Business category, Page 287
Stocks eke out gains after a bumpy day
NEW YORK — Stocks held on to tiny gains at the end of an up-and-down day of trading on Wall Street. Major indexes were higher for much of the morning as investors applauded the latest burst of hiring by U.S. employers. The enthusiasm was tempered, however, by a disappointing revenue...
U.S. employers add robust 304K jobs; joblessness up to 4%
WASHINGTON — U.S. employers shrugged off last month’s partial government shutdown and engaged in a burst of hiring in January, adding 304,000 jobs, the most in nearly a year. The healthy gain the government reported Friday illustrated the job market’s durability nearly a decade into the economic expansion. The U.S....
When marketing flops: 5 Super Bowl ads that backfired
Advertisers that spend millions of dollars on the Super Bowl are trying to avoid what the Ram truck company did with a Martin Luther King speech or what Groupon did spoofing promos for charities. Though such messages can get attention, it’s the wrong kind of attention. Groupon got buzz all...
U.S. average mortgage rates edge up; 30-year at 4.46 percent
WASHINGTON — U.S. long-term mortgage rates edged up after declining in recent weeks. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the benchmark 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage rose to 4.46 percent, from 4.45 percent last week. Despite the recent declines, home borrowing rates are above last year’s levels....
As Wall Street spasmed with fear, 401(k) savers held steady
NEW YORK— While professional traders on Wall Street scrambled to sell stocks amid a fear-fueled, nearly 20 percent drop for the S&P 500 late last year, most people at home remained relatively calm when it came to their own retirement savings. So say numbers from Fidelity Investments, which show that...
Fed keeps key rate unchanged and pledges to be ‘patient’
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve is keeping its key interest rate unchanged and signaling it could leave rates alone in the coming months given economic pressures and mild inflation. The Fed also says it’s prepared to slow the reduction of its bond holdings if needed to support the economy. The...
Apple busts Facebook for distributing data-sucking app
NEW YORK — Apple says Facebook can no longer distribute an app that paid users, including teenagers, to extensively track their phone and web use. The tech blog TechCrunch reports that Facebook paid about $20 a month. While Facebook says this was done with permission, the company has a history...
Where’s my robot lawn mower? Roomba-maker now has an answer
BEDFORD, Mass. — Robot vacuums have now been around long enough that you might watch one bump around a living room and think, why isn’t there a robot that could mow my lawn? Turns out, it’s not for lack of trying. For more than a decade, iRobot, the company behind...
Trump Organization to use E-Verify for worker status checks
NEW YORK — The Trump Organization, responding to claims that some of its workers were in the United States illegally, said Wednesday that it will use the E-Verify electronic system at all of its properties to check employees’ documentation. A lawyer for a dozen immigrant workers at the Trump National...
After bankruptcy, PG&E headed back to court over wildfires
SAN FRANCISCO — Pacific Gas & Electric Co. will be back in a U.S. courtroom a day after declaring bankruptcy, as it tries to convince a judge not to order dramatic steps to try to prevent its equipment from causing more wildfires. U.S. Judge William Alsup is scheduled to hear...
What industry has seen pay fall below average in the most states? Public schools.
In a search for jobs which once paid well, but have fallen below average in most states, we considered hundreds of industries. Public schools stood out. In the early 1990s, when today’s veteran educators were starting out, public-school teachers and support staff pulled in above-average paychecks in 26 of the...
China says U.S. charges against Huawei and its executive are ‘immoral’
BEIJING — The Chinese government Tuesday condemned U.S. indictments against the Chinese tech giant Huawei as “deep political motivations and manipulations,” as relations between the world’s two largest economies hardened on the eve of crucial trade talks. U.S. officials Monday announced indictments filed in New York accusing Huawei Chief Financial...
Americans got 26.3B robocalls last year, up 46 percent from 2017, report says
Americans are now getting so many robocalls on a regular basis that many are simply choosing not to answer the phone altogether. That’s one big takeaway from a report released Tuesday by Hiya, a Seattle-based spam monitoring service that analyzed activity from 450,000 users of its app to determine the...
Rhode Island named lead plaintiff in suit over Google Plus lapse
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island has been named the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against Google’s parent company. State Treasurer Seth Magaziner said Tuesday a federal court in California approved his motion to make Rhode Island’s public employee retirement system the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against Alphabet...
Stocks end mixed as Wall Street assesses earnings
NEW YORK — Stocks posted an uneven finish on Wall Street on Tuesday, handing the S&P 500 index its second decline in a row. An early gain faded as investors assessed a mixed bag of corporate results and looked ahead to a heavy schedule of news on companies and the...
U.S. consumers rattled by shutdown, roiling markets
WASHINGTON — U.S. consumer confidence tumbled this month to its lowest reading in a year and a half, tested by the partial government shutdown and roiling financial markets. Still, consumer spirits remain robust by historic standards. The Conference Board, a business research group, said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index...
Workspaces centered on women on the rise in #MeToo movement
MINNEAPOLIS — Entering the year-old workspace ModernWell feels like coming into a comfortable spa. Clean lines give way to cozy touches like footstools covered with faux fur and a roaring fire surrounded by comfortable armchairs. Women type away on laptops at tables scattered throughout. There is not a man in...
China tells U.S. to stop ‘unreasonable crackdown’ on Huawei
BEIJING — China called on Washington on Tuesday to “stop the unreasonable crackdown” on Huawei after the United States stepped up pressure on the tech giant by indicting it on charges of stealing technology and violating sanctions on Iran. Beijing will “firmly defend” its companies, a foreign ministry statement said....
Apple to fix FaceTime bug that allows eavesdropping
Apple has disabled a group-chat function in FaceTime after users said a software bug could let callers activate another person’s microphone remotely. With the bug, a FaceTime user calling another iPhone, iPad or Mac computer could hear audio — even if the receiver did not accept the call. The bug...
January is running true to form this year
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...
Justice Department charges Chinese telecom giant Huawei with fraud
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...
Companies navigate dementia conversations with older workers
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...
Trump rollbacks for fossil fuel industries carry steep cost
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...
Super-rich Americans getting younger and multiplying
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...
How timekeeping software helps companies nickel and dime their workers
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...
