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  • Russia to cut oil output by 5% as sanctions bite | CNN Business

    Russia to cut oil output by 5% as sanctions bite | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Russia will cut crude oil production by half a million barrels per day starting in March, a little over two months after the world’s major economies imposed a price cap on the country’s seaborne exports.

    “We will not sell oil to those who directly or indirectly adhere to the principles of the price ceiling,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in a statement. “In relation to this, Russia will voluntarily reduce production by 500,000 barrels per day in March. This will contribute to the restoration of market relations.”

    The cut is equivalent to about 5% of Russian oil output.

    Futures prices for Brent crude, the global benchmark, jumped 2.7% Friday to $86 a barrel as traders anticipated a tightening in global supply. US oil gained 1% to trade at $79 a barrel.

    In June last year, the European Union agreed to phase out all seaborne imports of Russian crude oil within the following six months as part of unprecedented Western sanctions aimed at reducing Moscow’s ability to fund its war in Ukraine.

    In a move aimed at further tightening the screws, G7 countries and the European Union agreed in December to cap the price at which Western brokers, insurers and shippers can trade Russia’s seaborne oil for markets elsewhere at $60 a barrel. Earlier this month, EU countries also banned imports of Russia’s diesel and refined oil imports.

    Novak warned that the crude oil price cap could lead to “a decrease in investment in the oil sector and, accordingly, an oil shortage.”

    Neil Crosby, a senior analyst at oil data firm OilX, told CNN that a 500,000 barrel-a-day cut is not the “worst-case scenario” and is still a smaller hit to Russian production than most analysts were expecting last year.

    “But it sets a precedent for further cuts ahead if necessary or desired by Russian authorities,” Crosby said, adding that Moscow could be anticipating difficulty in finding enough demand for its crude.

    Russian Urals crude traded at a discount to Brent crude of $28 a barrel on Friday. Over the past few months, India and China have snapped up cheap oil from Moscow, just as the EU — once Russia’s biggest customer for crude — has ended all imports.

    “Russia currently has a limited pool of buyers for its crudes and has likely found a ceiling to its export sales in the near term, primarily to China and India,” said Alan Gelder, vice president of refining, chemicals and oil markets at Wood Mackenzie.

    According to Reuters, Russia took the decision to reduce its output without consulting the OPEC+ group of producers, which includes Saudi Arabia. OPEC+ decided in October to cut output by 2 million barrels per day and has not adjusted that stance since.

    A potential drop in global oil supply could come at a tricky time. China’s swift reopening of its economy in December after almost three years of strict coronavirus restrictions has pushed up estimates for global oil demand.

    Last month, the International Energy Agency said it expected global demand to surge by 1.9 million barrels per day to reach an all-time high of 101.7 million barrels per day, with China accounting for nearly half of the increase.

    Western sanctions — added to the grinding cost of war — are weighing on Russia’s economy. The country’s budget deficit ballooned to $45 billion last year, or 2.3% of its gross domestic product.

    But Russia’s central bank held its main interest rate at 7.5% Friday, saying that economic activity was better than expected and that inflation was likely to come down this year.

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  • Lyft shares fall nearly 25% after forecasting revenue below estimates | CNN Business

    Lyft shares fall nearly 25% after forecasting revenue below estimates | CNN Business

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    Reuters
     — 

    Lyft

    (LYFT)     on Thursday forecast current-quarter revenue below Wall Street estimates, blaming extremely cold weather in some of its major markets and lower prices, especially during peak hours, sending its shares down nearly 25% in extended trading.

    The company’s outlook was in contrast to that of its larger rival Uber

    (UBER)    , whose strong presence globally is helping it ride a boom in demand for ride-hailing services from travelers and office-goers

    Lyft’s bigger presence on the U.S. West Coast, a region that analysts have said was trailing the rest of the United States in return to pre-COVID demand, could be hurting its recovery compared with Uber.

    Company president John Zimmer said in an interview that the West Coast had “not fully” recovered but noted a “material improvement.”

    Lyft forecast first-quarter revenue of about $975 million, which fell below analyst estimates of $1.09 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

    Its forecast for first-quarter adjusted earnings before interest, taxes depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), a key measure of profitability that strips out some costs, was between $5 million and $15 million.

    For the fourth quarter, Lyft reported an adjusted EBITDA of $126.7 million, excluding $375 million it had set aside for increasing insurance reserves. Analysts had forecast $91.01 million.

    “We wanted to ensure we strengthened our insurance reserve … the purpose of doing that is to ensure we don’t have that type of volatility going forward, because we did such a large reserve on the high end of what we could expect given the size of our insurance book,” Zimmer said in an interview.

    Active riders rose 8.7% increase to 20.36 million for the fourth quarter, Lyft said. Analysts were expecting 20.30 million, according to FactSet estimates.

    Rideshare was “really back … we’re happy with the current marketplace conditions,” Zimmer said.

    Revenue rose 21% to $1.18 billion, slightly above the average estimate of $1.16 billion.

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  • Alibaba is launching a ChatGPT rival too | CNN Business

    Alibaba is launching a ChatGPT rival too | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Alibaba says it will launch its own ChatGPT-style tool, becoming the latest tech giant to jump on the chatbot bandwagon.

    The Chinese behemoth said it was testing an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot internally. It did not share details of when it would launch or what the application would be called.

    “Frontier innovations such as large language models and generative AI have been our [focus] areas since the formation of DAMO in 2017,” an Alibaba

    (BABA)     spokesperson told CNN in a Thursday statement, referring to an acronym for the company’s research arm that focuses on machine intelligence, data computing and robotics.

    “As a technology leader, we will continue to invest in turning cutting-edge innovations into value-added applications for our customers as well as their end-users.”

    Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares ticked up 1.4% on Thursday morning.

    Companies around the world are racing to develop and release their own versions of ChatGPT, the application that allows users to automatically write essays or pass tests.

    The tool is built on a large language model, which is trained on vast troves of data online in order to generate compelling responses to user prompts. Experts have long warned that these tools have the potential to spread inaccurate information.

    This week, Google

    (GOOGL)     and Chinese search engine giant Baidu

    (BIDU)     both unveiled plans to launch similar services of their own.

    Google’s tool, named “Bard,” will roll out to the public in the coming weeks, while Baidu’s bot, called “Wenxin Yiyan” in Chinese or “ERNIE Bot” in English, will launch in March.

    Bard suffered an embarrassing setback this week, however, after producing an incorrect response during a public demonstration.

    Shares in Google’s parent company, Alphabet, fell nearly 8% Wednesday following the news.

    Microsoft

    (MSFT)    , too, has gotten in the game. The firm announced a makeover for its Bing search engine on Tuesday, saying it would update the platform to answer questions, chat with users and produce content in response to prompts using artificial intelligence.

    The company is also investing billions of dollars in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

    — CNN’s Catherine Thorbecke contributed to this report.

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  • Bed Bath & Beyond was a retail pioneer. Here’s what went wrong | CNN Business

    Bed Bath & Beyond was a retail pioneer. Here’s what went wrong | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Bed Bath & Beyond, America’s quintessential home furnishings’ chain, is fighting to stay in business.

    The company has avoided a bankruptcy filing for now by completing a complex stock offering that will give it an immediate injection of $225 million in funds and a pledge for $800 million in the future to pay down its current debt load.

    Bed Bath & Beyond is also shrinking to save money. The company said it plans to close around 400 of its roughly 760 Bed Bath & Beyond stores. It will keep open its most profitable stores in key markets.

    The moves are a lifeline for Bed Bath & Beyond. They will give the company time to pursue a turnaround without a bankruptcy filing, which can be costly, out of its control and wind up in a liquidation.

    “They are essentially doing a reorganization outside of bankruptcy court,” said Daniel Gielchinsky, an attorney at DGIM Law specializing in bankruptcy. “Slow the cash burn is the name of the game for the next 6 to 12 months and allow the company to pivot into a profitable position.”

    It will be a complicated turnaround and the company’s future remains uncertain. If Bed Bath & Beyond comes up short in the current version of its turnaround plan, the likelihood of a liquidation increases.

    Here’s how Bed Bath & Beyond, once a retailer pioneer, veered to the edge of bankruptcy and where it turns next.

    Bed Bath & Beyond had been a crown jewel of the era of so-called “category killers”: chains that dominated a category of retail, such as Toys “R” Us, Circuit City and Sports Authority. Those companies, too, ultimately filed for bankruptcy.

    Bed Bath & Beyond became known for pots and pans, towels and bedding stacked from the floor to the ceilings at its cavernous stores — and for its ubiquitous 20%-off coupons. The blue-and-white coupons became something of a pop culture symbol, and millions of Americans wound up stashing them away in their cars, closets and basements.

    The retailer attracted a broad range of customers by selling name brands at cut-rate prices. Brands coveted a spot on Bed Bath & Beyond’s shelves, knowing it would lead to big sales. Plus, the open-store layout encouraged impulse buying: Shoppers would come in to buy new dishes and walk out with pillows, towels and other items.

    Stores were a fixture for shoppers around the winter holidays and during the back-to-school and college seasons, and Bed Bath & Beyond also had a strong baby and wedding registry business.

    Founded in 1971 by two veterans of discount retail in Springfield, New Jersey, the chain of small linen and bath stores — then called Bed ‘n Bath — first grew around the northeast and in California selling designer bedding, a new trend at the time. Unlike department stores, it didn’t rely on sales events to draw customers.

    “We had witnessed the department store shakeout and knew that specialty stores were going to be the next wave of retailing,” co-founder Leonard Feinstein reportedly said in 1993. “It was the beginning of the designer approach to linens and housewares and we saw a real window of opportunity.”

    In 1987, the company changed its name to Bed Bath & Beyond to reflect its expanded merchandise and bigger “superstores.” The company went public in 1992 with 38 stores and around $200 million in sales.

    By 2000, those figures leaped to 241 stores and $1.1 billion in sales. The 1,000th Bed Bath & Beyond store opened in 2009, when the chain had reached $7.8 billion in sales.

    The company was something of an iconoclast. It spent little on advertising, relying instead on print coupons distributed in weekly newspapers to attract customers.

    “Why not just tell the customer that we’ll give you a discount on the item you want — and not the one that we want to put on sale? We’ll mail a coupon, and it will be a lot cheaper,” Bed Bath & Beyond co-founder Warren Eisenberg, now 92, said in a 2020 New York Times interview.

    The chain was known for giving autonomy to store managers to decide which products to stock, allowing them to customize their individual stores, and for shipping products directly to stores instead of a central warehouse.

    But as brick-and-mortar began to give way to e-commerce, Bed Bath & Beyond was slow to make the transition — a misstep compounded by the fact that home decor is one of the most commonly bought categories online.

    “We missed the boat on the internet,” Eisenberg said in a recent Wall Street Journal interview.

    Online shopping weakened the allure of Bed Bath & Beyond’s fan-favorite coupons, too, because consumers could find plenty of cheaper alternatives on Amazon or browse a wider selection on sites like Wayfair

    (W)    .

    It wasn’t just Amazon and online shopping that sank Bed Bath & Beyond, however.

    Bed Bath & Beyond's ubiquitous coupons lost some of their appeal.

    Walmart

    (WMT)    , Target

    (TGT)     and Costco

    (COST)     have grown over the past decade, and they have been able to draw Bed Bath & Beyond customers with lower prices and a wider array of merchandise. Discount chains such as HomeGoods and TJ Maxx and have also undercut Bed Bath & Beyond’s prices.

    Without the differentiators of the lowest prices or widest selection, Bed Bath & Beyond’s sales stagnated from 2012 to 2019.

    The company was hit hard during the pandemic, closing stores temporarily during 2020 while rivals remained open. Sales sunk 17% in 2020 and 15% in 2021.

    What’s more, Bed Bath & Beyond has rotated through several different executives and turnaround strategies in recent years.

    Former Target executive Mark Tritton took the helm in 2019 with backing from investors and a bold new strategy. He scaled back coupons and inventory from national brands in favor of Bed Bath & Beyond’s own private-label brands.

    But this change alienated customers who were loyal to big brands. The company also fell behind on payments to vendors and stores did not have enough merchandise to stock shelves. Tritton left as CEO in 2022.

    As of late November the company had 949 stores, including 762 Bed Bath & Beyond stores and 137 buybuyBaby stores.

    It said Tuesday that it will ultimately have about half that number – 360 Bed Bath & Beyond stores and 120 buybuyBaby locations.

    Bed Bath & Beyond will close stores that drain the most cash out of its business.

    But the closures will mean Bed Bath & Beyond will give up on stores that brought in $1.2 billion in annual sales, Michael Lasser, an analyst at UBS, said in a note to clients Tuesday. Bed Bath & Beyond will recapture a portion of those sales from its other stores and online, Lasser said, but the majority will go to other retailers.

    But, to survive, the company needs to grow sales at its remaining stores. Otherwise, too much of Bed Bath & Beyond’s revenue will go toward repaying debt that it won’t be able to turn a profit.

    Reversing sales declines won’t be easy given challenges with waning customer demand, online traffic and rising competition in Bed Bath & Beyond product categories, Lasser said. Bed Bath & Beyond will have to overcome its significant hurdles to become a healthy, profitable company.

    Bankruptcy lawyer Daniel Gielchinsky, however, said it was an encouraging sign that Bed Bath & Beyond was able to raise enough cash through a public offering to stay afloat. The offering was reportedly backed by investment firm Hudson Bay Capital. (Hudson Bay did not respond to a CNN Business request for comment.)

    Still, liquidators will be watching closely, he said, eager to pounce.

    “They are assuredly waiting on the sidelines to dismantle the company at the ready.”

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  • Here’s what keeps Jerome Powell up at night and interest rates high | CNN Business

    Here’s what keeps Jerome Powell up at night and interest rates high | CNN Business

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    A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell threw markets into a tizzy on Tuesday as he spoke about the economy alongside his former boss, Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein, at the Economic Club of Washington.

    Stocks struggled for direction as investors tried to get a read on Powell’s economic outlook, attitude towards inflation and on future interest rate hikes. Wall Street cheered as the Fed chair said the disinflationary process has begun, then soured when he said the road to reaching 2% inflation will be “bumpy” and “long” with more rate hikes ahead.

    Markets soared to new highs, before quickly falling to session lows and then recovering to close the day in the green.

    “Powell doesn’t want to play games with financial markets,” said EY Parthenon chief economist Gregory Daco after the conversation. But at the same time, he said Powell wanted to communicate that the Fed’s “base case was not for inflation to come down as quickly and painlessly as some market participants appear to expect.”

    Here’s why Powell thinks bringing down prices will be more difficult than investors anticipate.

    Structural changes in the labor market: The US economy added an astonishing 517,000 jobs in January, blowing economists’ expectations out of the water. The unemployment rate fell to 3.4% from 3.5%, hitting a level not seen since May 1969.

    The current labor market imbalance is a reflection of the pandemic’s lasting effect on the US economy and on labor supply, said Powell on Tuesday in answer to a question about the report. “The labor market is extraordinarily strong,” he said. Demand exceeds supply by 5 million people, and the labor force participation rate has declined. “It feels almost more structural than cyclical.”

    “If we continue to get, for example, strong labor market reports or higher inflation reports, it may well be the case that we have to do more and raise rates more,” he said.

    Core services inflation: Powell noted that he’s seeing disinflation in the goods sector and expects to soon see declining inflation in housing. But prices remain stubborn for services. Service-sector inflation, which is more sensitive to a strong labor market, is up 7.5% from the year prior through the end of 2022, and has not abated, he said.

    “That sector is not showing any disinflation yet,” Powell said. “There has been an expectation that [higher prices] will go away quickly and painlessly and I don’t think that’s at all guaranteed.”

    Geopolitical uncertainties: Powell also cited concerns that the reopening of China’s economy after the sudden end of Covid-Zero restrictions, plus uncertainty about Russia’s war on Ukraine could also affect the inflation path in ways that remain unclear.

    ▸ The labor market is strong, but tech layoffs keep coming. There were around  50,000 tech jobs cut in January, and the trend has continued into February.

    Video conferencing service Zoom is one of the latest to announce layoffs. The company said Tuesday that it’s cutting 1,300 jobs or 15% of its workforce. 

    Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in a blog post on Tuesday that Zoom ramped up employment  quickly due to increased demand during the pandemic. The company grew three times in size within 24 months, he said and now it must  adapt to changing demand for its services.

    “The uncertainty of the global economy, and its effect on our customers, means we need to take a hard — yet important — look inward to reset ourselves so we can weather the economic environment, deliver for our customers and achieve Zoom’s long-term vision,” he wrote.

    Yuan added that he plans to lower his own salary by 98% and forgo his 2023 bonus. Shares of Zoom closed nearly 10% higher on Tuesday. 

    The announcement comes just one day after Dell said it would lay off more than 6,500 employees.

    Amazon

    (AMZN)    , Microsoft

    (MSFT)    , Google and other tech giants have also recently announced plans to cut thousands of workers as the companies adapt to shifting pandemic demand and fears of a looming recession.

    ▸ Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis told CNN that he is starting to think that the US economy could avoid a recession and achieve a so-called soft landing.

    It’s hard to have a recession when the job market is still so robust, he told CNN’s Poppy Harlow on Tuesday on CNN This Morning.

    Still, “we have more work to do,” Kashkari told Harlow, adding that the labor market is “too hot” and that is a key reason why it is “harder to bring inflation back down.”

    Although many investors are starting to think the Fed may pause after just two more similarly small hikes, to a level of around 5%, Kashkari said he believes the Fed may have to raise rates further. Kashkari has a vote this year on the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed’s interest-rate setting group.

    ▸ It’s a good time to be in the oil business. BP’s annual profit more than doubled last year to an all-time high of nearly $28 billion.

    The British energy company said in a statement that underlying replacement cost profit rose to $27.7 billion in 2022 from $12.8 billion the previous year. The metric is a key indicator of oil companies’ profitability.

    BP

    (BP)     also unveiled a further $2.75 billion in share buybacks and hiked its dividend for the fourth quarter by around 10% to 6.61 cents per share.

    BP’s shares rose 6% in Tuesday trading following the news. Over the past 12 months, its shares have soared 24%.

    The earnings are the latest in a string of record-setting results by the world’s biggest energy companies, which have enjoyed bumper profits off the back of skyrocketing oil and gas prices.

    Last week, another energy major Shell reported a record profit of almost $40 billion for 2022, more than double what it raked in the previous year after oil and gas prices jumped following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    On Wednesday it was TotalEnergie

    (TTFNF)    s turn. The French company posted annual profit of $36.2 billion for 2022, double the previous year’s earnings.

    Disney has found itself in the middle of a culture war battle that could end up transferring Disney World’s governance to a board appointed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. And that may be the least of Disney’s problems, writes my colleague Chris Isidore.

    The company faces a media industry in turmoil, plunging cable subscriptions, a still-recovering box office, massive streaming losses, activist shareholders, possible reorganization and layoffs and growing labor disputes with employees. That’s a lot for CEO Bob Iger to handle.

    Iger, who retired as CEO in 2020 only to be brought back in November, has been mostly quiet about his plans for the company since his return. That ends at 4:30 p.m. ET Wednesday when he is set to begin an earnings call with Wall Street investors.

    Click here to read more about what to look for on what is certain to be a closely-followed call.

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  • Americans are becoming ‘reluctant’ to make larger purchases, new Fed report shows | CNN Business

    Americans are becoming ‘reluctant’ to make larger purchases, new Fed report shows | CNN Business

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    Minneapolis
    CNN
     — 

    As retail sales took a bit of a breather in December, so did the credit cards.

    US consumers’ outstanding credit grew by $11.56 billion to end the year, according to Federal Reserve data released Tuesday. It’s the lowest monthly gain since January 2021 and well below economists’ expectations of $25 billion.

    For much of 2022, consumer debt levels grew at record rates as pandemic-induced pent-up demand ran up against a period of rampant inflation.

    However, as the year drew to a close — and the Federal Reserve jacked up interest rates to combat inflation — that bullish spending activity was curtailed.

    “Long story short, we’re seeing a more cautious consumer,” Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst with Bankrate, told CNN.

    “Consumer spending certainly isn’t falling off a cliff, but we are seeing ample evidence that Americans are becoming more reluctant to make certain purchases, especially larger expenses and acquiring physical goods,” he said. “Services spending has been more robust, perhaps still owing to pent-up demand that stacked up during the pandemic for things like traveling and dining out.”

    Revolving credit balances, which is mostly credit cards, grew by 7.3% in December, according to Tuesday’s report. That’s the lowest month-on-month increase since the summer of 2021, Rossman noted.

    Still, those balances growing in a month when spending was down likely shows the toll taken by higher interest rates, Rossman said.

    The average credit card charges a record-high 19.95%, Rossman said, citing Bankrate data that also showed that 46% of card holders are carrying a balance from month to month. That’s up from 39% a year before.

    “Even if spending may be tailing off a bit, high inflation and higher interest rates are making balances harder to pay off,” he said. “More people are putting necessities on credit cards and financing these expenses over time.”

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  • Fed Chair Powell: Inflation fight will take ‘a significant period of time’ | CNN Business

    Fed Chair Powell: Inflation fight will take ‘a significant period of time’ | CNN Business

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    Minneapolis
    CNN
     — 

    The US labor market remains “extraordinarily strong” and Friday’s monster jobs report underscored that the central bank has more work to do to bring down inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday.

    “We didn’t expect it to be this strong,” Powell said of the January jobs report, which showed the US economy added 517,000 jobs. “It kind of shows you why we think that this will be a process that takes a significant period of time.”

    Powell was speaking during a question-and-answer session with David Rubenstein of the Economic Club of Washington.

    “The disinflationary process has begun,” Powell said, noting progress especially in goods prices. However, price gains within the services sector remain high, he added.

    The Fed expects “significant” declines in inflation to occur this year. It will take “not just this year but next year to get down to 2%,” the central bank’s inflation target, Powell said. And rates will have to remain at a restrictive level “for a period of time” before that happens, he noted.

    Powell expects housing inflation to come down by the middle of this year but is keeping the closest watch on a metric within the Personal Consumption Expenditures report: Core services excluding housing.

    “There has been an expectation that [inflation] will go away quickly and painlessly; I don’t think it’s guaranteed that’s the base case,” Powell said. “It will take some time.”

    The major US stock indexes rallied during Powell’s discussion but then fell in early afternoon trading, with the Dow down by around 200 points or 0.6%, the S&P lower by 0.3% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq down by 0.2%.

    While economists said the January job total was heavily influenced by seasonal factors and will probably be adjusted downward, it was probably too hot for the Fed’s liking. The robustness of the labor market has stood somewhat at odds with the Fed’s efforts to lower inflation.

    “The labor market is strong because the economy is strong,” Powell said.

    The current labor market is also a reflection of the pandemic’s lasting effect on the US economy and labor supply, he noted. The demand exceeds the supply by 5 million people, and the labor force participation rate has declined, he said.

    “It feels almost more structural than cyclical,” he said.

    A key reason Chair Powell wants more slack in the labor market is out of concern that a tight employment situation will continue to push up wages, which could then keep inflation elevated. As the unemployment rate rises, workers lose bargaining power for higher wages and households pull back on spending.

    Fed officials also want to keep inflation expectations anchored.

    “We had a labor market with 3.5% unemployment in 2018 and ’19, and we had inflation just barely getting to 2%, and wages moving up for most of the people at the lower end of the spectrum,” he said. “We all want to get back to that place.”

    And the Fed will react accordingly with the data to ensure it does, he said.

    “If we continue to get, for example, strong labor market reports or higher inflation reports, it may well be the case that we have to do more and raise rates more,” he said.

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  • Bed Bath & Beyond is closing 150 more stores | CNN Business

    Bed Bath & Beyond is closing 150 more stores | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Bed Bath & Beyond is closing 150 more stores — just a week after the struggling retailer announced the closure of 87 locations.

    The company’s brick-and-mortar footprint has already shrunk dramatically, a regulatory filing showed late Monday, and the new closings mean it will have shuttered 400 stores in the past year — almost half the 950 or so stores it had open in February 2022.

    That includes last week’s announcement that it was also closing all 49 remaining Harmon Face Value stores, which sold cosmetics; plus 5 buybuy Baby locations. A list of the new store closures wasn’t immediately available.

    A turnaround doesn’t look imminent: The embattled home goods chain forecasts first quarter sales to be down by 30% to 40% with “sequential, quarterly sales improvement thereafter” the filing said.

    The company also said Monday it was planning to raise some $1 billion through an offering of preferred stock and warrants in a last-ditch effort to stave off bankruptcy. If it can’t complete the complex transaction, it would “likely file for bankruptcy protection.” It also appointed Holly Etlin, a bankruptcy expert, as interim chief financial officer.

    The chain has said in recent weeks that it had defaulted on a loan and may not be able to remain in business, raising concerns about its future. Bed Bath & Beyond held talks in recent days with an investment firm to underwrite a significant portion of the proposed offering, according to Reuters.

    Bed Bath and Beyond has been part of the meme stock phenomenon, with shares skyrocketing as much as 400% last year when activist investor and GameStop chairman Ryan Cohen took a stake and sought changes.

    Shares of the retailer, which closed up 92% at $5.86 in a rollercoaster session Monday, were down 40% in in pre-market trading Tuesday.

    Founded in 1971, Bed Bath & Beyond became a staple for affordable home decor, kitchenware and college dorm room furniture. It’s also known for its ubiquitous 20% off blue coupons, and cavernous stores with merchandise stacked high to the ceilings.

    But the company struggled to make the transition to online shopping and fend off larger chains such as Walmart and Target

    (TGT)    . Many shoppers switched to those competitors as the novelty of Bed Bath & Beyond’s coupons faded.

    The company was also hit hard during the pandemic, closing stores temporarily during 2020 while rivals remained open. The company lost 17% of its sales in 2020 and 14% in 2021.

    – Reuters contributed to this report

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  • BP’s annual profit more than doubles to $28 billion | CNN Business

    BP’s annual profit more than doubles to $28 billion | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    BP’s annual profit more than doubled last year to nearly $28 billion, extending a record run of earnings for the world’s oil majors that is adding to calls for higher taxes on the windfall gains.

    The British energy giant said in a statement that underlying replacement cost profit rose to $27.7 billion for 2022, compared with $12.8 billion the previous year. The metric is a key indicator of oil companies’ profitability.

    BP

    (BP)     also announced on Tuesday a further $2.75 billion in share buybacks and hiked its dividend for the fourth quarter by around 10% to 6.61 cents per share.

    The earnings are the latest in a series of record-setting results by the world’s biggest energy companies, which have enjoyed bumper profits off the back of soaring oil and gas prices.

    Last week, Shell

    (RDSA)     reported a record profit of almost $40 billion for 2022, more than double what it raked in the previous year after oil and gas prices soared following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    — This is a developing story and will be updated.

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  • Australia’s central bank signals more tightening ahead after hiking rates to decade high | CNN Business

    Australia’s central bank signals more tightening ahead after hiking rates to decade high | CNN Business

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    Sydney
    Reuters
     — 

    Australia’s central bank raised its cash rate by 25 basis points to a decade-high of 3.35% on Tuesday and reiterated that further increases would be needed, in a more hawkish policy tilt than many had expected.

    Wrapping up its February policy meeting, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) also dropped previous guidance that it was not on a pre-set path and forecast inflation would only return to the top of its target range of 2-3% by mid-2025.

    “The Board expects that further increases in interest rates will be needed over the months ahead to ensure that inflation returns to target and that this period of high inflation is only temporary,” governor Philip Lowe said in a statement.

    Markets were surprised by the hawkish tone of the RBA which shattered any expectations of an imminent pause to the tightening campaign. The futures market has priced in a peak rate of 3.9%, implying at least two more rate hikes in March and April, compared with 3.75% before the decision.

    The local dollar shot up to $0.6940, extending earlier gains. Three-year government bond yields jumped 15 bps to 3.254% while ten-year yields also surged 15 bps to 3.615%.

    “The surprise was not in the decision, but rather the shift in tone and forward guidance in the Governor’s Statement,” said Gareth Aird, head of Australian economics at CBA, as he updated his call for rates to peak at 3.85% after the decision, compared with 3.35% previously.

    “This change implies that the RBA Board has essentially made up their mind and intend to raise the cash rate further over coming months, if the economic data prints in line with their updated forecasts.”

    Markets had expected a quarter-point move, with some risk of a bigger rise given recent inflation data had surprised on the high side. This was the ninth hike since last May, lifting rates by a total of 325 basis points.

    Lowe said that core inflation had been higher than expected, with the trimmed mean gauge accelerating to 6.9% last quarter from a year ago, above the central bank’s previous forecast of 6.5%.

    Inflation is expected to decline to 4.75% this year and only slow to around 3% by mid-2025, according to the RBA’s latest forecasts.

    The RBA also expects economic growth to average around 1.5% over 2023 and 2024.

    The interest rate increases so far, including Tuesday’s move, will add over A$900 a month in repayments to the average A$500,000 mortgage, according to RateCity, a deadweight for a population that holds A$2 trillion ($1.3 trillion) in home loans.

    Housing prices fell for the ninth straight month in January, with prices in Sydney and Melbourne down about 10% from a year ago.

    There are signs that consumers are finally pulling back on spending as the cost of living surges and rate increases bite. Australian retail sales recorded the biggest drop in more than two years in December.

    The next big test is the December quarter wage growth report later this month, which analysts expect to be robust given the labor market is at its strongest in nearly 50 years.

    “High inflation makes life difficult for people and damages the functioning of the economy. And if high inflation were to become entrenched in people’s expectations, it would be very costly to reduce later,” warned Lowe as he signaled the bank’s intention to extend the tightening cycle.

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  • Former Manhattan attorney says ‘many bits and pieces of evidence’ exist to charge Trump | CNN Politics

    Former Manhattan attorney says ‘many bits and pieces of evidence’ exist to charge Trump | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A former Manhattan special assistant district attorney who investigated Donald Trump said Sunday night there are “many bits and pieces of evidence” the district attorney could use to bring criminal charges against the former president.

    Mark Pomerantz, a former senior prosecutor on the Manhattan DA’s team investigating Trump and his organization’s business dealings, said prosecutors weighing similar evidence against anyone other than the former president would have moved ahead with charges in a “flat second.”

    Pomerantz made the comments in a “60 Minutes” interview promoting a new book about his time investigating Trump. He pointed to evidence he had access to during the investigation – principal among them, that Trump personally signed off on inflating his own net worth to obtain more favorable banks loans.

    “There were many bits and pieces of evidence on which we could rely in making that case,” Pomerantz told CBS’s Bill Whitaker.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, filed a civil lawsuit against Trump, his eldest children and others alleging they were engaged in a decade long fraud by using inaccurate financial statements to obtain favorable loan and insurance rates and tax treatment. The burden of proof in a civil lawsuit is lower than what prosecutors need to prove a criminal case. Trump has called the lawsuit politically motivated and has denied any wrongdoing.

    The allegations come nearly a year after Pomerantz resigned from the DA’s office in protest and days before the release of his new book, which has prompted pushback from District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

    Pomerantz resigned after Bragg, who was newly sworn into office, refused to give him a green light to seek an indictment against Trump. The district attorney’s office previously brought tax fraud charges against the Trump Organization and chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty.

    Pomerantz resigned last February along with general counsel Carey Dunne.

    “If you take the exact same conduct – and make it not about Donald Trump and not about a former president of the United States, would the case have been indicted? It would have been indicted in a flat second,” Pomerantz said Sunday. He called Bragg’s decision not to bring the case a “grave failure of justice.”

    Pomerantz’s claims detailed in his forthcoming book have drawn the ire of his former boss and the DA’s Association of the State of New York, who claim that a former prosecutor speaking out about a case he used to be a part of could damage its integrity.

    Bragg’s office asked to review the book before its publication out of concern it would reveal information obtained from a grand jury. Simon & Schuster, the publisher, moved ahead with publication.

    “After closely reviewing all the evidence from Mr. Pomerantz’s investigation, I came to the same conclusion as several senior prosecutors involved in the case, and also those I brought on: more work was needed. Put another way, Mr. Pomerantz’s plane wasn’t ready for takeoff,” Bragg said in a statement to CNN.

    Bragg added that he hasn’t “read the book, and won’t comment on any ongoing investigation because of the harm it could cause to the case. But I do hope there is at least one section where Mr. Pomerantz recognizes his former colleagues for how much they have achieved on the Trump matter over the last year since his departure.”

    In January, a New York judge fined the Trump Organization $1.6 million – the maximum possible penalty – for running a decade-long tax fraud scheme, a symbolic moment because it is the only judgment for a criminal conviction that has come close to the former president.

    Two Trump entities, The Trump Corp. and Trump Payroll Corp., were convicted last year of 17 felonies, including tax fraud and falsifying business records. Trump himself was never charged or convicted.

    On Sunday Pomerantz expanded on what evidence he believes they had against Trump, including Trump’s signature on a Deutsche Bank loan certifying that all of his financial statements were accurate.

    “He warrants that the financial statements are true and correct in all material respects. Finally of course on the guaranty is his sharpie signature, Donald J. Trump,” Pomerantz said. He also alleges he has documents proving Trump knew the accurate size of his 10,996-square-foot Fifth Avenue condominium, but lied anyways, claiming in 2015 and 2016 accounting documents that it was really 30,000 square feet.

    CNN previously reported that some prosecutors did not believe they had enough evidence to prove Trump’s intent and they lacked a credible narrator to explain how the financial statements were put together.

    In a letter to Pomerantz, Trump’s lawyer threatened legal action against the former prosecutor if he releases the book. The lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told CNN in a statement that Pomerantz’s “desperate attempt to sell books will cost him everything. Not to mention, it is clear that he was very much in the minority in his position that President Trump committed a crime.”

    In the book, which publishes on Tuesday, Pomerantz compares Trump to John Gotti, the head of the Gambino organized crime family, according to an advanced copy obtained by The New York Times, and lays out the complicated investigation that saw many close to the former president charged with crimes.

    Meanwhile, Bragg’s office last week accelerated its investigation into Trump’s alleged role in a hush money payment made to silence adult film star Stormy Daniel’s allegations of an affair. Trump has denied the affair.

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  • More than 400 products including breakfast sandwiches and fruit cups recalled due to possible Listeria contamination | CNN

    More than 400 products including breakfast sandwiches and fruit cups recalled due to possible Listeria contamination | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    More than 400 food products sold under dozens of brand names were recalled due to possible Listeria contamination, the US Food and Drug Administration announced Friday.

    The recall by Fresh Ideation Food Group LLC includes ready-to-eat sandwiches, salads, yogurts, wraps and other products sold in nine states and Washington, DC, from January 24 through January 30.

    The Baltimore company said Friday that no illnesses have been reported so far.

    “The recall was initiated after the company’s environmental samples tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes,” Fresh Ideation Food Group said in its recall announcement.

    Eating Listeria-contaminated food can cause a serious infection that can lead to symptoms including fever, headache, diarrhea and vomiting, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    It’s most likely to sicken pregnant women and their newborns, adults aged 65 or older, and people with weakened immune systems, according to the CDC. “An estimated 1,600 people get listeriosis each year, and about 260 die,” the agency says.

    The recalled foods were distributed in Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia, according to the FDA.

    The products – which included items like bacon, egg and cheddar muffins, breakfast croissants, tuna and chicken sandwiches, and fruit cups – were sold in stores, vending machines and by transportation providers, according to the company.

    “All recalled products have a Fresh Creative Cuisine label and/or identifier on the bottom of the label with the Fresh Creative Cuisine name and a fresh through or sell through date ranging from January 31, 2023 through February 6, 2023,” the company said.

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  • Gold giant Newmont’s $16.9 billion bid for Australia’s Newcrest clouded by deal doubts | CNN Business

    Gold giant Newmont’s $16.9 billion bid for Australia’s Newcrest clouded by deal doubts | CNN Business

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    Melbourne
    Reuters
     — 

    Top gold producer Newmont

    (NEM)     Corp said it had made a $16.9 billion offer for Australian peer Newcrest

    (NCMGF)     Mining to build a global gold behemoth, although investors and analysts said it undervalued the target amid a leadership change.

    Newcrest is seeking a new boss, with previous chief executive Sandeep Biswas having stepped down in December, while global interest rates are expected to peak this year and turn down, polishing the outlook for gold prices.

    The Australian gold miner said that it was considering the all-share proposal in a filing that was a response to media speculation over the weekend. The initial feedback from shareholders is that they want a higher price, according to a person familiar with Newcrest’s deliberations.

    “A good litmus test for a reasonably-priced deal is one where both seller and buyer feel somewhat aggrieved by selling out too low or by paying too much,” said Simon Mawhinney, chief investment officer at Allan Gray, Newcrest’s largest shareholder with a 7.36% stake. “It’s not clear to me that this kind of symmetry exists with these deal terms.”

    Newcrest shares surged as much as 14.4% to A$25.60 ($17.77), the highest since May 2022, but remained below the implied current offer price of $27.16, suggesting investors were not convinced the deal would pan out. Shares closed 9.3% higher at A$24.53.

    Newmont, which is already the world’s biggest gold producer by market capitalization and by ounces produced, said the combination represented “a powerful value proposition.”

    Newcrest’s operations include its top class Cadia asset in Australia, an expanding footprint in North America and Papua New Guinea, and growth potential in copper, highly prized as key to the energy transition. BHP

    (BBL)     Group offered $6.4 billion for Australian copper miner Oz

    (OZMLF)     Minerals Minerals in December.

    The Newmont proposal is via an agreed scheme of arrangement that would need to be recommended by the Newcrest board and subject to due diligence, various regulatory approvals and a shareholder vote that could stretch out for months.

    The indicative offer implies a 21% premium to Newcrest’s last closing value of A$22.45, materially below the traditional 30% takeover premium, noted analyst Jon Mills of Morningstar, which values Newcrest at about A$31 per share.

    Newcrest shareholders would receive 0.380 Newmont shares for every Newcrest share, giving them a 30% stake in the enlarged miner. It is a 4.7% improvement from a previous 0.363 per share offer that Newcrest already rejected for not providing enough value to shareholders, Newcrest disclosed on Monday.

    If investors don’t back the deal, the board will be under pressure to improve Newcrest’s value, perhaps by breaking out assets like Havieron and Telfer in Australia, or Lihir in Papua New Guinea, said Barrenjoey analyst Dan Morgan.

    Newcrest has been expected to announce a new chief executive this year after Biswas announced his retirement after eight years.

    Sherry Duhe, formerly chief financial officer, who joined Newcrest in February last year, is interim chief executive while a global internal and external search for a replacement is underway.

    Newcrest has been viewed as a target in recent years given its middling performance, but only a handful of buyers are big enough to take it out, said an investment banker who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

    The all-share nature of the offer meant the timing is more likely to be linked to Newcrest’s leadership vulnerability than a big call on the gold price, but it probably also reflects a constructive view on the precious metal, the banker added.

    Risks are growing for gold to break higher, Morgan Stanley in a note on Jan. 16, noting that its macroeconomists were now forecasting lower rates and a weaker U.S. dollar, in tailwinds for the metal.

    Morgan Stanley is looking towards a bull case of spot gold reaching $2,160 in the fourth quarter, up from $1,866 an ounce.

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  • Judge reportedly allows Meta to move forward with VR startup acquisition, in blow to FTC | CNN Business

    Judge reportedly allows Meta to move forward with VR startup acquisition, in blow to FTC | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge will not block Meta from buying a virtual reality tech startup, according to multiple reports, in a setback for the US government, which had alleged the deal would threaten competition in a nascent market.

    Tuesday’s decision, issued by the US District Court for the Northern District of California, is sealed. But according to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, the contents of the decision dealt Meta a victory by denying the US government’s request for a preliminary injunction that would have prevented the acquisition from closing. The New York Times cited two people with knowledge of the matter and the Wall Street Journal cited one person familiar with the ruling.

    CNN has not independently confirmed the contents of the court’s decision. The Federal Trade Commission, which had sued to block the deal last summer, declined to comment. Meta declined to comment, and several outside attorneys for the company didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

    The closely watched case involves Meta’s purchase of Within Unlimited, a virtual reality company and maker of a VR fitness app called “Supernatural.” The FTC’s suit had been seen as a major test for Chair Lina Khan, a critic of large tech platforms, as well as of the FTC’s unusual legal theory alleging that Meta’s deal would harm future competition in a rapidly evolving industry.

    According to the reports, the judge in the case also issued a separate order that delays Meta’s ability to close its deal for another week to allow the FTC to decide whether to appeal the ruling.

    A separate challenge to Meta’s deal is ongoing before an in-house administrative law judge at the FTC. That proceeding could continue despite Tuesday’s ruling, but whether agency officials intend to press ahead is unclear.

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  • EV maker Rivian to cut 6% of jobs amid price war | CNN Business

    EV maker Rivian to cut 6% of jobs amid price war | CNN Business

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    Reuters
     — 

    Rivian Automotive is laying off 6% of its workforce in an effort to cut costs as the EV maker, already grappling with falling cash reserves and a weak economy, braces for an industry-wide price war.

    The company is focusing resources on ramping up vehicle production and reaching profitability, Chief Executive R.J. Scaringe said in an email to employees on Wednesday announcing the job cuts. Reuters obtained a copy of the email.

    Layoffs at Rivian come amid falling EV prices kicked off by cuts made recently by Elon Musk-led Tesla

    (TSLA)     and Ford Motor Co.

    The price cuts by Tesla and Ford are expected to hurt EV upstarts such as Rivian, Lucid Group and British startup Arrival, which Monday said it would lay off half its staff.

    Despite a blockbuster initial public offering in November 2021, Rivian’s shares have fallen nearly 90% from their peak that month to Tuesday’s close. Rivian’s stock was trading down 4% on Nasdaq on Wednesday, paring some losses after news of the job cuts.

    “We must focus our resources on ramp and our path to profitability,” Scaringe said in the email, in which he apologized to employees for the necessity of the cuts.

    A Rivian spokesman confirmed the email was sent, but declined further comment.

    “They’re bleeding cash and would like to grow at a much faster rate, but they continue to struggle with their EV production ramp and have been unable to meaningfully drive down unit costs,” CFRA Research analyst Garrett Nelson said. “We think that is what’s behind this decision.”

    Rivian is focusing on ramping up production of its R1 trucks and EDV delivery vans for top shareholder Amazon.com and launching its R2 platform, he said. “The changes we are announcing today reflect this focused roadmap.”

    Irvine, California-based Rivian, which has about 14,000 employees, will let go of about 840 staff in a move that will not affect manufacturing operations at its plant in Normal, Illinois.

    Rivian, which has been losing money on every vehicle it builds, narrowly missed its full-year production target of 25,000 vehicles last year as it dealt with supply-chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It had previously halved that target.

    To further conserve its cash, Rivian late last year shelved plans to build delivery vans in Europe with Mercedes. Rivian had earlier pushed back by a year to 2026 the planned launch of a smaller R2 vehicle family at the $5 billion plant it is building in Georgia.

    Last July, Rivian, which is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results on Feb. 28, laid off staff and suspended some programs as part of a broader restructuring.

    The company has a market valuation of $17.8 billion. Its cash and cash equivalents stood at $13.27 billion as of Sept. 30, 2022, down from over $18 billion a year earlier.

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  • Larry Summers: More likely the Fed can pull off a soft landing, but don’t get hopes up | CNN Business

    Larry Summers: More likely the Fed can pull off a soft landing, but don’t get hopes up | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    After a shocking jobs report, Larry Summers, treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, said he is more encouraged the Fed can pull off a soft landing, but cautioned it is a “big mistake” to think the economy is “out of the woods” on Fareed Zakaria GPS Sunday.

    Friday’s job’s report saw an astonishing 517,000 jobs added in January and unemployment tick down to 3.4%, the lowest since 1969. Economists had predicted 185,000 jobs, expecting a slower jobs market after almost a year of aggressive rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

    The Fed once hiked interest rates less aggressively this week, reflecting a sense inflation is cooling. It brings up the question: Can the United States pull off a soft landing, bringing down inflation without triggering a recession?

    Summers said it “looks more possible that we’ll have a soft landing than it did a few months ago,” but he has continued fears about inflation indicators that have come back to earth, but are still too high for his liking.

    “They’re still unimaginably high from the perspective of two or three years ago, and that getting the rest of the way back to target inflation may still prove to be quite difficult,” Summers said.

    Zakaria asked if triggering a recession was worth it to bring down inflation, if 3 to 3.5% inflation rates could become the norm.

    Summers said it’s a trade-off between short run reductions in unemployment, and permanent changes in inflation.

    “The benefit we can get from pushing unemployment low is on almost all economic theories and likely not to be a permanent one,” Summers said. “But if we push inflation up and those issues become entrenched, we’re going to live with that inflation for a long time.”

    The US has about 3 million people who have just stopped looking for work. Summers attributed it to older people who decided to retire earlier than normal patterns would suggest during COVID.

    He said there is a “grand reassessment” of the workplace post-COVID.

    “You don’t get to be a CEO if you don’t love being in the office,” Summers said. “And so CEOs want all their people to come back and be working, but lots of people like their dens better than they like their cubicles.”

    Summers also had advice for President Joe Biden as a debt ceiling crisis brews in Washington.

    “I would advise him that it’s not a viable strategy for the country to default on obligations,” Summers said. “That’s the stuff of banana republics, and that he’s not going to engage in any of that stuff.”

    The United States has an “utterly bizarre system” where Congress votes on budgets and then separately has to authorize paying the bills incurred by those budgets, Zakaria pointed out, adding a crisis could be on the horizon because House Republicans don’t want to pay the bills until President Biden agrees to spending cuts, even though budgets were set by both parties.

    Biden should insist “Congress do its job and approve the borrowing to finance the spending.”

    Summers noted it only takes a few responsible Republicans to raise the debt limit.

    “That some in the Republican Party may bow to the demands of the extremists does not mean that the President of the United States should do that.”

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  • I’m a parent with an active social media brand: Here’s what you need to check on your child’s social media right now | CNN

    I’m a parent with an active social media brand: Here’s what you need to check on your child’s social media right now | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Stress, But Less newsletter. Our six-part mindfulness guide will inform and inspire you to reduce stress while learning how to harness it.



    CNN
     — 

    If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you’ll know I wear a lot of hats: romance author, parent of funny tweenagers, part-time teacher, amateur homesteader, grumbling celiac and the wife of a seriously outdoorsy guy.

    Because I’m an author with a major publisher in today’s competitive market, I’ve been tasked with stepping up my social media brand: participation, creation and all. The more transparent and likable I am online, the better my books sell. Therefore, to social media I go.

    It’s rare to find someone with no social media presence these days, but there’s a marked difference between posting a few pictures for family and friends and actively creating social media content as part of your daily life.

    With a whopping 95% of teens polled having access to smartphones (and 98% of teens over 15), according to an August Pew Research Center survey on teens, social media and technology, it doesn’t look like social media platforms are going away anytime soon.

    Not only are they key social tools, but they also allow teens to feel more a part of things in their communities. Many teens like being online, according to a November Pew Research Center survey on teen life on social media. Eighty percent of the teens surveyed felt more connected to what is happening in their friends’ lives, while 71% felt social media allows them to showcase their creativity.

    So, while posting online is work for me, it’s a way of life for the tweens and teens I see creating and publishing content online. As a parent of two middle schoolers, I know how important social media is to them, and I also know what’s out there. I see the good, the bad and the viral, and I’ve have put together some guidelines, based on what I’ve seen, for my fellow parents to watch for.

    Here are eight questions to ask yourself as you check out your children’s social media accounts.

    If you don’t, it’s time to start. It’s like when I had to look up the term “situationship,” I saw that ignorance is not bliss in this case. Or really any case when it comes to your children. Both of my children have smartphones, but even if your children don’t have smartphones, if they have any sort of device — phone, tablet, school laptop — it’s likely they have some sort of social media account out there. Every app our children wish to add to their smart devices comes through my husband’s and my phone notifications for approval. Before I approve any apps, I’ll read the reviews, run an internet search and text my mom friends for their experience.

    Most tweens and teens use social media for socializing with local friends.

    If I’m still uncertain about an app, I’ll hold off on approving it until I can sit down with my children and ask them why they want it. Sometimes just waiting and forcing a short discussion is enough to convince them they no longer want it. In our household, I avoid any apps that run social surveys, allow anonymous feedback or require the individual to use location services.

    If you don’t have your family phone plan all hooked together with parental controls, I’d advise setting that up ASAP. Because different devices and apps have different ways to monitor and set up parental controls, it’s impossible to link all the options here. However, a quick search will give you exactly the coverage you are comfortable with, including apps that track your child’s text messages and changing the settings on your child’s phone to lock down at a certain time every night.

    The top social media platforms teens use today are YouTube (95% of teens polled), TikTok (67%), Instagram (62%) and Snapchat (59%), according to the Pew Research Center survey on teens and social media tech. Other social media platforms teens use less frequently are Twitter, Reddit, WhatsApp and Facebook. Most notably, Facebook is seeing a significant downturn in teen users. This list isn’t exhaustive, however. I would check out your children’s devices for group chat apps (such as Slack or Discord) and also scroll through their sport or activity apps where group chat capabilities exist.

    I’ve seen preteens and teens using their real names, birthdate, home address, pets’ names, locker numbers or their school baseball team. Any of that information could be used to identify your child and location in real life or using a quick Google search. All of that is an absolute “no” in our house.

    I also tell my kids not to answer the fun surveys and quizzes that invite children to share their unique information and repost it for others to see. These can be useful tools for predators and people trying to steal your children’s identity.

    What I do: I made the choice a long ago to withhold the names of my children and partner. It’s not an exact science, and I know some clever digging could find them. For my husband, it’s for the sake of his privacy and also the protection of his professionalism. Just because he’s married to a romance author doesn’t mean he should have to answer for my online antics, whatever they may be. For my children, I want to avoid anything embarrassing that could be traced back to them during their college application season.

    Even if your children keep their social media profiles private (more on that later), their biographical information, screen name and avatar or profile picture are public information.

    Do an internet search of your child’s name to see what’s out there and scroll through images to make sure there isn’t anything you wouldn’t want to be made public. In our household, I’ve asked my children to use generic items or illustrated avatars in their social media bios.

    What I do: Parents who do have active social media accounts may want to do a search of their own names. When my first book was published in 2019, I did a search of my name and images and found many photos of my children that came directly from my social media pages. I hadn’t posted pictures of them, but I did use a family photo as my profile photo and those are public record. Once I deleted them, the photos disappeared.

    Another “no” in our household is posting videos or photos of our home or bedrooms. Something that feels innocent and innocuous to your middle schooler may not feel that way to an adult seeking out inappropriate content.

    I learned this from one of my children’s Pinterest accounts. My kid loves to create themed videos using her own photos and stock pictures, and she’s gained over 500 followers in a short period of time. She has completely followed our rules and I know, because I check and follow her myself — but it hasn’t stopped the influx of adult men following her content.

    What we do: Over the holidays, I sat with her and went through each follower one by one and blocked anyone we decided was there for the wrong reasons. In the end, we blocked close to 30 adult men on her account. (I also know that some predators cleverly disguise themselves as children or teens, and we may not catch them all, but this is still a worthy exercise.)

    We also talk to our children about how to protect themselves. They wouldn’t want those strangers standing in their bedroom; therefore, they don’t want to post videos of their bedroom or bathroom or classroom for strangers to view.

    This is a tricky one for lots of reasons. For content creators to build their following, they need to remain public on social media. If your child is an entrepreneur or artist hoping to grab attention, locking down their account will prevent that from happening.

    That said, a way around this is to have two accounts. First, a private one, locked down and only used for family and close friends, and second, a public one that lacks identifiers but showcases whatever branding the child is hoping to grow. I’ve come across some well-managed public accounts for children who have giant followings and noticed they are usually run by parents, who state that right in the profile. I like this. If your children want public profiles because they are hoping to catch the attention of a talent scout, having the accounts monitored by a responsible adult who has their best interest in mind is a healthy compromise.

    This is the exception, however. Most tweens and teens today use their social media for socializing with local friends. The benefit of keeping their account as private (or as private as can be) is threefold. It allows them to screen who follows their content, thus preventing our Pinterest fiasco. It prevents strangers from accessing their content and making it viral without their permission. And it protects them from unsolicited contact with strangers.

    Not all social media platforms have the option to make your account “private.” For example, YouTube has parental controls that can be adjusted at any time. TikTok and Instagram can be made private (which means users must approve followers) by making the change in the account settings. Once the account is private, a little padlock will show next to the username.

    Snapchat allows users to approve followers on a case-by-case basis as well as turn off features that disclose a user’s location. Notably, Snapchat also informs users when another user takes a screenshot of their story, which is a feature other social media platforms don’t have yet.

    Most group chat apps don’t have the ability to go private so much as they ask users to approve of follower requests. Take time to discuss with your children who they allow to follow them and what personal information they allow those followers to know. It’s also a great time to teach them the art of “blocking” those individuals who are unsafe or unkind.

    My suggestion is to log in, scroll around and even ask your children to teach you about the platforms they use. Then, when they roll their eyes at you, go ahead and tell them about your first Hotmail email address and the way you picked the perfect emo playlist on your Myspace page … and when they’re bent over laughing, sneak a peek at their follower list. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.

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  • Superbowl LVI was crypto’s coming out party. This year, the party’s over | CNN Business

    Superbowl LVI was crypto’s coming out party. This year, the party’s over | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Super Bowl LVI was the crypto world’s coming out party. Buzzy firms made bold pitches last year, and shelled out millions of dollars on ads encouraging viewers not to be afraid of this new-fangled digital investment — and for God’s sake don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity!

    You can expect a lot less noise from Team Crypto during Super Bowl LVII next Sunday.

    In the year since those celebrity-packed ads debuted, the entire crypto industry has been rattled by a collapse in digital asset values. Bankruptcies began to pile up over the summer.

    Then the real pain started.

    Of the four crypto or crypto-affiliated companies that advertised in the Super Bowl last year, one (FTX) has collapsed completely. The others (Coinbase, Crypto.com and eToro) have fought against industry headwinds. Shares of Coinbase, the only publicly traded company in the group, have fallen more than 60% since its “floating QR code” ad became one of the most talked-about spots.

    Don’t expect any of those companies to be back this year. FTX is bankrupt and under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors. Etoro, a multi-asset trading platform, confirmed to CNN it would not be splurging on an ad this year, saying that while it continues to invest heavily in marketing, “we dial up or down specific channels based on many factors including market conditions.”

    Coinbase declined to comment. Representatives for Crypto.com — the company behind the ad featuring LeBron James telling his younger self to “call your own shots” — didn’t respond to requests for comment.

    But there will be at least one crypto-adjacent newcomer. Limit Break, a blockchain-based game developer, has secured a spot and intends to give away 40,000 NFTs, or non-fungible tokens (aka one-of-a-kind digital collectibles) to viewers who scan its QR code. Limit Break, founded in 2021, said it has already raised $200 million and expects to grow “a massive global audience.”

    Despite what is being called a “crypto winter,” sports advertising remains a crucial avenue for the digital curency, marketing experts say, as their target demographics share significant overlap — sports fans and crypto traders tend to be mostly male and mostly young.

    But turmoil in the crypto space means marketers are changing their tactics.

    “The tone has shifted towards Web3-driven fan engagement over crypto-specific advertising,” said Silvia Lacayo, head of marketing at crypto exchange Bitstamp US. (Web3 refers to a future internet framework that is decentralized and gives consumers more control over their own data).

    “Crypto firms are focusing less on crypto advertising and more on investing in better user experiences, products, and customer service,” Lacayo added.

    Although we don’t yet know the final lineup of advertisers for the Super Bowl, the usual suspects — beer, snacks, cars — are on deck as usual.

    “The fact that the crypto players are not going to be on the Super Bowl reflects the fact that that world has profoundly changed,” Calkins said. “Last year it was an exuberant time for crypto … This year, everything is different.”

    A year ago, FTX fetched a private valuation of around $32 billion. Its Super Bowl ads featured Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen. Another FTX ad featured Larry David in a role that, a year later, appears prescient, with David sarcastically predicting that FTX won’t make it.

    In November, nine months after the ad debuted, FTX filed for bankruptcy. Several former executives have been charged with wire fraud and conspiracy over allegations FTX misappropriated customer funds.

    “It’s amazing how you can look back one year you realize we were in such a different place,” Calkins said. “Last year we had a Super Bowl advertiser saying, ‘fly me to the moon,’” he said, referencing the music in eToro’s ad, which many read as a nod to the meme-stock traders’ rally cry.

    But a year of higher inflation, the end of pandemic-era stimulus and higher interest rates has put a damper on financial markets — not only crypto, but traditional markets as well.

    That shift in mood will likely show up in the kinds of advertisers we see and in their messaging.

    “Our economy’s in a strange place,” Calkins says. “So if you’re an advertiser, it’s hard to know — how do you play that?”

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  • Why did we get a monster jobs report if the economy is slowing? | CNN Business

    Why did we get a monster jobs report if the economy is slowing? | CNN Business

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    Minneapolis
    CNN
     — 

    The economy wasn’t supposed to add half a million jobs in January.

    In fact, a consensus poll of 81 economists expected job gains to land at around 185,000, according to Refinitiv. After 11 months of aggressive rate hikes from the Federal Reserve, the experts were naturally expecting the economy’s job gains to slow as higher borrowing costs percolated through the economy, slowing investment and growth and pushing companies to pull back on spending and hiring.

    And yet, even though it seemed impossible, the labor market is somehow getting tighter, said Rucha Vankudre, senior economist at business analytics firm Lightcast.

    “I think pretty much all the labor economists in the country this morning are shocked,” Vankudre said Friday during a webinar after the jobs report was released. I think the question on everyone’s mind is, ‘How can the labor market keep getting stronger and stronger, and how can this keep happening while at the same time we are seeing prices come down?’”

    Instead of lending credence to what was a bubbling belief in a soft landing, Friday’s jobs report only seems to beg more questions about not only the state of the economy, but also of the Federal Reserve’s attempts to hammer down high inflation.

    On Wednesday, the Fed concluded its first policymaking meeting of 2023 by green-lighting a quarter-point interest rate hike — the smallest since March — as a reflection of progress in its fight to lower inflation.

    The more moderate increase had been long telegraphed and came despite a hotter-than-expected December Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report, which showed job openings grew to more than 11 million, or 1.9 available jobs for every job seeker.

    Fed officials remain laser focused on wages and inflation, and are seeing some progress there, said Elizabeth Crofoot, Lightcast senior economist. Fluctuations are to be expected in any economic data, and it’s (always) important to remember that “one month does not make a trend,” especially for January data, she said.

    “I think [Fed officials] are going to say, ‘Let’s continue to keep our eye on the data,’ and they’re going to hold steady until they see that inflation rate come down,” Crofoot said.

    The January jobs report shouldn’t trigger a wholesale change of what Fed members are thinking or what they were planning on doing before this report, Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo, told CNN.

    “I think it suggests that the labor market remains still very strong, and there’s still a lot of wage pressures coming from that strong labor market that the Fed needs to contend with if it’s going to get inflation back to 2% on a sustained basis,” House said, noting the Fed’s target inflation rate.

    The Covid pandemic was a tremendous shock to global economies, and the US labor force is still showing the effects of historic employment losses, sudden shifts in consumer behavior, discombobulated supply chains, and efforts to return to a state of normality.

    The employment recovery since 2021 has been historically robust, with the monthly job gains larger than anything seen on record.

    January’s jobs report came with added complexity, because it included annual updates to populations estimates and revisions to employer survey data.

    “Now we know both [2021 and 2022] had faster job growth than we previously realized,” said University of Michigan economists Betsey Stevenson and Benny Doctor in a statement Friday. “The patterns remain the same: Job growth accelerated in the second half of 2021 before slowing in the first half of 2022 and slowing further in the second half of 2022.”

    The January reports also bring with them “seasonal noise,” said Joe Brusuelas, principal and chief economist for RSM US.

    “I’m advising policymakers and clients to ignore the topline number [of 517,000],” he said, noting it’s likely a function of seasonal adjustments and a reflection of swings in hiring activity and traditional cutbacks that take place from mid-December to mid-January.

    “That being said, even if a downward revision takes away 200,000 or so off the top, you still are sitting at around 300,000,” he added.

    “The job market is clearly too robust at this time to re-establish price stability; therefore, the Federal Reserve is going to have to not only hike by 25 basis points at its March meeting, it’s going to have to do so at the May meeting,” he predicted.

    Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference after a Federal Open Market Committee meeting on February 01, 2023, in Washington, DC. The Fed announced a 0.25 percentage point interest rate increase to a range of 4.50% to 4.75%.

    Last summer, Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned that “some pain” (aka rising unemployment) would likely be felt as a result of the Fed’s sweeping efforts to tackle inflation.

    Yet Powell did not once utter the word “pain” during his press conference on Wednesday, said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst with Bankrate.

    “If they were to put money on it, I think Las Vegas oddsmakers would be doubling down right now on the soft landing scenario — not to say that’s the base case, per se, but the chances seem to be growing,” Hamrick said.

    “If anything, the global economic scenario has brightened in recent days and weeks — and we got a significant ray of sunshine with this January employment report, including all the revisions — but that’s not to say that consumers or businesses should be complacent with respect to an eventual risk of a recession,” he said.

    So for now, the chances of a soft landing remain unknown.

    “This is sort of a bumpy, turbulent ride to who knows where,” Crofoot said.

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  • Apple is the only US tech giant to have avoided significant layoffs. Will it last? | CNN Business

    Apple is the only US tech giant to have avoided significant layoffs. Will it last? | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    In less than three months, four of the big five US tech companies have cut tens of thousands of employees combined, shattering myths about the industry’s seemingly unstoppable growth in the process.

    But there has been one notable exception: Apple.

    To date, Apple

    (AAPL)     has not announced any substantial cuts, thanks in part to slower headcount growth than some of its peers during the pandemic and continued demand for its core products. Some analysts think more modest cost cuts could be coming, however.

    The iPhone maker is set to report earnings results for the final three months of 2022 on Thursday after the bell. It is expected to post a rare year-over-year decline in revenue.

    While these expectations show the strain Apple’s business is under, Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives said in a note this week that pent-up demand for upgrading iPhones remains strong. “Apple will likely cut some costs around the edges, but we do not expect mass layoffs from Cupertino this week,” Ives wrote.

    Tom Forte, a senior research analyst at DA Davison, agreed there will be staff reductions, but likely not as drastic as those at other large tech companies. “Apple will cut headcount,” he said in a recent interview on Bloomberg TV, but suggested the cuts would come through attrition or reductions at the retail level.

    “While they haven’t done so yet, like everyone else, they will adjust their headcount for the current level of demand,” he said.

    Fueled by a surge in demand for digital products earlier in the pandemic, Big Tech went on a massive hiring spree.

    Amazon

    (AMZN)     and Meta each doubled their headcount between the third quarter in 2019 and the third quarter 2022, according to data shared in the companies’ securities filings. Alphabet, meanwhile, grew its headcount 64% during that time, and Microsoft grew its staff by more than 50% over approximately the same period.

    Apple, by comparison, grew its headcount by a more modest 20%. As of September 2022, Apple said it had approximately 164,000 full-time employees.

    Many tech CEOs, with varying degrees of remorse, have blamed over-hiring in the early days of the pandemic for the mass layoffs now. As pandemic restrictions eased last year, the demand for digital services shifted back toward pre-pandemic levels. Inflation pinched consumer and business spending, and rising interest rates evaporated the easy money tech companies had tapped into. And one-by-one, amid the whiplash, household names in Silicon Valley began announcing widespread layoffs to adjust to the new environment.

    While Apple has not announced layoffs, its business has been strained in other ways. Like other Big Tech companies, it has faced threats of antitrust action in the United States and EU. Earlier this month, Apple also said CEO Tim Cook had agreed to a massive pay cut this year, following a shareholder vote on his compensation package after its stock fell about 27% in 2022.

    As consumer spending tightened, global smartphone shipments plunged 18% in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to market research firm Canalys. Apple’s business also faced supply chain hurdles linked to China’s Covid lockdowns and unrest that hit a key production site in Zhengzhou, China late last year.

    Still, Apple’s business is weathering the downturn better than some of its fellow tech giants. In its most-recent earnings report, the company reported sales grew 8% year-over-year and that the company hit a September quarter revenue record for iPhone.

    Thursday’s earnings results will show whether Apple can keep defying gravity.

    “Apple continues to innovate with high-quality, industry-leading products supported by a powerful digital platform,” analysts at Monness, Crespi and Hardt wrote in an investor note Tuesday. “However, regulatory headwinds persist and we believe the darkest days of this downturn are ahead of us.”

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