Author: James Martin

Placeholder while article actions loadRussian President Vladimir Putin’s decree imposing a new payments system for gas supplies has placed the European Union and Russia at loggerheads, with Moscow demanding that EU companies open accounts in rubles. The issue, sparked by Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Western response to it, escalated on April 27 after Russia cut off gas sales to Poland and Bulgaria, which refused to pay in rubles. At stake is European unity, with some countries including Germany more reliant on Russian gas than others. The EU’s legal guidelines so far have left some companies and governments confused.1.…

Placeholder while article actions loadSome big-name Chinese stocks including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Baidu Inc. face the prospect of getting kicked off the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq if they refuse to let U.S. regulators see their financial audits. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has started the process, compelled by a 2020 law, and investors have started to pay attention. So has China, which moved to potentially clear a big hurdle that stymied U.S. regulators for years. 1. Why does the U.S. want access to audits?The 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, enacted in the wake of the Enron Corp. accounting…

Placeholder while article actions loadIt’s been more than two years since Apple Inc. issued revenue guidance. The iPhone maker initially blamed the Covid-19 pandemic, and later added chip shortages, for its inability to forecast the future. Yet the move is part of a worrying trend toward decreasing transparency at the world’s largest company.On January 28, 2020, just as lockdown measures were shutting parts of China and a new virus was arriving on U.S. shores, Apple gave a wider than usual March-quarter guidance range because of uncertainty about both consumer demand and supply chain impact. The forecast was for revenue of $63 billion to…

Placeholder while article actions loadThe threat of U.S. stagflation has investors treating supermarkets and other consumer staples companies like the high-flying tech stocks of yesteryear. The shares have trounced their consumer discretionary peers by the widest margin in two decades, and the outperformance probably has room to continue.The reason is understandable, given the economic backdrop. Investors are afraid of the effect slower growth will probably have on discretionary spending and equally petrified of what 40-year-high inflation means for fixed income and cash. So many have settled for a strategy centered on so-called defensive stocks — which include utilities and health care in…

Placeholder while article actions loadElon Musk has focused on free speech when talking about his planned acquisition of Twitter, but in discussions with bankers in gaining financing for the deal, he was full of ideas about how to reinvigorate Twitter’s business.Musk talked with bankers about creating “efficiencies” at Twitter, which could include job cuts, according to people with knowledge of the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.Musk also brought up several ideas to boost revenue for the company, such as paying “influencers” to create content, following a business model that helped make TikTok a…

Driven up by high demand and low inventory, home prices kept climbing in most jurisdictionsA boat near the Chaptico Wharf on the Wicomico River at sunset. The Zip code 20621, Chaptico, Md., has seen the biggest annual gain in median sales price of homes in the tri-state area. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)The story of the 2021 housing market in the D.C. region was much the same as it was in 2020 — rising prices and persistent low inventory. The only difference was an uptick in sales last year.The pandemic has had a profound effect on the area’s housing market. People…

Placeholder while article actions loadWhat’s the easiest way to buy something? With other people’s money. That’s the key to almost all of the LBOs, or leveraged buyouts, that have dominated mergers and acquisitions for a generation. But while Elon Musk’s $44 billion planned takeover of Twitter is an LBO, it differs from most in several important respects. When you’re the world’s richest man and one who professes to not care about the economics of the deal, buying can be easier — and certainly faster — if you’re willing to put up what to virtually anyone else would be an awful…

Placeholder while article actions loadMortgage rates paused their rapid ascent this week ahead of next week’s Federal Reserve meeting.According to data released Thursday by Freddie Mac, the 30-year fixed-rate average slipped to 5.1 percent, with an average 0.8 point. (A point is a fee paid to a lender equal to 1 percent of the loan amount. It is in addition to the interest rate.) It was 5.11 percent a week ago and 2.98 percent a year ago. This was the first time in seven weeks that the 30-year average had not risen.Freddie Mac, the federally chartered mortgage investor, aggregates rates…

Placeholder while article actions loadRiot Games announced a slate of changes to “Valorant” esports Thursday, including the introduction of international and domestic leagues as well as a new competitive game mode for aspiring pro players. All changes are scheduled for 2023. The news sets the game, which now boasts 15 million monthly players, on course to replicate some of the successes of the developer’s marquee esports product, “League of Legends.”“We’ll use everything we learned from the past 10 years with LoL Esports to build an ecosystem that will supercharge ‘Valorant’ into the next great multigenerational esport,” said John Needham, president…

Placeholder while article actions loadFederal workplace safety officials have asked Amazon to voluntarily improve safety procedures in the wake of the Illinois warehouse collapse which killed six of its workers and injured others in December.In a “Hazard Alert Letter” to the e-commerce giant dated Tuesday, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration expressed “concerns” about the potential risk to employees at the 1.1 million-square-foot facility during severe weather emergencies.But the government’s top workplace safety regulator stopped short of fining or formally penalizing Amazon, despite identifying several holes in the facility’s emergency procedures. The regulator said Amazon met “minimal federal safety guidelines…