After-hours earnings results, buyout buzz and a lawsuit settlement were the catalysts for stock gains and losses for big-name companies late Wednesday, including Salesforce.com (CRM), Williams-Sonoma (WSM), CVS Health (CVS) and Halliburton (HAL). Salesforce.com topped first-quarter estimates as adjusted earnings jumped 45% to 16 cents and sales climbed 23% to $1.51 billion. The provider of customer relationship management software expects Q2
CVS Health (CVS) on Monday said it would select Gilead Sciences’ (GILD) Sovaldi and Harvoni as the exclusive treatments for hepatitis C patients who use some of its benefit plans, the latest development in what could become a price war among hepatitis C drugmakers. The decision, which takes hold Wednesday, comes after Express Scripts’ (ESRX) move last month to dump Gilead’s drugs from its preferred formulary list for genotype 1 hepatitis C
Apple Pay saw more than 1 million credit cards registered for the mobile e-wallet service in its first 72 hours after launching last week, Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook said Monday. Speaking at the Wall Street Journal Digital Live conference, Cook sought to show that consumers are embracing Apple Pay despite reports that some retailers are rejecting the contactless payment technology. “We’re already No. 1. We’re more than the total of the other guys,” Cook bragged. “And we’ve only been at it a week.” Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA) executives told Apple (AAPL) that the Apple Pay system is already seeing more use than other contactless payment methods, Cook said, according to AP. Rival services include Google’s (GOOGL) Google Wallet and eBay’s (EBAY) PayPal. But major drugstore chains CVS (CVS) and Rite Aid (RAD) made headlines by disabling Apple Pay in their stores after initially accepting it. “It’s a skirmish,”…