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The housing market is still red hot. But there are growing concerns about how much longer this strength can last. Home Depot reported earnings and sales that topped Wall Street’s forecasts Tuesday. Lowe’s also reported better-than-expected earnings and sales on Wednesday morning, and CEO Marvin Ellison said in a statement that sales were lifted thanks

Before last year, 28-year-old Meredith Giuliani thought voice notes were “kind of weird,” and she mostly stuck to texting. But after the pandemic hit, audio messages became a daily routine for her and many of her friends. “This is my way to debrief and tell everybody what’s going on,” she told CNN Business. “It’s not

Women now occupy at least one seat on the board of every major British company after a 50% increase in participation rates over five years, according to a report published on Wednesday. While men still dominate the upper ranks of top UK firms, the Hampton Alexander Review found that women now occupy 1,026 board seats

Retailers have been battered by the pandemic, which triggered a plunge in foot traffic and caused demand for products like work clothing to all but evaporate. But stock in Macy’s is now trading close to where it was before Covid-19 rattled markets, while Kohl’s has recovered all its losses. That raises the question: Are these

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. You can sign up for free right here. Richard Winton, the prominent law enforcement reporter for the Los Angeles Times, was sitting in his home office late on Tuesday morning when he saw a tweet fly across his screen. The tweet was from

Mukesh Ambani has spent years trying to turn his inherited oil business into a tech empire. In 2020, that pivot really kicked into overdrive. Between March and November last year, even as the coronavirus upended lives and devastated economies around the world, India’s richest man was handed more than $27 billion to make a bet

Facebook will restore news pages in Australia after the government agreed on changes to a planned media code that the company said would allow it to retain greater control over what appears on its platform. The announcement caps months of bitter dispute between the American tech firm and Canberra, which had been working on legislation

Luxury electric vehicle startup Lucid Motors went public after a merger with “blank-check” firm Churchill Capital Corp IV, in the largest deal yet between a SPAC and an electric car company. The deal left the company with a market capitalization of $9.17 billion, as of this writing, and will give more than $4 billion in

Wall Street is increasingly concerned that a wave of spending when the economy reopens could cause prices to spike, spoiling the financial market party that’s been raging since last March. What’s happening: Government bond yields — which move opposite prices — have jumped, signaling rising optimism about the economic recovery. But a surging economy can

Instacart started as a grocery delivery service. But it’s increasingly moving into delivering office supplies, sporting goods, televisions, makeup and drug store essentials. Its latest move: Instacart announced a partnership with Walgreens Tuesday for same-day delivery on over-the-counter medications, beauty items and other drug store purchases. The partnership will start in Illinois and expand across

SPAC mania has entered the celebrity phase. Colin Kaepernick, Shaquille O’Neal, Larry Kudlow and pop star Ciara are all lending their star power to the blank-check boom. Baseball legend Alex Rodriguez’s special purpose acquisition corporation, Slam Corp., began trading Tuesday on the Nasdaq after raising $500 million. The fact that athletes, politicians and musicians are

Tesla, the hottest stock in the market for more than a year, has sunk into bear market territory. Shares of Tesla fell 6% Tuesday after closing down 8.5% Monday, wiping out its gains for the year. The stock closed at a record just above $883 on January 26 and has tumbled since. It fell low

Adam Neumann, the disgraced former CEO and cofounder of WeWork, may soon have a massive payday as part of a possible settlement with SoftBank, the company’s largest investor, but the amount under discussion is far less than the golden parachute originally offered. Neumann, who stepped down in late 2019 after a disastrous attempt to take

Uncle Sam is in search for a pot of gold that could ease the pain of trillion-dollar deficits. And some believe Wall Street might just have the answer. For more than a decade, progressives have tried and failed to impose a financial transaction tax. But there is new momentum for such a levy as the

JPMorgan Chase and Google launched a program Tuesday to help banks owned and led by people of color increase their lending capabilities. The new initiative is dubbed “Empowering Change.” It’s designed to help banks that are majority-owned or directed by people of color provide JPMorgan-backed money market funds to large companies. Most minority depository institutions

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Monday that movie theaters would reopen in New York City next month, welcome news for an industry that has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic for nearly a year. New York has long been one of the most important markets for movie theaters. With it reopening for business, studios may be

Goodyear has agreed to buy rival Cooper for $2.8 billion. The deal will give America’s largest tire producer a much bigger footprint around the world, including in China, the world’s top car market. Goodyear was already the world’s third largest tire manufacturer after Japan’s Bridgestone and France’s Michelin. It will retain that spot after the

Hillary Clinton is working on a book with Canadian mystery novelist Louise Penny, set in the aftermath of US political chaos. The book, titled “State of Terror,” focuses on a Secretary of State who is trying to solve a wave of terrorist attacks. It will be published by Simon & Schuster and St. Martin’s Press

HSBC is pushing even harder into Asia as the bank seeks to shore up its business in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s also bringing back its dividend, a sign that it’s optimistic about its ability to navigate the year ahead. The bank — which is still headquartered in London even though it makes

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. You can sign up for free right here. More than 500,000 Americans dead from Covid. More than 500,000 lives cut short by a pandemic the rest of us will never forget. Journalists are stretching for words and illustrations and imagery to meet the