Business category, Page 244
Dow drops 7.8% as free-fall in oil, virus fears slam marketsVideo
NEW YORK — The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 7.8% Monday, its steepest drop since the financial crisis of 2008, as mounting fears over the coronavirus combined with a crash in oil prices to send a shudder through world markets. The drop on Wall Street was so sharp that it...
Comcast publishes unlisted phone numbers of 200,000 customers
Comcast mistakenly posted online the contact information of nearly 200,000 customers who paid the company a monthly fee to keep their phone numbers private. In November, Comcast’s Xfinity unit found that the names, phone numbers, and addresses of customers who didn’t want to be publicly listed were posted on Ecolisting.com,...
Oil plunges 25% as another virus-fueled trading week begins
NEW YORK — Oil prices are plunging amid concern a dispute among producers could lead a global economy weakened by covid-19 to be awash in an oversupply of crude. Brent crude, the international standard, lost $11.44, or 25.3%, to $33.83 per barrel in electronic trading in London. Benchmark U.S. crude...
Congressional panel says Boeing has ‘culture of concealment’
A congressional committee investigating Boeing said Friday that a “culture of concealment” at the company and poor oversight by federal regulators contributed to two deadly crashes involving the grounded 737 Max. The committee’s Democrats said multiple factors led to the crashes, but it homed in on a new flight-control system...
Bond yields sink, stocks fall as investors demand safety
NEW YORK — A dizzying, brutal week of trading dropped one last round of harrowing swings on investors Friday. After skidding sharply through the day as fear pounded markets, steep drops for stocks and bond yields suddenly eased up in the last hour of trading amid hints from Federal Reserve...
U.S. job market looked robust before coronavirus outbreak escalated
WASHINGTON — Hiring in the United States jumped in February as employers added 273,000 positions, evidence that the job market was in strong shape before the coronavirus began to sweep through the nation. The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate fell to 3.5% last month, matching a 50-year...
AGs for crackdown on chemical used to sterilize medical devices
Half of all medical devices used in the United States — from bandages to implantable computers — are sterilized with a toxic gas that has come under critical scrutiny over concerns about air pollution that could cause cancer. Now Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has joined a coalition of 11...
Looking for next-level amenities with your rental? How about a rooftop farm?
MINNEAPOLIS — Apartment developers in the Twin Cities are accustomed to ginning up out-of-the-box amenities aimed at wooing renters and setting themselves apart in an increasingly competitive market. That includes decked-out dog spas, catering kitchens and refrigerated drop boxes for package delivery. Twin Cities-based Newport Midwest hopes to offer something...
Virus fears grip markets again; stocks and bond yields plungeVideo
NEW YORK — Fear dominated financial markets again on Thursday, and stocks fell sharply on worries about the fast-spreading virus outbreak. It’s the latest shudder in Wall Street’s wildest week in more than eight years. Major U.S. indexes lost roughly 3.5%, and Treasury yields touched more record lows in their...
Stocks soar on plans for more stimulus measures, Biden wins
The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared more than 1,100 points, or 4.5%, Wednesday on hopes that governments and central banks around the world will take more forceful measures to fight the virus outbreak. The gains more than recouped the market’s big losses from a day ealier as Wall Street’s wild,...
Twitter tests disappearing tweets, starts in Brazil
SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter is starting to test tweets that disappear after 24 hours, although initially only in Brazil. The company says the ephemeral tweets, which it calls “fleets” because of their fleeting nature, are designed to allay the concerns of new users who might be turned off by the...
Virus hammers business travel as wary companies nix trips
Amazon and other big companies are trying to keep their employees healthy by banning business trips, but they’ve dealt a gut punch to a travel industry already reeling from the virus outbreak. The Seattle-based online retail giant has told its nearly 800,000 workers to postpone any non-essential travel within the...
Dow sinks 2.9% after rate cut fails to stem market’s dreadVideo
NEW YORK — Fear and uncertainty continue to control Wall Street, and stocks fell sharply Tuesday after an emergency interest-rate cut by the Federal Reserve failed to reassure markets wracked by worries that a fast-spreading virus will cause a recession. The Dow Jones Industrial average sank 785 points, or 2.9%....
W.Va. House passes bill making it easier to use solar energy
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — It could soon be easier for power companies to use solar energy under a bill passed Tuesday in the West Virginia House of Delegates. Lawmakers voted 75-23 to approve the measure after around an hour of debate that revolved around whether it’s better to focus on coal...
Coronavirus spread prompts Fed to slash rates in surprise move
WASHINGTON — In a surprise move, the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by a sizable half-percentage point Tuesday in an effort to support the economy in the face of the spreading coronavirus. Chairman Jerome Powell said at a news conference that the virus “will surely weigh on economic...
Federal Reserve cuts benchmark rate by half-pointVideo
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by a half-percentage point in its first emergency rate cut since the Great Recession in response to the spreading coronavirus. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday that the coronavirus “poses evolving risks to economic activity.” The Fed’s statement Tuesday also said...
Report: U.S. natural gas consumption set record in 2019
Consumption of natural gas, mostly for electric power uses, set a new record in the United States in 2019, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. Use of natural gas for the creation of electric power grew by 7% — 2 billion cubic feet per day — but consumption remained relatively...
John Dorfman: Student in Milan, Italy, wins my forecasting derby
A student at the American School in Milan, Italy, won my annual Derby of Economic Forecasting Talent (DEFT) for 2019. Gregorio De Giuli, a 17-year-old high school senior, modestly attributed his success to “luck,” but there was more to it than that. “I looked at charts and followed the trend,”...
Dow notches largest-ever point gain as stocks surge on hopes for central bank help
The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared nearly 1,300 points, or 5%, Monday as stocks roared back from a seven-day rout on hopes that central banks will take action to shield the global economy from the effects of the coronavirus outbreak. The huge gains clawed back some of the ground lost...
AT&T launches new online TV service as video customers fall
NEW YORK — AT&T is launching a new internet-delivered TV service Monday as it struggles with a shrinking DirecTV satellite business. The new service, AT&T TV, will have most of the same channels offered on DirecTV, but it’ll come over the internet rather than a satellite dish. AT&T has been...
U.S. construction spending up 1.8% in January to record level
WASHINGTON — Spending on U.S. construction projects rose to an all-time high in January, helped by strong gains for home construction and government building projects. The Commerce Department said Monday that construction spending increased 1.8% in January, the strongest monthly rise in nearly two years, pushing totally spending to a...
Don’t succumb to stock market panic, advisers caution
Stocks tumbled, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged and the S&P 500 index fell dramatically — all over bad news out of China. That was a little more than a year ago — when Apple announced that iPhone sales in China were slumping. This year, the bad news out of...
Jack Welch, the GE chief who became a superstar, has died
BOSTON — Jack Welch, who transformed General Electric Co. into a highly profitable multinational conglomerate and parlayed his legendary business acumen into a retirement career as a corporate leadership guru, has died. He was 84. His death was confirmed Monday by GE. The cause of death was renal failure, his...
As stocks tumble amid spread of coronavirus, can central banks fix the crisis?
NEW YORK — As stocks around the world tumble on worries about a fast-spreading coronavirus, investors have been clamoring for the superheroes of the financial world to ride to the rescue once again. Yet this time, there are doubts: Can central banks really fix this crisis as they have so...
Joe Coulombe, founder of popular Trader Joe’s markets, dies
LOS ANGELES — Joe Coulombe envisioned a new generation of young grocery shoppers emerging in the 1960s, one that wanted healthy, tasty, high-quality food they couldn’t find in most supermarkets and couldn’t afford to buy in the few high-end gourmet outlets. So he found a new way to bring everything...
