Axios

Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn bought an undisclosed stake in the drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Bristol-Myers Squibb just fended off a separate activist, Jana Partners, and now the presence of Icahn is fueling speculation that the company will try to sell itself. Bristol-Myers Squibb recently lowered profit estimates for 2017 built on depressed expectations for its blockbuster cancer drug, Opdivo.

Food for thought: Assuming the drug company wants to sell, the number of prospective buyout partners is limited, as the WSJ pointed out. Bristol-Myers Squibb has a market cap of $93 billion and annual revenue of $19 billion. Only the biggest pharmaceutical companies would be potential buyers, although some investors have speculated if this would be an opportunity for Gilead Sciences and Bristol-Myers Squibb, two sub-performing drug stocks, to combine.

Apple announced early Wednesday morning that its new 175-acre campus, Apple Park, will open in April in California's Santa Clara Valley. Moving more than 12,000 employees will take more than 6 months, and construction is scheduled to continue through the summer.

The site — which has an orchard, meadow and pond within the ring's interior grounds — will run entirely on renewable energy, and the buildings have the same design principles that characterizes Apple's products. There will also be a theater named after Apple founder Steve Jobs, a visitors center with an Apple Store, and a cafe open to the public.

Markets sprinted into Tuesday's close, with the Dow Jones picking up more than 118 points — its 8th gain in as many trading sessions — to finish up 12.5% since Election Day. Here are three reasons investors are chipper:

A dozen states are considering raising gas taxes. That's after close to twenty other states have instituted hikes in recent years to pay for infrastructure. CBO data shows that even as inflation-adjusted federal spending on infrastructure fell 14% between 2010 and 2014, state and local spending fell even faster. That both sources of funding appear set to rise can only be a positive for economic growth.

Fake data accusations overblown? So says High Frequency Economics' Jim O'Sullivan, who argues in a research note that the uproar over a proposed change by the Trump Administration in how the U.S. Trade Representative compiles trade-deficit data is making a mountain of a molehill. O'Sullivan says that this is about making more data available that will paint a more sophisticated picture of U.S. trade, not asking the Census Bureau to stop reporting official trade deficits.

Earnings to watch: 1) Toll Brothers, which reports before the bell, illustrates headwinds the homebuilding sector still faces. 2) The stock market values Tesla Motors at $45 billion, or $5 billion less than Ford and $12 billion less than GM. That's despite selling just 76,000 vehicles last year to Ford's 2.6 million and GM's 3 million.

TV-watchers continue to cancel cable and satellite subscriptions in favor of streaming services and devices like Amazon Prime, Roku, Sling and Apple TV.

New data from analytics firm Echelon Insights suggests one possible driver of the shift is consumer frustration with pay-TV providers, based on an analysis of 11 million tweets in 2016 directed at cable, satellite and streaming providers' Twitter accounts and their customer service handles.

Data: Echelon Insights; Methodology: Searching tweets related to an individual company, including mentions expressing anger or dissatisfaction towards the company, excluding those mentioning wifi, internet, or telephone services; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon / Axios

Royal Dutch Shell and Toyota are teaming up to build seven hydrogen fueling stations in California, a move that will help move the state toward its goal of having 100 such outposts by 2020, Bloomberg reports. The move illustrates California's ability to influence the business decisions of multinational companies as well as the global energy and automobile industry's willingness to imagine a life after the internal combustion engine. Shell CFO Simon Henry said in November that global demand for oil could peak in as little as five years.

Driving while texting is costing us all: The Wall Street Journal reports that auto insurance profits have fallen and insurance premiums have risen as a result of smartphone-related distracted driving. Despite automobiles having become safer themselves through upgraded technology, auto insurance rates have risen more than 16% since 2011.

Rating the retail sector: Big name retailers like Walmart, Macy's and Home Depot all report earnings on Tuesday. Walmart has managed to boost same-store sales for nine quarters in a row, but investors will be watching to see if it can maintain its profitability amid heavy investment in labor and store operations. On the other hand, Home Depot stock recently reached all-time highs as the home-improvement retailer has leveraged an improving real estate market to higher profits.