After nearly a decade of trying, Apple finally gave up its effort to produce an electric car last year, canceling a project that soaked up $10 billion. But last year in China, the electronics maker Xiaomi launched its first electric car after just three years of development and delivered 135,000 vehicles. It has vowed to … Read more
President Trump’s promise during last year’s election to make it far easier to drill for oil and gas thrilled energy executives who believed his policies would lower their costs and help them make a lot more money. Those hopes are now fading. Thanks to Mr. Trump’s tariffs, the oil and gas industry is contending with … Read more
Getting inflation under control since the worst surge in decades has been a bumpy process in recent months. New data on Friday showed a little progress, but also an unexpected pullback in consumer spending, complicating the path forward for the Federal Reserve as it debates when to restart interest rate cuts. The central bank’s preferred … Read more
Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of the entertainment giant Paramount, delivered a crucial message to her board a few weeks ago. For months, Paramount’s lawyers had been jousting with representatives for President Trump, who had sued the company’s CBS News network over its segment on former Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Trump accused the network … Read more
With the government seemingly stepping back from regulatory duties, consumers may have to act as their own financial watchdogs. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the independent federal agency created after the 2008 financial crisis to shield people from fraud and abuse by lenders and financial firms, has been muzzled, at least temporarily. “Everything is on … Read more
Rising prices hit a trade war President Trump isn’t backing off his tariff threats, despite the potential risk to the U.S. economy and financial markets. That puts additional focus on the latest Personal Consumption Expenditures report, the Fed’s favored inflation measure. It’s due for release at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. The question is whether lingering inflation … Read more
Starbucks is “reclaiming the ‘third place.’” That’s what its chief executive, Brian Niccol, proclaimed in an October earnings call, after the coffee giant suffered a slide in sales and store traffic. He was echoing a statement he had made when he started the job in September — that he wanted to re-establish Starbucks as “a … Read more
Cassandra Orakpo had enough. Too much, in fact. Shopping on her phone had become so easy it had turned into a bad habit. She bought a cake decorating kit, thinking she’d make her own birthday cake, and never even took it out of the box. She has at least 80 bottles of perfume stored in … Read more
President Trump has issued an unremitting stream of tariff threats in his first month in office, accompanied by nearly as many reasons for why they should go into effect. Tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China are a cudgel to force those countries, America’s largest trading partners, to crack down on the flow drugs and migrants … Read more
“Rely less on the airline to just offer you a good deal,” Mr. Leff said. “Often you want two cards: one that earns multiple points in the category where you spend the most, and one that pairs in the same ecosystem from the same bank that earns 1.5 or two points per dollar.” This means … Read more