Retired folks have something to celebrate a little, today, as social security benefits are increasing. But don’t plan to throw a weekend bash: the increase is only about $3.92, or 0.3 percent. Currently, the average monthly social security benefit for a retiree is $1,305.30. This might be up from last year (when inflation kept social […]
Alcoa Inc (NYSE:AA) surprised Wall Street ahead of the open today by announcing results earlier than scheduled and that fell short of expectations. Alcoa Inc expected at $0.33 a share, missed analysts’ projections by $0.02 cents. Shares sank as much as 7% in pre-market activity, wiping out this year’s gain of 6.4% and then some. Investors had not expected […]
The retail sector is struggling and that is no more apparent in the number of store closures reported throughout the market. One company has been largely immune to these metric—Walmart Stores, Inc, obviously—but it looks like they are also feeling the pinch. Now, the company has not necessarily reported that any stores will be closing […]
It has only been two years since the hedge fund Starboard Value took over control of the governing board of Darden Restaurants (NYSE: DRI). Since that time, though, 7 of the board’s 12 directors have stepped down, and that includes former chairman and activist investor Jeff Smith. Darden, of course, is the parent company of […]
On Tuesday, the National Retail Federation announced that it expects holiday spending to increase over last year. The NRF says retail sales in November and December—with the exception of gas, auto, and restaurant sales—will increase by a steady 3.6 percent, to reach $655.8 billion. This is notably higher than the 10-year average of 2.5 percent […]
The race to develop autonomous vehicles has been a rocky one. While many car manufacturers and tech companies work furiously to lead the way, testing continues to expose how far we still have to go before these machines could become commonplace. In some ways, the public is confused over what “self-driving” cars can do; and […]
Shares of mobile app Twitter surged on Friday after sources close to the issue noted that the ailing social media said the ailing social media company is moving closer to being sold. These sources indicated that the company has, in fact, received expressions of interest from a handful of technology and/or media companies—some of which […]
This week, the Geneva-based World Trade Organization drastically cut its forecast over trade growth this year by roughly one third to mark the lowest growth rate since 2009. This was a time when the global economy was riddled with a recession and a near financial crisis. Updating its most recent forecast, on Tuesday, the world’s […]
When internet radio application Pandora first hit the scene, it was revolutionary. In a time when the music industry was in a major state of flux—and neither consumers nor executives knew what to expect from the future—a change was, in fact, in order. Pandora was one answer to the file-sharing debacle that crippled the industry […]