Featured Articles in National Business News

Retailers Scramble as U.S. Penny Phase-Out Forces Price Rounding

Now that the United States has officially stopped making pennies, a nationwide scramble is underway among gas stations, fast-food chains, and major retailers to adjust prices and handle cash transactions — a shift that could quietly erode profits for many high-volume businesses. The transition follows President Donald Trump’s decision earlier this year to halt production Read More…

Bitcoin Heads for First October Loss Since 2018, Snapping Seven-Year Winning Streak

Bitcoin was on track Friday to post its first October loss in seven years, breaking a streak that had given the month a “lucky” reputation among cryptocurrency traders. The world’s largest digital currency is set to fall nearly 5% for the month, trading around $66,800 Friday afternoon, as investors pulled back from risk assets amid Read More…

Fed Cuts Rates Again, But Powell Warns the Easing Cycle May Be Near Its End

The Federal Reserve delivered a widely anticipated quarter-point rate cut this week, lowering its benchmark federal funds rate to a range of 3.75% to 4.00%, its second reduction of the year. But despite the move, Chair Jerome Powell sent a clear message to markets: don’t expect a rapid march toward lower borrowing costs. The decision Read More…

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Lucid stock tanks after being slapped with SEC subpoena over SPAC deal

Shares of Lucid Motors tanked Monday morning after the electric car maker disclosed that its been slapped with a subpoena as part of an investigation into the merger that took Lucid public earlier this year. “On December 3, 2021, [Lucid] received a subpoena from the [Securities and Exchange Commission] requesting the production of certain documents related to an Read More…

‘F—k you, dude’: Startup valued at $7B gets flak as CEO lays off hundreds over Zoom

Just days after receiving a $750 million cash infusion, a tech startup that Forbes branded in October as a “unicorn,” valued at $7 billion, laid off hundreds of employees in a manner that some online deemed “brutal.” Better.com, a digital mortgage lender with offices in Oakland, laid off 900 employees weeks before Christmas on a mass Zoom call. Only those Read More…

‘Let’s go Brandon’ cryptocurrency sees massive boom

“Let’s go Brandon” to the moon? A cryptocurrency digital coin labeled $LGB, which stands for the phrase “Let’s go Brandon,” went up 150%. The cryptocurrency is “America’s Coin,” according to its website . The digital coin is part of the mission to fight back “against the establishment, their mismanagement, and the financial fleecing of the American people,” the website Read More…

Barclays CEO Jes Staley Steps Down Amid Pressure Over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

Jes Staley stepped down as chief executive of Barclays PLC under pressure from regulators about how he characterized his relationship with the convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein. Barclays said Mr. Staley stepped down “in view of the conclusions” made by U.K. regulators in its long-running investigation into what Mr. Staley told the bank about his Read More…

Southwest drops plan to put unvaccinated staff on unpaid leave starting in December

Southwest Airlines has scrapped a plan to put unvaccinated employees who have applied for but haven’t received a religious or medical exemption on unpaid leave starting by a federal deadline in December. Southwest Airlines and American Airlines are among the carriers that are federal contractors and subject to a Biden administration requirement that their employees are vaccinated against Covid-19 by Read More…

YouTube announces crackdown on anti-vaccine content

YouTube is cracking down on anti-vaccination content on its site, taking down several channels from high-profile anti-vaccination activists. A representative for Google, YouTube’s parent company, confirmed to the Washington Examiner that channels belonging to “well-known vaccine misinformation spreaders,” such as Joseph Mercola, the Children’s Health Defense Fund, which is affiliated with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Erin Elizabeth, Read More…

Twitter to Pay $809.5 Million to Settle Lawsuit Alleging Jack Dorsey, Others Misled Investors

Twitter disclosed a binding agreement to settle a class-action lawsuit, under which the social network will pay $809.5 million to resolve claims it provided misleading user-engagement info to investors. The original lawsuit, filed in 2016 by a Twitter shareholder, alleged Dorsey and others including former CEO Dick Costolo and board member Evan Williams hid facts about Read More…

Paulson says cryptocurrencies will eventually be ‘worthless’

John Paulson, the hedge fund billionaire who made a fortune in 2008 when he shorted the housing bubble, said in an interview published Sunday that he believes cryptocurrencies will eventually go bust. The 65-year-old told “Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein” that he wouldn’t recommend the investment to anyone. He said there is a cryptocurrency bubble that will Read More…

Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine to Be Sold to Media Company Backed by Blackstone

Reese Witherspoon’s media business, Hello Sunshine, is selling itself to a firm backed by private-equity giant Blackstone Group Inc., the companies said, part of a plan to build an independent entertainment company for Hollywood’s streaming era. The companies didn’t disclose the terms of the deal. People familiar with the matter said it values Ms. Witherspoon’s Read More…

Southwest Airlines readies big play for business flyers as companies ready return to office

Southwest Airlines is ready to make the biggest push for business customers in the company’s history with a distribution deal with Southlake-based Sabre Corp. that started Monday. Dallas-based Southwest, which has long been reluctant to share revenue with third-party companies when it sells tickets, went live on Sabre’s global distribution platforms Monday. READ FULL STORY

How COVID revealed huge structural problems in US supply chains, resulting in shortages

WASHINGTON (SBG) — Economists believe the pandemic has revealed just how vulnerable the United States’ supply chain is to major economic shocks and that the time is coming where experts will have to rethink how to move products around the globe. The country has experienced severe shortages of everything from computer chips, to toilet paper, to furniture Read More…

ProPublica Donors Absent From Bombshell Report on Billionaire Tax Dodgers

ProPublica made waves after it obtained thousands of private tax documents for the country’s wealthiest citizens and published a scathing investigation centered on the tax rates of Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, and Michael Bloomberg, among others. Absent from the report: any of the publication’s largest donors, including Laurene Powell Jobs, David Filo, and Pierre Omidyar. The nonprofit news Read More…

Vivendi sells 10 percent stake in Universal Music Group to Ackman’s SPAC

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman bought a 10 percent stake in Vivendi’s Universal Music Group for $4 billion, valuing the world’s largest record label — which is home to Drake, Taylor Swift and Billy Eilish — at around $42 billion. Ackman’s blank-check company Pershing Square Tontine Holdings and Vivendi announced the news on Sunday after weeks Read More…

Biogen faces tough questions over $56K-a-year price of newly approved Alzheimer’s drug

Biogen on Tuesday faced tough questions from Wall Street analysts over the $56,000 annual cost of its newly approved Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm – a price tag executives are calling “fair” and “responsible.” Shares of Biogen surged 38% on Monday after the FDA announced it approved the company’s drug, scientifically known as aducanumab. It is the first medication cleared by Read More…

Snowflake relocates executive office from California to Bozeman, Montana, as company goes distributed

Snowflake, the cloud data analytics vendor that held the biggest U.S. software IPO ever last year, has become the latest tech company to jettison California. In its earnings press release on Wednesday, Snowflake’s dateline showed up as “No-Headquarters/BOZEMAN, Mont.” As recently as May 3, when the company announced the date of its first-quarter earnings report, that same line said “SAN MATEO, Read More…

John Malone sees merged WarnerMedia-Discovery becoming No. 3 global streamer behind Netflix, Disney+

The blockbuster WarnerMedia-Discovery deal is especially good news for HBO Max, billionaire media mogul John Malone told CNBC’s David Faber. In an interview that aired Monday, Malone said his previous reservations about HBO Max’s ability to be a dominant player in the crowded digital-streaming landscape will be addressed once the AT&T-owned service is under the same roof as Discovery. READ FULL Read More…

Bernard Arnault Becomes World’s Richest Person As LVMH Stock Rises

French fashion tycoon Bernard Arnault is the world’s richest person this Monday morning, with an estimated net worth of $186.3 billion—putting him $300 million above Jeff Bezos, who is worth $186 billion, and Elon Musk, worth $147.3 billion. Arnault’s fortune has jumped from $76 billion in March 2020 to $186.3 on Monday, a massive rise of over $110 billion Read More…

Amazon reportedly in discussions to purchase MGM Studios

Amazon is reportedly in discussions with MGM about purchasing the movie studio. According to Variety, the deal could be worth a reported $7 to $10 billion. The Information reported that MGM’s extensive library includes James Bond movies, the “Rocky” franchise, “The Terminator,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and “Survivor.” READ FULL STORY

Warren Buffett says Berkshire Hathaway is seeing ‘very substantial inflation’ and raising prices

Warren Buffett is seeing inflation among Berkshire Hathaway’s collection of businesses as the economic recovery from the Covid pandemic kicks into high gear. “We are seeing very substantial inflation,” the Berkshire chairman and CEO said at the conglomerate’s annual shareholder meeting Saturday. “It’s very interesting. We are raising prices. People are raising prices to us and it’s being accepted.” Read More…

Bankrupt car-rental firm Hertz’ lenders are proposing a shakeup that would take a newly reorganized company public, report says

Hertz‘s unsecured creditors are proposing a restructuring of the car-rental firm that clashes with the company’s plan to exit from bankruptcy via a sale to two investment funds, Bloomberg reported Thursday. As part of the planned shakeup, the lenders want to convert their holdings in the bankrupt firm into shares of the reorganized company which could be taken Read More…

Sands Reaches Agreement to sell Las Vegas Properties for $6.25 billion

LAS VEGAS, March 3, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS) today announced that it has entered into definitive agreements to sell its Las Vegas real property and operations, including The Venetian Resort Las Vegas and the Sands Expo and Convention Center (collectively, “The Venetian”) for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $6.25 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Read More…