Business News

Inflation has slowed. Now the Federal Reserve faces expectations for rate cuts

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chair Jerome Powell will enter this week’s Federal Reserve meeting in a much more desirable position than he likely ever expected: Inflation is getting close to the Fed’s target rate, the economy is still growing at a healthy pace, consumers keep spending and the unemployment rate is near a half-century low. When they last met in December, the Fed’s policymakers said they expected to cut their benchmark rate three times this year. Yet the timing of those rate cuts, which would lead to lower borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, remains uncertain. Most economists say they expect the first rate cut to occur in May or June.

Amazon’s bid to buy Roomba maker iRobot is called off amid pushback in Europe

LONDON (AP) — Amazon has called off its purchase of iRobot, blaming “undue and disproportionate regulatory hurdles” after the European Union signaled its objection to the deal. The companies said in joint statement Monday that they were disappointed but mutually agreed to terminate the acquisition. The deal was facing antitrust scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic, but most strongly in Europe, where regulators investigating competition concerns were expected to issue a final decision by Feb. 14. Now that the deal has been called off, the maker of circular-shaped Roomba vacuum said it would lay off about 31% of its staff and see its CEO depart.

China Evergrande has been ordered to liquidate. The real estate giant owes over $300 billion

HONG KONG (AP) — A Hong Kong court has ordered China Evergrande, the world’s most heavily indebted real estate developer, to be liquidated following a failed effort to restructure $300 billion owed to banks and bondholders that fueled fears about China’s rising debt burden. China Evergrande Group is one of the biggest of dozens of Chinese developers that have collapsed since 2020 under official pressure to rein in surging debt the ruling Communist Party views as a threat to China’s slowing economic growth. But a crackdown on excess borrowing has tipped the property industry into crisis, making it a drag on the economy. It’s unclear how the liquidation order will affect Evergrande’s vast operations in the Chinese mainland.

X pauses some Taylor Swift searches as deepfake explicit images spread

Social media platform X has blocked some searches for Taylor Swift as pornographic deepfake images of the singer have circulated online. Attempts to search for her name without quote marks on the site resulted in an error message and a prompt to retry the search. However, putting quote marks around her name allowed posts to appear that mentioned her name. Sexually explicit and abusive fake images of Swift began circulating widely last week on X. It’s made her the most famous victim of a scourge that tech platforms and anti-abuse groups have struggled to fix. An X executive calls it “a temporary action” being “done with an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue.”

Stock market today: Wall Street holds steady ahead of a monster week

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are drifting ahead of a week where Wall Street’s most influential stocks may show whether the huge expectations built up for them are justified. The S&P 500 rose 0.1% Monday. The Dow was down less than 0.1%, and the Nasdaq rose 0.3%. Five Big Tech stocks will report their latest results this week. Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft have been responsible for much of Wall Street’s recent rally and will need to deliver on analysts’ expectations. The Federal Reserve will also announce its latest decision on interest rates later this week, while a highly anticipated jobs report will close it on Friday.

Toyota chief apologizes for cheating on testing at group company _ again

TOKYO (AP) — Toyota Chief Koji Sato has apologized to customers, suppliers and dealers for flawed testing at a group company, which follows similar problems in recent years. The latest woes surfacing Monday at Japan’s top automaker involves testing required for Japanese government approval at Toyota Industries, which makes diesel engines. False results were found on certification testing and other sampling inspections for engines. Skirting of government tests surfaced last year at Daihatsu, which makes small cars, and is 100% owned by Toyota. In 2022, Hino Motors, a truck maker that’s part of the Toyota group, said it had systematically falsified emissions data.

Walmart’s latest perk for U.S. store managers? Stock grants

NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart is further sweetening the perks for its U.S. store managers as the nation’s largest retailer and private employer seeks to retain and attract top workers in a still competitive job market. Walmart, which is based in Bentonville, Arkansas and has almost 4,700 U.S. namesake stores, said Monday that starting with the company’s new fiscal year, which begins Thursday, U.S. store leaders will receive up to $20,000 in Walmart stock grants every year. The moves follow an announcement made by the discounter earlier this month that it was raising the starting base pay for store managers, while redesigning its bonus plan that will put more of an emphasis on profits for these leaders.

Shares of building materials maker Holcim jump as it plans to list unit in the US

GENEVA (AP) — Shares of Holcim Ltd. have jumped Monday after the Swiss-based cement and building materials company announced plans to spin off its North American unit and list its shares in the U.S. Sunday’s announcement of the listing and spinoff comes 15 months after Holcim’s French subsidiary Lafarge pleaded guilty to paying millions of dollars to the Islamic State group to keep a plant open in Syria. It agreed to pay about $778 million in penalties in a settlement with U.S. authorities. The company says the listing is expected to be completed in the first half of next year and would create a North American unit that is targeting more than $20 billion in net sales by 2030.

Small biz owners scale back their office space or go remote altogether. Some move to the suburbs

NEW YORK (AP) — The pandemic has had a transformative effect on the office space landscape. Many businesses are shifting away from traditional spaces toward hybrid work and more flexible, collaborative spaces. About 23% of U.S. office space is available, compared with 16% before the pandemic, according to global real estate advisor Avison Young. While the real estate decisions of big companies get much of the attention, small business owners are also reassessing what they need in terms of an office. Some are finding more bang for their buck in the suburbs. Others are scaling back on square footage, and still others are deciding to go permanently remote.

Most Americans feel they pay too much in taxes, AP-NORC poll finds

NEW YORK (AP) — A majority of U.S. taxpayers feel they pay too much in taxes, with many saying that they receive a poor value in return. That’s according to a new poll from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.About two thirds of U.S. taxpayers say they spend “too much” on federal income taxes. About 7 in 10 say the same about local property taxes, while roughly 6 in 10 feel that way about state sales tax. Adults who are 60 and older are more likely than younger adults to perceive taxes, generally, as fair.