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Market Chatter: Accenture to Pay $25 Million to Settle DOJ Discrimination Allegations

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Accenture (ACN) has agreed to pay $25 million to resolve allegations by the US Department of Justice that it discriminated based on race and sex in hiring and promotion decisions, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing the Justice Department.

The DOJ said Accenture carried out discriminatory employment practices by falsely certifying compliance with regulations on government contracts that prohibit such practices.

The government alleged Accenture was pursuing what one employee called "stealth goals" to meet race and sex-based targets for its workforce across various units, according to the report.

Accenture did not immediately respond to a request for comment by.

(Market Chatter news is derived from conversations with market professionals globally. This information is believed to be from reliable sources but may include rumor and speculation. Accuracy is not guaranteed.)

Price: $194.44, Change: $+10.54, Percent Change: +5.73%

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AstraZeneca Says Late-Stage Etcamah Breast-Cancer Trial Misses Main Goal

AstraZeneca (AZN) said Friday its late-stage trial testing Etcamah with palbociclib, a widely used breast-cancer therapy, did not meet its primary goal of improving progression-free survival.The company said it observed a numerical improvement in first-line treatment of patients with estrogen receptor-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer who had not received any systemic treatment for advanced disease.The trial compared Etcamah plus palbociclib with an aromatase inhibitor plus palbociclib, AstraZeneca said.The safety profile of Etcamah in combination with palbociclib was consistent with the known safety profile of each medicine, the company said.AstraZeneca shares fell 3.3% in after-hours trading.

$AZN
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Sector Update: Financial Stocks Higher Late Afternoon

Financial stocks were advancing in late Friday afternoon trading, with the NYSE Financial Index rising 0.9% and the State Street Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF) up 0.7%.The Philadelphia Housing Index was climbing 1.2%, and the State Street Real Estate Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLRE) added 0.7%.Bitcoin (BTC-USD) was increasing 1% to $77,301, and the yield for 10-year US Treasuries rose 3.1 basis points to 4.975%.In economic news, the US consumer price index rose 0.4% month on month, the fastest pace since May and above July's 0.1% gain, the Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed Friday. The move matched the Bloomberg-polled consensus. Core inflation, which excludes the more volatile food and energy components, jumped to a four-month high of 0.3%, exceeding market projections for an unchanged 0.2% growth.The University of Michigan's preliminary consumer sentiment index fell to 47.8 in September from 51.7 in August, larger than an expected decrease to 51.0 in a survey compiled by Bloomberg.In corporate news, Jefferies Financial (JEF) is on track for its best advisory quarter on record, though the strength will have limited pull-through to earnings amid trading headwinds, UBS said in a note. The firm kept its neutral rating on the stock but trimmed its price target to $61 from $65. Jefferies shares were down 3.6%.Blackstone (BX) plans to buy many more tensor processing units from Alphabet (GOOGL) unit Google than initially outlined, The Information reported. The private equity and real estate giant's spending on TPUs could be several "multiples" beyond the $5 billion it announced under a joint venture with Google in May, the report said. Blackstone shares rose 2.4%.KKR (KKR) and Francisco Partners have agreed to buy minority stakes in Italian software company TeamSystem from its main investor Hellman & Friedman, Reuters reported. KKR shares were up 0.2%.Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) warehouses could receive huge volumes of arabica coffee from Brazil, with two trade majors processing the certification of their stocks, Reuters reported. ICE Futures US runs the arabica coffee contract, and majors Olam and Louis Dreyfus are seeking to certify thousands of bags of coffee at the exchange in time for the December contract, sources told Reuters. Olam is processing up to 200,000 bags, according to the report. Intercontinental Exchange shares added 1.1%.

$BX$ICE$JEF$KKR
Wire

Top Cryptocurrencies Rise; Bitcoin Holds Above $77,000 Level

Major digital assets rose Friday, with Bitcoin (BTC-USD) holding above the $77,000 level.The CoinDesk Market Index, which tracks dozens of digital assets including Bitcoin, rose 0.9% in the past 24 hours. The Nasdaq 100 rose 1%, the S&P 500 added 0.9%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 1%.Bitcoin gained 0.1% to $77,236, according to CoinMarketCap data. The most popular cryptocurrency's 24-hour trading volume rose 20.8% to $37 billion.Ethereum (ETH-USD), the second-largest digital asset by market value, rose 3% to $2,540.XRP (XRP-USD) gained 0.2%, BNB (BNB-USD) rose 1.3%, and Solana (SOL-USD) increased 1.7%. Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) added 0.3%, while Cardano (ADA-USD) declined 1.8%.The total market value of the cryptocurrency industry rose 0.5% in the past 24 hours to $2.64 trillion, with trading volume rising 20% to $107.54 billion.Price: $77328.41, Change: $+792.46, Percent Change: +1.04%

$ADA-USD$BNB-USD$BTC-USD$DOGE-USD$ETH-USD$SOL-USD$XRP-USD