Lyft goes public; Wells Fargo fallout; Huawei earnings

The company priced its IPO at $72 a share on Thursday, valuing the company at around $24 billion. That's higher than its anticipated price range of $62 to $68 a share, suggesting strong investor demand.

This year is shaping up to be a tech IPO bonanza, with market debuts expected from companies including Uber, Slack, Pinterest and Postmates.

The Lyft IPO could be a bellwether for how these companies will be received by investors. In particular, Lyft will almost certainly be viewed as a proxy for Uber, which is a much larger business.

Lyft's net loss climbed to $911 million in 2018, which is more than any other US startup has lost in the year prior to its IPO. Uber said last month that it lost $1.8 billion in 2018.

2. Wells Fargo CEO abruptly resigns: Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan is stepping down as the bank struggles to overcome a litany of scandals.

Sloan said he had decided to relinquish control of Wells Fargo (WFC) as a way to help the bank move on. Wells Fargo's board pledged to find an outsider to replace Sloan, who plans to retire at the end of June.

Wells Fargo has faced repeated calls from politicians, including US Senator Elizabeth Warren, to find new leadership to fix its broken culture. Regulators, meanwhile, have kept Wells Fargo in the penalty box for what the US Federal Reserve has described as "widespread consumer abuses."

Shares in Wells Fargo were up 1.5% in premarket trading.

3. Huawei earnings: Huawei's profits soared to nearly $9 billion last year, powered by its booming smartphone business, but a US-led campaign against the company weighed on sales of telecom equipment.

The Chinese tech giant said Friday that 2018 earnings increased by 25% to 59.3 billion yuan ($8.7 billion). Sales fell short of an earlier company forecast, but still jumped 19.5% to 721 billion yuan ($105 billion).

Huawei sells more telecommunications equipment than any other company in the world, and its smartphone business is growing faster than that of Samsung (SSNLF) or Apple (AAPL).

Yet there are signs that US efforts to stop other nations from using Huawei equipment in telecommunications networks may be having an effect. Huawei's sales of equipment to carriers fell 1.3%.

4. The latest on trade: Top negotiators from the United States and China have wrapped up meetings in Beijing aimed at hammering out a trade deal between the world's two largest economies.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin described the discussions as "constructive" in a tweet, and said negotiations with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He would continue in Washington next week.

Since early 2018, the two governments have been locked in an escalating trade war, which has seen tariffs slapped on hundreds of billions of dollars of American and Chinese goods.

Hopes of an imminent trade agreement were bolstered recently by reports of a possible April summit between US President Donald Trump and China's Xi Jinping.

5. Global market overview: US stock futures were higher ahead of the final day of trading for the first quarter.

European markets opened with gains. Stocks in Asia finished in positive territory.

The Nasdaq added 0.3% on Thursday. The Dow and S&P 500 increased 0.4%. A strong performance from the S&P 500 on Friday could propel the index to its best quarter since 2009.

Crude oil prices are also on track for their best quarter since 2009 thanks to continuing production cuts from OPEC and partners including Russia.

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6. Company news: Shares TUI (TUIFF) plummeted 9% in Frankfurt after the German travel company warned it would take a €200 million ($225 million) profit hit this year because its Boeing (BA) 737 Max planes have been grounded.

Southwest Airlines (LUV) warned investors earlier this week that the 737 Max groundings are hurting its ticket sales.