By Rachel Metz, CNN Business If you believe Mark Zuckerberg, the future is virtual. Last year, Meta plowed $10 billion into Facebook Reality Labs, the part of the company that develops virtual- and augmented-reality gadgets and software. The division is responsible for bringing to life the Facebook founder’s vision of a world where virtual reality
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By Anna Bahney, CNN Business Mortgage rates rose this week, continuing an upward trend that has pushed rates more than two percentage points higher this year. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.27% in the week ending May 5, up from 5.10% the week before, according to Freddie Mac. It is the highest since 2009 and
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By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN Business In a bid to curb high inflation, the US Federal Reserve on Wednesday increased its key short-term interest rate by half a percentage point — the first hike of that magnitude in 22 years. While the US economy is still operating in a fairly low rate environment, that won’t last
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By Rachel Metz, CNN Business On a recent April afternoon I tossed a few things into a basket at Target — cereal, graham crackers, kids’ sunglasses — then sat down at the end of an aisle filled with beauty items, placed a hand into a box-like machine, and let a robot paint my fingernails. Made
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By Julia Horowitz, CNN Business When the Federal Reserve decides it’s necessary to pursue the biggest interest rate hike since 2000, you wouldn’t expect a moment of celebration on Wall Street. But that’s exactly what happened on Wednesday. The S&P 500 jumped 3%, logging its best day in almost two years. The Dow rose 2.8%,
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By Chris Isidore, CNN Business To buy Twitter, Elon Musk just sold a ton of stock and made a boatload of money on the sale. But because of a US tax law quirk, Musk’s stock sale could give him an enormous tax break. Musk last month sold $8.5 billion worth of Tesla shares for more
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By Anneken Tappe, CNN Business The days of millions of job gains per month are behind us and the US labor market recovery has moved into a new phase, complete with new challenges: It’s not that companies don’t want to hire, it’s that there were nearly two available positions for every unemployed person as of
Continue Reading By Anneken Tappe, CNN Business The days of millions of job gains per month are behind us and the US labor market recovery has moved into a new phase, complete with new challenges: It’s not that companies don’t want to hire, it’s that there were nearly two available positions for every unemployed person as of
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By Esha Mitra and Rhea Mogul, CNN A 13-year-old girl who was allegedly gang-raped by four men in India, was allegedly raped again by a police officer after she tried to seek his help in reporting the initial attack. Authorities in Uttar Pradesh confirmed Wednesday a police officer had been arrested in connection with the
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By Laura He, CNN Business China’s gigantic services sector just contracted at the second sharpest pace on record as Covid lockdowns hit businesses hard. The Caixin purchasing managers’ index, a closely-watched indicator for assessing the state of the economy, plummeted to 36.2 in April from 42 in March, according to a survey released by IHS
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By Jackie Wattles, CNN Business Three NASA astronauts and a European astronaut are returning home from the International Space Station, capping off their six-month mission during which they worked alongside Russian cosmonauts and hosted the first all-private crew to visit the orbiting outpost. The crew climbed aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule after midnight and
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By Brian Fung, CNN New York City pension fund officials sued Activision Blizzard late last month in a bid to force the company to disclose records that may uncover whether CEO Bobby Kotick breached his fiduciary duty to investors, according to a newly released copy of the complaint. The complaint by the New York City
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By Matt Egan, CNN Business The Federal Reserve is stepping up its war on inflation. That means borrowing costs are going sharply higher for families and businesses. The US central bank increased its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point on Wednesday, which is the biggest single hike since 1994. This follows the
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By Allison Morrow, CNN Business Around the world, warning signs of a recession are flashing. Wall Street is on edge. Central banks are hiking interest rates to try to rein in inflation. And geopolitical upheaval is exacerbating supply chain headaches that began in 2020. “We will get a major recession,” Deutsche Bank economists warned last
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Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Elon Musk said Twitter might soon charge fees for certain users, as the billionaire continues to tease how he might change the platform as its new owner. Musk, who struck a roughly $44 billion deal to buy Twitter last week, said in a tweet the platform will “always be free for
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By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Airbnb is once again trying to stop people from using its platform to host unauthorized parties ahead of key summer holidays. The company said Wednesday it will be instituting “strict anti-party measures” for Memorial Day weekend for the first time and will reapply the same approach for July 4th
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By Frank Pallotta, CNN Business It’s May the 4th, a day for Star Wars nerds to geek out on Luke Skywalker, lightsabers and the Millennium Falcon. So why are so many sci fi fans talking about Spock, phasers and the USS Enterprise? Even though May 4th is known as “Star Wars Day” (as in, “May
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By Matt Egan, CNN Business Turmoil on Wall Street is a feature, not a bug, of the Federal Reserve’s fight against inflation, according to former New York Federal Reserve President Bill Dudley. “What’s happening right now is exactly what the Federal Reserve wants to happen,” Dudley told CNN in an interview, referring to recent volatility
Continue Reading Opinion by Paul Hockenos for CNN Business Perspectives Russia’s announcement last week that it was halting all gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria may have sounded like a bombshell, perhaps even presaging a complete suspension of gas flows to all of Europe. This certainly was Russian president Vladimir Putin’s intent: to strike fear into the
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By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business Intuit, the owner of tax filing software TurboTax, has agreed to pay $141 million in a settlement with all 50 states for allegedly steering millions of low-income Americans away from free tax-filing services. The settlement, announced Wednesday by New York Attorney General Letitia James, said about 4.4 million customers were
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