General Business
Legacy Pharmaceutical Packaging will recall one more lot of the heart and blood pressure drug losartan sent to Kroger Co. pharmacies.
The number of measles cases in the USA surged to 695, the highest total in this century, largely because of increased opposition to vaccines.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Japan and the European Union committed Thursday to fair and open trade and to respect rules-based international commerce in the face of what they see as increasing trade protectionism, particularly in the United States.
Crabs are already among the freakiest-looking animals we encounter, so it's no surprise their ancestors were bizarre, too.
Brent crude hit $75 per barrel on Thursday for the first time in nearly six months after quality concerns suspended some Russian crude exports to Europe while the United States prepared to tighten sanctions on Iran. Poland and Germany suspended imports of Russian crude via the Druzhba pipeline, citing contamination. Russia, the world's second-largest crude exporter, said it planned to start pumping clean fuel to Europe through the pipeline on April 29.
IRS data released Thursday shows that while the average refund fell, the tax filing season was largely unchanged by the massive tax overhaul.
The Tax Cut and Jobs Act, pushed by President Donald Trump, lowered the tax rate for most Americans. This year was the first time taxpayers filed under its changes. It overhauled many of the rules surrounding the process — such as roughly doubling the standard deduction and limiting many popular itemized deductions.
That led to surprises for some taxpayers when it came time to file. The season also got off to a rocky start as it opened amid a partial federal government shutdown that had some worried about the agency's ability to manage.
IRS data released Thursday though shows that as of April 19, the number of returns received and processed was on par with last year, increasing 0.2%. The average refund fell 2% to $2,725.
The size of refunds was a focus of much attention because of its financial importance in the lives of many Americans. And the way the law was implemented led to many people seeing small increases in their paycheck throughout the year but changing what they got in terms of a return or amount owed.
The U.S. government paid out $260.9 billion in refunds, about $4.4 billion less than last year.
The data reflects filings as of the traditional tax filing deadline of April 15 or April 17, the deadline for Maine or Massachusetts. The full picture of the tax year won't come until much later after the agency adjusts for tax filings, payments and refunds that occur after those dates.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group remains on the U.S. government's annual list of "notorious markets" that peddle counterfeit products.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said Thursday that Alibaba's on-line marketplace Taobao.com continues sell "high volumes" of pirated goods, according to companies that say they've been victimized. It also said that Alibaba has "ineffective" procedures for removing counterfeit products.
In a statement, Alibaba said that "we do not agree" with the trade representative's decision. Alibaba noted that even the U.S. report recognized Alibaba's efforts to work with companies to protect intellectual property.
"We will continue to wage this fight against counterfeiters," the company said.
The trade office also added Saudi Arabia to its yearly "priority watchlist" of countries that don't adequately protect intellectual property, citing its failure to shield pharmaceuticals from counterfeit competition and the continued piracy of movies and television shows on the BeoutQ service. Also on the priority list this year are Algeria, Argentina, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Russia, Ukraine and Venezuela.
Canada and Colombia this year were removed from the blacklist. Canada agreed last year to upgrade intellectual property protection as part of a renegotiated North America free trade agreement with the United States and Canada. Colombia updated its copyright law and improved intellectual property protection.
China, including its autonomous region Hong Kong, continues to account for vast majority of seizes of counterfeit goods by U.S. Customs, the trade office noted.
The watchlist and notorious markets blacklist are published annually and are not directly connected to a yearlong trade dispute between the...
U.S. stock indexes held close to their record highs Thursday afternoon as blowout results from Facebook and Microsoft offset a sharp slump for industrial companies following earnings reports that fell short of Wall Street's expectations.
Communications and technology sectors helped lead the market higher, as they have all year. This week the S&P 500 index returned to a record high on expectations that those companies can continue to deliver strong growth despite a slowing global economy. Many are delivering. Revenue jumped 14% for Microsoft and 26% for Facebook from a year ago.
Earnings reporting season is more than a third of the way in, and investors are searching for clues about whether profit growth can accelerate later this year following a weak first quarter. The stock market has had a furious rally this year, largely because the Federal Reserve has said that it is halting its plan to raise interest rates, at least temporarily.
Industrial stocks were on the losing side after 3M, the maker of Scotch tape and various products for businesses, reported lower revenue and profit for the first three months of the year than Wall Street expected. It also slashed its profit forecast for the full year. United Parcel Service said its net income fell 17% on nearly flat revenue, and Illinois Tool Works had weaker revenue than analysts forecast. Rockwell Automation said that automotive related sales were less than it expected last quarter.
They all helped drag industrial stocks to the sharpest loss by far among the 11 sectors that make up the S&P 500, and 3M's loss dealt a particularly big blow to the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
KEEPING SCORE: The S&P 500 was up 0.1% as of 1:10 p.m. Eastern time.
The Dow Jones Industrial average fell 111 points, or 0.4%, to...
DALLAS (AP) — United Parcel Service Inc. reported Thursday that first-quarter profit fell 17% as revenue was flat from a year ago and the package-delivery company ran into higher spending to cope with a series of winter storms.
The results fell short of Wall Street expectations, and the shares tumbled in midday trading.
UPS has been working to upgrade its network as the growth of online shopping puts more pressure on delivery speed. Both ground and air shipping volumes grew during the first quarter, partly on high demand for faster delivery options.
Meeting that growth comes at a cost, however. UPS took a $123 million charge in the quarter for spending on its "transformation" plan to automate some operations and open new facilities.
UPS forecast that second-quarter earnings per share would be flat with the same period last year because of pension-financing costs. But it cited those new, more highly automated sorting hubs for reason to stand by its forecast of full-year earnings between $7.45 and $7.52 per share. Analysts expect $7.52 per share, according to FactSet.
Last year almost all the company's new facilities opened in the fourth quarter, but this year 30% will be in the second quarter — soon enough to boost earnings in the second half, executives said.
Pinning so much of the full-year guidance on the second half of the year "will likely not resonate well with investors" because it is "placing increasing risk on the always challenging holiday quarter," Citi analyst Christian Wetherbee wrote in a note to clients.
Atlanta-based UPS said it earned $1.11 billion in the first quarter. Earnings adjusted to exclude transformation spending were $1.39 per share, compared with the average analyst forecast of $1.42 per share.
Revenue was flat at $17.16 billion, and...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Shares of Altria Group, the nation's largest tobacco company, fell Thursday after the company's earnings missed expectations on lower cigarette revenue and big expenses aimed at diversifying its business.
The Richmond, Virginia-based company reported first quarter profit of $1.12 billion, or 60 cents per share. Adjusted for one-time costs and expenses the company earned 90 cents per share.
That fell short of Wall Street expectations of 92 cents per share, according to an analyst survey by Zacks Investment Research.
Altria, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes and Copenhagen chew, has been working to shift its business away from traditional tobacco products amid steady declines in the category. The U.S. smoking rate has been falling for decades amid smoking bans, higher taxes and public health efforts urging smokers to quit and discouraging young people from ever starting.
But Altria said cigarette shipments declined by 14%, faster than expected, pushing its revenue for Philip Morris USA and other smoking brands down 7%.
Company management reiterated full-year earnings in the range of $4.15 to $4.27 per share. Analysts expect $4.19 per share, according to FactSet.
Quarterly results were weighed down by $159 million in pretax expenses mainly tied to Altria's investments in Canadian cannabis investment firm Cronos and Juul, the e-cigarette startup company.
Altria is betting those investments will help replace falling cigarette sales in years ahead. But they noted the company assumes "little-to-no earnings" from Juul or Cronos in the current year.
Altria, which also sells cigars and wine, posted revenue of $5.63 billion in the period. Its adjusted revenue — or revenue net of excise taxes — was $4.39 billion, which also fell short of Street forecasts.
...
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. long-term mortgage rates rose this week for the fourth straight week, though they remain historically low as a spur to home sales in the spring buying season.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday the average rate on the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage increased to 4.20% from 4.17% last week. By contrast, a year ago the benchmark rate stood at 4.58%.
The average rate for 15-year, fixed-rate home loans rose this week to 3.64% from 3.62% last week.
After peaking at nearly 5% in November, long-term rates started trending downward, helping to boost home sales after a rocky 2018.
Despite the recent increases, lower borrowing rates and improved affordability of homes "should push housing activity higher in the coming months," said Freddie Mac chief economist Sam Khater.
Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country between Monday and Wednesday each week to compile its mortgage rate figures.
The average doesn't include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates.
The average fee on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages was unchanged this week at 0.5 point.
The average fee for the 15-year mortgage also remained at 0.5 point.
The average rate for five-year adjustable-rate mortgages slipped to 3.77% from 3.78% last week. The fee rose to 0.4 point from 0.3 point.
TOKYO (AP) — Former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn walked out of a Japanese detention center Thursday evening, his head held high, after paying 500 million yen ($4.5 million) in bail and winning a court rejection of an appeal from prosecutors.
Ghosn walked solemnly out of the Tokyo Detention House with one of his lawyers by his side. They got into a dark van without speaking and drove off, watched by dozens of journalists who had been waiting for his release for hours.
Prosecutors had fought to keep him in custody, contending he could tamper with evidence or influence witnesses. But the Tokyo District Court decided in the evening he should be released.
In a new twist, the court also decided to restrict Ghosn's contact with his wife, Carole Ghosn, targeting her as someone related to the latest allegations, according to his legal team.
In a statement issued shortly after his release, Ghosn said the new bail conditions were "cruel and unnecessary."
Ghosn was arrested in November, released on bail in early March, but re-arrested and detained again April 4 on new allegations.
The latest bail comes on top of the 1 billion yen ($9 million) Ghosn posted for his earlier release.
He has been charged with under-reporting his post-retirement compensation and breach of trust in diverting Nissan money and allegedly having it shoulder his personal investment losses.
Ghosn's lawyer, Junichiro Hironaka, said the bail conditions require advance notice of contacts between Ghosn and Carole Ghosn. They will not be able to live together and a lawyer must be present when they meet.
Carole Ghosn is not a suspect, and she had been looking forward to being with her husband. She is mentioned in the latest allegations that center around payments by an Oman business to operations allegedly run...
NEW YORK (AP) — The latest on developments in financial markets (all times local):
11:45 a.m.
Stock indexes held close to their record highs as blowout results from big-name tech companies offset slumps in industrial companies that reported disappointing results.
Facebook and Microsoft both reported strong earnings, powering gains in the communications and technology sectors Thursday.
Industrial stocks were broadly lower, weighing down the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
3M sank 10.6% after reporting disappointing results, and UPS fell 6.8%. Tesla fell 2.9% after reporting a huge loss.
The S&P 500 rose 4 points, or 0.1%, to 2,931.
The Dow lost 115 points, or 0.4%, to 26,481. The Nasdaq rose 32 points, or 0.4%, to 8,1347.
Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10 year Treasury rose to 2.53%.
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9:35 a.m.
Stocks are opening mostly lower on Wall Street as industrial and health care companies post losses.
3M sank 10% in early trading Thursday after reporting disappointing first quarter results. That helped pull the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than other major indexes.
Facebook and Microsoft both rose sharply after releasing surprisingly strong results after the closing bell on Wednesday. Facebook climbed 7.2% and Microsoft rose 3.6%.
Tesla fell 1.8% after reporting a huge loss.
The S&P 500 index fell 6 points, or 0.2%, to 2,919.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 226 points, or 0.8%, to 26,376. The Nasdaq rose 19 points, or 0.2%, to 8,119.
Bond prices didn't move much. The yield on the 10 year Treasury held steady at 2.52%.
LONDON (AP) — Ireland's privacy regulator says it's investigating Facebook over the social media giant's recent revelation that it had left hundreds of millions of user passwords exposed.
The Irish Data Protection Commission said Thursday that it opened a statutory inquiry this week into Facebook after the company notified it about the security lapse.
The company said last month that it had inadvertently stored passwords for users of Facebook, Facebook Lite and Instagram in plain text, making it possible for employees to search them.
Facebook said it is working with the commission on the inquiry.
"There is no evidence that these internally stored passwords were abused or improperly accessed," the company said in a statement.
Facebook has said it fixed the problem and planned to notify millions of Facebook and Instagram users and "hundreds of millions" of users of Facebook Lite, which is primarily used in developing countries.
It's the latest regulatory headache for Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has promised to turn the company into a "privacy focused platform."
The Irish commission, which is Facebook's lead privacy regulator for Europe, already has 10 other investigations under way into the company and its subsidiaries over whether it's complying with European data protection rules.
Facebook said Wednesday it expects to be fined at least $3 billion by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which is investigating whether the social network violated users' privacy. It also faces other probes in the U.S. and Europe, including in Belgium and Germany.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Comcast kept shedding cable customers and adding home internet customers in its most recent quarter.
Traditional TV providers are losing customers at an increasing rate while streaming companies pop up seemingly every few weeks . To deal with that industry shift online from cable, Comcast has focused on growing its broadband business while integrating streaming apps into its cable box. It is also launching its own NBCUniversal streaming service in 2020.
It's a crowded market. Disney , Apple and AT&T are also launching new streaming services as younger people turn away from the traditional cable bundle.
In the January-March quarter, Comcast added 375,000 internet customers and lost 121,000 video customers.
NBCUniversal's revenue dropped 12.5% to $8.31 billion. Last year, the entertainment division got a big boost from the live sports extravaganzas of the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics, both aired on NBC. Those live sports events pull in more viewers than usual and get more money from advertisers. Within NBCUniversal, a bright spot was movies, where revenue rose 7%.
The company's new Sky division in Europe, which it bought last year, posted a 5% revenue decline, to $4.8 billion. Comcast Corp. says revenue rose 1.9% if currency changes are taken into account.
Shares jumped 3.6% to $43.35 in morning trading after the cable company's profit topped analyst expectations. Overall, Comcast's net income rose 14% to $3.48 billion, or 76 cents. Analysts polled by FactSet expected 68 cents per share.
Revenue rose 18% to $26.86 billion. Analysts expected $27.21 billion.
HELSINKI (AP) — Telecoms gear maker Nokia reported Thursday a surprise first-quarter loss amid tougher competition for the new, superfast wireless 5G networks that are expected to increase in business this year.
The company, based in Espoo, Finland, said its net loss for the January-March period was 116 million euros ($130 million), against profit of 83 million euros a year earlier. Sales rose 2% to 5 billion euros.
CEO Rajeev Suri said revenues from the faster but more expensive 5G networks were expected to "grow sharply" in the second half of the year.
He said the slow start to the year was caused by aggressive competition in the network industry - dominated by Nokia, Sweden's Ericsson and China's Huawei - in the early stages of 5G rollout. Companies are under pressure to offer low prices to secure 5G network deals.
That, Suri said, had created "near-term pressure but longer-term opportunity."
Industry observers say Nokia and Ericsson are trying to make gains on the woes of Huawei, which is facing obstacles in many countries over concerns - mainly voiced by the U.S. - that its equipment may be used for China-sponsored state espionage.
In the latest development, Britain's digital minister said Thursday that London is still mulling over whether to allow Huawei to supply parts for the U.K.'s new 5G wireless network.
There is a risk, experts say, that Nokia and Ericsson could push too hard to capitalize on Huawei's troubles by engaging in a price war, eroding profits.
"The 5G (market) is in its early stages, the ecosystem is not yet mature and Nokia is facing some new challenges of its own," Suri told analysts and reporters in a conference call.
"But overall we see things improving quickly and surely. We have a (product) portfolio that is unique for the 5G era....
LONDON (AP) — The British government has not yet decided whether to allow China's Huawei to supply parts for the U.K.'s new 5G wireless network, Digital Secretary Jeremy Wright said Thursday, as he condemned leaks from private government discussions on the sensitive issue.
Wright said government officials and U.K. intelligence agencies are still carrying out a review on how best to strike the "difficult balance between security and prosperity."
He told lawmakers in the House of Commons that "there has not been a final decision made on this subject."
The United States has been lobbying allies to exclude Huawei from all 5G networks, noting that the Chinese government can force the company to give it backdoor access to data on its networks.
Huawei officials have denied that the company is a security risk, saying that they have no links to the Chinese government and operate like any other international company.
Wright said it was unrealistic to try to eliminate all Chinese equipment from U.K. telecoms systems.
"Huawei is a significant player in this market; there are very few others," he said.
Wright also warned lawmakers against leaking details of meetings of the National Security Council, after the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Wednesday that the council had approved Huawei's involvement in "non-core" parts of the 5G network.
The security council includes senior ministers, who receive briefings from top military and intelligence officials.
"Officials, including the security and intelligence agencies, need to feel that they can give advice to ministers which ministers will treat seriously and keep private," Wright said. "If they do not feel that, they will not give us that advice and government will be worse as a result."
Conservative lawmaker Tom Tugendhat, who...
Maximizing a home down payment can make sense: The bigger the down payment, the lower the monthly mortgage bill and the better the chance of building equity more quickly.
But putting too much down could leave you without enough cash for home maintenance — or anything else.
Pinpointing the right amount involves balancing the advantages of boosting the down payment against the need to hold back money for urgent upgrades, life's emergencies, and having some fun with your new home.
"There's really no one-size-fits-all solution," says Jason Speciner, a certified financial planner in Fort Collins, Colorado.
THE EFFECT OF A HIGHER DOWN PAYMENT
Calculating how different down payments would affect a monthly mortgage payment is eye-opening. Some lenders require only 3% down for conventional home loans, which makes getting in the door easier but means assuming more debt than with higher down payments.
Many borrowers ask if they should scrape together a little more, such as 5% versus 3%, says Rick Bechtel, head of U.S. residential lending at TD Bank. But that probably wouldn't make enough difference in the monthly mortgage payment to justify doing so if it left you strapped, he says.
"The need for post-closing cash is always greater, and sometimes significantly so, than people expect," he says.
But a higher down payment can make a significant difference if it means lowering or avoiding mortgage insurance. The insurance, which can involve upfront and monthly fees, protects the lender if the borrower defaults. Depending on the type of loan, making a higher down payment may eliminate some of that expense, if not all of it.
Kristin Phillips, a Tampa, Florida, psychologist and author of The Debt Shrink blog, says she and her husband, Brandon, couldn't put down the traditional 20%,...
LEVITTOWN, N.Y. (AP) — Who's minding the store? In the not-too-distant future it could be cameras and sensors that can tell almost instantly when bruised bananas need to be swapped for fresh ones and more cash registers need to open before lines get too long.
Walmart, which faces fierce competition from Amazon and other online retailers, is experimenting with digitizing its physical stores to manage them more efficiently, keep costs under control and make the shopping experience more pleasant. On Thursday, the retail giant officially opens its Intelligent Retail Lab inside a 50,000-square-foot Neighborhood Market grocery store on Long Island.
Thousands of cameras suspended from the ceiling, combined with other technology like sensors on shelves, will monitor the store in real time so workers can quickly replenish products or fix other problems.
The technology, shown first to The Associated Press, will also be able to spot spills, track when shelves need to be restocked and know when shopping carts are running low. Cameras, for example, can determine how ripe bananas are from their color, and workers will get an alert on their phone if they need to be replaced.
Walmart's deep dive into artificial intelligence in its physical store comes as Amazon raised the stakes in the grocery business with its purchase of Whole Foods Market nearly two years ago.
That's put more pressure on Walmart and other traditional retailers like Kroger and Albertsons to pour money into technology in their stores. At the same time, they're trying to keep food prices down and manage expenses. Amazon has been rolling out cashier-less Amazon Go stores , which have shelf sensors that track the 1,000 products on their shelves.
Walmart's online U.S. sales are still a fraction of Amazon's online global merchandise empire, which reached $122.98...
DALLAS (AP) — Higher costs due partly to the grounding of its Boeing Max jets more than washed out rising ticket sales at Southwest Airlines, causing first quarter profit to drop 16% to $387 million.
Southwest said Thursday that it canceled more than 10,000 flights in the quarter because of the grounding of the Max after two deadly crashes, a labor dispute with its mechanics, and winter storms.
The cancellations caused Southwest's spending per seat to spike in the first quarter. With its 34 Max jets sitting idle at least into late summer, the airline predicted that the cost trend will grow worse in the April-through-June quarter, which marks the beginning of the important vacation-travel season.
The first quarter results, however, beat Wall Street expectations, and the airline reported that leisure-travel bookings for spring are stronger than a year ago, when sales were hurt by the death of a passenger whose window was shattered by debris from a broken engine.
Shares of Dallas-based Southwest rose modestly in early trading.
Southwest said the combination of canceled flights, the December-January partial government shutdown, and soft demand for leisure travel cuts its first-quarter profit by $150 million.
The company said adjusted earnings in the first quarter worked out to 70 cents per share, 9 cents better than the forecast of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.
Revenue rose 4% to $5.15 billion, slightly better than analysts' expectations, but operating costs soared 7%, led by higher labor expenses.
Chairman and CEO Gary Kelly said that "our strong momentum coming into the year slowed," but Southwest still produced record revenue and strong profit margins.
Helane Becker, an airline analyst for Cowen Research, said she was concerned by Southwest's...
ST PAUL, Minn. (AP) — 3M plans to cut 2,000 globally as part of a restructuring due to a slower-than-expected 2019.
The maker of Post-it notes, industrial coatings and ceramics said Thursday that the move is expected to save about $225 million to $250 million a year. The St. Paul Minnesota-based company anticipates a pretax charge of about $150 million, or 20 cents per share, this year.
3M also lowered its full-year earnings guidance. The company now foresees its 2019 adjusted earnings in a range of $9.25 to $9.75 per share. Its prior outlook was for $10.45 to $10.90 per share.
3M Co. earned $891 million, or $1.51 per share, in the first quarter. Adjusted for one-time costs, earnings were $2.23 per share. That missed the $2.50 per share that analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research were looking for.
Revenue was $7.86 billion in the period, down 5% year over year and also falling short of Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $8.09 billion.
Shares tumbled 9% before the market open.
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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on MMM at https://www.zacks.com/ap/MMM
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Walmart experiments with AI to monitor stores in real time
LEVITTOWN, N.Y. (AP) — Walmart is experimenting with using artificial intelligence to manage its physical stores. The retail giant is opening the Intelligent Retail Lab inside a Neighborhood Market grocery store in Levittown, New York. Walmart says the technology will allow workers to quickly replenish products on shelves or open more cash registers if lines get too long.
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Tesla posts surprisingly large 1Q loss as sales slump 31%
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Tesla CEO Elon Musk had prepped Wall Street for a first quarter loss but analysts were still stunned by its size: $702.1 million, among the company's worst quarters in the past two years. The net loss was more than double what analysts had predicted as Tesla's sales slumped 31% for the quarter. The loss of $4.10 per share left Musk spending much of a conference call explaining how it happened.
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3M to cut 2,000 jobs, 1Q results miss Wall Street's view
ST PAUL, Minn. (AP) — 3M plans to cut 2,000 jobs globally as part of restructuring efforts. The company said the move is expected to save about $225M to $250M a year.
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Comcast sheds cable customers but adds internet subscribers
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Comcast kept shedding cable customers and adding home internet customers in its most recent quarter. To deal with the industry shift online from cable, Comcast has focused on growing its broadband business while integrating streaming apps into its cable box. It is also launching its own NBCUniversal streaming service in 2020. NBCUniversal revenue dropped in the first quarter, absent last year's Super Bowl and Olympics events.
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US durable goods orders up solid 2.7% in March
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders...
As the saying goes, nothing is more important in real estate than "location, location, location." And that goes for the ones doing the selling too.
According to a new report from WalletHub, Seattle is the best place to be a real estate agent in 2019, topping the list of more than 170 U.S. cities.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods rose 2.7% in March with a key category that tracks business investment decisions rising at the strongest pace in eight months.
The increase in orders for durable goods followed a 1.1% drop in orders in February, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. Both months were influenced by a swing in the volatile category of commercial aircraft, which had fallen sharply in February and rebounded in March.
The closely watched category that serves as a proxy for business investment saw a 1.3% rise in orders in March, the best showing since a 1.5% increase last July.
Economists are hoping that manufacturing, which has been battered by global weakness and trade tensions, will begin showing strength in coming months which will provide support for the overall economy.
The government will provide its first look at overall economic growth, as measured by the gross domestic product, on Friday. Economists have been upgrading their estimates for first quarter growth with many now thinking the GDP expanded at an annual rate of close to 3% in the first three months of the year, up a full percentage point from their previous estimates. Several economic reports in recent weeks have shown new-found strength.
A separate report Thursday showed that the number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits, a proxy for layoffs, jumped 37,000 to a still-low 230,000 last week. Claims had declined for five straight weeks, falling to a near 50-year low of 193,000 the week of April 13. Analysts attributed last week's big jump in benefit applications to trouble seasonally adjusting the numbers around spring holidays such as Easter and Passover, which occur at different times each year.
The report on durable goods orders showed the 2.7% March gain was the...
LONDON (AP) — Disappointing earnings from 3M, the maker of Post-it notes, industrial coatings and ceramics, is weighing on stocks ahead of Wall Street's open Thursday. The failure of two projected mergers in Europe dented market sentiment, too.
St. Paul Minnesota-based 3M said it plans to cut 2,000 jobs globally as part of a restructuring due to a slower-than-expected 2019 and part of a cost-cutting effort. 3M also lowered its full-year earnings guidance, now foreseeing 2019 adjusted earnings in a range of $9.25 to $9.75 per share. Its prior outlook was for $10.45 to $10.90 per share.
3M Co. earned $2.23 per share in the first quarter, when adjusted for one-time costs. That missed the $2.50 per share that analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research were looking for.
Its shares tumbled 8.3% before the market open and its earnings statement weighed on Dow futures, which were down 0.6%.
"The U.S. index is facing a 170-point slide when the bell rings on Wall Street, the main issue being a disastrous update from Post-It producer 3M," said Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex.
Earnings season is in full flow and investors are looking to the corporate reports for direction in stock markets.
Shares in Europe were knocked by news that two potential mergers won't be going ahead. In the U.K., regulators blocked Sainsbury's 7.3 billion-pound ($9.4 billion) purchase of Walmart's Asda unit amid concerns the deal would have increased prices and reduced the quality and range of products available. For Walmart, it's another setback in its effort to export its low-price strategy around the world. Sainsbury's share price was down 5%.
And in Germany, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank said they were halting talks on a possible merger that aimed to create a stronger global...
The benefits of staging a home when trying to sell it are clear. According to the 2018 HSR Survey, which studied 4200+ homes, 85% of the staged homes sold for 6-25% more than unstaged homes. The real estate market has long been aware of the power of staging, but now, there’s statistical data to back up this theory. That’s why now is one of the best times to become a home stager. If you love decorating and see every room as a canvas, then that’s why you’re here. You’ve come to learn more about starting a home staging business!
Bringing your dream of starting a business to life can get overwhelming, and that’s why we’re here to help.…
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Branding is an essential part of establishing and maintaining the identity of your company. Choosing a business name, creating a logo, manipulating a color palette, and fine-tuning your mission statement will all go a long way in making your company easily identifiable by your consumers.
But there is more to branding than simple and singular decisions.
An effective and well-designed social media strategy can make the branding process easier by getting you noticed quickly, and helping you target the demographic who will be interested in what you have to say.
Instagram, in particular, is an excellent social media platform to start with, as research indicates that the more than one billion users who visit the site today are very interested in learning about their favorite brands on the site.…
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Starting a small business isn’t easy, but can be made less confusing with the right strategy in place for success. Below are a few simple ways you can properly plan for the growth of your business and avoid common issues that might arise with ineffective strategizing.
Be Organized
Begin strategizing for your small business by first getting organized, whether that be with your physical space and office setting or simply with the way you function throughout the day. A great way to start is by creating a daily list that you can look to for any necessities that you need to get done throughout the day.…
The post How To Better Strategize For Your Small Business appeared first on SMALL BUSINESS CEO.
Getting the message out is a major problem for a lot of companies. Strangely, the biggest problem is not that a business cannot produce enough content, but that it sometimes loses track of its content.
This basic communication issue can create a lot of chaos, especially when it comes to establishing the entire thrust of the content. Not only does this mean that departments may release content without coordinating with other departments, but that the timing can be off for some of their messages. As such, finding a way to coordinate content development and release schedules is of paramount concern to any business looking for success.…
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Automation with customer service has to be handled with care. While customers are now used to computerized answering services instead of a receptionist picking up the calls, there’s also usually a decline in the service level when having trouble getting hold of a real person. Companies must strive to use automation in a manner that is a net benefit to the customers – not just the bottom line.
When approaching automation from this perspective, it tends to work well for everyone concerned.
Routing Calls Better
Using speech recognition software, it’s now possible for VoIP call center software to route calls better.…
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In 2019, there is more opportunity than ever to launch a brand new startup business, and this is definitely something you should consider. There is so much that can impact a new business, and becoming an entrepreneur is something that is becoming more and more popular among people. So, if you are serious about being able to launch the right business, you need to make yourself competitive.
So many new companies are formed every year, and so many of them fail because they don’t get the basics right. There are a lot of things that you need to keep in mind these days, and making your business better is certainly something that requires a bit of work.…
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Around 67% of businesses now offering a flexible working arrangement, allowing their staff to work remotely, set their own working hours, and compress their working weeks into fewer days. Flexible working schedules can hugely benefit staff. One survey showing that 73% of staff saw increased work satisfaction while 78% agreed that the system made them more productive. Other studies suggest that it can also reduce stress and improve mental health.
But in order to successfully implement a flexible working strategy, employees must have the tools to work efficiently outside of the office. Staff will need access to data and be able to perform their tasks, as well as communicating remotely.…
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Operating a company isn’t without its challenges. Daily tasks include generating leads, cultivating new clients relations, retaining customers, and closing sales. Customer relationship management (CRM) programs make daily tasks easier and streamline operations. The software’s features define which product is most helpful for businesses.
Knowing what to look for in a CRM — what features best fit your company and it’s customer’s needs is crucial to long term sales and service success.
1. Customer and/or Contact Management Features
Customer or contact management helps you categorize and segment your customer list. The data mining practice shows you key attributes about customers stored in your database.…
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Becoming a millionaire is everyone’s dream. Even though most of us desire financial wealth, it seems that we have no idea how to actually find the riches and reach our objectives. Investing in business is probably the best ways to become a millionaire, especially if you don’t really have a considerable amount of cash to start your journey with. Those that start from scratch can easily climb to millions if they only knew what, how, and where to seek.
To make millions, even as a student, even online, you should choose an evergreen business niche model. This means that the industry you’ve chosen and the niche you selected will never “die”, and your business will always be demanded in the near future.…
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Being an entrepreneur has its rewards, but there will always be ups and downs. To mitigate the downs, create an additional stream of revenue that can supplement your business endeavors while you grow. This helps balance out some of the costs associated with running a company, while ensuring that you have a diversified source of income via lucrative secondary income streams.
An estimated 37 percent of Americans work a side hustle as a way to make this extra money, according to a 2018 Bankrate survey, and the median rate an average person earns in a month from the side hustle alone is $686.…
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