Many news outlets carry the story that legendary investor Warren Buffett has bought US$1bn worth of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares.
His Berkshire Hathaway vehicle said on Monday it had bought 9.8mln shares in the tech giant, which was a surprise move as Buffett has mostly avoided investments in the tech industry.
Berkshire is betting that shares will reignite after a recent slump but another big name trader Carl Icahn, sold more than 45m Apple shares.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal carries a story that's all cheese.
'A Cheese Glut is Overtaking America', is the colorful headline to the piece.
America has built up a glut of cheese so big that every person in the country would need to eat an extra 3 pounds this year to work it off, the financial paper writes.
And it isn’t just cheese. The growing stacks of cheddar, which can be kept frozen for years, and other cheeses such as feta, which can be stored for only a couple of months, are just the tip of a surplus of US agricultural products that is swamping markets for grains and meat
The New York Times looks at big pharma player Valeant Pharmaceuticals (NYSE:CRX) on Tuesday and writes that the firm said it would expand its discount program for two expensive heart drugs so that every hospital would be eligible for at least a 10 percent discount, with some qualifying for discounts of up to 40 percent.
But some hospitals — and the companies that negotiate prices for them — said they were still waiting for details.
"A press release stating they will offer discounts is one thing — but Valeant did the same thing the last time they said they had discounts, and nothing ever materialized,” said Erin R. Fox, the pharmacist who negotiates drug prices on behalf of the University of Utah Health Care System, which spends just over $640,000 a year on the two drugs.
She had been contacting Valeant since last fall seeking discounts. She said she received an email Monday from the company, explaining the discounts.
Elsewhere, China is quietly targeting US tech companies in security reviews, the same paper states.
Chinese authorities are quietly scrutinizing technology products sold in China by Apple and other big foreign companies, focusing on whether they pose potential security threats to the country and its consumers and opening up a new front in an already tense relationship with Washington over digital security.
Apple and other companies in recent months have been subjected to reviews that target encryption and the data storage of tech products, said people briefed on the reviews who spoke on the condition of anonymity. In the reviews, Chinese officials require executives or employees of the foreign tech companies to answer questions about the products in person, according to these people.
Menawhile, the LA Times says that a coalition of health groups has launched a new campaign to ask voters in November to increase California's tax on cigarettes by $2 per pack, this time enlisting deep-pocket supporters to counter a tobacco industry that blocked several attempts in the past.
Billionaire Tom Steyer, who was the nation’s largest individual political donor in 2014, spending $74 million that year, is leading the campaign for the tobacco tax. He has funneled $1 million into collecting signatures to qualify the measure for the Nov. 8 ballot.
Finally, in the news, ICBC Standard Bank PLC said on Monday it is buying a precious-metals vault from Barclays PLC's (LON:BARC), in the latest move by the Chinese bank to increase its role in the market's infrastructure.
The move makes parent ICBC, the world's biggest bank by assets, the first Chinese lender to own a vault in London and extends its influence in precious metals from pricing to storage. With China the largest consumer of many metals, the country's banks have increasingly bid to own or help run the infrastructure in these markets.
The vault gives ICBC a high profile platform in the precious metals market. It also makes it easier for the bank to sells its services to western-based clients given that it now has a location to store metals that is closer to them.