 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
FINANCIAL & BUSINESS NEWS
from Eyewitness News Online BUSINESS UPDATE
Last Update: May 21, 2013 10:46 AM EDTStocks flat...2 Senate panels looking at tax matters...Home Depot tops expectations
NEW YORK Stock indexes are little changed in early trading on Wall Street. Investors may be looking ahead to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's appearance before Congress tomorrow. Minutes will also be released tomorrow from the most recent Federal Reserve policy meeting. WASHINGTON Taxes are the topic of two Senate hearings today. The Senate Finance Committee is hearing from former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman about the agency's targeting of conservative groups. And Apple CEO Tim Cook is talking to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which released a report yesterday saying Apple is avoiding billions of dollars in U.S. taxes by using a cluster of affiliates located outside the country. ATLANTA Even though the weather was poor, Home Depot posted an 18 percent increase in its net income for the first quarter. Its quarterly results topped Wall Street's view and the world's biggest home improvement chain is boosting its full-year earnings and revenue forecasts. MINNEAPOLIS Best Buy is reporting a loss in its fiscal first quarter as it sold its stake in Best Buy Europe and works on a turnaround plan that includes cutting costs and closing some stores. Its adjusted earnings beat Wall Street expectations, but revenue fell short. The company has been working on a turnaround plan as it faces increased competition from online retailers and discount stores. REMOND, Wash. Microsoft reveals the next generation of its Xbox entertainment console today. For the past two years, Microsoft has led the gaming industry in console sales with the Xbox 360. Today's presentation at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash., gives the company a chance to address questions about the rumored hardware, including what it will cost and if it will require an Internet connection. Asia stocks fall BANGKOK Asian stock markets fell today as investors waited for the U.S. Federal Reserve to telegraph what it plans to do next with its economic stimulus program. The Fed is conducting its third round of massive bond purchases known as quantitative easing to help drive down interest rates and spur lending. But recently improving data on the U.S. economy has led to speculation that the Fed might consider scaling back the program or winding it down earlier than expected. Benchmark crude oil rose to near $97 per barrel. The dollar rose against the euro and the yen. Panel: Apple uses firms outside US to avoid taxes WASHINGTON Apple CEO Tim Cook, the company's chief financial officer and its tax chief are scheduled to testify before a Senate subcommittee today. They're expected to face some tough questions. Their appearance will come a day after a Senate investigation found that Apple Inc. employs a group of affiliate companies located outside the United States to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. income taxes. Although the strategies Apple uses are legal, lawmakers say they raise questions about loopholes in the U.S. tax code. Apple denies using "tax gimmicks." It says it employs tens of thousands of Americans and pays "an extraordinary amount" in U.S. taxes, citing the roughly $6 billion it paid in fiscal 2012. AP source: Treasury told WH of IRS disclosure plan WASHINGTON A Treasury official says the department told the White House twice that the IRS was preparing to make public its targeting of conservative political groups. The official said Monday that Treasury told the White House in late April about a possible speech in which IRS official Lois Lerner would make a public apology and that outgoing Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller expected to be asked about the issue during congressional testimony. However, the official said Treasury did not give the White House advance warning that Lerner planned to address the issue during a May 10 conference, which she ultimately did. White House advisers have said President Barack Obama was not told about the IRS targeting before it became public. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and insisted on anonymity. Lew taps government retiree pension fund WASHINGTON Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew says he will begin tapping into two government employee retirement funds to buy more time before the U.S. Treasury is faced with the prospect of defaulting on the national debt. In a letter to congressional leaders, Lew said Monday that he would begin tapping the civil service retirement and disability fund and a similar fund that covers retired postal workers. The law allows him to remove investments from these funds to clear room for more borrowing until Congress votes to raise the debt limit. Lew has said the various bookkeeping measures can provide enough maneuvering room to keep the government from defaulting on its debt until after Labor Day. Earlier this year, Congress voted to temporarily suspend the debt limit but on Sunday that suspension ended. Yahoo reboots Flickr, offers 1 terabyte of storage NEW YORK Fresh on the heels of its $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr, Yahoo says it is rebooting its languishing photo-sharing site Flickr with plans to make it — quote — "awesome" again. Yahoo Inc. said at an event in New York City's Times Square on Monday that it is now offering users 1 terabyte of online storage for free. One terabyte is 1,024 gigabytes — enough to store more than 500,000 images at a resolution common to most smartphones. Yahoo has redesigned the Flickr website to emphasize photos rather than text or white space, as was the case previously. Photos are bigger and shared in full resolution rather than compressed into a lower quality. Flickr also launched a new Android app to follow the December unveiling of a new iPhone app. Average credit card debt, late payments fall in 1Q LOS ANGELES Americans got better about paying their credit card debt on time in the first three months of the year, a period when many borrowers use income tax returns to tackle their holiday season debt. The rate of credit card payments at least 90 days overdue fell to 0.69 percent in the first quarter from 0.85 percent a year earlier — drop of nearly 19 percent, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion. The January-March card delinquency rate was also down from 0.73 in the October-December quarter, when many consumers ramped up credit use to finance holiday season purchases. Public pension employees skip Hawaii conference HONOLULU Organizers of an annual conference for people who manage more than $3 trillion in public sector pension funds say administrators are skipping this year's meeting in Hawaii to avoid the perception they're wasting money by heading to the island paradise. Hank Kim is the executive director of the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems. He says roughly 650 attendees are coming to this year's conference, which started Monday in Waikiki. That compares with about 1,000 attendees at last year's weeklong conference in New York. Kim says trustees and others from around the country are thinking about "headline risk" — how the trip may be perceived back home. Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie defended Hawaii in remarks to open the conference, saying Hawaii is as legitimate a host as any other U.S. city. United restarts 787 flights after grounding UNDATED United Airlines put its 787 back in the air on Monday, with both the airline and Boeing hoping to put the plane's four-month grounding behind them. The flight from Houston to Chicago was just the kind of 787 flight that airlines are hoping for: uneventful. Smoldering batteries on two 787s owned by other airlines prompted authorities to ground the planes in January. The failure of Boeing's newest, flashiest and most important plane embarrassed the company. Both United CEO Jeff Smisek and Boeing CEO Jim McNerney were on board Monday's flight. FDA has safety concerns with Merck insomnia drug WASHINGTON Federal health regulators say an experimental insomnia drug from Merck can help patients fall asleep. But it also carries worrisome side effects, including daytime drowsiness and suicidal thinking. The Food and Drug Administration on Monday released its review of the company's sleep aid, suvorexant, ahead of a public meeting on Wednesday. The pill works by temporarily blocking chemical messengers that keep people awake. The FDA will ask a panel of outside experts to vote on questions of the drug's safety and effectiveness. Seamless and GrubHub to combine, no terms revealed NEW YORK Rival online takeout services Seamless North America and GrubHub on Monday announced plans to combine and create a new company covering more than 20,000 restaurants in 500 cities across the U.S. Financial terms were not disclosed. It's unclear what the combined company will be called. GrubHub CEO Matt Maloney will become CEO, while Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky will serve as president, according to a joint statement. Retailer LL Bean keeping it in the family FREEPORT, Maine ” L.L. Bean's grandson Leon Gorman is retiring as chairman of the outdoors retailer after more than a half-century as the company's chairman or CEO. But the privately held firm is keeping the position in the family. The Maine-based outdoors retailer informed its 5,000 full- and part-time workers Monday that Bean's great-grandson Shawn Gorman is the latest family member to serve as chairman. The appointment underscores a commitment to family ownership in an era in which most large retailers are publicly traded. Shawn Gorman, who's 47, is a familiar face at L.L. Bean. He's worked for more than 20 years at the company in a number of roles before becoming senior vice president for brand communications, where he oversaw market research and advertising teams. |
|
|
|
      |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  
How To Contact WCHS-TV8 | Privacy Policy | FCC Public File | Terms and Conditions | DMCA Policy | Frequently Asked Questions
Home | Eyewitness News Newsroom | Storm Team Weather | Eyewitness Sports | Schedules 
Send email to news@wchstv.com for information or comments concerning WCHS-TV Eyewitness News.Copyright ©2013, WCHS-TV8. Portions are Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or distributed. |