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☆ Who does inflation hit hardest? Experts weigh in on how higher prices impact households
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Jessica Dickler | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Fizkes | Istock | Getty ImagesStubborn inflation has driven households near the breaking point, but the pain of high prices has not been shared equally. The lowest-paid workers spend more of their income on necessities such as food, rent and gas, categories that also experienced higher-than-average inflation spikes. Because higher-income households spend relatively more on services, which notched smaller price increases compared with goods, they came out ahead. Middle-income households see slower wage growthBy other measures, Americans in the middle class are getting especially squeezed. watch nowEconomists' definitions of middle class vary.

Persons: Laurence Kotlikoff, Tomas Philipson, Brian Albrecht, Albrecht, Philipson, Aron Levine, Boston University's Organizations: Istock, Getty, Boston University ., White House Council, Economic, University of Pennsylvania's Wharton, Finance, International Center for Law, Economics, Congressional, Office, Pew Research Center, Bank of America Institute, Bank of, Boston, Consumer Financial, Bureau

☆ Opinion | If You’re Reading This, You’re Probably ‘WEIRD’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-26 | by ( The Ezra Klein Show | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +83 min

You’re probably very weird, and not just for all the obvious reasons you’re thinking of. Because, obviously, there’s going to be some overlap in the curve here. How you’re going to behave with your professor is quite different than how you’re going to behave with your friends. But it’s really kind of faceless, and you’re not really helping anybody you know. I think things are dynamic, and directions are changing, and that sort of thing.

☆ Using frozen Russian money for Kyiv is barmy
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

European officials are still discussing options to use the proceeds of Russia’s frozen funds to help Ukraine. Yet funnelling the money to the war-torn country, which looks justifiable on moral grounds, would set a bad precedent. Euroclear, the Belgium-based settlement house, is sitting on some 180 billion euros of Russian central bank reserves – part of the 280 billion euros Ukraine’s allies froze last year after Russia’s invasion. The clearing firm also holds another 17 billion euros from sanctioned Russian individuals. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ How to Light an Outdoor Space Without Infuriating Your Neighbors
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-23 | by ( Tim Mckeough | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But don’t forget the one thing you really need for enjoying your outdoor space at night: outdoor lighting. “From a safety standpoint, lighting is pretty important, particularly if you have any grade changes or material changes,” said Daniel Nolan, a landscape designer in San Francisco. But maybe most important of all is the magical feeling that outdoor lighting conjures. “It just changes the mood,” said Jeffrey Salcito, the founder of the Brooklyn-based garden design firm Huntergreen. “Even if a space is very industrial, just adding string lights is going to instantly make it a more enjoyable space.”

Persons: ”, Stephen Eich, Hollander, “ We’re, Daniel Nolan, Jeffrey Salcito Locations: New York, San Francisco, Brooklyn

☆ An Emo Band’s First U.S. Tour Began With a Robbery, but It Wasn’t All Sad
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Mike Ives | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

An international rock band’s first U.S. tour is a moment to be celebrated, a sign that years of hard work have paid off. “Then it really happened.”Forests and the Oklahoma band they were touring with, Ben Quad, are hardly the first musicians to be robbed while on tour in America. (In 1999, Sonic Youth famously lost an entire truck’s worth of gear to a thief, also in California.) But the experience was still a shock for a band from a country as safe as Singapore. “It was the worst luck ever,” said Chris Martinez, 29, a Forests fan from San Diego who discovered the band years ago on a business trip to Singapore.

☆ Morgan Stanley's wealth business just keeps on winning
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

It's good to be Morgan Stanley these days. Amid a difficult market for Wall Street banks — thanks in large part to non-existent deal flow — Morgan Stanley's massive wealth business has been paying off big time. But Morgan Stanley's success isn't coming in a vacuum. -Meanwhile, UBS, arguably Morgan Stanley's biggest competitor in the space, was begrudgingly saddled with Credit Suisse's carcass. With wealth advisors, a key part of hiring includes offering "bonuses" that are actually loans.

☆ Meta is younger dog learning newer new tricks
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Anita Ramaswamy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

NEW YORK, April 26 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Meta Platforms (META.O) is a full generation younger than its Big Tech peers, and it’s looking pretty fresh, too. The company's first-quarter profit announced on Wednesday beat analysts’ expectations, sending shares of the $530 billion company up 12% in after-market trading. A 3% year-over-year boost in revenue, the first such increase the company has had in a while, was a pleasant surprise. In order to grow ads 26%, the company had to slice the average price per ad by 17%. Operating expenses jumped 10% from the same period last year, giving the company a 25% operating margin for the quarter.

☆ Harry Belafonte’s complicated relationship with the civil rights movement
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Nicquel Terry Ellis | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

During the civil rights movement, he used his star power to fight against injustice, raising money for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. cofounded and led. Dr. Martin Luther King, his wife Coretta Scott King, right, and Harry Belafonte at center marching near Montgomery, Alabama, on March 24, 1965. But his relationship with the civil rights movement wasn’t always simple. Archive Photos/Getty ImagesAfter King’s death in 1968, Belafonte expressed frustration in an interview with The Washington Post about his prominent role in the civil rights movement.

☆ Buy this tobacco heavyweight on potential earnings growth, Goldman Sachs says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Brian Evans | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Goldman Sachs is bullish on a heavyweight in the tobacco industry after a sharp sell-off. The firm reiterated a buy rating on Phillip Morris stock on Thursday, with a $120 per share price target. The company reported mixed earnings on Thursday , beating on adjusted earnings per share but coming up short on revenue. Philip Morris reported $8 billion in revenue against a Wall Street consensus of $8.1 billion. PM YTD mountain Shares of tobacco giant Philip Morris are heading higher in pre-market trading a day after a sharp sell-off.

☆ Why Michael Bloomberg is the keeper of the keys on Wall Street
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Bloomberg deals in data — via its ubiquitous terminal — which serves as the lifeblood of Wall Street. (A funny nugget from the FT story: Bloomberg is not part of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In many ways, the Bloomberg terminal is the cockroach of Wall Street. Tiger Global's down bad. Here's more on Tiger Global's unique approach to investing in startups and why it backfired.

☆ CNBC Daily Open: Unrest in Elon Musk's empire
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Yeo Boon Ping | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks during the official opening of the new Tesla electric car manufacturing plant on March 22, 2022 near Gruenheide, Germany. This report is from today's CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Worries over shrinking margins despite companies beating revenue expectations are plaguing most investors — other than Musk and Wood, that is. Subscribe here to get this report sent directly to your inbox each morning before markets open.

☆ CNBC Daily Open: It’s all about Elon Musk
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Yeo Boon Ping | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the start of the production at Tesla's "Gigafactory" on March 22, 2022 in Gruenheide, southeast of Berlin. This report is from today's CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Which might be a good summary of Twitter, Musk's most contentious company — but investors needn't worry about it since Musk has taken it private, anyway. Subscribe here to get this report sent directly to your inbox each morning before markets open.

REUTERS/Agustin MarcarianBUENOS AIRES, April 14 (Reuters) - Argentines, painfully accustomed to decades of spiraling prices, say that the current 102.5%-and-climbing inflation rate is on another level and is making it almost impossible to get by. "In my case, I have zero capacity to save," said Claudia Hernansaez, a publishing company employee. "In one year, beef went from around 1,000 pesos ($4.66) or 1,200 pesos to 2,800 pesos." Paola Lavezzari, also in publishing, said inflation was forcing her to tighten the purse strings and buy cheaper products. Because what you used to consume of a better quality, today is unaffordable," she said.

☆ Big Tech employees are getting culled. Their European colleagues get stronger labor laws and softer landings.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

European Big Tech employees have better labor protections"There are regulations in Europe that apply to collective situations, based on European law: the so-called Mass Dismissal Directive," said Dr. Jordan. But in January, Twitter employees were reported to have been paid just one month's severance, according to CNN. Twitter employees in other European hubs such as Germany, Spain, Ireland, and the UK are also pushing back, with the help of the countries' labor laws and unions. Twitter employees in Germany have also worked with the Verdi union to push Twitter into making a better severance offer, Fortune reported. The process could take months instead of weeks, Brittin added — another testament to Europe's stronger labor protections for its employees.

☆ CNBC Daily Open: Deutsche Bank is not Credit Suisse
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Yeo Boon Ping | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

A Deutsche Bank AG branch in the financial district of Frankfurt, Germany, on Friday, May 6, 2022. Deutsche Bank is the latest bank to suffer a panic-driven sell-off. Deutsche Bank is not another Credit Suisse in two key aspects. By contrast, Credit Suisse had a fourth-quarter loss of 1.4 billion Swiss francs ($1.51 billion), bringing it to a full-year loss of 7.3 billion Swiss francs. On the other hand, Credit Suisse disclosed it had to use "liquidity buffers" in 2022 as the Swiss bank fell below regulatory requirements of liquidity.

Most-active CBOT soybeans on Wednesday fell to their lowest level since early December, ending nearly 6% off this month’s high. Money managers’ biggest weekly dumping of CBOT soy futures and options was about 61,400 contracts in November 2019, requiring double the weekly record for funds to be flat by the next report. Net selling in corn recently blew out a weekly record at more than 147,000 contracts in the last week of February, well past the prior high near 104,000. Despite catastrophic crop problems in Argentina, Brazil’s enormous harvest and equally enormous export program have recently weighed on the soybean market. However, the potential size of the 2023 U.S. soybean crop remains up for debate with farmers’ planting plans not yet known.

☆ A perfect storm of food-stamp cuts and low tax refunds is looming — and discount chains like Dollar General and Big Lots could feel the pain
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Avery Hartmans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Off-price retailers are worried that cuts to food stamps and smaller tax refunds will hurt sales. Tax refunds are also likely to be smaller because of the wind-down of some expanded tax credits. At the same time, certain beefed-up tax credits are no longer available, which means many taxpayers are preparing for smaller tax refunds this year. "At this point, 30% of that lower household income customer, their expenses today are greater than their income coming in. The 32 states that will wind down SNAP benefits this month join the 18 states that cut those benefits last year.

☆ As Big Tech employees get culled, their European colleagues get stronger labor laws and softer landings
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Big Tech layoffs at Meta, Twitter, Amazon and Snap have laid off thousands of workers globally. Until recently, tech employees haven't had to think too seriously about mass layoffs. European Big Tech employees have better labor protections"There are regulations in Europe that apply to collective situations, based on European law: the so-called Mass Dismissal Directive," said Dr. Jordan. But in January, Twitter employees were reported to have been paid just one month's severance, according to CNN. Twitter employees in Germany have also worked with the Verdi union to push Twitter into making a better severance offer, Fortune reported.

☆ Tech companies spoiled workers for decades. Now layoffs are bringing them down to Earth.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( Asia Martin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

The tech sector has already cut nearly 100,000 jobs this year. But for tech workers who were sold on the glamorous lifestyle these companies have provided over the last few decades, this is a blow to their self-image. It's unfortunate, Govindarajan said, but he added that these tech companies have disrupted other industries like photography, automobiles, and department stores. "There are many industries the tech sector disrupted where people got laid off. But now it's the turn of the tech sector itself," he told Insider.

☆ From 'relief' to 'not too devastated': Why some laid-off workers aren't rushing to find new jobs
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Jennifer Liu | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

That's how some recently laid-off workers view losing their jobs, despite the era of loud layoffs and ever-constant recession fears. She figured she'd be let go from her social media job at Attentive, an e-commerce startup, once her visa expired in April. Calista Tee, 28, plans to use her post-layoff time to build her social media marketing brand on TikTok and beyond. It's since taken off, and in 2022 she matched 80% of her full-time income. Without the security of full-time income, Tee plans to make small tweaks to her spending habits.

☆ CNBC Daily Open: U.S. stocks shrug off hot inflation numbers
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Yeo Boon Ping | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

This report is from today's CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. January's hotter-than-expected CPI report cast a shadow over U.S. markets yesterday. January's core CPI of 5.6% is a tiny notch lower than December's 5.7%, which means that prices are still tapering off. Subscribe here to get this report sent directly to your inbox each morning before markets open.

☆ CNBC Daily Open: U.S. inflation rose more than expected. But stocks held steady
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Yeo Boon Ping | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

This report is from today's CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. January's hotter-than-expected CPI report cast a shadow over U.S. markets yesterday. Treasury yields rose, suggesting that investors are pricing in higher interest rate hikes by the Fed. Subscribe here to get this report sent directly to your inbox each morning before markets open.

☆ PayPal CEO Dan Schulman to leave at end of 2023, company begins search for successor
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Jonathan Vanian | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Dan Schulman, CEO of Paypal, attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, July 10, 2019. PayPal said on Thursday that CEO and president Dan Schulman will retire and leave the company at the end 2023. Schulman, who became PayPal CEO after the split from eBay in 2015, notified the company of his decision to retire at the end of December. He will remain a member of PayPal's board of directors, which is hiring a search firm to find a successor. PayPal shares jumped by about 130% since the 2015 spinoff.

☆ A laid-off Meta worker says she's struggling after not getting the 16 weeks of severance her fellow employees received: 'I'm going through my kids' closet and selling their old clothes'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Jason Lalljee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Meta employees who were laid off at the end of last year received 16 weeks or more of severance pay. In addition to those four months of pay, employees were offered two additional weeks of severance for every year at the company, with no limit. Those workers received fewer weeks of severance and insurance than other Meta employees — they were given only the amount of pay necessary to comply with federal law. Beyond that, Levy told Insider that she wasn't offered any other severance pay, only three months of health insurance. But she's in a tough spot with limited severance pay, and she said that the $450 ceiling for unemployment benefits in California is not keeping up with the cost of living.

☆ Morgan Stanley upgrades Colgate-Palmolive, calls sell-off a good entry point to buy its top pick
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Alex Harring | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Colgate-Palmolive is a top stock compared with peers and it's cheap to buy right now, Morgan Stanley said. Analyst Dara Mohsenian upgraded the stock to overweight from equal weight and named it her top pick in the household and personal care industry. The note was titled, "Stock Pullback Offers a Good Entry Point into a Solid Long-Term Story." Mohsenian pointed to the company's larger-than-expected fourth quarter gross margin miss and weaker-than-anticipated 2023 earnings guidance reported Friday as drivers of the most recent sell-off. And Mohsenian said the stock has an attractive valuation, trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio when looking ahead to 2024 compared with peers.

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