Business Matters with Don Ma

Former President Donald Trump says that, if he becomes President, he should have a say in the fed's interest rate decisions - a policy that impacts the world economy. Stellantis is laying off almost 2,500 factory workers from an assembly plant outside of Detroit. The automaker is ending production of the Ram 1500 Classic truck. The layoffs will be effective as early as Oct. 8, the company said.

JP Morgan now raising the odds of a recession by the end of this year to 35-percent. That’s up from 25-percent. The news comes after a weaker than expected July jobs report and the sharp sell-off in global equities over the unwinding of the yen-funded carry trades. American budgets are being stretched. A new report shows the average credit card balance is more than $6,300 and more are falling behi...

$17-point-eight trillion dollars. That's the latest number for U-S household debt on, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. And the largest on record. Auto loan and mortgage debt rose and credit card debt reached an all-time high. Important news for investors coming out of Japan today. The country's central bank signalling it will hold off raising interest rates while markets are quot...

We've been covering how the unwinding of a popular trade has rippled through global markets. JP Morgan and UBS saying today that the unwind is only 50% done. For years, investors around the world have been taking advantage of Japan's 0% interest rate policy. The low rates in essence allowed investors to borrow money for next to nothing, and use it to buy stocks, bonds, or anything else in the glob...

All three major US indexes in the deep red today. And it wasn't just the United States. Japan's Nikkei closing over 12% lower today. It's worst day since 1987. That's when Black Monday hit Wall Street. We look at what the unwinding of the yen carry trade may have to do with it. A federal judge has ruled that Google’s payments to make its search engine the default browser violates U-S antitrust law...

The US economy added just 114,000 jobs compared to 175,000 expected. The unemployment rate rising to its highest level since October 2021. This is all according to new government data released today. Hourly wages rose just 3.6% from July 2023, the smallest year-over-year gain since May 2021. The big loser on Wall Street today is Intel. The company's stock falling a massive 27%. It's now down 50% i...

The stock market flashing red today as warning signs flash in other areas of the economy too. Weekly jobless claims now at an 11-month high. Today's labor market report also showing also the total number of people on jobless rolls is at the highest since 2021. Manufacturing data suggesting a slow down in the broader US economy. ISM data showing the manufacturing sector contracted in July for the f...

Chairman Jerome Powell today acknowledging weakness in the jobs market and the economy. He says the broad sense among the Fed committee is that things may be deteriorating to a point where the economy will soon need stimulus. That could come as soon as September in the form of a rate cut. 500 million dollars. That’s how much Delta says the CrowdStrike-Microsoft outage will cost the airline. Delta...

Microsoft Shares down over 6% in after-hours trading. Revenue from Microsoft's flagship cloud product Azure disappointing. We talk to RP Capital Solutions CIO, Vijay Marolia. Facebook parent company Meta's shares down over half a percent today. It will pay a $1.4 billion settlement to Texas over claims the company used biometric data of users without permission. The Texas lawsuit alleged that Meta...

2023 saw the worst underwriting loss in a century for home insurers. That’s according to rating agency A-M Best. It found insurance providers were hit with a 15-billion dollar net underwriting loss. That’s when an insurance company has to pay out more in claims than expected. The Justice Department is asking a federal appeals court to uphold law that would ban TikTok. It gives Chinese owner ByteDa...

The maker of Artificial Intelligence Chat-Bot ChatGPT announcing its most direct challenge yet to google's search engine. OpenAI is testing SearchGPT. it will combine its AI technology with information from the web to allow people to search for things in the same way they talk to ChatGPT. 57% of Google's revenue in 2023 came from search. The stock market rallies, despite latest government inflatio...

Interest Payments Now 76% of Total Personal Taxes; Southwest Dropping Open Seating Policy The US National debt is about to hit 35 trillion dollars. US national debt is about to hit 35 trillion dollars. The gross interest on that debt is now massive. As a comparison, it’s 76% of all personal income taxes collected every year. These are the latest numbers from the fed. Southwest Airlines shares risi...

Tesla stock plummeting a day after posting 2nd quarter earnings. Car sales, its main business, down 9 percent year-over-year, at 18.5 billion dollars. Higher costs did not help: net income down 45 percent, at 1.5 billion. CEO Elon Musk immediately addressing this in the earnings call. Crowdstrike says a “bug” caused the global tech outage last week. Delta says delays and cancellations will be reso...

With wage gains failing to keep up with inflation Americans are struggling. A new poll finding 39% of Americans can’t pay bills. The FTA will investigate Detla over flight delays caused by a global tech outage. Delta says it will cooperate with the investigation. A small Maine leather maker has been chosen by Ralph Lauren to make the belts worn by team USA at the Olympics. NTD spoke with the owner...

Vice President Kamala Harris emerges as the favorite to win the democratic nomination for President. Nancy Pelosi and other top democrats are endorsing her. What would her economic policies look like if she became president? Criminals are stealing delivery drivers’ e-bikes in New York City. Now, the drivers are banding together to fight back. Tesla is delaying the rollout of its humanoid robots fo...

A worldwide tech outage ripples through critical infrastructure. One cybersecurity expert tells us over a billion computers have been hit. Price cuts are becoming much more common in the Florida housing market. Is it a sign of things to come for the rest of the country? Commercial real estate is become a headache for regional banks. They’re putting more money aside to cover potential loan losses.

We unpacking the economic policies of former president Trump's running mate: Ohio Senator J-D Vance. Vance is a successful businessman and venture capitalist. But he's also pro-American worker and pro-union. Trump implemented a somewhat unconventional republican economic plan when he was in office -- raising tariffs on foreign goods and creating incentives for American business...

SpaceX will be taking off from California and not returning. Founder Elon Musk will be moving his headquarters for the aerospace company and his social media company X to Texas. Musk said his announcement was spurred by a new California law, which he called the “last straw.”   Even the possibility of tension in Taiwan can impact the market. In a recent interview, Republica...

One of the largest trade unions in America says it’s not beholden to any political party. The teamsters have supported democrats for decades. But, its president gave a speech at the Republican National Convention last night, the first time in over a hundred years. High interest rates continue to plague the American consumer and financial institutions. Bank of America has reported a drop in it...

Almost all of AT&T's customers, have had their text and call records stolen! Although, the content of the texts and calls have not been. European regulators have charged Elon Musk’s X with breaching its Digital Services Act. they are accusing the platform of misleading its users among other violations. Musk denies the claims saying he looks forward to a public trial where the European people c...

The federal government is spending $1.7 billion to modernize automobile manufacturing facilities, helping the industry compete with foreign subsidies and create and protect jobs. The U.S. annual inflation rate eased for the third consecutive month and came in below the consensus estimate, offering the Federal Reserve further evidence that progress is being made in returning to the central bank’s 2...

Elon Musk has won dismissal of $500 million lawsuit which claimed some Twitter employees did not receive adequate severance when they were laid off after musk took over. Microsoft has given up its board observer seat at OpenAI in a move seemingly aimed at easing U.S. and UK antitrust regulators' concerns about the extent of its control over the AI startup amid the soaring popularity of genera...

The chairman of the Federal Reserve today acknowledging the jobs market is cooling. But he says he's increasingly confident that inflation is on its way down to a more normal level. A United Airlines Boeing 757-200 plane lost a wheel from its landing gear while taking off from Los Angeles International Airport on Monday but managed to land safely in Denver. As the S&P 500 has soared, fewe...

Boeing will plead guilty to a criminal charge of defrauding the U.S. government over the deadly 2018 and 2019 737 Max crashes that killed 346 people, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a July 7 filing. Paramount Global’s board of directors has approved a merger with Skydance Media, endorsing a deal that would combine one of Hollywood’s oldest studios with the up-and-coming productio...

JP Morgan says Chase customers should get ready to pay for run-of-the-mill checking accounts. That's if the U.S. government caps the bank's other fees. But the head of JPMorgan owned Chase Bank told the Wall Street Journal that if this revenue source dries up, customers will have to fork out in other ways. New fans, new excitement, new sponsors. All tha...