. One part of the company’s turnaround strategy is to roll out more of its 365 stores, which are smaller than its traditional Whole Foods outlets and aimed at value-focused consumers. We look forward to constructive dialogue with all of our shareholders, including Jana.” There’s also been speculation a

“Unfortunately, your confirmation process has failed to reassure us that you understand the North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) positive economic benefits to our respective States and the nation as a whole,” McCain and Sasse said in a letter to Lighthizer.