By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN Business When Christine Martinez found out last month that Kroger and Albertsons planned to merge in a deal worth nearly $25 billion, she thought, “here we go again.” Martinez lost her job as a pharmacy technician in the aftermath of a prior supermarket mega-merger: Albertsons’ $9 billion tie-up with Safeway in
Continue Reading By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Snapchat’s parent company is asking workers to return to the office 80% of the time, or the equivalent of four days a week, beginning early next year, in the latest sign of tech employees receiving less flexibility nearly three years after the pandemic took hold and amid a wave of
Continue Reading By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN Business Americans dished out for toys, televisions and clothing on Black Friday and into the holiday weekend, despite decades-high inflation and a potential recession looming in 2023. The National Retail Federation, a trade group for the retail industry, said a record 196 million Americans shopped in stores and online over the
Continue Reading By Anna Bahney, CNN Business Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will raise the limits of government-backed loans to a record level for 2023, with the maximum loan limit hitting more than $1 million for high-cost areas, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced Tuesday. Even as the real estate market has cooled in the
Continue Reading By Paul R. La Monica, CNN Business Tech stocks have taken a nasty tumble this year, but some are doing even worse than others. Exhibit A: software giant Salesforce. Shares of Salesforce have plunged about 40% so far in 2022. That makes it the second-worst performer in the Dow, trailing only chip leader Intel. Salesforce
Continue Reading By Frank Pallotta, CNN Business AMC Networks is looking for a new CEO and plans to lay off 20% of its US workforce. After less than three months on the job, Christina Spade stepped down from the role, the cable network announced Tuesday. AMC said that its board of directors is “currently finalizing who it
Continue Reading By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business For the holidays, McDonald’s is giving away free meals for life. Well, sort of. Beginning December 5, every order completed in the McDonald’s app for at least $1 will enter customers into a contest to win a McGold Card. Three winners will get a special card that earns them free
Continue Reading By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business For the holidays, McDonald’s is giving away free meals for life. Well, sort of. Beginning December 5, every order completed in the McDonald’s app for at least $1 will enter customers into a contest to win a McGold Card. Three winners will get a special card that earns them free
Continue Reading By Alicia Wallace, CNN Business US consumer confidence fell in November as inflation and economic uncertainty continued to loom large and potentially dampen holiday shopping plans. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index measured 100.2 for the month, lower than the downwardly revised 102.2 in October. The index is at its lowest level since July, when
Continue Reading By Paul R. La Monica, CNN Business The CEO of one of the nation’s largest banks is preparing for an economic downturn in 2023. But he’s also hopeful that the likely recession will be brief and “mild.” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said in an exclusive interview with Poppy Harlow on “CNN This Morning”
Continue Reading By Paul R. La Monica, CNN Recession alarm bells are sounding. But are they premature? Yes, retail sales tumbled in December as inflation took its toll on consumers. The manufacturing sector is contracting. And several prominent CEOs are talking about the increased likelihood of a downturn during recent quarterly earnings conference calls. But the United
Continue Reading By Chris Isidore and Matt McFarland, CNN Business President Joe Biden was in the unusual position Tuesday of being praised by business interests and attacked by his normal allies in the labor movement after calling for Congress to move immediately to block a strike by more than 100,000 union members at the nation’s freight railroads
Continue Reading By Chris Isidore, CNN Business Most labor disputes never end up being debated in Congress. But thanks to a nearly century-old law that regulates labor relations only when it comes to railroads and airlines, what otherwise would be strictly an economic issue became a political one. The Railway Labor Act was passed in 1926 as
Continue Reading By Nicole Goodkind, CNN Business Protests against China’s prolonged and restrictive Covid regulations spread across the country over the weekend. The demonstrations against Chinese President Xi Jinping and his costly zero-Covid policy are an exceedingly rare case of widespread civil disobedience. While the protests represent an unprecedented challenge for Xi, they also carry economic and
Continue Reading By Donie O’Sullivan, CNN Business Twitter said it will no longer enforce its longstanding Covid misinformation policy, yet another sign of how Elon Musk plans to transform the social media company he bought a month ago. In 2020, Twitter developed an extensive set of rules that sought to prohibit “harmful misinformation” about the virus and
Continue Reading By Chris Isidore, CNN Business Tracy Easterling spent about an hour Sunday shopping at Sears, which used to be one of her favorite stores. She ended up with nothing to show for it but memories. Easterling was at the Sears in her hometown of Jersey City, New Jersey, one of only 15 full-line Sears stores
Continue Reading By Diksha Madhok, CNN Business Bitfront, a crypto exchange backed by Japanese social media app Line, is shutting down after failing to overcome turmoil in the industry. The announcement by the US-based exchange comes at a time when the market for digital assets is grappling with financial contagion unleashed by the spectacular collapse of another
Continue Reading Simone McCarthy, CNN Business Shanghai Disneyland has been closed again because of China’s Covid restrictions, just days after reopening following a previous pandemic-related closure. The theme park will close from Tuesday, November 29 “to follow the requirement of pandemic prevention and control,” Shanghai Disney Resort said in a statement on Tuesday. “We will notify guests
Continue Reading By Laura He, CNN Business The rare protests that spread across China over the weekend often featured demonstrators holding pieces of blank white paper, a phenomenon that has caused problems for the country’s top stationery chain. In a symbolic protest against censorship, young demonstrators held up sheets of white paper — a metaphor for the
Continue Reading By Laura He, CNN Business The rare protests that spread across China over the weekend often featured demonstrators holding pieces of blank white paper, a phenomenon that has caused problems for the country’s top stationery chain. In a symbolic protest against censorship, young demonstrators held up sheets of white paper — a metaphor for the
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