Business category, Page 208
Super Bowl ads aim to entertain with light humorVideo
As the Tampa Bay Buccaneers take on the Kansas City Chiefs during Super Bowl 55 in Tampa Bay, Florida, a different kind of action is taking place off the field. After a year of pandemic fear and isolation and a tumultuous election, brands are waging battle during the game’s commercial...
Stocks rise on Wall Street, despite dismal jobs report
Stocks were moving higher in afternoon trading on Friday, despite the fact that Wall Street got a dismal jobs report for January that showed the U.S. economy remaining in dire straits due to the pandemic. Investors continue to hope that more help for the economy is on the way from...
End of an era: Last 2 Kmart stores in Pa. to close
It appears to be an end of an era. Kmart, the store known for its discount prices and its “blue light specials” is closing its last two stores in Pennsylvania. The last two Kmart stores in the state including the last Kmart in the midstate will be closing in Transformco’s...
U.S. employers add just 49K jobs as unemployment falls to 6.3%
WASHINGTON — U.S employers added just 49,000 jobs in January, a sign that that the viral pandemic retains a tight grip on the economy nearly a year after it triggered a painful recession. The tepid increase followed a decline of 227,000 jobs in December, the first loss since April. The...
U.S. trade deficit rises to 12-year high $679 billion
WASHINGTON — The U.S. trade deficit rose 17.7% last year to $679 billion, highest since 2008, as the coronavirus disrupted global commerce and confounded President Donald Trump’s attempts to rebalance America’s trade with the rest of the world. The gap between the value of the goods and services the United...
City Brewing in Latrobe pondering next move after losing Iron City accountVideo
The Latrobe brewery once home to Rolling Rock beer in its classic green bottles is poised to lose another iconic local brew: Iron City Beer. Pittsburgh Brewing Co. announced plans to make its popular lager at a former glass plant in East Deer. The company revealed late Wednesday it will...
More GameStops possible as small investors flex muscles
LOS ANGELES — GameStop and a handful of other stocks whose meteoric rise last month shocked Wall Street began falling back to Earth this week. But the campaign that briefly pushed GameStop up by 1,600% at the expense of hedge funds that were betting it would lose value, known as...
Solid company earnings and hopes for aid send stocks higher
Stocks moved higher in early trading on Thursday, helped by strong company earnings as well as optimism that Washington can reach a deal for another round of fiscal stimulus for the millions of Americans who need it. The S&P 500 index was up 0.4% as of 9:55 a.m. Eastern. The...
U.S. unemployment claims fall to 779,000 but job cuts grind on
WASHINGTON — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits declined to 779,000 last week, a still-historically high total that shows that a sizable number of people keep losing jobs to the viral pandemic. Last week’s total dropped from 812,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday, and is the...
Parler CEO John Matze says he’s been terminated by company’s board
Parler, the social media platform partial to the far right, has dismissed its CEO John Matze, according to several media outlets. Matze confirmed the decision in a text to Reuters, which was originally reported by Fox News. Parler CEO John Matze said he was fired on Friday by the social-media...
Major stock indexes end with modest gains on Wall Street
Wall Street capped a choppy day of trading with modest gains Wednesday, as investors focused on some strong earnings reports from Big Tech companies while remaining cautiously optimistic that Washington will deliver more economic stimulus. The S&P 500 inched up 0.1% after swinging between a gain of 0.6% and a...
GameStop’s stupefying stock rise doesn’t hide its reality
NEW YORK — Behind GameStop’s stock surge is the grim reality of its prospects: The video game retailer is floundering even as the industry around it is booming. GameStop has been swept up in a battle between big-moneyed hedge funds betting against it and small investors trying to prop it...
Pittsburgh region struggles to recover as unemployment rises slightly
The Pittsburgh area’s recovery from depths of the pandemic-caused recession slowed in December, as 5,300 jobs were lost in the region, pushing the unemployment rate up slightly at the end of the year, the state said Tuesday. “We‘re still kind of scuffling along,” said Frank Gamrat, executive director of the...
Dick’s Sporting Goods sues Baseball Reference over GameChanger trademark infringement
A Dick’s Sporting Goods subsidiary is suing the company that operates the popular Baseball Reference website, alleging trademark infringement. GameChanger, which is owned by Dick’s, is a software application for youth baseball and softball. The app provides statistics tracking, as well as the ability to live stream games. According to...
Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, will step down as CEO
NEW YORK — Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon as an online bookstore and built it into a shopping and entertainment behemoth, will step down later this year as CEO, a role he’s had for nearly 30 years, to become executive chairman, the company announced Tuesday. Bezos, 57, will be replaced...
Tesla to fix touch screens, ending spat with U.S. regulators
After initially refusing a request from U.S. safety regulators, Tesla has now agreed to recall about 135,000 vehicles because the large touch screens on the console can go dark. The recall of certain 2012 through 2018 Model S sedans and 2016 through 2018 Model X SUVs ends a fight with...
Headquarters helix: Amazon reveals eye-catching office tower in Virginia
FALLS CHURCH, Va. — Amazon revealed plans Tuesday for the next phase of its headquarters redevelopment in Virginia, featuring a signature 350-foot helix-shaped office tower that can be climbed from the outside like a mountain hike. The head-turning helix building is the centerpiece of the proposal that also features multiple...
Online shopping surge delivers record revenue for UPS
NEW YORK — A surge in online shopping helped UPS post record revenue during the last three months of 2020. Shares of United Parcel Service Inc. rose 5% before the stock market opened Tuesday. UPS and other delivery companies have benefited as more people shop online during the pandemic and...
Pfizer swings to small profit as vaccines begin to roll out
Pfizer, the first company to get U.S. emergency use authorization for a covid-19 vaccine, swung to a small profit in the fourth-quarter as it started shipping vaccines globally. The drugmaker expects roughly $15 billion in revenue this year from the vaccine, which won emergency clearance in mid-December in the U.S....
Kennametal quarterly earnings up
Strong sales for the October through December quarter combined with savings from its restructuring and modernization initiatives helped to boost the quarterly net income of Kennametal Inc. to $20.2 million and earnings to 23 cents per share, a turnaround from losses a year ago, the metalworking toolmaker said Monday. Pittsburgh-based...
John Dorfman: Value or momentum? How about some of both?
You might think, in the aftermath of Tesla and GameStop’s huge recent gains, that momentum investing has gone crazy. Maybe so, but momentum stocks were popular even before the Reddit “Wall Street Bets” frenzy. There have always been folks who like to jump onto a speeding train, but they have...
Wall Street recovers some of last week’s drop, silver climbsVideo
Stocks notched broad gains Monday on Wall Street, clawing back some of their losses following the market’s worst weekly loss since October. The S&P 500 rose 1.6%. The benchmark index was coming off a 3.3% slide last week, when volatility spiked as online traders hoping to inflict damage on hedge...
CBO projects 4.6% growth in Biden’s first year, jobs lag
The economy is projected to grow at a robust 4.6% annual rate this year, but employment isn’t expected to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday. The 10-year outlook said the economic recovery from the coronavirus got a boost from an unprecedented wave of government...
Giant Eagle lauded for LGBTQ workplace policies
Giant Eagle was named tops in corporate policies related to LGBTQ workplace quality, in part for its equitable benefits and fostering an inclusive culture, according to a national benchmarking survey. The O’Hara-based company earned a score of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2021 Corporate Equality Index (CEI). “We...
Wall Street’s GameStop bug may have mutated; silver surgesVideo
NEW YORK — The erratic trading in shares of underdog companies like GameStop that turned markets combustible last week appears to have migrated to commodities, sending silver prices surging to an eight-year high. Silver futures jumped more than 9% on Monday to $29.42 per ounce with #silversqueeze trending on Twitter....
