24/7 Wall St.

Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) shares fell almost 20% after the social media company missed earnings forecasts badly. The drop is another setback for the firm, which had a highly anticipated initial public offering less than a year ago.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a corruption investigation by Saudi Arabia could be a financial windfall for the government. Reporters wrote:

The Saudi government is aiming to confiscate cash and other assets worth as much as $800 billion in its crackdown on alleged corruption among the kingdom’s elite

Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Waymo self-driving car unit has advanced to the point where its technology can operate a vehicle without anyone at the wheel. In a blog, management announced:

After more than eight years of development, we’re taking the next step toward unlocking the potential of fully self-driving technology. Starting now, Waymo’s fully self-driving vehicles — our safest, most advanced vehicles on the road today — are test-driving on public roads, without anyone in the driver’s seat. To date, Waymo vehicles have been operating on public roads with a test driver at the wheel. Now, in an area of the Phoenix metro region, a subset of our fleet will operate in fully autonomous mode, with Waymo as the sole driver

China social chat company Weibo Corp. (NASDAQ: WB) has posted explosive user growth, passing Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR). According to Bloomberg editors:

Weibo Corp. reported on Tuesday that it had 376 million global monthly active users during the third quarter. That’s 46 million more than its U.S. rival Twitter Inc. On the company’s earnings call, executives attributed the growth to partnerships with Chinese smartphone makers, successful marketing to the nation’s college campuses and the release of Weibo light to accommodate users in “lower tier cities” with slower Internet speeds.

China’s trade surplus with the United States recently narrowed, according to the Reuters:

China’s trade surplus with the U.S. fell to $26.62 billion in October from $28.08 billion in September, the Customs department reported on Wednesday ahead of President Donald Trump’s visit to the country.

China’s trade surplus with the U.S. was $222.98 billion in the first 10 months of 2017, Customs added.

Twitter has increased the number of characters people can use in a tweet. According to editors at CNNMoney:

Twitter rolled out a 280 character limit for most of its users Tuesday, and, predictably, lots of people are unhappy.

That doubles the original 140 character limit that Twitter has maintained since it launched in 2006.