Restructurings and uncertainty are hitting the US consumer sector. Retail M&A deal volume dropped 11 percent year-on-year to 459 deals, while deal value dropped 36 percent to US$76.87 billion. Consumer M&A activity...more
BlackRock Inc. will sell out of all companies “that get more than 25% of sales from thermal coal.” This threshold, however, won’t affect larger, diversified miners—which includes some of the biggest coal shippers....more
Google announced late Tuesday that co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are “stepping down from executive roles at Google’s parent company, Alphabet.” Google CEO Sundar Pichai will now helm both operations, while Page and...more
We Work’s largest investor, SoftBank, is reportedly sketching out plans in which it would drop billions of additional money on the company in return for giving Masa Son control of WeWork “and further sidelin[ing] its founder...more
Jobs report Friday again. Which, after February’s dismal numbers, is carrying extra importance today. We’ll be keeping an eye on US manufacturing, among other things. Here’s what to watch....more
Fascinating weekend feature from the Journal exploring how Sears Roebuck went from the dominant force in American retailing to the bankrupt shell of a company that it is now—all within a period of just 40 years....more
We’ve got details on China’s proposed trade peace deal along with thoughts on whether it’ll be sufficient to satisfy a White House that’s been itching for a fight....more
We’ve already considered what the arrest of Huawei’s CFO will mean for the trade war between the U.S. and China. Now let’s dig in to what that move—and a host of recent country-level rejections of Huawei’s 5G...more
GM’s Monday announcement about cutting 14,000 North American jobs drew the ire of the White House yesterday, which threatened to “end federal tax credits” that have helped subsidize the company’s electric-vehicle fleet....more
Saudi Arabia is pushing OPEC and its allies to cut oil production in 2019, and it’s doing its own part by exporting 500,000 fewer barrels a day in December than now—all an attempt to “counter the price rout battering the...more
Markets around the world took a beating yesterday amidst concerns about steel tariffs and other rising commodity costs, an economic slowdown in China, and brewing trouble in the EU. US stocks rallied by the end of the day to...more
The Federal Reserve bank released the minutes from its September meeting yesterday. Among other things, we learned that the Fed Governors moved largely in lockstep on September’s rate hike, even as the crew was less unanimous...more
Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink have joined JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon and a growing list of other business titans who have withdrawn from Saudi Arabia’s “Davos in the Desert” investment conference...more
Dealbook gives us this uncomfortable take on China’s “nuclear option” in the trade war with the United States—its holdings of more than $1 trillion in US foreign debt and the possibility of stepping back from buying (or even...more
The rise of tariffs as a trade weapon has put the WTO in a very difficult position as “chief judge in an intense fight among its most powerful members”....more
Former NJ Senator and Governor Jon Corzine has reached a $5 million settlement with regulators over the collapse of his MF Global firm, which filed bankruptcy in 2011 and lost more than $1 billion in customer investments....more