• Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman has cashed out his stake in Nike after making about $100 million, according to Dow Jones.
• Ackman recently exited a years-long bet in Herbalife that reportedly cost him hundreds of millions of dollars.
• The apparel maker is set to report earnings after the market close on Thursday.

Bill Ackman has dumped his stake in Nike after making about $100 million, Dow Jones reported on Thursday...

• Rite Aid's stock rose Monday after Albertsons announced a deal to acquire the drugstore chain in a cash-and-stock deal.
• The resulting merger will bring in an expected $83 billion in 2018 revenue.
• After the deal closes, Albertsons' shares will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
• View Rite Aid's stock price  in real time here...

• In an interview with Business Insider, CEO John O'Rourke called the report "one-sided" and a "hit piece" that has "wiped out significant shareholder value."
• Riot Blockchain fell 19% Friday after CNBC reported its annual shareholders meeting was never even booked...

• Elon Musk is the eccentric founder of Tesla, and will likely remain CEO for the next 10 years, as is required to claim the full $70 billion in pay from a new compensation package.
• The pay package eliminates production targets for the CEO.
• Tesla's stock is jumping on the news.

Shares of Tesla are up 2.82% to $361.47 on Tuesday after the company announced a new executive compensation plan for its CEO, Elon Musk...

• Shares of Twitter slid on Tuesday morning after the online lending startup SoFi announced that Anthony Noto, Twitter's chief operating officer, will be joining the company as its new CEO, effective March 1.
• Twitter has suffered from several departures of key executives in the past two years as the company struggles to bring value to shareholders.
• Noto was key to driving Twitter's live video push and inking partnerships with NFL, Time, and Bloomberg...

• Vanguard Group chairman F. William McNabb said Thursday that the ongoing cryptocurrency boom worries him “a little bit.”
• "If something’s too good to be true, it probably is," he told Bloomberg TV.

Vanguard Group chairman F. William "Bill" McNabb remains hesitant about the cryptocurrency craze, he told Bloomberg TV on Thursday...

• News that activist investor D.E. Shaw wants a potentially larger stake in Lowe's has caused its shares to climb.
• Seth Sigman, an analyst at Credit Suisse, sees additional upside for the home retailer, as there are three things that make the company attractive.
• Relative to its rival Home Depot, Sigman sees Lowe's as being a formidable investment opportunity...

• Shares of media conglomerate Viacom spiked as much as 12% just before the closing bell Friday after TheWrap reported it was in talks to merge with CBS. The stock closed up 7%.
• The news website said CBS chairman Les Moonves is now open to the consolidation, reversing his previous stance, citing three individuals with knowledge of the talks.
• Viacom was formed in 2005 out of a split from the previous iteration of the company, with the predecessor re-branded as the CBS Corporation...

• Shares of Aflac plummeted on Friday after the company was alleged to have "exploited workers, manipulated its accounting, and deceived shareholders and customers."
• Aflac's shares were down 7.84% to $84.50 a share on Friday.
• The investigative news site The Intercept first broke the news, interviewing nine former employees who have sued the company over the claims.
• Aflac released a statement calling the allegations false...

Pershing Square, Valeant asked to appear for hearing on insider trading suit (VRX, AGN) Reuters Jan. 3, 2018, 01:02 AM Jan 2 (Reuters) - A U.S. court on Tuesday asked Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc and activist investor Bill Ackman's Pershing Square to appear for a hearing to discuss the proposed settlement in an insider trading lawsuit.

• Disney and Fox are all set to announce the sale of Fox's entertainment assets to Disney later this week, CNBC's David Faber reports.
• The news sent shares of both the companies higher.
• Watch the price of Fox move in real time on Markets Insider.

Reports that 21st Century Fox is expected to announce the sale of its entertainment business to Disney on Thursday have sent shares of both companies higher...

21st Century Fox may be open to selling off many of its media assets amid troubles in its Sky Broadcasting acquisition and increased competition.

• Disney was the first interested buyer, with Comcast and Verizon coming in about a week later.
• 21st Century Fox's stock has risen each time a new interested buyer was reported, leading to speculation a bidding war could break out...

Procter and Gamble, the maker of household products like Tide and Crest, is sliding after claiming victory in a proxy battle with activist investor Nelson Peltz.

Shares were down as much as 2.66% after the company said investors had rebuffed the activist investor. P&G is trading at $91.10 as of 11 a.m. in New York on Tuesday...

General Electric's new CEO is making it clear who is in charge now.

John Flannery, GE's new CEO and chairman of the board, approved a new activist shareholder to the board just days after a chief financial officer shakeup, Bloomberg reports. The company's stock is down about 3% on Monday after the news.

On Monday, Flannery named Ed Garden, a founding partner of activist investing firm Trian Fund Management, to GE's board of directors, according to a report from Rick Clough of Bloomberg...

Twitter is tumbling in pre-market trading, trading down 9.73% at $17.71 a share.

The social media company reported no monthly active user growth in the second quarter, which was one of the main metrics investors were looking for.

The company missed on user growth, but grew its revenue in the second quarter. Twitter reported revenue of $574 million, which beat Wall Street's estimates of $537 million...

Nestle's stock price is getting a huge boost from an activist hedge fund.

Daniel Loeb, famous for being a successful activist investor in companies like Yahoo and Sony, has set his sights on the consumer conglomerate Nestle.

Loeb's hedge fund, Third Point, released a note Sunday disclosing its share in Nestle. The fund currently owns roughly 40 million shares, worth about $3.5 billion...

Amazon announced a huge move to buy Whole Foods for $13.7 billion Friday morning.

Trading of Whole Foods shares was temporarily halted shortly after the announcement and the stock saw a huge bump once trading resumed.

Shares of Whole Foods are currently trading at around the offer price of $42, which puts the grocer up about 27.5% on its opening price...

NEW YORK, April 27 (Reuters) - ValueAct Capital, the $16 billion activist shareholder, said it has invested in asset management company KKR & Co., and owns less than 5 percent. KKR generates strong management fees and does an excellent job of seeding new products and businesses, ValueAct President Mason Morfit said on Thursday at the Active-Passive Investor Summit...

Costco shareholders are getting a special treat on May 26.

In addition to raising the company's quarterly dividend by five cents to $0.50 cents a share, the wholesaler announced a special cash dividend of $7 per share to shareholders of record by the market close on May 10...

Whole Foods is up again Wednesday morning, higher by 1.5%, after a pair of analyst upgrades and a Bloomberg report that Amazon had considered a bid for the company last fall but never followed through. Whole Foods is under pressure from activist Jana Partners to pursue a sale. Jana on Tuesday disclosed an 8.3% stake in Whole Foods. Amazon is on Jana's list of hypothetical buyers...

Activist investor Red Mountain pushes Deckers' board to explore sale Reuters Mar. 27, 2017, 04:40 PM March 27 (Reuters) - Investment management firm Red Mountain Capital Partners LLC is pushing apparel and accessories maker Deckers Outdoor Corp's board to explore a sale of the company. The firm, in a letter to Deckers' board on Monday, said the value of a sale to a strategic or financial buyer is substantially higher than the operating plan announced by the company's management on Feb 2...

Apple's cash pile of more than $200 billion is a favorite topic of investors, bloggers, and traders. It might be the largest cash reserve for any private company in history.

So what is Apple going to do with all that dough?

One theory is that Apple will use its stockpile to buy Disney, according to RBC analyst Steven Cahall:

"Bulls think it portends well for a swan song exit via a sale to a giant like AAPL," Cahall wrote in a note sent out to clients on Friday...

Traders are loading up on short bets against Snapchat. Short interest in the stock has surged to more than 30 million shares, making up about 15.4% of the shares available for trading, according to Data provided by Wall Street analytics firm S3 Partners.

Snapchat priced its initial public offering at $17 a share and made its Wall Street debut at $24. Shares climbed as high as $28.84 on March 3, its second day of trading, but have been retreating ever since...

Paul Singer's Elliott Management is getting aggressive.  Earlier this year, the $28 billion activist hedge fund wanted to replace Arconic's chairman, Klaus Kleinfeld, and nominate five board members...