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Buy these 13 cheap stocks that will outperform in a recession-fuelled bear market, according to Morningstar
Rising interest rates have spooked investors, who worry that aggressive hikes will lead to a recession.
Getty Images / Mario Tama
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq have both plummeted over 20% this year as investors worry about a recession.
But pockets of the market now look significantly undervalued, according to Morningstar.
The research firm highlighted 13 stocks to buy because they will outperform in a bear market.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are both officially in bear market territory.
After delivering spectacular returns in 2021, the two indices have both slid over 20% year-to-date as institutional and retail investors fret that rising interest rates will trigger a recession.
But even a bear market creates investing opportunities, according to Morningstar. The investment firm recently identified 13 stocks that now look undervalued.
"It's definitely been a tough year thus far for the market," Morningstar's chief US market strategist Dave Sekera said in a recent interview. "Having said that, I think the selling recently has become pretty indiscriminate, as even high-quality companies have been caught up in this most recent downdraft."
Some investors are now focussing on timing the market bottom. Sekera warned that it's difficult to predict when stocks will turnaround at this stage - but noted that signs that inflation is easing away from its 40-year high of 8.6% would likely spark a rally.
"Markets are waiting to get better clarity on a couple of different factors," he said. "The most important will be when will inflation start to moderate, and when will we see some stabilization in the US economy."
But in the meantime, investors should load up on high-quality stocks that could be trading at a significant discount, according to Sekera.
"These are just great opportunities for investors with a long-term focus," he said. "With these stocks down as much as they are, that's providing the ability for those that do have risk appetite in cash to put that to work in today's market."
Here are Morningstar's 13 undervalued stocks to buy:
Ticker: BSX
Analysis: "[Boston Scientific] is currently trading at a 22% discount to our fair value," Sekera said. "It's only traded here less than 5% of the time over the past 10 years."
Ticker: CLX
Industry: consumer goods
Analysis: "A number of high-quality consumer-branded products that are all now trading at significant discounts, but the one I'll leave you with will be Clorox," Sekera said. "It's only ever traded at this discount or lower 15% of the time."
Industry: cybersecurity
Ticker: FTNT
Analysis: "Cybersecurity has just really compelling attributes for investors today... [and Fortinet] is trading at a 21% discount to our fair value," Sekera said.
Ticker: HON
Ticker: MKTX
Industry: financial services
Analysis: "[MarketAxess] run an electronic fixed-income trading portal," Sekera said. "The stock is down 34% thus far this year; we think that's trading at a 22% discount to our fair value."
Ticker: MCO
Analysis: "Over the past decade, Moody's has only traded here, at a discount this great, about 10% of the time," Sekera said.
Ticker: NVDA
Industry: semiconductor manufacturing
Analysis: "Just as an indication of how fast things have moved in the marketplace, [Nvidia] was actually overvalued as recently as March," Sekera said.
Ticker: ROP
Ticker: SPGI
Market cap: $111.42
Ticker: ZTS
Analysis: "Zoetis sells health products for both pets and animals, we assign the company with a wide moat, and it currently trades at a 15% discount to our fair value," Sekera said.
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2022-06-23T09:44:40Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Cheap Stock Picks to Buy: Morningstar's Recession Investing Strategy
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https://www.businessinsider.com/cheap-stock-picks-to-buy-recession-bear-market-undervalued-morningstar-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/cheap-stock-picks-to-buy-recession-bear-market-undervalued-morningstar-2022-6
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Home Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Education
Average US gas prices were $4.94 a gallon on Thursday, dropping to $4.58 in North Carolina, according to AAA.
Kena Betancur/VIEWpress/Getty Images
A community college in North Carolina is going remote one day a week because of soaring gas prices.
Staff will work from home and buildings will be shut on Fridays until mid-August, it said.
Average gas prices have sunk below $5 a gallon, but that's still an increase of nearly $2 in a year.
A community college in Sylva, North Carolina is going remote one day a week because of the soaring gas prices its staff are facing.
"Due to the ever-rising costs of gasoline, Southwestern Community College's administration has decided to move to virtual operations every Friday starting on June 10 at all SCC campuses and locations," the college said in a statement.
It said that staff members would work virtually on Fridays and that all college buildings except its Public Safety Training Center would be closed on Fridays through "at least" August 5.
The college said that it "will remain open and fully operational" and that its one on-campus class on Fridays would continue as scheduled.
Southwest Tennessee Community College in Memphis has also shifted to online-only on Fridays, with its president attributing this to "historic inflation numbers and increasing gas prices." The college is closing its buildings, shifting classes online, and making employees work remotely on Fridays through August 12.
Average US gas prices were $4.94 a gallon on Thursday, dropping to $4.58 in North Carolina, according to AAA. Though prices have fallen slightly in recent days, they're still well above pre-pandemic levels and around $2 more per gallon than this time last year, sparking a wave of fuel thefts.
President Joe Biden has said he's considering measures like pausing federal gas-tax, which is 18.4 cents a gallon, though the CEO of Target has said that this would simply "fuel the demand" at the pump without fixing any of the supply problems.
More: Education transport Transportation Gas
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2022-06-23T09:44:46Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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NC College Closes Buildings, Mandates WFH on Fridays Over Gas Prices
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https://www.businessinsider.com/gas-prices-north-carolina-community-college-remote-inflation-southwestern-sylva-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/gas-prices-north-carolina-community-college-remote-inflation-southwestern-sylva-2022-6
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More than two thirds of workers think their boss views them as less productive when working from home
The survey asked 7,500 workers across the UK, the US and Australia.
Aleutie/Getty Images
Nearly three quarters of office workers report being as or more productive working remotely.
The research, commissioned by talent platform Beamery, found 68% thought their employers disagreed.
The survey polled 7,500 workers in the US, UK and Australia.
More than two thirds of workers think their bosses regard remote work as less productive, despite most feeling as or more productive than in the office, a new survey has found.
The survey, commissioned by talent platform Beamery, found that 73% reported being as or more productive at home but 68% believe their employer thinks they are less productive when they are not in the office.
Beamery commissioned Atomik Research to survey 7,500 office workers in the US, UK and Australia between June 1 and 10 on their views on productivity, working from home, and returning to the office.
The research also found 88% of staff reported their employers viewed returning to the office as essential, with 43% citing productivity as the main reason for the push to return.
A total of 45% said they thought their employers felt that communication would improve between colleagues in the office.
The findings come amid a debate as to how enduring the remote work surge prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, will actually be.
Elon Musk has issued an ultimatum to workers at Tesla to come into the office and "stop phoning it in."
He said workers who did not come in at least 40 hours a week would be assumed to have resigned, according to an email that was shared on Twitter.
Insider's Isobel Asher Hamilton has reported that three economists said remote work had little impact on workers' ability to get stuff done and may have even increased productivity.
A Beamery survey of US and UK workers, published in October 2021, found that 48% felt a lack of face-to-face contact time with bosses had stalled their career progression.
Bosses are worried about "proximity bias " – the tendency for those in offices to be more likely to get career opportunities and promotions – with 35% of senior leaders in the UK worried about the impact of remote work on employees' career progression, according to a LinkedIn survey of C-level executives in November 2021.
More: Beamery Remote Work Hybrid working
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2022-06-23T09:44:58Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Workers Think Bosses Regard Working From Home As Less Productive
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https://www.businessinsider.com/workers-feel-just-as-productive-working-from-home-bosses-disagree-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/workers-feel-just-as-productive-working-from-home-bosses-disagree-2022-6
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Bank of America just made a strategic investment in iCapital, joining a chorus of top Wall Street firms backing the marketplace for alts
Asia Martin and Rebecca Ungarino
iCapital, run by CEO Lawrence Calcano, convened a consortium of banks and asset managers with an aim to simplify the process of investing in alternative assets.
iCapital received a strategic investment from Bank of America for an undisclosed amount.
The fintech's valuation remained at $6 billion following the investment, according to its CEO.
The new partnership adds a Bank of America exec to iCapital's advisory board.
Bank of America has made a strategic investment in iCapital, Insider can exclusively report, joining a growing list of major banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse, UBS, Goldman, and Morgan Stanley that have backed the fintech, which operates a marketplace for alternative investments.
The size of the investment wasn't disclosed, but iCapital CEO Lawrence Calcano told Insider the fintech's $6 billion valuation from its $50 million round in December remains the same.
The investment brings Nancy Fahmy, Bank of America's head of alternative investments, to iCapital's advisory board to help with product direction.
"It just creates closer alignment," said Calcano of the new partnership.
The new capital will be used to "drive automation of the platform and deepen the technical engagement between the two firms," he added.
iCapital and Bank of America established a relationship in 2018 when the bank sold its feeder funds business, which had Merrill Lynch and U.S. Trust as distributors, to iCapital. The transaction closed in 2019.
The funding announcement comes as startups face a difficult environment for raising cash thanks to the economic downturn. Private companies have seen their valuations crash after a record-breaking year in 2021, forcing some to look to cut costs and reduce their headcounts.
Calcano told Insider iCapital was not looking to raise capital since it has a significant amount on its balance sheet. But discussions between the two this year led Bank of America to offer capital and the fintech was "very happy to include them in the cap table."
The Merrill connection
iCapital, backed by or in partnership with nearly every major bank, asset manager, and private-equity firm on Wall Street, has seized on investors' appetite for investments outside of plain vanilla stocks and bonds.
Investors pay the price for diversity in their portfolios and a chance to get exposure to popular, privately-held companies. These often sophisticated products asset managers are pushing tend to cost more in fees than traditional exchange-traded funds that track equity indices.
Doing business with Bank of America, where thousands of financial advisors and private bankers oversee $4.2 trillion in one of the largest wealth management businesses in the world, is a win for iCapital. The startup relies on connecting with advisors and big investors who want to tap into pools of alternative assets for clients.
The bank's Merrill Lynch Wealth Management arm had started offering more of these options to clients, Insider previously reported. The firm had also cut fees on some investments to drum up interest from clients.
In April, Merrill reported a rise of 40% to some $71 billion of alternative assets under management from a year prior.
Merrill President Andy Sieg told reporters at the time that Merrill has hired some 50 employees focused on non-mainstream assets, like staff who conduct investment due diligence or specialize in product origination, since last fall. The dedicated team is now 150 employees in total, a spokesperson said at the time.
More: Fintech Banks alternative investments
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2022-06-23T11:15:51Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Bank of America Invests in Fintech ICapital to Boost Services
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https://www.businessinsider.com/bank-of-america-invests-in-icapital-alternative-investments-fintech-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/bank-of-america-invests-in-icapital-alternative-investments-fintech-2022-6
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Morgan Stanley says to buy these 19 stocks with at least 17% upside — even though history says that US stocks could still fall another 20% as a recession strikes
Stocks may fall another 20%, warns Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson.
Mike Wilson, the chief US equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, called the market crash.
The strategy chief is now warning about another 20% decline as recession risk rises.
Here are 19 stocks that Morgan Stanley analysts are bullish on anyways.
Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson has long been cautious about US stocks, but he's no permabear.
In fact, Wilson was called "the biggest bull on the Street" shortly after becoming Morgan Stanley's chief US equity strategist in spring 2017, and his bullish S&P 500 price target at the time soon proved to be accurate.
But since then the strategy chief has been either lukewarm or downbeat about stocks. Many of his market calls have come to fruition — including one last fall about high inflation and low growth.
In fact, Morgan Stanley was one of only two Wall Street firms that saw stocks sliding in 2022 as growth slowed and valuations fell, though the firm can't say it predicted a 21% crash a mere six months later.
Unfortunately, Wilson now sees another 20% selloff ahead as four-decade-high inflation and the Federal Reserve's aggressive response cause the economy to weaken.
"With our view for lower multiples and earnings now more consensus, the markets are more fairly priced," Wilson wrote in a June 21 note to clients. "However, it does not price the risk of a recession , in our view, which is 15% to 20% lower."
In that same note, Wilson shared his views on what's next for the market and the economy, before listing 19 stocks that Morgan Stanley analysts think will hold up well amid the weakness.
How low can stocks go?
Stocks may have been unfairly punished in the near term, Wilson wrote, but he also doesn't think a relief rally is on the horizon, asserting that "the upside is quite limited" at current levels.
"Equity markets are very oversold, but they can stay oversold until market participants feel like the risk of recession has been extinguished or at least reduced considerably," Wilson wrote. "We don't see that outcome in the near term."
Wilson added: "We see a pretty poor risk reward over the next 3 to 6 months with recession risk rising in the face of very stubborn inflation readings. Valuations are closer to fair at this point but hardly a bargain if earnings are likely to come down and/or a recession is coming."
The key question for investors is how much further the S&P 500 could fall if the economy falters. If the US is headed for a recession, then history suggests that stocks are only 60% of the way to a bottom, Wilson noted. That precedent — and a 14% earnings contraction that typically occurs during a downturn — is reflected in Wilson's downside range of 2,900 to 3,100 for the S&P 500.
And even if the Fed is able to pull off a so-called "soft landing" by bringing down inflation without causing a recession, Wilson is still confident that there would be a "fairly rare" 3% to 5% decline in earnings revisions that sends the S&P 500 to 3,400 or 3,500.
Remarkably, earnings expectations haven't fallen this year despite the onset of a bear market . The only other time that's happened was in 1998, Wilson noted, a year in which the market experienced a 19% decline with virtually no downward revisions to earnings. That scenario is unlikely to repeat, he wrote.
"What we can say with more certainty today versus a few months ago is that earnings estimates are too high even in the event a recession is avoided," Wilson wrote.
Morgan Stanley might be bearish about stocks, but the firm's economists still believe that there's only a 35% chance of a recession in the next year. However, that's still up significantly from the previously projected mark of 20%, and Wilson wrote that he'd assign an even higher chance of a contraction, given his "more negative view on the consumer and corporate profitability."
19 safe stocks to consider
Even in a turbulent market environment, there are still investing opportunities. Wilson's note included a list of 19 stocks that the firm's analysts have assigned an overweight rating to, and each had at least a 17% upside between their current prices and the analysts' price targets heading into June 21.
Morgan Stanley analysts were also confident that these companies' earnings would be "relatively insulated" from the risk of interest rate hikes during a growth slowdown and therefore would "have the potential to see upward revisions" heading into 2023, Wilson wrote.
Below are the 19 overweight-rated stocks that Morgan Stanley analysts think can do well in a downturn, along with the ticker, market capitalization, and price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of each.
1. Endeavor Group Holdings
Ticker: EDR
2. Liberty Formula One
Ticker: FWONK
Ticker: MTCH
5. Monster Beverage
Ticker: MNST
7. Marathon Petroleum
8. Tenaris SA
Ticker: TS
9. Eli Lilly & Co.
10. Advanced Drainage Systems
Ticker: WMS
11. Alaska Air Group
12. Deere & Co.
Ticker: DE
13. Delta Airlines
Ticker: DAL
14. Driven Brands Holdings
Ticker: DRVN
15. WillScot Corporation
Ticker: WSC
16. Zoom Video Communications
Ticker: ZM
Ticker: SHW
18. Invitation Homes
Ticker: INVH
19. AES Corp.
Ticker: AES
quality stocks to buy
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2022-06-23T11:15:57Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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19 Stocks to Buy With Big Upside in a Bear Market: Morgan Stanley
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https://www.businessinsider.com/bear-market-recession-investing-stocks-to-buy-risk-morgan-stanley-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/bear-market-recession-investing-stocks-to-buy-risk-morgan-stanley-2022-6
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Influencers say brands are canceling ad deals and delaying payments as the market downturn hits the creator economy
Amanda Perelli, Dan Whateley, Marta Biino, and Sydney Bradley
The influencer industry is bracing for a downturn.
Getty Images; Insider
Brands are canceling campaigns and delaying payments to creators as they brace for a downturn.
Some creators said they have struggled to land new deals and that affiliate commissions are down.
Insider spoke to dozens of creators and managers about how they're adjusting to a shaky economy.
Personal-finance influencer Seth Godwin quit his job in April of last year to become a full-time content creator. Business was booming for the TikToker, and he was earning enough to take a risk.
What he didn't count on was a global economic slowdown.
"There are less brands reaching out to do partnerships now," said Godwin, who makes money from TikTok's creator fund, brand sponsorships, and affiliate marketing commissions. "Whenever brands do reach out, the rates that they are able to offer have been cut decently. Overall, they have dropped from between 15% to 20%."
Godwin said he's relying on the long-term partnerships he agreed to at the start of 2022 to keep his business afloat.
"I still have that income coming in, but adding new sources has been the main struggle," Godwin said, adding that he's considering lowering his rates to bring on more deals.
Godwin isn't alone.
"On YouTube: We've had six figures worth of brand deals canceled in the past 30 days," personal-finance creator Nate O'Brien posted on Twitter this week. "Either companies are panicking or running out of money. Probably a bit of both."
Out of 40 industry insiders — 26 creators and 14 talent managers — that Insider spoke with, 21 people provided examples of recent cutbacks from brands. Even more expressed some sort of uncertainty about the state of the industry.
Several spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid damaging relationships with brands and marketers.
In a wobbly economy, sources of income can dry up at a moment's notice. That's what some creators are learning this month as brands have begun offering lower ad rates and canceling or delaying payments for influencer campaigns as they try to survive a broader financial downturn.
The cutbacks certainly aren't unique to the creator economy. The US recently entered a bear market, and some analysts and investors fear a recession is coming. May was the worst month for startup layoffs since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, according to employment data tracked by the website Layoffs.FYI, and advertising budgets are often among the first to go as brands look to cut spending.
Influencer-marketing spend is no exception, particularly among startups and VC-backed companies looking to extend their runway over the next few years.
Since 2020, many creators have been riding a wave of opportunity and growth as the creator economy boomed.
Leo Patrizi/Getty Images
Overdue payments, changing deliverables, and supply chain issues
While some brands are canceling influencer campaigns before they begin, others are overdue on payments to creators for work that's already been delivered this year.
Beauty brand Vanity Planet told one influencer in recent weeks that it wouldn't be able to pay them for a brand campaign on time, according to the creator's manager. The manager, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid damaging the relationship with the brand, said they were considering requiring companies to pay a portion of their clients' fees upfront in future campaigns.
"Our influencer marketing strategy was crushed this year," Vanity Planet CEO Alex Dastmalchi told Insider in an emailed statement, pointing to a variety of obstacles the company has faced in 2022, including Apple's iOS privacy changes that made targeted advertising harder, hyperinflation, rising costs, "unprecedented logistics" challenges, and a general slowdown across the economy.
"Unfortunately, the many challenges mentioned above have resulted in delayed payments to some of our vendors and partners," Dastmalchi said. "We're not giving up on influencers but are recalibrating our influencer strategy to adjust to these changes."
Another talent manager, who spoke on the condition of anonymity but whose identity is known to Insider, said some brands have recently scaled back on deliverables, or how many sponsored posts the deal requires, as a way to lower rates.
Issues go beyond just fear of a market in crisis. Some companies literally don't have enough product to send influencers for campaigns due to supply chain issues — from lack of inventory, to lack of packaging, to shipping delays.
Dorian Holguin, an esthetician and nano influencer, said he recently had a brand deal with a makeup brush company canceled because the company didn't have enough inventory to give him to use for promotional purposes.
"We were in the process of negotiations when I received word that the campaign had to be shelved," Holguin wrote to Insider. "The company was running low on inventory and didn't have enough for sales, much less marketing."
Recent company layoffs have also impacted some creators. One TikTok creator said that an upcoming deal she had scheduled with a recruiting app was canceled after the person she was in contact with at the company was laid off.
Creators who post about personal finance, NFTs, and cryptocurrencies have been particularly affected by the downturn. Recently, crypto exchange Coinbase drastically lowered how much it pays some social-media influencers who drive sign ups to the platform, for example.
For creators, longer-term deals and TikTok are critical in a choppy economy
Paid deals haven't dried up for all creators. About half of the creator and manager sources told Insider that for them or their clients, these last few weeks have largely been business as usual.
"We've actually booked quite a few high-dollar deals last week and this week, and had some contract extensions into December," Christie Childers told Insider via email. Childers owns talent management firm Best Day Ever and has a roster of 10 creators.
Lissette Calveiro, a content creator with 80,000 followers and a manager who works with a handful of influencers, said she has been leaning into long-term deals to combat the volatile economy.
"I will say, on the downside — or upside depending on how you see it — I do notice most brands prefer sticking to long-term partnerships and working with a smaller group of creators," Calveiro told Insider.
One area of stability for influencer-marketing spend appears to be TikTok, which has experienced rapid growth and continues to draw in advertising budgets for creator content. The company's head of global business solutions, Blake Chandlee, told CNBC last week that the platform hadn't seen an ad market slowdown nor the headwinds that some others are seeing.
Catarina Mello makes content about travel, lifestyle, and the business of being a creator.
Courtesy Catarina Mello
And as with other parts of the ad industry, certain content verticals haven't been affected as much as others. Travel brands, for example, are continuing to invest in marketing as spend on flights and hotels continues to rebound.
Catarina Mello, a travel influencer with 440,000 Instagram followers, said that business has been better than ever for her. After two years of canceled trips, travel-focused brands are looking to reach travel-starved consumers, Mello told Insider.
"If we made it through Covid, we'll make it through this as well," said Becca Bahrke, CEO of influencer management firm Illuminate Social. "Brands will need to still advertise — it might just be different brands spending more money, while others aren't."
More: Influencers Creators Personal Finance Creator economy
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2022-06-23T11:16:21Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Influencer Marketing Slowdown: Brands Cancel Deals, Delay Payments
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https://www.businessinsider.com/creators-say-brands-canceling-ad-deals-delaying-payments-market-downturn-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/creators-say-brands-canceling-ad-deals-delaying-payments-market-downturn-2022-6
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Founder Finances: A dog daycare owner shares his exact $58k monthly budget and explains why paying 9% of earnings to the franchisor is worth it.
Alexandra York and Madison Hoff
Peter Dufall (right), owner of Dogtopia San Jose
courtesy of Dufall
In this story, the owner of a dog daycare franchise shares his $58,000 budget.
He says a straightforward franchising model allows him to focus on his team members.
When Peter Dufall turned 40, he decided to become an entrepreneur. Ten years later, he officially made the leap after growing tired of the inequity and lack of freedom at his job as a factor operations director.
On the hunt for more work-life balance, happiness, and control of his work, Dufall bought a Dogtopia franchise, a dog daycare and spa company, in 2017. Dufall, 59, said the potential for a growing community encouraged him to pursue buying a franchise.
Today, Dufall owns one of Dogtopia's more than 200 locations and booked $300,000 in profits last year from a combination of dog daycare, boarding, and grooming and spa services at his San Jose, California location. He invested $250,000 of his savings and took an additional $500,000 Small Business Administration loan to build his franchise location.
Despite paying 9% of sales to his franchisor every month, the partnership is more than worth it, he said. Additionally, even with paying down initial loans and franchise fees, Dufall's Dogtopia has been profitable since its eighth month in operation.
Dufall broke down his monthly budget with Insider and explained the importance of community—both franchise-wide and within his own business.
Insider has verified the founder's sales, revenue, and budget with documentation.
This table reflects Dogtopia's May 2022 budget. Dufall said his monthly spending has been relatively consistent since opening due to Dogtopia's franchise model being uniform across locations and stages.
While the month of May did not include any payments toward professional development, conference travel, continuing education, or charitable donations, Dufall will allocate up to $6,000 to those categories some months, documents showed.
Dogtopia San Jose, California
Build a strong workforce through equitable pay and opportunities
Business success comes from making sure the labor force is retained, Dufall said. He currently employs 15 staff members, which amounted to $23,741 in employee wages in May.
"It's about paying a decent wage," Dufall said. "We pay above minimum wage and they also get bonuses."
What's more, Dufall understands building a strong workforce also comes from supporting employees outside of work.
"It's not uncommon for me to write a check for $500," he said, adding that the funds are taken from his continuing education and charity budget slots. "If they want to do a grooming class or a vet tech class, or are interested in learning CPR, I'll absolutely pay for them to do that."
Beyond financial support, he also encourages his employees to contribute to company growth. Each month, Dufall allocates about $1,000 toward continuous improvement, like updated technologies or tools. Staff members pitch ideas and later vote on which initiatives the funds will go toward, which helps them feel engaged, he added.
Franchise fees are worth the investment
Dufall pays 9% of his income to the Dogtopia franchise corporation— 7% of his revenue goes toward franchise fees and 2% goes toward the minimum required marketing spend. Each year, these fees amount to around $80,000.
Dufall said it's worth it and considers the costs as having an extra employee—he gets a lot of advice he otherwise wouldn't have access to, he added.
When starting out, it was crucial for Dufall to tap Dogtopia's franchise services like access to experts on architecture and city planning codes, taxes, hiring, and customer point of sales.
"Without some support those first two years, I wouldn't have had the following years being as successful as they are," Dufall said.
Beyond 24/7 support for administration, technology, and marketing questions, the network of Dogtopia owners is another major benefit of paying to be in a franchise group, he said.
"It also gives you a sense of community so you don't feel quite as alone if there are any issues, personal or business," he said. "We get together every quarter to go out to dinner and talk about everything because it's such a unique business that other people don't understand."
More: Franchise Franchise Costs Franchisees
Small Business Adminisration
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2022-06-23T11:16:27Z
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How Much a Franchise Owner Pays in Royalties and Fees Every Month.
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https://www.businessinsider.com/dog-daycare-business-budget-franchise-owner-royalty-fees-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/dog-daycare-business-budget-franchise-owner-royalty-fees-2022-6
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How a 30-year-old freelance copywriter earned $13,500 in one month and exceeded her monthly income at her last job
Defne Gencler is a freelance copywriter.
Sean Turi
Defne Gencler quit her corporate marketing career in 2021 to become a freelance copywriter.
In March, she booked $13,500 in revenue, exceeding her monthly income at her previous job.
Gencler followed five rules to get there, including acting like a founder and scrapping her plan B.
In the past two years, millions of Americans ditched their corporate jobs to start their own businesses. But Defne Gencler, a freelance copywriter, suggests workers stay at their gigs awhile.
Her marketing jobs at companies like Fortune and Google helped her save up enough to launch a freelance business, she recently wrote in a LinkedIn post. Plus, her clients trust her more when they see those big names in her portfolio.
"I am showing how my experiences fit what they need at the time," she told Insider.
Gencler, 30, freelanced six years ago, but a bad client experience discouraged her from trying again. Then, last fall, her one-year contract with Google was ending, and she couldn't find any jobs she liked.
"They all just sounded the same," she said. "None of them really inspired me."
She decided that if there was ever a time to give freelancing another chance, that was it. Gencler started her own business in September and landed her first client within a month.
In March, Gencler earned $13,500, exceeding her monthly income at her previous job for the first time, which Insider verified with documentation.
She explained the five rules she followed to get there and her advice for other freelancers.
1. Charge like a founder, not an employee
When setting rates, Gencler advises freelancers to consider all the work they do outside the services they're providing, like finding clients, accounting, and invoicing. Plus, there are no paid vacations or benefits when you're a company of one. That means the amount you charge has to cover the unseen expenses, too.
"You have to view yourself as a business founder," she said. "You don't just do your work eight hours in a row."
Plus, clients will respect you more when you act like a CEO, she added.
"You're not talking to them like you're working for them. You're talking to them like you're working with them," Gencler said.
2. Scrap your plan B
In her first months of freelancing, Gencler interviewed for a full-time job, but she's glad she didn't land it because it would have thrown her off course from the progress she'd already made.
Instead of relying on a backup plan, you should focus your time and energy on making your business work as if there were no other option, she said.
"It's either sink or swim," she said. "As long as you have the plan to follow your plan A, you'll be OK."
3. Don't lose sight of the future
As she grew her business, Gencler revamped her website, formulated ideas, and improved her onboarding process. Envisioning the future improved the quality of her services and ensured she still enjoyed her job.
"The exciting part about running a business is that there's no limit to what you can do in terms of the projects that you work on or the money that you make," she said.
4. Spend as you normally would
For some entrepreneurs, it might make sense to cut down on personal spending when you're getting your business off the ground. But Gencler heeded the advice of one of the coaches she followed and kept her previous lifestyle.
She had enough in savings before she left the workforce so she could still afford to go out to dinner or buy an expensive skin-care product.
"I'm not making decisions based on fear," she said. "That way, I can be more level-headed and attract the clients and the work, rather than chasing it."
Lastly, Gencler said it took time to build momentum, so don't expect success to come right away. There will be moments of self-doubt, but have patience with the process.
"You have to push through it," she said. "Take a step back, practice being patient, and envision yourself when those invoices have arrived."
More: Entrepreneur Small Business Freelancer
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2022-06-23T11:16:39Z
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How to Make Money Freelance Copywriting and Build Your Business
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https://www.businessinsider.com/freelance-copywriter-start-successful-business-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/freelance-copywriter-start-successful-business-2022-6
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The head of remote work at a startup knows how hard it can be to see coworkers only through a screen. Here's how she's creating a robust virtual-work experience.
Ebony Flake and Catherine Henderson
"It's obvious things are becoming more remote, not less; more digital, not less, more asynchronous," Liberty Planck, the head of remote experience at Gusto, told Insider.
As more companies embrace virtual work, a new role has emerged: the head of remote work experience.
Liberty Planck is the first to hold the role at the HR software startup Gusto.
Planck shared her formula for shaping a new remote- and hybrid-work experience for Gustees.
When Liberty Planck took a new position as head of remote work at Gusto, a company that makes HR software, she felt firsthand the isolation that remote work can bring.
Like 5 million other Americans, she had moved to a new city with a remote job. But Planck struggled to rebuild her community. So she did something many remote workers will relate to: She joined a Slack group. This one was about raising kids. One week in, Planck was messaging with new coworkers over the challenges of being a working parent, completely online.
"It was the most connected I had felt to coworkers since the pandemic," she said.
More than two years since stay-at-home orders forced many employees to convert living space to office space, the pandemic has reshaped how many of us work. Now, as more companies make remote or hybrid setups permanent, a new leadership role has emerged: the head of remote work experience.
Companies such as Meta, Dropbox, and Twitter have hired new C-suite roles to oversee this transition, and firms of all sizes are following suit. Gusto, which helps small businesses manage things like payroll and benefits, hired Planck as its first head of remote experience to make sure its employees succeed and feel connected amid the daily blizzard of Slack messages and video calls.
The need to make remote work, well, work is there: In March 2020, as US lockdowns began, one in 67 of the nation's jobs was remote. By the start of 2022, the number of jobs with the enticing WFH — work from home — tag had ballooned to about one in six, according to LinkedIn data. A more recent snapshot from LinkedIn said nearly one in five paid job postings on the site was for a remote role.
Insider spoke with Planck to explore how she sees remote work evolving, the responsibilities of her role at Gusto, and how she's shaping an inclusive remote and hybrid experience for her fellow Gustees.
The tug-of-war between employers and workers
A new Microsoft report found about half of leaders are looking to end all remote work in the next year. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, made headlines this month when he sent a memo asking employees to return to the office or "pretend to work somewhere else." Amazon, Google, and the accounting giant EY are among the companies requiring employees to return to the office at least some of the time.
For Planck, there's no question about the direction in which work is evolving. "It's obvious things are becoming more remote, not less; more digital, not less, more asynchronous," she said.
Even as some leaders call their employees back to the office, many job seekers are hoping to experience their first day at a new job from a home office — or even from a living-room couch.
For many workers, a remote option is no longer just a nice-to-have. A survey of about 3,000 employees conducted by Blind, an anonymous employee community app, found that 64% of employees, including those who work at Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, would rather work from home permanently than receive a $30,000 pay increase from a new job that required in-office work.
Not all jobs can be done from afar, of course; 61% of the US labor force can work no more than a few hours a week remotely, if at all, according to a report from the consultancy McKinsey.
At Gusto, the workplace is a mashup of in person, remote, and hybrid, where workers make the trek into the office at least some of the time. "Forty percent of our workforce is working from home, and 30% of our senior leadership is fully remote," Planck said.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion in the era of remote work
Despite the obvious benefits of working from home, there can be drawbacks. Remote workers are susceptible to feeling isolated, disconnected, and excluded from coworkers, customers, and leaders.
Yet schlepping into an office doesn't guarantee a sense of belonging. A recent study from the consulting firm Accenture found only one in six workers felt strongly connected at work and that on-site workers felt least so.
For remote workers, lack of in-person interaction can be at least somewhat mitigated by digital stand-ins like Zoom , Slack, and Google Meet . But the stakes might be higher for underrepresented groups in the virtual workplace.
"There are hidden costs to remote work," Johnny C. Taylor Jr., the CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management, wrote in a 2020 paper on remote work and inequity. "Along with risks to productivity and innovation and the stress of isolation and burnout, we are also seeing new patterns of inequity and exclusion emerging."
According to Taylor, a top threat to fostering an inclusive remote-work model includes the unintended fostering of "separate and likely unequal" online cultures.
Planck is trying to prevent the emergence of such barriers by using Gusto's diversity, equity, and inclusion framework, RISE, which stands for representation, inclusion, social impact, and equity. "RISE is about giving people an avenue to give honest feedback and have safe conversations," she said. "We've created these virtual sessions to talk about the hard issues."
Meeting remote workers' unique needs
It's clear that many workers who once had no choice but to say put during the depths of the pandemic now want a choice about when they leave home. The LinkedIn figures from April showing that about 20% of job postings were for remote roles also revealed that those positions drew 52% of applicants and nearly 47% of page views.
Yet for all of the eagerness many workers show to do their jobs from somewhere else, they often have unique needs that companies should meet, Planck said.
Planck, who began her position in April, is implementing new avenues for feedback and investigating metrics to figure out what employees need. She's also encouraging those who can to gather in person once in a while to help foster a sense of community.
Gusto is also prioritizing unique remote-work experiences. The company recently hosted a popular virtual show with a magician. "Everyone was like, 'When is he coming back?'" Planck said.
"I call myself an experience designer," said Planck, who previously worked at Apple as a product experience manager. "It was really important to make sure that in every conversation, there's someone representing the voice of the remote Gustee."
More: Remote Work Head of remote work Head of remote work experience hybrid work
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2022-06-23T11:16:45Z
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Gusto's Head of Remote Experience Liberty Planck on the Future of Work
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https://www.businessinsider.com/head-of-remote-experience-future-of-remote-work-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/head-of-remote-experience-future-of-remote-work-2022-6
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The chief client officer of a $15 billion wealth manager shares 12 high-quality stocks to protect portfolios during the bear market — and 10 cheap names that will bring big gains in a turnaround
Sandi Bragar, CCO of Aspiriant.
Aspiriant
Investors should consider both defensive and offensive positions, says Sandi Bragar.
For defensive positioning, she recommends high-quality multinational corporations like Anthem.
Bragar uses emerging markets and international small-cap stocks for offensive positioning.
May's off-the-rails inflation reading startled the Federal Reserve enough for it to hike interest rates by 75 basis points last Wednesday — an increase not seen since 1994.
But while the Fed has pumped the brakes on rising prices, Sandi Bragar believes that the economy's problems are far from over.
"The Fed is just in a really sticky place and there is an increased risk that the Fed could run the economy into the ground while it's trying to arrest inflation," said Bragar, the chief client officer at independent wealth management firm Aspiriant, which oversees $15 billion worth of assets.
In an exclusive interview with Insider, Bragar noted that 10 of the last 13 interest rate hike cycles have resulted in a recession — which means now is the time to prepare her portfolio for anything. "The news is supporting the need to be well-diversified and to protect against market risk where it makes sense, and take market risk where there's a likelihood of getting paid for that risk over a long period of time."
Bragar's portfolio is positioned both defensively and offensively — though overall her portfolio still leans defensive, meaning she's focused on reducing its volatility . In general, Bragar is bearish on large-cap and US stocks, while she's much more bullish on international opportunities, including emerging markets and small-cap, developed markets equities.
For defense, consider high-quality multinationals
To position defensively, Bragar invests in both fixed income assets and high-quality multinational corporations.
"From a quality perspective, we're looking for companies that have strong balance sheets and little-to-no debt, which is really important as interest rates are increasing — depending upon how debt is structured, that can become very expensive for companies. These companies have strong cash flows and earnings," she explained.
According to Bragar, these "fundamentals of investing" — or focusing on a company's cash levels, business proposition, value generation, and revenues — have been "out the door" for the last decade, but they matter now more than ever.
Even though technology stocks have — for the most part — taken a beating this year, some of the larger tech titans fall into this category of high-quality stocks, such as Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), and Alphabet (GOOGL).
"Those are really solid companies; they have the ability to withstand change," said Bragar, contrasting them with more speculative, growth-style tech stocks like Spotify (SPOT), Shopify (SHOP), Roku (ROKU), and Nvidia (NVDA) that have deflated already and that she believes could fall further.
Besides technology firms, Bragar also categorized consumer staples, healthcare, and financial services as high-quality sectors.
"Financial services companies were beaten down quite a bit in a rising rate environment, but they should begin to generate more revenue," she explained.
Among these three sectors, Bragar likes "brand-name" companies such as Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Procter & Gamble (PG), Coca-Cola (KO), Anthem (ANTM), Molina Healthcare (MOH), UnitedHealth Group (UNH), JPMorgan (JPM), US Bancorp (USB), and Wells Fargo (WFC).
"They're really great, steady, positions in the portfolio," explained Bragar. "I think it's the value stocks where we feel like we are taking risk that will get compensated over time."
Buy cheap value stocks for an offensive play
On the offensive side, Bragar informs her investment decisions by focusing on the valuations of a certain part of the market and how they compare to other asset groups.
"These companies are looking cheaper relative to other companies across the globe," she explained. "They could be cheaper because they were ignored or they just got beaten down for some reason, but they're in attractive areas of the economy so we like them."
For instance, Bragar categorizes energy companies as value stocks, since they inherently carry more risk because of their volatility. On a global level, Bragar is allocating her portfolio to emerging markets and international small-cap stocks.
"There's a lot of growth in the middle class areas of emerging markets in particular, like China, Korea, and Taiwan," she said. "We think there's going to be great continued economic growth and development there that should play out well in the equities that we're buying."
Companies Bragar's bullish on that fall into the emerging market category include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Tencent (TCEHY), Samsung (SSNLF), and China Construction Bank (CICHY), while among international small-caps she likes Italian bank Banco BPM (BAMI), UK building supplier Travis Perkins (TPRKY), and Dutch insurance company ASR Nederland (ASRNL).
Bragar also likes European equities because they haven't rallied as much as US stocks in the past ten years. In fact, she compares the two markets to a turtle and a frog.
"The frog got so far out in front and it just kind of lost some gas and it slowed down. The European companies haven't rallied as much and so they're looking cheaper and more attractive at this point in time to us," she explained, highlighting underpriced but attractively valued stocks such as Nestlé (NSRGY), Roche (RHHVF), and LVMH (LVMHF). Because these companies are high-quality but have low valuations, they're an example of where the two areas intersect, Bragar added.
More: Investing stock market investing Stock market recommendations
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2022-06-23T11:16:51Z
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12 Stocks for Protection in a Bear Market & 10 Cheap Stocks for Gains
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-invest-bear-market-recession-cheap-stocks-to-buy-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-invest-bear-market-recession-cheap-stocks-to-buy-2022-6
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Today's mortgage and refinance rates: June 23, 2022 | 30-year rates are well over 5%
The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate jumped to 5.78% last week, a significant increase from 5.23% the week prior. According to Freddie Mac, this is the largest one-week rate jump since 1987. Average 15-year fixed and 5/1 adjustable rates also experienced significant increases.
The Federal Reserve met last week and voted to enact a 75 basis point, or 0.75%, increase to the federal funds rate. After the release of last week's Consumer Price Index report, which showed inflation getting worse, markets began pricing in the likelihood that the central bank would vote for a larger than expected rate hike. This pushed mortgage rates up.
"With the Fed announcing a 75 basis point hike, the largest since 1994, we should expect continued volatility over the coming days and weeks, as the market continues to reprice and tries to settle in at these rate levels," says Robert Heck, vice president of mortgage at Morty.
Rates might not continue to spike this drastically, but they will likely stay relatively high in 2022.
Mortgage rates started ticking up from historic lows in the second half of 2021, and may continue to increase throughout 2022. This is in part due to high levels of inflation and policy response to rising prices.
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2022-06-23T11:17:21Z
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Today's Mortgage, Refinance Rates: June 23, 2022 | 30-Year Rates Are Well Over 5%
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-mortgage-refinance-rates-today-thursday-june-23-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-mortgage-refinance-rates-today-thursday-june-23-2022-6
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Top of the morning readers, Phil Rosen here. Yesterday I sat down with the CEO of Doodles — an NFT project of cute sketches that has topped $500 million in sales.
He explained how he's aiming to transform the NFT collection into an entertainment brand, and that Doodles could still hold value through a recession . Get the full scoop in my latest dispatch from the conference.
That said, President Biden is sweating gas prices a lot more than the current crypto bear market .
Let's see what he's planning — and how it impacts oil markets.
Biden announces a ban on US imports of Russian oil and gas at the White House on March 8, 2022.
1. High prices means Biden wants a holiday — a gas tax holiday, at least.
The White House called on Congress yesterday to suspend the federal gasoline tax, though the move is largely symbolic and comes as prices at the pump weigh on his re-election ambitions and inflation squeezes Americans.
While it's possible that relatively cheaper gas actually fuels more demand — thus pushing prices up even further — oil actually slumped through most of yesterday, falling as much as 7%.
That's because the market is also digesting a wave of recession forecasts that would almost certainly lead to a diminished outlook for oil demand.
As the White House points to war in Ukraine as reason for high gas prices and economic turmoil, the recession alarms continue to ring.
Deutsche Bank's CEO put the odds of a global recession at 50%, and JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon has warned of an impending economic "hurricane."
Wells Fargo chief Charlie Scharf said there was "no question" of a downturn, and Citi also says the odds are high.
"We have the probability of a recession at about 40% going into next year. We wouldn't see that until next year just because the tightening that we're seeing around the Fed generally takes around 12 to 18 months to really show up in economic conditions," a Citi exec said.
Insider finance correspondent Aaron Weinman, who writes 10 things on Wall Street, went on CBS News last night to chat about Biden's gas tax holiday. See the video here.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Federal Security Service FSB Chief Alexander Bortnikov
2. US stocks climbed after closing lower in Wednesday's session, while oil extended its losses. Fed Chair Powell told Congress yesterday that the central bank is "strongly committed" to taming inflation, and said a recession could be a possibility. Powell is slated for more comments today, too. Here is your morning wrap.
3. On deck today: PetroChina Company Limited, FedEx, and BlackBerry, all reporting.
4. Goldman Sachs shared where investors can make the most money when stocks eventually begin their recovery. According to bank analysts, the outlook for stocks will likely brighten toward the end of the year. Here's how they say you can know when the bottom hits.
5. Altria plunged 10% after a report said the FDA will ban Juul vaping products from the US market. Altria paid $12.8 billion for a 35% stake in Juul back in 2018 when the product boomed among teens. Now, Juul's market share of US e-cigarettes has dipped to second place — which could be a boon for other US tobacco manufacturers.
6. Vladimir Putin said Russia's trade with China, India, Brazil, and South Africa has jumped since war in Ukraine began. Trade has increased by 38%, according to the Russian president — and Moscow continues to rake in big money from oil and gas sales.
7. FTX's founder Sam-Bankman Fried bailed out BlockFi. He gave the struggling crypto lender a $250 million loan. But it wasn't the first one this month — last week the billionaire also loaned $485 million to Voyager Digital.
8. These steady-returning stocks can help you profit from an approach that's overlooked but ready to stage a comeback. While the bear market craters share prices, Jefferies says that investors have sold sensibly-priced growth stocks — which puts them in a position to recover after a poor performance.
9. "Super savers" broke down the strategies they use to save more than half their income. If you want to keep more of your paycheck, use these tried and true saving tacts, from house hacking to tracking your spending habits.
10. Companies are passing higher costs to shoppers at the fastest pace since the 1950s, a new study finds. Corporate markups hit a record high in 2021, with brands on average charging about 72% more than their input costs. Researchers say reversing that surge is one way to combat soaring inflation.
Edited by Max Adams (@maxradams) and Lisa Ryan (@lisarya) in New York.
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2022-06-23T12:43:01Z
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How Biden's Symbolic Gas Tax Cut Will Impact Oil Markets
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https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-symbolic-gas-tax-cut-mpact-oil-markets-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-symbolic-gas-tax-cut-mpact-oil-markets-2022-6
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The CEO of a graphic design startup raised $10 million from Insight Partners and Silicon Valley Bank using a Loom video instead of a pitch deck. Here's how he did it.
Francois Arbour is the cofounder and CEO of designstripe.
Designstripe is a "no-code for design" tool that lets businesses customize their graphic designs.
Cofounder Francois Arbour decided to pitch VCs with a video demo rather than a pitch deck.
His choice paid off, and he raised $10 million from Insight Partners and Silicon Valley Bank.
In 2020, Francois Arbour was looking for his next big project.
The serial founder had sold his previous startup, a music licensing company called PremiumBeat to Shutterstock in 2015 on the condition of a five year no-compete clause, but that had just run out. Over the years he had been using the money from his deal to angel invest, and had backed over 85 startups.
Finally free to start new media projects, Arbour set out to solve a common problem he had while working as an angel investor and media consultant: finding custom graphic design for businesses that didn't break the bank.
"I found that there was a lack of consistency in all of the design marketplace platforms," said Arbour. "I said to myself, 'What if there was a way to build a smart design platform where non-designers could actually choose a style and then, with a few clicks and drags, customize the scenes to their needs and to their brands?"
That idea eventually became designstripe, which Arbour cofounded with another serial founder, James Daly, who also works as an illustrator.
With designstripe, clients pick from a variety of design styles and then click and drag to customize the scenes to their needs. While the first download is free, access to the full catalog is managed through subscriptions that run users $20 a month, which also provides the startup with consistent revenue.
Arbour first announced the company on LinkedIn and then on Product Hunt at the end of 2021, and right away the startup had over 25,000 users sign up to join the waitlist.
A still from Francois Arbour's Loom pitch video to investors for designstripe's seed round.
All of this customer interest was attracting investors, but Arbour decided to hold off on raising venture capital funding until he had built out his company more. He had existing relationships with some investors at Insight Partners from his deal with Shutterstock, so he figured he could pitch them on designstripe directly.
He pre-recorded his pitch as four separate videos on Loom, an app that allows for asynchronous video conference meetings, and investors loved it.
"I think when people hear my passion over the video, they think, 'Oh, wow, this guy is really excited about what he's working on,"' said Arbour.
"As an investor, I get like, hundreds and hundreds of pitch decks every year. It's worth nothing. What's everything for me is the person behind the pitch deck,' he said.
Silicon Valley Bank also participated in designstripe's seed round, rounding out the total to $10 million in new funding. Arbour hopes to use the fresh funds to expand into more elements of design, like 3D rendering, animation, and social media templates.
"Our goal is to build an end-to-end smart design platform for non-designers, meaning that whatever you need in terms of design, we want to provide it in a fully automated self-serve way," Arbour said.
More: Seed Startups startups 2022
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2022-06-23T12:43:13Z
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Here's How Designstripe Raised $10 Million With No Pitch Deck
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-designstripe-raised-funding-with-no-pitch-deck-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-designstripe-raised-funding-with-no-pitch-deck-2022-6
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Charlie Scharf, CEO of Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo has laid off some employees and fired others in its mortgage division.
It's also faced scrutiny over lending and hiring practices.
Here's the latest on what's happening at the bank, and how its CEO is changing its leadership ranks.
The road to victory has not been easy for Charlie Scharf.
Scharf, 57, was placed at the helm of Wells Fargo in 2019 to help the San Francisco bank navigate its way out of a series of consumer scandals. In that time, he's made some big moves, including overhauling the bank's leadership ranks and beefing up compliance. But controversy continues to haunt to the nation's third largest bank.
Despite Scharf's efforts, Wells Fargo was accused in June of conducting sham interviews with women and nonwhite candidates for jobs that had already been given to others. In March, Bloomberg said the bank had engaged in discriminate lending practices, which Wells Fargo denies. It also recently fired dozens of loan officers it had accused of improperly changing home valuations in its internal system to trigger appraisal waivers.
Scharf was put in place specifically to help the bank move beyond a series of scandals that began with the 2016 regulatory fines over the opening of fake accounts. The fake account scandal led to a Federal Reserve asset cap that the bank is still subject to, limiting its growth, all while Scharf has pledged to cut $10 billion in costs from the bank's bottom line.
Here's a rundown of what's happened since Scharf took the helm, including layoffs and firings, hiring issues, and what the bank's leadership looks like now.
How Scharf is making changes
Scharf has dramatically overhauled the bank's leadershipsince he became CEO in 2019. Wells Fargo has brought in more than 90 top executives from outside the bank in that time.
Wells Fargo has also "drastically changed" how it operates its $2 trillion wealth management business, Scharf said at a recent industry conference. He said the goal behind some of the moves has been to provide more uniform services and products to investors to clients.
Scharf has also said he plans grow businesses that will put Wells in direct competition with banks like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, including credit cards and investment banking. At the same time, he wants to pare back on mortgage lending business, Scharf said in June.
There's more pain to come for Wells Fargo's mortgage business. Analysts break down why — and how home lending fits into CEO Charlie Scharf's master plan.
Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf says the bank is considering pulling back on parts of its mortgage business amid scrutiny over its lending practices
Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf has called the change in leadership at the bank a 'dramatic change.' Here's our exclusive look at the addition of nearly 90 senior hires.
Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf on how the bank is revamping its $2 trillion wealth management arm
Mortgage layoffs, firings
Wells Fargo laid off home lending employees in at least five major markets in April as the Federal Reserve starting ticking interest rates higher. The bank had reported in April that its home revenues fell to $1.5 billion in the first quarter, down 33% over the same period a year earlier.
In May, Insider reported that Wells Fargo fired dozens of loan officers that it accused of misusing so-called appraisal waivers, which give borrowers and their loan officers the right to bypass a home appraisal on mortgages originated by lenders such as Wells Fargo and sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac if the loan meets certain conditions.
The bank terminated the employees "after a robust investigation revealed they engaged in misconduct," a Wells Fargo spokesman told Insider. But some loan officers protested the terminations, telling Insider that some of the instances dated back to the first half of 2020 and that guidance from senior managers at the time was not clear.
Wells Fargo has fired dozens of loan officers accused of misusing appraisal waivers. Some say the bank gave them mixed signals.
Here's why high flying mortgage startups like Better and traditional lenders like Wells Fargo are laying off thousands of employees — and it may get way worse
Layoffs hit Wells Fargo's home lending unit as mortgage rates climb and originations plummet. Teams across multiple US cities may be affected.
Inside the Wells Fargo town hall that had a top exec telling staff 'I love each and every one of you' while explaining that home lending layoffs were inevitable
Scrutiny over lending practices, hiring
In March, a Bloomberg report revealed that Wells Fargo rejected more than half of Black homeowners' refinancing applications in 2020. A Wells Fargo spokesperson told Insider in June that it is "confident that our underwriting practices are consistently applied regardless of the customer's race or ethnicity."
The spokesperson added that Wells Fargo funded "twice as many loans overall" to Black borrowers in 2020 as the next largest bank, if loans originated and purchased from correspondent sellers were included.
Then in June, the New York Times reported that Wells Fargo had been conducting sham interviews with women and nonwhite candidates for jobs that had already been given to others, according to interviews with several current and former employees interviewed for the story. The employees did so ostensibly to meet diversity requirements on paper, the report said.
A Wells Fargo executive told Insider that the firm's hiring diversity rule — having 50% of all interview candidates be from an underrepresented background — has worked to increase diversity at the company.
More: Subscriber Collection
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2022-06-23T12:43:43Z
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Latest Wells Fargo News: Layoffs, Hiring Scrutiny, Mortgage Cutbacks
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https://www.businessinsider.com/latest-wells-fargo-news-hirings-layoffs
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https://www.businessinsider.com/latest-wells-fargo-news-hirings-layoffs
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Amogy, a startup enabling tractors and ships to run on carbon-free fuel, just raised $46 million using this pitch deck
The Amogy team at the ammonia-powered tractor demo day.
Amogy just secured $46 million to help build its environmentally friendly energy system.
Its technology, which has powered a drone and tractor in demonstrations, uses ammonia as a fuel.
Insider got an exclusive look at the 12-slide pitch deck it used to raise the fresh investment.
A startup that has created an energy system, similar to an engine, that allows ammonia to be used as a fuel has just raised $46 million.
New York-based Amogy, which was founded in 2021, has built a fuel storage cell for ammonia so that tractors and ships can be powered by the lightweight, power-dense chemical, which is partly made of hydrogen but can be stored more easily.
It builds on work in the hydrogen industry. Unlike batteries, which are used for both energy storage and power generation, using hydrogen as a fuel requires a two-part system. Systems are made up of a hydrogen gas tank to store the fuel, and a fuel cell, which generates power.
"In the hydrogen technology, the difficult component is the gas storage," Amogy CEO and cofounder Seonghoon Woo told Insider. "It requires a massive tank and large volumes. You can store the hydrogen as a liquid, but that requires pretty cryogenic temperatures."
This is where his company's technology comes in. Woo, a former MIT and IBM scientist, and his cofounders have designed a chemical reactor to convert ammonia to hydrogen onboard vehicles. They chose ammonia because it is easier to store as a liquid, is carbon-free, and is already used in several applications across the world, so storage, handling, and delivery infrastructure already exists.
Amogy's chemical reactor, which Amogy calls "the cracker," extracts hydrogen from the ammonia which then flows to the existing hydrogen fuel cell to create power. The startup has demonstrated its technology on both a drone and a tractor after retrofitting the system.
Any "heavy transportation" sector is its target market, starting with agriculture and shipping, which Woo said has so far been underserved in the race to go green. It comes as a recent Royal Society report said hydrogen and ammonia should be "prioritized" for such industries.
"We are witnessing the pretty rapid electrification of the consumer vehicle," Woo said. "Tesla started it, but all vehicle manufacturers are announcing that from 2025 and 2030 they will only build electric, which is great for the environment."
Yet on the other side, there is heavy transportation, such as trucks, tractors, aeroplanes, and ships, where those kind of efforts are either in their infancy or haven't begun at all yet because the technology is not available, Woo said.
Ammonia, however, is harmful to humans, so consumer applications are currently off the cards.
"It has been very well managed and dealt with in commercial areas," Woo said. "In the consumer area, applying such tight protocols and standards is very difficult."
The company may have just a single tractor running on ammonia today, but it hopes one day it could be billions of vehicles. Amogy has set a goal to reduce roughly 5 billion metric tons of CO2-equivalent emissions by 2040, while playing its part in achieving net zero 2050.
The Series A bridge round, which brings the startup's total investment raised to $70 million, was led by SK Innovation. Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund, AP Ventures, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, and Newlab also participated.
Amogy hopes to next demonstrate its technology on an 18-wheel tractor trailer and a cargo ship.
The fresh funds will be used to grow the team from over 53 to around 110 by the end of the year. It is also eyeing new US offices in efforts to be close to potential partners and lure in talent from heavy industry.
See the pitch deck that helped Amogy raise its $46 million Series A bridge round below.
More: Features Pitch Deck Tech Insider
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2022-06-23T12:43:49Z
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Pitch Deck: Amogy $46 Million Series a Bridge Round
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https://www.businessinsider.com/pitch-deck-amogy-series-a-bridge-46-million-carbon-neutral-fuel-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/pitch-deck-amogy-series-a-bridge-46-million-carbon-neutral-fuel-2022-6
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Boeing 747 Factory Tour.
Boeing is building the last three 747 aircraft it will ever produce.
All three planes will be delivered to cargo carrier Atlas Air by the end of 2022.
Insider toured the 747 factory to see one of the final jets and learn about its production and history.
Boeing's iconic 747 double-decker jet is soon leaving the assembly line forever.
Boeing 747.
By the end of 2022, the last three 747 aircraft to ever be produced will roll out of Boeing's factory in Everett, Washington.
The first Boeing 747-8F rolls off the assembly line.
All three planes, which are 747-8 freighters, are scheduled to go to US cargo carrier Atlas Air. The deliveries will mark the end of an era and a close to one of the most incredible aviation programs in history.
Atlas Air Boeing 747-8.
Arjan Veltman/Shutterstock.com
Production of Boeing's famous Queen of the Skies started after Pan American World Airways founder Juan Trippe asked the planemaker to create a huge, high-capacity passenger jet that could fly long-haul.
Pan Am Boeing 747.
The demand for air travel was booming in the 1950s and 1960s, so the industry needed bigger jets that could carry more customers while also driving down airfare.
Cathay Pacific Boeing 747
LAURENT FIEVET/Getty Images
After 16 months of design and assembly, the first 747 flew in February 1969. Some 50,000 employees, dubbed "Incredibles," worked to bring the mammoth plane to life, which featured four engines and a second level above the nose.
First-ever Boeing 747.
With twice the capacity of the Boeing 707 narrowbody jet and the lowest seat-mile cost in the industry at the time, the 747 revolutionized the aviation industry.
Pan Am Boeing 707 and Boeing 747
Underwood Archives/Getty Images
The jet's low costs made international travel more affordable for the first time, meaning long-haul flying was no longer a privilege reserved only for the rich and famous.
Pan Am flight attendant serving drinks on the company's 747.
The first 747, which was fit to carry 347 passengers, flew with Pan Am in 1970 from New York to London.
First Pan Am 747 in London after its maiden flight.
-/AFP via Getty Images
Other airlines were quick to buy the game-changing jet, like British Overseas Airways Corporation…
BOAC Boeing 747
A KLM 747-400.
Louis Nastro/Reuters
Delta Air Lines Boeing 747
aviation-images.com/Getty Images
…and Qantas.
Qantas 747.
REUTERS/Daniel Munoz
Boeing took media on a tour of its Everett factory to see one of the last 747s to be built and learn more about its history. Take a look.
Insider saw the third-to-last 747-8 freighter being built. The variant first flew in 2010 and has served several airlines, like European carriers Cargolux and Lufthansa.
First Boeing 747-8F flight.
The 747-8F model is the successor to Boeing's 747-400F variant, stretching about 18 feet longer and holding 16% more revenue payload volume.
A dedicated group of employees are producing the final 747s, many of which have been working on the jumbo jet their entire career, Boeing's head of communication for the 747, Brianna Jackson, told media.
"I can't emphasize how big of a sense of employee pride there is with this airplane," she said. "There are people here who have worked on this plane for 40 years — their entire career on the 747. They love this airplane and want to see it to the end."
It takes about a month to build half of a 747, according to Jackson, and the planemaker can produce one full jumbo jet about every two months.
She explained the workforce will not be impacted when the Queen of the Skies leaves Everett for the final time, but some staff are planning to retire after the last one is built.
The plane was not fully complete when media visited, but its full body was already assembled, including the wings and tail.
To connect the pieces, Boeing uses giant cranes connected to the factory ceiling to move parts around.
The first Boeing 747-8F fuselage piece being moved via cranes in the factory in 2010.
However, the jet still lacked its landing gear and engines, which will be General Electric's GEnx-2B engines that have lower fuel burn.
The GEnx-2B engines being mounted on the first Boeing 747-8F in 2010.
Employees were working on the nose cargo door during our visit.
The nose opens on the 747 freighters, allowing carriers to load and unload oversized cargo that cannot fit through a traditional side door. It's a unique feature of the jet, and one cargo carriers will not easily find a replacement for when the program ends.
The Boeing 747's side cargo door.
The 747 still had its green exterior but will be painted in the Atlas Air livery before delivery. The cargo carrier has four 747-8Fs on order and took the first in May.
When the last 747 is complete, it will be the 1,574th jumbo jet Boeing has made in the over 54 years of the program, according to Jackson.
“We’re incredibly proud of the legacy of the 747, and we’re proud of the incredible 747 team,” she said.
More: Features Planes Business Visual Features Boeing
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2022-06-23T12:44:01Z
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See One of the Last Boeing 747 Jets to Be Built; Everett Factory Tour
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https://www.businessinsider.com/see-one-last-boeing-747-jets-built-everett-factory-tour-2022-6
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Inside Wells Fargo's mortgage conundrum
Hi, Aaron Weinman here. Let's talk about Wells Fargo, and specifically, its mortgage-lending business — long a profit center for the bank.
But before I kick that off, a bit on old mate and Fed Chair Jay Powell, who appeared in front of the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday (and will appear before the House Financial Services Committee today). One can't really talk about mortgages without linking to Powell's quest to hike rates.
Interest-rate hikes are one of the Fed's go-to tools to fight inflation. But Powell said that increased rates won't provide the quick relief we'd hoped for, especially when it comes to food and gas prices. The Fed's mission to cool the economy also translates to pricier home loans, a key factor in Wells' decision to resize its mortgages business.
By the way, I stopped by CBS News last night to talk about Powell's testimony – watch the clip here.
Now then, let's get to it.
Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf, pictured here in October 2021, has set out to revamp the bank's sprawling wealth management arm.
1. There's more pain to come for Wells' mortgage business as staff cuts loom and profits weaken amid rising interest rates. Analysts are pontificating over how the unit fits into CEO Charlie Scharf's master plan.
Wells has long been a leader in the US mortgage-lending space. But, as Insider has previously reported, Scharf's been signaling that the bank will pare back its exposure to home loans.
The San Francisco-headquartered bank wants to invest in other areas like credit cards and investment banking in a bid to compete with peers like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citi.
The downsizing of mortgages, meanwhile, brings into question Wells' reputation as the Wall Street bank that appeals to "Main Street" because of its broad relationships with American consumers.
Such changes have raised questions over how Wells will look in the future. Will it simply be a slimmed-down version of its current self? Is it part of Scharf's plan to distance the bank from a fake-accounts scandal unveiled six years ago?
Insider's Carter Johnson spoke with industry experts to deduce what these changes mean for Wells, its mortgages business, and the staff that make up this long-profitable entity of the bank.
To be sure, it's not just Wells that's feeling the pinch of a cooling home-loan market. JPMorgan Chase has also laid off thousands of its home-lending employees, and many more staff at the rival bank are expected to be reassigned.
2. Citi's deploying 4,000 tech hires to tighten up its back office and digitize certain businesses. The hiring will focus on Citi's global payments, trade finance, and lending businesses. The development comes as Citi seeks to move on from unintentional processing snafus related to a $900 million Revlon loan and a Nordic "flash crash."
3. Goldman Sachs will bring some 5,000 jobs to new digs in Dallas, Texas. The City Council will provide more than $18 million in economic incentives to support the office, according to The Dallas Morning News.
4. Dovi Frances, founding partner at VC firm Group 11, wants the investment community to be more open. Frances, who's invested in fintechs like EquityBee and Papaya Global, shared his returns with Insider, which showed more than $1 billion in paper gains.
5. Real-estate brokerage Compass has warned of more job cuts on top the 450 it announced earlier this month. Read the full email Robert Reffkin, Compass' CEO and a former Goldman Sachs banker, sent staff about the layoffs.
6. Coinbase is lowering how much it's paying influencers. The company, reeling from the meltdown in crypto prices, has blamed the change on "market conditions," according to emails that influencers leaked to Insider.
7. Sam Bankman-Fried has lent $250 million to crypto lender BlockFi. The crypto billionaire stepped in to shore up the company's balance sheet just a week after lending brokerage Voyager Digital $485 million in cash and bitcoin.
8. Crypto exchange Binance.US, meanwhile, said it's eliminating fees for all customers on bitcoin spot trading. The exchange, which launched in 2019, is also looking to raise more money from investors, the Wall Street Journal reported. The fee-cut is bad news for rival Coinbase, which saw its shares tumble more than 9% on Wednesday.
9. This $65 million Nevada mansion overlooks Lake Tahoe and comes with a private cable lift. Take a look inside what is the most-expensive house currently for sale in the Silver State.
10. ESG data firm Ecovadis just snared $500 million in fresh funding. Ecovadis provides ESG scores so companies can make sound supply-chain decisions. Here's the pitch deck that helped it secure the cash.
Private investor Ardian has agreed to sell its stake in Belgian IT services provider Trustteam to fellow private investment firm Rivian Capital.
Angeles Equity Partners, in partnership with KJM Capital, has purchased a majority stake in Oklahoma-headquartered trucking company Freymiller.
Curated by Aaron Weinman. Tips? Email aweinman@insider.com or tweet @aaronw11. Edited by Lisa Ryan (tweet @lisarya) and Jordan Parker Erb (tweet @jordanparkererb).
More: Finance Newsletter 10 Things on Wall Street
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2022-06-23T12:44:13Z
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Inside Wells Fargo's Mortgage Conundrum
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https://www.businessinsider.com/wells-fargo-mortgages-lending-charlie-scharf-2022-6
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Disney+ is venturing beyond Marvel and Star Wars shows, Hollywood insiders say, and wants a 'Dune'-style epic and music-driven series
Elaine Low and Natalie Jarvey
Ewan McGregor in Disney+ series "Obi-Wan Kenobi."
Disney+ has grown subscribers with Marvel and Star Wars series like "Loki" and "Obi-Wan Kenobi."
But Hollywood agency sources say the streamer is looking beyond its IP franchises to broaden its audience.
On its wishlist: a "world-building" epic and musical series like "Nashville" and "Smash."
The Walt Disney Company has had its share of corporate drama in recent months, most notably the abrupt ouster of the company's top TV executive, Peter Rice. The seismic shakeup resulted in the elevation of Disney exec Dana Walden, a TV veteran beloved among creators and producers.
Industry observers say such machinations at the top of Disney are unlikely to mess with the day-to-day business of making content for Disney+, which is focused on satiating the streaming beast with enough TV shows and movies to retain subscribers and draw in new ones.
At Disney+, the company's flagship streaming service, growth has rocketed to 138 million subscribers, bolstered by strategic launches of new series from Marvel and Lucasfilm, such as "The Mandalorian," "Moon Knight," and "WandaVision." The spring premiere of Star Wars spinoff series "Obi-Wan Kenobi" marked the third TV series on Disney+ to exceed 1 billion viewing minutes, according to Nielsen metrics.
Launched in November 2019, the streamer's initial appeal was its kids and family-focused content. But with Chapek's revelation last year that half of all Disney+ subscribers are adults without children, how has that impacted programming tastes?
"With Disney+, they've never really changed in what their objective is: providing a four-quadrant family-viewing experience, and they're all pretty big tentpole series that have been on the service," one TV agent at a top agency told Insider.
"Their programming strategy hasn't really changed from the Agnes Chu regime," added this person, referring to the streamer's former senior vp of content, who was instrumental in its launch. "There is an idea of what they want to develop and making sure they're staying true to brands, and also developing Disney IP in a way that feels right for that IP, that doesn't impact things that could exist from it, whether it's theme park rides or whatnot."
Still, as Disney+ grows to compete internationally and stave off subscriber loss amid a saturated domestic market, it's developing an appetite for content beyond Marvel and Star Wars. According to an internal document from a separate Hollywood talent agency, Disney+ is interested in an "epic, world-building" scripted series in the vein of "Dune" — notably, with or without a kid protagonist — as well as music-driven series a la "Smash" or "Nashville."
Also on its wish list: light mystery or heists in the vein of Hulu's breakout "Only Murders in the Building." (Walden is said to have been a strong advocate of the Steve Martin and Martin Short comedy.)
The key words for a Disney+ program are "aspiration, optimism, hope," said the agent. "I don't think you're ever going to see shows that are incredibly graphic, incredibly dark, depressing" on the service.
Disney+'s programming efforts are led by Charlie Andrews, the Fox Entertainment alum who boarded in February and oversees Disney+ and Disney Channel's live-action scripted and unscripted series. On his team are senior vp of development and current series Reena Singh, senior vp of original movies Lauren Kisilevsky, and unscripted originals vp Marc Buhaj.
In February, prior to the hiring of Andrews, producers and agents told Insider that selling a documentary or reality program to Disney+ in the early days was challenging, with "rounds and rounds of development with the most insane greenlight process … to then have it ultimately go nowhere," as one agent said.
But some of those kinks have apparently been smoothed out since.
"I think with Charlie there, it's been great; Reena has been there for a little bit now as well," said the agent. "There's a real path towards getting green lights now in a way that I think for the first two, three years at Disney+ was a little more difficult."
With ABC's reality competition "Dancing With the Stars" moving exclusively to Disney+, it remains to be seen if the streamer will look to shift other less kid-centered shows from its sister TV networks and streamers.
So far, "no one's asking us for a pitch that we'd normally take into ABC to go to Disney+," said the agent. "We haven't encountered that yet."
More: Entertainment Hollywood Streaming Disney
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2022-06-23T12:44:19Z
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What Disney+ Wants in New Series, Beyond Marvel and Star Wars Shows
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https://www.businessinsider.com/what-disney-plus-wants-new-series-beyond-marvel-star-wars-2022-6
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An early PayPal employee said the 'PayPal Mafia,' which includes Elon Musk, have been successful founders partly thanks to their counterintuitive hiring process
Elon Musk co-founded PayPal after his startup X.com merged with Peter Thiel's Confinity.
Alexi Rosenfeld / Contributor / getty
Many of PayPal's early employees, including Elon Musk, have gone on to found successful companies.
A former employee told the Tim Ferriss Show that the way PayPal hired people may have played a part in that success.
Jason Portnoy said Paypal focused on hiring for capability, rather than people with specific skills.
PayPal is perhaps as noteworthy for its hugely successful founders as it is for the way it transformed online money transfers.
Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman were all members of the so-called 'PayPal Mafia'. The group collectively went on to found a plethora of successful companies including Yelp, Yammer, and Youtube, alongside Musk's Tesla and SpaceX.
Speaking on a podcast this week, one early employee said that while there's no single answer as to why PayPal's founders were so successful, their collective approach to hiring may have helped.
Jason Portnoy, an entrepreneur and investor and PayPal's 34th employee, told the Tim Ferriss Show podcast that hiring for talent, rather than specific job skills, helped the company's success.
"Part of it could be the idea that there was a lot of latent talent in these individuals that had been identified by the people who were hiring them," Portnoy said. This was partly due to the fact that the company hired for capability and ability, rather than for specific skills, he added.
"As opposed to saying, 'Does this person have the very specific skills to do this very specific job,' it would be more focused on, 'Is this person just exceptional, in lots of different ways?' Because if they are, they're going to be exceptional at whatever job they have to do," Portnoy said.
Working in a startup requires people to be "good all round utility players," who can easily switch contexts and "wear different hats" while the organization scales to the point where hires can be more specialized roles, he said.
A further reason for the success of the likes of Musk is that the PayPal hired for people who to a large degree had little specific experience in the online payments industry at the time — something that sounds counter intuitive, Portnoy said.
"PayPal merged with X.com, and X.com had a lot of former financial industry people. And over time, gradually, the executives from the PayPal team, who had no prior experience in the financial services industry , wound up ascending in the corporate culture and hierarchy, and I think possibly because they weren't weighed down by legacy ideas of how things should be done," he said.
Portnoy appeared on the podcast to discuss his memoir, 'Silicon Valley Porn Star,' which details his early career in Silicon Valley as well as his descent into and recovery from a porn addiction. He was vice president of finance at PayPal for three years.
He said he was hired in 1999 by co-founder Thiel, then the CEO of the startup Confinity, because the pair bonded over a list of books he'd read while traveling around Europe.
Portnoy later joined Thiel at his hedge fund Clarium capital and the big data firm Palantir founded after PayPal was acquired in 2002. More recently Thiel has drawn criticism for his political lobbying, which included a high profile endorsement of Donald Trump.
Portnoy said that one of his biggest learnings from working with the likes of Thiel and Musk was that they're never only doing one thing at a time, which means they benefit from being exposed to different ideas and people.
More: PayPal Mafia Elon Musk Peter Thiel Tim ferriss
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2022-06-23T12:44:25Z
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Ex-Employee on Why 'PayPal Mafia' and Elon Musk Have Been Successful
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https://www.businessinsider.com/why-paypal-mafia-members-elon-musk-have-been-successful-founders-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/why-paypal-mafia-members-elon-musk-have-been-successful-founders-2022-6
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It could get harder to find a job if the economy slows. Here are 5 tips for snagging that next role — even in a recession.
Looking for a job is often an opaque process filled with disappointment and rejection.
EmirMemedovski/Getty Images
Job seekers could face headwinds as the economy slows and more companies freeze hiring.
Experts recommend making a few key adjustments to your job search during a downturn.
Manage negative emotions, network in new ways, and figure out how to plug a résumé gap.
The economic news seems to get worse by the day. Inflation is rampant, layoffs are on the rise, and the stock market is in the gutter. Looking at these factors in isolation, you might think it's a terrible time to look for a new job.
Yet other numbers tell a different story.
There are roughly two open jobs per every available worker, wage growth is strong, and the quit rate — the number of workers voluntarily leaving their jobs — remains at near-record levels, which suggests many people are confident they can find employment better suited to their needs and desires.
"The job market is still really good," Anthony Klotz, a professor at the University College London School of Management with experience in the labor landscape, said. He is, after all, the man who predicted "The Great Resignation" and coined the term.
Still, many experts, Klotz included, acknowledge that the going could get harder for job seekers in the coming months if the economy slows and more companies institute hiring freezes following the lead of Meta, Intel, and Uber.
So if you're in the market for a new job, what should you do differently? While standard job-search advice applies in good times and bad — scour your network, do your homework, and perfect your elevator pitch — experts recommend making a few key adjustments to your search. Here are some tips.
Manage your negative emotions
Looking for a job is an opaque process filled with disappointment and rejection. That's true regardless of the state of the economy. As a job seeker, your challenge is to manage your emotions and not overinterpret negative pieces of information — which include everything from the latest CEO spouting off on the likelihood of a recession (see: Elon Musk) to a certain hiring manager not returning your email in a timely manner.
Managing negative emotions is harder in a downturn because the news cycle can be overwhelming, Klotz said. He added that "being in a negative mindset is not ideal for a job search."
Managing negative emotions is harder in a downturn because the news cycle can be overwhelming.
martin-dm/Getty Images
That's why you need an emotional-regulation strategy. Set a strict schedule for how much time you spend on your job search each day. Give yourself weekends off and make time for activities and people you enjoy. Do your best to maintain a calm demeanor and a positive attitude. "You need to psychologically detach from the job-search process and the news," Klotz said.
Expand your target list of employers
In a tight labor market, employers do what they can to widen their potential pool of qualified applicants. Some are more apt to take a second glance at job candidates who might otherwise get overlooked, including, for instance, people recently out of prison or women looking to reenter the workforce after taking time off for caregiving.
In a contracting economy, widening your potential pool of employers is not a bad approach for job seekers. You may not have the luxury of being overly selective. "It would be foolish to put constraints around your search by saying, 'I'm only going to work for a Fortune 500 company,'" Klotz — who recommends expanding your target list of organizations to include industries that might not be glamorous or companies that aren't household names — said.
"You shouldn't undervalue the many wonderful small- and medium-sized companies where smart, dedicated people work," he said.
Get a job or take a class to plug the gap
Many employers harbor biases against people with gaps in their résumés, unfairly or not. These biases are harder to overcome in an economy when employers can afford to be choosier.
"Employers want to see activity — they want to believe you're doing something," Toby Haberkorn, a recruiter in Houston, said.
If you're unemployed, Haberkorn advises taking a temporary position or a freelance or contract job to ensure your work history looks solid. Enrolling in a course is another way to plug a résumé gap and demonstrate your upward trajectory.
"An added benefit is that the side job or class gives you a welcome break and release from the stress of looking for a job," she said. "At the very least, you'll develop new skills and meet some new people — and those people have connections."
Be where your future colleagues are
Finding a job is about who you know because companies fill the vast majority of open positions — upward of 70% — internally instead of advertising them to the public. That figure may be even higher in a downturn when employers grow more cautious about hiring.
Taking a temporary position or a freelance or contract job ensures your work history looks solid.
The upshot is that now is an opportune time to grow your network. "You need to be where your future coworkers are," Megan Mayer, a trainer and job-interview preparation coach in Pebble Beach, California, said.
She advises becoming more active in your industry's professional organizations or volunteering with a pet nonprofit where your desired colleagues also volunteer. Offering your help and expertise builds trust and credibility. "You'll be able to forge deeper relationships and showcase your reliability, enthusiasm, and social skills," she said.
"And when a position opens up at their company that might otherwise be closed to outside applicants, it could be yours if an insider personally recommends you for the role."
Know your walk-away point
Job seekers have recently had more leverage and as a result have felt emboldened to demand more from their prospective employers. "When companies are vying to get you, you ask for all the things on your wish list: higher compensation, flexible work, a better title, and growth and development opportunities," Karen Weiss, the director of career readiness at Pepperdine's Graziadio Business School, said.
But the dynamics shift in an employer's market. "Instead, it becomes more of a series of questions: What am I willing to do? What's my walk-away point? And when am I willing to settle for a not-so-perfect job?"
Some soul-searching is also in order. You need to think about your short-term needs — including the basic income requirements to pay your bills versus your long-term professional goals. Consider what you want to do and reflect on your dealbreakers. "When the pickings are more slim, you go to plan B," Weiss said.
But remember, nothing is forever, and a not-ideal job eventually might lead to something better. "No matter what, the economy will pick up steam again."
More: Job search Interview Advice Economic Downturn
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2022-06-23T17:20:51Z
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How to Look for a Job in the Middle of an Economic Downturn
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-look-for-a-job-in-an-economic-downturn-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-look-for-a-job-in-an-economic-downturn-2022-6
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How to get started, scale up, and maximize profits with Airbnb, according to people who've done it
Genesis Hinckley, who works for Google, brings in $4,000 a month from her Airbnb property in Colorado.
Genesis Hinckley
Airbnb has boomed as new hosts have flocked to make money on the site.
Hosts shared their stories of starting out, financing properties, and managing tricky guests.
Challenges of short-term rentals include the growing competition and increasing local regulation.
Airbnb hosts saw record profits as work and travel norms were scrambled over the past two years.
The company said that in 2021 the typical host brought in $13,800, an 85% jump from prepandemic levels. Vacation-rental hot spots have sprung up across the country, from the deserts of California to the mountains of Tennessee. The analytics firm AirDNA found that as of January the number of short-term rentals in the US had reached a high of 1.5 million, up from 1.2 million in August 2020.
But hosting can come with headaches. Competition is fierce, and some hosts worry about a slowdown in bookings this summer. Others complain that Airbnb tends to side with guests in disputes and say they've considered leaving the platform.
As Airbnb grows, its presence in some neighborhoods has rankled locals. Municipal governments in states such as Vermont and Hawaii have cracked down or pledged to regulate the short-term-rental industry in their cities, reconsidering its effect on disturbances or the overall housing stock. Like Wall Street's single-family-home investors, Airbnb hosts are also sometimes accused of preventing area residents from buying homes for themselves.
Here, we've compiled Insider's coverage of Airbnb hosts and related industries, from success stories to words of warning.
Tips and tales from 5 successful Airbnb hosts
Several Airbnb hosts who've taken the plunge and rolled out the welcome mat shared their tips for finding the right properties, financing strategies, and generating bookings.
Bryce DeCora, a 30-year-old former engineer, owns 3 Airbnbs and used a home equity line of credit to finance his investment
DeCora left his job at Boeing to pursue real-estate investing, but it wasn't easy. At one point he took on $676,000 in debt. He was able to afford his first home with $0 down through a down-payment -assistance loan and financed a second home with an $80,000 home equity line of credit, or HELOC. DeCora said that while it was stressful, he now brings in more than $4,800 a month from his Airbnbs.
Read DeCora's story here.
Jennifer Prince, a freelance writer who rents out 2 homes, stresses the importance of finding the right property manager
Prince bought her first Airbnb near her daughter's college town for $115,000 and now rents it out for $110 a night. Combined with income from another rental property, Prince and her husband brought in $15,000 in their first six months. She credited much of her success to finding a local property manager.
Read Prince's story here.
Genesis Hinckley, a Google employee who owns an Airbnb in Colorado, has tips for decorating on a budget
Hinckley said she spends about 10 hours a month working on her Airbnb, which brings in $4,000 a month. When purchasing a property, she chose one that cost $300,000 less than what she qualified for. Hinckley said small touches like automated check-ins and mood lighting make a difference for guests.
Read Hinckley's story here.
Chris Choi has over 100 Airbnbs but almost got evicted from his first listing for breaking apartment rules
Choi dropped out of dental school to pursue real-estate investing, growing his listings from one one-bedroom in San Diego to over 100 listings across the country. He used a strategy called rental arbitrage, in which he rents properties and then subleases them without ever owning them outright. As of March he was on track to bring in $10 million in 2022.
Read Choi's story here.
A millennial couple earn $100,000 in annual gross bookings from over 15 Airbnbs they own and manage in New England
Lauren and Chris purchased a Vermont vacation home and thought they would occasionally list it on Airbnb to cover their costs. The surprising success of their first attempt inspired them to quit their day jobs in product and market research. They now own six properties and manage nine others for other owners in Vermont and nearby states. In 2021 they brought in $115,000 in gross bookings.
Read their story here.
Some people rent their primary residences on Airbnb for extra cash
You don't need to take out a second mortgage to capitalize on the hosting boom. Some Airbnb hosts have found success listing where they already live. They rent out spare rooms or their entire house year-round and for special occasions.
Tipton Sholes, a medical resident who rents out his Augusta home during the Masters, covers his mortgage for the year in just 8 days
Sholes rents out his home to multiple parties during the annual golf tournament in Georgia, charging $1,300 to $1,375 a night. He's usually booked by December for the early-spring event.
Read Sholes' story here.
Sasha Im, a web producer and nonfiction writer, rents out her spare bedroom in Seattle for 140 to 170 days a year
Im said she earns $16,000 a year renting out her spare bedroom to visitors to the Emerald City. She said that having guests makes her a better cleaner and even gives her peace of mind. Some guests have even become return visitors.
Read Im's story here.
Reyes Corona, a construction worker, rents out his California home during Coachella
Corona's typical nightly rate jumps from $180 to $1,900 for the annual music festival. He's rented to contractors working the event and festivalgoers alike. While his house is in use, he stays with his parents — who charge him a nightly rate as well.
Read Corona's story here.
The boom in Airbnbs has sparked other successful side hustles
For hosts, finding the right house is step one; there is plenty more they need help with. As a result, cottage industries have sprung up around the business of hosting.
Some Etsy sellers, for example, cater to hosts with ready-to-go welcome signs, while interior designers help hosts stand out. Travel bloggers have created entire income streams from visiting Airbnbs around the world and sharing booking sites.
Mary Dailey, a mom of 2, spends as little as 30 minutes a day on her low-lift Etsy side hustle and brings in $900 a month
Dailey created a simple template on the graphic-design site Canva for Airbnb hosts to use to make their own welcome signs. She has sold a single $4 template over 650 times on Etsy. Dailey, who had no design experience, said it takes her at most an hour a day to tend to her Etsy shop.
Read Dailey's story here.
Emily Warkentin, a designer, creates custom map murals to decorate Airbnbs
Warkentin leaned on her architecture-school background to decorate her first apartment with maps of her and her partner's hometowns. Now their full-fledged design business sells custom map murals for up to $900. Airbnb hosts hang the designs on their walls to show guests local sights and establishments.
Read Warkentin's story here.
Erika Martin, a travel blogger from Wisconsin, brought in $28,000 in one month by visiting Airbnbs and sharing affiliate links
Martin's blog, Everywhere with Erika, gained traction when she posted an account of her stay in a picturesque lakeside cabin in Georgia. Sharing links to Airbnbs with her followers, Martin is able to earn a small commission when they book through her post. She earned $59,000 in the first six months of doing this.
Read Martin's story here.
The best places to invest in vacation rentals right now
Property-management companies and other firms crunched the numbers to determine where to buy vacation rentals for the best return on investment.
The 7 best places to buy a vacation rental and capitalize on Americans' fervent desire to get away
Earlier this year, the property-management firm AvantStay released a list of the best destinations for short-term rentals that included national parks and Southern cities.
Dreaming of owning an Airbnb? These are the 10 states where new hosts cashed in last year.
Airbnb said new hosts brought in a total of $1.8 billion last year, with short-term rental owners in southern states like Arizona and Texas among those netting the most.
More: AirBnB Real Estate side hustles Real Estate Investing
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2022-06-23T17:20:57Z
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How to Make Money With Short-Term Rentals on Airbnb, VRBO, and More
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-money-on-airbnb-vrbo-short-term-rentals
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-money-on-airbnb-vrbo-short-term-rentals
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The municipality of Velas on Sao Jorge island in Azores on March 26, 2022.
At least three Russian oil tankers "went dark" near the Azores islands in the past 10 days, Bloomberg reports.
Turning off a ship's tracking signal is flagged by the US Treasury as a tactic used to evade sanctions.
Daily dark activity by Russian tankers has "skyrocketed" since the invasion of Ukraine, data shows.
Several Russian oil tankers have disappeared from tracking systems near Portugal's Azores islands in the past 10 days, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
Turning off a vessel's tracking signal — also known as "going dark" or "dark activity" — has been flagged by the US Treasury as one of several practices used to evade sanctions in the maritime industry. By turning off its location data, a ship can obscure its final destination or hide other details about a vessel's movements.
The nine Azores islands in the Atlantic Ocean are part of Portugal, about 1,000 miles away from mainland Europe. The EU's ban on Russian oil does not go into effect until December, leaving major oil companies like Shell and BP to largely self-regulate with "moral sanctions," as Insider has previously reported.
While it's unclear exactly why the tankers went dark, the tactic could be used to avoid public backlash for trading with Russia — even if the transaction itself is legal. Additionally, tankers containing Russian oil could be transferring the cargo to non-Russian vessels, as wary buyers try to avoid any affiliation with Moscow.
Dark activity by Russia-affiliated oil tankers has tripled since the invasion of Ukraine, according to data from Windward AI, a maritime risk consultancy.
Before the Ukraine war, Russian crude oil tankers averaged about 1 dark activity per week, the Windward data shows. Between February 24 and May 24, that weekly average "skyrocketed" to around 10, the report says.
The Azores Islands.
Superyachts linked to Russian oligarchs also have disappeared from tracking systems in recent months. In late May, a Russian gas tycoon's $150 million superyacht reappeared near the Canary Islands - two weeks after it stopped broadcasting its tracking signals.
All vessels of 300 gross metric tons or more that sail on international voyages must install tracking technology, commonly referred to as an automatic identification system, according to the International Maritime Organization's website.
Certain classes of vessels traveling on international voyages are required by international convention to broadcast their AIS location signal at all times.
"The only reason why you would turn off your AIS transponder is if you don't want to be found," John Lusk, the COO of data analytics firm Spire, previously told Insider.
More: Russia Ukraine Portugal Sanctions
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2022-06-23T17:21:27Z
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Russian Oil Tankers Are 'Going Dark' Near Azores Islands, Report Says
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https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-oil-tankers-tracking-signals-dark-azores-islands-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-oil-tankers-tracking-signals-dark-azores-islands-2022-6
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17 early Amazon Prime Day gaming deals, including discounts on games and accessories for Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Xbox
Razer; Crucial
3 best Nintendo Switch deals
3 best Xbox deals
3 best PlayStation deals
5 best PC gaming deals
3 best gaming headset deals
Amazon Prime Day 2022 is confirmed for July 12 and 13, and that means plenty of summer gaming deals to come. The two-day sales event is expected to offer some of the year's best discounts on games, monitors, headsets, and other accessories.
We anticipate some deals on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch gear, but we aren't likely to see any discounts on the consoles themselves. Also, keep an eye out for brands like Razer, SteelSeries, Samsung, and Acer, as we tend to find especially great deals on their products.
To shop the best deals on Prime Day, you'll need an Amazon Prime membership. However, you can often find stores like Best Buy, Target, and Walmart matching the prices Amazon offers — no membership required. Below, we rounded up some of the best early gaming deals from Amazon and a few competing retailers.
Nintendo eShop $50 Gift Card
The Nintendo eShop is the best place to buy digital copies of Nintendo's games. This gift card is an ideal fit for anyone with a Nintendo Switch, especially with this $5 discount.
amFilm Glass Screen Protector for Nintendo Switch
$13.99 $5.99 from Amazon
The amFilm Tempered Glass screen protector protects your Nintendo Switch's display from dings and bumps. It's not very expensive to invest in, especially now that a two-pack is only $6.
PowerA Enhanced Wireless Controller for Nintendo Switch
The PowerA Enhanced Wireless Controller is an affordable gamepad available in a wide variety of colors and themes featuring popular franchises. Right now, a few of these colors are on sale, with the best discount being on the Timmy & Tommy Nook pattern.
Xbox $10 Gift Card (Digital)
An Xbox gift card can be used to buy games, movies, TV shows, in-game currency, and much more. Right now, you can get one for $1 off, which just translates to free money if you're planning on shopping from the Xbox or Microsoft stores.
$44.97 $1.00 from Microsoft
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate offers a Netflix -style subscription with hundreds of games for Xbox and PC, and the Xbox Live Gold service needed to play Xbox games online. If you sign up now, your first three months only cost $1.
Forza Horizon 5 (Xbox Series X and Xbox One)
Forza Horizon 5 takes you driving through endless open-world landscapes in cars designed for it all, from speed to off-roading. This game is regularly on sale for $50, but right now it's discounted even further to only $43.
Elden Ring (PlayStation)
$59.99 from PlayStation
Elden Ring expertly blends a huge open world with challenging dungeon-crawling gameplay. The game comes from the creators of Dark Souls and features input from author George R.R. Martin. You can pick it up for only $50 on Playstation consoles.
Ghostwire: Tokyo (Playstation 5)
In this action-adventure game, you take on an arsenal of elemental powers to help uncover why Tokyo's population suddenly disappeared. Down to $30 on PS5, this is a new all-time low price.
Red Dead Redemption 2: Standard Edition (Playstation 4/5)
Red Dead Redemption 2, the critically acclaimed sequel to Rockstar's beloved wild west adventure game, is known for its incredibly high level of detail. Though it rarely sells for its full retail price of $60, the game's price doesn't usually drop this low.
Xbox Game Pass for PC (3-Month Membership)
$30.00 $1.00 from Xbox
Typically, you can get a 3-month Game Pass subscription for $30. Right now, it's only $1. This is the PC version, which gets you EA Play, exclusive member discounts, and unlimited access to over 100 games. After your first three months, your subscription will auto-renew for $10/month if you don't cancel.
Logitech G PRO X Superlight Wireless Gaming Mouse
$159.99 $149.99 from Logitech
The Logitech G Pro X Superlight is specifically designed to be ultra-lightweight for resistance-free gaming. The white version is currently down to $130, marking a new all-time low price.
If you're looking to speed up an aging laptop or PC, consider snagging this 4TB Crucial SSD . A solid-state drive (SSD), for those unfamiliar, is faster and more reliable than an traditional spinning hard drive . This particular drive is only $320, a worthwhile discount from its usual $360 price tag.
Amazon's Wi-Fi-enabled controller is designed for the Luna cloud gaming service. This particular gamepad promises to reduce delay when streaming , compared to a standard Bluetooth controller. It isn't on sale often, but right now it's discounted to a new all-time low of $40.
Ghostwire: Tokyo (PC)
When Tokyo's population suddenly disappears, you take on an arsenal of elemental powers to uncover the mystery in this action-adventure game. Down to $30 on PC, this is a new all-time low price for this new title.
Logitech G733 Wireless Gaming Headset
The Logitech G733 comes in a variety of colors to match your setup, most of which are discounted to only $130 right now. This headset is highly customizable, with programmable lighting that you can personalize to your tastes.
If you're looking for the headset to complete your pink gaming setup, the Razer Barracuda X is down to a new low of $40. It features an ergonomic design, detachable mic, up to 50 hours of battery life, and on-headset controls.
Razer Kraken Gaming Headset (Green)
The Kraken Gaming Headset by Razer is affordable and comes with all the core features needed to play games with friends. The green model is often discounted throughout the year, but $32 marks a new low price.
The best early Prime Day 2022 deals
Best early Prime Day deals on tech products
Best Prime Day deals on Kindles
Best Kindle Unlimited Prime Day deals
Best Amazon Music Unlimited Prime Day deals
More: Features Insider Reviews 2022 IP Reviews product card
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2022-06-23T18:50:56Z
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Best Prime Day Gaming Deals 2022: Nintendo Switch, PS5, Xbox, PC
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https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/deals/amazon-prime-day-gaming-deals
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https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/deals/amazon-prime-day-gaming-deals
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Is Fidelity Spire right for you?
Fidelity Spire vs. Digit
Fidelity Spire vs. Albert
Ways to invest with Fidelity Spire
Fidelity Spire: Is it trustworthy?
Fidelity Spire — Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Fidelity Spire review: Trade, learn, and track savings goals all under one roof
See whether Fidelity Spire is right for you.
Fidelity Spire; Savanna Durr/Insider
Bottom line: The Fidelity Spire mobile app is best for existing Fidelity clients and other prospective users who want to trade, set goals, learn, and prioritize their finances simultaneously. The app is free to use, and it lets you invest in stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs.
Fidelity Spire
0% Fidelity account and cash management account; Fidelity Go: balances under $10,000 ($0), balances between $10,000 and $49,999 ($3/month), balances $50,000 and above (0.35%)
Stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds
No minimum to get started
Multiple account types, including Fidelity brokerage account, Fidelity Go, Fidelity Cash Management Account, traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, and rollover IRAs
App offers trading, goal planning and tracking tools, and educational resources
Can connect non-Fidelity accounts
No investments outside of stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds
Fidelity Spire is a free mobile app that combines trading, goal-setting, and financial education all under one roof. The app also offers a decision making tool that helps you prioritize your investing and savings goals, so it's a great option for those who want to add a bit more structure to their finances.
It also offers several account options, and it's available on both iOS and Android devices.
Open account Open account
Fidelity Spire and Digit both offer investing and saving options for those looking to target all aspects of their finances. Both platforms also provide personal investment accounts in addition to traditional and Roth IRAs.
Fidelity Spire, however, has a wider range of investment choices. You can trade stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds through its app. Digit only offers ETFs. Plus, you'll pay more in fees—it charges $5 per month.
$0 ($1 for investing with Genius subscription)
0% standard Albert services ($6 monthly minimum for investing through Genius subscription, though rates can be higher)
Stocks and ETFs
Like Digit, Albert offers a suite of investing and savings options. These include cash accounts, cash-back rewards, automatic savings tools, auto-investing, and much more.
But compared to Fidelity Spire, you'll only be able to invest in stocks and ETFs, not mutual funds. Plus, you won't have access to IRAs, and — since investing is only available through the Albert Genius subscription — you'll have to pay at least $6 per month (or a higher rate) to access investing.
You don't need to pay any fees to set up Fidelity Spire, but the accounts you set up within the app may have fees. Fidelity Spire has four key functions:
Trading: You can use the app to invest in stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds.
Goal planning: Fidelity Spire lets you set goals (e.g.. retirement, wedding, or family) and track your progress toward them.
Learning: The app includes a compilation of articles and educational guides that aim to help you make smarter financial decisions. You can even filter its library to find articles for goals like making major purchases, becoming debt-free, and more.
Prioritizing: With Fidelity Spire's decision tool, users can get a closer look at how their monthly contributions affect their goal timelines. The app currently lets you compare up to two goals at once. Plus, its spare cash calculator makes it simple to determine whether you've got any money left over from your monthly budget. Fidelity Spire offers those who have spare cash guidance on how they can use those funds to get closer to their goals.
In addition, you can use several accounts with Fidelity Spire. These include the standard Fidelity account, the Fidelity Cash Management Account, Fidelity Go, traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, and rollover IRAs. And you can even connect non-Fidelity accounts to the app to keep track of all your finances in one place.
Fidelity Spire doesn't currently have a Better Business Bureau profile, but its owner, Fidelity Investments, has an A+ rating with the BBB. This is the highest rating a business can receive, since bureau ratings range from A+ to F.
The ratings typically reflect the BBB's opinion of how well a company interacts with its customers, but the bureau also considers the following when evaluating businesses: type of business, time in business, customer complaint history, licensing and government actions, and advertising issues.
Keep in mind, though, that ratings don't guarantee performance or reliability. For this reason, it's wise to conduct your own research in addition to the bureau's findings. Fidelity's profile shows it closed more than 300 complaints in the last 12 months.
What is the difference between Spire and Fidelity?
Fidelity Spire is a Fidelity-managed mobile app that takes a holistic approach to helping users build wealth. The app allows for trading, and it offers a library and several tools (such as its decision tool and spare cash calculator) that aim to help you better manage your finances.
Fidelity, on the other hand, is an online brokerage that provides a more extensive range of products. These include self-directed accounts, automated investing, retirement accounts, college savings plans, custodial accounts, and much more. Since Fidelity Spire is connected to Fidelity, you'll still be able to utilize several of Fidelity's products (e.g., the Fidelity brokerage account, Fidelity Go, and more). You just won't have access to all of the products provided by Fidelity.
What does Fidelity Spire do?
Fidelity Spire is a financial app that strives to help its users make smart financial decisions and reach their short- and/or long-term savings goals. As mentioned earlier, it offers trading, goal planning, financial education, and much more.
Can you trade options on Fidelity Spire?
No. Fidelity Spire doesn't allow options trading at this time.
Brokerage account: Commonly offered by investment platforms and broker-dealers, brokerage accounts allow you to invest in stocks, ETFs, options, and other assets.
Stocks: Stocks represent shares of ownership within public companies (you can also purchase private stocks/equity but these are usually offered on an exclusive basis). You can purchase these securities through online brokerages, robo-advisors, broker-dealers, and other investment platforms.
ETFs: These funds typically contain a basket of stocks, bonds, and commodities. They're generally less risky than stocks because they contain a blend of different investments, as opposed to just one security.
Mutual funds: Like ETFs, mutual funds contain a blend of several investment types, but they're usually maintained by professional money managers.
More: Fidelity Spire Fidelity Investing Personal Finance Insider
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2022-06-23T18:51:42Z
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Fidelity Spire Review: Pros, Cons, and Who Should Set up an Account
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/fidelity-spire-review
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/fidelity-spire-review
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Drivers can earn up to $800 per month from services that sell vehicle ad wraps.
$5 gas is eating into rideshare and delivery drivers earnings, and fuel surcharges aren't keeping up.
Drivers are reportedly turning to an ad service that will wrap their cars with promotional decals.
One firm, Carvertise, told Reuters it is seeing new sign-ups grow between 8% and 13% per month.
As gas prices top $5 in many parts of the country, the increased fuel costs are severely eating into the earnings of rideshare and delivery drivers.
Writing for Insider, New York driver Naomi Ogutu says a fill-up for her Chevy Suburban has more than doubled from about $65 to nearly $150.
"With these gas prices, many of us can't even pay some of our essential bills," she wrote.
While companies like Instacart, Uber, and Lyft have introduced fuel surcharges in March to try to offset the rising expense in some markets, it's simply not enough for some drivers.
For Florida driver Duana Malcolm, the answer was to have Hyundai Sonata "wrapped" with ads from the marketing service Carvertise, Malcolm told Reuters.
The company offers up to $600 per month and drivers can earn a bonus of up to $200 for joining in "swarms" or winning contests.
"It's not life changing money, but I know I'm getting money every month for the next five months that's going to ease my concerns," Malcolm told the wire service.
The company told Reuters it has seen sign-ups grow by 8% to 13% per month as gas prices surged earlier this year.
How it works for rideshare drivers and commuters alike
While the service is a natural complement to ferrying passengers or delivering meals, it's not just rideshare drivers that can participate. Both companies say they welcome regular commuters as well.
Carvertise says it has over half a million drivers registered in its network, and it uses geo-tracking data to ensure that the ad is getting in front of eyeballs.
A competing company, Wrapify, offers a similar service and pay, but offers different vehicle coverage options.
Kathy Kristof, the editor of SideHusl.com, warns that several scams have popped up that imitate these services, including a fake check scheme and companies that require a deposit or fee from the driver.
Both Carvertise and Wrapify use direct deposit, and neither requires the driver to pay to participate.
More: Rideshare Gas Prices Advertising
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2022-06-23T18:51:55Z
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Drivers Wrap Cars in Ads for up to $800/month to Pay for Gas
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https://www.businessinsider.com/soaring-gas-prices-drivers-wrap-car-in-ads-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/soaring-gas-prices-drivers-wrap-car-in-ads-2022-6
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Putin has left Russia in tatters — even if he wins the war in Ukraine. It's time for the US and Europe to start planning for a post-Putin future.
Vladimir Putin has ensured Russia will be stuck in political, economic, and moral demise until he is gone. So it's time for the US and Europe to start planning for a world after Putin.
One thing has become clear in the Ukraine war: No matter the battlefield outcome, Russia has lost.
It is now time to think about what will happen to Russia after the war and Vladimir Putin's reign.
The US and Europe should be ready to offer Russia help and potentially form a new alliance: AMEURUS.
Mathias Döpfner is the CEO of Axel Springer, the parent company of Insider.
This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
This column by Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, originally appeared in WELT, another Axel Springer publication. A translated version appears below. The views expressed are his own.
Now is the time to start thinking about the years after the war in Ukraine. Because the outcome of the conflict is clear: Russia has lost — even if President Vladimir Putin wins the war.
How long this will take, no one knows.
Russia's war against Ukraine has been going on for eight years now — only the naive and those driven by short-term economic opportunism believed that the annexation of Crimea in 2014 meant peace and quiet. And it may go on for many more to come. But there will be a time after Putin — one way or another. And unless there is another surprising turn of events, his dictatorship will leave behind a devastated Russia.
A country that's economically weakened, almost destroyed. One that faces an ever-more-united West, with a strengthened NATO, a strengthened European Union, and a strengthened transatlantic alliance. A Western world that will be less dependent on gas supplies, cracking Russia's economic backbone. Sanctions will have left their mark. The army will be emaciated and a shadow of its former self. Its people torn and demoralized.
Putin's successors have only 2 options
Any new government in Moscow will then have to make a key strategic decision: Become an ally of the democratic West, or a dependent of the nondemocratic China.
These are the only two options for Putin's successors (perhaps someone typologically more like Alexey Navalny or Garry Kasparov — no one thought Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was possible either). And therein lies a historic opportunity for a new and better world order.
When the time comes, then, the West must not exploit the weakness of the loser, a post-Putin Russia. It should look ahead to a new, differently governed Russia instead. And it could already start preparing for an alliance that means stability, security, prosperity and, above all, freedom: "AMEURUS." A strategic alliance of America, Europe and Russia, in a community of values and trade that enables the fastest possible economic reconstruction of Russia, thus resisting the challenges and threats posed by China and radical Islamist states.
Russia is a nation of culture
From today's point of view, this idea might seem unrealistic and almost frivolous. But from a much longer, decades-long perspective, it's realistic. Nothing granted, but a possibility. One for which the West, the EU, and Germany should now actively prepare.
No matter how high or low the probability, we should try everything to increase its likelihood. Because the alternatives are worse. A permanently humiliated Russia remains aggressive and would become even more so. A permanently China-dependent Russia would become a powerful adversary to our economic and political disadvantage.
The Russian people aren't the Russian regime of today. Russia is a nation of culture. A country with raw-material resources we'd rather have on our side than against us.
Until now, Germany's longing for Russia has been naive and dangerous, as it overlooked the country's deep authoritarian tradition: from tsarism to Stalinist communism, only briefly interrupted by the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin.
Putin's geopolitical megalomania and rule of fear were clearly inspired by former absolutist regimes. But what we're seeing now is rudimentary proof that absolutism is no longer tolerated in the 21st century.
And the chances that Russia will, after this self-inflicted humiliation, embark on a better, more liberal path aren't bad at all — historically speaking.
Two major military defeats triggered modernization in Russian history. The lost Crimean War in the 19th century led to major reforms and a decline in serfdom. And the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 initiated the decline of autocratic tsarism, which ended with the February Revolution — though followed by the October Revolution of the Bolsheviks. This could be a pattern: Military defeats make Russia open to change.
The West's opposition must never be directed against a population, only against a regime. What was possible for the Germans after the Nazis must be even more so for the Russians after Putinism: a chance for a new beginning.
Measures for the future
If AMEURUS, a US-European-Russian community of values and trade — and perhaps even defense — is to emerge, forward-looking action is needed now.
Thinking about this doesn't mean weakening solidarity with Ukraine. On the contrary, strengthening our solidarity is the most important prerequisite for AMEURUS to have any chance at all. The West must ensure that Ukraine wins the war. And in parallel, it should initiate conversations and concepts for a new order.
What would that mean in concrete terms?
Not only America but also Europe, and Germany, must support Ukraine with all legitimate means — mainly with heavy weapons and state-of-the-art technology.
The West must not — like in 2008 in Georgia and 2014 in Crimea — legitimize any Russian interim success with a fouled peace. It must have patience and perseverance.
Finally, NATO must be strengthened, and the accessions of Finland and Sweden must become possible in negotiations with Ankara.
For Germany, for Chancellor Olaf Scholz, this particularly means one thing: winning friends and allies in Europe and America — and perhaps even in India. In this context, his trip to Kyiv was late, but it was an important and correct step. So were his decisions on arms deliveries, NATO treaty compliance, and the 100-billion-euro special fund for the Bundeswehr.
For the first time in a long time in German history, our neighbors expect Germany to strengthen its military and become more involved. Scholz should use this to do what his predecessor neglected to do: Weaken the Russian regime, strengthen Europe, and forge alliances. All to enable, in the long run, the alliance that will save us from a second, much worse Chinese attack on democracy — and that is AMEURUS.
One way or another, the Ukraine war will become the turning point of the world order.
We should do everything we can to make it a turn toward strengthened democracy, not a turn toward even stronger authoritarianism. Besides, it would be satisfying if Putin ended up achieving exactly the opposite of what he wanted.
More: Ukraine Russia Vladimir Putin European Union
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2022-06-23T18:52:01Z
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US, Europe Should Start to Plan for Post-Ukraine War, Post-Putin Russia
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https://www.businessinsider.com/us-europe-plan-alliance-russia-post-vladimir-putin-ukraine-war-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/us-europe-plan-alliance-russia-post-vladimir-putin-ukraine-war-2022-6
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New documentary footage shows Pence after January 6 when Congress was discussing the 25th amendment
New documentary footage shows Mike Pence reacting to conversations about the 25th amendment.
Invoking the 25th amendment could have enabled Pence to replace Trump after January 6.
The footage was released as an excerpt from an upcoming documentary by filmmaker Alex Holder.
A documentary filmmaker claimed that Vice President Mike Pence appeared to react enthusiastically to an email calling on him to remove president Donald Trump from office after the January 6 attacks on the Capitol, according to CNN.
In the footage filmed on January 12, an aide hands Pence his phone and Pence reads an email containing a draft House resolution that would have him invoking the 25th amendment, according to filmmaker Alex Holder. The three-part series, titled "Unprecedented," will be released later this summer.
Upon reading the email calling for Pence to remove Trump by invoking the 25th amendment, the vice president smirks and responds, "yeah, excellent," Holder told CNN.
Pence's team denied to CNN that he was reacting affirmatively to invoking the 25th amendment. His team told the network that he instead was reacting to an email of his letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying that he would not invoke the 25th amendment. Pence's representatives did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Ultimately, Pence rejected the idea after House democrats called on him to replace Trump days after the insurrection.
The 25th Amendment in the US Constitution allows a president to be withdrawn if a majority of Congress along with the Vice President decide that the president is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office."
"The world watched aghast as insurrectionists, who had been egged on by the president, threatened the safety of elected officials... bringing our democracy to a halt," House democrats said the the letter sent to Pence on January 6, 2021.
Holder testified to the January 6 committee behind closed doors on Thursday morning and has maintained that Pence was reviewing the actual draft resolution to invoke the 25th amendment when he said "yeah, excellent," and smiled.
Holder is set to release a scathing documentary on the inner workings of the Trump administration around the January 6 insurrection, and has been subpoenaed by the committee.
The January 6 committee held their fifth hearing on Thursday.
More: Mike Pence January 6 commitee hearings Capitol Siege
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2022-06-24T00:59:25Z
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New Documentary Footage Shows Pence Mulling 25th Amendment
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https://www.businessinsider.com/new-documentary-footage-shows-pence-mulling-25th-amendment-2022-6
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Former Assistant U.S. Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel Steven Engel (L), former Acting U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen (C) and former Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue (R) look on during the fifth hearing held by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol on June 23, 2022 in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, DC.
The January 6 select committee held its fifth public hearing June 23.
Witnesses testified about Donald Trump trying to push DOJ to follow his election fraud scheme.
Here are some of the most striking visuals from the committee's hearing on Thursday.
Actor Sean Penn listened in
Fom left, former Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone, actor Sean Penn, and Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges listen as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol continues to reveal its findings of a year-long investigation, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, June 23, 2022.
Actor and political activist Sean Penn showed up at Thursday's hearing, sitting through the nearly 3-hour proceedings with the rest of the attendees.
The unexpected visitor said he was there as "just another citizen."
Mark Meadows role as gatekeeper was explored
A snapshot of the myriad text messages and emails that flowed to and from then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows as Trump tried to push his election fraud scheme.
Warren Rojas/Insider
January 6 committee member Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who led most of the discussion Thursday, reviewed many electronic messages that then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows both sent and received before, during, and after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Scott Perry's involvement was revealed
A snapshot of a text message Rep. Scott Perry allegedly sent then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about replacing Department of Justice leaders with fellow election deniers.
The brunt of Thursday's hearing focused on the various ways Donald Trump and his allies tried to make Department of Justice officials comply with unlawfully overturning the 2020 election.
Some of the evidence presented included text messages Republican Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania sent White House officials urging them to move attorney Jeff Clark up the management ladder so he could help validate the baseless election fraud strategy.
Senior officials issued lots of warnings
A snapshot of a warning acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue issued after being presented with Trump's bogus election fraud scheme.
As part of his testimony, former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue explained that he resisted Trump's efforts to draw the DOJ into his election fraud fantasy every step of the way.
And he warned others to steer clear as well.
Trump's scheme didn't end at the water's edge
A snapshot of a message GOP Rep. Scott Perry sent White House officials suggesting that Italy had somehow meddled with the 2020 election.
As if dragging American election workers through the mud weren't enough, January 6 committee staff also presented evidence of far-fetched claims by House Republicans of potential interference by European powers.
Some officials threatened to quit
A snapshot of the half-dozen DOJ officials who were reportedly ready to quit if Trump installed election denier Jeff Clark as acting attorney general.
The Department of Justice officials testified about how they and others got fed up with Trump's attempts to drag them into his election fraud scheme.
They said they managed to quash a last-ditch plan to install election denier Jeff Clark as acting attorney general by telling Trump that if he pushed for regime change, they'd resign en masse and Clark would be left "leading a graveyard."
Pardons were requested
January 6 select committee staff displayed an image of a email Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama allegedly sent the White House requesting presidential pardons for MAGA lawmakers during the panel's fifth public hearing on Thursday, June 23.
January 6 committee staff made good on co-chair Liz Cheney's promise from few weeks ago to expose House Republicans who'd asked Trump to pardon them in the wake of the attack on the US Capitol.
On Thursday the committee revealed that Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia had all requested protection from the fallout of the 2020 election fraud scheme.
Names were named
A video displays a discussion about presidential pardons during the fifth public hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol in the Cannon House Office Building on June 23, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Rep. Matt Gaetz actually came up more than once during the discussion of pardon requests.
White House aides testified about direct conversations they'd had with the Florida Republican regarding presidential pardons, and Rep. Mo Brooks mentioned him specifically in an email he shot over to administration officials.
More: Features January 6 committee Capitol Siege Sean Penn
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2022-06-24T00:59:31Z
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Images From the Jan. 6 Committee's Public Hearing About Pressuring DOJ
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https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-scott-perry-mo-brooks-doj-election-fraud-pressure-campaign-2022-6
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Elon Musk sends lawyers' letter claiming that Twitter didn't provide enough data to analyze for 'bots,' so Twitter gave him even more user data
Kali Hays and Jack Newsham
Elon Musk at the Met Gala this year.
Elon Musk is continuing to push Twitter on user data in order to analyze it for bots or automated accounts.
He sent another letter to the company last week, Insider has learned, claiming what had been shared so far was insufficient.
Twitter has been "bending over backwards" to comply with Musk's demands, one person said.
Twitter has given Elon Musk more user data after he complained last week that the large historical database he had received wasn't enough, Insider has learned. This new batch, according to two people directly familiar with the deal, includes real-time data, and likely represents the last hurdle for Musk as he seeks to find an overabundance of "bots" and potentially renegotiate his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company.
Musk's complaint was lodged officially on Friday, when his lawyers sent Twitter's board a letter claiming the many terabytes of historical data the company sent him earlier in the week on daily active users was not adequate or the full "firehose" of data he had expected to receive, these people said. Musk was unhappy with the historical data because his team was unable to perform its own tests for inauthentic accounts. Twitter earlier this week gave access to the new data, including real-time API information, to Musk's team, who now believe they are able to conduct their own analysis, these people said.
A Twitter spokesperson referred Insider to an earlier statement on the company's dealings with Musk: "Twitter has and will continue to cooperatively share information with Mr. Musk to consummate the transaction in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement."
Some inside the company see the lawyers' letters as just the latest attempt by Musk to paint Twitter as noncompliant with his requests, so that he can claim breach of contract and force a renegotiation of the acquisition at a lower price, Insider previously reported.
Since Musk announced his intent to buy the company in April, he has said that the prevalence of "bots" or automated accounts was a key issue on the platform. His cries escalated as the deal has drawn out. In May, he claimed the acquisition was "on hold" until the bots issue was resolved. Earlier this month, his lawyers said publicly that Twitter was in breach of the deal by not providing Musk the data to perform his own analysis about Twitter's bots.
Inside Twitter, Musk's reaction is seen as a response primarily to external market headwinds. He had earlier agreed to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share before a broad pullback in the stock market, which has shares of the company currently under $39. Musk may also be setting the stage for backing out of the deal entirely, something that would likely devolve into a protracted legal battle.
Twitter's board remains committed to the acquisition, and will likely do whatever it can to see the agreement complete without a legal battle, people familiar with the deal previously told Insider. Musk is also seen inside Twitter as wanting to acquire and run the company and he said as much in his first meeting with Twitter employees last week.
Twitter has been "bending over backwards" to comply with Musk's ongoing demands, one person familiar said. This includes the latest data release.
The new data Musk has access to is effectively a "data stream" of Tweets and activity on the platform that is also available to developers through Twitter's developer platform. This is seen as sufficient for Musk to analyze for bots, another person familiar said. Musk is also seen as wanting the data for more traditional purposes, like putting together a business plan for the company and devising specific ways for improving it, as he has said he intends to do.
Twitter's board this week formally recommended that its shareholders approve Musk's acquisition. A special shareholders meeting will be held to vote on it, likely in late July or early August, giving Musk several more weeks to publicly pressure Twitter over the deal and any findings he may be able to cull from the data.
There is some recent precedent for a renegotiation on an acquisition price agreed to before the market downturn. Software company Anaplan agreed to shave $400 million off of the original $10.7 billion price that private equity firm Thoma Bravo agreed to pay in March. The private equity firm "seized on" how much Anaplan was planning to pay new workers, saying the amount violated the terms of the merger agreement, the Financial Times reported.
During his first meeting with Twitter employees last week, first reported by Insider, Musk said the prevalence of bots is "probably my biggest concern" given their potential impact on monetizable user metrics. He admitted however that such accounts are an area of Twitter where he has "less understanding."
More: Twitter Elon Musk Acquisition
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2022-06-24T10:09:31Z
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Elon Musk Unhappy With Data Twitter Gave Him on Active Users
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https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-twitter-more-user-data-active-renegotiate-price-2022-6
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Founder Finance: A baker shares the $15K budget she's using to relaunch her business after stepping away to fight cancer
Shawn Brown, the founder and CEO of CheeseCaked.
courtesy of Brown
In this story, a bakery founder shares her $15,000 monthly budget.
She says investing in visibility and planning are the most important steps.
Shawn Brown was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2019, just one month after moving her 8-year-old bakery, CheeseCaked, into a new storefront.
She immediately took time off from running the company to seek treatment, closing down the bakery. Two years later, when she completed chemotherapy, she relaunched the brand. Since then, she's scaled the bakery, opened two storefront locations, and surpassed 39,000 Instagram followers.
"Sometimes, businesses will start in your mind one way," Brown said. "Then when they reach the public, they'll go down their own road, and you have to adjust to what the people want."
One of the most difficult parts of running a business is securing financing so it can grow, she said. While she's taken out some small loans, the majority of business costs come from her own pocket.
Storefronts and social-media marketing were two of the most worthwhile investments, even if rent and advertising alone cost more than $4,000 of her monthly budget, she said. Especially with fears of an upcoming recession and inflation affecting many aspects of her business, staying visible is crucial as Brown continues to build back her brand.
Brown breaks down her budget for April and explains how to invest in visibility and prepare for uncertain times.
Invest in visibility: digital and brick-and-mortar
CheeseCaked's brick-and-mortar location in Atlanta.
courtesy of Brown.
When Brown relaunched CheeseCaked in November, she opened a storefront in downtown Atlanta's Underground district. In March, she unveiled a location in Norcross, Georgia.
Brown did not originally plan on opening two brick-and-mortar stores but said it helped with brand awareness for customers who didn't know CheeseCaked before she stepped away from the business. Today, customers visit the stores to purchase desserts, celebrate special occasions, and even host events, like weddings, birthday parties, and promposals, said Brown, adding that creating "an experience" has become part of her brand.
Brown spends more than $4,000 a month on rent and store expenses, like WiFi and other utilities. After the physical storefront, Brown said social media was another necessary expense to relaunch her brand.
She hired her first social-media manager in 2016 — when she felt stagnant in her brand growth — and grew her social-media following by tens of thousands through organic content. Today, many of CheeseCaked's 39,000 Instagram followers turn into paying customers, Brown said.
"When I first started, some food bloggers reached out, and one asked me if she could run my page," Brown said, adding that this social-media expert charged $100 a week.
Convinced by her mother that it would be a worthwhile investment, Brown paid the $100; within two weeks, there was a line out the door, she said.
"Now she's part of payroll, and social-media management is one of my top things," she added.
Plus, when reopening the store after her cancer treatments, she used social media to gauge whether the brand was missed and would have returning customers.
A post shared by Cheesecaked™ (@cheesecaked)
Budget strategically for market conditions
To stay on top of finances, Brown invests $625 a month in accounting services and constantly reevaluates which bakery items are most and least cost-effective, she said.
With the changing economy and skyrocketing inflation — where cream cheese and eggs have been especially affected — she's had to make decisions like taking items off the menu or changing her prices.
"I've had to increase prices, but I didn't do it across the board," Brown said, adding that she'd raised prices on about 40% of her items.
It's important to stay strategic with pricing in trying times, she added.
"If I'm hurting financially, my customers are as well," she said. "And I don't want to price myself out of the market to the point they can't even come in and buy anything."
More: Founder Finances financial advice Financial Adviser
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2022-06-24T10:09:31Z
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How Much an Entrepreneur Pays for Her Brick-and-Mortar Locations
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-entrepreneur-pays-for-brick-and-mortar-locations-recession-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-entrepreneur-pays-for-brick-and-mortar-locations-recession-2022-6
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4 ways to build a portfolio that will survive in this bear market, according to an investment chief who warned in January that stocks were 'stupid expensive'
Meb Faber, co-founder and CIO of Cambria Investment Management.
Cambria Investment Management
Though Meb Faber, the CIO of Cambria Investment Management, called the crash, he's staying humble.
More downside for stocks and the economy is likely, but it's currently unclear to what extent.
Here are four ways to invest as US stocks continue to crash from their lofty peak.
Meb Faber isn't one to take a victory lap, even though he has every right to do so.
Not only did the co-founder and CIO of Cambria Investment Management warn in January that US stocks were "stupid expensive" before they fell by 20%, but he's also the mind behind his firm's 12 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) — nine of which have beaten the S&P 500 this year.
But the 22-year market veteran and manager of $1.5 billion of assets knows that arrogance can lead to ruin.
"I'm never confident when it comes to investing," Faber said in a recent interview with Insider. "I think that gets you into a lot of trouble."
The case for a continued market crash
There's arguably no better example of overconfidence in markets than what Faber described as the "total insanity" that hit in 2021. Many investors lusted after easy returns from meme stocks while disregarding fundamentals, which caused the cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings (CAPE) ratio for US stocks to spike to an astronomical level of nearly 40x.
Though the market's CAPE has fallen drastically in recent months, Faber told Insider in May that the metric suggests that stocks could get another 50% haircut if inflation remains elevated. Faber isn't alone in his thinking, as GMO's Ben Inker made a similar case to Insider in June.
Market bulls typically attempt to explain away Faber and Inker's reasoning in two ways. First, low interest rates justify higher-than-normal stock valuations, and second, CAPE is flawed because it relies on earnings expectations from the past 10 years instead of the future.
That first argument isn't nearly as potent as it used to be as bond yields and interest rates have risen dramatically this year, Faber noted.
"A lot of people mentally have always justified stocks being stupid expensive because interest rates were low," Faber said.
Faber added: "That was when bond yields were low. And the argument didn't hold water then, but it especially doesn't hold water when inflation and, presumably, bond yields go up, too."
As for the second point, Faber doesn't claim that backward-looking earnings expectations are perfect, but noted that forward-looking expectations are often far from accurate as well.
"I'm happy to use the future crystal ball if you find someone who can give it to me," Faber said. "Historically, people — economists and prognosticators — have a pretty poor track record of predicting the future."
There's already been plenty of pain in markets this year as stock valuations fall back to earth, but Faber warned that this may just be the beginning of the decline. The CAPE for US stocks is currently at a historically high 29x, Faber noted, adding that the average CAPE when inflation is over 4% is 12x. That suggests that there's a "long way down" for stocks, Faber said.
"That environment where you have an expensive market in a downtrend is really the scariest," Faber said.
Faber later added: "Our models are about as bearish as they could be on US stocks."
4 ways to invest with the economy on edge and stocks at risk
As stocks have fallen into a bear market , investment professionals have gotten increasingly confident that the US economy is going to contract. Faber might not be an economist, but he told Insider that a recession "certainly looks like it's going to happen" at this point.
Regardless, Faber shared four tips for investors to build what he called a "survivable portfolio" in a volatile investing environment where both the economic recovery and stocks are in danger.
The investment chief's top idea is to invest in foreign stocks — specifically those in emerging markets. That latter group has managed to outperform the S&P 500 this year despite the fact that many assets tied to Russia were wiped out entirely due to the nation's invasion of Ukraine.
Shares of overseas companies are far cheaper than their US counterparts, Faber said. In fact, he previously told Insider that the latter will see inflation-adjusted returns of 0% in the next decade.
The reversal may not happen overnight, Faber said, so he acknowledged that investors may want to either dollar-cost average into foreign stocks or wait for a reversal to occur.
A crucial part of many emerging markets funds are Chinese stocks, which Faber noted are dirt-cheap right now on a CAPE basis. Investors are likely concerned about companies in the country becoming uninvestable like their Russian counterparts, Faber said, given headwinds like COVID-19 and a harsh regulatory environment.
Chinese stocks (in red) are trading at a steep discount to their US peers based on the cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings (CAPE) ratio.
Chinese stocks appear to be too cheap to ignore, Faber said, though he added that it's vital to diversify in case history doesn't repeat itself.
"There's two other periods when it got this cheap, and both preceded monster runs where China went up 50% or 200% in the ensuing a year or two," Faver said.
Lastly, Faber said that a portfolio composed of one-third stocks, one-third bonds, and one-third real assets is "a really hard portfolio to beat over time," though he lamented that most of the investors he's heard from have little exposure to the latter.
This year is a perfect example of why it's a costly mistake to not have exposure to commodities, real estate, and other physical assets, Faber said, given that they're some of the only winners in a high-inflation environment.
Though Faber didn't provide any specific ETFs to invest in, it's no secret that he'd recommend his own funds, like the Cambria Global Momentum ETF (GMOM), the Cambria Global Asset Allocation ETF (GAA), the Cambria Global Value ETF (GVAL), or the Cambria Global Real Estate ETF (BLDG).
Investors looking for alternatives can consider the iShares MSCI Intl Value Factor ETF (IVLU), the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM), SPDR S&P China ETF (GXC), the iShares S&P GSCI Commodity-Indexed Trust (GSG), and the Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ).
More: Investing how to invest how to invest 2022
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foreign stocks
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Meb Faber Research
Meb Faber
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2022-06-24T10:09:51Z
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How to Invest in a Bear Market When Stocks Are Crashing: Faber
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https://www.businessinsider.com/recession-stocks-bear-market-how-to-invest-crash-meb-faber-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/recession-stocks-bear-market-how-to-invest-crash-meb-faber-2022-6
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An angry local defaced a Utah home that an investor flipped for $1 million more than they paid 8 months before
Becca Summers filmed two TikTok videos about the incident in Salt Lake City. The kitchen in the house (center and right) had the most dramatic transformation in the flip.
TikTok/@SeasonsRealEstate
A Salt Lake City home was purchased for $670,000 and listed for $1.6 million seven months later.
Someone spray-painted "go away greedy flippers" on the house, Becca Summers, a local broker, said.
Summers, whose TikToks about the graffiti have 2 million views, summed up why it sparked outrage.
Last month, a Utah neighborhood woke up to a clear sign of locals' frustration with the tough housing market.
Someone had covered the side of a recently flipped Salt Lake City home with pink spray paint that read: "$600K - $1.6 in 1 year?!?! Go away greedy flippers!"
Indeed, an investor, whose identity is shielded behind an LLC, paid $675,000 for the three-bedroom house in September, according to public records. In May, just eight months later, the 2,128-square-foot property hit the market again — for a staggering $1.6 million.
It already sold. And neighbors are apparently angry.
The Salt Lake City Police Department confirmed to Insider that an officer "took a vandalism report" at the house on May 14. The "investigation remains ongoing," police said.
Becca Summers, a local real-estate agent who was not involved with either sale, saw photos of the graffiti in a Facebook group for area brokers. On her TikTok account, @SeasonsRealEstate, she narrated the details of the vandalism over an image of the graffiti, as well as dramatically different before and after photos of the flipped house. The two videos, posted on May 20 and 21, have gotten 2 million views combined and attracted thousands of comments.
Summers told Insider the reactions were split: There is a vocal cohort that sympathizes with the vandal and sees the new asking price as moneygrubbing, while another group has defended the flipper because of how costly renovations can be.
"My overall take on it is: It's super sad for everyone involved. It's sad that someone thinks it's OK to damage someone's property. And it's also sad that this is causing issues for people," she said on TikTok.
The incident, and the outrage over it, points to the challenges of buying a home in the hottest cities in the US. Homeowners and investors might be happy to grow equity, but higher taxes can hurt those with fixed incomes, and skyrocketing property prices have left many people feeling squeezed out of homeownership all together.
"It's definitely putting a divide between the haves and the have-nots," Summers told Insider.
Salt Lake City home prices have skyrocketed
The typical Salt Lake City home value hit $635,962 in May, a 24.4% jump from the same month in 2021, when the typical value was $511,000, according to Zillow. (The typical value in May 2020 was $433,000, according to Zillow, 18% lower than in 2021.)
The graffitied house is in Sugar House, a neighborhood southeast of downtown Salt Lake City that the tourism board describes as "one of the most offbeat, colorfully progressive enclaves" in the region.
Summers said buyers in Sugar House tend to be millennials, high earners, and "hipsters" drawn to the area for its charming old homes and walkability.
"To understand the renovation value of this one, you have to understand the area this property was renovated in. This is one of those places that people just pay stupid money to be in, just by itself," she said on TikTok.
But this flip is exceptional even for the area. Two other homes on the same block sold recently for $870,000 and $780,000. Surrounding homes are valued between $600,000 and $1 million, according to Zillow.
If the sale price is close to the asking price of $1.6 million, it will undoubtedly increase the equity in surrounding homes. It will also most likely increase property taxes next year for their owners.
"It's probably going to add a couple thousand dollars in tax for every house surrounding it," Summers told Insider.
Home flipping is a dramatic and risky business
In her second video, Summers shows before and after photos of the renovation to give the flipper's reasoning for the home's new asking price. The kitchen shows a particularly dramatic transformation.
"This, I think, is the biggest statement piece for the house. They took out walls. They redid a ton of stuff, put in load-bearing beams," she said on TikTok. "This is a different kitchen, like night-and-day difference."
The primary room's bathroom is "way bigger" and the result of a "huge renovation," she said.
Still, not everyone is convinced.
Critical comments on Summers' videos varied from a general distrust of home flippers to a belief that the $1.6 million price wasn't justified despite the extreme makeover.
"I bet this flip was 100% cosmetic and they left all the internal problems," one user said in a comment that received over 1,000 likes.
The vandal's outrage against home flipping comes as the industry faces a slowdown.
After flipping rates over the past two years returned to pre-recession levels, experts say some indicators, including historically low median gross profits, might signal a slowdown.
A report from the housing-data firm Kukun said a shorter time between flippers' buying and selling and a falling permit rate pointed to "signs of speculation."
More: Real Estate Salt Lake City Utah Home Flip
home flipping
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2022-06-24T10:09:57Z
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Utah Home Flipped for $1 Million Profit Vandalized by Outraged Local
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https://www.businessinsider.com/salt-lake-city-home-flip-graffiti-vandalized-by-outraged-neighbor-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/salt-lake-city-home-flip-graffiti-vandalized-by-outraged-neighbor-2022-6
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Uzair Dossani, managing director, ICG
Insider's Banker of the Week series appears in our weekday newsletter, 10 Things on Wall Street.
This week we're featuring Uzair Dossani, a managing director at Intermediate Capital Group.
He’s a 25-year private-equity veteran who just closed a deal for Seaway Plastics Engineering.
Uzair Dossani — a managing director at Intermediate Capital Group, an investment manager with $71 billion in assets under management — just closed a deal on Thursday for what he described as a "jewel of a business."
Dossani leads ICG's North American private-equity group, and his team bought Seaway Plastics Engineering. The company engineers components for medical devices and the broader healthcare space.
Healthcare acquisitions have been like catnip for private-investment firms in recent years, especially since the pandemic fundamentally changed how consumers monitor their wellbeing, and shifted how healthcare-service providers interact with patients.
Since he joined ICG in 2020, Dossani and Kevin Gregory, his co-head of North American private equity, began collaborating on opportunities to find companies that specialize in outsourced medical-component production.
"I spent a lot of time in plastics packaging and component manufacturing, so I was familiar with the production process," Dossani told Insider. "Kevin brought the end-market expertise."
To get the deal done, Dossani and his team conducted the usual amount of market research, but it also built relationships with sector executives and evaluated a "few opportunities" before landing on Seaway.
While he didn't disclose the other acquisition targets, Dossani said in Seaway, he'd "found what he had been looking for."
Dossani — who studied engineering — started as an intern coding for a satellite firm. But he's spent the better part of two decades at investment firms like Warburg Pincus, Charlesbank Capital Partners, and middle-market investor Harvest Partners, before joining ICG.
"I ended up going into strategy consulting, which, given my engineering background, thought would be a nice intro to how business worked. But after a couple of years, I got frustrated by just providing recommendations versus actually being able to act on my analysis," he said.
That led him to private equity, and after more than 20 years he said he still loves it.
"The first business I invested in was an automotive company that manufactured everything from fuzzy dice to steering-wheel covers. It taught me two things: 1 - management is the most important thing to get right in an investment. 2 - even if your product or service is not that differentiated, you can grow nicely if you execute."
Dossani's not a Wall Street banker churning out transactions at a bulge-bracket lender, but for a nuanced deal in a somber environment for deal making, he's a reminder of the swath of middle-market efforts that can sometimes be overlooked.
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2022-06-24T10:10:09Z
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The Former Warburg Pincus Dealmaker That Just Wrapped a "Jewel" of a Deal
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https://www.businessinsider.com/the-former-warburg-pincus-dealmaker-that-just-wrapped-a-jewel-of-a-deal-2022-6
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An energy portfolio manager at a $9 billion firm says buy these 10 stocks for lofty cash flow yields that will help investors protect their portfolios during a bear market
Tortoise Capital's Rob Thummel believes that energy firms will continue to prioritize shareholder return going forward.
The energy sector is ripe with high dividends and free cash flow yields, said Rob Thummel.
He also believes energy stocks are a good inflation hedge and have a positive future trajectory.
Thummel shared ten energy stocks investors should buy to take advantage of the sector's offerings.
After a decade of lukewarm performance, the energy sector finally catapulted to stock market dominance in 2021. But those gains now pale in comparison to the sector's blistering upward streak following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February of this year.
For investors who missed the early opportunities to buy into the sector, it's hard not to feel left out while watching from the sidelines. But fear not, says Rob Thummel, senior portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital — there's still plenty of gains ripe for the picking in the forms of high dividends and lofty free cash flow yields as the sector continues to emphasize shareholder return.
"The last decade has been terrible for the energy sector because management teams have been focused on growing production volumes and not on delivering cash to investors," Thummel explained to Insider in a recent interview. However, shareholder backlash in recent years forced firms to reverse the trend, reigniting investor interest and breathing new life into spiraling energy stocks.
"The pandemic effectively accelerated that focus on returning cash to shareholders because demand just fell off the face of the earth," said Thummel. "So oil and gas companies cut their capital spending significantly and their production growth slowed or went negative."
These actions, he added, have resulted in high free cash flow yields to the sector that are four to five times higher than those of the S&P 500 average, and dividend yields that are double to the S&P 500 average.
And going forward, he doesn't foresee that the focus on shareholder returns will wane anytime soon, not even as energy companies step up production to meet a potentially crippling global energy shortage.
"Yes, there'll be production growth, but it won't be like we saw in the 2010 to 2019 cycle that produced those terrible returns," said Thummel. "Part of that's because oil and gas production is still a very labor-intensive activity, and frankly there's just not enough labor out there to return to those old growth days."
Energy has a positive trajectory
High dividends and free cash flow yields aren't the only reasons that investors should consider buying energy stocks, according to Thummel.
First of all, commodities have traditionally been considered a hedge against inflation because their prices rise alongside costs, and the energy sector is certainly no exception. And overall, Thummel still believes that energy stocks will continue to climb despite a selloff in early June, which he said was a reflection of heightened investor concerns around increased political and regulatory risks and a looming recession .
"That led to an overall market selloff, but since the energy sector has outperformed so much, I think investors were taking some profits associated with that," he remarked.
Thummel believes that going forward, the energy sector's major themes will include decarbonization and energy security, the latter of which has been made even more crucial as supply dwindles in Russia, the world's third-largest oil producer and second-largest natural gas producer.
"We've got a world that's back to pre-pandemic levels of demand for oil and natural gas, but the global supply is not there yet, and that's created this shortage — low inventory, high commodity prices, lots of cash for the sector. Going forward, we don't see that changing," said Thummel. He added that a focus on energy security will also force countries to reassess their energy supply sources, propelling US energy stocks even higher.
"That's where the US and Canada can shine again, because they're probably the most reliable sources of oil and gas supply globally," he continued. "The US has an opportunity to play an important role on a global stage in the energy sector both from an oil and gas production perspective, but also from an energy transition perspective."
In the short term, Thummel believes that oil prices will be marked by excessive volatility and range anywhere from $90 to $150 a barrel in the next year depending on a potential recession's impact on consumer demand. Longer term, he forecasts oil to rest in a "healthy" range between $80 to $100 a barrel.
"That's a great price scenario for US producers because they can generate a lot of cash at those levels," said Thummel.
To follow along investment thesis, Thummel recommended ten stocks in the energy sector with high dividends and free cash flow yields that investors should consider, listed below. He's particularly bullish on energy infrastructure companies, since they don't derive profits from the underlying costs of commodities and can therefore act as good inflation hedges.
1. EQT
Ticker: EQT
2. Valero
Ticker: VLO
3. ExxonMobil
5. Cheniere
Ticker: ENB
9. Williams
Ticker: WMB
10. Western Midstream
Ticker: WES
More: Investing Oil Market Oil Markets
oil & gas stocks
Oil Boom
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2022-06-24T14:42:49Z
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10 Energy Stocks for Lofty Cash Flows and Bear Market Protection
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https://www.businessinsider.com/bear-market-stocks-to-buy-high-dividends-cash-flows-yields-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/bear-market-stocks-to-buy-high-dividends-cash-flows-yields-2022-6
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The thought of returning to work can put a damper on your vacation. Experts say preparing for PTO with 3 steps can alleviate stress.
Employees shouldn't have to work while on vacation.
Jasmina007/Getty Images
Many employees feel pressure to work on their vacations, even though that could propel burnout.
To have a worry-free vacation, career experts say employees need to prepare.
When you're back in the office, don't immediately jump in full force.
For some, taking a vacation doesn't mean fully unplugging from work.
In a June poll conducted by LinkedIn News for Insider, more than 11,500 LinkedIn users shared how they got back to business after a break. Most respondents reported their returns involved clearing their calendars or conducting catch-up meetings, but more than one-fifth said they worked while vacationing.
"I'm not proud I work on vacation," Kayla Green, a LinkedIn user, wrote in the comments of the post. "But going on one in August with no WiFi and I'm scared of what my inbox will look like when I return."
Last year, 26% of respondents to a LinkedIn poll said they planned to check in with their employers at least once daily while on vacation, Blair Heitmann, a LinkedIn career expert, told Insider in an email interview. While disconnecting during vacation can prevent burnout, the stress of returning to the office — even a virtual one — after taking time off can make the respite feel moot.
Heitmann and Benjamin Granger, a workplace expert at the experience-management firm Qualtrics, told Insider how employees could successfully take time off to avoid adding to their burnout.
Coordinate your time off with your team
Americans often don't take full advantage of their vacation days, Granger said. Planning vacations so you can find the right timing with work obligations can help reduce some unwarranted but persistent guilt American workers typically feel, he added.
"Try to plan your vacation in advance if possible to ensure you have a dedicated window before unexpected projects pop up that might deter you from taking the time you need," Heitmann added.
Outside confirming your time off with your manager, Heitmann suggested finding a "work friend" who you trust to handle any projects or emergencies in your absences. In return, you can do the same for them when they want time off.
"It's really all about preparation," she said. If you and your team are properly prepared for your time off, then you can truly disconnect without worrying about your workload or how your coworkers and managers will view you, she added.
Additionally, if you want to travel for a week or two, add an extra day to the time you request off if possible, Granger said.
"Sometimes, we need a vacation from a vacation," he said. "If you're going to take a five-day trip, take six days off, and use that extra day to decompress, unpack, send the kids off to school or camp."
Establish boundaries beforehand
As a manager, Granger has his team set clear expectations about what's considered "urgent" while out of the office.
He asks his team: "What would be something that we would jointly consider urgent that even me as an employee wouldn't mind getting on the phone and chatting about?"
For the matters that aren't urgent, drafting a good out-of-office message can relieve some anxiety, Heitmann said. Keep it simple, providing the dates you're out and an alternative contact, she said.
Additionally, prepare yourself for your return, she said.
"Make a list of projects and to-dos, sorting by urgent to more longer-lead items, so you know where to start when you're back," she added.
Pace yourself when you return
On your first day back in the office, you may feel the pressure to read every email and respond to every missed message you received while out, but Heitmann and Granger say this is unproductive.
In the past, Granger would tell people he'd respond to their requests on the date he returned to the office. Today, he provides those who reached out over his vacation a time range — a week — for when he'll get to their question.
"Instead of reading through every email you missed while on vacation, tap into your trusted team or colleagues to bring you back up to speed on what the priorities are for the week," Heitmann said. "Set up a team meeting — and/or a one-on-one with your manager — for your first day back for recapping and strategizing about where and how you can hop back in."
More: Vacation Time off pto Careers
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2022-06-24T14:43:19Z
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How to Go Back to Work After a Vacation, According to Career Experts
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-go-back-to-work-after-a-vacation-pto-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-go-back-to-work-after-a-vacation-pto-2022-6
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaks with reporters following a closed-door caucus lunch, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, June 22, 2022
McConnell says he hopes the bipartisan gun bill will help the GOP 'regain ground' in the suburbs.
The Senate passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act with 15 GOP votes on Thursday.
"I hope it will be viewed favorably by voters in the suburbs we need to regain," McConnell said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell admits the GOP has "lost ground" in the suburbs and hopes the landmark bipartisan gun bill passed by the Senate will help the party regain its footing among suburban voters before November.
"It is no secret that we have lost ground in suburban areas," McConnell said in a Thursday call with reporters, according to CNN.
"We pretty much own rural and small town America, and I think this is a sensible solution to the problem before us, which is school safety and mental health and, yes, I hope it will be viewed favorably by voters in the suburbs we need to regain in order to hopefully be a majority next year," McConnell added, per CNN.
An unlikely group of four Senators — Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy and Kyrsten Sinema and Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis — achieved a feat some thought was impossible: leading a bipartisan group of 20 Senators in successfully hammering out an agreement on a bipartisan gun safety bill.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is set to pass both chambers of Congress exactly one month after a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 fourth-grade students and two teachers. The Uvalde shooting followed another mass shooting in which a gunman targeting Black people killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York.
The bill includes stronger background checks on 18 to 21-year-old gun purchasers, funding for community mental health services and community violence prevention, funds to bolster school safety, and federal incentives for states to pass "red flag" laws.
It also closes the "boyfriend loophole" in prohibiting those convicted of abusing their dating partners and not just their spouse from purchasing firearms.
Murphy, a longtime advocate for gun safety laws, says Sinema's optimism and determination were key to the process. McConnell and his counterpart, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, also gave the bipartisan negotiators a wide berth to come to an agreement.
"I've tried every tactic in the book to get this body to act and I've never been successful. And so I have a bit of PTSD about negotiations. Kyrsten just was convinced from the very start that this was possible," Murphy told Politico. "We needed that."
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act passed the US Senate on Thursday with the votes of all 50 Senate Democrats and 15 Republicans. The US House is taking up the bill on Friday and is set to vote on final passage in the afternoon, sending it to President Joe Biden's desk.
More: Mitch McConnell Congress Guns
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2022-06-24T14:43:37Z
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McConnell Hopes Bipartisan Gun Bill Will Help the GOP in the Suburbs
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https://www.businessinsider.com/mcconnell-hopes-bipartisan-gun-bill-will-help-the-gop-in-the-suburbs-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/mcconnell-hopes-bipartisan-gun-bill-will-help-the-gop-in-the-suburbs-2022-6
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PayPal streamlines fees and terms to attract merchant business
PayPal will remove the fixed fee applied to goods and services payments coming from US customers.
These changes are coming amid a broader push to increase its checkout business.
The news: PayPal will update its fee structure for peer-to-peer (P2P) goods and services payments, per a press release. US customers will also only be able to send transactions marked as "friends and family" to other customer PayPal accounts, not to PayPal business accounts.
The goods and services seller fee will change from 2.89% plus a $0.49 fixed fee to 2.99% with no fixed fee for payments coming from US customers. Under the new terms, a $225 goods and services payment will cost $6.73, versus $6.99 under the old structure.
Both changes will take effect on July 28, 2022.
Key context: PayPal customers can mark transactions as "friends and family" or "goods and services." Friends and family payments are personal, nonbusiness transactions between two US PayPal customers. Goods and services transactions typically involve some type of sale and require the seller (or payment recipient) to pay a fee.
Why the change? PayPal said both updates aim to simplify its platform for users—but there's likely more to it than that.
The fee update minimizes the amount that sellers pay to accept payments for goods and services, which can make PayPal more attractive to businesses.
This benefits PayPal because business accounts are likely more lucrative than customer accounts—they transact larger amounts and carry fees.
PayPal had an estimated 35 million merchants in Q1, per an investor update, and a core consumer base of 195.2 million global users, per Insider Intelligence forecasts. This year, its worldwide core user base is expected to hit 209.3 million.
And eliminating friends and family payments for business accounts may help PayPal ensure that business transactions and other sale-related transactions are reported to tax authorities.
Some business accounts may have been able to avoid tax liability if business transactions were marked as friends and family payments. Effective this year, payment apps like PayPal are required to report users' business payments that exceed $600 in a calendar year to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
One upside of the change is that it'll be easier for businesses to consolidate year-end transactions made with PayPal.
The big takeaway: As it looks to expand its ecosystem, PayPal wants to make its platform more attractive by simplifying its fee structure and making it easier for merchants to report their tax liability. These changes are coming amid a broader push to increase its checkout business, especially as the P2P space becomes more competitive.
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2022-06-24T14:43:43Z
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PayPal Updates Its Fee Structure for P2P Goods and Services Payments
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https://www.businessinsider.com/paypal-updates-its-fee-structure-for-p2p-payments-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/paypal-updates-its-fee-structure-for-p2p-payments-2022-6
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See the 15-slide pitch deck that sold Vinod Khosla on a clean-energy startup that converts fossil-fuel plants into clean ones
Carlos Araque is a cofounder and the CEO of Quaise.
Quaise
Quaise wants to covert fossil-fuel power plants into clean ones by drilling deep into the planet.
The cofounders came up with the concept based on the work of MIT engineers.
Now Quaise has raised $52 million in venture capital to build prototypes in the field.
Quaise wants to fast-track the world's conversion to renewable energy by using geothermal energy as a bridge, its founder, Carlos Araque, said.
The startup is building millimeter-wave drilling systems to access Earth's deeper geothermal-power sources and has caught the attention of the venture-capital heavyweight Vinod Khosla, who personally invested $1 million in Quaise's seed round.
Now Quaise has gone on to raise a $52 million Series A round with participation from Prelude Ventures, MIT's venture fund, The Engine, and Safar Partners. The company is developing equipment to conduct tests on the ground to go 100 and then 1,000 meters deep into the planet, Araque said.
"We need something like 50 trillion watts of power to run the world by 2050, but no one technology actually gets us there," Araque said. "Fusion and geothermal are the only two energy sources that help us reach that goal."
Araque knows a thing or two about how oil and gas energy works: He studied mechanical engineering at MIT and built tools and new technology to streamline oil and gas drilling at the oil company Schlumberger before he had an epiphany about the scale of the climate crisis and wanted to spearhead the change to sustainable energy, he said.
"I saw that the energy transition was going to happening our lifetime, and it was an enormous opportunity and challenge," Araque said.
"We have to shift our entire energy system in a generation — it's unthinkable," he added.
Araque leveraged his connections within MIT to work with the fusion scientist Paul Woskov, who realized there was a business opportunity in repurposing this fusion technology to drill deeper into Earth's surface to tap into geothermal-energy sources. Woskov's team had been working on this engineering problem for 10 years, and it established that the science was sound and worked perfectly under lab conditions, Araque said.
Araque and his cofounder, Matthew Houde, decided to team up to build a startup to scale this technology, and Quaise was born. The team set out to convert old fossil-fuel power plants into clean-energy plants by retooling them to drill for geothermal power instead of oil and gas because the underlying principles of steam turbines work in the same way, regardless of whether the energy source is burning fossil fuels or geothermal heat. Quaise hopes to use the new funding to take the drilling technology out of the research lab and test it in the field.
"Suppose everything goes according to plan for three years, and we'll move on to making a geothermal field and then making geothermal fields next to power plants to fit the steam to the power plant," he said.
It also means that fossil-fuel companies will become partners in the shift to renewable energy, Araque said, something he's personally passionate about.
"I think it would be a mistake not to involve them — the only industry putting a terrawatt of energy on Earth is oil and gas," he added.
"We can't succeed in the energy transition if we have to create a whole new infrastructure from scratch," he said.
Check out the 15-slide pitch deck Quaise used to raise $52 million. (Note: this deck uses Quaise's previous name "Quaise Energy.")
More: Features Pitch Deck Series A
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2022-06-24T14:43:49Z
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Check Out the Pitch Deck Energy Startup Quaise Used to Raise Millions
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https://www.businessinsider.com/pitch-deck-clean-energy-startup-quaise-raise-millions-tech-startup-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/pitch-deck-clean-energy-startup-quaise-raise-millions-tech-startup-2022-6
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How Insider columnist Linette Lopez takes on Elon Musk and Wall Street elites
Sarah Belle Lin
Insider columnist Linette Lopez regularly doubles down on Silicon Valley titans, Wall Street elites, and demagogue presidents.
Business Insider is taking you behind the scenes of our best stories with our new series "The Inside Story."
We'll provide readers with an in-depth look of how these stories came together and a peek inside the reporter's notebook.
This week, Insider's Sarah Belle Lin spoke to columnist Linette Lopez about pivoting from politics into journalism and when Elon Musk ranted about her on Twitter.
You can read Lopez's reporting for Insider here.
Sarah Belle Lin: You're a columnist who regularly takes on the most powerful people on Wall Street. How did you get started in journalism?
Linette Lopez: I never thought I would be a journalist. My first jobs out of college were in politics. But I found that I was always consuming the news in my free time, so I applied to Columbia Journalism School and got in. I was recruited to Business Insider from there. It was a time when people were wondering about The End of Journalism, and I thought BI had the right idea about how news is distributed on the internet. That was 2011.
Lin: What has your experience been like writing about some of the biggest names in business and politics, such as this dive into Musk's tantrums, calling former president Donald Trump the "anti-Spiderman," or pointing out CCP President Xi Jinping for threatening global security? Have you ever received any follow up from the high profile subjects you write about?
Lopez: People sometimes threaten to sue you, like this guy. Elon Musk ranted about me on Twitter for a while once, and targeted my sources at Tesla. I have always assumed that some people would not like what I have to say. Most of the time powerful people are doing whatever they can to control the narrative around themselves and their money, especially in the stock market. They can get upset when you try to take it away from them.
Lin: Who or what have been some of the most challenging topics to report on? How did you navigate them?
Lopez: It's difficult to write about any company where employees are scared of retaliation. I've reported on a number of those in the past, and that includes Tesla. These companies always tend to have high turnover too, so you're always losing sources and having to start all over again. The only way to navigate that is to keep at it — keep writing, and keep making calls/sending emails.
Lin: Walk us through a typical workday for you.
Lopez: There is no typical work day, that's why I like my job. Some days I meet up with sources, other days I appear on television or radio, and there are days when I just need to do a lot of reading.
Lin: I'd love to know more about your creative process as you dive into controversial topics. What skills have you fine-tuned over time?
Lopez: My stories come from either conversations with my sources, or questions I feel like people are asking in the general zeitgeist of market conversation. I guess that second part is more intuitive. If I don't feel strongly like a story is asking to be written, I move on.
Lin: Who is in your burn book that you haven't written about yet, but readers can expect next?
Lopez: I'm not going to answer that. Ruins the fun.
Lin: You said in a 2016 interview that "being a female in this industry is dangerous." We're post #MeToo era on Wall Street. Do you still think that's the case?
I don't think #MeToo had much of an impact on Wall Street. Female leadership is still very low, and yes, it can still be dangerous for women. Just ask the ladies over at Goldman Sachs.
You can read some of Linette's stories here:
'Lots of companies are going to get vaporized': The tech titans of Silicon Valley are in serious trouble — and they're going to take the rest of the stock market down with them
Wall Street is heading into a summer from hell — and top investors say it's going to bring a near-biblical reckoning to the market
'None of them have the guts': Why Russia's oligarchs will remain loyal to Putin, even in the face of crippling sanctions
NOW WATCH: Jim Chanos says Elon Musk just told his 'biggest whopper' about Tesla yet
More: Elon Musk inside story
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2022-06-24T14:44:07Z
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Q&a With Linette Lopez on Elon Musk and Wall Street
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https://www.businessinsider.com/qa-with-linette-lopez-on-elon-musk-and-wall-street-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/qa-with-linette-lopez-on-elon-musk-and-wall-street-2022-6
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A Congressional report just gave an inside peek at the confusion and chaos inside Robinhood amid the meme-stock trading frenzy
Cofounder and CEO of Robinhood, Vladimir Tenev.
Noam Galai/Getty Images for TechCrunch
A new report from the US House Committee on Financial Services details 2021's meme-stock frenzy.
Investigators describe confusion and surprise as Robinhood execs worked to deal with a capital call.
Insider has the highlights of the 140-page Congressional report.
If the pandemic era's boom in meme-stock trading was typified by one day, it was January 28, 2021.
That was when surging volumes in specific stocks like GameStop and AMC Entertainment on the trading app Robinhood nearly overwhelmed the brokerage and some of its market makers, according to new details included in a report released Friday by the House Financial Services Committee.
Fueled by social media, including a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, volumes on Robinhood jumped that entire week, leading the fintech's executives to question its ability to handle the traffic. The total market value of GameStop stock cleared in the market that Thursday was more than 21,000% higher than it had been just four weeks earlier, the report noted.
Ultimately, Robinhood and other brokerages chose to restrict the purchase of certain stocks like GameStop and AMC on January 28 in the face of unprecedented trading activity. The report notes the total dollar amount of GameStop shares held by Robinhood customers was roughly cut in half during the first day of restrictions. The value of AMC stock held by customers fell by two-thirds, meanwhile.
But according to the Committee's findings, the market action that January — or the "Meme Stock Market Event," as it's called in the report — revealed systemic flaws in the operations of both retail "superbrokers" like Robinhood and the regulatory environment in which they operate.
"The Meme Stock Market Event," the report's authors wrote, "revealed how rapid growth and innovation in retail trading presents novel issues for market stability and orderliness that neither the industry nor regulators have satisfactorily anticipated or addressed."
Details in the Congressional report include snapshots of internal text messages and emails sent by Robinhood executives in the days leading up to January 28th and that morning. Taken together, they provide a clear picture of top leaders scrambling to address issues they hadn't foreseen just weeks earlier.
U.S. House Committee on Financial Services
In the days leading up to January 28, Robinhood execs — including Jim Swartwout, COO for the brokerage's clearing operations — noted that Robinhood was having difficulty dealing with spiking volumes.
Robinhood was no stranger to controversy or issues scaling its service. In early March 2020, as the onset of the pandemic upended financial markets, the brokerage suffered outages that shut down its app and website and locked users out of trading. Robinhood was subsequently fined roughly $70 million by FINRA as a result of the outage.
On January 25, 2021, a clearing operations manager at Robinhood expressed confusion at being asked by executives to describe in an all-hands meeting how the brokerage could handle future growth on the platform.
In her response, she mentioned the difficulties Robinhood had faced in recent days in uploading a file to regulators detailing the long and short positions held by users across the app.
The following day — January 26 — Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted simply "Gamestonk!!" with a link to Reddit's r/WallStreetBets page, where legions of retail traders had begun congregating to share trade ideas. When the market opened the next day, GameStop shares rallied as much as 157%.
Within just 30 minutes of Musk's tweet, product managers at Robinhood witnessed a "massive spike" in customers applying to open accounts on Robinhood.
Shortly after the Musk tweet and spike in account openings, a Robinhood product manager and the firm's head of data science discussed how to tap the interest in GameStop to drive growth at the brokerage — including by potentially mentioning it was a stock Robinhood had previously given away as a referral bonus.
By January 27, teams at Robinhood had begun exploring ways to limit trading in volatile stocks. A message sent from CEO Vlad Tenev to CFO Jason Warnick underscored that the executives knew about the brokerage's potential liquidity problems as volume ramped up.
The same day, top Robinhood execs discussed the possibility of implementing limits on certain stocks that would only allow customers to sell, but not buy, shares.
When asked if the company had a rationale for the limits to explain to customers, a manger responded, "The real reason is firm risk and us needing to control the velocity of trading. ...But we shouldn't expose that," the Congressional report detailed.
A key issue for Robinhood and its market makers the week of January 28 were the variable rates Robinhood received for selling its customer order flow.
As explained in Insider, Robinhood is unique in that it receives a set percentage of the spread between bid and offer prices for a stock at the time of execution (in more volatile markets or thinly-traded stocks, when spreads are wider, Robinhood earns more). In a typical payment for order flow model, brokerages receive a flat rate per share.
Robinhood's variable rates have been good for business in the past — in the fourth quarter of 2020, for example, it received more than double what Charles Schwab did for its orders.
According to Citadel, one of Robinhood's chief market makers, the payment for order flow rebates on GameStop alone it owed Robinhood during the week of the trading frenzy were 60-times greater than the week prior.
"An employee for Citadel described Robinhood's PFOF rebates as a runaway freight train in the days leading up to January 28, 2021," the Congressional report said.
By the night of January 27, as Robinhood employees were working on ways to limit trading in certain stocks, company execs expressed surprise about the existence of NSCC "risk fees," or collateral charges. NSCC, or the National Securities Clearing Corporation, is a DTCC subsidiary that sets rules for clearing equities.
The same executives compared the market volatility the week of January 28 to the trading last seen during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, "but with bigger volumes." Robinhood's head of market operations expressed surprise that "public perception is fine."
The same executives continued that, except for customers trading crypto on Robinhood's platform, new customers didn't know how "on the edge" the brokerage was.
"Internally SO on edge," Robinhood's head of market operations wrote.
The night of January 27, a product manager on Robinhood's brokerage team and the startup's head of data science pushed for the brokerage to grow and beat competiting brokerage, WeBull, even as Robinhood was struggling to meet collateral requirements.
"We have to keep the growth flywheel running," the product manager said.
The DTCC emailed Robinhood on the morning of January 28 detailing its collateral deposit requirement, or the amount of money the brokerage needs to keep with the clearinghouse to protect against the risk of default.
The figure, roughly $3.7 billion (Robinhood had $700 million already on deposit at DTCC), included an "Excess Capital Premium Charge" of $2.2 billion for which Robinhood hadn't calculated or modeled. The $3 billion was supposed to be posted to DTCC by 10 a.m. ET that day.
An early morning text sent at 6:07 a.m. ET from a Robinhood employee to Chuck Tennant, the brokerage's head of clearing operations, followed NSCC's email on January 28. Tennant advised calling NSCC, adding "Can't say I ever had to make such a call."
The employee responded that, "hypothetically," Robinhood didn't have enough of a line of credit to meet NSCC's collateral requirements.
According to the Committee's report, time stamps in some text messages reflect GMT, or Eastern Time plus five hours.
One message early on January 28 from David Dusseault, the president and COO of Robinhood Financial, the firm's brokerage subsidiary, suggested the company didn't have to worry about this "NSCC issue."
Robinhood was simply too big to fail, Dusseault said. He later told the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services staff that he "made this statement based on his decades of experience working for other broker-dealers," the report said.
Around 6:30 a.m. ET on January 28, Swartout texted Gretchen Howard, Robinhood's COO, writing "Huge liquidity issue."
These texts from Howard detailed some of her responses. The first was a "heads-up" text to Robinhood's chief marketing and communications officer, the Congressional report said.
The second was a text to Warnick, Robinhood's CFO.
By roughly 7 a.m. ET the morning of the 28th, Dan Gallagher, Robinhood's chief legal officer and a former commisioner of the SEC, was on the phone with a deputy general counsel at DTCC.
On the call, Gallagher expressed that NSCC's clearing requirements were "problematic" for Robinhood, the Congressional report said.
The deputy general counsel at Robinhood subsequently sent this email to Timothy Cuddihy, DTCC's managing director of financial risk management. After a series of further calls between DTCC officials and Robinhood execs (including another call between Gallagher and the deputy general counsel), Robinhood received an updated notice from NSCC just 19 minutes before the market opened.
According to the notice, the brokerage's excess capital charge, originally assessed at $2.3 billion, had been reduced to $0.
"In interviews with Committee staff, Robinhood's executives expressed relief at having received the benefit of this waiver, but could not draw conclusions as to why the NSCC ultimately decided to exercise its discretionary authority to issue it," the Congressional report said.
Robinhood staff began to implement position limits on certain stocks on January 27, the Congressional report said, which were followed by position closing only restrictions announced the morning of the 28th.
Later that day, Robinhood made the decision to turn off the automatic approval of new accounts. By that afternoon, some 300,000 customer applications were stuck in a queue awaiting approval, the report said (the number would increase to 730,000 by the next day).
On the 28th, a product manager expressed concern about removing the limits on new account approvals enacted earlier in the day. "Any additional load takes us to the bottom faster," they wrote.
Robinhood ended up raising a $3.5 billion infusion of funding from a wide array of backers within days to help it weather the storm.
Citadel wasn't the only market maker feeling the pain of Robinhood's variable rate payment for order flow. Staff at Chicago-based Wolverine emailed Robinhood on January 25 to discuss "an extremely high number for quoted spread" for GameStop as volatility increased. Communications continued throughout the week.
As other market makers stopped taking the brokerage's volumes, Wolverine took on more and more of Robinhood's order flow. By the morning of January 28, Wolverine was "on the cusp of disaster," one employee there emailed Robinhood's Swartout.
After Wolverine requested Robinhood route its equity orders away from Wolverine later on the 28th (the market maker also cleared a large share of Robinhood's options as well), Robinhood responded by threatening to end the entire relationship.
Rob Bellick, Wolverine's managing partner, ultimately "made an executive decision to continue offering equities market making services to Robinhood," the report said.
More: Robinhood Features
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2022-06-24T14:44:13Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Report Details Robinhood's Internal Reaction to GameStop Fiasco
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https://www.businessinsider.com/report-details-robinhood-internal-communications-to-gamestop-amc-meme-stocks-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/report-details-robinhood-internal-communications-to-gamestop-amc-meme-stocks-2022-6
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Value investors have missed out on massive gains by dismissing the likes of Amazon and Alphabet as overpriced. Fund manager and writer Adam Seessel explains how to fairly value tech champions, and avoid losing out again.
Adam Seessel.
Value investors have missed out on huge gains by dismissing the best growth stocks as too expensive.
Adam Seessel proposes ways to fairly value Amazon, Alphabet, and other tech champions.
The author and investor also discusses Warren Buffett's Apple bet and the current slump in stocks.
Bargain hunters have balked at the heady valuations of Amazon, Alphabet, and other technology champions, meaning they've missed out on owning some of the best-performing stocks of the past two decades.
In "Where the Money Is: Value Investing in the Digital Age," Adam Seessel proposes a few updates to traditional valuation methods. His goal is to enable old-school investors to fairly value transformative growth companies, and avoid letting them slip by again.
Seessel is a value investor who worked at Sanford C. Bernstein, Baron Capital, and Davis Selected Advisors before launching his own firm, Gravity Capital Management, in 2003. He discussed some of the key ideas in his new book, Warren Buffett's uncharacteristic Apple bet, and the current market downturn in an interview with Insider this week.
Seessel watched with frustration as value stocks floundered and growth stocks soared for most of the last 20 years. He asked himself whether the market had gone crazy, or value investing needed to evolve, and decided the latter was more likely.
The money manager told Insider that conventional ideas such as buying what you know, exercising patience and discipline, paying a fair price, prizing trustworthy managers, and seeking out high-quality businesses with enduring competitive advantages or "moats," were still valid.
"Most if not all of value investing's 100 years of lessons are as applicable as ever," Seessel said.
However, he proposed marrying those timeworn principles with a better understanding of tech companies. For example, he urged value investors to recognize these next-generation businesses have decades of growth ahead of them, as some have only signed up 1% or 2% of their billions of potential users.
Moreover, he recommended paying less attention to reported earnings, and more to "earnings power," or how much profit a company like Adobe or Intuit could generate if it stopped spending heavily on sales, marketing, research, and development in an effort to realize its full growth potential.
"That's highly rational behavior, but it doesn't correspond to a P/E-type mindset," Seessel said, referring to the price-earnings ratio, a go-to valuation metric that divides a company's stock price by its earnings per share.
Seessel added that investors need to place greater value on next-level competitive moats — such as network effects spanning billions of users — and grasp revolutionary technologies such as cloud computing.
They should also appreciate superior businesses, such as software companies that command operating margins of 50% at scale, have minimal capital requirements, and can expand internationally at the touch of a button, he said.
Buffett's bite of Apple
Buffett built his fortune by investing in mature companies with durable competitive advantages, in an era when a handful of consumer and media brands dominated their industries, Seessel said.
He noted the Berkshire Hathaway CEO looks for businesses that aren't taking big risks or chasing growth, but instead are in "harvest mode" — focused on maximizing short-term profits and paying back shareholders with dividends and stock buybacks.
Apple's strong brand, loyal users, sticky ecosystem, and aggressive share repurchases likely explain why Buffett, a notorious Luddite, built a mammoth stake in the iPhone maker a few years ago. Seessel pointed out that the company spends about a third as much on R&D as its Big Tech peers, and has taken fewer risks with Tim Cook as its CEO.
"I'm quite sure if Steve Jobs was in charge, Buffett wouldn't own a single share of Apple," he said, noting the tech company swapped a "lunatic visionary" for "the guy who ran the supply chain."
Seessel trumpeted the recent slump in stocks as a rare opportunity to scoop up tech champions at bargain prices.
He acknowledged that rising interest rates naturally pull down valuations, especially if the hikes cause a recession . However, he expects the best tech companies to rebound and be key drivers of future economic growth.
"If you widen your aperture or pull back your lens far enough, these are just bumps along the road," he said.
More: Markets Investing Adam Seessel
Where the Money Is
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2022-06-24T14:44:25Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Value Investing Needs These Updates to Identify Tech Winners: Seessel
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https://www.businessinsider.com/value-investing-updates-growth-tech-stocks-warren-buffett-adam-seessel-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/value-investing-updates-growth-tech-stocks-warren-buffett-adam-seessel-2022-6
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Chatbots can use AI to guide customers to the right human-based experience
Chatbots that use more advanced AI algorithms could give customers a seamless experience transitioning between technology and humans.
Some banks have already developed strong chatbots that have started pairing AI technology with a human touch.
The trend: As artificial intelligence (AI) is integrated into digital banking , chatbots could become the bridge connecting the technology with human interaction.
Chatbots on the rise: Digital banking has shifted interactions from in-person at branches to online, leading banks to re-envision their communication with customers. One widely adopted medium is chatbots.
As of early 2020, 13% of banks and credit unions had a chatbot, and another 16% were planning to introduce one in 2021, according to Cornerstone Advisors.
Today chatbots perform simple tasks, like providing an account balance or instructions for mobile deposits. But some banks are leveraging natural language processing to determine a customer's intent when interacting with a bot. Increasing advancements in AI will ultimately create a seamless experience for banking customers who interact with both a chatbot and a human.
By 2030, chatbots will be so ingrained into the banking process that customers won't be able to tell if they are interacting with the bot or a human, according to EY.
That frictionless experience will be valuable for banks striving to improve their customer service. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has highlighted some challenges that customers face when interacting with their banks, like needing to repeatedly explain problems, or bank employees being unaware of a customer's situation. Chatbots that pass along the information gained through AI to employees working in customer service could relieve many of these pain points.
Who do chatbots help? Chatbots are primarily thought of as virtual assistants for banking customers.
They can do the initial work of collecting data from a customer interaction and then direct the customer to the proper channel.
They take care of more tedious tasks, allowing employees to focus on value-added tasks.
But chatbots also can be used internally to train the bank's employees, handle documentation, and automate administrative tasks.
HSBC's internal compliance chatbot compiles policies and frequently asked questions and creates employee audit logs—demonstrating how employees can partner with chatbots.
Chatbots and AI: Chatbots that leverage AI technology will become more powerful over time as they learn from continuous customer interactions, training the algorithms to identify patterns and trends. But while AI tool implementation is relatively simple, ensuring these tools' integrity is more difficult.
Tools built on biased data will perpetuate biased results.
As the tools evolve through use, their explainability becomes more difficult and less transparent, potentially complicating banks' attempts at explaining decisions on loan approvals or denials, for example.
AI tools are built on pattern- and rule-driven algorithms, but lack human empathy and emotion. So while the tool may always provide the expected result according to those rules, the result may not always benefit the customer.
Who's worth watching? Some banks have already developed strong chatbots that have started pairing AI technology with a human touch.
Bank of America's Erica is an AI-driven virtual assistant whose interactions continue to grow. Erica saw a 19% increase in customer interactions from Q1 2021 to Q1 2022.
USAA has a digital transformation underway that it calls "an asynchronous experience," scheduled for completion by the end of 2022. The bank currently offers Eva, a chatbot that handles simple banking tasks.
U.S. Bank's virtual assistant, Smart Assistant, was also released as a Spanish language assistant earlier this year—one of the first of its kind in the US.
Digital customer service provider Glia recently acquired Finn AI, an AI-powered virtual assistant platform. The partnership will give smaller banks and credit unions mainstream access to a top AI-driven chatbot tool.
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2022-06-24T16:17:59Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Chatbots Will Link Artificial Intelligence and Human Interaction
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https://www.businessinsider.com/chatbots-will-link-artificial-intelligence-and-human-interaction-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/chatbots-will-link-artificial-intelligence-and-human-interaction-2022-6
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The D.C. Police Department is fully activating in response to protests at SCOTUS.
The Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade on Friday spurred massive demonstrations.
The MPD said it will "be fully activated to support expected First Amendment demonstrations."
The Washington, D.C. Police Department is fully activating after protests broke out over the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade on Friday.
A heavy law enforcement presence gathered outside the Supreme Court building on Friday ahead of the court releasing its decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health, which invalidated the federal protections to abortion access in the nearly 50-year-old Roe decision.
The Metropolitan Police Department said in a bulletin obtained by Fox 5 DC that it would "be fully activated to support expected First Amendment demonstrations," adding, "all members should be prepared to work extended tours as necessary" through Tuesday, June 28.
—Stephanie Ramirez (@RamirezReports) June 24, 2022
In addition to the protests and demonstrations at the Court itself, a man was seen on video scaling the Fredrick Douglass Memorial Bridge in southeast Washington holding a flag that read "don't tread on my uterus" and releasing what appeared to be green powder.
—Comfy Chair 🇺🇦🏳️🌈🇳🇿🇺🇸🥝 (@CowellSandy) June 24, 2022
Law enforcement officers later came to the court with riot shields and also closed off major roads including the inbound lanes of the South Capitol Bridge that go into Washington, according to reports.
The US Capitol Police, which protests the Capitol building across from the Supreme Court, said they were "working closely with our law enforcement partners in order to prepare for demonstrations related to the Supreme Court," according to Politico.
This is a breaking story. Check back for updated.
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2022-06-24T16:18:11Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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DC Police Fully Activated Amid Protests After SCOTUS Overturns Roe V. Wade
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https://www.businessinsider.com/dc-police-fully-activated-after-scotus-overturns-roe-v-wade-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/dc-police-fully-activated-after-scotus-overturns-roe-v-wade-2022-6
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People are stocking up on abortion pills. Here's how providers are ramping up operations and advocacy.
Choix offers telehealth services including mail-order abortion pills through its partner pharmacy.
Illustration by Mary Purdie via Choix
Abortion pills are in high demand since the leaked Roe v. Wade draft opinion and subsequent overturn.
Educational resources like Plan C have reported increases in calls and web traffic of up to 2,500%.
The online pharmacy Honeybee Health reported an 80% increase in average daily abortion-pill orders.
Within 24 hours of the leak of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, women across the US flocked to the internet in search of what to do in the event their state bans abortion.
Elisa Wells.
Courtesy of Elisa Wells
Elisa Wells, a cofounder of Plan C, the advocacy and educational-resource campaign funded by the National Women's Health Network that provides information about self-managed at-home abortions with pills, said it experienced a nearly 2,500% increase in its web traffic in a single day after the draft opinion was leaked. She told Insider that most visitors came to the site to get a digital copy of a free guide listing abortion-pill providers.
It wasn't the first time Plan C had seen a dramatic uptick in its site traffic after news threatening access to abortion. Wells said that after a Texas law known as SB 8 that banned abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy went into effect last September, traffic spiked from an average of 500 visitors a day to 23,000 in one day.
Since then, Wells said, the site's daily visitor count has typically hovered around about 2,300 — but right after the draft-opinion leak that number soared to 56,000 visitors within a 24-hour period.
Plan C isn't alone. Insider spoke with several abortion-pill providers that said they'd seen a significant increase in calls and site traffic. They said most people aren't looking for immediate care but preparing for the new reality where their access to abortions may be limited.
"Since the recent SCOTUS leak, there's been an increase of people requesting abortion pills to keep in their medicine cabinets just in case," Wells said.
Today, the Supreme Court officially overturned the landmark ruling. In turn, these providers are finding ways to ramp up operations and spread the word about abortion options.
The Food and Drug Administration first approved mifepristone as a method of abortion in 2000. Its combination with misoprostol is known as a medication abortion, or more commonly as the abortion pill. By 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute, the sexual- and reproductive-health advocacy organization, this method accounted for 39% of abortions in the United States. In 2020, it said, medication abortions surpassed surgical abortions, representing about 54% of abortions in America that year.
In April 2021, the FDA announced it would temporarily permit providers to mail abortion pills to people in states allowing it, eliminating a requirement for an in-person clinic visit. In December, it made the decision permanent.
Amid an increase in demand, some providers are stocking up, hiring more staff, and leading advocacy efforts
Melissa Grant, the chief operating officer of Carafem, a reproductive-healthcare provider, said it had more than 100 additional callers per day within one week of the leak. Echoing Wells, Grant said the increase in calls was predominantly from people looking to understand how they could access an abortion should they need one.
Melissa Grant.
Courtesy of Melissa Grant
Currently, Carafem mails abortion pills to eligible clients in 14 states and Washington, DC, after performing a video evaluation with one of its clinicians, but Grant said it's working on expanding access through telemedicine to more states.
Since launching in the fall of 2020, Choix, which prescribes abortion pills to people in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy who live in California, Colorado, or Illinois, has seen a steady increase in patients seeking care via telehealth . But its CEO, Cindy Adam, said the leak resulted in a 300% rise in web visitors for a week, along with an increase in inquiries about which states Choix serves and the types of care it provides.
"As access continues to get more restricted, we anticipate even greater influxes of patient-care requests," Adam said, adding that Choix doesn't have any plans to change up its operations.
Jessica Nouhavandi.
Courtesy of Jessica Nouhavandi
Jessica Nouhavandi, the cofounder and lead pharmacist of Honeybee Health, an online pharmacy specializing in generic prescription medications without the need for insurance, said that since the leak it has seen an 80% increase in its average daily abortion-pill orders.
Nouhavandi told Insider that Honeybee had more than doubled its team dedicated to medication-abortion patients and providers and that as a full-service pharmacy it has plenty of bandwidth to continue expanding efforts to support increased demand as it arises.
Robin Tucker.
Courtesy of Robin Tucker
Aid Access is one of the few providers able to assist residents of the 23 states where abortion is now limited or outlawed since Roe v. Wade fell. Robin Tucker, a women's-healthcare nurse practitioner and certified nurse-midwife who works with Aid Access, said it saw web traffic jump from 1,290 visitors the day before the leak to nearly 39,000 visitors the day of. Within a week, the site drew 114,000 visitors.
Between May 3, when the draft opinion leaked, and May 10, Aid Access processed 1,339 advanced provisions for abortion pills — for comparison, in 2021, Tucker said, it saw 10,000 abortion patients.
"So we've essentially seen over one-tenth of our yearly volume in a week's time," Tucker said. She said she and her colleagues are spreading the word about advance provisions and ensuring the pharmacies they partner with are prepared for another surge now that Roe v. Wade has fallen.
"Right now, Aid Access is one of the only places where you can get a consultation with a clinician and get pills mailed to all 50 states, but it can take several weeks for international pills to get to the states, so we've ramped our advocacy efforts to ensure people understand the importance of getting pills in advance so they have them on hand should they need them," Tucker added. (Reuters reported that while ordering pills from sources outside the US isn't legal, state authorities have said they have no effective way of policing it.)
Nouhavandi echoed the importance of spreading the word while resources are widely available. "Outside of policy change, our most effective tool right now is information," Nouhavandi said. "The more we talk about medication abortion as an option and highlight avenues for access, the better we can serve our patients until this right is protected by law nationwide."
More: BI-freelancer Abortion Roe v Wade
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2022-06-24T16:18:29Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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How Providers and Pharmacies Are Reacting to Abortion-Pill Demand
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-providers-pharmacies-reacting-demand-abortion-pills-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-providers-pharmacies-reacting-demand-abortion-pills-2022-6
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Israeli security forces fired shots that killed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, UN panel finds
Palestinians visit the site where Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank on May 18, 2022.
Photo by Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Israeli security forces fired shots that killed Shireen Abu Akleh last month, a UN investigation found.
The Al Jazeera reporter was killed covering an Israeli military raid on May 11.
A UN spokesperson urged Israeli authorities to open a criminal investigation into the incident.
Israeli security forces fired the fatal shot that killed veteran Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh last month, a United Nations panel determined on Friday.
A spokesperson for the UN's human rights office said that based on information gathered from the Israeli military and Palestinian attorney-general, "the shots that killed Abu Akleh and injured her colleague Ali Sammoudi came from Israeli Security Forces and not from indiscriminate firing by armed Palestinians, as initially claimed by Israeli authorities."
"We have found no information suggesting that there was activity by armed Palestinians in the immediate vicinity of the journalists," the spokesperson continued in a statement.
Al Jazeera journalist Abu Akleh was fatally shot on May 11 while covering an Israeli military operation in the West Bank's Jenin refugee camp. She was marked as a reporter with a bulletproof helmet and vest that said "PRESS," according to Al Jazeera's statement on her death.
Her death sparked condemnation among various human rights organizations and US lawmakers. During the funeral procession a few days later, Israeli police were caught on video beating mourners — nearly causing Abu Akleh's casket to fall to the ground.
The Palestinian Authority and Al Jazeera initially pinned Abu Akleh's death on Israel, while the Israeli Defense Forces suggested she was killed by Palestinian gunmen — before walking back on that claim.
The UN said it interviewed witnesses, reviewed official communications, visited the scene of the incident, consulted with experts, and used photo, video, and audio evidence to make its determination.
"Several single, seemingly well-aimed bullets were fired towards them from the direction of the Israeli Security Forces," the UN said about the gunfire.
Friday's UN decision is the latest to conclude that Israeli forces killed Abu Akleh — news outlets like the New York Times and CNN have done the same. The US State Department previously called for an "immediate and thorough" investigation.
Nearly half of US senators sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Thursday urging the administration to be directly involved in an investigation.
The UN said on Friday it's "deeply disturbing" that Israel has not yet conducted a criminal investigation into Shireen Abu Akleh's killing and urged authorities to do so.
More: Speed desk Breaking Shireen Abu Akleh Israeli Defense Forces
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2022-06-24T16:18:35Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Israeli Forces Shot Dead Palestinian-American Journalist, UN Finds
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https://www.businessinsider.com/israeli-forces-fired-shots-killed-al-jazeera-journalist-un-says-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/israeli-forces-fired-shots-killed-al-jazeera-journalist-un-says-2022-6
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Friday stoked fears of violence outside the Supreme Court.
Greene spoke with a right-wing YouTube channel to give her live reaction to the Court's abortion ruling.
She baselessly claimed Democrats will make unspecified attacks following the SCOTUS ruling.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene praised former President Donald Trump and demonized Democrats in her live reaction to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade on Friday.
The far-right Georgia Republican — who was removed from all of her committee assignments in February 2021 for publicly endorsing political violence and antisemitic remarks — spoke with the Right Side Broadcasting Network, a pro-Trump YouTube channel immediately after the ruling was announced.
"Thank you President Trump," Greene said. "God bless you. This got overturned today because of your great work as president, and we want him back."
She also speculated without evidence that Democrats will respond to the ruling with violence and rioting.
"I do fear for the safety of people here in D.C.," she told the YouTube channel.
A spokesperson for Greene didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
When asked about gun control and the recent Supreme Court decision dramatically expanding the ability to carry a concealed weapon, Greene continued stoking fears around protests to the abortion ruling.
"It's more important now than ever," she said of gun ownership. "People need to protect themselves. They've already shown us what they're capable of with BLM riots. And they want to take our gun rights away, just like they want to keep murdering babies."
Greene called the Democratic Party "the party of death" and "the party of riots," before repeating some of the same graphic language she's used about abortion in the past.
"They wanna say they care about children at school, and they care about people being gunned down. At the same time, they're here demanding that innocent unborn babies be ripped apart limb from limb in the womb."
Ahead of Thursday's Supreme Court decision, Greene's name came up in the House's January 6 committee hearings, during which she was mentioned as one of at least six lawmakers who sought a pardon from Trump following the insurrection, according to testimony from former White House aides.
More: Political Media Roe v Wade Marjorie Taylor Greene right side broadcasting
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2022-06-24T16:18:53Z
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Marjorie Taylor Greene Credits Trump for End of Roe's Abortion Rights
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https://www.businessinsider.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-trump-roe-v-wade-overturned-violent-threats-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-trump-roe-v-wade-overturned-violent-threats-2022-6
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Bankruptcy pro Mike Kramer is fielding more calls as the economy sours. The feared Ducera banker, described as a 'predator' and 'elite thinker,' explains how he sees things playing out.
Mike Kramer is a renown bankruptcy banker who is fielding a lot more calls now that the economy is slowing.
Lysogor
Mike Kramer, known as a "predator" in the boardroom, is a renowned restructuring expert.
As the economy cools, Kramer and his firm, Ducera Partners, are gearing up for a wave of activity.
Kramer sat down with Insider to share his thoughts on restructuring, crypto, and hiring.
Most investment bankers are down about the end of the easy-money era that fueled sky-high stock valuations and record-breaking M&A volumes.
Not Michael Kramer.
Kramer — the founder of boutique investment bank Ducera Partners — made his name working on bankruptcies, distressed situations, and helping troubled companies restructure debt so they can survive. He's also worked on the other side, helping creditors get repayment from distressed businesses and governments.
Kramer has a reputation in restructuring circles as someone to be respected — or feared — depending on who you ask. One rival described him to Insider as a "predator," while a colleague dubbed him an "elite thinker" because of his ability to iron out solutions for his clients in what can sometimes be confrontational situations.
His firm has represented large lenders looking to protect their assets in numerous high-profile bankruptcy cases. Ducera backed creditors against Hertz, the car rental firm that left bankruptcy last October. Ducera also supported creditors on Puerto Rico's nearly $19 billion debt restructuring. To understand how long, and sometimes messy, bankruptcies can be, Puerto Rico sought bankruptcy relief in May 2017, and only exited in March this year.
Transactions like this make restructuring bankers a rare breed. And now, after years of little activity, it's looking like Kramer, and Ducera's, time to shine.
Companies face a world of rising rates that will strain their balance sheets. Some — like Revlon — have already filed for bankruptcy. Other companies may default on their debt, seek rescue financing, or undertake other forms of corporate overhaul to survive.
While actual bankruptcy filings may take months to really start piling up, the cracks are already beginning to show. And that's led to an influx of inquiries for Kramer and his roughly 45-strong team at Ducera.
Kramer — a California State grad who sports a military-like crew cut — earned his restructuring stripes at rival boutique Houlihan Lokey. Today, he has the ear of restructuring pros like Scott Adelson, Houlihan's co-president, and Alan Kornberg, a partner with Paul, Weiss, who co-chair's the law firm's restructuring department.
"Mike's the guy you want in your corner when you're fighting for your business," one senior banker who was not authorized to speak publicly, said about the Ducera founder.
Insider interviewed Kramer at Ducera's Times Square Offices in New York City. He dissected what sectors are most exposed to restructuring, the evolving crypto space, and the tools companies can utilize to adjust to higher interest rates and a Federal Reserve focused on cooling an economy stifled by inflation.
Bankruptcy banker Mike Kramer is founder of Ducera Partners. His boardroom battles have earned him a reputation as a "predator" and "elite thinker."
Ducera
The pressure is on retail, entertainment, and travel
Heightened inflation has consumer-facing industries like retail, entertainment, travel, and leisure all poised for a slowdown as folks pare back discretionary spending.
Areas like these, alongside industries exposed to commodity-price swings, present a bevy of opportunities for restructuring folks like Kramer.
"The hot topic is inflation, so any type of business that touches the consumer is going to feel pressure," Kramer said. "Hard goods, entertainment are going to feel pressed as consumer spending goes down. Businesses that have exposure to oil or gas, and don't have the ability to pass that on will have trouble."
And while restructurings are an expensive exercise — comprised of costly loans, and collateral-backed, or securitized financings — they're necessary for companies under duress.
"As companies are faced with challenges, and not generating as much profits, they're going to need capital to refinance their existing capital structures." Kramer said. " Liquidity is the life's blood of any company and access to capital is important."
Some tools include debtor-in-possession (DIP) financings — typically loans companies receive during bankruptcy proceedings. This debt is usually senior to other financing a company owes its creditors, meaning the DIP lenders will get repaid first. Because they're provided to a company during its most uncertain time, DIP financings often come with high interest rates.
There's also equity injections from creditors. This could be from existing shareholders, or new investment firms that are willing to invest in a distressed company in exchange for shares and perhaps board seats. Private-equity firms, for example, could swoop in — sometimes opportunistically — and take stakes in vulnerable companies.
"There'll be opportunities for private equity to help companies deleverage," Kramer said of opportunities for the cashed-up private-investor community. "We're coming out of a period over the last two-to-three years where there was unprecedented availability of debt capital. While it's low-cost capital, companies still have to pay that back."
And if companies are trying to repay lenders when their earnings are impaired, it'll be harder for them to justify carrying high amounts of leverage, Kramer said.
Capitalizing on the crypto phenomenon
Crypto, and the entire digital assets space, is another sweet spot for Kramer.
When crypto prices were riding high, Ducera started fine-tuning its strategy toward the burgeoning asset class.
Last November, Ducera advised Digital Currency Group (DCG) on a $600 million transaction in the debt capital markets. DCG, a blockchain tech company, is the parent of data firm CoinDesk and crypto platform Luno, among others.
For Kramer, the DCG deal was a building block that exposed Ducera to more companies meshed in digital assets.
Now, with the meltdown in crypto prices, the restructuring firm sees opportunity to help shore up struggling businesses. The slump in crypto's value has led industry lenders Celsius and Babel Finance to stop its users from withdrawing their holdings, while Coinbase laid off more than 1,000 staff earlier this month.
"It's no question, when the prices go down it's harder to get people excited about investing in the product," Kramer said of crypto's declining value.
The volatility hasn't dampened Kramer's interest in the space. If anything, volatility has "reinforced" Ducera's commitment to crypto companies feeling the pinch of weaker prices, Kramer said.
"Volatility is when people need bankers more. Transformative events are taking place as prices drop and some of the lenders in crypto have challenges. That's when they're going to need more advice," Kramer said.
Staffing up
Kramer founded Ducera in 2015 after splitting from Perella Weinberg Partners, a fellow boutique that Kramer joined in 2007 to build a restructuring practice.
Perella fired Kramer — alongside Derron Slonecker, Joshua Scherer, and Adam Verost, all of whom are partners at Ducera today. Perella also sued Kramer, claiming he plotted to leave the firm and launch a rival while on Perella's payroll. Kramer countersued and denied he and his partners planned to leave Perella, and alleged that Perella defamed them and held back millions of dollars in equity they were owed.
Due to the ongoing lawsuit against his former employer, Kramer is tight-lipped about proceedings against Perella. But he said he remained committed to working with his fellow Perella outcasts, after they were all let go.
"They threw me out of Perella. I had to work," Kramer told Insider.
And that work has been fruitful. With Ducera barely a year old, Kramer advised Monsanto on its $63 billion tie-up with Germany's Bayer in 2016. That mandate netted Ducera between $50-$55 million in advisory fees.
Monsanto, importantly, wanted Kramer, having worked with him throughout his career at other firms. After his ouster from Perella, Monsanto pleaded with Kramer's former employer to allow the company to continue working with Kramer.
"It all started with Monsanto. I literally cold-called the then CFO Terry Crews, worked our way in and developed a relationship and stuck with them," Kramer said, adding that the bond started in 1998. "You gotta start somewhere, and Monsanto's a relationship that has transcended different firms."
What started as a tight-knit team of six restructuring experts has morphed into a 45-person team. And in the next 12 months, Kramer wants to grow to 60-65 people across offices in New York and Los Angeles.
In addition to restructuring efforts, Kramer's wants to tackle more M&A advisory services, not just for companies under duress, but businesses that may look to shed assets or merge with peers.
He's also trying to win business in private-credit markets, a burgeoning part of capital markets that's picking up share from bank-led bonds and loans.
This summer, Ducera is also welcoming nine interns, and eyeing new mid-tier bankers just above the analyst level in the coming months as workflow picks up, Kramer said.
And while Ducera — like most boutiques — is known to push its staff with longer-than-usual work hours, the firm remunerates its team handsomely. Total comp can swell to more than $300,000 for a third-year analyst, according to efinancialcareers, while associates can pocket upwards of half-a-million dollars.
"I've heard that's a bit of a reputation that we have," Kramer said when asked about the long hours his team puts in. "I'm not sure it's warranted, but we have our culture, we like our culture, and we're comfortable with our culture."
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Bankruptcy Pro Mike Kramer Is Fielding More Calls As the Economy Sours
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https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-kramer-ducera-restructuring-bankruptcy-investment-banking-2022-6
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What is an inherited IRA?
What to do with an inherited IRA
Inherited IRA rules
What happens if you don't withdraw funds from an inherited IRA?
Are inherited IRAs taxable?
How the SECURE Act affected Inherited IRAs
Inheriting an IRA? Here are all the options and withdrawal rules beneficiaries should know
Lee Huffman and Paul Kim
The tax advantages and liabilities from the original IRA are carried over to the inherited IRA.
MartinPrescott/Getty Images
An inherited IRA is an account an individual establishes with the funds bequeathed from a deceased person’s IRA or 401(k).
Inherited IRAs follow the same tax regulations as regular IRAs: You only owe taxes on the funds you withdraw.
Spouses aside, most beneficiaries can’t make contributions to an Inherited IRA and must empty the account within 10 years.
If you're on the receiving end of an inheritance, odds are the money is coming to you out of the deceased's retirement account. And you may be asked — or sometimes told — to set up an inherited IRA.
Inherited IRAs (investment retirement accounts) are accounts a person sets up with the funds bequeathed to them after an IRA owner dies.
Basically, they're the same tax-deferred vehicles as regular IRAs. But how you, the beneficiary, handle them — well, "it's complicated," says Peter Riefstahl, a CPA and accountant at Yum! Brands. "The rules vary depending on your relationship to the deceased, at what age they died, and what type of beneficiary you are."
Understanding those rules is crucial to getting the most out of the inherited IRA — and avoiding running afoul of the IRS. Here's an overview of how they work.
Also known as a beneficiary IRA, an inherited IRA is an account that holds the assets inherited from a decedent's tax-advantaged retirement plan. The money inherited continues to grow with the same tax conditions that applied to the original IRA.
Inherited IRAs can be funded from any type of IRA: including traditional, Roth, simple, and SEP IRAs. It can also be created out of money from the deceased's 401(k) plan. You can set an inherited IRA up with almost any bank or brokerage. But the easiest option may be to open your inherited IRA with the firm that held the deceased's account.
For tax purposes, it's important that the account be named properly — designated as inherited, and with both parties' names. Typically, the title reads something like: [Name of Recipient] Inherited IRA Beneficiary of [Deceased's name].
The person or entity that inherits the IRA can be anyone that the deceased person named as a beneficiary in the IRA paperwork. It's this designation that dictates who inherits the IRA — even if the deceased's will names somebody else.
Beneficiaries fall into two categories: designated (people, like a spouse, relative, or friend) and not-designated (trusts, estates, charities).
All beneficiaries have the option to cash out their inheritance: Take a lump-sum withdrawal from the deceased's IRA and shut it down — though experts usually advise against this strategy since doing so can incur a whopping tax bill. Because that money is still growing in the inherited IRA, it can be beneficial to hold off on withdrawals to let the account grow as much as possible.
Spouses can set up an inherited IRA, but they don't necessarily have to. It's actually more advantageous to forgo the inherited IRA and treat the deceased's IRA as their own: putting it into their name, or rolling it over into another IRA they already have. This is a special privilege that only spouses possess.
In contrast, non-spouse beneficiaries — everybody else, basically — have to set up a separate inherited IRA.
While inherited IRA rules are many and varied, there are two big takeaways:
You can't make additional contributions to them. You can manage inherited IRAs – change the investments, buy and sell different assets – but additional deposits are not allowed.
You have to withdraw money from them. The timetable varies by beneficiary, but sooner or later, you have to empty an inherited IRA completely or take a heavy IRS penalty. This applies even to inherited Roth IRAs. Unlike the original account owner, the inheritor of a Roth IRA is required to take distributions from the account.
Spouses have the most flexibility around these rules. If they've just put the deceased's IRA in their name or rolled the money over into their own IRA, they just have to start taking out money when they turn 72 — the usual IRA rule of required minimum distributions (RMDs). Rolling an IRA also allows them to continue making deposits.
If a surviving spouse sets up a new inherited IRA, they take the same distributions the deceased did, or recalculate the amount based on their own life expectancy. If the original owner passed away before the age of 72, then the surviving spouse doesn't have to start taking distributions until the year the deceased would've turned 72.
For most other individuals, withdrawals from the inherited IRA can be made in any amount at any time. The key point: The beneficiary has 10 years (to the end of the calendar year) following the original account owner's death to withdraw all assets from the inherited IRA.
For example, say Papa Joe passes away on September 1, 2020, bequeathing his IRA to his grown daughter Jane. Jane sets up an inherited IRA. Her deadline for emptying the IRA is December 31, 2030.
The consequences of missing withdrawals can be harsh. The IRS charges a penalty of 50% of the funds you were supposed to take out. Depending on the size of the IRA that you inherit, this can be serious money.
The tax rules that applied to the original IRA also apply to the resulting inherited IRA. Just like an IRA that you've funded yourself, money within the account grows free of income tax .
IRAs that have taxable withdrawals, such as traditional IRAs and SEP IRAs, continue to be taxable when withdrawn from their inherited counterparts. Any amount withdrawn is taxed at your regular income tax rate. The key to minimizing your tax liability is to withdraw at amounts that won't shift your tax bracket .
Inherited Roth IRA distributions continue to be tax-free, just like any Roths, as long as the deceased's original account is at least five years old. If the account was less than five years old at the time of the original owner's death, any withdrawn contributions are still tax-free, but any earnings above that are taxable when you take them out.
The IRS does offer beneficiaries one break. Typically, if you're under age 59 ½, any withdrawals from a retirement account, such as a traditional IRA or a 401(k) will incur a 10% penalty. This penalty is waived for inherited IRAs.
The SECURE Act of 2019 changed many retirement account rules, including inherited IRAs. It only affects IRA funds inherited Jan. 1, 2020, or later.
The biggest impact hits non-spouse beneficiaries. Previously, these heirs had to withdraw funds annually from an inherited IRA, but they could base the amount on their own life expectancy. Depending on the beneficiary's age, this amount, and the associated income tax, could be pretty small. This made bequeathing IRAs to young children or grandchildren a popular estate-planning strategy.
But no more. The SECURE Act says these beneficiaries have to empty the inherited IRA within a decade of the original owner's death. Exceptions are made for disabled or chronically ill individuals, those whose age is within 10 years of the deceased's, and direct descendants under the majority age of 18. (And once they turn 18, they're under the 10-year withdrawal deadline too.)
Note: The SECURE Act also pushed the age for RMDs back from 70½ to 72.
Everyone who set up inherited IRAs before the end of 2019 can still follow the old life expectancy rules for distributions.
Unless you're a spouse, when you inherit a retirement account, your usual best option is to transfer the money into an inherited IRA. Inherited IRAs continue to grow tax-deferred until withdrawals are made. Taxes on withdrawals are treated the same as the original IRA account.
Most beneficiaries must withdraw all funds from their inherited IRAs within 10 years. Spouses, on the other hand, can withdraw assets on any schedule they wish.
"One could simply defer taking withdrawals for the decade, let the account grow (ideally), and then take it all out in the end," Riefstahl says. "The important caveat is that this will push you into a far higher tax bracket, thereby cutting into those gains that have accumulated over the years."
The trick for most beneficiaries is walking the line between keeping that inherited IRA growing as much as possible over those 10 years while paying the smallest amount in taxes.
The rules for inherited IRAs are complex, and the variations are many. Our rundown covers just the basics. So before making any moves, definitely consult with a tax or estates-law professional regarding your particular circumstances.
PERSONAL FINANCE Roth 401(k): An investment option that can help you create a tax-free income stream in retirement
PERSONAL FINANCE Retirement calculator: Check your savings rate and how much money you'll need to retire when you want
PERSONAL FINANCE Pensions are company-provided retirement funds that guarantee a monthly payout to retirees
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Inherited IRA: the Rules and Options a Beneficiary Should Know
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Planned Parenthood president slams Roe v. Wade decision: 'The Supreme Court has now officially given politicians permission to control what we do with our bodies'
Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood, addresses abortion-rights supporters at the "Bans Off Our Bodies Abortion Rally" at Los Angeles City Hall, Saturday, May 14, 2022.
Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson criticized the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
She said the decision will hurt Black, Latino and Indigenous communities in particular.
The decision, announced Friday, leaves abortion rights up to the states.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Alexis McGill Johnson on Friday said the Supreme Court gave politicians "permission to control what we do with our bodies" after the high court overturned Roe v. Wade — ending nearly 50 years of the right to an abortion.
McGill, in a statement, said the decision will affect the nation's most vulnerable groups.
"Due to centuries of racism and systemic discrimination, we already know who will feel the consequences of this horrific decision most acutely: Black, Latino and Indigenous communities, people with disabilities, those living in rural areas, young people, immigrants and those having difficulties making ends meet," McGill said.
She added that "they won't stop here," calling on pro-choice supporters to act.
"All of our freedoms are on the line," she said.
She added: "We are a movement that will not compromise on our bodies, our dignity, or our freedom."
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Planned Parenthood President on Roe V. Wade: 'Freedoms Are on the Line'
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See more stories on the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade
Insider staff
The Supreme Court's decision undid nearly 50 years of legalized abortion nationwide.
Follow along with our live updates to the news.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Thomas says the Supreme Court should reconsider rulings that protect same-sex marriage and access to contraception.
13 states have "trigger" laws that will automatically outlaw abortion with the Supreme Court ruling.
Some businesses already have plans in place for their employees.
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Links to Stories About the Supreme Court Overturning Roe V. Wade
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is leading a Democratic fundraising push following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Nancy Pelosi and fellow Democrats immediately began fundraising off the Supreme Court's abortion decision.
Pelosi asked for "100,000 gifts before midnight."
Democrats said the money would be used to fuel victory in November.
The Supreme Court's decision Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade and end federal abortion protections immediately turned into an election fundraising opportunity for Democratic political committees.
"Can you chip in $15 so we can WIN these midterms and finally codify reproductive rights into law?" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote supporters minutes after the high court's 6-3 ruling. "Our ONLY option is to marshal a response so historic — 100,000 gifts before midnight — that we DEFEAT every anti-choice Republican that made this happen, EXPAND our Majorities, and FINALLY codify our reproductive rights into law. So, can I expect to see your name on my "Pro-Choice Champion" list tomorrow morning?"
Money raised through Pelosi's solicitation goes to the California Democrat's reelection committee, per the email's fine print.
A fundraising message from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Nancy Pelosi for Congress
Other Democrats quickly joined in.
"Can you rush in a donation of any amount to stop the far-right and elect a pro-abortion rights Congress this year?" Rep. David Cicilline, a Democrat from Rhode Island, wrote supporters 30 minutes after the high court's 6-3 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson.
"Please, chip in a few dollars or more now to help us show that support for the right to choose has never been higher and that we will mobilize powerfully in the face of this unjust and outrageous ruling," Rep. Jennifer Wexton of Virginia wrote.
"We're asking you to join our fight for abortion rights and make a contribution today," the Florida Democratic Party wrote in an email that suggested a $25 contribution.
"I'm so damn angry I can hardly type this message to you ... I'm asking you to join me and rush $5 in this make-or-break moment," Democratic political operative James Carville wrote on behalf of the re-election campaign of Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. Carville also sent a similar message on behalf of AB PAC, a Democrat-backing political action committee.
A James Carville fundraising email for Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
Catherine Cortez Masto for Senate
In an email titled "The end of Roe v. Wade," Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood, asked supporters of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke in Texas to "donate anything you can to help us defeat Greg Abbott," the state's Republican governor.
Democratic Sens. Tina Smith of Minnesota, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, were among the many other candidates and political committees to blast out fundraising appeals within one hour of the Supreme Court's ruling.
These solicitations had been pre-planned and pre-written in anticipation of the Supreme Court's ruling in order to maximize contributions from outraged liberals, two Democratic fundraising consultants who are not authorized to speak to the press confirmed to Insider.
Other Democrats, such as Rep. Derek Kilmer of Washington, issued statements through their campaign committees but didn't expressly ask for money.
Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, first asked supporters to digitally "sign" a petition to "tell the Senate to protect Roe," and then asked for money once a supporter did so.
Republicans, for their part, were comparatively muted on the abortion-related fundraising front Friday morning.
Former President Donald Trump's Save America joint fundraising committee sent out a fundraising appeal, but it didn't mention abortion — it featured a GIF of President Joe Biden falling off his bike last weekend.
Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker in Georgia also made no mention of abortion when he asked backers to "please chip in $2 or more before the day is over." In contrast, Walker's opponent — Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia — asked supporters to "rush a donation to help me defend my seat in Georgia, keep the Senate blue, and protect the right to choose nationwide."
In a separate statement from her congressional office, Pelosi made clear that Democrats will make the Supreme Court's abortion decision a centerpiece of their efforts to retain control of both the US House and US Senate, where they today have tenuous majorities.
More: Nancy Pelosi Democrats Roe v Wade Kirsten Gillibrand
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Nancy Pelosi Leads Fundraising Push After SCOTUS Abortion Decision
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Biden's Education Department has wiped out $8.1 billion in student debt for 145,000 borrowers following reforms to a loan forgiveness program
Biden implemented reforms to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program last year.
As of June 1, 145,000 borrowers have gotten $8.1 billion in relief under the reforms.
A limited-time waiver through Oct. 31 allows previously ineligible payments to qualify for the program.
More and more student-loan borrowers are getting relief through a debt forgiveness program for public service workers.
On Friday, President Joe Biden's Education Department released the latest data on progress made under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which is intended to forgive student debt for public servants, like nonprofit and government workers, after ten years of qualifying payments. In October of last year, the department implemented a series of reforms, included a waiver that is running through October 31, 2022, that allows borrowers to count payments from any repayment plans toward loan forgiveness through PSLF, including programs and plans that were not previously eligible.
As of June 1, the department has approved $8.1 billion in relief for nearly 145,000 borrowers under that waiver. The department noted that some of those borrowers have already received relief while it is on the way for others who have not.
When the waiver was announced last year, the department said it would bring 550,000 borrowers closer to student-debt relief automatically — and other changes included making PSLF easier to access for Americans serving in the military and improving outreach to those who might be eligible for the program.
Biden is also in the process of making a decision on loan forgiveness for all federal borrowers — he is reportedly considering $10,000 in relief for those making under $150,000 a year and will likely announce the plan in July or August, closer to when payments are set to resume after August 31.
While the Education Department has touted progress made under PSLF, some advocates and lawmakers worry that the waiver is expiring too soon. A recent analysis from advocacy group Student Borrower Protection Center found that while 9 million public servants are eligible for student-loan forgiveness, only 2% of them have actually gotten their debt wiped out — and fewer than 15% have filed paperwork to track their PSLF progress.
As a result of years of flaws and a high PSLF denial rate, some lawmakers have introduced legislation to permanently simplify the program. Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Jeff Merkley of Oregon introduced a bill earlier this month that would reduce the number of qualifying payments to PSLF to 60 payments over five years and allow any prior student-loan payment to qualify toward forgiveness progress.
"The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program promised loan relief to Americans willing to pursue a career in public service," Whitehouse said in a statement. "Instead, they landed in a bureaucratic nightmare with no loan forgiveness in sight."
The department has not commented on whether it plans to extend the PSLF waiver.
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$8.1 Billion in Student Debt Wiped Out for 145,000 PSLF Borrowers
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United pilots are on track to get a big pay raise as the industry continues to combat the pilot shortage that's leading to massive flight cancellations
United Airlines' pilot union approved a tentative agreement that would increase pilot pay, among other benefits.
The deal also includes a new paid maternity leave policy and improved scheduling procedures.
The move comes as the industry struggles to hire and retain pilots.
Pilots at United Airlines are set to get a massive pay raise.
On Friday, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), a union that represents more than 14,000 United pilots, voted to approve a "tentative agreement" that would increase crew member salary, among other benefits.
After getting union approval, the deal was sent to members for a vote, which closes on July 15. If a majority of members vote in favor of the contract, then the deal "will generate an additional $1.3 billion of value for United pilots over the course of the two-year agreement," ALPA said in a press release.
"This agreement raises the bar for all airline pilots and leads the industry forward," chairman of ALPA's United pilot group Captain Michael Hamilton said. "Our ability to reach this agreement, and the current success of United Airlines, is driven by front-line United pilots who stayed unified and focused throughout negotiations despite the incredible challenges we faced during the largest disruption in the history of aviation."
If ratified, the deal will provide a number of benefits to pilots, including a 14.5% pay raise over 18 months, a new eight-week paid maternity leave policy, and new schedule procedures to reduce pilot fatigue and improve flexibility.
The agreement also increases pay for instructors, evaluators, and line check airmen. ALPA said the higher compensation is to "increase training capacity to meet United's unprecedented hiring and growth plans."
This is in line with American Airlines' increase pay for line check airmen at its wholly-owned carriers Envoy Air and Piedmont Airlines, who will be paid $427.40 per hour under a new contract. Regular pilots also will see their salaries nearly doubled.
For months, airlines have been struggling to hire, train, and retain pilots, with carriers like Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, and Mesa Airlines admitting to having a shortage.
Mesa CEO Jonathan Ornstein told CNBC in May that the company could 'use about 200 pilots," while Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci said in a YouTube video that the carrier was about 63 pilots short last month.
Meanwhile, American grounded 100 regional jets in early June because it doesn't have enough pilots to fly them. United made a similar move in December.
The shortages, compounded with weather and air traffic control (ATC) issues, have led to significant flight delays and cancellations, especially over key weekends. The Juneteenth holiday saw over 35,000 flights disrupted from Thursday to Monday.
In an interview with Bloomberg on Monday, Kirby blamed ATC staffing for the disruptions over recent weekends, particularly at Newark. In an effort to improve on-time performance at its hub airport, United is reducing domestic departures by 12%, which the airline says will make travel easier for all people flying through Newark.
More: United United Airlines alpa air line pilots association
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United Pilots Getting 14.5% Pay Raise As Industry Faces Shortage
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Arizona GOP primary Senate candidate Blake Masters wants to overhaul Social Security.
"We got to cut the knot at some point," he said at a conservative event.
The idea dealt a bruising defeat to the Bush administration two decades ago.
A Trump-backed Republican Senate candidate in Arizona suggested privatizing Social Security on Thursday, arguing the popular safety-net program will be long gone by the time he reaches retirement age.
"We got to cut the knot at some point though because I'll tell you what, I'm not going to receive Social Security," GOP Senate primary candidate Blake Masters said at a primary debate hosted by the conservative think tank FreedomWorks. "I'm a millennial."
—Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) June 24, 2022
Masters argued it was time to overhaul the popular program. "We need fresh and innovative thinking, maybe we should privatize Social Security," he said. "Private retirement accounts, get the government out of it."
Social Security provides retirement monthly cash benefits to elderly and disabled people. For many years, Republicans advocated to slash spending on programs like Social Security and Medicare to rein in the national debt. But President Donald Trump prevailed on Republicans in 2016 to abandon that piece of their economic agenda and instead campaigned on preserving it, though he occasionally floated ideas jeopardizing the program's future.
Masters is floating a proposal that dealt a bruising political defeat to another Republican administration two decades ago. In early 2004, President George W. Bush embarked on a major push to privatize Social Security, laying out a plan for people to open their own private retirement accounts and providing the option to redirect payroll taxes into them.
"We should make the Social Security system a source of ownership for the American people," Bush said in his State of the Union address in January 2004.
But the effort backfired. Staunch Democratic resistance and internal Republican splits kept the plan from advancing. It contributed to a steep slide for Bush's approval rating on Social Security.
"According to the Gallup organization, public disapproval of President Bush's handling of Social Security rose by 16 points from 48 to 64 percent–between his State of the Union address and June," governance expert William Galston wrote in a 2007 Brookings Institute blog post.
Masters, a venture capitalist, is among the most conservative candidates in the crowded Arizona GOP primary. Masters questioned the existence of a gender pay gap and blamed gun violence on Black people earlier this year. He also promoted Trump's false claim that the 2020 election was rigged.
He recently grabbed a coveted endorsement from Trump and benefits from the strong financial support of tech billionaire and long-time business associate Peter Thiel. A Real Clear Politics average of polls show Masters taking a slight lead of five percentage points earlier this month.
More: Policy Blake Masters Congress 2022 midterms
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Trump-Backed Arizona GOP Senate Candidate Suggests Privatizing Social Security
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Citron's famed short-seller Andrew Left says he expects Amazon to buy Jumia, Africa's leading e-commerce company this year
Citron Research founder and CEO Andrew Left
Citron Research CEO Andrew Left believes Jumia is open to selling and Amazon is a leading candidate to buy the African e-commerce company.
Amazon plans to expand to Nigeria and South Africa by early next year, as Insider previously reported.
Citron, previously known for its short-selling research, has long positions in both Amazon and Jumia, and stands to gain significantly if their shares go up.
Citron Research CEO Andrew Left, best known for his short-selling fame, anticipates Africa's leading e-commerce company Jumia Technologies to be sold this year — most likely to Amazon.
Left told Insider that he believes Jumia is open to an acquisition or strategic investment by a US tech company, based on his research and conversations with former Jumia executives. Jumia currently trades at roughly $6 per share, a 90% drop from last year's peak, valuing the company at about $640 million.
Though Left has no inside knowledge of any active deal talks, he said Amazon makes the most sense to buy Jumia. He pointed to Amazon's desire to expand into Africa's emerging e-commerce market and the relatively low price of Jumia's assets, like its existing customer base and logistics network.
"Jumia has a built-in system that is years ahead of where Amazon will be starting in Africa," Left told Insider. "It's beyond a bargain."
Amazon's spokesperson declined to comment. Jumia's representative didn't respond to a request for comment.
Left has a standing interest in the transaction going through. His firm Citron, which no longer does short-selling research, has long positions in both Jumia and Amazon and stands to gain significantly if shares of either company go up. After betting against Jumia in 2019, Left changed his mind a year later, calling it a compelling buy.
Left's prediction follows Insider's previous report about Amazon's plans to launch its own online marketplace and fulfillment service in Nigeria and South Africa by early next year. Jumia's stock dropped nearly 10% after the report. Amazon made its first inroad into Africa last year with a new marketplace in Egypt. Left said the report gave him more confidence that Amazon would look into this deal.
For Amazon, buying its way into a new market wouldn't be an entirely new endeavor. In 2017, it acquired Middle Eastern e-commerce firm Souq for $580 million. Two years later, it rebranded Souq to Amazon.ae, making it the company's main marketplace for the Middle East region.
Left thinks Amazon could acquire Jumia for about $1 billion, a roughly 55% premium to Jumia's existing market value. Amazon would be able to easily recoup the money spent on the acquisition, Left said, if its share price increases even slightly following the deal. Amazon has over $65 billion in cash and cash equivalents.
Citron published a report in May that explains Jumia's buyout potential. It cited Jumia's strong brand and growth in other industries, like advertising and food delivery, as well as Africa's massive market potential among reasons for an acquisition by a US tech company. Left said besides Amazon, Facebook's parent company Meta would be a leading candidate to buy Jumia given its popularity in the region.
Left shared the following factors for why Jumia makes for an attractive acquisition target:
It's the pan-African logistics player with the highest level of coverage (validated by UPS deal)
Its ability to deliver goods to billions of people in 11 different countries on time
A 7-year head start on last-mile logistics on potential competition
Warehouses and offices throughout Africa (e.g., Jumia's tech hub in Cairo)
#1 retail brand in Nigeria (online and offline)
#1 downloaded shopping and food app in Nigeria
#1 downloaded shopping and food app in Kenya
A stronger brand than even Amazon in Egypt
A fast-growing advertising business that will run-rate $20mm this year
Data on all past customer orders and info
More: Amazon Jumia Citron Research
Andrew Left
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2022-06-24T17:01:15Z
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Citron's Andrew Left Believes Amazon Will Acquire Jumia Technologies
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https://www.businessinsider.com/citrons-andrew-left-believes-amazon-will-acquire-jumia-technologies-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/citrons-andrew-left-believes-amazon-will-acquire-jumia-technologies-2022-6
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How to design sustainability targets the right way, according to a nonprofit working with Sony and Procter & Gamble
Alberto Carrillo Pineda is SBTi’s cofounder and chief technical officer.
Science Based Targets Initiative, or SBTi, helps large companies identify sustainability targets.
SBTi's cofounder said organizations are signing on due to growing expectations from investors.
Here's how SBTi is helping companies set science-based greenhouse-gas emission-reduction targets.
Achieving sustainability doesn't happen overnight. It requires setting the right targets — clear short- and long-term goals for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions across all stages of a business.
Science Based Targets initiative, or SBTi, is a nonprofit that works with some of the world's largest companies — from AstraZeneca and Sony to Procter & Gamble — to identify and hit those targets. SBTi boasts being the first framework for helping corporations set net-zero targets based on the latest climate science and the 2015 Paris Agreement, a treaty on climate change.
Since its founding in 2015, companies with approved targets have seen 29% reductions. The scale is growing, too, with partner companies representing 35% of global market capitalization.
Alberto Carrillo Pineda, SBTi's cofounder and chief technical officer, said more organizations are interested in the company's services due to growing expectations from investors and regulators that companies address emissions and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors across their supply chains.
In 2019, the UK passed a law to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. This March, the US Securities and Exchange Commission issued a proposed rule that would require registrants to include climate-related disclosures in reports. SBTi is a key vendor in the sustainability revolution, enabling companies to demonstrate to investors and other stakeholders that they're working toward emission reductions, filling in the gaps left by standard ESG disclosures.
"More and more investors are looking at the climate targets of companies in their portfolios, and they're engaging with companies that don't have targets in place yet to incentivize them to set targets," Pineda told Insider.
Here's a look at how the process to set science-based targets works and how businesses benefit.
Offering industry-specific technical assistance helps companies set realistic emissions targets
Setting climate-based targets alone can be difficult for businesses because many don't know where to start, Pineda said. That's where SBTi can help.
SBTi works with companies by offering clear industry-specific guidance on how to set emissions goals to achieve net-zero. The organization provides worksheets, how-to guides, and online tools, then evaluates a business' targets based on the latest climate science, Pineda said.
"The transition to a net-zero economy requires a transformation of every aspect of the economy — transportation, energy production, the food system, the industrial system, and the land-use system," he said, adding that the path to achieving net-zero often varies by industry.
Pineda said SBTi helps "translate" the transition to net-zero based on the specifics of a company or sector, such as using carbon credits and guidelines for different types of passenger, freight, and commercial vehicles in the transportation sector, so they can set more realistic targets. Companies in the oil and gas sector aren't yet able to set targets with SBTi, but the organization is developing guidance for that industry.
SBTi receives funding from companies across industries, governments, and foundations. In November, the organization raised $37 million from Bezos Earth Fund, IKEA Foundation, and Laudes Foundation to help support its growth.
SBTi helps hold companies accountable for sustainability goals
SBTi charges companies $9,500 to set and validate their targets, which starts with organizations registering on the SBTi website and submitting a commitment letter. Companies have 24 months to set and submit targets, which Pineda said may involve collecting data or conducting energy modeling. SBTi provides recommendations and industry-specific guidance to assist organizations in developing targets.
After a company submits its targets, SBTi analyzes them to ensure they cover most direct and indirect emission sources, that the target is ambitious — companies are required to pledge to reduce their emissions by at least 4.2% a year — and whether a company is setting short-term emission-reduction targets or long-term net-zero targets. Pineda said SBTi requires companies to have short-term goals for approval so that they're driving action to reach net-zero.
Once SBTi approves a target, it publishes a list of companies taking action on its website and encourages organizations to share details about their targets with stakeholders. SBTi expects companies to report progress every year and recalculate targets every five years to ensure they remain valid and align with the latest science, Pineda said.
SBTi had approved nearly 1,100 targets by the end of 2021 and saw over 1,100 commitments.
The organization is working on a new measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) system, which will launch in 2023, to standardize how companies report progress on targets, which Pineda said will increase transparency and accountability.
Setting targets boosts a company's credibility with investors
The benefits for companies that set emission-reduction and net-zero targets include increased profits, improved investor confidence, heightened innovation, decreased regulatory uncertainty, and stronger brand reputation, according to SBTi.
For example, setting science-based targets led Sony to develop a new type of plastic made of 99% recycled materials that saves 80% carbon emissions when the company manufactures it. More than a third of companies say setting targets is helping their business become more resilient to future regulations.
Working with SBTi brings a sense of credibility to these goals, Pineda said, and it helps companies communicate their sustainability initiatives and the progress they're making. It also helps fill in gaps for investors and financial institutions seeking information about a company's ESG disclosures.
"More transparency on environmental and climate action makes it easier for investors to understand if companies are transitioning to net-zero or not," he said.
More: Financing a Sustainable Future BI-freelancer Sustainability climate crisis
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2022-06-24T17:01:27Z
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How to Design Sustainability Targets the Right Way
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-design-sustainability-targets-the-right-way-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-design-sustainability-targets-the-right-way-2022-6
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How to use OpenAI Playground, the viral tool that lets an AI write nearly anything for you
Playground is one of OpenAI's first fully public tools.
The OpenAI Playground is a new tool that lets you ask an AI bot to write nearly anything for you.
You can ask the Playground AI questions, start a conversation with it, use it to write short stories, and more.
To use the Playground AI, you'll need to make an account on OpenAI's website.
The internet is filled with fun artificial intelligence tools, and the research lab OpenAI is behind a lot of them. Most of OpenAI's projects are only available to a limited number of people, but their new tool, Playground, is open to everyone. And recently, it's been making a big impact on social media.
Here's how Playground works, and how to use it.
OpenAI's Playground can respond to any prompt
Playground is a predictive language tool. In other words, it features AIs that are trained to complete or respond to whatever you type in the most authentic, "human" way possible. Bots like this have been around for years (remember Cleverbot?) but the Playground gives you a trial run with OpenAI's best tools.
It comes with a few different templates you can use to spark your inspiration. For example, you can pick Chat to have a conversation with the bot, or Q&A to set up a question and answer session with it. But users have had the most fun just asking it to write stories for them, or imagine ideas for new TV shows.
There's other modes that let you input text someone has already written, and have the AI insert new text inside of it, or edit it. You can also change its "temperature" (how logical the response it gives is), its "frequency" (how much it repeats itself), and more.
A story written in OpenAI Playground about Business Insider.
OpenAI; William Antonelli/Insider
Playground is mostly free, but has a time limit
When you make your OpenAI account, you're given a credit of $18 to start with. Considering that the AI only costs about six cents per 4000 characters generated, that $18 should last you an incredibly long time.
After three months, the free credits will expire. Once you hit that time limit (or if you use them all up before then), you'll have to buy more by contacting OpenAI's sales team.
How to use the OpenAI Playground
Before you can use Playground, you'll need to make an OpenAI account. You can do this on a computer or phone.
1. Head to OpenAI's API page and click Sign Up in the top-right. You can log in with your Google or Microsoft account, or sign up with a separate email address. If you use a separate email, you'll need to enter a code they send to you.
2. Enter your name and (if you want) organization, then verify your phone number.
3. When you're asked How will you primarily use OpenAI, choose the option that says I'm exploring personal use.
Pick the “personal use” option.
4. After a moment, you'll be brought to your OpenAI account's landing page. Click Playground at the top of the screen.
You've now got access to the Playground.
When you start, you'll just have a blank text box. Type anything you want into this box and click Submit at the bottom, and the AI will respond to it after a few seconds. Anything the AI gives you will be highlighted in green.
Quick tip: If you like what the AI generated and want more of the same, insert a line break after the end of its response and click Submit again. The AI will try to continue whatever it said.
If you're having trouble coming up with an idea, look to the Load a preset drop-down menu in the top-right corner. These options will insert a prompt you can use to get started.
You can pick one of the example presets to quickly get started.
Below that drop-down are some more advanced options. For example, you can choose what Mode the tool is in: Do you want it to respond to your prompts, insert new text into something that's already been written, or edit that text?
You can also use the Model options to choose which AI you want to talk with. The default option, text-davinci-002, is the most advanced. The other AIs aren't as smart, but also don't spend as many credits when you generate text with them.
The other sliders give you control over how logical the AI's responses will be, how long the responses are, how often it can repeat itself, and more. Hover over any of the options for more details.
Ask the AI questions, give it requests — use your imagination. You'll be surprised by how much pop culture it knows.
TECH How to use DALL·E mini, the viral AI tool that can turn any prompt into a series of pictures
TECH How to turn off dark mode on Google search pages
More: Tech How To OpenAI Playground Artifical Intelligence
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2022-06-24T17:01:33Z
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How to Use OpenAI Playground to Write Anything for You
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https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-playground
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https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-playground
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CD vs. checking account: At a glance
What is a CD?
Should you open a CD?
How to open a CD
What is a checking account?
Should you open a checking account?
How to open a checking account
Key differences between checking accounts and CDs may sway where you keep your money
CDs typically have higher minimum opening deposits than checking accounts.
A checking account is a tool for spending, while a CD is an interest-earning bank account.
Checking accounts usually have lower minimum opening deposits than CDs.
The best place to keep your money right now may depend on when and how you want to use it.
Certificates of deposit (CDs) and checking accounts are two types of bank accounts widely available at financial institutions. But where should you be keeping your money right now?
We'll compare the two accounts, so you can weigh out your options and see if one of these accounts might be ideal for you right now.
CDs and checking accounts have different features and accessibility. Your best option will likely depend on how you plan to use the account.
A checking account is a bank account that provides easy access to your money for spending.
A CD is an interest-earning bank account where you'll need to keep the money untouched for a set time.
A CD is a type of savings account. You'll make a one-time deposit, and money will need to stay in the account for a set time to earn interest.
Many banks and credit unions offer a variety of CD terms. Once you've selected a term, that's how long you'll keep money in the account.
CDs usually have a fixed interest rate, meaning you'll earn the same interest until your bank account matures. If you take out money before the end of your term, you may have to deal with early withdrawal penalties.
CDs will often have higher minimum opening deposits than checking accounts. Most banks require an initial deposit of $1,000.
You might consider putting money into a CD instead of a checking account if you'd like to earn interest on your money and you don't need to access it.
Kevin Mahoney, a CFP® professional and the host of Financially Well, a finance podcast for Millennials, recommends looking at what you have in your current bank account and considering how it is being used.
"Based on those answers, then you can much better evaluate whether a CD makes sense for you, and if so, what duration of CD," says Mahoney.
CD rates have steadily gone up throughout 2022 as the Federal Reserve has raised the federal funds rate. However, Mahoney advises people to not act too hastily when making a decision to open an account.
"Those numbers can be very appealing on the surface, but you have to think through when you're going to need the money and whether the terms of any particular CD work for your circumstances," says Mahoney.
Interest-earning account
May offer higher interest rates on some terms than other bank accounts
Won't be charged a monthly service fee, ATM fee, or overdraft fee
Usually requires a higher minimum opening than a checking account
Limited access to funds, or you'll face penalties if you withdraw money early
Can only deposit money when opening a CD or when your CD renews
First, you'll need to select a CD term. CD terms may be as short as a week or as long as 10 years. Most banks and credit unions offer a variety of terms to choose from.
Once you've chosen your financial institution and term, you may open a CD online or at a branch.
If you open an account online, you'll usually be asked to share your social security number and personal information to verify your identity. Meanwhile, at a branch, you'll present two forms of identification.
The purpose of a checking account is to utilize the account for your expenses. Checking accounts allow you to easily withdraw, deposit, or transfer money. These bank accounts also usually have a debit card attached for ATM access and purchases.
Some bank and credit unions charge common bank fees on checking accounts. For example, you may have to pay a monthly service fee if you don't maintain your account balance, or you might be charged an overdraft fee if you have a negative account balance.
When you're opening a checking account you may be asked for an initial deposit. Banks may require a minimum opening deposit of between $0 and $100.
You may prefer a checking account to a CD if you'd like a bank account with easy access to your money. It also might be an ideal option if you don't have a lot of money for an initial deposit.
In terms of checking accounts, Mahoney says your cash flow will likely sway how much you'll keep in your account right now. Mahoney also adds you may want to keep more money that's easily accessible.
"Give yourself a little bit of a buffer so that if your costs continue to increase because of inflation, or any other number of dynamics occur in the economy and with our financial system, that you've given yourself the chance to, to kind of keep your head above water," explains Mahoney. "Maybe that's a larger emergency account than normal or keeping more in your checking account than you might otherwise do."
Low minimum opening deposits
Ways to waive bank service fees
A debit card or ATM card included for easy access to your account
May involve monthly service fees, ATM fees, or overdraft fees
Most banks don't have high-yield checking account, so you won't get a high interest rate on your checking account
You may open a checking account online or at a branch. If you open an account online, you'll usually be asked to share your social security number and personal information to verify your identity. At a branch, you'll present two forms of identification.
Financial institutions may also deny you from opening a checking account with them if you have a negative banking history. In this situation, you might consider opening a second chance bank account, so you still have access to banking services.
PERSONAL FINANCE 5 signs you're keeping too much money in your checking account
More: Checking Account CD PFI Reference Personal Finance Insider
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2022-06-24T17:01:39Z
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CD Vs Checking Account: Where Should You Keep Your Money?
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/cd-vs-checking-account
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/cd-vs-checking-account
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Republican Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, and Tony Gonzales of Texas all voted for the bill.
Win McNamee and Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
The House passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, sending it to President Joe Biden's desk.
14 Republicans joined every Democrat in supporting new gun restrictions in the wake of several mass shootings.
Most Republicans voted against the measure, citing the bill's "red flag" provisions.
The House of Representatives passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act on Friday, sending the most significant new gun restrictions since the 1990s to President Joe Biden's desk.
The bill passed by a 234-193 margin, with 14 House Republicans voting in favor. It comes after 15 Senate Republicans broke ranks and voted for the bill late Thursday night.
The bipartisan measure, negotiated by Democratic and Republican senators with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's blessing, includes multimillion dollar investments in mental health services and school security, as well as a new federal ban on gun trafficking.
The gun safety bill would also offer new funding to support states and tribes that seek to enact "red flag" laws — which allow authorities to confiscate guns from individuals deemed a threat to themselves or others — closing the so-called "boyfriend loophole," and subjecting gun purchasers under the age of 21 to new background check requirements.
The National Rifle Association announced their opposition to the bill within an hour of the text's release, and House Republicans cited the group's opposition as it urged their members to vote against the bill when it comes to the House. Republicans argue that the red flag provisions in particular could be abused, and not do enough to ensure due process protections.
Many of the Republicans that voted for the bill, including Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Fred Upton of Michigan, are retiring and don't have to face primary voters again.
But the congressman who represents Uvalde, Texas — where a gunman shot and killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School — also voted for the bill, explaining that he's a survivor of domestic violence.
—Tony Gonzales (@TonyGonzales4TX) June 22, 2022
Here are the 14 House Republicans who voted for the bill:
Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan
Rep. Steve Chabot of Ohio
Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio
Rep. David Joyce of Ohio
Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida
Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina
Here's what's in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
More: Congress Bipartisan Safer Communities Act Gun Control gun violence
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2022-06-24T17:45:38Z
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Here Are the 14 House Republicans Who Voted for New Gun Restrictions
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https://www.businessinsider.com/14-house-republicans-bipartisan-senate-gun-bill-restrictions-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/14-house-republicans-bipartisan-senate-gun-bill-restrictions-2022-6
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The 4 best sewing machines we tested for every skill level, from beginner to pro
I used my experience as a theatrical costume maker with 30 years of experience to test four sewing machines and determine the best one.
Here are the best sewing machines in 2022
Best sewing machine overall
Best mechanical sewing machine
Best high-end sewing machine
Best budget-friendly sewing machine
How to shop for a sewing machine
Why sewing machines are so expensive
If you want to make clothes that fit you perfectly, repair clothes or upholstery, or sew anything you want, you'll need a good sewing machine.
I've been sewing for 30 years and one of the reasons I love it is because of my sewing machine. As a theatrical costume maker, I've made everything from heavy corsets and hoop skirts to whisper-thin chiffon dresses and elegantly tailored suits.
I tried a lot of machines before I landed on a second-hand mechanical model that I bought 20 years ago and still use today. If you're just starting out, it's important to find an easy-to-use machine that does the kind of sewing you want, whether it's quilting or simple repairs. No matter how much you might like to sew, struggling with an unresponsive or frustrating machine can turn it into a terrible chore.
That's why I used my own experience, consulted three experts, and tested four machines to evaluate the performance and ease of use for each one. You can check out my full testing methodology below, along with tips on how to shop for a machine.
Best sewing machine overall: Brother CS7000X, available at Amazon, $199.99
Best mechanical sewing machine: Singer Heavy Duty 4452, available at Amazon, $219.99
Best high-end sewing machine: Bernina 535, available at Bernina, $3,799
Best budget-friendly sewing machine: Brother CS5055, available at Amazon, $159.99
Elizabeth Licata/Business Insider
The Brother CS7000X is a beginner-friendly computerized machine that makes it easy to sew at the touch of a button.
If you wanted to start a project right away, you could do it without looking at anything besides the Brother CS7000X's Quick Start Guide. This is a great, easy-to-use, beginner-friendly machine with a lot of features that advanced and tech-adverse sewers will appreciate too.
For most sewing projects, you'll just need a straight stitch, zig-zag stitch, and a buttonhole. This machine did an excellent job with all three of them — and quietly too. It also handled fabrics like lightweight cotton muslin, cotton jersey, and layers of heavy upholstery fabric very well.
It also has a lot of extra features that make sewing easier for beginners and advanced sewers like the needle up/down button, which allows you to move the needle in a single step. The machine can also be programmed to your preference, so you can set the needle to default to the left or center while sewing, or have the needle stop in the up or down position, which is a great feature to sew sharp corners more easily.
Beginners will especially appreciate that the machine gives a small beep if they're about to commit a user error, like forgetting to push the buttonhole lever down before trying to sew a buttonhole. I also liked the speed control, which tells the machine how fast or slow you want it to go, so you can use slower speeds for more careful work or faster speeds for zipping along straight lines.
The brand lists the machine at around 18 pounds, which makes it easy to carry around. It comes with a hard plastic case, which is good for protection. The flatbed attachment on the front of the machine doesn't have a hinged compartment for storage though — any accessories in the storage compartment have to be kept in a plastic bag. It's not convenient, but not a dealbreaker either.
This machine is great for its price, which I had to stop to double-check. Most good machines start around $200, but with all these features, I expected to pay a lot more. It's a great general-purpose machine for garments, crafts, and quilts, and it comes with a lot of stitch options and useful accessories too.
Pros: Quiet, reasonably priced, 70 utility and decorative stitches, seven buttonholes, has a wide variety of useful features such as needle up/down and automatic backstitch
Cons: Computerized controls can be intimidating, inconvenient storage compartment
$219.99 from Singer
The Singer Heavy Duty 4452 is a powerful, low-maintenance mechanical sewing machine that will power through any fabric.
This machine is so easy to use that a time-traveler from 1963 could probably thread and start sewing without ever having to look at a manual. In fact, a manual wasn't even included in the box, just a Quick Start Guide for how to fill a bobbin and thread the machine. Everything on the machine is controlled via knobs, levers, and dials, so you can pick things up quickly.
The Singer Heavy Duty is loud, powerful, and fast. In testing, it handled lightweight cotton muslin, stretch jersey, and several layers of heavy upholstery fabric very well. All the fabric went through the machine evenly, and the stitches were even and straight, though the backstitch didn't look very neat. At first, the zig-zag stitch on the stretch jersey also looked too tight on the bobbin-thread side, but after I adjusted the top thread tension a bit, I was able to make it look even on both sides.
This machine can sew lightweight fabrics like silk chiffon and charmeuse, but it's more difficult because the powerful feed yanked the delicate fabric too quickly, causing the fabric to shift and the seam to pucker. To make the seam look nice, I had to test several different thread tensions and baste, or roughly hand sew, the seam to keep the layers from moving. If you plan to use this machine for light fabrics, you'll want to remember to use a sharp, fine needle for delicate fabrics.
There's also no speed control other than changing how much pressure you put on the foot pedal. If you push too hard, the fabric might fly through so quickly that you can't control it. This machine has a maximum speed of 1,100 stitches per minute, so it's very fast when you want it to be but it takes some time to figure out speed control.
The flatbed attachment at the front of the machine has a convenient hinged compartment for storing accessories. It comes with five presser feet, including a walking foot, which is good for dealing with very thick fabric. It also comes with a light cloth cover to protect it from dust.
While this is a simple and straightforward machine, it won't hold your hand the way a lot of computerized machines do. This machine expects you to do all the work, and when something goes wrong, it expects you to troubleshoot it, making it a good option for an experienced sewer who just wants something inexpensive, powerful, and portable without having to learn a whole new sewing machine.
Pros: Fast, powerful, simple to use, easy to care for
Cons: Only has 32 stitches, doesn't have many decorative stitches, doesn't have an attractive buttonhole, loud
$3,799.00 from Bernina
The Bernina 535 is an expensive computerized machine for people who know how to sew and want to take advantage of its huge array of special stitches.
Using this machine is the next best thing to having elves come into my house at night and sew all my projects while I'm asleep. It's solidly built and feels sturdy and well-made.
The stitches were perfect and precise on every fabric I tested without having to make any adjustments. The fabric glided through evenly with no pulling or puckering — even the chiffon that was so difficult with the other machines. The stretch zig-zag stitch was so even and balanced that it looked like it came from a store, and made me feel like a better sewer.
A machine that costs nearly $4,000 will definitely have more of everything. Where an entry-level machine might come with a simple operating manual, the Bernina 535 has a 180-page spiral-bound user manual and a digital version too. It explains all the features of the machine clearly and offers tips and project ideas. There are also classes online or at various Bernina Creative Centers around the US.
This machine is available online, but if you pick it up from a dealer, you can get personal instruction about how to set it up and take advantage of its features. Be warned though — it weighs around 35 pounds, so bring a hand truck.
With so many features, it can be overwhelming, so it's not a machine for beginners. With a bit of practice and instruction though, it becomes clearer how to select different functions and operate special features. It has a brightly lit, 3- by 2-inch touch-screen control panel which you can operate with your finger or the included stylus.
Overall, this machine helps users avoid a lot of the petty annoyances of sewing. A lot of typical sewing problems are caused by incorrectly putting in a bobbin, but it's physically impossible here because there's only one way to fit it into the case. The machine even alerts you when the bobbin is running low, so you won't have to worry about sewing long channels, only to discover you've been sewing with air the whole time. It also has an automatic thread cutter, which can neatly finish your stitch and snip threads whenever you stop sewing.
The Bernina 535 comes with five presser feet, a dust cover, a box for accessories, a slide-on table to increase the sewing surface, and a free-hand system so you can raise and lower the presser foot with your knee without having to let go of the fabric.
Pros: Handles lightweight and heavyweight fabric well, easy to control, makes beautiful stitches, has embroidery capability, includes slide-on sewing table
Cons: Requires a lot of practice to learn how to use for beginners
Brother CS5055, available at Amazon, $159.99
If you're looking for a powerful sewing machine without a ton of accessories, the Brother CS5055 is an easy-to-use machine for clothes, crafts, masks, and more. It's as powerful as our top pick, the Brother CS7000X, but has 10 fewer stitches and three fewer presser feet, though none of the missing ones are truly useful for most projects.
Due to the minimal price difference, we think the CS7000X is a better value and will serve most people's needs perfectly. But if the CS5055 is on sale or the CS7000X is out of stock, this is a great machine that we're happy to recommend.
Pros: Affordable, easy to use, and works for basic sewing needs
Cons: Fewer stitch options and presser feet
I tested each machine by making the same stitches on different fabrics and trying out all of the machine's functions.
With three decades of sewing experience, I know what stitches most people will or won't need. I also consulted quilt artist and educator Valerie C. White; couture designer, educator, and Threads contributing editor Kenneth D. King; CEO and designer of Style Sew Me Patterns Eryn Shields, and my own professional colleagues.
Basic stitches on different fabrics: When I spoke with Shields and King, they confirmed that you need three basic things from a sewing machine: a straight stitch, a zig-zag stitch, and a good buttonhole.
I tested how each machine performed those three tasks on four common fabrics I would use to make or repair clothes, quilts, or upholstery: plain-weave cotton muslin that has a similar weight to a basic quilting cotton, four-way stretch knit jersey that's 90% cotton and 10% Spandex, lightweight 100% silk chiffon, and heavy-weight upholstery fabric.
Every sample was also pressed and pinned before sewing for consistency. I sewed through two layers of cotton muslin, jersey, and silk chiffon to mimic a simple seam made of two pieces of fabric sewn together, and four layers of upholstery fabric to make sure the machine could handle a very thick, heavy project.
I tested each machine with Gutermann Sew-All Thread, an all-purpose polyester thread, as both the top thread and the bobbin thread. Due to the different fabric weights, I used the universal needle that came pre-installed on each machine to sew through the cotton muslin and upholstery fabric, a ball-point needle for jersey fabric, and a 70/10 needle for silk chiffon.
Decorative stitches: With the three computerized machines, I also tested a sampling of the decorative stitches on cotton muslin to see if the machine could stitch something like a cute row of stars or flowers.
Buttonholes: All four machines came with a buttonhole foot, so I used them to create a basic rectangular buttonhole. Because the cotton jersey has some stretch to it, I also tested a stretch buttonhole using the three computerized machines — it's not an option with the manual Singer Heavy Duty machine.
Ease of use: During my testing, I also evaluated the machines based on ease of use, taking into whether it was a computerized or mechanical unit.
Extra features: I tested each machine's extra features such as needle up/down buttons, noises or lights that notify you of a user error, knee lift, and more to see if they were helpful or novelties.
It's important to have a walking foot for many projects, especially for quilting.
Here are some tips for sewing machine shopping from our experts:
Shop in person if you can
Our experts suggest going to a dealer for hands-on guidance and support, as well as for future classes, repairs and maintenance, and potential trade-ins — here's how to find a dealer for Brother and Bernina. Singer sewing machines are more readily available at craft stores and big-box retailers around the US, and you can register your machine for warranty and repairs.
A good dealer will help you develop your sewing skills, learn to use all the features of your machine, and help troubleshoot if things go wrong. But we realize that some people don't live near reputable dealers. That's why all of our picks can be purchased online, meet criteria based on the experts I spoke with, and performed well in our tests.
Know your brands
King said he likes Bernina machines, but also said Brother and Janome are both reputable brands with good machines."What I like about Bernina machines is that the quality is consistent throughout the line," he said. "You can get a lower-end Bernina machine with fewer features for less money, but you're still going to get a quality machine."
Brands like Husqvarna Viking, Pfaff, Juki, and Babylock are also well-regarded and known for making very good machines.
Decide what kind of sewing you want to do, but give yourself room to grow
According to Shields, for garment sewers, a straight stitch, zig-zag stitch for stretch fabrics, and a buttonhole are going to take care of all your basic needs.
For quilting, one of the most useful attachments is a walking foot. This moves the presser foot so both the presser foot and the feed dogs move the fabric, which keeps the layers from shifting while you sew. White says one of her favorite features for quilting is a knee lift, which raises and lowers the presser foot, so you don't need to use your hand.
White also likes a machine that warns you when the bobbin is about to run out — this is especially helpful for beginners.
Of the machines we tested, the Brother CS7000X and the Singer Heavy Duty both come with walking feet, and the Brother CS7000X and the Bernina 535 both alert you when the bobbin is low, but only the Bernina 535 has a knee lift.
White also suggests a machine that you can grow into. "You're going to learn to do other things, and you should have a machine that will push you to explore some creative avenues," White said.
Test the machine on different kinds of fabric
Shields says garment sewers should think about what kinds of fabrics they want to sew and bring samples with them to the store, if possible, so they can test the machine on different fabrics.
"Some people like to sew kids' clothes, so they'll be sewing with a lot of lightweight cottons and you can pretty much use any machine for that," Shields said. "If they plan to sew a lot of outerwear or work in heavy fabrics like wool and denim, they'll want to make sure that they have a workhorse machine that can handle those types of fabric."
Of the machines we looked at, the Singer Heavy Duty is a great option for anybody looking to sew heavy outerwear fabric.
Look for good customer service
White emphasizes the need for good customer service, which all of the brands we recommend have. "If I call with a question, they're more than happy to answer it," White said of her Bernina dealer.
A dealer can be more helpful than videos or online tutorials and can answer questions about what to expect in terms of service, repairs, and more.
Read reviews from people who have tried the machine
If you can't shop in person, Shields says to make sure you read a lot of reviews to learn about the experiences of people who have actually been sewing with the machine.
A mechanical machine has knobs and dials, which are easier to fix than computerized machines. They can last for decades with regular maintenance.
Sewing machines are available at a range of price points, but many of the good ones can start somewhere around $200 when they're not on sale.
While the price is a factor in any purchase, King advised against going for the very cheapest machine you can find, if you can help it. "There are a lot of machines that are very inexpensive, but they aren't very good," he explained. That's especially a problem for beginners, he said, because struggling with a difficult machine can be demoralizing and could put a beginner off sewing forever.
Most people will never need a $10,000 sewing machine, but spending $200 or $300 on a sewing machine can be a worthwhile investment, even for a beginner.
Here are some things that make sewing machines more expensive:
Durability: There are a lot of moving parts inside a sewing machine, and many of them are expected to move very quickly for long periods of time, often in the presence of large amounts of dust, threads, and fluff. Machines with metal parts cost a bit more but are much more durable than machines made with cheaper plastic parts. A good mechanical machine should last for decades with a bit of regular maintenance.
Reliability: The most annoying thing about sewing is the tiny day-to-day malfunctions that can happen to anybody. Any machine can jam, skip stitches, or have tension problems, but based on my experience, it tends to happen less often with higher-end machines.
Stability: The quality of the internal parts and engineering also affects the way it feels to sew with a machine. A small, inexpensive machine might be very portable, but it can be uncomfortable to sew if shakes or rattles while you sew with it.
Additional features: Higher-end machines have extra features that aren't essential, but are nice to have. They can cut the thread, add an automatic backstitch, adjust the presser foot pressure, and remember your preferences so the machine is always set up the way you like it.
Stitches: Computerized machines can come with tons of stitches, including alphabets and numbers. Some machines even have embroidery capabilities. Most people won't need all those stitches, but they can be fun to play with, especially for adding a bit of flourish to napkins, doll clothes, and masks.
Service: If you're spending a couple hundred dollars or more on a machine, there should be some guarantee that it will continue to work. If you buy the machine directly from the manufacturer, it should have a warranty of at least two years for a computerized machine or 20 years for a mechanical machine (Brother has a generous 25-year warranty).
Specialized technology: The most expensive sewing machines are designed for specific uses, like quilting or embroidery. A top-tier professional embroidery machine can embroider custom designs using 16 spools of embroidery thread. Special long-arm machines that can make enormous quilts are prized by quilters, but many of them cost well over $10,000.
Elizabeth Licata
Elizabeth Licata has been a freelance writer for 16 years, and a theatrical costumer for six years. Her work has been published in Threads, Apartment Therapy, The Kitchn, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Yahoo, and more, and she has spoken on multiple panels about sewing and costume technology. Learn more about how our team of experts tests and reviews products at Insider here.
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Education and Personal Development
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2022-06-24T17:45:44Z
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The 4 Best Sewing Machines in 2022
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https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/learning/best-sewing-machine
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How to change your Minecraft username in every version of the game
Every Minecraft player has a username that shows up above their head.
There are a few different ways to change your Minecraft username, based on what version of the game you have.
Most Minecraft Bedrock players can change their username through the Xbox website.
If you play Minecraft Java, you'll need to change your name through the Minecraft website.
If you're playing Minecraft online, your username is usually the first thing that people see when they look at you. So if you don't like your username — maybe it's silly, outdated, or just has a typo — you'll want to change it right away.
It shouldn't take long to change your Minecraft username, but the exact method you use depends on what version of the game you play. Here's what you need to know.
How to change your Minecraft username
There are two major versions of Minecraft: Java and Bedrock. They have a whole host of differences, and one of those differences is the steps you need to follow to change your username.
If you're not sure which version you have, think about what system you're using.
If you're playing on a Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, iPhone, iPad, or Android device, you're playing Bedrock.
If you're playing on a Mac or Linux computer, you're playing Java.
If you're playing on a PC, it could be either. Open Minecraft and see if it says Java Edition below the title — if it does, you're playing Java. If it doesn't, you're playing Bedrock.
How to change your Minecraft username in Bedrock Edition
In Bedrock Edition, your username is connected to your Microsoft account's "Gamertag." So to change it, you'll need to change the Gamertag.
1. Head to the Xbox website and sign into your account by clicking Sign In in the top-right, if you haven't already.
2. Once you're logged in, open up your Xbox Profile and click Customize under your name.
3. Click the pencil icon next to your current username.
Click the pencil to change your username.
Microsoft; William Antonelli/Insider
4. Type in the new name that you want to change to, then click Check availability. If no one else has that name, it's now yours.
Quick tip: The first time you change your Gamertag here, it'll be free. But afterwards, you'll need to pay $9.99 per change.
What to do if you're playing Bedrock, but don't have a Microsoft account
Some versions of Minecraft Bedrock — specifically, the versions for Switch, PlayStation, iPhone, iPad, and Android — don't require you to have a Microsoft account to play. Not having a Microsoft account locks you out of multiplayer, but if you still want to change your username, you have options.
On an iPhone, iPad, or Android, the default name without a Microsoft account is "Steve." You can change it by tapping Settings and then Profile.
Mobile users get "Steve" as their default username.
On a PlayStation, your name will match your PlayStation Network name. There are three ways to change that, which you can find more details on here.
And on the Nintendo Switch, your name will be whatever your console's profile name is. You can change your Switch name through the user profile screen.
If you're logged into your Microsoft account, you might see both names.
How to change your Minecraft username in Java Edition
Java Edition is the original version of Minecraft, and works a bit differently than its newer counterpart.
1. Open the official Minecraft website and log into your Microsoft account.
2. Once you're logged in, head to the My Games screen. Underneath Minecraft: Java Edition, click Profile Name.
You have to go through a separate menu to change your Java username.
3. Enter your new username, and then click Change Profile Name.
Unlike in Bedrock, changing your username is free in Java. But you can only do it once every 30 days.
The next time you log into Minecraft, you should see your new username.
TECH How to play multiplayer in Minecraft, using either a public server or one you create yourself
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TECH How to turn on cheats in your Minecraft world to give yourself items, teleport, and more
More: Tech How To Minecraft Username Minecraft Bedrock
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2022-06-24T17:45:50Z
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How to Change Your Minecraft Username
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-change-minecraft-username
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Biden says Americans 'can have the final word' after the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade: 'This is not over'
Joe Biden harshly condemned the Supreme Court for overturning Roe v. Wade.
Biden was also blunt in saying that only Congress has the power to restore a federal right to an abortion.
"The health and life of women in this nation are now at risk," the president said.
President Joe Biden called Friday a "sad day" for the nation as he vowed that his administration would do everything it can to protect women in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and ending the federal right to an abortion.
"With this decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court shows how extreme it is, how far removed they are from the majority of the country," Biden said during a hastily arranged national address after the decision was announced. "But this decision must not be the final word."
The president offered a grim assessment of a post-Roe world, saying "the health and life of women in this nation are now at risk."
Biden reiterated his call on Congress to act, though Democrats have failed to get legislation codifying a federal right to an abortion passed into law. The party holds slim majorities in both houses and would almost certainly fail to get around a Senate filibuster that effectively requires 10 Republican senators to support any such bill.
"Let me be very clear and unambiguous: The only way we can secure a women's right to choose, the balance that existed, is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe v Wade as federal law," he said. "No executive action from the president can do that."
In a sign of just how limited his power is to respond, Biden also repeated his party's call for potentially angry Americans to take their grievances with them to polls this November.
"With your vote, you can act," Biden said. "You can have the final word. This is not over."
Biden also lit into Clarence Thomas by name, calling out the high court's longest-serving justice for writing in his concurring opinion that the Supreme Court should revisit its earlier decisions that protected rights to same-sex marriage and contraception.
"Justice Thomas said as much today, he explicitly called to reconsider the right of marriage quality, the right of couples to make their choices on contraception," Biden said. "This is an extreme and dangerous path the court is now taking us on."
In the face of fomenting outrage, Biden also pleaded with Americans to keep their protests peaceful. His words come as federal prosecutors continue to pursue charges against a man who plotted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
"Peaceful, peaceful, peaceful," Biden said. "No intimidation. Violence is never acceptable. Threats and intimidation are not speech. We must stand against violence in any form, regardless of your rationale."
This is a breaking news story. Stay tuned for more updates.
More: Joe Biden Supreme Court Roe v Wade Dobbs v. Jackson
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2022-06-24T17:45:56Z
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Roe V. Wade Overturn: President Biden Vows 'This Is Not Over'
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https://www.businessinsider.com/roe-v-wade-overturn-president-biden-vows-this-is-not-over-2022-6
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How 3 hedge funds are up more than 100% even as markets slump and other managers struggle
Hedge fund manager Crispin Odey.
Aaron Chown PA Images/Getty Images
Haidar Capital Management gained roughly 158% year to date at the end of May in its Jupiter Fund.
e360's Power Fund, a commodity-based hedge fund in Austin, Texas, saw a 139% increase year to date.
Odey's OEI European Fund saw a 109.7% increase year to date, while its OEI MAC Fund jumped 110.2%.
Some hedge funds are having a tough first half of the year, but others are winning in a tumultuous market environment.
New York-based global macro hedge fund Haidar Capital Management, e360's Power Fund, a commodity-based hedge fund in Austin, Texas, and investor Crispin Odey's eponymous hedge fund have topped the charts for their performance over the five months ending in May, according to a report by Societe Generale's prime services business.
The average hedge fund lost 3% for the five months ending in May, according to Hedge Fund Research. Tech-stock-heavy hedge funds in particular have experienced devastating blows over the last few months. Chase Coleman's $80 billion Tiger Global was beaten down by more than 50%, and Philippe Laffont's $59 billion Coatue Management lost 17%, amid the massive tech sell-off.
The market dropped significantly over the past few weeks, the worst it's been since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. US stocks bounced back this week, with the S&P 500 trading 2.2% higher Friday morning, after dropping 5.8% last week.
Haidar Capital Management
Haidar Capital Management's Jupiter fund gained roughly 158% year to date at the end of May, despite a drop of roughly 8.3% for the month.
The global macro hedge fund was founded in 1997 by Said Haidar and has since seen strong performance: his fund grew by 25.7% in February alone. In 2021 the fund was up nearly 70% in Haidar's best year since 1999, according to Bloomberg. Haidar did not respond to a request for comment.
e360 Power
e360's Power Fund, a commodity-based hedge fund in Austin, Texas, has returned 139% year to date.
The firm, which was founded by former power traders Juan Penelas and James Shrewsberry in 2009, was up 10.5% for the month of May. The firm had $480 million in assets at the beginning of June, said Samit Patel, director of operations at e360 Power.
e360 Power trades futures and options on futures, so the markets that they trade are actually the wholesale electricity price of different regions across the country. The fund's performance can be attributed to the closures of coal-fired power plants and the fact that renewable wind and solar are not dominating the energy space just yet.
"The wholesale electricity space has outpaced gas due to retirement of coal-fired power plants and also coupled with the fact that the replacement electricity through ESG initiatives like renewable wind and solar have been delayed," Patel told Insider in a phone interview. "So at a high level, we've witnessed increased inelasticity in the relationship between power and natural gas as a result because of this transition towards renewables that just hasn't met its appropriate schedule."
Over the past 12 months ending in May, commodity strategies appear to be the bigger winners in terms of returns, according to the Societe Generale report. Commodity funds gained 1.2% at the end of May, according to Hedge Fund Research.
Odey Asset Management
Odey Asset Management's OEI European Fund, an opportunistic equity hedge fund, returned 109.7% year to date, while its OEI MAC Fund jumped 110.2%, confirmed James Kostoris, a partner at Odey.
The European and OEI MAC funds were up 14.3% and 16.5% during the month of May, respectively, according to the Societe Generale report. Odey had $4.5 billion in assets at the end of May, Kostoris told Insider.
Other top-performing hedge funds
The following funds returned over 50% for the year to date ending in May, according to Societe Generale's report:
Fund Performance year to date (up to May 31)
Mulvaney Capital Management's Global Diversified 83.7%
Quantitative Investment Management's Global fund 80.2%
RCMA Asset Management's Merchant Commodity 74.9%
Pilgrim Partners' Asia Ascent Global Futures 72.7%
Progressive Capital Partners' Tulip Trend 61.8%
36 South Capital Advisors' Cullinan fund 58.4%
More: Hedge Funds Global Macro commodites
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3 Hedge Fund Managers Returning Over 100% so Far in 2022
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Why Hollywood talent agency UTA bought a $125 million media consultancy 'to build a really wide and strong bridge' between stars and brands
Michael Kassan.
MediaLink
Hollywood agency UTA bought media consultancy MediaLink for $125 million in December
The companies' presence at Cannes Lions signaled how entertainment's ties to brand marketing are deepening.
Zimmer said social media has helped celebrities connect with fans and become more open to brand relationships.
Six months after UTA's $125 million acquisition of MediaLink, the combined company had a debut moment of sorts at the Cannes Lions marketing festival this week.
At a large beachside cabana space along the Croisette, signs for "MediaLink, a UTA company" were hard to miss. Inside, reps for both businesses held meetings with a bevy of entertainment, media, technology, and consumer goods brands. And throughout the week bold names like Paris Hilton and Malala Yousafzai passed through the space for panels and conversations.
Though MediaLink has long had a presence at the festival, its return to Cannes arm in arm with one of the top Hollywood talent agencies signaled just how much the boundaries are breaking down between the worlds of entertainment and brand marketing.
"This was originally a festival just for [advertising] creatives," MediaLink CEO Michael Kassan told Insider in an interview alongside UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer. Now, with companies like NBCUniversal, Spotify, Roku, and Warner Bros. Discovery attending the festival, "it's taken on a different tenor. They're here because this is where the action is," he said, noting that many companies book real advertising business while sipping rosé.
Hollywood's presence was felt even more greatly this year with the arrival of Netflix to the festival for the first time (in person at least) with co-CEO Ted Sarandos honored as Entertainment Person of the Year. The streaming giant's decision to introduce advertising to its platform was a hot topic of conversation along the Croisette. Advertising, it seems, is sexy again in Hollywood, with most major streamers offering ad-supported tiers.
That's the very reason UTA, which has a marketing department that predated the MediaLink deal, decided to buy the marketing and media consultant in the first place. "Brands have always been a very important part of the overall entertainment and media businesses," Zimmer explained. "I wanted to be able to build a really wide and strong bridge between our company and our clients and brands."
No one is showcasing the potential of a talent-brand tie-up better than than "Deadpool" star Ryan Reynolds, who attended Cannes Lions to talk about the work that his company Maximum Effort is doing making advertisements for brands like Peloton and Aviation Gin, in which he also has an ownership stake. UTA client Paris Hilton, meanwhile, has multiple product lines, including an NFT collection and a sunglasses collection.
Zimmer noted that social media was instrumental in breaking down the barriers for celebrities, allowing them to connect with fans in a direct and powerful new way. It's also made appearing in advertisements more acceptable than it once was. "I think they started to understand and see that there's different ways they can extend their brand," he said of stars who might once have avoided explicit product relationships.
Since joining UTA, MediaLink has absorbed the talent agency's marketing team, and they're finding other synergies. At Cannes Lions, for example, that meant pairing UTA client Issa Rae with MediaLink client IBM for a panel about confronting bias. MediaLink was also key in tapping Sarandos for this year's honor, which included an interview with journalist Kara Swisher on the main stage of the Palais.
Ascential, the operator of Cannes Lions, was the previous owner of MediaLink, and the two still collaborate closely on the event. Kassan said the split was amicable and the result of a conversation he had with Ascential CEO Duncan Painter about his desire to find a new owner after he realized that Ascential was prioritizing digital commerce over the marketing services work in which MediaLink specializes.
"Ascential and MediaLink didn't get divorced, we got consciously uncoupled," Kassan said, adding with a laugh, "The only thing Duncan Painter and I can't figure out is who is Gwyneth Paltrow and who is Chris Martin."
Finding a new home at UTA was a full-circle moment for Kassan, who had talked with the agency about launching his business there in the early 2000s: "It's where I thought MediaLink should have begun its journey, aligned with talent, the bridge between the two communities."
NOW WATCH: General Mills chief brand officer says marketers should not focus on creating advertising, but creating markets
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2022-06-24T17:46:14Z
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Cannes Lions: Why Hollywood Agency UTA Bought MediaLink Consultancy
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Amazon tells employees to 'be respectful of everyone's perspectives' after some celebrate Roe defeat on internal Slack channels
Hundreds of tech workers gather outside the Amazon Spheres during a Climate Strike walkout and march in Seattle, Washington, U.S. September 20, 2019.
Amazon employees largely expressed sadness and anger about the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, but some celebrated.
In an internal message, Amazon HR chief Beth Galetti asked employees to "be respectful of everyone's perspectives."
The company previously said that it would reimburse employees who must travel to seek an abortion.
Amazon employees largely expressed sadness and anger Friday over news that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade, according to screenshots of internal messages shared with Insider.
The court's decision undoes nearly 50 years of abortion protection in the United States, immediately making abortion illegal in 13 states. Twenty-three states are expected to rapidly enact further restrictions on abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion-rights organization that tracks reproductive- healthcare data .
Inside Amazon, employees shared links to protests and resources for women needing abortions on the company's Slack . "This has implications for contraception, LGBTQ+ too," one employee warned, presumably a reference to Justice Clarence Thomas' concurring opinion, in which he advocated the court reconsider its prior decisions on contraception and same-sex marriage.
In interviews with Insider, employees also expressed frustration at what they largely saw as silence from executives. Fights broke out in Slack channels as some employees celebrated Roe's defeat, according to the screenshots. Amazon's HR chief posted a message Friday afternoon urging staff to "be respectful of everyone's perspectives."
Several employees noted that Amazon's hands are not clean. Since 2016, the company has donated $974,718 to anti-abortion political committees like the Republican Attorneys General and the Republican State Leadership Committee, according to the newsletter Popular Information. An Amazon spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about the company's donations.
Some workers urged Amazon to take a firmer public decision on abortion rights. About 40 employees gathered in a Chime video chat Friday to vent their frustrations with the court's decision. Executives did not attend, according to an employee who was there. "They NEVER are in things like that," the employee said in a message.
Hours before the court's draft decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, the case that overturned Roe, leaked last month, Amazon said it would reimburse travel costs for employees who needed to travel to receive abortions.
Some Amazon employees celebrated the court's decision to restrict abortion rights. "Wow this is so amazing!" one employee wrote on Slack. "I understand (and am still learning all the facts) there are many implications to this but my first sigh of relief goes out to all those babies that will be saved." (Several dozen responded to this message with a "thumbs down" emoji and other negative reactions.) In Amazon's #christians Slack channel, another employee wrote, "Praise God for overturning ROE V WADE!!!!" At least one employee lodged an HR complaint about that message, according to an internal message seen by Insider.
In a memo obtained by Insider, Amazon human relations chief Beth Galetti wrote Friday afternoon that she knows "that many Amazonians are experiencing strong emotions following the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. As a company with 1.6 million employees, there are a lot of different viewpoints on this topic across our team, and we work to be respectful of everyone's perspectives while also taking care of and supporting our employees' personal medical needs."
Galetti also reminded employees that Amazon's health insurance plan covers abortions and travel reimbursements, and shared a link to mental health resources.
More: Amazon Abortion Roe v Wade
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2022-06-24T23:49:43Z
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Amazon Asks Workers to 'Be Respectful' After Some Celebrate Roe Defeat
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Get ready for a summer travel nightmare — flights are already a mess and are only going to get worse
Staffing shortages, bad weather, and more people flying have added up to a terrible summer for air travel.
Gad Allon
It's a terrible time to fly right now. In the past few years air travel changed for the worse — and this year has been particularly bad. Just last weekend US airlines canceled or delayed tens of thousands of flights, and on June 16 the average delay time soared past one hour. Of the past seven years, 2022 has had the highest percentage of delayed flights (19%) and the highest percentage of canceled flights (4%) — excluding 2020. Dozens of factors are adding up to a hectic summer for travel. If you're flying, get ready for a travel nightmare.
Delays upon delays
Recent flight disruptions have been mainly caused by staff shortages, specifically a pilot shortage. Numerous airlines have had to cancel flights because of the lack of pilots, and the problem isn't going away soon. Experts predict that by next year airlines will be short 12,000 pilots. The pilots who remain on the job are also worn out. Southwest Airlines has experienced a 300% increase in the number of pilots reporting fatigue — when that happens, they are automatically removed from the flight, often resulting in delays and cancellations.
It's not just the workers on the planes. Airlines are also struggling to hire enough maintenance workers, which could cause further delays for routine aircraft maintenance. Airports are dealing with staffing shortages too. London's Gatwick Airport announced in mid-June that it would cut hundreds of flights during the peak summer travel season because of staffing shortages. Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport is also limiting its passenger capacity.
Airlines have tried several things to mitigate the pilot shortage. For example, Delta ended its requirement that pilot candidates have a four-year college degree. Republic Airways asked the Federal Aviation Administration for permission to hire pilots when they reach 750 flight hours, instead of the required 1,500 hours, shortening their training period. Unfortunately, these solutions won't solve the problem in time to reduce summer travel headaches.
Exacerbating the labor problem is airlines' pandemic-era decision to cut the number of routes they flew. The average number of daily flights is still below what it was in 2019, meaning there are fewer options for travelers — even as travel demand returns to prepandemic levels. Smaller cities have been affected disproportionately by both the route cuts and the pilot shortage. Given the staffing needs, pilots have more discretion in deciding which routes they fly, and as one pilot told me recently, they hate "puddle jumpers" — flights between smaller airports — meaning these flights are more likely to get canceled.
Tackling these staffing problems and adding back routes that were cut will take time — leaving many summer travelers in a tough spot.
Summer woes
In general, summer is the worst time to travel. The reason is obvious: Everyone else is traveling too. But more importantly, the load factor peaks during the summer, meaning the percentage of seats sold on each plane increases. As planes are fuller, a delay or cancellation of a single flight affects all other flights, since there is less slack capacity in the system to absorb the disruption. For instance, say that in the spring an airline sells about 85% of its seats on every flight. If a flight on a 100-person plane is canceled, 85 people would need to be sprinkled across six other flights to absorb the canceled passengers. But in the summer, when the number of seats sold rises to, say, 95%, a canceled flight on a 100-person plane would need 19 similarly filled flights to absorb those customers.
The trouble doesn't just come once people are on the plane. In the summer, security lines are longer, so more people will arrive late to their departure gate. Knowing that other flights are full, the airlines are more likely to wait for these passengers — not waiting would require airlines to unload their checked luggage, which takes an equally long time. More passengers also means longer boarding times and more carry-on luggage that needs to be gate-checked, causing even more delays. The capacity of most airports is fixed, so as more flights are added, the utilization of gates and runways increases. Sometimes shorter delays can be made up in the air, but when all flights are connected through an intricate network of hubs and spokes, too many delays can become a domino effect.
Experts are expecting continued shortages of airport employees this summer and more strikes by employees who are tired of long hours, low wages, and angry, sometimes unruly passengers. At the end of May, the Dutch airline KLM stopped selling tickets for four days following chaos at its hub at Schiphol Airport, where employees had gone on strike to protest low wages; it was not a pretty picture for travelers using the airport.
In addition to staffing shortages, the climate crisis has caused an increased likelihood of extreme weather events, making flight disruptions this summer even more likely.
When Delta announced last month that it would cut about 100 flights a day between July 1 and August 7, the airline said in an email to employees that these preemptive cancellations would be used to "build additional resilience in our system and improve operational reliability for our customers and employees" and "relieve pressure by proactively thinning the schedule." But at this point, planning for summer disruptions isn't enough, and Delta is likely making itself even more prone to massive disruption.
It's easy to see why Delta and other airlines like JetBlue are moving forward with preemptive cancellations. There's a lot of guesswork in air travel; it's hard to make decisions in May about what to do in July. Airlines don't know what the weather will be like, or whether the strikes in Amsterdam will have turned into a wave. But canceling flights in advance means the airlines are expecting disruption, and it gives passengers the chance to rebook and hopefully avoid last-minute chaos.
If the weather is indeed bad this summer, Delta is ahead of other airlines. Last-minute cancellations are the worst when the system is near capacity because finding a seat for stranded passengers is a nearly impossible task — especially when hundreds of flights are affected all at once. Many customers say the worst part of travel chaos is the long wait time to speak with a customer-service representative; as with pilots, airlines have reported having trouble staffing these roles. During the Christmas holiday, Southwest Airlines asked its corporate employees to work at airports to ease these needs.
But if the weather is not bad, if airport strikes are less common, and if the number of employees calling out is back to prepandemic levels, then the airlines that canceled flights in advance will lose customers to competing airlines or their flights will have a much higher load factor, meaning there is less wiggle room for disruption and more potential for delays. Thus, by canceling flights now, Delta may actually be creating less resilience, not more.
Airlines win and lose customers during times of crisis. In that sense, Delta may be hinting that it thinks it's better to have customers be frustrated with United and American Airlines and come back to Delta. But given that the air-travel system is at capacity, there is very little airlines can do in the short term to prevent travel nightmares. The only lever airlines can pull beyond canceling flights is being more transparent with passengers. Let customers know about delays before they leave for the airport. Let them know about the reason for the delay and the options they have. Allowing customers to make better decisions would gain airlines some goodwill — and alleviate the pain for customers who can't afford to change their plans.
As a high load factor becomes higher, we should expect an explosive summer with flights packed with more angry customers and longer delays at airports. If you're planning to travel this summer, I suggest you choose direct flights, arrive early at the airport, fly with only carry-on luggage, and pack lots of patience and reading material.
Gad Allon is the faculty director of the Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology at the University of Pennsylvania.
More: Airlines Delta Flight Delays United Airlines
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2022-06-26T10:53:44Z
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Flight Cancellations, Delays, & Travel Dismay: Summer Travel Nightmare
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https://www.businessinsider.com/airline-flight-cancellations-delays-summer-travel-nightmare-explained-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/airline-flight-cancellations-delays-summer-travel-nightmare-explained-2022-6
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Protests outside of the Supreme Court after it overturned Roe v. Wade
GOP officials are concerned that the overturning of Roe v. Wade will negatively impact midterms, Politico reported.
They fear the ruling might shift the focus from the economy and inflation, issues which Biden polls low on.
A majority of Americans support legal abortion in some form. A GOP strategist said it is a "losing issue for Republicans."
While Republicans are publicly celebrating the overturning of Roe v. Wade, some are privately worrying that the timing could negatively impact the November midterms.
Some Republicans fear the abortion ruling could give Democrats ammunition to attack them and mobilize voters, Politico reported, based on interviews with more than a dozen GOP strategists and officials.
"This is not a conversation we want to have," Republican strategist John Thomas told Politico. "We want to have a conversation about the economy. We want to have a conversation about Joe Biden, about pretty much anything else besides Roe. This is a losing issue for Republicans."
Friday's landmark Supreme Court ruling overturned nearly a 50-year precedent that legalized abortion nationwide.
Although overturning Roe has been a key ambition for conservatives for decades, the majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or certain circumstances, according to national polls from Pew and Gallup.
Some Republicans worry that the ruling could shift the focus away from the economy and inflation, which has previously been a top issue for voters.
A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that voters largely disapprove of President Joe Biden's handling of the economy and inflation.
"Everything was going our way. Gas is above $5. Inflation is a giant problem," a former Republican congressman, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told Politico.
"The only thing [Democrats] have got going for them is the Roe thing, which is what, 40 years of settled law that will be changed that will cause some societal consternation," he said. "And can they turn that into some turnout? I think the answer is probably 'Yes.'"
"Maybe instead of losing 45 seats, they lose 30," the congressman said. At a minimum, "there will be a few seats that Republicans would have won without [the abortion rights decision], and they may not win them now."
Former President Donald Trump has been widely credited with the abortion ruling because he appointed three conservative justices during his presidency.
However, even Trump is reported to have privately said that he feared overturning Roe would be "bad for Republicans."
"You go to any diner in America, and nobody's talking about this"
Participants hold signs during the Women's March at the US Supreme Court.
Democratic candidates in several key states have said that they plan to make abortion rights a key focus of their campaigns, The New York Times reported.
While abortion has not historically been a major mobilizing issue for voters, polls suggest it will now play a more important role than in the past.
Some fear that the Biden's party could increase the votes of young people and suburban women, who they had recently been making headway with.
However, others have suggested abortion is still less important to average voters compared to ongoing economic issues.
"You go to any diner in America, and nobody's talking about this," Dave Carney, a national Republican strategist told Politico.
"That's not what's driving the conversation. Real people, working people, people who vote, are talking about the incompetence of the president, and then they go down the list of six or seven things."
These issues include the rising price of goods and the recent baby formula shortage.
More: roe v wade overturn Roe v Wade Abortion midterm elections 2022
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2022-06-26T10:54:32Z
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Republicans Fear Overturning Roe V. Wade Is a Midterms 'Losing Issue'
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https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-fear-overturning-roe-v-wade-is-midterms-losing-issue-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-fear-overturning-roe-v-wade-is-midterms-losing-issue-2022-6
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The Ukrainian rigs were seized by Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Ukrainian missiles struck three Russian gas rigs in the Black Sea, according to reports.
Ukraine claimed that Russia was using the gas platform as a military installation.
The strikes expose Russia's vulnerabilities in the Black Sea following a series of successful attacks from Ukraine.
Ukraine has launched missile strikes against three Russian gas rigs in the Black Sea.
Seven people were missing and three injured after one of the attacks, according to a Telegram post from Sergey Aksyonov, the governor of Russian-controlled Crimea.
A Ukrainian official confirmed one of the attacks, claiming on Tuesday that Russian troops were using the platform as a military installation, The Moscow Times reported.
"On those towers, Russia had organized small garrisons and stored equipment for air defense, radar warfare, and reconnaissance," Sergiy Bratchuk of Odesa's regional military administration told an online briefing, according to Deutsche Welle.
The three gas drilling platforms targeted by Ukraine, known as the Boyko towers, are owned by Crimean oil and gas company Chernomorneftegaz, which was seized by Russian-backed officials during its annexation of the peninsula in 2014, per Reuters.
Chernomorneftegaz has been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union since 2014.
Military expert Oleg Zhdanov said that the towers were like the "ears and eyes of the Russian Black Sea Fleet," according to Offshore Energy.
The strikes expose Russia's vulnerabilities in the Black Sea after a series of successful attacks from Ukraine, including destroying a Russian tugboat near Snake Island and the sinking of the Moskva warship.
Russian forces had placed radio-jamming equipment at the gas rig, blocking Ukraine from getting a complete picture of the area, Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister, told the New York Times.
He added that the Ukrainian strikes could indicate that Ukraine has received naval weapons from Western allies.
Russian authorities said that the attack had caused a major fire, which appeared to be still raging two days later, as seen on a NASA satellite that monitors forest fires.
In apparent retaliation, Russia struck parts of Odesa with missiles, according to The Telegraph. Ukraine said that a food warehouse was destroyed, but no civilians were killed.
The intensified conflict in the Black Sea comes amid Russia's ongoing naval blockade, which has disrupted global wheat exports and had wide-ranging knock-on effects on the world's food supply.
More: Russia Ukraine russia ukraine Gas
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2022-06-26T10:54:44Z
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Ukraine Attacks 3 Russian Gas Platforms in Black Sea, Used As Garrisons
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https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-attacks-3-russian-gas-platforms-black-sea-used-garrisons-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-attacks-3-russian-gas-platforms-black-sea-used-garrisons-2022-6
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A collage of Insider's Sam Tabahriti drinking a mimosa and a view outside the plane in the air.
I flew for $90 with British Airways from London's Heathrow Airport to Basel, Switzerland.
The flight itself was smooth, though I did have to wait a while to get a drink on the plane.
I was scared my flight would be canceled amid the current chaos, but it went ahead.
For many years, British Airways called itself the world's favorite airline, though according to the World Airline Awards, Qatar Airways is actually the best of the best.
A British Airways' plane.
Used to flying with low-cost airlines such as Ryanair or Easyjet, I thought I would change for once and try British Airways thanks to a low cost ticket on a route from London to Basel, Switzerland.
A monitor showing the flight's announcement.
On most low-cost airlines, tickets are very cheap but do not include any luggage. Oftentimes, you're only allowed to take a backpack or handbag for free, and you must pay a supplement to add small cabin luggage.
A suitcase.
But with BA you are allowed small cabin luggage and a handbag or backpack that should fit under the seat in front of you.
A screengrab of BA's baggage allowance.
My seat was automatically allocated to number 17 when I checked in through the BA app. The process was very easy and straightforward.
A selfie of Insider's Sam Tabahriti.
Apart from the first few rows at the front of the aircraft, all seats are the same and have similar legroom.
A view of the number of the seat.
It's not too spacious, but it sure is enough for a short journey. My seat did feel different from the others I am used to on other airlines — it felt a bit more secure.
The legroom from my seat.
BA has a grouping system when embarking. Each passenger is allocated to a group – from group 1 to group 9.
A view of the plane from my seat.
Group 1 includes first-class passengers and business passengers, those who are executive club gold members, and Oneworld Emerald members.
A British Airways priority baggage label and First Class label on a suitcase.
When I boarded the flight, there was plenty of space in the overhead locker above the seats. I was even allowed to leave my backpack there instead of putting it under the seat in front of me.
The shelf bin.
Once everybody boarded the plane, the crew was quick to announce they were about to demonstrate the safety rules: "Please, pay attention as it may differ from other airlines," the lead member said.
The crew demonstrating the safety rules.
The journey was pleasant and easy. At one point, I looked outside and the light was outstanding. There's something indescribable about this view.
The sunlight hitting one of the plane's wings.
While the flight itself was smooth, I did have to wait a while for a drink after ordering. I was eventually given a bottle of Prosecco and orange juice to make mimosas after I reminded the staff that I was waiting.
Picture showing a bottle of Prosecco, orange juice, and flat water.
I took full advantage of it and it made about three glasses (due to the small plastic cup they hand out). I also did not know they offered a pack of potato chips and a bottle of water – which helped after drinking the Prosecco.
A selfie of Insider's Sam Tabahriti drinking a free mimosa.
As soon as we landed and got the clear to leave, people rushed to their luggage. I never quite understand why people feel rushed to get out.
People rushing to get their luggage as we landed.
I always thought BA was one of those pricey airlines but it turns out, it isn't. When you total the price of the ticket and added luggage on other airlines, for this route, it was neck and neck.
Heathrow airport Terminal 4.
Before I got to the airport, I was slightly concerned my flight would be canceled amid the chaos impacting international travel in recent weeks. My flight had already been canceled once, but I was given an earlier flight with two-week notices, which gave plenty of time to decide whether to jump on the new flight.
People queuing to check-in at Heathrow Terminal 5 as travellers embarking on overseas trips faced chaos as flights were cancelled and cross-Channel rail services were hit by major delays
Steve Parsons/PA Images via Getty Images
Overall, I enjoyed my flight with BA and would definitely fly again with it — and if I am lucky enough, I might get another chance to make mimosas next time.
Outside the airplane during the flight.
More: Features Weekend BI UK British Airways ba
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2022-06-26T12:25:25Z
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British Airways Flight Review: Better Than Budget and Just As Cheap
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https://www.businessinsider.com/british-airways-flight-review-budget-crew-offered-mimosas-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/british-airways-flight-review-budget-crew-offered-mimosas-2022-6
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At the start of the pandemic, Congress made school lunches free and universal. That'll end June 30.
The House has pushed to extend the waivers, but Senate Republicans are holding them back.
School lunch workers worry about the impact on kids if the waivers end.
Prior to the pandemic, Jennifer Kapinus, who's in charge of food for a school district in rural Wisconsin, found herself doing something she hates: playing debt collector.
Every week, she'd find herself calling parents over debts their children racked up while buying school lunch. Many parents who would qualify for free or reduced-price meals never filled out applications, for any number of personal reasons.
While "luckily" the district would never take away meals from students, Kapinus said, she would have to call parents and send out letters to get them to pay off debt they "honestly cannot afford to pay."
Jennifer Kapinus.
Courtesy of Jennifer Kapinus
Kapinus isn't alone: Leah Botko, a food service director in Massachusetts, said there's about $20,000 in unpaid student debt every year in her district.
Then the pandemic hit. In 2020, the government took several extraordinary measures to keep Americans financially afloat, from stimulus checks to enhanced unemployment benefits. Included in that were waivers making school lunch free for every K-12 student.
The waivers meant that kids weren't going into school lunch debt, or dealing with the shame of being on free or reduced-price lunch — and that lunch providers could expand what food they were offering to their students.
But Republicans are blocking the renewal of the waivers, spelling a potential end for the program on June 30.
In Kapinus's district, with meals now free, participation increased greatly. Same for Botko, whose program used to feed about 40 kids a day. Now, they're feeding at least 280 daily.
The more kids they fed, the more reimbursement they got from the federal government. Kapinus's district was able to afford to "feed our kids better and healthier," buying local meat and fresh produce. They were able to staff up, and replace equipment. Botko has partnered with a local farm down the street to buy produce.
That helps the local economy, Botko said, and it helps parents get more onboard with school lunches.
"They don't think of school lunch as something that comes out of the freezer anymore. It comes right down the street," she said.
Congress extended the program once in 2021, ensuring that the nearly 12 million children who didn't have enough to eat at some point in the pandemic could get food at school. But lawmakers — and, specifically, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — opted not to renew the universal program as part of the spending package passed in March that kept the government open.
However, a bipartisan agreement was struck to renew a limited waiver program that would ensure some children are still able to get free meals through the summer.
"Kids deserve to be healthy, they deserve to be well-fed"
Sen. Rand Paul.
Greg Nash/AP Images
Some states like California already have universal school lunch programs. State lawmakers in New York, Massachusetts, and a handful of other states are attempting to establish their own programs, but students in most states will be left out once the federal program ends.
"You're creating an issue of equity just based on the geography of where these kids live," Meier said.
To qualify for free meals during the 2022 school year, a family of three needs to make an income of $29,939 or below, considered 130% of the federal poverty level. That's a sharp reversal from the expansion over the last two years, which opened up free lunches to all students regardless of their family's income.
Republicans lined up against renewing universal free lunches, arguing it's a pandemic-era program that shouldn't be made permanent. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky objected to quick passage of a bipartisan agreement to extend a scaled back version of the program past June 30. But he secured some changes that allowed the Senate to pass it, sending it back to the House before Biden signs it.
"Kids deserve to be healthy, they deserve to be well-fed, and by extending these nutrition waivers before they expire we can make sure that no student will have to worry about where they are going to get their lunch during the summer," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday.
Some kids have only experienced schools with free and universal meals
Some kids — especially younger ones — may not even remember a time without free lunch.
"They have now lived the majority of their public school life through a pandemic, where school is a guaranteed provider of meals. That's going to go away for them," Jillien Meier, the director of partnerships and campaign strategies for advocacy group No Kids Hungry, told Insider. "I don't think they're cognizant of that, but I guarantee you on the first day of school, if there isn't food in front of them, that's when it will be a problem."
Amy Frewing has handed out some of those lunches. She works in the library of a large suburban elementary school in Oregon and distributed library books to kids through a pickup window during the height of the pandemic.
She realized that families were coming to the school at a certain time every day to pick up their meals through the program. She changed her library window time to coincide with lunchtime pickup, so kids could get their books and their lunches at the same time. During a time of isolation, especially for students and teachers, it meant she got to see some of the same people every day.
"They never had to verify that they were a student of the school," Frewing said. "They never put a limit on how many lunches they could get, and it was always a selection of healthy snacks."
She said that the program helped destigmatize kids getting their meals from school. Everyone was treated the same — unlike what she saw growing up, where kids on reduced-price lunch had different colored tickets in the cafeteria.
On Fridays, she would send families home with larger packs to cover dinner and other weekend meals.
"When basic needs of food and shelter aren't being met, I think it's unconscionable. It's a basic human need," Frewing said. "I know that there's a lot of people who think that, oh, people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and this is the country of opportunity and there's so many jobs available. Try telling that to a single mom with children who is using the majority of their money just to cover shelter."
Botko, the food service director in Massachusetts, is fielding emails from parents asking if lunch will be free next year. She's anticipating parents being upset, participation going down, and having to end relationships with local food sources.
Leah Botko.
Courtesy of Leah Botko
When she was a kid, Botko qualified for reduced-price lunch. She never took advantage of it, though, because she was ashamed. History could repeat itself as the waivers wind down.
"I feel like kids are going to be embarrassed to get lunch again," she said.
More: Economy School Lunch School lunches school lunch debt
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2022-06-26T12:25:43Z
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Congress Made School Lunches Free. Now Republicans Will End That.
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https://www.businessinsider.com/free-school-lunches-in-america-republicans-will-end-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/free-school-lunches-in-america-republicans-will-end-2022-6
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The Carnival Magic cruise ship docked in Marseille.
Gerard Bottino/Getty Images
Cruises could go for bargain prices this summer as operators try to fill cabins.
Some cruise prices have fallen by $1,000 this year, data reported by Reuters suggests.
Carnival told Insider its prices had been "at the higher end" this year.
Cruise holidays could be as cheap as they've ever been this summer, despite soaring inflation.
Cruises are slowly making a comeback as pandemic restrictions end, but wafer-thin margins mean leading lines are likely to cut prices to cope with lower demand, according to analysts.
"Prices are down as there is too much unsold capacity and the cruise lines need to sail with their ships as full as possible to cover their very high fixed costs," Patrick Scholes, a leisure analyst at Truist Securities, told Insider.
"Cruise lines are offering lower prices and deals to attract customers in the hope that they will continue to spend while onboard."
In its latest earnings report, Carnival said occupancy in the second quarter of 2022 was 69%. Scholes said this spare capacity meant it would be forced to offer discounts.
Scholes previously told Reuters: "Your typical Carnival, Royal Caribbean or Norwegian Cruise this summer to the Caribbean is about as cheap as we've ever seen it." He also said there were 13% more ships at sea compared with pre-pandemic levels.
According to Cruise Critic data seen by Reuters, the average cost of a five-night Caribbean cruise for two in June fell from about $3,000 this time last year to $2,000.
Falling fares buck the trend of rising inflation. Air fares have jumped nearly 38% this year as fuel prices and labor shortages are passed onto customers, making cruises more attractive.
It also contrasts with steeper cost pressures for cruise lines. In May, Insider reported that some cruise lines were being forced to cancel sailings, close on-board restaurants, and shed capacity owing to a lack of staff.
But while Scholes told Insider that "cost increase drivers for the cruise industry are similar to cost increases for everyone else, whether it be for fuel and food," he said there was now less pressure on labor costs due to staffing being sourced from countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam and India.
A Carnival spokesperson told Insider: "While there are always attractive cruise offers being promoted by our brands, across the company, advanced bookings have been at the higher end of the historical range at higher pricing."
More: Weekend BI UK Cruise Holiday Cruise Lines
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2022-06-26T12:25:49Z
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Get Set for Bargain Cruise Holidays This Summer, Says Analyst
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https://www.businessinsider.com/get-set-for-bargain-cruise-holidays-this-summer-says-analyst-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/get-set-for-bargain-cruise-holidays-this-summer-says-analyst-2022-6
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The Box Hop
Emily and Seth Britt have built three shipping container homes in Ohio.
The homes are now almost completely booked on Airbnb through 2022.
See inside the husband and wife duo's first and most popular build starting at $427 a night.
Not all shipping containers are destined for a life of logistics and transportation.
Some end up becoming trendy Instagram friendly homes starting at over $400 a night.
Over the last few years, creative startups and hospitality groups have turned the large corrugated containers into homes, hotel concepts, and Airbnbs.
The Pad hotel and hostel in Silverthorne, Colorado.
And some companies, like husband and wife duo Seth Britt and Emily Britt's Box Hop, have found fortuitous success in this booming industry.
In 2017, the Britts decided to build a personal vacation home in Hocking Hills State Park outside of Columbus, Ohio, for their growing family.
But instead of constructing an ordinary cabin, the couple decided to embark on Seth Britt's years-long dream of building a shipping container home.
In 2018, with the help of family, friends, and YouTube tutorials, the couple turned three 40-foot-tall shipping containers they purchased from a local provider into a three-bedroom home that they now affectionately refer to as the OG Box.
Like many entrepreneurial homeowners, the couple decided to list the home on Airbnb for a stream of passive income while they stayed elsewhere.
And to the surprise of the family, that's when the home "totally took off," Seth Britt told Insider.
Since mid-2019, the OG Box has hit a nearly 100% occupancy rate, the couple said.
"We rarely wanted to book it for ourselves because we were so excited about the interest people had and the support we were getting," Emily Britt told Insider.
And what once began as a plan to build a vacation home suddenly turned into the pair's full time job.
This public interest pushed the Britts to build two more shipping container homes to list on Airbnb: the one-bedroom Boho and five-bedroom Hygge (pictured below).
And so far, their business has seen resounding success.
The OG and Boho are almost completely booked through the end of 2022.
Source: Airbnb, Airbnb
Even the larger Hygge, which is harder to fill because of its size, is substantially booked through this year.
Box Hop's success shouldn't come as a surprise: Hotels are out, and vacations in unusual accommodations like the Hygge container home (pictured below) are in.
"Millennials and Gen Zers don't want to go to a place and stay in a hotel," Seth Britt said. "They want to go to a place where they can experience something more fun and immersive." (Hygge pictured)
Since the start of COVID-19, vacationers have been flocking to unconventional hospitality arrangements like tiny homes, yurts, or these shipping container homes like the Hygge model below.
This desire for the unorthodox might be why the OG build — which features a uniquely stacked design — has attracted more visitors than Box Hop's other models, Emily Britt said.
Let's take a tour inside the container home starting at $427 a night, which looks more like an Instagram-able boutique hotel than a stack of metal boxes.
For the couple's first build, the multi-level OG looks as professional and trendy as any home.
Inside the matte black and wood accented home, there are three bright bedrooms …
… two contemporary bathrooms …
… a kitchen and living room with a large dining table …
… and a reading nook that opens into the upper patio.
During Ohio's warmer months, guests can use the hot tub on the lower deck.
But during the cold snowy winter, guests can warm up by the gas fireplace.
The home's bright neutral-toned interior looks nothing like a traditional wood cabin tucked away in a forest.
According to Seth Britt, this "unconventional" design, as far as shipping containers go, is what created the initial hype around the home.
And it's easy to see why.
The container home's trendy decorative accents like a neon light in one of the upstairs bedrooms …
… walls of windows with beautiful views of the trees …
… and charming string of outdoor lights all make the container home a haven for both Instagram influencers and families looking for a city escape.
This container home is already drawing in plenty of business, but the couple has no plans to slow down their growth.
The Britts are now working on several additional projects including a container home near Lake Michigan.
They're focused on building units in markets near plenty of outdoor activities.
But in the long term, the couple wants to have 5,000 Box Hop homes sprinkled throughout the country.
On the side, they're also exploring the possibility of franchising Box Hop to help people create container homes like the Boho model pictured below for both vacation homes and short-term rental properties.
"I think there should be a Box Hop in a short day trip for everybody in the US," Seth Britt said (Hygge pictured below).
More: Shipping container shipping container home AirBnB Business Visual Features
Unique Homes
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2022-06-26T12:26:02Z
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Photos: See a Wildly Popular Shipping Container Home on Airbnb
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https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-shipping-container-home-maker-seeing-wild-success-on-airbnb-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-shipping-container-home-maker-seeing-wild-success-on-airbnb-2022-6
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Hotels are offering guests $12,000 stem cell therapies, chewing lessons, and IV drips in luxury wellness kick
The Four Seasons Maui in Hawaii.
Luxury hotels charging up to $20,000 a night are introducing several wellness treatments, per WSJ.
Treatments include IV drips, chewing lessons, stem-cell therapies, IV drips and MRIs.
The FDA has placed several warnings on regenerative medicines including stem cell therapies.
Hotels in exclusive tourist destinations are offering stem cell therapies, lessons in chewing, and IV drips as demand for medispas and wellness retreats soars, a report says.
The Wall Street Journal reported that New York's Peninsula hotel, German medispa Lanserhof, and Four Seasons Resort Maui in Hawaii were among hotels diving into bizarre wellness courses to attract wealthy, increasingly health-conscious guests.
The report said a cornerstone of Lanserhof's program was the Mayr Cure, which involves a multiday fast, lessons in proper chewing - with more than 30 chews per mouthful recommended - and abdominal massages. The hotel is expected to introduce MRI machines and CT scanners for preventive diagnostic sessions. If that isn't enough to satisfy guests, there's also an on-site psychologist.
Lanserhof is not alone in offering an array of expensive alternative treatments, according to the WSJ.
The Four Seasons in Wailea, Hawaii, where rooms can cost $20,000 a night, offers guests a selection of intravenous (IV) Drips and Ozone Therapy alongside Los Angeles–based preventive and diagnostic health care center Next Health. The hotel also offers guests 60-minute stem cell therapy sessions, costing $12,000 each.
"According to research, [stem cells] can help orchestrate and improve cell communication, optimizing the efficiency of a variety of bodily processes, which may improve overall vitality," Next Health president and co-founder Kevin Peake told the WSJ.
But the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released warnings about regenerative medicine therapies including stem cells in the past. It had received reports of blindness, tumor formation, and infections due to the use of unapproved products.
High net worth individuals are spending more on alternative treatments, according to a report by the Global Wellness Institute.
The report found the global wellness economy was worth $4.4 trillion in 2021, with wellness tourism accounting for $436 billion. The study expected wellness tourism to grow by more than 20% per year between 2020 and 2025 after a pandemic-induced slowdown last year.
Alex Glasscock, CEO and co-founder of Ranch, told the WSJ that bookings at the group's Rome-based spa, where guests engage in four-hour hikes and deep tissue treatment, were starting to fill up six months in advance in a sign of resurgent demand.
The hotels and medispas mentioned in the article didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
More: Weekend BI UK Luxury Hotels Wellness stem cell therapies
IV Drip
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2022-06-26T13:59:20Z
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Hotels on Luxury Wellness Kick Featuring $12,000 Stem Cell Therapies: WSJ
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https://www.businessinsider.com/hotels-12000-stem-cell-therapies-wellness-kick-wsj-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/hotels-12000-stem-cell-therapies-wellness-kick-wsj-2022-6
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I'm leading Okta's shift to remote work. Here's what the role entails and my advice for how companies can successfully manage the transition.
Samantha Fisher, Okta's head of dynamic work, was hired to manage the firm's shift to remote work.
As companies adopt distributed workforces, some are creating exec roles to manage the transition.
These are Fisher's biggest tips for other companies looking to transition to remote and hybrid work.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Samantha Fisher, the head of dynamic work at the software firm Okta. She spoke with Insider about how she's helping Okta's transition to a remote-first work culture and the lessons she'd learned in 1 1/2 years on the job. It's been edited for length and clarity.
I was hired as Okta's head of dynamic work in January 2021 as the company embarked on a transition to go remote-first. My role, and similar roles in the industry, centers around coordination and thinking holistically about employee journeys.
When employees have either a fully remote or distributed hybrid environment, their experiences, engagement, work culture, and the way they think about how they do their work are different. It all has to be thought about, structured, and written down. So for me, as the head of dynamic work, my role is about thinking through all these things for our employees.
Our first project was building a road map. Advice I can give to other companies is you need to have a plan and you need to have a vision. So building a road map, and building a steering committee of executives who help you understand and navigate the organization, is the first step.
We have a three-year plan, and our primary focus is streamlining tools, technologies, and systems. We had to think about the technology and tools employees needed to work collaboratively when they're in different time zones or working different hours. We had to answer questions like: How do we communicate the business goals of the company and the business goals of the teams? How do we help them acclimate in their transition as new hires? How do we help manage employees in a distributed environment?
We built a modern-day employee intranet, which is profile-driven. We can do targeted communications based on geography, level, and role in the organization, as well as enable people to build community by joining groups. We also have an editorial calendar of company content that gets pushed out.
Enterprise search is another tool that's important in a hybrid and distributed growing company. That allows employees to search across multiple applications for information they need to get their jobs done. Because you're not sitting next to somebody, you can't just tap somebody on the shoulder anymore. We use Simpplr for our intranet and Glean for enterprise search.
We also talk a lot about nonlinear days and asynchronous work patterns. One of the challenges our employees face is getting comfortable working asynchronously. Most companies did a lot of synchronous work pre-pandemic, and it's very different doing it asynchronously.
Many times, it can feel like it takes longer to get an answer when you're working asynchronously, particularly if you're collaborating in a Google doc or doing something over Slack . So being able to articulate your thoughts in a way that's informative but concise is important.
My other focus has been making sure we have programs that support folks whether they're in the office or virtual, as well as programs and services that are standardized regardless of where they work so that people can make a new routine.
When we looked at research and heard feedback from employees, we realized that when people went to the office, they had a routine. So we're creating mechanisms by which employees can make new routines via the tools they use or the programs they participate in.
For this role, you need to be a good storyteller. You have to understand the intricacies of a hybrid or distributed environment and all the different things that go into it. And you have to find a common language and a common vocabulary to talk about it at the company.
You've got remote, you've got hybrid, you've got distributed, you've got dynamic — there are so many different words. So it can be confusing to your teams and your organization if you cannot communicate everything well and provide them with the information that they need.
For the rest of the year, our big focus is data. We've set the foundation, and we've structured a lot of things. So now we're using things like our employee-engagement survey to get feedback. And then we're working internally to build a number of asynchronous assets.
Before we go make any more big changes or investments, we want to measure where we've landed. We want to gauge whether people understand what dynamic work is, including measuring how that affects our hiring pipeline and retention.
Do you have an interesting job and want to share your story? Contact this reporter via email at pzaveri@insider.com or Signal at 925-364-4258. (PR pitches by email only, please.)
More: Okta Remote Work asyncronous work
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2022-06-26T13:59:26Z
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Remote-Work-Transition Tips From Okta's New Head of Dynamic Work
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https://www.businessinsider.com/okta-remote-work-advice-new-role-head-of-dynamic-work-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/okta-remote-work-advice-new-role-head-of-dynamic-work-2022-6
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'Trusting your gut' is usually bad for your money, but there are 3 things you can do instead to build wealth
Adam Crowley/Getty Images
Fear is a powerful emotion. And when it gets involved with your finances, it can end up costing you.
Instead of "trusting your gut," set a long-term strategy and stick to it. Working with a professional can help.
A mindfulness practice can also help you separate fear and anxiety from your money decisions.
Some of the most common money mistakes people make aren't due to an inability to actually handle their finances. The real trouble? Keeping the emotions around your money in check.
In theory, success as an investor comes down to logical principles. Think rationally about concrete financial strategies, like asset allocation, diversification, and portfolio construction, and you should be seeing your investments grow exponentially over time with the help of compounding returns.
But investors aren't robots. They're people. As Richard Thaler, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who focuses on psychology and how people make choices around money in real-world conditions, put it, "Economic agents are human and economic models have to incorporate that."
So by learning how your emotions affect your financial decisions — and how to manage that as you manage your money — you can feel more confident in both your day-to-day choices and your long-term, wealth-building decisions.
The most common emotions that interfere with smart money management
Anxiety and fear might be the most prominent emotions that get in the way of good financial decisions. That's understandable: Money is a valuable resource in our society, and something you'll likely always need in some amount. It's natural to fear losing it.
But that aversion to and fear of loss can make us do some very irrational things. It gives us tunnel vision. We lose sight of the big picture and we make short-term choices when we should be considering long-term strategy.
We forget that the stock market has rewarded long-term investors, or those who invest and stay invested over decades. (On the other hand, it tends to punish those who try to time the market and outsmart all other market participants.)
Fear can also make us more susceptible to recency bias — or the mindset that what is happening now is going to continue to happen into the future. Our anxiety around running out or not having enough blinds us to the fact that recessions are temporary and usually followed by periods of economic growth.
Other detrimental emotions include avoidance. Ignoring your finances altogether or thinking you'll figure out your strategy once you're "closer to retirement" means missing opportunities to build wealth now.
Financially successful people know their greatest advantage is time, so they don't put important financial decisions or actions off to deal with "someday." They are proactive, engaged, and motivated to properly manage their money right now — not just later.
And then there's overconfidence. Overconfidence can blind you to the obvious and cause you to make unforced errors. When people are more confident than they should be, they are less able to accurately calculate probabilities and more likely to underestimate risk.
Why going with your gut doesn't work in finance
Your emotions can lead you to make mistakes, but what about trusting your gut, or listening to your intuition?
It's likely to get you into trouble, too. That's because of a number of cognitive biases that are designed to help our brain make quick decisions, but unfortunately, often lead us astray when we're in the financial world.
Things like our bias toward action can cause us to make mistakes; this is the urge to do something even when the correct answer is to step back and do nothing.
This often shows up when recession fears hit new highs. We feel like we need to prepare, we need to avoid disaster, we can't just sit there and do nothing!
But when it comes to your investments, tinkering with your portfolio and deviating from your set strategy can stall your progress. Or worse, selling out of your positions at the bottom of the market can cause you to lock in losses at the worst possible time.
Hindsight bias is another one that frequently trips people up when it comes to money management . It commingles with overconfidence to lead people to make major mistakes because they start thinking the right moves are obvious.
And they are … in hindsight, after an event has happened. Hindsight bias makes us feel like the answer was obvious even before the event. We forget how we felt before we knew what we know now.
What poker player Annie Duke calls "resulting" can mess with our minds, too. It happens when we place too much emphasis on an outcome rather than the decision we made before we knew what happened. If we see positive outcomes, we assume it was because of a good decision (and vice versa).
Meanwhile, we discount the role of chance. We don't remember that sometimes a good decision can still lead to a bad outcome simply because of bad luck. On the flipside, we attribute good outcomes to how smart we are, even if we made a bad decision and got lucky despite it.
3 ways to keep your emotions in check while making progress toward financial success
Financial success is always an uphill battle. But if you can lessen the noise and distraction that your own mind can generate, that will make it a little bit easier to make the right decisions and choices as you go. There are a few strategies you can use to do just that:
Set it and forget it (to a point)
It's important to spend time developing a specific, consistent investment strategy you can stick to over time. That will take some work and it's not easy, but once you've gone through the process, stick with your strategy.
That means not getting caught up in current events or short-term news cycles, being distracted by what "everyone else" is doing, or letting your emotions steer you away from the path in front of you. Keep in mind that financial progress is a long-term game.
Automate what you can (like contributions to savings and investment accounts) so you don't have to make the same decision over and over again, and aim to review (and rebalance) your investment accounts periodically but not frequently. Quarterly or semi-annually is usually sufficient.
While literally forgetting about your finances is impossible and not recommended, you don't need to obsess daily. Doing so may be more detrimental than it is helpful.
Practice mindfulness and self-awareness
It might sound strange for a financial planner to recommend a mindfulness practice to improve your money management, but as we've already covered: Your emotions can dictate your actions, and emotional decision-making often leads to losses.
You can't manage your emotions if you're drowning in them. Increasing self-awareness can help you avoid making long-term decisions based on short-term feelings.
Everyone is susceptible to various mental mistakes and behavioral biases that make even experienced investors stray from a solid, rational strategy from time to time. And while knowing something is not the same thing as practicing it in your life, you have to start somewhere.
When it comes to managing your emotions around money, that starting point is awareness of what's going on in your head — and where you are most likely to fall victim to your own psychology. Know your weak spots, and you're more likely to steer confidently around them.
Work with a professional
Part of the value of working with a professional financial planner is in having an objective third party with an outside-looking-in perspective. An advisor can provide you with technical know-how and strategies to use, and act as a sounding board, a second opinion, another set of eyes to check your blind spots, devil's advocate when you need to think through complex decisions, and more.
A good advisor doesn't just give advice. They ask the right questions to help you understand what you want and why. Then they help you build a specific financial plan to get to those unique goals and outcomes, keeping you on track and avoiding mistakes along the way as you progress forward.
More: Wealth Building Financial Planners Mindfulness Personal Finance Insider
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2022-06-26T13:59:32Z
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3 Things You Can Do to Stop Your Emotions From Ruining Your Finances
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/stop-your-emotions-from-ruining-finances-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/stop-your-emotions-from-ruining-finances-2022-6
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In this photo illustration, the Strava logo is seen displayed on a smartphone.
An alleged Strava security breach allowed unidentified operatives to spy on Israeli military members, according to a watchdog group.
The operatives set up fake "segments" in top-secret military establishments across Israel, the group said.
The operatives could track a user moving across bases and to a foreign country with the segments.
An alleged security breach on Strava, the fitness-tracking app for runners and cyclists, allowed unidentified operatives to spy on members of Israel's military, according to an Israeli watchdog group.
FakeReporter, which leverages crowdsourcing to report malicious activity, said in a press release that Strava 's security breach was used to identify Israeli security personnel in top-secret locations.
FakeReporter was alerted to the security breach and was consequently able to identify at least 100 individuals using Strava while exercising in at least six top-secret military facilities in Israel, the press release said.
The Guardian reported that one user who went for a run on a top-secret base, thought to have links to the clandestine Israeli nuclear program, could be tracked moving across other military bases and to a foreign country.
The unidentified operatives were able to mine information from Israeli military members even with the most robust possible account privacy settings, The Guardian said.
The operation, which has not yet been attributed to a specific actor or group, involved tracking information by creating fake running "segments" inside military bases, the newspaper reported.
Strava's tracking tools allow anyone to create and compete in segments — short sections of a run or bike ride that can be used to race. Anyone can define a segment, despite not having been there, meaning that some segments are clearly artificially generated, The Guardian reported.
In this instance, the newspaper said that the operatives, posing as an anonymous Strava user in Boston, Massachusetts, set up a series of fake segments in military establishments to track the movements of those based there.
With this information, per the press release, they could locate the movements, family members, colleagues, and addresses of specific users associated with Israeli intelligence agencies and the air force.
Israeli soldiers.
In a statement sent to Insider, the executive director of FakeReporter, Achiya Schatz, said that the watchdog group alerted Israeli security forces as soon as they became aware of the security breach.
"In the past, Strava's privacy settings have been tied to incidents of exposure of sensitive information. In 2018, the newly introduced "Heatmap" feature was shown to reveal American military sites," Schatz said.
Schatz continued, "Despite past revelations, it does not appear that Israeli security agencies have caught up. Although Strava made significant updates to its privacy settings, confused users might still be exposed publicly, even if their profiles were set to 'private.'"
FakeReporter's executive director added that this finding has chilling consequences. "By exploiting the capability to upload engineered files, revealing the details of users anywhere in the world, hostile elements have taken one alarming step closer to exploiting a popular app in order to harm the security of citizens and countries alike," Schatz said.
Strava did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
More: security breach Strava Israel UK Weekend
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2022-06-26T13:59:44Z
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Strava Security Breach Enabled Spying on Israeli Soldiers - Report
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https://www.businessinsider.com/strava-security-breach-enabled-spying-on-israeli-soldiers-report-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/strava-security-breach-enabled-spying-on-israeli-soldiers-report-2022-6
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8 Asian-American entrepreneurs share how their immigrant and first-generation backgrounds shaped their businesses and leadership styles
Britney Nguyen and Shriya Bhattacharya
From left to right: Sandro Roco, Alexandra Dorda, Jake Deleon, Deepika Mutyala, and Vanessa Pham
In 2020, six out of every 1,000 immigrants started a new business in the US.
For some entrepreneurs, tapping their immigrant or first-gen roots inspires their leadership style.
Insider spoke with 8 Asian-American founders about how their backgrounds shaped their businesses.
Jake Deleon's earliest memories are of helping his mother and grandmother make Filipino delicacies like lumpia — fried spring rolls.
"Food was always equal to love and bonding," Deleon — the 39-year-old founder and CEO of Fila Manila, a line of Filipino simmering sauces inspired by Deleon's parents' recipes — said. "All the great conversations and moments I saw with my family happened around food."
Deleon, a first-generation Filipino American based in Philadelphia, recalled these blissful moments during the early days of the pandemic when he read that Filipinos and Filipino Americans made up the largest share of immigrant health-care workers on the frontlines. Inspired by their work, but disappointed by a lack of Filipino food in the consumer packaged-goods space, he launched Fila Manila in 2020 as a way to "ignite Filipino cuisine and our community," he said.
While entrepreneurs have launched a record number of new companies in the last two and a half years, immigrants launched a great share of those startups: According to a 2021 report by the entrepreneurial nonprofit Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, six out of every 1,000 immigrants started a new business in 2020. For many entrepreneurs, tapping their immigrant or first-generation roots helped them start and run successful companies.
For example, Deleon's approach to entrepreneurship centers on the "work hard and make it happen" mentality that his parents instilled in him.
"I got inspired by that immigrant grit growing up and I apply it today, being as scrappy as possible," Deleon, who used his pandemic stimulus check to launch his business, said. "How do you get things done with the least amount of resources?"
Insider spoke to eight Asian-American entrepreneurs across industries to learn how their unique experiences have contributed to their professional pursuits.
Jake Deleon, the founder of Fila Manila
Jake Deleon, the founder and CEO of Fila Manila.
The company said it recently closed an oversubscribed round that included Kraft Heinz and Jing Gao — the founder of the Sichuan-based food brand Fly By Jing — as investors. However, Deleon declined to share how much he raised and how much his company booked in revenue last year.
Meanwhile, he's also prioritized giving back: In April 2021, Fila Manila partnered with Project Barkada, a nonprofit focused on supporting the Filipino community and frontline workers.
"The way we give back, we do more than just a percentage of sales," Deleon said. "We give back with our time and something significant that means something to the community, because they supported us from day one."
Sandro Roco, the founder and CEO of Sanzo
Sandro Roco, the founder and CEO of Sanzo.
Sandro Roco got his idea for Sanzo — Asian-inspired flavored water — in 2018, when he saw an increased interest in Asian-inspired consumer products and Asian creative works, like the film "Crazy Rich Asians."
Meanwhile, the 34-year-old Roco was not impressed with the sparkling-water flavors stocked in his office's fridge and decided to combine his two observations. He launched Sanzo in 2019, tapping the Asian flavors he grew up with like calamansi and lychee.
Today, major retailers like Whole Foods and Target sell Sanzo. What's more, Roco has raised a total of $11.3 million, including a $10 million Series A round Circle Up led. Roco declined to share revenue figures.
Roco, a first-generation Filipino American, said he internalized the realization that his parents took a big risk when immigrating to the US.
"People talk about entrepreneurs taking risks in this country — you leave it all on the line," Roco said. "But as a first-gen, I feel like that's nothing compared to our parents' immigrant experience."
Vanessa Pham, a cofounder of Omsom
Vanessa Pham, a cofounder of Omsom.
Deanie Chen
Vietnamese-American sisters Vanessa and Kim Pham started Omsom, a line of food kits that package together sauces, aromatics, and seasonings for traditional Asian dishes like Thai larb and spicy bulgogi. Vanessa Pham said the duo's motivation for launching the business in May 2020 was to accelerate their ability to shape cultural dialogues.
"My parents equipped me with a deep commitment to ethics and doing things that are reflective of my innermost values," Vanessa Pham, 28, said of her parents, who moved to the US from Vietnam. "They've always lived their lives that way."
As she's scaled Omsom, Vanessa Pham said her personal and professional selves fused.
"I realized how my professional aspirations and challenges are so imbued by my personal narratives and they feel one and the same," she said.
Since Omsom's launch, the company has sold more than 800,000 packages, sold out of inventory 10 times, and has 55,000 customers, according to the company. Vanessa Pham declined to share revenue figures.
Alexandra Dorda, the founder of Kasama Rum
Alexandra Dorda, the founder of Kasama Rum.
Darya Buben
Alexandra Dorda founded Kasama Rum after having two realizations. First, she learned that the Philippines — where her mother grew up — is one of the largest rum-producing countries in the world. Second, she saw that the rum category, compared to other spirits categories in the US, is small and underdeveloped.
"I realized I had an opportunity to both celebrate my culture and tell the story of the Philippines," Dorda, 30, said. "But also do it in a way that's filling a real gap that I saw in the market."
It helped that both of her parents are entrepreneurs: Her father, Tadeusz Dorda, is a cofounder of the Chopin and Belvedere vodka brands, and her mother sold things out of the family's car to put Dorda through school. Additionally, Dorda's maternal grandmother owned bars and clubs in Manila.
"Seeing determination and being a part of it was something that really influenced me," Dorda said. "That's something specific to being Filipino — women taking the reins and starting these businesses and making things happen for their family."
Kasama, which means "together" in Filipino, distills and sells seven-year-old rum from the Philippines. Dorda said Kasama is bootstrapped and did not share revenue figures.
Priyanka Ganjoo, the founder of Kulfi Beauty
Priyanka Ganjoo, the founder of Kulfi Beauty.
Kulfi Beauty
Growing up, Priyanka Ganjoo said she didn't feel beautiful. Born in New Delhi, India, Ganjoo said her South Asian community imposed "a narrow and toxic beauty standard" and further reinforced the belief that wearing makeup was only to lighten the skin or to attract men.
"We rarely see South Asians represented in beauty," Ganjoo said, adding that there's a lack of products made for South Asian skin tones and undertones. "We grew up thinking that beauty isn't something that could be possibly tailored to our wants and needs."
This inspired the 34-year-old Ganjoo to start Kulfi Beauty, a brand of eyeliners that she hopes will show customers there are products for them created by someone who looks like them. She launched the business in February 2021 and declined to share revenue figures.
Ganjoo wants the next generation to grow up viewing beauty from a more holistic perspective, she said. She also wants to encourage entrepreneurs to trust their instincts.
"When I was pitching Kulfi, many executives told me that South Asian beauty was not aspirational or that I needed a celebrity cofounder to be successful," Ganjoo said. "I've had to unlearn expectations imposed on women of color to not speak up or take risks."
Rooshy Roy, the founder and CEO of Aavrani
Rooshy Roy, the founder and CEO of Aavrani.
Aavrani
When Rooshy Roy, 32, grew up in Michigan, her household was as "Indian as it could be," she said. Roy's parents wanted their daughter to have the same values, traditions, and morals as they did in Kolkata, India.
This deep connection with India, both through visits and the home her parents created, are what led to Roy creating Aavrani in 2018. Her New York City-based skin-care brand draws on ayurvedic South Asian rituals and ingredients that someone from any background can use. To date, Roy has raised $10 million, but declined to share revenue figures.
Her company is a huge part of how Roy keeps in touch with her Indian roots, especially because she has lived in the US her whole life and her busy schedule doesn't allow for frequent visits to India.
"Aavrani has served as a catalyst for me to keep in touch with my Asian heritage," she said. "It keeps me grounded and in touch with who I am."
Lily Liu, the founder and CEO of Piñata
Lily Liu, the founder and CEO of Piñata.
In 2020, Lily Liu launched Piñata, a New York City-based software company that helps users manage tasks and goals. Her business understanding comes from watching her father, who had his own small manufacturing business. She and her siblings would help their father wrap and box shipments every single night, which taught her the value of grit when running a business.
Liu's family emigrated to the US from Taiwan when she was two years old and she watched her parents establish themselves in a new country. Liu said that the values she learned growing up in an Asian household are what she embodies every day, especially as a CEO.
"Coming from an immigrant family, there was always an emphasis on education, grit, and community," she said. "I feel like that grit is in everything we do at Piñata."
To date, Piñata has raised $13 million in a Series A funding round. Liu declined to share revenue figures.
Deepica Mutyala, the founder and CEO of Live Tinted
Deepica Mutyala, the founder and CEO of Live Tinted.
LiveTinted
Deepica Matyala grew up in Sugarland, Texas, and didn't feel like she fit in with her peers: As a young Indian girl, she had darker skin than most of her blond-haired and blue-eyed classmates.
"Indian beauty standards are generally geared toward women with fairer skin," Mutyala, 32, said. "This led me to hiding from the sun under an umbrella so I would not get darker."
Those experiences are why she started the New York City-based company Live Tinted, a vegan and cruelty-free make-up brand that sells products like huesticks and sunscreens for people of all different skin tones. Last year, Live Tinted raised $3 million in seed funding. Mutyala declined to share revenue figures.
"It was important to me that I created a brand for people who looked like me and to inspire them to embrace their skin as it is a representation of their culture and identity," she said. "That's what makes them beautiful and unique."
More: Features BI Graphics Immigrants Asian-American
immigrant heritage month
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2022-07-01T10:11:13Z
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Immigrant and First-Generation Entrepreneurs on Tapping Their Roots
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https://www.businessinsider.com/immigrant-first-generation-entrepreneurs-building-businesses-raising-capital-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/immigrant-first-generation-entrepreneurs-building-businesses-raising-capital-2022-6
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Insider's Banker of the Week series appears in 10 Things on Wall Street. Sign up here to get the weekday finance newsletter.
This week we're featuring Pete Stavros, the co-head of US private equity for KKR.
He just closed the sale of C.H.I Overhead Doors to Nucor, and scored a massive payday for its workers.
Usually when private equity comes in, line workers and office managers feel a sense of dread. Private-equity firms are known for slashing headcount and picking apart business lines.
But KKR just made a lot of hourly employees, including factory staff and truck drivers, very happy.
The private investor, with roughly $471 billion in assets under management, just sold C.H.I Overhead Doors to Nucor Corporation for $3 billion this month. It's a significant payout for KKR, which will make 10 times the equity it invested in the door manufacturer back in 2015. But it's a mega payday for C.H.I's workforce, who effectively held equity in the company.
Workers lined up to collect their pay packets — which paid hourly workers an average of $175,000 — when KKR completed the sale of C.H.I to Nucor.
The idea to offer equity to staff across C.H.I's organizational chart stemmed from Pete Stavros, the co-head of US private equity at KKR. He told CNBC that his dad was a construction worker for 45 years who loved his job but couldn't create wealth on an hourly wage.
It's a common problem for many Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Stavros said he first contemplated the idea to introduce equity-linked initiatives to broader workforces when he was in business school.
Under Stavros' watch, KKR has awarded billions of dollars in total equity value to over 45,000 non-senior employees across 25 KKR-backed companies. This strategy started with KKR's industrials companies, like C.H.I, a company spokesperson told Insider.
And if C.H.I's staff reactions are anything to go by, this incentive is sure to improve the lives of employees at many KKR-backed companies — from C-suite execs to office managers.
Stavros also helped launch Ownership Works, a nonprofit that partners with companies and investment firms to provide employees with strategies to build wealth.
Since joining KKR in 2005, Stavros has led the firm's investments in data company Nielsen and industrials giant Gardner Denver / Ingersoll Rand, among others.
More: 10 Things on Wall Street Finance banker of the week
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2022-07-01T10:11:19Z
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How KKR's Pete Stavros Blazed a New Trail for Private Equity
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https://www.businessinsider.com/kkr-peter-stavros-private-equity-chi-overhead-doors-sale-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/kkr-peter-stavros-private-equity-chi-overhead-doors-sale-2022-6
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A $5 billion crypto hedge fund founder and former Goldman trader is preparing for the painful unwind of 'the biggest Ponzi scheme in history.' He lays out why he's moving most assets into bitcoin — and reveals 3 other tactical investing plays.
Legendary crypto hedge fund Pantera Capital has moved most of its assets in to bitcoin.
Founder Dan Morehead explains why this is part of a strategy to position for a 'painful unwind.'
And shares 3 other ways he's hedging against the blowup of the 'biggest Ponzi scheme in history.'
A legendary crypto hedge fund is riding out this year's macro madness by moving the majority of its assets into bitcoin.
"While we remain long-term bullish on many of these projects, during the crash we have taken on a larger bitcoin allocation to reduce downside risk," said Dan Morehead, the founder of Pantera Capital, in a recent investor letter.
Crypto investors are facing uncharted territory. Since bitcoin's inception in 2009, it's been a Goldilocks era where growth and inflation have neither been too hot, nor too cold.
Now it's a different story. Inflation is running hot, interest rates are rising to combat the surge and a recession might even be on the horizon as economic growth starts to slow.
To combat this tough economic environment, one of the oldest and most experienced players in the crypto ecosystem Pantera Capital is hunkering down with mostly bitcoin for protection.
Dan Morehead first formed Pantera Capital as a macro hedge fund in 2003 after having spent time as an asset-backed securities trader at Goldman Sachs and as the head of macro trading and CFO at Julian Robertson's Tiger Management.
In 2013 it launched its first bitcoin fund, which has returned 44,000% since inception, and now it manages $5.1 billion in assets with a specific focus on crypto.
Morehead's recent decision to reposition is driven by moves from the Federal Reserve .
"The Fed has really created a self-inflicted disaster here," said Morehead in the letter. "It's the two worst policy mistakes I've seen in thirty-five years of investing."
Morehead believes the Federal Reserve kept interest rates "way too low, way too long." While this is now being corrected with an aggressive rate hike schedule, it's left a lasting impact on the housing market.
The Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy approach pushed 30-year mortgage rates to 2.68%, which Morehead refers to as daring people not buy a house.
In addition to keeping rates low, the Federal Reserve implemented a bond purchasing program that included mortgage backed securities introducing more liquidity into the system.
"That issue is dwarfed by the biggest Ponzi scheme in history – the Fed's manipulation of the government and mortgage bond markets," Morehead said.
"They pumped twice as much money – $6 trillion in total = into the mortgage and bond markets," he added.
The Federal Reserve is still buying instead of selling mortgage backed securities even as they raise interest rates, which is continuing to stoke the very inflation they are trying to get under control.
"I'm very concerned that the Fed doesn't seem to have any sense of what is causing inflation – their own manipulation of the mortgage market," Morehead said.
Morehead doesn't expect the Fed to stop raising rates until at least two of the following scenarios happen:
Housing inflation goes negative.
Unemployment rate goes up by two percentage points.
Core CPI reaches near 2.5%.
The Fed unwinds the majority of its mortgage positions.
In the meantime it will be a painful process to unwind, Morehead said. He is looking to be allocated to assets with less exposure to interest rate moves continue.
"Pretty soon, when the trauma of this macro dislocation is numbed, investors will evaluate where to put fresh money," Morehead said. "It would be very hard to want to put it in bonds, it'd be pretty hard to want to put it in stocks, same thing with real estate, because the Fed really has to get the real estate bubble to stop inflating in order to calm inflation down."
An investing strategy of patience
1) Investing in commodities
"In the first rising rate environment in 42 years, there will be a rush to invest in things that don't have to go down as the Fed unwinds its mistakes," said Morehead in the letter. "Blockchain and other commodities are likely the only place to hide in a world with massively rising rates."
While Morehead's funds focus specifically on crypto, he highlights commodities, agricultural commodities, oil, gold and blockchains as good investments for this environment.
The Pantera team previously expected bitcoin to decouple from rates and have admitted they've been wrong on this so far. Bitcoin's fallen 60% since rates started to rise at the start of this year. But Morehead believes the decoupling from rates is months rather than years away.
2) Hedging in bitcoin
Another reason for moving into bitcoin is that in times of stress it tends to outperform other smaller cryptocurrencies.
"This dynamic happened in the 2017-19 crypto winter – when investors de-risked out of higher beta tokens," Morehead said.
"We put a large portion of our assets into Bitcoin in late May," he added. "When the market starts to rebound, that'll continue to outperform. "
3) Avoiding alts
Morehead is waiting until the market bottoms before rotating into the "higher risk, higher reward alts."
"If you look more on the liquid side, my view is that altcoins are going to underperform Bitcoin and ETH, probably at least until the end of the year," Morehead said.
4) Early stage vs late stage VC
Although Morehead's team are avoiding alts, they are still snapping up opportunities to grab tokens at the early-stages.
"Some of our best investments have met that profile – token deal, early-stage invested, and bear market ," Morehead said.
But they remain cautious on companies in the late stages with elevated valuations.
"Seed rounds on the venture side are still often expensive while seed rounds on the token side are undervalued right now," Morehead said. "As a result, we've been deploying a lot into seed rounds on the token side."
"Over the next six to nine months, I think valuations will come off in the private markets. And that is literally the best time to invest," he added.
More: Investing Investing Strategy crypto investing strategy
macro hedge fund
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Macro strategy
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Fed bond buying
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2022-07-01T11:38:49Z
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$5 Billion Fund Using Bitcoin to Hedge 'Biggest Ever Ponzi'
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https://www.businessinsider.com/crypto-investing-strategy-hedge-fund-bitcoin-ponzi-scheme-pantera-goldman-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/crypto-investing-strategy-hedge-fund-bitcoin-ponzi-scheme-pantera-goldman-2022-6
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FedEx's new CEO plans to reclaim the company's former glory by swiping UPS' playbook and booting customers
Raj Subramanian is CEO of FedEx
FedEx rolled out a sweeping plan this week to change its strategy.
New CEO Raj Subramanian's plans will lead to a FedEx that operates more like rival UPS.
FedEx is partially integrating its disparate networks to grab $2 billion per year in efficiency.
In his first month as CEO of FedEx, Raj Subramanian has laid out his plans for the parcel giant, which after the initial boom of the pandemic, has stalled out under the weight of inefficient residential deliveries.
In its most recent quarter, FedEx posted some improvement, mostly on the back of fuel surcharges and other opportunities the company took to raise prices, along with leaning into some more efficient operational strategies such as "relay stations," which put more operational responsibility in the hands of FedEx's thousands of delivery contractors.
But investors want more and there's new pressure from activist investor D.E. Shaw in the mix, too.
Over the last week, FedEx executives laid out their plans to be more selective with customers and integrate the Ground and Express logistics networks. Both moves led analysts to call this a "new era" for the 50-year-old company, drawing a line between the FedEx of founder Fred Smith and the FedEx of the future.
And as it happens, the new FedEx looks a lot more like rival UPS than it did even a month ago.
Revenue quality is king
In September, Chief Customer Officer Brie Carere told Insider that FedEx lagged UPS on on-time performance because it was taking on more packages and customers to serve a market in need. "If we weren't growing, can you imagine the impact to the e-commerce market? What would be the alternative if we weren't there for the customers to accept their growth?" she said.
Today, the demand picture is murky if not down sliding. FedEx's on-time performance has improved with fewer packages to contend with, and the plan has changed.
Going forward it's "yield over volume growth," Carere said Wednesday. That means spending less, "sweating the assets," and focusing on keeping its most profitable customers. It also means saying "no" to customers more often. Company execs used the term "revenue quality" 24 times during a June 22 earnings call, according to a transcript from Sentieo.
The rhetoric resembled that of UPS CEO Carol Tomé, who has been spreading the gospel of "revenue quality" since she came into the job in 2020 with her "better, not bigger" strategy.
UBS analysts said they expect "a positive response from investors" to FedEx's shift of focus, they wrote in a June 30 note. Others agree that the new plan is a smart one.
"FedEx needs to walk away from much of this ugly, low weight and low revenue e-commerce business by charging a lot more for it, and that has already started," Dean Maciuba, managing partner at Crossroads Parcel Consulting, who spent 35 years at FedEx, told Insider.
A primary goal of the "revenue quality" focus is to raise long-depressed profit margins for FedEx's largest service, FedEx Ground. The company has promised double-digit margins, and repeatedly pushed back its target for when that will happen.
On Wednesday, executives committed to getting the entire company to 10% operating margins by the next fiscal year — with Ground up to 11-12% from 8% operating margin in the most recent quarter.
The solution will need to go beyond pricing, executives said, and analysts agreed. And the operations changes in store represent a big change for the company — a change industry observers and analysts have been anticipating for years.
Network 2.0
Unlike UPS, FedEx is composed of discrete companies — Ground, Express, Freight, Office, and more — all with separate leadership and operations.
In Memphis on Wednesday, Subramanian described how Ground and Express will gradually transition to a more dynamic and collaborative model, wherein cargo will move on whichever vehicles make the most operational sense, regardless of which service the customer contracted with. The transition started in a small way in 2020 and will now ramp up, Subramanian said.
The integration will cost $2 billion over five years, according to the CEO, and the company expects to save $2 billion per year once "Network 2.0" is complete. The resulting network will have 100 fewer sortation centers and eliminate enough truck miles to take several trips to Mars, said FedEx Ground CEO John Smith.
"It's going to reshape how we run — it's going to reshape the business," said John Smith Wednesday.
Executives did not understate how big a shift this will be. FedEx Express and FedEx Ground have been separate for more than 35 years. They have systems and software chosen without collaboration in mind.
"We have to do this very carefully," said Subramanian, assuring investors the company would not disrupt package flow in the process. Morgan Stanley analysts led by Ravi Shanker called the "execution risk" for the plan high in a June 30 note. And investors may have displayed some hesitancy as the stock dropped after the investor meeting.
This move too, will add similarities between UPS and FedEx, since Big Brown has been one network from the beginning. But FedEx executives were keen to point out the differences across their two presentations.
No risk no reward
On the Thursday earnings call, Carere laid out key points of differentiation between FedEx and UPS. First, she noted that FedEx is about to bundle trucking and delivery services together for customers. UPS sold its trucking unit soon after Tomé came on board.
"We are going to win with the bundle. We are going to bundle our local, our regional, our national and our intercontinental and global capabilities," Carere said Wednesday.
She added that unlike UPS, FedEx delivers on Sunday — a move that executives have insisted would be a market differentiator, but which has been a drag on efficiency so far.
And FedEx's newest competitive edge is photo proof of delivery, which the company says it will fully roll out across services before the peak holiday season.
Just say 'no'
So far, the strategy of spending less and saying "no" has worked for UPS. The Atlanta company is projecting consolidated adjusted operating margin of approximately 13.7% for 2022.
But if the two major carriers try to beat each other at the same game, they'll hit the same hurdles. Amid an economic downturn, holding on the high prices both have leaned on for the last two years could grow increasingly difficult.
"UPS has ridden that wave well. However, at some point that wave needs to break," Morgan Stanley analysts wrote after the company's April 26 earnings call, in which CEO Carol Tomé reported an unexpected drop in package volume to the tune of 500,000 packages per day.
FedEx executives insisted that they would not compete on price in order to prop up "revenue quality."
For the plans to work, both companies need to cut costs, or keep them down, and hold onto some of their pricing gains during the pandemic.
"I can't commit to do what we just did last year. That was pretty phenomenal. The team just did an outstanding job," said Carere. "But yes, we're going to work really hard to stay above inflation."
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2022-07-01T11:39:07Z
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FedEx's New CEO Is Swiping UPS' Playbook to Boost Profits
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https://www.businessinsider.com/fedexs-new-ceo-is-swiping-ups-playbook-to-boost-profits-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/fedexs-new-ceo-is-swiping-ups-playbook-to-boost-profits-2022-6
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TikTok is following YouTube's playbook, and it could be its way into the $70 billion TV ad market
TikTok wants to be more than a mobile-first app.
TikTok is trying to make its way into the $70 billion television ad market.
It's taking a page from YouTube's playbook to go after TV ad dollars.
It faces a number of challenges to become competitive for TV advertisers, though.
TikTok's explosive user growth has put digital ad giants like Facebook and YouTube on watch. But while TikTok may be grabbing more performance ad budgets from social rivals now, it's also setting its sights on TV dollars — using YouTube's own playbook. Consider:
In May, it announced TikTok Pulse, which let advertisers buy the top 4% of TikTok content in categories like fashion and gaming — a move that brought comparisons with Google Preferred, now YouTube Select, YouTube's premium ad offering.
It's also been popping up on the big screen in the form of Vizio and Amazon Fire TV smart TV apps, which is reminiscent of how YouTube has made the move to the big screen.
And it's allowed users once capped at 15 seconds to make longer and longer videos, which can accommodate more ads — a la YouTube.
YouTube didn't capture TV ad dollars overnight but it's now a serious competitor to traditional TV networks and streaming platforms. And TikTok wants to create an alternative to YouTube, said Daniel Church, head of advanced TV product for sell-side ad server Beachfront.
Right now, TikTok is pulling dollars from digital performance advertising and underperforming areas like print and radio, but it's not hard to see it jumping into the race for TV dollars that are shifting to streaming platforms — putting it in competition with everyone from traditional sellers like NBCUniversal to streaming platforms like Netflix to digital rivals like Meta.
TikTok's Pulse announcement was timed for maximum impact, with the IAB NewFronts, the industry's annual digital ad showcase; YouTube for its part moved its annual push for TV dollars to the television upfronts in a sign of just how blurry the lines between digital and linear are getting.
"Obviously, TikTok is on a world domination path," said Jared Lake, SVP and head of media investments for agency Ocean Media. "TikTok has the potential to add meaningful scale and options and competition within the TV marketplace. Most brands are trying to navigate a general trend of shifting dollars to CTV. A lot of that shift is coming at the expense of linear TV budgets."
To be sure, TikTok faces some challenges in training TV advertisers to see it as a contender for their budgets and not just a place for entertaining user-created videos, say ad buyers.
First, it needs to widen its footprint by getting on Roku, home to nearly half the share of the streaming device market.
"Roku is a critical move for TikTok, because of its sheer market share," said Sean Odlum, CEO of Tinuiti's Bliss Point Media. "In order to get on connected TVs, you need to get your app on the device."
It also needs to adapt its content. Vertical videos meant to be rapidly scrolled through, interacted with, and individualized to the user don't easily translate to the big screen. TV advertisers have been wary of advertising against user generated content, and TikTok has been accused of exposing kids to harmful content.
YouTube has been able to leverage Google's deep ad relationships in going after TV dollars, but TikTok is still early in building its ad sales team. It'll also have to provide all the things expected of streaming TV sellers, like tools that make it easy to buy, tech that shows people are actually watching the programming, and measurement data.
Ad buyers said YouTube started capturing more TV ad dollars once it was able to prove that its users were watching its app on the big glass. An Emarketer report found that more than 50% of YouTube's users watched the app on connected TVs in 2020.
TikTok expanding its max video length to 10 minutes in February is a sign that it's looking to mature as an entertainment offering. And Pulse is a way to address brand suitability concerns.
But advertisers said TikTok needs to go even longer, and create TV-like content, by, say, having top creators make videos formatted for the wide screen.
"Once they hit the 12-minute to 15-minute mark, that's where they're getting into long-form," Church said.
TikTok isn't selling ads on its Vizio app yet, but as it figures out what works on the big screen, it could open the door to selling ads at an attractive rate.
"Their success will be in part making it incredibly easy to buy TikTok, and then taking what's unique to TikTok, formats and creators, and bringing it back to TV," said Richard Pacheco, SVP of strategic partnerships and business development at Mediaocean.
TikTok and YouTube declined to comment.
More: TikTok YouTube Influencers marketer
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2022-07-01T11:39:19Z
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How TikTok Could Grab Streaming TV Viewers and Advertisers
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-tiktok-could-grab-streaming-tv-viewers-and-advertisers-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-tiktok-could-grab-streaming-tv-viewers-and-advertisers-2022-6
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Jefferies staffers flooded CEO Richard Handler with thousands of questions after lukewarm earnings. Here's what he's telling them about layoffs, slowing deals, and surviving the downturn.
Richard Handler is the CEO of Jefferies Financial Group.
Thousands of staff flooded Jefferies CEO Richard Handler with questions after the bank's earnings.
"People's concerns are deep" and "emotional fatigue is real," the CEO wrote in a letter to staff.
He shared thoughts on weathering a possible economic downturn and offered reasons to remain hopeful.
During an internal town hall earlier this week after the bank's lukewarm second-quarter earnings results, Richard Handler, CEO of Jefferies Financial Group, received a deluge of questions from nervous employees — more than 5,000 in all.
"What was clear to us is that people's concerns are deep, emotional fatigue is real, and all of us are looking for comfort and confidence about the future," the CEO wrote in a letter to staff set to be published later on Friday morning. Insider got an exclusive advanced look at the letter, which Handler intends to share on Jefferies' website and post to his Instagram page — where he commands a following of more than 38,000 — on Friday as well.
"Enormous wealth has been lost these past six months, everyone's job is now much tougher, there is massive pain from major unsettled geopolitical tragedies, and we are all still learning how to live through a pandemic," Handler wrote. "This period just feels incredible 'yucky,'" he added, while emphasizing that it "is NOT one of those systemically catastrophic or paralyzingly painful periods we have experienced before."
"It is compounded by the fact that every one of us is fighting each day against the formidable foes of mental and physical exhaustion," Handler added.
On Monday, New York City-based Jefferies, which employs more than 4,700 staffers worldwide, reported investment-banking and capital-markets revenues of nearly $1.1 billion for the second quarter of 2022 — a 31% drop from the same quarter last year. Asset management revenue was down 39%. The bank named volatility , a slowdown in deals, and "global instability" in the markets as a few of the factors to blame.
Jefferies is hardly alone in facing stiffening economic headwinds. The S&P 500 index entered bear market territory in June, and finance industry leaders like JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon are predicting a coming "hurricane." Because Jefferies generally releases earnings results ahead of large-cap peers like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, its numbers are something of a weathervane for the rest of the industry. And it's all foreshadowing pain in the months ahead for Wall Street and Main Street alike.
Handler sought to allay some of those concerns in his letter to staff, addressing a range of topics from forging deeper ties with clients right now to protecting employee mental health. Insider collected a few highlights from the letter — here are four key takeaways.
Layoffs: People who underperform, have lapses in judgment 'will always be at risk'
Everyone's laser-focused on layoffs right now, from big chunks of staff being culled at fintechs like Robinhood and Coinbase to cuts in the home-lending units of banks like JPMorgan and Wells Fargo.
Not everyone will be spared as the economic toll sets in. But Handler said that the bank is "not looking for reasons to shrink," and suggested that those who demonstrate a spirit of innovation and reinvention during tough times will be able to navigate choppy seas.
"We will continue to do what we have done every year: people who underperform, are not fully committed, have lapses in judgment regarding ethics or who are not constantly reinventing themselves and growing, will always be at risk at Jefferies," he wrote.
"We have this philosophy at Jefferies that has served us well for decades: If you do nothing arrogant or 'too stupid' during the good times, you can play offense during the more challenging times," he added. "This means we will remain on high alert for great talent that may now be available to join us. We intend to keep playing (what we hope will be) smart offense."
An ideal time to form new client relationships
At a time like this, everyone wants to know how to drum up business. But with M&A volumes contracting and public offerings in a deep freeze, it's hard to know where the next opportunity will arise. Indeed, some junior bankers are even relishing their newfound downtime — it's giving them the opportunity to let off steam at the pool or play Xbox during the workday — while dreading what the dearth of deals could mean down the road.
But, rather than grieving for a tighter pipeline of new business right now, Handler suggests viewing this period as a crucible through which to forge new client relationships. "There isn't a better time" to deepen these bonds, he wrote.
"Relationships are made during challenging times and rarely during frothy times," he added. "Better yet, if you can help solve a new relationship's really big and messy problem (who doesn't have one of those today), you will have a new friend for life."
Redefining the measures of 'success'
Every Wall Streeter craves the rush of success — that inimitable feeling of going in for the kill at the end of a deal, or bringing home a mega-win for a client. But in times of a downturn, that thrill can be fewer and further between — and Handler spoke openly about reframing the metrics that define "success" accordingly.
"When you are pricing 25 deals a week, trading more securities than you ever dreamed and putting out explosively positive research daily that is almost always right, it's easy to measure success," he wrote. But, he added, the opposite can also have a disheartening effect. Hard work during a period of few immediate results can be "de-motivating," he conceded.
But it's not all about the big wins. Taking meetings, helping to recruit and mentor talent, and contributing to a firm's culture all pay dividends over the long-term, even if they offer few "overnight results," Handler said.
"Being part of the cohesive team that takes pride in these longer-term opportunities will make a difference during times like these and even more importantly, set the entire firm up for future success," he added.
Safeguarding physical and mental health
The CEO also weighed in on a topic that is often left on the cutting room floor on Wall Street: taking care of one's physical and mental well-being.
"If things are a little slower right now and you still can't find a way to focus on your physical and mental health, there is a problem," he wrote. "This is also a time where we want our people to give themselves and their families a break and make sure everyone's batteries stay as fresh and re-charged as humanly possible."
And, in spite of growing storm clouds gathering on the horizon, Handler offered a ray of optimism.
"The sun will rise tomorrow, markets and life will evolve, and most likely sooner than many expect and perhaps as many are capitulating, an inflection point will be reached and the turn will begin," he wrote. "Don't drive yourself nuts trying to figure out the timeline and instead productively do your best every single day until the sun shines brightly again, as it always does."
More: Wall Street Jefferies Richard Handler
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2022-07-01T11:39:31Z
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Jefferies CEO Addresses Staffers' Worries After Tepid Earnings Results
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https://www.businessinsider.com/jefferies-ceo-tried-to-calm-staffers-tensions-about-a-downturn-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/jefferies-ceo-tried-to-calm-staffers-tensions-about-a-downturn-2022-6
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Christopher Pincher in Downing Street, London, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson reshuffles his Cabinet. Picture date: Tuesday February 8, 2022.
Ex-deputy chief whip Chris Pincher is in line for a pay-out worth £7,920 after resigning Thursday.
Former ministers receive an automatic severance payment, regardless of the reasons for their departure.
But Liberal Democrat chief whip Wendy Chamberlain says Pincher should not take the payment.
Chris Pincher could receive severance pay of nearly £8,000 after resigning from Boris Johnson's government amid claims he drunkenly groped two men.
As deputy chief whip, Pincher received a ministerial salary of £31,680, latest figures show.
Ministers under the age of 65 who leave the government and are not reappointed to a post within three weeks are entitled to receive one quarter of their annual salary as severance pay, meaning Pincher could take £7,920.
One Conservative MP said it was automatic, but noted he could decline the pay-out.
Liberal Democrat chief whip Wendy Chamberlain told Insider : "Given the seriousness of the allegations facing Chris Pincher and the nature of his resignation, I would very much expect him to forgo his severance pay."
Whether or not Pincher does take the pay may not come out in official records until the annual report from the Cabinet Office covering April 2022 to March 2023, not expected until July 2023.
The Prime Minister's deputy spokesperson told reporters he had not asked Johnson about severance pay, but that "the PM thinks it is right he resigned."
The spokesperson said Johnson was not aware of "specific allegations" against Pincher when he was appointed deputy chief whip in February, despite Pincher resigning in 2017 over similar claims. He did, however, refer to "unsubstantiated allegations" at the time Pincher was appointed.
The spokesperson declined to provide details into communications between Johnson and Pincher concerning his resignation.
Conservative MPs have told Insider that Pincher should have the Tory whip withdrawn and that he should stand down as an MP.
Pincher's office did not respond to Insider's request for comment.
More: UK Politics News UK Boris Johnson Groping allegations
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2022-07-01T13:09:49Z
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Chris Pincher in Line for £7,920 Payoff Amid Groping Allegations
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https://www.businessinsider.com/chris-pincher-in-line-for-7920-payoff-amid-groping-allegations-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/chris-pincher-in-line-for-7920-payoff-amid-groping-allegations-2022-7
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Hello! I'm Jeffrey Cane, filling in for Aaron Weinman, who is away for a week. First, a reminder that there will be no newsletter on Monday, as we observe the Fourth of July holiday.
While you may see fireworks this weekend, on Wall Street, little has been popping. The second quarter ended on Thursday with a whimper: deal-making is on hiatus, markets are in a slump, and IPOs are all but nonexistent.
And as if they didn't have enough to worry about, some bank employees are concerned over their employers' attempts to monitor their messaging. More on that below. We will try to end on a more positive note, with our latest edition of Banker of the Week.
First, here's where finance stands at the half-way point of the year.
1. Dealmaking is down. M&A broke records last year, but the current trend is not Wall Street's friend.
Merger activity worldwide tumbled 21% in the first half of 2022 — to $2.1 trillion — from a year ago, according to Refinitiv data. Mergers worth more than $1 billion fell 30% worldwide. That includes some of the biggest that still need to clear a few hurdles, like Broadcom's acquisition of VMware, which faces an antitrust review in Europe, and Elon Musk's proposed buyout of Twitter, which has, well, Elon Musk. (Elon, by the way, has not tweeted since June 21 – a positive sign for the deal?)
The market for initial public offerings had the slowest second quarter since 2009, says Renaissance Capital: just 21 IPOs raising $2.1 billion. With the stock market off to its weakest first-half start since 1970, expect more deals and IPOs to be put on the shelf. It could be a long summer for bankers.
The slowdown spells lower fee revenue for banks – and the prospect of hiring freezes and layoffs. "Right now, everybody's worried about a recession," Brennan Hawken, a UBS equity analyst who covers the big banks, told Insider.
Still, there are bragging rights. Leading the 2022 league table for global M&A advising are the usual suspects: Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley. Allen & Co. is at No. 10, thanks to advising Activision Blizzard on its sale to Microsoft. Speaking of Allen, the firm's annual summer camp for media moguls and deal makers kicks off next week in Sun Valley, Idaho. (Think "Succession.") The thin mountain air there could breathe new life into the merger market yet.
Wall Street has turned to apps like Movius more frequently in recent days to step up monitoring of employees' communications, in light of an ongoing regulatory investigation.
2. The Wall Street tracking app that's now in demand is Movius. Bankers and traders – and their clients – love using messaging platforms like WhatsApp, but regulators insist that the banks monitor all work-related communications. So more banks are asking employees to install the Movius tracking software on their personal phones – leading to outcries over privacy. Insider spoke to the CEO of Movius, who explained how it works and whether employees should be concerned.
3. Big bank as Big Brother? A recently departed employee of JPMorgan Chase gave a first-person account of working under the bank's new tracking system. "I feel betrayed by a company I put my whole heart into," the former employee told Insider. "I won't buy into a system of fear."
4. Leon Black's lawsuit accusing a fellow co-founder of Apollo Global Management and others of conspiring to "destroy" and "cancel" him has been tossed out by a federal judge in Manhattan. The judge did not sanction Black's lawyers, as one of the defendants had requested. Black is also battling separately in New York state court over allegations of sexual assault made by his former lover. Insider recently profiled the #MeToo-supporting lawyer who is defending Black in that litigation.
5. OppZo works to get loans to small firms that have won government contracts and need to ramp up fast. Insider has the 12-page pitch deck the fintech used to raise $260 million.
6. UBS agreed to pay $250 million to settle SEC allegations that it failed to fully disclose the risk in a complex options trading strategy known as YES and did not adequately train its financial advisors who sold it. "YES had the potential to generate modest returns during periods of low market volatility ; however, the strategy could — and eventually did — suffer losses during periods of high market volatility," the SEC order says.
7. DE Shaw and four senior executives must pay $52.1 million to an ex-money manager who accused the hedge fund of defamation. Dan Michalow was terminated by DE Shaw in 2018 amid sexual misconduct allegations. But a filing Thursday shows an arbitration panel ruled that DE Shaw and its executives defamed Michalow. The award is believed to be the largest in a defamation case overseen by FINRA.
8. Buy-now, pay-later startups have hit a rocky patch, but Zilch of the UK has just snagged $50 million in fresh funding. The company's CEO tells Insider why its direct-to-consumer business model sets it apart from its BNPL rivals.
9. If you are headed to the Hamptons this weekend, pray that you will not be stuck in traffic when nature is calling. Going forward this summer, you have two options: You can join the uber-rich in taking a helicopter to the Long Island enclave or you can have a medical procedure that reduces the urge to urinate. "Race to the Hamptons, not to the bathroom," is the pitch of the New York doctor who offers the procedure.
10. And let's not forget our Friday "Banker of the Week."
Meet Pete Stavros, the co-head of US private equity for KKR. He just closed on a deal to sell C.H.I. Overhead Doors to steel-maker Nucor for $3 billion. KKR will make 10 times the money it put into the door manufacturer in 2015.
While such returns are to be expected for the biggest and best in private equity, what's surprising here is that there is also a significant payout to the truck drivers and factory staff who effectively held equity in C.H.I. Overhead Doors.
Here's how KKR and Stavros came to offer an equity-linked initiative to the workers.
If you know of any bankers we should feature in our Banker of the Week series, please let Aaron know at aweinman@insider.com.
Spanish soccer powerhouse FC Barcelona has reached a deal to sell 10% of its league television rights for the next 25 years to US investment firm Sixth Street for 207.5 million euros.
WPP has agreed to acquire the business of Bower House, an Australian marketing tech services firm with some 80 employees.
Universal Music Group is acquiring the estate of the musician Frank Zappa.
More: Newsletter 10 Things on Wall Street Finance Deals
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2022-07-01T13:10:25Z
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Here's a Midyear Scorecard for Wall Street's Deals
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https://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-deals-tesla-musk-broadcom-vmware-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-deals-tesla-musk-broadcom-vmware-2022-6
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US airlines have canceled nearly 900 flights on Wednesday and Thursday ahead of the July 4 weekend.
In the days leading up to the long holiday, airlines have already started canceling and delaying flights. On Wednesday, United Airlines and American Airlines both delayed over 20% of their scheduled flights and canceled 103 and 277 others, respectively, according to FlightAware data.
The three mainline carriers continued the trend into Thursday, having already canceled over 200 flights at the time of publication, per FlightAware. Nearly 1,500 flights have been delayed or canceled by all airlines operating to, from, or within the US.
The disruptions come as booming demand and staffing shortages create chaos for airlines and passengers, especially over key holiday weekends. Over the Juneteenth weekend, more than 35,000 flights were canceled or delayed from Thursday to Monday, while 4,500 were canceled over Memorial Day weekend in May.
United has opted to slash 12% of its daily departures out of its busy Newark Liberty International Airport hub, which is the second-most delayed airport in the nation, CNBC reported. The company says the move will improve on-time performance and make flying through Newark easier for all travelers.
Breeze: No phone number. The fastest way to contact Breeze is via Facebook Messenger.
While you wait for a representative to answer, which has taken up to four hours for some customers, try reaching out to companies via social media, like Twitter.
American plane after landing on a snowy day.
EchoVisuals/Shutterstock
Southwest Airlines mobile app.
If your flight is canceled altogether, airlines must offer customers a refund, according to the Department of Transportation. In other cases, like a voluntary cancelation, airlines may offer credits that can be used at a later date.
Passport and Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card.
There are also travel insurance companies, like Allianz, that cover costs lost by disruptions. For example, if you don't make it to your final destination for at least 24 hours "due to severe weather (or another covered reason)," then Allianz has a coverage plan.
Allianz's 24-hour policy is not always the case. Chase's "trip delay reimbursement" policy reimburses customers for 6-hour delays or overnight stays.
Insider used Chase's reimbursement benefit on a trip in summer 2021 and was covered for all expenses.
More: travels flight disruptions Flight Cancellations Flight Delays
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2022-07-01T13:10:31Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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4th of July 2022: What to Do If Your Flight Is Canceled or Delayed
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https://www.businessinsider.com/what-to-do-if-your-flight-canceled-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/what-to-do-if-your-flight-canceled-2022-6
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Electric-vehicle startup Canoo lays off workers as its production deadline nears
Canoo has laid off workers this year. A company spokesperson said the move is part of Canoo's strategy, but employees say uncertainty is brewing.
Electric-vehicle startup Canoo has recently laid off some employees.
The company just reduced headcount in some areas, like talent acquisition and marketing.
Canoo said the moves are a natural step as it moves toward production, but employees aren't so sure.
Electric-vehicle startup Canoo has laid off some workers this year as its deadline for starting vehicle production approaches, six sources familiar with the changes told Insider. A company spokesperson confirmed the layoffs and said the move is part of Canoo's strategy to execute its plans, but employees impacted say uncertainty is brewing.
The spokesperson said Canoo has let 58 employees go this year, which is about 6% of its approximate 940-person headcount. The spokesperson also said 313 employees have been hired this year, and that it is still hiring.
Canoo has cut personnel in areas like talent sourcing and acquisition, marketing, brand design, and engineering, according to current and former employees with direct knowledge of the situation, along with LinkedIn posts from those who say they've been laid off.
The company has also been shifting and reorganizing some of its remaining workforce to prioritize manufacturing and production-focused roles.
"We are a performance-based culture and make decisions appropriate to the times and the needs of the company, to execute our plans," the company spokesperson said.
Canoo is in the process of relocating its headquarters from California to Bentonville, Arkansas, where it says it plans to start production of its flagship "lifestyle vehicles" this year. But the Arkansas factory is not yet set up for mass production, sources say. During Canoo's last earnings call, CEO Tony Aquila referred to this year's production guidance and said "Whether we will hit our full target of 3,000 units to 6,000 units is still remaining open."
Canoo also originally targeted production at its other US-based manufacturing plant, in Pryor, Oklahoma, starting late 2023.
Aquila told Reuters in May that the company may see a delay in the start of vehicle production in Arkansas from the fourth quarter this year to the start of 2023, and that the start of production in Oklahoma could slip into 2024. A recent report from local paper Tulsa World said those plans are on hold, citing a local official.
The reality of the difficulty of making that many vehicles by late this year is setting in, sources told Insider.
"It was chaotic to say the least," an employee who says they were just terminated from the company told Insider.
The startup has also lost top talent and sources allege it missed supplier payments this year. Meanwhile, its stock price has dropped 90% from an all-time high of $22 in December 2020 to around $2.
Canoo reported a "going concern" statement about its financial viability at the end of the first-quarter but announced a new plan to raise much-needed capital, including $50 million in funding via a committed private investment in public equity from Aquila's firm, Aquila Family Ventures, and a $250 million equity purchase agreement with financing partner Yorkville Advisors. The plan also included filing a $300 million universal shelf registration, allowing the company to issue securities like common stock in the future.
The company's burn rate is more than $100 million a quarter.
More: Transportation Electric Vehicles Canoo
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2022-07-01T14:46:41Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Canoo Lays Off Workers As Its Production Deadline Nears
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https://www.businessinsider.com/canoo-layoffs-production-goals-electric-vehicle-startup-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/canoo-layoffs-production-goals-electric-vehicle-startup-2022-6
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2021 Chevrolet Silverado.
General Motors said it built 95,000 vehicles without certain parts in the second quarter of 2022.
Those vehicles are sitting unfinished, waiting for missing components.
GM plans to finish all the vehicles and ship them to dealers by the end of the year.
Can't find the new car you're looking to buy? It may be parked at a factory waiting for crucial parts.
General Motors said on Friday that it's sitting on 95,000 vehicles that were built without computer chips or other components. Most were manufactured in June, the company said.
GM attributed the holdup to "the timing of semiconductor shipments and other supply chain disruptions" in a regulatory filing. It plans to install the missing parts and ship the vehicles to dealers by the end of 2022.
A global shortage of semiconductor chips — used throughout modern vehicles in safety systems and other electronics — has slowed car manufacturing for much of the pandemic, slashing the availability of new cars. Some industry leaders don't expect supply to rebound until 2024.
GM said it sold 582,401 vehicles in the second quarter of 2022, a 15% drop from the same period last year.
More: Transportation Tech Auto Industry Supply Chain
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2022-07-01T14:46:59Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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GM Has 95,000 Unfinished Vehicles Waiting for Parts
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https://www.businessinsider.com/gm-chevrolet-chip-shortage-unfinished-vehicles-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/gm-chevrolet-chip-shortage-unfinished-vehicles-2022-7
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Healthcare, open dialogues, and community guidelines are the keys to a trans-inclusive workplace, according to this coach
James Barnes, The Trans Coach
James Barnes, who's known as "The Trans Coach," trains employers on creating an inclusive workplace.
Barnes works with real-estate agents and companies, including Comcast and Zendesk.
He said healthcare, open dialogues, and company policies are the keys to transgender inclusion.
James Barnes and his wife were looking for a new home five years ago when he realized the lack of LGBTQ representation in the real-estate industry.
As they toured homes and met sellers, Barnes questioned whether he should come out as transgender, if he would be discriminated against, or if he had to disclose that he'd previously changed his name. That uncertainty sparked a business idea for Barnes.
"I had a goal that, within the year, I'd train 10 local Realtors," he said, adding that he wanted to create an education program on best practices for working with and among trans coworkers and clients. Thirteen months later, he offered his first training, and 30 people showed up.
Today, he still works with Realtors but has expanded his services into DEI training to larger companies, including Comcast and Zendesk — and has adopted the moniker of "The Trans Coach" on social media. Since initially launching his business as a side hustle in May 2021, he's taken the venture full time and booked almost $30,000 in sales. But part of that success stems from recent adversity: As of this year, 28 states have introduced anti-LGTBQ bills that would affect trans peoples' professional lives, such as where they can use the bathroom.
His training workshops cover everything from empathetic language to equitable healthcare. He tells stories of his time working at a call-center job, saying, "Everybody had known me as the person I was before, I didn't know what bathroom I could use, and everything felt awkward." And they include information on inclusive benefits so employees don't have to fight as hard as he did to gain access to top surgery and other necessary healthcare options.
Insider spoke with Barnes about the importance of addressing these issues, his training techniques, and how entrepreneurs can build an inclusive workplace.
Comprehensive healthcare is a necessary step toward inclusion
One of the most pressing issues is the lack of healthcare diversity, including insurance-covered top or bottom surgery, necessary hormones, and post-surgery recovery time, Barnes said. He advises companies to offer healthcare plans that address each of those needs — by providing the highest level healthcare plan they can afford to offer — and discussing details with both insurers and employees.
Once a robust healthcare plan is established, companies should create clear resource pages for employees to fully understand their options. Explicit answers and guidelines may ensure that employees don't have to ask any private questions or engage in conversations they aren't comfortable having publicly, he said.
Mental health is another major factor in the well-being of trans people: Therapists, counselors, and other mental-health professionals should be of easy access through employee policies. But if a small business lacks the financial resources to provide healthcare plans, founders should still create transition-related support policies.
For example, the company should establish an easy, step-by-step plan to adjust pronouns and change names on badges and in email signatures. Providing quick updates to professional settings would allow employees to feel safe in their identity, Barnes said.
Barnes speaking at a corporate training session.
courtesy of Barnes
Build workplace relationships on open dialogue
The hiring process can be isolating for many trans people because of a fear of discrimination, misunderstanding, or being forced to explain their sensitive history, Barnes said. This makes interviews and onboarding the perfect time to establish a supportive rapport.
Founders and hiring managers should start every interview by sharing their names and pronouns with the interviewee.
Even if you're a cis-gendered founder — which means you identify as the gender you were assigned at birth — sharing your pronouns invites supportive discussions and can help non-cisgender or nonbinary interviewees feel comfortable sharing their own identities.
Community and workplace guidelines should also clearly state that misgendering, deadnaming — using a person's name from before their transition — or other forms of intolerance are against company policy. Having a written statement addressing these issues helps members of the LGBTQ community and allies feel empowered to speak up against discriminatory behavior, he said.
Invest in inclusion year-round
It's important that companies invest in inclusive policies for LGBTQ and other marginalized employees year-round, he said.
When employers hire Barnes to speak for Pride Month, it can seem like an extracurricular activity as opposed to a genuine push for inclusion, he added. Diversity, equity, and inclusion consulting sessions outside of months of celebration and remembrance make for a much more meaningful and long-lasting conversation, Barnes said.
"Awareness about the topic is not a Pride event," he said, adding that in order for diversity and inclusion to be part of the fabric of the company, founders need to invest in speakers, coaching, and improvements year-round.
More: Small Business Entrepreneur Pride 2022
transgender inclusion
Workplace Activism
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2022-07-01T14:47:05Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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How to Create a Trans-Inclusive Workplace and Support Employees
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-create-a-trans-inclusive-workplace-support-employees-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-create-a-trans-inclusive-workplace-support-employees-2022-6
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This startup wants to transform how alcohol addiction is treated. Check out the 24-slide pitch deck Ria Health used to raise $18 million.
Tom Nix, CEO of Ria Health.
Ria Health
San Francisco-based Ria Health has raised an $18 million Series A from SV Health Investors.
The startup delivers a comprehensive alcohol addiction treatment through its digital platform.
A startup that provides treatment for alcohol use disorders has just raised $18 million in Series A funding.
Ria Health, which launched in 2016, offers users personalized care to tackle alcohol misuse through its app. The startup prescribes FDA-approved medicine which assists in controlling alcohol cravings, but this is also supplemented by its telehealth services.
Members are given access to private coaching with certified counselors, including treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as online support groups.
They're also guided towards weekly and monthly goals with constant support from Ria Health's medical team. Each member is provided with a bluetooth breathalyzer when they sign up, which records their blood alcohol content and logs it onto the app.
The "one-size-fits-all approach to multi-addiction treatment has yielded poor results," said Tom Nix, CEO of Ria Health.
The startup tailors its coaching to each individual differently based on the recovery patterns that are best suited to their needs.
So far, Ria Health has found that within a year of starting treatment, 80% of its patients have a lower risk drinking level – as defined by the World Health Organization.
Excessive alcohol consumption hit an all-time high during the pandemic, but healthcare providers were stretched thin, with less means to provide in-person treatments. Since 2020, a slate of digital health startups have emerged globally in a bid to fill this gap and provide more accessible treatments remotely, by forming partnerships with health insurers.
Ria Health operates through individual memberships as well as commercial partnerships with insurance providers, such as Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Optum, and United Healthcare.
The round was led by SV Health Investors, a Boston-based VC firm with a specific focus on healthcare startups which has backed drug discovery startups such as Prilenia and TRexBio. Additional backing came from BPEA Private Equity, and existing investor SOSV.
With the fresh funds, the startup will grow its team across the US, and expand its delivery of treatments.
Check out the pitch deck used to raise the capital.
More: Features Healthcare Pitch Deck
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2022-07-01T14:47:24Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Ria Health: Telehealth Startup Raises $18 Million Series a
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https://www.businessinsider.com/ria-health-telehealth-startup-raises-18-million-series-a-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/ria-health-telehealth-startup-raises-18-million-series-a-2022-6
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Student-loan payments are set to resume in two months, after August 31.
Before the resumption, Biden is expected to cancel some student debt for many federal borrowers.
Advocates want a pause extension to ensure cancellation is fully implemented before payments resume.
Federal student-loan borrowers have two more months of relief before they are hit with another monthly bill.
President Joe Biden's fourth extension of the student-loan payment pause, through August 31, was intended to give borrowers a break amid the pandemic and soaring inflation. With that deadline just 60 days away, the administration has not given a firm indication of another extension of that pause — and it's looking more likely that broad student-loan forgiveness will happen first.
Recent reports indicated Biden is considering $10,000 in relief for federal borrowers making under $150,000 a year, and while that amount has not been confirmed by the White House, the president is expected to announce his final decision in July or August, prior to the payment resumption. But some advocates are worried payments will resume before debt cancellation is fully implemented.
"A hasty restart of payments now, in this time of rising costs, and while thousands are still waiting for their loan forgiveness applications to be processed, would be devastating," American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. "This is no time to shift the burden of a broken student loan system onto the backs of working people."
If the debt cancellation is subject to income thresholds, it's likely the borrowers will have to take some action on their part, either by applying for the relief themselves or filling out paperwork to verify their incomes, and as Insider previously reported, it could be a burdensome task in which simple errors could easily be made, blocking debt cancellation from those who need it the most.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have also expressed concerns with the lack of information surrounding both a possible payment pause extension, and Biden's nearing decision on broad loan forgiveness. Top Republican on the House education committee Virginia Foxx wrote a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona requesting additional information on any forthcoming relief plans, and how the department is planning to carry them out.
"You said you are ready to act on student loan forgiveness, but you can only be ready if you know the plan; therefore, please describe, what is this plan?" Foxx wrote.
Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar later led dozens of her Democratic colleagues in sending a similar letter to Cardona to ensure "ability to deliver debt cancellation quickly and efficiently, no matter the effort and resources required."
The most the public knows now is that a payment pause extension could, or could not, happen. Cardona told lawmakers in June that "it could be that it's extended."
"Or it could be that it starts there," he said. "But what I will say is that our borrowers will have ample notice. And we'll communicate that with you as well."
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2022-07-01T14:47:54Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Student-Loan Payments Resume in 2 Months, Biden's Broad Relief Looms
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https://www.businessinsider.com/when-do-student-loan-payments-resume-biden-debt-cancellation-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/when-do-student-loan-payments-resume-biden-debt-cancellation-2022-7
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UK banks call on other tech sectors to help fight proliferating APP fraud
Authorized push payment fraud surged in the UK last year.
The rampant rise of APP fraud in the UK is causing regulators to reassess how banks are handling these cases.
The news: Authorized push payment (APP) fraud surged in the UK in 2021, according to UK Finance.
More on this: The trade group reported that £1.3 billion ($1.8 billion) was stolen through fraud and scams during 2021, up 39% from the previous year.
Of that, £730.4 million ($1 billion) was lost to unauthorized fraud schemes.
There were 195,996 incidents of APP scams, resulting in £583.2 million ($802 million) stolen.
Of the APP fraud cases, 40% came from scams in which fraudsters impersonated the UK National Health Service, banks, and other government departments. The scams were conducted via phone, texts, emails, and imposter websites.
What are banks doing? Currently there is no mandate for banks in the UK to reimburse APP fraud victims. But nine of the largest financial institutions in the country have signed a voluntary agreement for repayment put forth by the Lending Standards Board.
Only 47% of victims have been reimbursed for the 2021 losses through this voluntary scheme, according to UK Finance.
Banks are also able to join a program called "159," in which banking customers can hang up on any call from an entity claiming to be their banking institution and then dial "159" to directly reach their bank to verify the caller.
What's the government doing? The rampant rise of APP fraud in the UK is causing regulators to reassess how banks are handling these cases.
In May, the Queen's Speech introduced the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which would require banks to reimburse victims of APP fraud.
The forthcoming Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill is expected to give the government more control over information sharing and the process of tracking stolen funds.
The country has also launched the "Take Five to Stop Fraud" campaign, which provides citizens with advice and education on how to handle scam attempts made through e-mail, online, or phone.
The big takeaway: APP scams are reaching alarming levels, and fraudsters are taking ever more sly approaches. One major struggle in addressing the schemes is that attacks often occur outside of the banking infrastructure. With fintech revolutionizing how people use money, more bad actors are able to use other technology platforms to infiltrate users' bank accounts online. To nip APP fraud schemes in the bud, banks are calling on broader technology sectors to come together to educate their users on these tactics, to provide opportunities for customers to verify the people and programs with which they interact, and to identify fraudsters earlier in the process.
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2022-07-01T16:18:57Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Authorized Push Payment Fraud Surged in the UK Last Year
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https://www.businessinsider.com/authorized-push-payment-fraud-surged-in-the-uk-last-year-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/authorized-push-payment-fraud-surged-in-the-uk-last-year-2022-7
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Tesla Model S Plaid.
Ingenext bypassed Tesla software to help the Model S plaid hit 216 miles per hour, Electrek reported.
The CEO of the tech company is the first on record to hit speeds over 200 miles per hour with the car.
When Tesla initially released the EV its top speed was about 163 miles per hour.
A Tesla Model S Plaid hit its fastest speed on record Thursday after a software company hacked into the vehicle's software restrictions.
Guillaume André, the CEO of Ingenext, took his Model S Plaid out for a spin at the Trois-Rivières airport in Québec, Canada on Thursday morning. André was able to get the vehicle up to a top speed of 216 miles per hour, Electrek reported.
A spokesperson from Ingenext did not respond to a request for comment from Insider ahead of publication.
The Ingenext CEO posted a short clip of the run on his personal Facebook account, confirming that the vehicle hit 216 miles per hour.
The nearly $130,000 Tesla model has not previously been reported to have run faster than 200 miles per hour. Though, Ingenext has attempted to hit 200 miles per hour in previous tests, the publication said. Electrek reported that the Quebec track had a longer 1.8 mile runway which helped the car hit the new top speed.
The EV publication posted a video from the track on YouTube that showed the 216 miles per hour run from both inside and outside the four-door sedan. As the vehicle neared 200 miles per hour the speedometer on the car's dashboard turned red.
Electrek reporter Fred Lambert compared the sound of the vehicle racing down the runway to a "jet taking off" and recorded the sound of the Tesla's cooling system attempting to cool off the motors and battery pack after the run.
André is not the first company to test the limits of the Model S Plaid. Last summer, Brooks Weisblat, the host of DragTimes, tested the vehicle in a series of videos by racing the Tesla against a Porsche Taycan Turbo S, as well as testing out its top speed at low battery levels.
MotorTrend said in 2021 that the Model S Plaid hit the highest 0 to 60 acceleration speed the publication has ever seen from a production car.
When Tesla initially announced the vehicle they said it would be able to hit a top speed of 200 miles per hour, but upon release the vehicle was shown to have a speed limited to about 163 miles per hour. In January, Tesla released Track Mode for the Plaid which allowed the vehicle to go slightly faster.
More: Cars Tesla Tesla Model S Plaid Electric Cars
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2022-07-01T16:19:16Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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A Hacked Tesla Model S Plaid Hit a Record 216 Mph
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https://www.businessinsider.com/hacked-tesla-model-s-plaid-hits-record-216-mph-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/hacked-tesla-model-s-plaid-hits-record-216-mph-2022-7
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Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Republican candidate Harriet Hageman
Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News and Natalie Behring/Getty Images
Rep. Liz Cheney and her primary opponent, Harriet Hageman, debated for the first time on Thursday.
Cheney took on Hageman's stolen 2020 election claims using her expertise from the January 6 committee.
Cheney cited testimony from members of Trump's inner circle, including Ivanka Trump.
In her first debate against a raft of Republican primary opponents on Thursday night, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming took on her challengers' false claims that the 2020 election was stolen largely by drawing on findings she's helped uncover as a member of the House January 6 committee.
In a debate segment on election integrity, Cheney's main rival — former RNC committeewoman Harriet Hageman, who has the backing of former President Donald Trump and most of the House Republican conference that Cheney once led — cited Dinesh D'Souza's widely-debunked "2000 Mules movie."
Hageman went on to say that "Zuckerberg money" had allowed a "private individual to capture our county clerks" which was "devastating in our swing states."
Responding to Hageman's claims, Cheney touted her own support for voter ID laws while going on the attack.
"I also know that the truth matters, and the claims that Mrs. Hageman is making about the 2020 election are the same claims for which the President's lead lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was disbarred," said Cheney. "They're the same claims for which Sidney Powell has had her law license suspended."
While it is true that both Giuliani and Powell have faced sanctions for their involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 elections, Giuliani has only had his law license suspended, and Powell has faced court sanctions for filing frivolous lawsuits.
"It is not true that there was sufficient fraud to change the results of the 2020 election," said Cheney. "The President's own Attorney General has said that, the President's own Deputy Attorney General has said that — and I mean President Trump."
"President Trump's campaign manager said that, President Trump's White House counsel said that, President Trump's own family said that," she continued. "There was not sufficient fraud to overturn the results of the 2020 election."
In a series of public hearings in June, the January 6 committee showed testimony from former Attorney General Bill Barr stating that Trump's election claims are "bullshit," testimony from former campaign manager Bill Stepien that he "didn't think what was happening was honest or professional," and testimony from Ivanka Trump that she accepted Barr's conclusion that the election wasn't stolen.
"Now if Mrs. Hageman is standing up here claiming that the election was stolen, or that there was fraud that was sufficient to overturn the election, she ought to say it," said Cheney. "Otherwise, she needs to stop making claims that are not true, and she ought to tell the people of Wyoming the truth."
Cheney, the January 6 committee's vice chair, faces a high-stakes primary election on August 16. Recent polling has shown Hageman with a comfortable lead over Cheney.
—Acyn (@Acyn) July 1, 2022
More: Congress Liz Cheney Harriet Hageman Trump
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2022-07-01T16:19:34Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Video: Cheney Refutes Challenger's False Election Claims at Debate
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https://www.businessinsider.com/liz-cheney-harriet-hageman-trump-wyoming-primary-debate-2020-election-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/liz-cheney-harriet-hageman-trump-wyoming-primary-debate-2020-election-2022-7
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In April, the US Department of Transportation received 5,079 complaints about airline service.
The number is up 14.8% from complaints received in March, and up 321.5% from pre-pandemic April 2019.
Of the complaints, 62.5% were against US carriers and 27.7% were against foreign air carriers.
Flight delays and cancellations are continuing to plague travelers in the US, and more customers are lodging formal complaints.
According to the US Department of Transportation's latest Air Travel Consumer Report for April 2022, the DOT received 5,079 complaints about airline service from travelers. This number is up from March 2022, which saw 4,423 complaints, and up 321.5% from before the pandemic, which saw 1,205 complaints in April 2019.
US carriers saw the most complaints, receiving 3,173 of the 5,079 complaints. Foreign air carriers saw 1,409 complaints, and travel companies had 479 complaints.
The complaints against airlines mostly concern refunds, cancellations, delays, and mishandled baggage.
Around 32% of the 5,079 complaints were about refunds. The DOT said its Office of Aviation Consumer Protection is communicating with airlines and travel companies to give passengers previously denied refunds. The Department also said it has taken and will continue to take action against airlines and ticket agents who don't comply with refund requirements.
Flight problems made up 30.5% of complaints, including cancellations, delays, or other schedule complications.
In April 2022, the report said 1o airlines reported 580,290 scheduled domestic flights — 13,397, or 2.3%, of which were cancelled. This number was higher than March 2022, which saw 9,108 of 590,542 flights get cancelled.
Pre-pandemic April 2019 saw a higher percentage of cancellations than April 2022, with 15,726 out of 668,259 flights getting cancelled, or 2.4% of flights.
The report said airlines are required to have a customer service plan to help passengers who have cancelled flights or misconnections.
The rate of mishandled baggage in April 2022 was 0.55% of 40 million bags, which was lower than 0.57% in March 2022, and even pre-pandemic April 2019 which saw 0.56% of bags being mishandled.
In response to the travel chaos, Senator Bernie Sanders recently wrote a letter to US Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, saying airlines should face a $27,500 fine per passenger for delays over two hours for domestic flights, and delays over three hours for international flights.
More: Airlines travelers Summer Travel Airports
Travel Delay
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2022-07-01T17:49:58Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Airline Complaints Skyrocket 300% Amid Flight Cancellations
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https://www.businessinsider.com/airline-complaints-skyrocket-amid-flight-cancellations-delays-refunds-lost-baggage-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/airline-complaints-skyrocket-amid-flight-cancellations-delays-refunds-lost-baggage-2022-7
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Brazilians risk their lives to harvest açaí
Amanda Choy and Barbara Corbellini Duarte
People climb palm trees deep in the Amazon rainforest to harvest açaí.
More than 70% of Brazil's açaí exports end up in the US, where açaí bowls can sell for up to $15.
Despite the high price for açaí, small farmers still aren't seeing big profits.
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2022-07-01T17:50:10Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Here's Why Brazilian Farmers Risk Their Lives to Harvest açaí
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https://www.businessinsider.com/brazilian-farmers-risk-their-lives-to-harvest-acai-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/brazilian-farmers-risk-their-lives-to-harvest-acai-2022-7
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Chris Pincher in Downing Street.
Chris Pincher was suspended from the Conservative Party, pending an investigation into groping claims.
The former deputy chief whip resigned Thursday night but had not been removed from the party.
On Friday, Boris Johnson agreed to suspend him following mounting pressure from MPs.
Chris Pincher has been suspended from the Conservative Party as an investigation takes place into claims he drunkenly groped two men this week.
The former deputy chief whip apologised and resigned on Wednesday, but had retained the whip, meaning he was able to continue sitting as a Tory MP.
But following widespread pressure from colleagues Chris Heaton-Harris, the Tory chief whip, on Friday suspended Pincher pending the investigation.
A spokesperson for Heaton-Harris said: "Having heard that a formal complaint has been made to the ICGS, the PM has agreed with the Chief Whip that the whip should be suspended from Chris Pincher while the investigation is ongoing.
Earlier on Friday,two female Tory MPs wrote to Heaton-Harris calling for a zero-tolerance approach to claims of sexual misconduct, including that against Pincher, and asking for MPs to be suspended if they are awaiting sexual-misconduct investigations.
Karen Bradley, a former Cabinet minister and chair of the procedure committee, and Caroline Nokes, a former Home Office minister, called for "a thorough investigation is carried out in each and every case".
They added: "Once an investigation has been completed, a decision should be taken about returning the whip, but in the meantime, anyone subject to such an investigation should not be allowed to sit as a Conservative MP and represent the party in any capacity."
Pincher has been replaced in the whips' office by Kelly Tolhurst, a former housing minister and junior whip.
Angela Rayner, Labour's deputy leader, said: "Boris Johnson has been dragged kicking and screaming into taking any action at all.
"He just can't be trusted to do the right thing. This whole scandal is yet more evidence of his appalling judgement.
More: News UK Boris Johnson Sexual Miscoduct Allegations
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2022-07-01T17:50:16Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Conservative Party Suspends Chris Pincher Pending Investigation
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https://www.businessinsider.com/conservative-party-suspends-chris-pincher-pending-investigation-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/conservative-party-suspends-chris-pincher-pending-investigation-2022-7
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Delta Air Lines pilots picket at Los Angeles International Airport.
Hundreds of off-duty pilots picketed Delta Airlines at hubs across the US on Thursday.
Even with pilots flying record amounts of overtime this year, cancellations remain high.
"The perfect storm is occurring," union chair Jason Ambrosi said ahead of the July 4 holiday weekend.
Hundreds of off-duty Delta pilots picketed the airline at hubs across the country, with more than 400 demonstrating in shifts outside the carrier's home base in Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.
The picketing occurred as air travel has rebounded so strongly that Delta pilots are on track to fly more overtime this year than they did in their two previous busiest years combined.
If trends continue, the overtime hours in 2022 will exceed those of 2018 and 2019 as early as this fall.
Even with the extra shifts, the airline has still had to cancel thousands of flights since Memorial Day weekend.
"We're now going into the Independence Day Holiday weekend and are concerned that our customers' plans have already been disrupted once again," Delta pilots union chair, Capt. Jason Ambrosi, said in a statement. "The perfect storm is occurring."
Rough as these disruptions are for passengers, the union says they're taking a serious toll on pilots' quality of life.
The union is currently trying to negotiate new terms with Delta to amend the current contract that was last negotiated back in 2016 — a discussion that has been delayed more than two years past schedule.
Delta pilots' last contracted pay raise was over three years ago, and air travel has only gotten busier in that time.
Delta told Insider that the pilots' "informational exercise" would not affect its schedule, and said it was aimed at both providing an "industry-leading overall contract" and keeping a strong balance sheet.
Although Thursday's action was not a strike, many pilots carried signs indicating their readiness to stop work if progress wasn't made. US airline pilots' ability to strike is bound by a century-old railroad law that puts several additional steps to avert work stoppages.
More: Delta Airline Pilots Union Holiday Travel
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2022-07-01T17:50:22Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Delta Pilots Picket, Warn of 'Perfect Storm' on July 4 Weekend
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https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-pilots-picket-warn-perfect-storm-july-4-holiday-weekend-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-pilots-picket-warn-perfect-storm-july-4-holiday-weekend-2022-7
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TV insiders say Netflix's crisis, Hollywood consolidation, and streamers' global focus are squeezing out comedy series and writers are 'freaking out'
Netflix's "Never Have I Ever."
Streamers, despite their insatiable appetite for content, don't seem to be buying comedy series, TV writers told Insider.
Hollywood consolidation and streamers' global focus are squeezing out English-language comedies.
Execs only want shows that are "undeniable," writers exasperatedly recalled being told.
David H. Steinberg, the co-creator of "No Good Nick" — a one-season 2019 comedy on Netflix — is used to executives passing on a pitch for a new show. That's part of the business of being a writer in Hollywood.
But the major streaming services, despite their insatiable appetite for programming, don't seem to be buying much comedy these days, Steinberg told Insider. In fact, he doesn't get the sense they want to meet with comedy writers at all.
"We pitched things many times where no one bought it," he said. "But [until now,] I've never gone out with a pitch and had all the streamers say, 'Yeah, we're just not going to set a meeting.'"
For those who manage to make their way into the room with streaming executives — a Zoom room, these days — a "yes" is harder than ever to come by, several writers told Insider. And for an exec to buy something during the pitch meeting is rare. More likely, a "yes" happens later, in corporate suites and away from the hungry eyes of creators.
This shift is partly due to the complex web of decision-making at vertically integrated conglomerates that house studios, networks, and streamers all under one roof. (Does a show belong on Hulu or ABC? Best to consult the bosses at Disney General Entertainment first — not to mention the ones on the distribution side who hold the purse strings.)
But another factor is that streaming services are untethered from the conventions of the broadcast pilot season. Instead of testing the waters with (and spending money on) a pilot episode before ordering a series, streamers want to go all in on shows they believe will succeed.
"The system has made it so that you have to hit more home runs, and there's less room for a single or double," said Mike Royce, the co-showrunner of Netflix's "One Day at a Time" reboot and a veteran of "Everybody Loves Raymond."
Streamers' global focus is squeezing out domestic English-langage comedy series
"We are at a critical turning point in the state of the television comedy," said a rep at a major talent agency, who recalled talking at a recent industry party with a comedy showrunner who was "freaking out."
"As these streamers go global, especially local-language stuff is getting more and more important; I think the number one thing getting squeezed is domestic English-language comedy," this agent continued. The TV comedy world is "very fractured right now. And it's very dire."
Still, there's one criterion execs have consistently impressed upon TV writers looking to get a show greenlit: They only want shows that are "undeniable," as at least two TV writers exasperatedly recalled being told.
"It's the buzzword of the century. Every place is, like, we need it to be 'undeniable,'" said Steinberg. "'Undeniable' means that it has, like, five Academy Award winners, and it has someone with a nine-figure overall showrunning deal."
Pitches right now "have to be bulletproof," echoed "Last Man Standing" alum Maisie Culver, who is shopping two projects that have so far been well received in the room. "It can't just be a really great idea. You have to have a really well-known showrunner attached [or] have some other type of attachment, whether it be stars or directors."
What worked even a few years ago isn't what buyers are looking for now.
"Netflix has said that they wouldn't do 'Dead to Me' — they wouldn't have bought it if it was now, which is crazy, because it was such a critical hit and such a good show," said a second high-level TV agent about the Emmy-nominated comedy. "But now what they're excited about is, like, the show from Rob Lowe and his son, which feels very different." (While "Dead to Me" is a dark comedy about grief and loss, "Unstable" is centered on an introvert who goes to work for his biotech-boss dad.)
The second agent lamented that shows like "Broad City" or "Louie" could once break through the noise, but streamers are now "going in the direction of the broadcast networks" in search of the next "The Office," "30 Rock" and "Parks and Rec." (Incidentally, the latter two were never ratings giants while they were on NBC.) That, said the agent, has made it tougher for new voices to emerge.
Why Netflix's binge model 'isn't really jiving with comedy'
While Netflix is, by all accounts, still pouring $17 billion into content this year, its recent troubles — plunging stock price, layoffs — have fueled concerns of a pullback.
"I think that Netflix probably made as many shows as all the other places combined," said Steinberg. "The fact that Netflix is kind of in a confusing state right now is really responsible for the problem in selling half hours, whereas all the other streamers didn't really do them in the first place, or they did them in very limited ways.
Netflix's comedy slate for the summer and fall is fairly robust, including new series such as "Boo, Bitch" and Neil Patrick Harris' "Uncoupled." New seasons of "Emily in Paris," "Never Have I Ever" and the animated "Big Mouth" are also on tap. But traditional multi-camera broadcast sitcoms in the vein of "Friends" have had a harder time succeeding on the streamer. Chalk it up to a lack of routine on the TV schedule, perhaps, for viewers who want to only occasionally pop in and see what antics their favorite characters have gotten up to every week.
While Netflix's longtime strategy of releasing an entire season at once may be gratifying for binge-happy viewers, it's tough on comedic structure, writers said.
"The [binge] model requires that you create a show that's heavily serialized, that has cliffhangers, so that draws the audience in to watch the next episode," said Steinberg. "That model isn't necessarily jiving with comedy."
As for broadcast, even with the breakout success of recent sitcoms like ABC's "Abbott Elementary" and CBS' "Ghosts," networks aren't necessarily looking to bulk up on comedies. NBC axed "Mr. Mayor" and "Kenan." CBS made several comedy pilots and ultimately passed on all, in addition to canceling three other comedies already on the air. (Instead, it ordered three dramas.)
"It was a really weird move to pick up all these drama series and then zero comedies this year," said the second agent about CBS.
On basic cable, networks such as TBS and TNT are reportedly winding down all scripted operations as MTV turns to reruns of "Ridiculousness." Comedy Central, which once elevated series like "Broad City" and Amy Schumer's sketch show, is barely in the scripted business anymore.
At newly merged conglomerates like Warner Bros. Discovery and multiplying streaming outlets from Freevee to Roku, creative executives are still sorting out their own mission and identity. Streamers are looking for more broadcast-style shows, sure: Netflix picked up Randall Park starrer "Blockbuster" after NBCU passed. But as exec teams get shuffled around — and some insiders say certain newer services don't appear to have comedy-focused execs at all — it can be hard to see the target for any given outlet, let alone hit the bullseye.
"Now, really every streaming service is trying to appeal to a much broader sensibility and what their brand is can either change or be confusing, at least to the people who are selling to them," said Royce. "You just don't know the rules, so when you go into the Zoom to pitch, you have much less of an idea of like, 'Oh yeah, this is the place for this one.'"
"You can't walk into Peacock and be like, 'I've got the perfect Peacock show,'" echoed Steinberg, "because no one knows what that is."
More: Comedy Netflix Streaming wars
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2022-07-01T17:50:46Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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TV Insiders Say Netflix Crisis, Global Focus Are Squeezing Out Comedy
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https://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-global-streaming-consolidation-squeezing-tv-comedy-writers-freaking-out-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-global-streaming-consolidation-squeezing-tv-comedy-writers-freaking-out-2022-6
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How to get a personalized 'Stranger Things' playlist on Spotify, filled with songs to help you escape the Upside Down
Music plays a major role in "Stranger Things" season four — perfect for a Spotify playlist.
A new Spotify feature lets you make a "Stranger Things"-themed "Upside Down Playlist."
Like in the show, Spotify's "Stranger Things" playlist puts together all your favorite songs that would help you escape Vecna and the Upside Down.
This article contains minor spoilers for the fourth season of "Stranger Things."
Spotify is the most popular music streaming app in the world, and the Netflix show "Stranger Things" has an undeniably iconic soundtrack. So it only makes sense to mix the two together — and with Spotify's new Upside Down Playlist feature, it's finally happened.
Here's how the Upside Down playlist works, and a quick guide on how to make your own.
Spotify's 'Stranger Things' playlist helps you escape the Upside Down
In the fourth season of "Stranger Things," the town of Hawkins is ravaged by a murderous monster from the Upside Down called Vecna. Once Vecna has you trapped, the only way to escape his slimy clutches to hear your favorite song — for the character Max Mayfield, that song was Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill."
If you ever wondered what song could break you out of the Upside Down, Spotify can help.
They've made every user a personalized Upside Down playlist, filled with all your favorite songs. It'll also include songs you haven't heard before but might like, and select tracks from the "Stranger Things" soundtrack.
Every playlist is 50 tracks long, or about two to three hours — more than long enough to run away from Vecna in dramatic slow-motion.
How to make your Upside Down playlist on Spotify
Before anything, make sure you're logged into Spotify, either in the app or on the website. The feature is available to all users, whether you're signed up for Spotify Premium or not.
Once you're logged in, head to this link. It'll open up in your Spotify app and give you the 50 songs that will save you from the Upside Down.
Your Upside Down playlist has songs you like, songs Spotify thinks you might like, and songs from "Stranger Things."
To save the playlist so you can find it again later, click or tap the big heart icon. This will "Like" the playlist and add it to your Spotify Library.
TECH How to use Spotify Blend to make a playlist with your friends and favorite artists
TECH 6 different ways to check your Spotify stats and find out your most-played songs and artists
TECH How to make a Collaborative Spotify playlist that all of your friends can add to
TECH How to find your Spotify Wrapped and see all the music you loved this year
More: Tech How To Stranger Things Spotify The Upside Down
Spotify Playlists
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2022-07-01T17:50:52Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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How to Get a Personalized 'Stranger Things' Playlist on Spotify
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https://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-stranger-things-vecna-playlist
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https://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-stranger-things-vecna-playlist
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Internal Amazon documents show new policy barring employees from warehouses during off hours, a change that could hamper union organizing
Katherine Long and Ashley Stewart
Amazon Labor Union leader Chris Smalls in front of Amazon's JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island on November 25, 2021.
Valentina Goncharova
Amazon will no longer allow warehouse employees to access buildings or worksites while off-duty, internal docs show.
The policy was received by some employees and labor leaders as a way to restrict union organizing activity.
Amazon's internal policy says it will "not be enforced discriminatorily."
Amazon has a new policy barring warehouse employees from entering company buildings or working facilities while off-duty, according to an internal notification viewed by Insider.
The policy could have a chilling effect on union organizing activity at Amazon warehouses, labor leaders told Insider, even though Amazon has said the policy "will not be enforced discriminatorily against employees engaged in protected activity," which includes union organizing.
According to internal documents, the change applies to Amazon operations employees, not including those who work in physical stores, and bars them from building interiors and any exterior working areas. Employees are not permitted to access the areas during days off or before or after scheduled shifts. The policy requires employees "exit the workplace within a reasonable timeframe after punching out" and "contact site leadership to explore potential solutions" even to access the facility briefly, such as to retrieve an item or speak to a manager.
Journalist Lauren K. Gurley was first to report on the new policy.
An Amazon spokesperson said the new policy was insituted as an emergency management measure and is not intended to quell union organizing activity. Off-duty workers are still allowed to solicit their colleagues outside the building, including in Amazon parking lots, the spokesperson said.
"There's nothing more important than the safety of our employees and the physical security of our buildings," Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement. "This policy regarding building access applies to building interiors and working areas. It does not limit employee access to non-working areas outside of our facilities."
Access to Amazon buildings when employees were not scheduled to work was crucial to the successful union campaign at JFK8 in Staten Island, according to Chris Smalls, the president of the Amazon Labor Union. The company entered into a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency overseeing union organizing activity, last December that ended Amazon's previous policy prohibiting workers from being on-site until within 15 minutes before or after their shifts.
The company had wielded that policy as a way of quashing union organizing activity, employees and labor leaders said in the six NLRB complaints that resulted in the settlement. Amazon cited the policy when it forced employees who were handing out union literature off warehouses premises, the complaints said.
Chris Smalls, the president of the Amazon Labor Union, said the settlement allowing off-duty workers access to the JFK8 warehouses marked a turning point in the union's campaign.
"That was a huge part of our organizing campaign," Smalls told Insider. Post-settlement, the ALU was able to hold meetings and pass out food and union literature in warehouse break rooms, allowing it to reach more workers than it might have otherwise. "It sucks for all the other buildings in the country that have to figure out a different tack to reach their coworkers. This is a question for the general counsel of the NLRB, they have to do a lot more to stop these companies from union busting on a dime."
A spokesperson for the NLRB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Amazon told employees the reason the company is implementing the policy in order to "quickly find and account for everyone in the event of an emergency," and to "ensure we're planning our support, staffing, services, maintenance, and related functions appropriately."
"This policy applies to working areas at our facilities, and is consistent with the NLRB settlement from Dec. 2021," the policy reads. "It will not be enforced discriminatorily against employees engaged in protected activity under the National Labor Relations Act."
Do you work at Amazon or have insight to share?
Contact reporter Katherine Long on the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-206-375-9280) or email (klong@insider.com).
Contact reporter Ashley Stewart via Signal (+1-425-344-8242) or email (astewart@insider.com).
More: Amazon warehouses Unions amazon labor union
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2022-07-01T18:16:23Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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New Amazon Policy on Warehouse Access Could Chill Union Organizing
|
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-union-policy-access-off-hours-jfk8-organizing-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-union-policy-access-off-hours-jfk8-organizing-2022-7
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