1. Comcast (CMCSA; CMCSK) announced that it has prevailed with the highest offer price in the auction to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Sky (SKYAY) with an offer price of GBP17.28 per Sky share. This implies a value of $40B for the fully diluted share capital of Sky. The announcement ends the competitive bidding process for Sky. 21st Century Fox (FOXA) was the other bidder.

2. Regal Beloit (RBC) announced that Mark Gliebe, Chairman and CEO, will retire from the company after the completion of calendar year 2018. Regal's Board of Directors has begun a process to identify Gliebe's successor, who has agreed to lead the company until a successor has been named and to resign from the Board effective as of his retirement date as CEO. Additionally, the company confirmed 2018 adjusted diluted EPS guidance of $5.70-$6.00 and said it forecasts 2018 GAAP diluted EPS of $4.55-$4.85, which now includes an estimate of currently known and anticipated CEO transition costs of 23c per share.

3. Led by Tilray (TLRY), the U.S.-listed grower that went public in July, the shares of Canada's pot producers skyrocketed by Wednesday and then gave most of their gains back, raising comparisons between marijuana stocks and the Bitcoin bubble, Bill Alpert wrote in this week's edition of Barron's. Canada's licensed marijuana producers begin recreational sales on October 17 and they have acres of greenhouses in bloom, but their stock prices have been weakly tethered to business fundamentals for months now, and last week's blow-off was all the proof needed that the trading has become irrational, Alpert contended.

4. Comcast subsidiary Universal's "The House With a Clock in its Walls" debuted to a better than expected $26.9M from 3,592 theaters, topping the chart. Overseas, the pre-Halloween offering that follows a young orphan who goes to live in his uncle's spooky house launched to $8.7M for a global start of $35.6M. The movie earned a B+ CinemaScore and sports a 68% Rotten Tomatoes score.

5. Boston Scientific (BSX), Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Caterpillar (CAT), Applied Materials (AMAT), BorgWarner (BWA), KeyCorp (KEY), Parker-Hannifin (PH), Apple (AAPL), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Intel (INTC), IBM (IBM), Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) saw positive mentions in Barron's.