Business category, Page 256

No month has more stock-market lore associated with it than January. Yes, October is known as the haunt of crashes. But January is known for several things, including the “January effect” and the “January barometer.” The so-called January effect is really a confluence of three effects: • Most stocks tend...

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department fired a legal broadside Monday at Chinese telecom giant Huawei, alleging the company operated a long-running scheme to deceive financial institutions about its activities in Iran and tried to steal sensitive information from T-Mobile. The charges follow others in recent months lodged by the Trump...

CHICAGO — Experts say that U.S. companies are increasingly navigating delicate conversations with employees suffering from cognitive declines as the American workforce ages. Workers experiencing early stages of dementia may struggle with tasks they’ve long completed without difficulty. Historically punctual employees may forget about scheduled meetings. And those who have...

BILLINGS, Mont. — As the Trump administration rolls back environmental and safety rules for the energy sector, government projections show billions of dollars in savings reaped by companies will come at a steep cost: more premature deaths and illnesses from air pollution, a jump in climate-warming emissions and more severe...

A survey of U.S. investors with $25 million or more finds their average age dropped by 11 years since 2014 to 47. These fabulously rich Americans, whose ranks have more than doubled since the depths of the Great Recession, are younger than less wealthy millionaires. The average age of those...

If you work on an hourly basis, you may not have given much thought to what happens to your hours after you log out of your workstation. You might assume those hours are simply converted into dollars and show up on your paycheck. However, there are a lot of ways...

BALTIMORE — The U.S. economy will likely resume its steady growth now that the government has reopened, though economists say some scars — for the nation and for federal workers — will take time to heal. Most analysts estimate that the 35-day partial shutdown shaved a few tenths of a...

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department plans to claim Venezuela’s U.S.-based international reserves and state-owned assets - including oil refiner and distributor Citgo - on behalf of the newly recognized government headed by opposition leader Juan Guaidó, removing them from the control of President Nicolás Maduro. In a vaguely worded statement...

NEW YORK — Facial-detection technology that Amazon is marketing to law enforcement often misidentifies women, particularly those with darker skin, according to researchers from MIT and the University of Toronto. Privacy and civil rights advocates have called on Ama­zon to stop marketing its Rekog­nition service because of worries about discrimination...

Under Armour Inc. is teaming up with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic to create the next generation of apparel and footwear for pilots and passengers on trips to space. The athleticwear company will also provide uniforms for Virgin Galactic employees at its Spaceport America operations center in New Mexico, and will...

The Saint Vincent College Small Business Development Center will offer a seminar titled “The First Step to Small Business Success” from 9:30-11:30 a.m. Feb. 13 at its Unity campus. The informal workshop will provide information on what is needed to start a small business venture, including financing and licenses. The...

NEW YORK — Stocks closed higher on Wall Street on Friday, recovering a chunk of their losses from earlier in the week. Technology and industrial companies jumped. Traders took a brighter view on the economy, and U.S. companies continued to report solid results for the fourth quarter. Energy and consumer-focused...

DETROIT — The Canadian auto workers union is asking people in Canada and the U.S. to boycott General Motors vehicles made in Mexico. The Unifor union is asking people not to buy trucks or SUVs with vehicle identification numbers that start with the number three, which signify that they are...

SAN FRANCISCO — YouTube said Friday it is retooling its recommendation algorithm that suggests new videos to users in order to prevent promoting conspiracies and false information, reflecting a growing willingness to quell misinformation on the world’s largest video platform after several public missteps. In a blog post that YouTube...

A new shopping platform announced Thursday at the World Economic Forum aims to change the way we buy many brand-name products. Loop, as the platform is called, would do away with disposable containers for things like shampoo and laundry detergent from some of the world’s biggest manufacturers. Instead, those goods...

Robots aren’t replacing everyone, but a quarter of U.S. jobs will be severely disrupted as artificial intelligence accelerates the automation of existing work, according to a new Brookings Institution report. The report, published Thursday, says roughly 36 million Americans hold jobs with “high exposure” to automation — meaning at least...

Tax season is almost here, and this one could be tricky. It’s the first year that taxpayers will be filing under the massive tax law overhaul pushed through by the Trump administration. And a monthlong partial shutdown of the federal government threatens to complicate things further for some. Tax filing...

BuzzFeed, the progenitor of both serious news and viral listicles and quizzes, will lay off about 15 percent of its staff in the latest sign of financial turbulence for once-highflying digital-media outlets. People at the New York-based publisher said the cuts will affect about 215 employees spread across all departments,...

DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford Motor Co., which has struggled overseas and saw U.S. sales fall last year, reported its first quarterly net loss in two years Wednesday. The Dearborn, Mich., company said it lost $116 million, or 3 cents a share, in the fourth quarter, compared with a $2.52 billion...

NEW YORK — Amazon is bringing delivery robots to the streets of a Seattle suburb. The online shopping giant says it started to test self-driving robots that can bring Amazon packages to shoppers’ doorsteps Wednesday in Snohomish County, Washington. The robots are light blue, are about the size of a...

NEW YORK — Verizon is cutting about 800 jobs, or 7 percent of its media and advertising employees, as it reorganizes the troubled division. The wireless company had hoped to create an ad business that could compete with Google and Facebook. It spent about $10 billion buying up internet pioneers...

U.S. stock indexes spent Wednesday drifting and finished with small gains. While big companies continue to report strong profit growth, investors aren’t sure how much longer it will last. The S&P 500 index rallied 0.8 percent in the morning after fourth-quarter earnings reports from major companies including IBM, consumer products...

NEW YORK — It hasn’t been lost on small business owners that Uber and other ride-sharing services are enormously successful without having employees doing the work. It’s one of the reasons why small companies are forgoing employees in favor of independent contractors. Todd Miller transformed his small business a year...

A Boeing flying car designed to whisk passengers over congested city streets and dodge skyscrapers completed its first test flight on Tuesday, offering a peek into the future of urban transportation the aerospace giant and others are seeking to reshape. A prototype of its autonomous passenger air vehicle completed a...

NEW YORK — Comcast is still losing U.S. cable customers but is racking up more internet subscribers and has gotten a revenue boost from Sky, its big bet on European TV. The Philadelphia company said Wednesday that it lost 29,000 U.S. cable customers in the fourth quarter but added 351,000...