Business Matters with Don Ma

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is cashing in. He is selling 5 billion dollar-worth of Amazon stock as shares hit an all-time high. Amazon stock is up more than 30% so far this year. Two of the most popular high-end department stores are joining forces. The parent company of luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue have agreed to buy neiman marcus. The deal is expected to be worth more than $2.5 billion....

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has issued a stark warning against using the Temu marketplace app, labeling it a "data theft business." His office filed a lawsuit alleging Temu uses malware to access personal data. The app, operated by China-based Pinduoduo Inc., is accused of invasive data collection practices. Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have soared almost 50% in five years. That's a...

Italian investigators discovered exploited foreign workers making Armand and Dior luxury handbags, among other goods. Luxury brands have high price tags, partly because consumers expect them to be made by skilled workers in artisanal workshops. A study found that exam papers completed by Artificial Intelligence software went undetected 94% of the time. Bans on using AI-like ChatGPT have proven to...

After the Chevron ruling, today came Corner Post. The supreme court on July 1 made it easier for American businesses to challenge federal regulations. The highest Court ruled 6-3 that a retailer can challenge the fees the Federal Reserve System allows banks to charge for processing debit card transactions, despite not filing the challenge before the usual six-year cutoff. This will allow...

The Supreme Court overruling Chevron deference could have a major effect on business in the United States. The ruling strips power from federal agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency. Uber and Lyft have just agreed to pay their drivers $32.50 an hour in Massachusetts. That's about $70,000 a year, if the drivers work a standard week. They would...

It looks like Boeing is in trouble again. So it spoke in a briefing this morning about the door plug that flew off a 737 Max back in January. But government safety regulators say Boeing wasn’t allowed to speak to the media like that. Bank of America says U-S home prices will stay high and the housing shortage will continue. And, as a kicker - mortgage rates aren't going to fall much. Tripe whammy....

Home flippers earned a 30.2% gross profit nationwide before expenses on homes sold during the first quarter of 2024, up from 27.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023. This is according to real estate data firm ATTOM. Home flipping activity also went up. Amazon.com Inc hit $2 trillion in market value for the first time on Wednesday, becoming the fifth U.S. company to surpass that level as optimis...

Microsoft is in trouble with the EU over its popular collaboration app Teams, and could face a big fine. Antitrust regulators charged the U.S. tech giant on Tuesday (June 25) of illegally bundling the product with its Office software, making it hard for rivals to compete. Tesla said on Tuesday it was recalling most Cybertrucks in the United States over issues with their windshield wipers...

Apple is in hot water with European authorities again. EU antitrust regulators said Monday the company's App Store conditions breach the bloc's tech rules. They accuse the U.S. tech giant of preventing app developers from steering consumer to alternative offers. It's a charge which could lead to a large fine for the iPhone maker. The accusation against Apple is the first by the Euro...

National Association of Realtors report home prices rose to a record high in May, with median price now $419k. According to Zillow, households would need to save more than $127,000, to make a down payment on a typical home and afford the mortgage payment. Former president trump yesterday floated a proposal to automatically give green cards to foreign students graduating from American colleges, so...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday signed a bill that would allow parents to block their children from getting social media posts suggested by a platform's algorithm, a move to limit feeds critics argue are addictive. McDonald’s has revealed the details of its highly anticipated $5 value meal, which the fast food chain hopes will rev up sluggish sales. Mortgage rates fell this week to their lo...

A five-year investigation by U.S. officials has uncovered a complex partnership between one of Mexico’s most notorious drug cartels and Chinese underground banking groups in the U.S. that laundered money from the sale of fentanyl, cocaine and other drugs, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. Legacy U.S. automakers such as Ford Motor and General Motors should leave the China market to preser...

U.S. senators on Tuesday blasted the CEO of Boeing for the planemaker's tarnished safety record, overshadowing his apology to families who lost loved ones in two 737 MAX crashes and acceptance of responsibility after a January mid-air emergency. U.S. retail sales barely rose in May and data for the prior month was revised considerably lower, suggesting that economic activity remained lackluster in...

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Monday called for a warning label to be added to social media apps as a reminder that those platforms have caused mental health harm to young people, especially adolescents. China has opened an anti-dumping investigation into imported pork and its by-products from the European Union, a step that appears mainly aimed at Spain, the N...

Wells Fargo last month terminated over a dozen employees after reviewing allegations that they were involved in simulation of keyboard activity, creating an impression of active work, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. Consumer sentiment deteriorated in June as households worried about inflation and incomes, a survey showed on Friday. Federal authorities and Boeing are trying...

Tesla shareholders approved CEO Elon Musk's $56 billion pay package, the electric vehicle-maker said on Thursday, a big thumbs-up to his leadership and an enticement for keeping his focus on his biggest source of wealth. The head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Thursday the agency was too hands off in oversight of Boeing before a January mid-air emergency in a new Alaska Airlines...

U.S. consumer prices were unexpectedly unchanged in May as cheaper gasoline and other goods offset higher costs for rental housing, but inflation remains too high for the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates before September. The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday and pushed out the start of rate cuts to perhaps as late as December, with officials pro...

Billionaire Elon Musk said on Monday he would ban Apple devices at his companies if the iPhone maker integrates OpenAI at the operating system level. The National Federation of Independent Business has released its latest data. Its Small Business Optimism Index rose and so did its Uncertainty Index, to its highest reading since November 2020. Once again, small business owners n...

Apple unveiled a long-awaited AI strategy on Monday, integrating its new "Apple Intelligence" technology across its suite of apps including Siri and partnering with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to its devices. Certain smartphone apps, some of which aren’t directly related to driving, track driver behavior and send the data to insurance companies. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a bid by...

The U.S. economy created far more jobs than expected in May and annual wage growth reaccelerated, adding pressure on the Federal Reserve to hold off on interest rate cuts. Stock influencer Keith Gill's first livestream in three years failed to spark enough investor enthusiasm in GameStop on Friday to reverse a nearly 40% slump in the shopping mall retailer's stock after it unveiled a share sale to...

One of the most downloaded news app in the United States, named Newsbreak appears to has ties to China, and is allegedly producing fake news using artificial intelligence. In one example, the app published a piece about a small town shooting in Bridgeton, New Jersey, but the shooting never took place. The European Central Bank went ahead with its first interest rate cut since 2019 on Thursday, cit...

Boeing's new Starliner capsule flew its first crew of astronauts to orbit on Wednesday from Florida in a much-delayed test mission to the International Space Station, a milestone in the aerospace giant's ambitions to step up its competition with Elon Musk's SpaceX. Walmart will pay bonuses to its U.S. hourly store workers, including those at its pharmacy and Vision Center stores, the ret...

Royalty payments from drug companies to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) jumped following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, according to a new report from nonprofit government watchdog “OpenTheBooks.com”. It says, in 2022 and 2023, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies paid the NIH over $710 million in third-party royalties. A group of current and former employees at artificial intelligence...

GameStop shares jumped around 20% on Monday after the stocks influencer known as "Roaring Kitty" returned to Reddit with a post showing a $116 million bet on the embattled video game retailer. Former President Donald Trump gained over 4 million followers within a day of joining TikTok, surpassing the follower count of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign on the Chinese-owned video-sharin...

Today is the first day after former president Donald Trump’s historic felony conviction in New York. Trump vows to fight the verdict, and we get reactions from a financial analyst and people on Wall Street. U.S. inflation tracked sideways in April and consumer spending weakened, mixed signals for the Federal Reserve that provided little clarity on whether the U.S. central bank will be able to begi...