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How to get someone's car or homeowners insurance information
Get the police involved
Obtain insurance information from the DMV
Report the accident to your insurer
3 steps to file a claim against someone else's insurance
When you should and shouldn't file a third-party claim
Collision coverage can help you pay for repairs if a driver is underinsured or uninsured.
redhumv/Getty Images
You can find auto insurance information through the police, DMV, or through your own insurer.
In some cases, you'll have to use your own coverage to pay for vehicle repairs.
There are some circumstances where you won't be able to file a third-party claim, even if you aren't at fault.
Accidents can result in thousands of dollars in medical bills and repairs. Fortunately, insurance is available so you can recoup the costs. If you're hurt or your car is damaged in an accident that's someone else's fault, you can often file a claim with that person's insurance company.
While getting someone's insurance information at the scene is ideal, it may not always be possible. If you're involved in a hit-and-run, or the at-fault party refuses to cooperate, there are ways you can protect yourself.
How to get someone's car insurance information
While frustrating, there are some actions you can take if someone you're involved in an accident with is uncooperative. You can request help from the police, contact the DMV, or work with your provider to find out who the at-fault party's insurer is, says Anastasia Allmon, a personal injury attorney at Farris, Riley and Pitt.
Requesting help from the police should be your first move if you were involved in a two-party accident.
The officers at the scene will usually create a report including details of the incident such as the date, time, weather conditions, vehicle damage, and who's at fault. You'll need to obtain that police report number to file a claim, says Allmon.
If you've been involved in a hit-and-run and got the vehicle's license plate number, give it to the police. If you didn't get a license plate number, try to remember as much as you can about the other vehicle such as its color, make, and model, and provide them as many details as possible, says Allmon.
Suppose the at-fault party refuses to exchange car insurance information. In that case, you can also visit your local DMV to find the at-fault driver's insurance information. You must provide the DMV with the reason for your request and the at-fault party driver's license, according to Insurantly, an auto-insurance quote comparison company.
After finding out who their insurer is, contact the provider and report the details of the incident.
Hit-and-run drivers often flee because they don't have insurance. Many states require drivers to carry a minimum amount of liability insurance.
If you were in an accident and the other driver fled the scene or doesn't have insurance, report it to your insurance company. You may get reimbursed for the damage through your insurance company if you have collision coverage, or your insurance company can help you find the at-fault party's insurance information.
"Even if you don't end up making a claim, you need to update your insurance provider as soon as possible, otherwise you could risk invalidating your policy," says Allmon.
A third-party claim is when you file a claim for with the at-fault party's insurance company, according to Allstate.
There are two types of automobile third-party claims: bodily injury liability and property damage liability.
Here are the steps to take to file a claim against someone else's auto insurance:
Step 1: Gather as much information as possible
Gathering as much information about the incident is crucial. Doing so will expedite the process and ensure you get a fair settlement.
If you're involved in a car accident, here is some information you should gather at the scene, according to Allstate:
Location, date, and time of the accident
Name, address, phone number, and insurance policy number for all involved in the accident
Photos of damage
Copies of police and accident reports, if applicable
Step 2: Contact your insurance company
If you file a car insurance claim, report the accident to your insurance company promptly to avoid delays in your claim. From there, your provider will work with the at-fault party's insurance to obtain reimbursement for your loss.
Step 3: Prepare to meet an adjuster
Once you've filed the claim, the at-fault party's insurance company will typically send an adjuster to inspect the damage. Prepare for the visit by creating a list of the damaged items.
Be sure to have any pertinent information on hand, such as details of the accident, the contact information of anyone involved, and any photos or videos related to the incident.
In some cases, you may not be able to file a claim against someone else's insurance, even if you're not at fault. You might decide to have the problem fixed yourself if you find that the process is taking too long.
Note: Your premiums may increase if you file an insurance claim, even if you weren't at fault.
No-fault states
"No-fault" states require drivers to have personal injury protection (PIP). No-fault insurance covers accident-related medical bills at a specific limit, regardless of who is at fault.
In this case, you will not be able to file a claim against another person's insurance for your medical expenses because you are required to have your own coverage. Personal injury protection will cover you and your passengers' medical expenses, regardless if you have health insurance. You can usually pair your PIP coverage with medical payment coverage, or MedPay, for more protection.
Uninsured/underinsured motorist
An underinsured or uninsured motorist is someone who has little to no liability insurance.
In most states, drivers must carry a minimum amount of liability car insurance. However, you can't file a claim with the at-fault party's insurance company if they don't have coverage. If you have uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, you can file a claim on your own insurance to get reimbursed.
Otherwise, you must pay out of pocket for repairs or sue the at-fault party, which could be a long and costly process.
Using your own coverage
If another car hits you, your collision coverage is an option to pay for the damage. Collision coverage is not required by law. However, it can be helpful if an underinsured or uninsured driver hits your car. Additionally, filing a claim with collision coverage could expedite the process.
PERSONAL FINANCE The best affordable car insurance companies of July 2022
INSURANCE When to file an auto insurance claim (and when it might be best to just pay for it yourself)
PERSONAL FINANCE How long does a car accident affect my insurance rates?
More: Auto Insurance Home Insurance Homeowners Insurance Car Insurance
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2022-07-07T22:03:43Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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How to Find Someone's Insurance Info
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/how-to-find-someones-insurance-info
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/how-to-find-someones-insurance-info
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Is Wealthfront right for you?
Wealthfront vs. Betterment
Wealthfront vs. Vanguard
Ways to invest with Wealthfront
Wealthfront: Is it trustworthy?
Wealthfront — Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Wealthfront has a high-yield checking account.
Wealthfront; Insider
Bottom line: Wealthfront is a good robo-advisor option if you're in search of low-cost automated portfolio management and access to features like tax-loss harvesting, US Direct Indexing, and crypto trusts. However, if you want access to financial advisors, you'll want to look elsewhere.
Wealthfront is an automated investing platform offering ETFs, index funds, crypto trusts, portfolio lines of credit, socially responsible portfolio options, and more. It's best for hands-off investors who don't want to trade on their own.
You'll need at least $500 to get started, and you'll incur a 0.25% annual fee (not including fund fees).
Wealthfront and Betterment have both been in business since 2008. Both primarily offer robo-advice, and both support several account types, including individual and joint accounts, trusts, IRAs, and cash accounts.
One big difference to note is that Wealthfront offers more investment types. You can invest in ETFs, index funds, and crypto trusts (it currently offers the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE)). Betterment only offers ETFs.
But Betterment has Wealthfront beat when it comes to financial advisor guidance. It offers ongoing Certified Finanial Planner (CFP) access with its premium account, and digital plan users can even buy a one-time CFP consultation package if needed. Wealthfront doesn't offer advisor guidance.
$0 ($3,000 for Vanguard Digital Advisor; $50,000 for Vanguard Personal Advisor Services)
0% (0.20% to 0.30% for professionally managed portfolios)
Stocks, ETFs, options, bonds, mutual funds, and CDs
Wealthfront and Vanguard serve different purposes. Wealthfront is strictly for hands-off investors who want a computer algorithm to manage their portfolios for them. Vanguard, however, offers both self-directed brokerage accounts and automated investing.
You'll need less money to set up an automated account with Wealthfront than you would with either of Vanguard's automated accounts; Vanguard Digital Advisor and Vanguard Personal Advisor Services require $3,000 and $50,000 minimums, respectively.
Vanguard could be the better choice for those who want to work one-on-one with financial advisors. Its Vanguard Personal Advisor Services account gives you access to both automated investing and guidance from a Vanguard Fiduciary advisor.
Wealthfront offers a range of automated account types. These include individual accounts, joint accounts, trusts, and IRAs (it currently supports traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, and SEP IRAs). And though its minimum is higher than many robo-advisors (Betterment, Ellevest, SoFi automated investing, and Ally Invest Managed Portfolios all have $0 minimums), it offers access to the following features:
Tax-loss harvesting: With this strategy, Wealthfront replaces any securities that have suffered loss and reinvests the profits into other assets that match your portfolio's target. You can them write off those losses on your tax return, lowering your tax bill.
US Direct indexing (formerly called stock-level tax-loss harvesting): Wealthfront says it works to harvest even more losses by searching for price changes within individual stocks in the US stock index. You'll need a minimum of $100,000 to utilize direct indexing.
Risk parity: This approach uses an asset allocation strategy that aims to boost your risk-adjusted returns. As with US Direct Indexing, you'll also need a minimum of $100,000 for this strategy.
Smart beta: Wealthfront focuses on increasing your returns by weighting your portfolio's assets more strategically. You'll need at least $500,000 in your account to use this feature.
As for its other products, Wealthfront also offers a high-yield cash account and portfolio lines of credit that let you borrow up to 30% of your portfolio (its lines of credit are only available for those with at least $25,000 in their account).
And it currently allows for an allocation of crypto trusts of up to 10% of your portfolio to protect against risk. While its crypto offering is uncommon for robo-advisors, investors who want to solely focus on crypto should consider other platforms.
Socially responsible portfolios
Wealthfront's socially responsible option is best for investors who want to make an impact with their money. These portfolios rely on Blackrock funds that track socially responsible indices defined by MSCI.
Note, though, that expense ratios for the funds can range from 0.05% to 0.29%.
529 college savings plans
You can also save toward higher education for dependents with Wealthfront's automated 529 plan. The robo-advisor simplifies this process in three steps:
Cost layout: It uses Department of Education data to display how much your desired college will cost when your dependent is expected to start school. Wealthfront also says this projection accounts for inflation, while including tuition, expenses, and how much financial aid may be available.
Goal-setting: Wealthfront helps you set a monthly savings goal that aligns with your expected future education costs.
Recommendations: If you have other goals beyond saving for education, Wealthfront will offer advice on how to successfully work toward both while staying on track financially.
You won't have to pay any federal taxes on withdrawals you make, as long as they're for qualified education expenses. Fees for this account range up to 0.46%.
The Better Business Bureau gives Wealthfront an A- rating to reflect its opinion of how well the robo-advisor interacts with its customers. BBB ratings range from A+ to F, so this is one of the highest ratings a company can receive.
While BBB ratings don't guarantee a company's reliability or performance, they take into account several factors, including type of business, time in business, licensing and government actions, customer complaint history, and advertising issues.
According to BBB data, Wealthfront has closed three complaints in the last 12 months and currently has no unresolved complaints.
Is Wealthfront worth the fee?
That depends on what you're looking for. You'll need a minimum of $500 to get started, and you'll be responsible for a 0.25% annual fee (including fund fees). But these fees give you access to multiple investment types (ETFs, index funds, and crypto trusts), tax-loss harvesting, US direct indexing, socially responsible portfolio options, and much more.
And although the robo-advisor doesn't offer ongoing advisor guidance, you can still contact its product specialist team at any time. The team consists of certified financial planners (CFPs), chartered financial analysts (CFAs), and certified public accountants (CPAs).
Can you lose money with Wealthfront?
Yes. As with any investment platform, your investments' value may increase or decrease due to market factors outside of Wealthfront's control. See a full list of the potential risks here.
How trustworthy is Wealthfront?
Wealthfront is a reputable platform and has been in business since 2008. The platform also currently has an A- with the Better Business Bureau.
ETFs: These funds contain a mix of assets like of stocks, bonds, commodities, and other securities. ETFs trade like stocks since you can easily buy and sell both at any point during the stock exchange's normal trading hours. But ETFs are also less risky than stocks because they essentially contain a basket of different securities.
Robo-advisor: These automated investing accounts typically use computer algorithms and/or advisor oversight to build personalized, self-managing portfolios for investors.
Direct indexing: With this strategy, investors buy each stock that comprises an index, as opposed to investing in an index fund. This strategy can be more tax-efficient since you can apply tax-loss harvesting to each investment.
Index funds: An index fund — whether an index ETF or index mutual fund — tracks and aims to mirror the performance of market indexes (e.g., the S&P 500).
More: Wealthfront Betterment Vanguard Robo advisor
Automated Investing
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2022-07-07T22:03:49Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Wealthfront Review: Pros, Cons, and Who Should Set up an Account
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/wealthfront-review
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/wealthfront-review
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Donald Trump arrives to give remarks during a Save America Rally with former US President Donald Trump at the Adams County Fairgrounds on June 25, 2022 in Mendon, Illinois.
GOP strategists would prefer that Trump waits until after the midterms to announce a 2024 bid.
Trump keeps teasing he'll announce his run far earlier than most candidates typically do.
Sources told Insider why it was a bad idea for Congress — and for Trump.
Former President Donald Trump is still weighing announcing a White House bid before the November midterms, much to the chagrin of many GOP strategists.
The subject of when and whether Trump will take a third go at the White House has been one of the most talked-about topics in politics in recent weeks, particularly as the House January 6 hearings heat up.
But Republicans worry that their chances to retake Congress could be hurt if Democrats are successfully able to make the all-important 2022 midterms about Trump instead of about issues polls show are at the top of voters' priorities, from high gas prices to inflation.
As Republicans work to gain a majority in both the House and Senate, they've focused much of their campaign messaging on attacking President Joe Biden and Democrats over the prices that have climbed under their watch. Should Trump run, then he would become a leading topic in the midterms.
Typically presidential candidates wait until after the midterms to make announcements. Trump could delay until the middle or even end of 2023 to reveal his intentions and still have plenty of time to qualify for primary ballots and otherwise run a nationwide campaign.
One Republican who spoke to Trump about an early announcement told Insider it was "unwise to decide on any issue that might drive the 2024 Republican primary when the 2022 elections may be impacted in uncertain ways."
"Win first, answer questions later," the person, who opposes the idea of a pre-midterm Trump move, said.
Sam Nunberg, who advised Trump's successful 2016 White House bid, summed it up this way: "This midterm is about Brandon, not Donald," invoking an anti-biden nickname prominent among Trump's base.
Trump faces drawbacks from early announcement
The downsides of announcing early could also affect Trump, particularly because he would lose fundraising advantages he currently enjoys.
Since exiting the White House, Trump has maintained a robust political operation, conducting rallies, and raising tens of millions of dollars through a collection of political committees that serve as a sort of unofficial campaign effort.
After an announcement, he would have to set up an official campaign account that would accept no more than $2,900 for donations from individuals, said Sheila Krumholtz, executive director of OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan research organization focused on money in politics.
The Republican who spoke to Trump about an early announcement told Insider there were "far too many potential downsides to a pre-midterms announcement," citing the spending constraints, and "precious little upside."
Some reports view Trump announcing early as a sign that he's trying to block out GOP competition, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has risen in popularity, as well as a growing number of other rivals.
But the Trump confidante predicted that other Republicans considering a presidential run in 2024 would be awaiting his decision anyway, and said the GOP base was "unmoved by the House Committee teledrama and the exaggerated idea that President Trump is imperiled."
Trump's legacy will also suffer if he makes an early announcement, Nunberg said.
"If anyone who has Donald Trump trust is counseling him to announce his third candidacy for president before the 2022 midterms in good faith, then they are dumber than they look and probably just need a paycheck," he said. "Announcing your presidential campaign before the midterm election is a catastrophic mistake for any candidate and particularly in this circumstance will destroy the Trump political legacy."
More: Donald Trump Joe Biden Republicans 2022 midterms
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2022-07-07T22:03:55Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Republicans Worry Trump Will Announce Presidential Bid Before Midterms
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https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-worry-trump-will-announce-presidential-bid-before-midterms-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-worry-trump-will-announce-presidential-bid-before-midterms-2022-7
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It can be annoying when your iPhone has no service, but here's how to fix it.
To fix iPhone service, turn Mobile Data and Airplane Mode on or off, and update carrier settings.
You can also try restarting and updating your iPhone or removing and re-inserting the SIM card.
If all else fails, contact your network carrier or Apple Support for assistance.
When you're in a remote area, it makes sense that your iPhone's service would be a little unreliable.
However, if you're in a densely populated area or a big metropolis, seeing the dreaded "No Service" notification on the top of your iPhone's screen can be confusing.
Here are 8 fixes to try when you don't have service on your iPhone to help restore your coverage.
Check your coverage area
Tap the toggle for "Mobile data" on and off.
First, you need to make sure that you're in an area where your iPhone's service provider has cell towers to provide you coverage. If you're certain that you are, you can try toggling your data on and off by following these steps:
2. Tap Mobile Data.
3. Tap the toggle for Mobile data to turn it on and off When the bar is green, mobile data is enabled; when it's gray, it's not.
Sometimes turning this option on and off could be enough to help your iPhone find service.
Quick tip: If you're traveling internationally, you'll need to enable international roaming by tapping Mobile Data Options below Mobile Data section, and ensuring that the toggle for Roaming is turned on.
Check for a carrier settings update
You will be able to see if an update for your carrier's settings is available here.
Carrier settings contain important data about your selected network that allow you to make calls, check voicemails, and use data. Ensuring that your carrier settings are up to date is important, especially if you're struggling with no service.
1. Connect to a cell phone or Wi-Fi network of your choice.
4. Tap About. Should an update be available, you'll be able to do so from this screen.
Slide the power button in the slider to the right to switch off the iPhone.
Sometimes simply restarting your iPhone is enough to restore service. The reasoning behind this isn't totally understood, but hey, that's technology. We don't necessarily need to know how it works, only that it does!
To turn off an iPhone X or later, follow the instructions below.
1. Press and hold down the side button and either the volume up button or volume down button.
2. When the power slider appears, swipe the power button inside it to the right.
3. After the iPhone has completely shut down, press and hold the side button again until the Apple logo appears.
Turning off an iPhone 8 Plus or earlier is slightly different.
1. Press and hold down the side button.
Turn Airplane Mode on and off
An orange icon indicates that Airplane Mode is turned on.
You can toggle your iPhone's Airplane Mode on and off from the Control Center.
1. To reveal the Control Center on iPhone X or later, swipe down from the top right corner of the screen. If you're on iPhone 8 Plus or earlier, swipe up from the bottom of the screen.
2. Tap on the Airplane Mode icon, which is represented by a plane inside a circle. When the icon is orange, Airplane Mode is enabled; when it's grayed out, it's disabled.
Quick tip: You can also turn Airplane Mode on or off by opening the Settings app and tapping the toggle for Airplane Mode.
Take the SIM card out and put it back in
By removing the SIM card and then putting it back in, your phone may be able to reconnect with your service provider to restore service on your phone so that you can make calls and use data again (as well as anything else you use your phone's mobile network for).
Removing the SIM card momentarily also gives you a chance to see if there's any damage. If there is, you should contact your carrier for a new one. You should also ensure that the inserted SIM card works with your iPhone, especially if you transferred it from another device.
Tap "Software Update."
Ensure your iPhone's iOS is up to date:
3. Tap Software Update.
4. At this point, your iPhone will check if an update is available. When one is found, tap Download and install.
Note: If there's more than one update available, tap on the one you want to download and install on your phone.
Tap "Reset."
In case there's a problem with your network settings, resetting them might help.
3. Select Transfer or Reset iPhone at the bottom.
5. In the menu that appears, tap Reset Network Settings.
Contact your carrier network or Apple Support
Contact your carrier to ensure that the network isn't experiencing outages, that your account is in good standing and your service operational, and that your iPhone isn't blocked from sending or receiving data.
If none of these methods work, reach out to Apple Support for further help or visit your nearest Genius Bar.
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2022-07-07T23:38:38Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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iPhone Has No Service: 8 Ways to Fix It
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-do-you-fix-no-service-on-iphone
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-do-you-fix-no-service-on-iphone
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Former Theranos COO Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani and his legal team leave the Robert F. Peckham Federal Building on July 7, 2022 in San Jose, California.
Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani was convicted Thursday of 12 counts of fraud related to his role at Theranos.
Prosecutors alleged that Balwani, and his ex-lover Elizabeth Holmes, deceived investors and patients.
Balwani's months-long trial was nearly a carbon copy of Holmes' trial last year, including many of the same witnesses.
Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, the former second-in-command at the ill-fated blood-testing startup Theranos, was found guilty of 12 fraud charges on Thursday, just months after a jury convicted Elizabeth Holmes, his ex-lover and co-conspirator, of similar charges.
Throughout the months-long trial, which began March 23, prosecutors had alleged that Balwani had played a crucial role alongside Holmes in lying to investors and patients about the efficacy of Theranos' blood-testing machines. Meanwhile, Balwani's attorneys sought to minimize his role at Theranos, arguing that Holmes was entirely responsible for the fraud.
Theranos' deception was first exposed in 2015, when a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that the company's technology could only accurately run roughly a dozen blood tests, when the company claimed it could run hundreds. The company collapsed at the seams shortly afterward, instantly becoming a cautionary Silicone Valley tale. Theranos's downfall has since become the subject of a hit documentary and TV series.
Holmes was finally tried in federal court in late 2021, and convicted in January of 2022 of four counts of fraud. She has appealed the verdict, and has also accused Balwani of emotionally and sexually abusing her, though her allegations were not discussed in Balwani's trial. Balwani has denied the allegations.
According to media reports from the courtroom, Balwani's months-long trial often seemed like a carbon copy of Holmes' trial. A large number of witnesses, including former employees and investors, even testified in both trials, and neither Holmes nor Balwani testified against the other.
Holmes is set to be sentenced on September 26, while Balwani's is scheduled for November 15.
Here are some of the most remarkable moments from Balwani's trial:
Balwani once said he was 'responsible for everything'
One of the most notable and damning pieces of evidence shown to the jury was a 2015 text from Balwani to Holmes.
"I am responsible for everything at Theranos," Balwani wrote. "All have been my decisions too."
The statement flew directly in the face of Balwani's defense at trial. His attorneys had tried to argue that Balwani was merely an investor in the company — even going so far as to present Balwani as a victim of Holmes' ambition.
"Mr. Balwani put his heart and soul into Theranos," Balwani's attorney, Jeffrey Coopersmith, said during closing statements.
Coopersmith said Balwani had been one of Theranos' largest investors, apart from Holmes herself, and had injected $15 million of his own money into the company because he had been so loyal to Holmes and devoted to the company's success.
Holmes was particularly adept at "attracting" people such as Balwani to "the vision that she had," Coopersmith said at trial.
Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes and former Theranos COO Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani.
Yichuan Cao/Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The judge warned Balwani's lawyer, 'Don't threaten me'
The trial grew particularly tense in early April when US District Judge Edward Davila had to issue a stern rebuke to one of Balwani's lawyers.
"Don't threaten me, you're better than that," Davila told Coopersmith, after a dispute about whether to admit a document as evidence, according to Law360.
Coopersmith had sought to use a document as evidence, though it would use up additional time to verify that it was authentic.
"Here's the bottom line," Coopersmith said, according to Law360. "If this document doesn't come in … we'll do this the hard way … we'll have a paralegal lined up from the US Attorney's office about what they received from Theranos."
Law360 reported that Coopersmith apologized to Davila several days later, to which Davila responded with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson.
"'Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day.' So that's what we'll do," Davila said.
A witness testified that Balwani and Holmes were 'unified' in their decisions
One of Balwani's subordinates, former Theranos lab director Mark Pandori, took the witness stand in March and testified about Balwani's role in the company and his behavior when confronted about Theranos' faulty product.
"I considered Mr. Balwani and Elizabeth to be unified in all of their decision-making processes," Pandori told jurors, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Pandori went on to explain that Balwani had overseen the Theranos lab where blood-testing took place. Pandori testified that Balwani did not take kindly when subordinates questioned the performance of Theranos' proprietary blood-testing device, known as an Edison.
"Quality control remained a problem for the duration of my time at the company," Pandori testified, according to KRON4. "There was never a solution to poor performance."
Pandori added that Theranos often ran blood tests on potential investors, calling them "VIPs," and that Balwani's team "always applied a higher level of pressure" for the VIPs' blood tests, processing them much more quickly than those of other patients.
"It misrepresents the true process," Pandori testified. "It wouldn't accurately reflect turn-around time. And it's a spiritual problem, because you are trying to get a lab result for one human being before another human being, just because they are a potential investor."
More: Elizabeth Holmes Sunny Balwani Ramesh Balwani Theranos
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2022-07-07T23:38:56Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Notable Moments From Ramesh 'Sunny' Balwani's Theranos Fraud Trial
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https://www.businessinsider.com/ramesh-sunny-balwani-theranos-fraud-trial-moments-convicted-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/ramesh-sunny-balwani-theranos-fraud-trial-moments-convicted-2022-7
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Elon Musk's SpaceX is expanding its Starlink internet service to yachts and cargo ships.
Starlink, the satellite-internet service from Elon Musk's SpaceX, is now available for boats.
The service costs $5,000 per month, plus a $10,000 hardware fee.
Starlink recently launched internet service for RVs.
Always wanted to work remotely from a yacht but foiled by laggy internet? You're in luck.
Starlink, the satellite-internet service from Elon Musk's SpaceX, is now available for boats, the company announced on Thursday.
—SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 7, 2022
Starlink Maritime costs $5,000 per month, plus an initial $10,000 fee that covers two high-performance satellite dishes. It promises to deliver download speeds of 350 Mbps. Regular Starlink internet costs $110 per month, along with $599 for the necessary hardware.
In a tweet, Musk clarified the importance of the special pair of terminals, saying they're "important for maintaining the connection in choppy seas & heavy storms."
The company says Starlink Maritime can withstand extreme weather and is suited for uses "from merchant vessels to oil rigs to premium yachts." It said it has been using the service to film SpaceX rocket landings at sea.
SpaceX in May introduced a $135-per-month service targeted toward RV owners who want to move their service from place to place.
SpaceX has launched a constellation of some 2,000 Starlink satellites that beam internet to roughly 250,000 users.
NOW WATCH: What Elon Musk's 42,000 Starlink satellites could do for — and to — planet Earth
More: Space SpaceX Starlink Elon Musk
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2022-07-07T23:39:02Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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SpaceX Launches $5,000-Per-Month Internet for Boats
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https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-internet-boats-sea-rvs-vehicles-elon-musk-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-internet-boats-sea-rvs-vehicles-elon-musk-2022-7
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Advisors breaking away from firms like Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley have turned to fintechs to help service clients. As markets sour, here are the tools they'll look to drop and keep.
Wealth-management insiders say CRM and financial planning tools are the stickiest platforms in a tech stack.
Fantastic Studio/Getty Images
Financial advisors AUM is expected to drop 10% or more in the market selloff.
As a result, RIAs will look to tighten their belts to ride out the low returns.
Industry insiders told Insider what wealth-tech companies advisors could cut to save money.
Investors turn to wealth-management professionals the most when the markets are in turmoil, which is why some in the industry see it as a recession -proof business.
"If you look at the market since 2020, the business has grown immensely,'' Tyrone Ross, CEO and cofounder of Turnqey Labs, a provider of APIs for crypto data, told Insider.
While the economy was crippled by the pandemic, US wealth-management assets under management rose from $32 trillion to $37 trillion in 2020, according to Aite-Novarica Group.
In kind, wealth-management technology grew to meet the rise in demand. There are over a hundred fintechs automating, streamlining, or digitizing processes for an industry once criticized for its outdated tech.
But being recession-proof doesn't mean rough markets aren't troublesome.
Registered investment advisors, or RIAs, largely generate revenues on client assets despite there being other fee-generation methods. Because of that, the selloff that pushed the S&P 500 into a bear market and Wall Street's prediction of another drop in the third quarter is likely to have an effect on where wealth-management firms are going to place their attention in the coming months or weeks.
"Make no mistake, everybody's revenue's going to be down 10% to 25%. And there's no corresponding expense offset. So that means their EBITDA is going to be down by a percentage of their loss," Andy Putterman, a strategic investor and advisor in the wealth-tech space, told Insider.
As a result, wealth-management professionals will look to cut discretionary spending, including that of technology.
Tech is a relatively inexpensive part of a firm's business, Louis Diamond, president of recruiting firm Diamond Consultants, told Insider. And while firms wouldn't close their accounts at fintechs, they would deprioritize the adoption of new technology and upgrades.
Sizable RIAs, meanwhile, will hire less technology-related roles. They'll also look to cut tech spending if the markets stay down past six to 12 months, Doug Fritz, CEO and founder of technology consultancy F2 Strategy, told Insider.
But it's a delicate decision, as firms with $1 billion or more in client assets need technology to gain the benefits of scale, he added.
"You could start to see some discounting to meet the declining revenues of their target customers," Philip Waxelbaum, founder of Masada Consulting for wealth tech companies, told Insider.
If markets continue to take a tumble and wealth-management firms re-evaluate their technology stacks, which tools would advisors prioritize and which ones would they deem as inessential?
Insider spoke to seven wealth-management investors, executives, and industry insiders about the state of financial advisors' tech stacks as it faces a bearish market environment.
Here are the areas of wealth tech that RIAs find essential and inessential, in addition to which companies might look to make a deal.
Essential to an RIA's tech stack
When it comes to ranking the tools on in financial advisors tech stacks, CRMs topped the list, according to 50% of respondents in a 2022 T3 Inside Information Software Survey. Nearly all (96%) of the 4,495 participants said they have it in their tech tool kit.
CRMs track solo advisors or firms' relationship with clients and potential clients from first communication and onward. Since wealth management is a relationship business, this tech has become a crucial feature to tech stacks.
"These firms are very focused on getting their data houses in order with CRM often at the center of that," Gavin Spitzner, president of Wealth Consulting Partners, told Insider. "The smart ones and the ones that are making the investments in these capabilities are able to use that data to surface insights and see what sticks with any given client. They can be much more targeted."
Companies like Salesforce, Wealthbox, and also Redtail, which was acquired by the turnkey asset management platform Orion in June, are considered market leaders.
Orion's acquisition offers it better market penetration as Redtail has the largest market share, 68%, in the wealth management CRM space, according to T3's software report.
In March, Wealthbox, which has the second-largest market share according to the report, raised $31 million to scale its business.
Salesforce is the only public company among the key market players. Its stock price, like many tech companies, has dropped roughly 30% this year and it announced a slowdown in hiring. Last year, the company acquired Slack to position itself as an all-in-one office solution.
Financial planning software
Another software that sticks is financial planning. Insiders mentioned eMoney Advisor and MoneyGuidePro as popular products among financial advisors.
MoneyGuidePro, acquired by Envestnet in 2019, is financial- and retirement-planning software for solo-advisory firms and large enterprises. It landed Edward Jones as a client in March. By 2025 MoneyGuidePro will be available to all 19,000 of Edward Jones' advisors and its 7 million clients.
Partnering with large enterprises is a sound move for wealth-tech companies because large firms tend to have a lot more invested in their technology stacks than smaller advisory firms. For Edward Jones, adding MoneyGuidePro is part of its billion-dollar effort to upgrade its tech.
In 2021, eMoney, a Fidelity subsidiary since 2015, scored a partnership with Wells Fargo to expand its customer base to the bank's 12,000-plus advisors.
"The vast majority have some kind of financial-planning software in place. So a MoneyGuidePro, eMoney, Morningstar, and Tifin Group have planning capabilities, but they're also augmenting that with AI," Spitzner told Insider.
Portfolio management and reporting systems
Industry insiders said portfolio management and reporting systems would also stay on the stack, naming Orion Advisor Services, SS&C Advent's Black Diamond, and Envestnet's Tamarac as key players.
According to the T3 technology report, Orion has 14% market share, Black Diamond has close to 6%, and Tamarac nearly 10%. The lion's share, however, is using BNY Mellon Pershing's Albridge.
"I don't see people stopping or turning off their performance reporting tool," said Fritz, who also cited companies like Addepar and InvestCloud.
Tech that could get cut by financial advisors
Potomac Fund Management advisor Manish Khatta told Insider that research and analytics is a "good tool," but if it's not directly related to managing client accounts, then it could be put on the chopping block.
Key players in the research and analytics space are YCharts, Riskalyze, Bloomberg, and Morningstar.
Morningstar and Bloomberg's terminal have been around since the 1980's and have grown to be industry behemoths. Newer to the block is YCharts, founded in 2009 and acquired by private-equity firm LLR Partners in 2020, and Riskalyze, founded in 2011.
Riskalyze was sold to private-equity firm Hg last year and has since made some leadership changes. It's CTO and cofounder Matt Pistone left earlier this year, but it added former Apex Clearing and Morningstar executive Tricia Rothschild to its board of directors and software exec Laurie Schultz as chair.
Lead generation companies, specifically social media and marketing tools, are also expected to lose clients who are using their services to supplement their marketing efforts.
To be sure, companies that are the sole marketing platform for RIAs should be fine, said Khatta. He cited digital-content marketer Snappy Kraken as a service many advisors use as a one-stop shop for their marketing needs.
Major players in this space are FMG Suite and Broadridge. FMG Suite, owned by private-equity firm Aurora Capital, has scaled mainly through acquisitions of its competitors. In 2020, it acquired digital marketing firm Twenty Over Ten, and two years prior bought Platinum Advisor Strategies, a professional coaching service, and content-marketing firm, MarketingPro.
Broadridge Financial Solutions, another one-stop shop tech behemoth, recently acquired AdvisorStream, a marketing-automation company, in June 2021 to grow its product suite.
What companies might be looking to make a deal
The expected cost cutting to advisors operating budgets will also affect how private-market investors deploy their capital. The overall tech industry is seeing a pull back in capital raises as investors are more mindful of their spending.
As a result, the industry could see more deals done.
"I've stopped personally investing as of about two, three weeks ago in companies that don't have some sort of proven revenue stream," said Putterman. He defined proof of concept as a product or service that is an easy sale to an RIA.
Who will be acquired
Planning tools such as AssetMap and WealthBox would be great acquisition targets, Fritz told Insider. There aren't a lot of new planning tools, but there are a lot of small ones that larger firms could bolt on to their businesses.
Financial planning technology, and wealth tech as a whole, is still a fragmented market. However, the lack of new fintechs cropping up in financial planning is a sign that growth has slowed. The only way to gain market share at this point may be to merge with other fintechs.
"Small and nimble is attractive, but also limited numbers of players to pick from and ways to be differentiated is also an indicator of potential to acquire," Fritz said.
Fritz also named Skience, a CRM, and portfolio rebalancing tool VestMark as potential targets, too.
There's blood in the water with Junxure and Redtail being bought, and Fritz thinks other firms are looking to match Orion and AdvisorEngine's product offerings. The same could be said for rebalancing tools.
"Most of the rebalancing tools that were small have been bought up by asset managers or larger platforms," he said.
Who will acquire
Fritz believes Vestmark, which sold off one of its subsidiaries, Adhesion, to AssetMark, could be an acquirer.
Large platforms like Orion and SS&C Advent's Black Diamond will continue to be acquirers because they have a growing client base, said Putterman.
"If I was starting a tech company, I would look at what would these big platforms that are providing the reporting want to expand their tentacles into," an insider who asked not to be named told Insider.
He added that large platform providers are not looking to "sharpen the saw," they are looking for new services that will help its existing platform be more integratable and easier to use.
More: Fintech Wealth management RIA
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2022-07-08T10:16:52Z
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Fintechs for RIAs That Might Be Cut to Save Costs During a Recession
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https://www.businessinsider.com/fintech-tools-crm-analytics-marketing-winners-losers-for-financial-advisors-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/fintech-tools-crm-analytics-marketing-winners-losers-for-financial-advisors-2022-7
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Barclays' acclaimed internet stock analyst Mario Lu says trouble could be ahead for unprofitable firms in the sector — but shares 2 names he thinks have substantial upside, including one that could surge 106%
Recession risks threaten internet stocks, says Barclays' Mario Lu.
He told Insider that unprofitable names would continue to have a rough time.
Lu also shared two stocks he's bullish on going forward.
When the world shut down in early 2020, internet stocks soared. The world was working from home, entertaining themselves at home, shopping from home, and exercising at home.
Then in early 2021, pandemic restrictions loosened with the discovery of multiple COVID-19 vaccines and better treatments for the disease, and internet stocks became far less attractive.
On top of that, the Federal Reserve began to take a more hawkish tone in the fall of last year as inflation rose to levels not seen in decades, a worrying development for many of the longer-duration, currently unprofitable growth stocks in the internet subsector.
Over the last several months, internet stocks have taken a beating. For example, the Invesco Nasdaq Internet ETF (PNQI) is down 48% since October, while the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) is down 64%.
According to Mario Lu, an equity research director at Barclays who leads coverage on 16 internet stocks, things could get even worse in the space for unprofitable names as it becomes more expensive to borrow money and the threat of a recession looms.
"We think with a recession looming — economists predict a recession probability of 30-40% within the next year — that's going to continue to have a negative impact on unprofitable names," Lu told Insider.
"It's really going to be these bigger players, like the travel names that are profitable, the video game publishers that are profitable, those will continue to benefit," he added.
Recession risks have grown as the Fed raises rates at the fastest pace in 28 years. Several banks and institutions like the Fed are also raising their probability of a recession in the next year. Many see this risk at 30% or higher. Still their and most institutions' base case is not for a recession to come to fruition.
Still, as financial conditions tighten, some are warning of carnage ahead for unprofitable firms. David Trainer, a market researcher who has called the decline of many firms over the past year, is calling for stocks like Snap, Shopify, and Coinbase to go bankrupt and fall to $0 a share in the months ahead.
2 attractive stocks
But Lu, who was featured on Insider's latest Rising Stars of Equity Research list and named a top-20 large- and SMID-cap internet stock analyst by Institutional Investor, likes two particular names in the internet sub-sector, and has a "buy" rating on both.
The first is Take-Two (TTWO), a video game producer with franchises like Grand Theft Auto and NBA 2K.
"They have one of the most anticipated games coming out in fiscal year '24, and that should boost their earnings power significantly," he said. "So they have a pretty large near-term catalyst just around the corner."
Further, the firm recently bought Zynga, which produces games like FarmVille. Lu said this would help them weather the challenging economic environment.
He also said that stocks of video game producers in general seem to have an "artificial floor" because if they fall too low, they become an attractive acquisition target for a bigger firm like Disney or Netflix .
"Microsoft recently announced a deal to acquire Activision, and so there's a sense of an artificial floor for video game publishers," Lu said.
Lu's price target on Take-Two is $171. It currently trades at $126.82 a share, meaning Lu believes it has about 35% upside.
The second firm Lu is bullish on is digital fitness company Peloton (PTON).
Peloton has suffered a wild turn of misfortune, going from pandemic darling to laying off large swaths of its staff last year. Its stock rose 725% in 2020 before falling 93% to all-time lows.
Part of the reason Lu likes the stock is because the company is a strong candidate to be acquired by competitors, including Apple and Nike given its assets and following.
"They have 3 million subscribers on their platform, so anyone that's interested in entering this fitness vertical, that's going to be a very attractive asset," Lu said.
He also said the stock is unlikely to fall much further given how far it's already fallen.
"At these levels, if you look at how much they generate from their connected fitness subscribers, which is close to $1.6 billion a year, the stock is only trading at two-times the subscription revenue," Lu said. "So the downside is somewhat limited for Peloton, and with a new CEO, CFO on board, we definitely envision a potential turnaround."
Lu believes the stock has about 106% upside. His price target for the stock is $22 a share, and it currently trades at $10.65.
Internet Stocks
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2022-07-08T10:16:58Z
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2 Beaten Down Internet Stocks to Buy — Including 1 With 106% Upside
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https://www.businessinsider.com/internet-stocks-to-buy-upside-barclays-analyst-mario-lu-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/internet-stocks-to-buy-upside-barclays-analyst-mario-lu-2022-7
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A top-4% fund manager is keeping nearly half his portfolio in cash because he thinks there's more weakness ahead for stocks and the economy. Here's what it will take for him to change his mind and be bullish again.
A top-4% fund manager is keeping a close eye on the Federal Reserve as inflation surges.
Value stocks are beating growth names again after underperforming for years.
Jeff Muhlenkamp, whose fund is in the top 4% this year, is keeping 45% of his portfolio in cash.
Here are the biggest risks that Muhlenkamp sees in markets and when he will be bullish again.
The last three years have been a rollercoaster ride for investors as sentiment in markets has gone from panicked to euphoric and back to fearful once again.
It's also exactly what portfolio manager Jeff Muhlenkamp needed in order to snap a decade-and-a-half-long losing streak for his Muhlenkamp Fund.
Muhlenkamp's eponymous fund has bested 99% of competitors in the past three years and 96% of peers this year, according to Morningstar. But the data also shows that the mutual fund is in the bottom 5% of its category in the past 10 and 15 years.
From laggard to leader
The dramatic reversal came about because Muhlenkamp stuck with the bottom-up value strategy that his father, Ron, implemented back in 1988 after founding Muhlenkamp & Company 11 years earlier. Ron and Jeff co-managed the Muhlenkamp Fund from late 2013 until February 2019, when Jeff took the helm.
At the time, few investors were interested in cheap stocks with high returns on equity like the ones Muhlenkamp was looking for, he told Insider in a recent interview. High-flying growth stocks had crushed the market in the past decade, and funds that didn't conform fell behind.
"The market was willing to pay a very high multiple for growth, even if there were no profits associated with it," Muhlenkamp said. "So revenue growth was kind of the metric, and we did not participate in that very well at all."
Muhlenkamp shared a fitting analogy for how investors neglected value stocks for their flashier growth peers: "They're almost like dads. They're popular for a period of time, and then they fall away and they're not popular."
It was unclear if Ron helped him come up with the comparison.
Growth stocks remained in vogue even as the pandemic shut down the economy, but in the past year there's been a massive shift back to value names as interest rates rapidly rise.
"They came into a space that we had kind of never left," Muhlenkamp said.
Keep cash on hand as stocks and the economy weaken
As the Muhlenkamp Fund has risen, so have inflows into it. In fact, Muhlenkamp said his portfolio is currently sitting on 45% cash, which is far more than he's comfortable deploying right now.
That's because Muhlenkamp sees more downside ahead for stocks as the economy falters in the face of multi-decade-high inflation, slowing growth, and falling consumer sentiment.
Richly valued growth stocks will be the hardest hit, the portfolio manager said, adding that the group is only halfway through what will be its worst two-year stretch since the tech bubble.
Hawkish monetary policy from central banks like the Federal Reserve in response to inflation is the main cause of this market chaos and will continue to be going forward, Muhlenkamp said. Sharply rising interest rates and less liquidity in markets should help to bring down price growth, the portfolio manager added, but the risk is that those drastic measures will cause a recession .
Ironically, Muhlenkamp noted that some market pundits are holding on to "recession hope," which he described as the belief that the only way to save the economy in the long term is by causing a brief downturn that permanently brings inflation back down to normal levels.
"That's kind of the argument that the Fed is making," Muhlenkamp said. "Powell just the other day said, 'Yeah, we're willing to risk growth in the near term because we're really, really worried about inflation in the long term.'"
Muhlenkamp continued: "I am skeptical of the idea that inflation will die so easily."
The US central bank is playing with fire, in Muhlenkamp's view, as it did when it intentionally tried to engineer inflation before realizing that the plan had backfired dramatically. While the portfolio manager acknowledged that an economic downturn would cause inflation to subside, he thinks there are too many questions surrounding what could be another ill-fated strategy.
"The assumption is that when we get the recession, inflation will be dead," Muhlenkamp said. "Well, how do you know? How long do you let the recession go? What if it doesn't completely kill inflation? If you had inflation come down to 3% or 4%, is that enough? It's not the target. Do you reverse? Do you start easing up? Do you start dropping rates? Do you start even doing QE again? How do you know inflation is really dead? And what level of inflation are you willing to live with?"
He added: "I don't see any way for the selloff to end before the Fed reverses what it's doing."
Buy the dip when the Fed starts to ease up
The implication there is that once the US central bank puts an end to its hawkish policy, it will be an "inflection point for markets," Muhlenkamp said. He believes that stocks will start to take off once the Fed stops hiking interest rates, though he doesn't know when that will be.
"The phrase that I've heard is that the Fed squeezes until something breaks," Muhlenkamp said. "And we haven't seen anything really break yet, although you've started to see some real problems in the crypto space."
In the meantime, Muhlenkamp said that when he's not hoarding cash, he's putting money into energy stocks, specifically those tied to oil and natural gas.
For years, energy companies made the mistake of overspending, which kept commodity prices low, the portfolio manager said. But now, a lack of investment since the pandemic has sent oil and gas prices to all-time highs, which has helped companies in the sector become far more profitable and financially healthy as they've paid down debt, Muhlenkamp said.
It's also worth noting that energy stocks are an effective inflation hedge, Muhlenkamp said. But that might become a less relevant selling point in the coming years — if the Fed has anything to say about it.
More: Investing Inflation inflation 2022
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Jeff Muhlenkamp
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2022-07-08T10:17:46Z
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Bear Market Rally, When to Buy Stocks: Top 4% Fund Manager
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https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-investing-bear-rally-top-fund-manager-strategy-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-investing-bear-rally-top-fund-manager-strategy-2022-7
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A portfolio manager for acclaimed Scottish firm Baillie Gifford told us the high-conviction positions he's doubling down on as tech stocks plunge — and why his $590 million fund has barely tweaked its strategy
Robert Wilson, a manager of Baillie Gifford's Long Term Global Growth Fund.
Baillie Gifford has developed a reputation for expertise in long-term stock picking.
Fund manager Robert Wilson says big winners are defined by big drawdowns.
He told Insider about the investments he added to during the latest round of selling.
Scottish investment firm Baillie Gifford has won acclaim and attracted almost $500 billion in assets with its growth stock picking acumen. And even if investors hate those kinds of stocks now, the firm doesn't intend to change its approach.
Baillie Gifford wants to invest in companies that are going to transform their industries or change the world, according to Robert Wilson, who runs the firm's Long Term Global Growth Fund. Issues like rising inflation, rising interest rates, and even global conflict don't change how it feels about those companies and industries.
So he's not reinterpreting his approach to make sure he includes more energy companies and cyclical stocks — even though that would probably help his short-term performance.
"The specific inefficiency that LTGG exploits, as it were, is that over long periods of time, some companies are capable of delivering extreme returns that are very difficult to imagine or price correctly at the outset," Wilson recently told Insider.
That's not what investors are buying right now; the fund is down 42% this year, according to Morningstar. But even with that loss it's beaten 99% of its peers over the last five years by returning 13.5% annually. And Wilson says it's beaten its benchmark in 97% of five-year rolling periods since its inception.
While periods like this are painful for investors, Wilson says severe drawdowns are also characteristic of stocks that outperform the market long term like Amazon and Tesla. Investors periodically lose faith in those stocks and sell out, but staying optimistic and sticking with them works better than changing styles, he says.
"We hold our stocks for roughly 10 years, which is how long we think you need to hold them in order to generate the kind of transformational growth [Baillie Gifford wants]," he said. "The stocks that do deliver the most over these five to 10 year periods of time in terms of contribution and value creation are in some ways the most controversial names."
By necessity that means sticking with that approach in hard times, like this downturn or the bear market in 2007-2009. So the biggest positions in his fund are still names like Amazon, Tesla, Nvidia, and ASML.
Back then, he says, "The decision that we undertook at the time there was to not trade too much. And that has proved to be absolutely the right decision."
Still, Wilson acknowledges that companies that rely on easy borrowing are going to have a harder time now, and those that can pass costs on to clients and consumers will have an edge.
He told Insider that during the 2022 downturn, he's allocated more capital to three companies that were already in the portfolio — and hasn't engaged in other bargain hunting or made other changes.
"During the second quarter, we have been kind of recycling some of our capital internally into names that we feel may be oversold," he said.
Those names are South Korean online retailer Coupang, gaming platform Roblox, and digital financial services company Affirm. Baillie Gifford's stock slides say that Coupang offers very fast delivery and reliably low prices, and that while its stock has been a loser, the company could quintuple its sales and its value as margins improve and costs come down.
Its investor materials call Roblox a unique blend of game company and social network that has a lot of paths to making more money, especially as its young users get older and wealthier. And the firm says that Affirm is winning more merchants and offers far more transparency for customers than older credit card companies, which could help it grab a far greater market share than it has today.
More: Investing Stocks Stock Picks
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2022-07-08T10:17:58Z
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Baillie Gifford: Stock Picks & Investing Tips From Top Growth Manager
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https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-picks-investing-tips-strategy-bear-market-tech-baillie-gifford-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-picks-investing-tips-strategy-bear-market-tech-baillie-gifford-2022-7
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The Sunny Balwani trial: 3 times guiltier than Elizabeth Holmes
Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani was convicted on all 12 counts of defrauding patients and investors — compared to only 4 counts for Elizabeth Holmes.
Adam Lashinsky
There was something more than a bit unsatisfying about the split-decision verdict last January in the trial of Elizabeth Holmes. Sure, she was convicted in federal court on four fraud-related counts, each related to bilking investors. And yes, she likely faces considerable jail time when she is sentenced this fall. But jurors also acquitted her on four counts related to defrauding doctors and patients. And they couldn't agree on three charges that she swindled venture capitalists who invested early on in Theranos, the failed blood testing company Holmes founded as a teenager.
In contrast, the verdict on Thursday was downright resounding for Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, her co-conspirator, ex-boyfriend, and former president of Theranos: guilty on all 12 counts. The jury needed only five days — considerably less time than the Holmes jury — to reach their unanimous finding.
To be fair, Balwani was doomed almost from the moment Holmes was convicted, if not sooner.
A scowling, nasty-by-reputation figure in contrast to the cheerful new-mom and loving daughter vibe Holmes exuded at trial, Balwani was considerably less sympathetic by any measure. Jurors needn't have been familiar with the portrayal of a venal Balwani in the Hulu series "The Dropout," one that positioned him against the deer-in-the-headlights quality of Holmes as played by Amanda Seyfried. That's because they repeatedly heard first-hand accounts of Balwani himself, placing him directly at the center of the fraud and deception in the real-life rise and fall of Theranos.
By their own accounts, Holmes and Balwani ran the company jointly for years. But Holmes, a college dropout, paid particular attention to marketing and finance, while Balwani, a former software executive, oversaw the troubled clinical operations of the startup. This, at least, was the argument Holmes made in court that got her off on the patient-related charges — and presumably why the Balwani jurors had an easier time pronouncing him guilty. "They must have taken his job as the head of the lab very seriously," notes Ellen Kreitzberg, a professor of law at Santa Clara University, who I saw frequently when we attended the Holmes trial.
Balwani also suffered from being tried after Holmes. The two were jointly indicted in 2018, but Judge Edward Davila eventually split their trials, declaring that Holmes would go first. That trial, conducted from September and December last year, gave prosecutors an opportunity to see exactly what worked and what didn't. They were like actors who, having honed their material in summer stock, went on to present the fine-tuned version on Broadway. The government fielded the exact same trial team against Balwani — who faced the exact same charges — and called many of the exact same witnesses.
The bright-lights analogy only goes so far: The Holmes trial was a media circus from beginning to end, complete with cosplaying Holmes fans and journalists camped out on sidewalks in the middle of the night to ensure snagging one of 34 public seats in the courtroom. The Balwani proceeding, though equally long, was a lightly attended affair, with minimal press coverage and no theatrics.
One witness the Balwani jury did not hear from was Holmes. At her own trial, she took the stand in her defense, offering tearful testimony about how Balwani had coerced and even abused her — the so-called Svengali defense. After her conviction, there was speculation that she would testify against Balwani in order to win favorable treatment at her sentencing. She did not. Nor did Balwani testify in his own defense
Another factor going against Balwani was the extremely hands-on nature of his role at Theranos. As recounted at her trial, Holmes literally flitted in and out of key scenes in the drama. The hedge fund investor Brian Grossman, for example, told of meeting Holmes fleetingly in initial due-diligence meetings, before following up in greater depth with Balwani. Holmes was found guilty on the charge related to Grossman's investment. Convicting Balwani on the same count was a slam dunk.
Balwani's legal team played an exceedingly weak hand as best they could; their closing argument dragged on for three days. In an effort to persuade jurors what they should not consider in reaching their verdict, Balwani's lead lawyer, Jeffrey Coopersmith nevertheless reminded them of his client's misdeeds. "This is not a case about violations of regulations," he said, noting that Theranos had been found to have violated various federal rules governing clinical labs. "Those are important. But that's not what we are doing here. This is about intent to deceive, intent to take patient's money through deception, knowingly running a lab that was giving patients inaccurate results, and trying to take their money through that process." The government couldn't have said it better. Inadvertently or not, Coopersmith neatly painted a precise roadmap that pointed to Balwani's guilt.
Balwani's conviction also represents a save for the government, which at tremendous expense and effort succeeded only at convicting Holmes for defrauding a few wealthy investors, including the family of Betsy DeVos, who served as education secretary in the Trump administration. But they weren't able to get her prison time for the Theranos patients who received false blood-test results, or for the doctors who believed the company was able to diagnose illnesses from a single prick of a patient's finger, rather than drawing samples the old-fashioned way, with a needle in the arm. Running the table against Balwani provides a form of redemption — and a strong signal to tech executives in Silicon Valley, who routinely overhype their products to land clients and investors.
Judge Davila set a November 15 date for Balwani to be sentenced. That means he and Holmes needn't ever cross paths in what remains of their unhappy journey through the criminal justice system. Her sentencing is set for September 26. That happens to the first day of the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah. Should the judge postpone the hearing to accommodate any worshipful party to the case, that would mean at least one more delay in a process that has dragged on for years — but now, at long last, is finally nearing an end.
Adam Lashinsky is a Business Insider contributor and former executive editor at Fortune magazine.
More: Elizabeth Holmes Sunny Balwani Elizabeth Holmes trial Theranos
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2022-07-08T10:18:06Z
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Sunny Balwani Trial: Why the Theranos Co-Founder Was Found Guilty on All Counts
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https://www.businessinsider.com/sunny-balwani-trial-guilty-all-counts-theranos-elizabeth-holmes-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/sunny-balwani-trial-guilty-all-counts-theranos-elizabeth-holmes-2022-7
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Electric truck startup Xos lays off 8% of its workers less than a year after its $2 billion SPAC deal
Xos cut personnel — including vice presidents, directors, and managers — in three waves over the course of three consecutive Fridays starting in mid-June.
Electric truck startup Xos has laid off of 8% of its workforce in the past few weeks.
The company went public in a $2 billion SPAC deal in 2021.
Read more details about the layoffs here.
Startup Xos Trucks, which has sold electric trucks to FedEx, UPS, cash-transfer company Loomis, and more, has laid off 8% of its workforce of between 300 and 400 employees in recent weeks, the company confirmed to Insider.
"Due to signs of slowing macroeconomic growth we've decided to safeguard our company and focus on cost reductions and streamlined operations," an Xos spokesperson told Insider in a statement. "Such efforts included the difficult decision to reduce our workforce by approximately 8% over the past month. We believe these efforts are foundational to the long-term success of the company."
Xos cut personnel — including vice presidents, directors, and managers — in three waves over the course of three consecutive Fridays starting in mid-June, six sources told Insider. The layoffs spanned departments including engineering, sales, logistics, and supply chain, said the sources, who include former employees who say they were recently laid off and former employees with direct knowledge of the layoffs.
Xos is one of a suite of EV startups that went public via SPAC in recent years and are facing challenges including increasing competition, supply chain constraints, labor shortages, and sinking stock prices. Canoo and Electric Last Mile Solutions have also had layoffs this year, as has Tesla. Xos' stock is now hovering around $2, an 80% drop from the nearly $10 high it saw upon going public.
"We remain confident in our overall business strategy and continue to fulfill vehicle deliveries to customers," the Xos spokesperson said, citing the deliveries the company has made to customers in recent weeks.
Xos was founded in Los Angeles, California in 2016 by entrepreneurs Dakota Semler and Giordano Sordoni under the name Thor (it rebranded in 2019). The startup, which is developing Class 5 through Class 8 electric trucks, went public via a $2 billion merger with special purpose acquisition company NextGen Acquisition Corps in August 2021.
Xos reported $7 million in revenue and 56 customer vehicle deliveries in the first quarter. The company also reported a net loss of $21.2 million and cash, cash equivalents, and available-for-sale debt securities of $129.7 million. It entered into a $125 million standby equity purchase agreement in March with an affiliate of Yorkville Advisors Global, a firm that also has capital deals with Lordstown Motors and Canoo.
One former employee told Insider that even days before they were let go, Xos leadership said it wouldn't resort to layoffs. "The story for about a month or two had been, budgets are tight so there's a lot more scrutiny on what we're spending for, but this does not affect anybody's salary," the former employee said.
Xos' stock price has continued to fall, and the broader economic environment, combined with production troubles, drew concern. "I think they just had to start cutting," the former employee said. "The message was that production was going to be staffed up and generally, more safe because that's what generates the money right now."
Xos is chasing a much sought-after market segment in the commercial electric truck space, which could surpass $370 billion in annual revenue by 2030, per Guidehouse Insights. Some rivals, like Arrival, Lightning eMotors, and Cenntro Automotive, are racing to get more products to market. Others, like Ford (with the E-Transit), General Motors (with BrightDrop and Walmart), and to some extent, Rivian (with its Amazon deal), are using their head starts to snatch up crucial market share.
Over the years, Xos has hired big-name industry veterans, like SVP of manufacturing Dag Reckhorn, formerly director of manufacturing for the Tesla Model S; CTO Rob Ferber, a member of Tesla's founding team who worked on battery development; and head of program management Steve Ivsan, former director of vehicle purchasing at Tesla and former chief procurement officer at Rivian.
Are you a current or former Xos employee? Do you have a news tip or opinion you'd like to share? Contact this reporter at astjohn@insider.com from a non-work device.
More: Transportation Xos Trucks Inc. SPAC
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2022-07-08T10:18:24Z
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Xos Electric Truck Startup Lays Off Workers Amid Cash Crunch
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https://www.businessinsider.com/xos-layoffs-electric-truck-vehicle-startup-cash-crunch-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/xos-layoffs-electric-truck-vehicle-startup-cash-crunch-2022-7
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In today's newsletter, we are also looking at a story from Chicago, where three JPMorgan traders are standing trial over an alleged scheme to manipulate gold and other precious metal prices.
We will explore why that trial is relevant to today's Wall Street (even though it dates back to 2019) — and introduce readers to the 10 members of Congress who really dislike the financial industry's hottest new trend: ESG investing.
Alexander Manzyuk/Reuters
1. It's all about the messages. At the heart of the government's metals rigging case against three former JPMorgan traders will be a slew of internal bank chat logs that the prosecution will use as evidence. According to Bloomberg, JPMorgan has been fighting to keep some internal communications out of the trial, including messages involving current executives.
For Wall Street bankers and traders, it's just the latest reminder that what they say to colleagues and clients is never private. Bankers who take to unauthorized apps like WhatsApp to conduct business stand to lose their jobs, even if no inappropriate messages were found.
It's part of a larger government crackdown that has rattled financial industry pros whose clients often prefer WhatsApp and SMS to email. It's also putting some employees at odds with their employers as banks, JPMorgan, do whatever it takes to keep tabs on their workers.
As Insider has previously reported, Wall Street's monitoring has some employees spooked. But banks appear to be doubling down nonetheless.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Tex.
2. ESG's newest enemy works for Congress. Funds that invest with environmental, social, and governance considerations in mind are coming under attack from a group of Republican lawmakers, one of whom called ESG investing "a scam." Insider's Rebecca Ungarino breaks down who they are and what they want.
3. Elon Musk's deal to buy Twitter in 'peril'. Advisors to the Tesla CEO have concluded that Twitter's figures on spam accounts are unverifiable, the Washington Post reported. Meanwhile, the billionaire has stopped engaging in certain discussions around funding for the $44 billion deal, including with a likely backer, WaPo said, citing anonymous sources.
4. There's a new financial advisor toolkit. Wealth-management firms are poised to reevaluate the financial software they use to help clients manage money in the face of tumbling stocks. Insider spoke to seven industry insiders about the fintechs that will be deemed essential — and the ones that could be tossed.
5. Bank of America's refugee-turned-banker to the ultra rich. Dega Nalayeh shares how she went from nothing to a $6.4 billion book of business that includes players for the Atlanta Hawks basketball team. Read her story here.
6. SoftBank veteran Rajeev Misra is setting up his own fund. Misra is stepping back from his role overseeing SoftBank's latest megasized investment vehicle, Vision Fund 2. He'll still head up softBank's first Vision Fund, while launching own $6 billion fund. More details here.
7. Should you change jobs right now? The stock market is down, inflation is at a 40-year high, and experts are bracing for a recession — so your window may be closing. Here's how to decide what to do.
8. The battle over Spirit Airlines. Shareholders of Spirit Airlines are scheduled to vote today, July 8, on the company's proposed merger with Frontier Airlines. But will it happen? The company has already postponed the vote twice to explore overtures from rival suitor JetBlue.
9. Another contentious hedge fund divorce. John Paulson was accused by his wife, Jenica, of secretly stashing billions of assets into secret trusts to avoid having to share his wealth with her as part of their divorce, Bloomberg reported.
10. Our "Banker of the Week" feature is on vacation — it'll be returning next week. But in the meantime, get to know the last four bankers we featured:
Naveen Nataraj, senior managing director at Evercore, held nine big-ticket transactions in 2021 that amassed almost $60 billion in enterprise value.
Uzair Dossani, a managing director at Intermediate Capital Group, is a 25-year private-equity veteran who recently closed a deal for Seaway Plastics Engineering.
Harold Butler, a huge advocate for greater equity on Wall Street, leads Citi's diverse financial institutions group.
Pete Stavros, the co-head of US private equity for KKR, just closed the sale of C.H.I Overhead Doors to Nuco.
If you know of any bankers who recently closed big deals or are making strides on Wall Street, submit them as potential "Bankers of the Week" to Aaron at aweinman@insider.com
More: 10 Things on Wall Street Finances Newsletters
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2022-07-08T11:48:04Z
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3 Former JPMorgan Traders Face Metals Rigging Trial
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https://www.businessinsider.com/3-former-jpmorgan-traders-face-metals-rigging-trial-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/3-former-jpmorgan-traders-face-metals-rigging-trial-2022-7
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Isobel Asher Hamilton and Tom Porter
Former President Donald Trump left the board of his social media firm, Truth Social, weeks before it was served with a federal subpoena, records show.
According to a June 8 filing with the Florida Department of State's Division of Corporations, Trump was removed from his position as chairman of the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG).
He was one of several departures along with his son, Donald Trump Jr., and other members Wes Moss, Kashyap Patel, Andrew Northwall, and Scott Glabe.
TMTG is the parent company of Truth Social, the social-media platform Trump launched after he was banned from mainstream social media following the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
But Truth Social pushed back against reports on the filing in a statement, claiming that Trump was still serving on the board as its chairman.
Its statement suggested the reports were based a misunderstanding of the document, but did not elaborate. Truth Social did not immediately respond to a request from Insider for more explanation.
TMTG is currently in the process of being acquired by Digital World Acquisition Corp, a SPAC .
The June 8 document describing departures from the board came before a flurry of legal activity around the acquisition.
Digital World first told investors on June 13 the merger was the subject of an investigation by the SEC.
It later revealed its board members had received subpoenas from a grand jury on June 16, according to a regulatory filing published on June 24. The same filing added that Digital World had also received a subpoena on June 24.
Digital World then disclosed in a July 1 filing the SEC had issued TMTG with a subpoena on June 27. The same filing said the grand jury issued TMTG with a subpoena on June 30.
If Donald Trump has indeed left the board, he's not the only high-level departure from Truth Social.
Andy Dean Litinsky, a former "The Apprentice" contestant who reportedly pitched the original idea for Truth Social to Trump and a top exec left the company months ago, Reuters reported in June.
Two other top executives — technology chief Josh Adams and head of product development Billy Boozer — also left the company in April two months after Truth Social's app launched on iOS, Reuters reported.
More: Donald Trump TRUTH Social Trump Media and Technology Group Digital World Acquisition Corp.
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2022-07-08T11:48:16Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Donald Trump Left Truth Social Board Before Subpoena: Filing
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https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-left-truth-social-board-before-subpoenas-filing-shows-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-left-truth-social-board-before-subpoenas-filing-shows-2022-7
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The helicopter, believed to have been used by Viktor Medvedchuk's family, was seized by Ukrainian police.
Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police of Ukraine
A private jet believed to have been in use by Viktor Medvedchuk's family.
Pro-Russian Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk seen in handcuffs while being detained by security forces in an unknown location in Ukraine. Handout picture released April 12, 2022.
Press service of State Security Service of Ukraine/Handout via Reuters
The interior of Viktor Medvedchuk's helicopter, seized by Ukrainian police on July 6, 2022
The cockpit of a helicopter believed to be in use by Viktor Medvedchuk's family.
More: Viktor Medvedchuk Oligarchs ukraine-russia Helicopter
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2022-07-08T11:48:22Z
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Helicopter and Plane Taken From Putin Ally, Given to Ukraine Army
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https://www.businessinsider.com/helicopter-and-plane-taken-putin-ally-medvedchuk-given-ukraine-army-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/helicopter-and-plane-taken-putin-ally-medvedchuk-given-ukraine-army-2022-7
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Meta's newest metaverse pitch is that it will help equity in the workplace
Meta executive, Christine Trodella told Insider that the metaverse is about creating a "sense of presence" for everybody at work.
A Meta executive said to Insider that the metaverse will drive greater equity in the workplace.
Vrtual reality tools like Horizon Workrooms will help bring workers together into one space.
Meta's Reality Labs made a combined loss of $6.2 billion between Q3 last year and Q1 this year.
The metaverse is often seen as just a virtual reality experience, but a Meta executive told Insider that "the metaverse is not just about putting on a VR headset."
Instead, Meta sees it "as a way of creating a sense of presence and being able to connect with people in a way that feels much more real than it does today," head of Workplace from Meta and business-to-business sales chief at Reality Labs, Christine Trodella said to Insider.
Workplace is Meta's collaborative software tool and competitor to Slack , founded in 2016. Reality Labs is Meta's hardware and VR division which is central to its metaverse push.
There's no agreed-upon definition of the metaverse, but Meta's EMEA recruiting director, Andy Wilkinson, previously told Insider that the metaverse is "a collection of the digital spaces that really allows people to feel that there's a closer sense of connection."
Trodella argues that metaverse technologies, such as virtual reality, could democratize the workplace. One principle for Workplace, according to Trodella, is "bringing equity" into the workplace, and creating "this sense of presence that's democratized across to anybody."
Execs at Workplace competitor Slack have made similar noises. Senior product manager Jaime DeLanghe told Protocol in February that chat tools can make the workplace more comfortable for younger and diverse workers, mainly by encouraging language that's less formal and corporate.
Trodella sees virtual reality as taking that thought one step further, especially in a hybrid workplace. Office meetings, she said, will increasingly involve some workers attending in-person and others remotely, meaning "some kind of inequity starts to surface."
Meetings in virtual reality would allow workers to be in the same space, Trodella said, levelling the playing field. Features like being able to choose an avatar will give workers more freedom of self-expression.
But, Trodella said, virtual reality, will just be one "access point to the metaverse."
She said: "There's going to be a lot of different access points to it, a lot of different experiences, and a lot of different companies that play into that. It's not just Meta that's going to be creating the metaverse."
Meta has some way to go to prove its concept. Its Reality Labs division, tasked with producing metaverse technologies, made an overall loss of $6.2 billion between the final quarter of last year and Q1 this year. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is also scaling back spending on its projects.
Trodella declined to comment on the losses, but said: "I definitely think we're in a great position."
More: Metaverse Workplace Meta
Horizon Workrooms
Facebook Reality Labs
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2022-07-08T11:48:34Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Meta Executive: Metaverse Could Help Workplace Equity
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https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-executive-metaverse-could-help-workplace-equity-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-executive-metaverse-could-help-workplace-equity-2022-7
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Former Japanese Prime Minister was assassinated while giving a campaign speech on Friday.
Japanese police named the suspect in the killing as 41-year-old Yamagami Tetsuya.
He used to work for Japan's navy and has told police was "dissatisfied" with Abe, NHK reported.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe died on Friday after being shot while giving a campaign speech in Nara, western Japan.
Japanese police said they arrested a 41-year-old man on suspicion of attempted murder and seized a weapon, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported.
Police have named the suspect as Yamagami Tetsuya. Here's what we know about him.
Who he is
Tetsuya lived in Nara, the city in which Abe was shot dead.
Tetsuya worked for Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force — or the Japanese navy — for three years until 2005, Japan's NHK public broadcaster reported, citing defense ministry sources.
While there, Tetsuya had live-firearms training, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported, citing the defense ministry.
The weapon
Police said Tetsuya shot Abe in the neck from around 10 feet away. Footage of the event appeared to show the shooting suspect standing behind Abe without any visible security around him.
Images of the gun said to be used in the shooting show it appeared to be homemade, made of two metal barrels attached to a wooden board with black tape.
Police later found explosive-like items at Tetsuya's home in Nara, Kyodo News reported.
During an interrogation at the Nara-nishi police station, Tetsuya told police he "was dissatisfied with former Prime Minister Abe and aimed to kill him," but that the attack was "not a grudge against the former Prime Minister's political beliefs," NHK reported.
Abe's assassination has shocked Japan, which has strict gun laws that make it hard to procure firearms.
More: News UK Japan Shinzo Abe Death
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2022-07-08T11:48:58Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Shinzo Abe Shooting Suspect Worked for Japan Navy, Had Gun Training: NHK
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https://www.businessinsider.com/shinzo-abe-assassination-suspect-what-we-know-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/shinzo-abe-assassination-suspect-what-we-know-2022-7
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Elon Musk pictured in May 2021.
Tesla delivered 78,906 China-made vehicles last month, 145% more than in May.
Almost all of the output went to Chinese buyers in June, setting another record.
Tesla was forced to shut its Shanghai factory in March, affecting its overall output.
Tesla's output from its factory in China surged to a record high in June, according to data from China's Passenger Car Association first reported by Reuters.
The electric car maker made 78,906 vehicles at its Shanghai plant last month, per the figures released on Friday.
Tesla produced about 32,000 cars in China in May, and the figure is 135% higher than in June last year, according to the Association's data.
Just 968 cars were exported, meaning the rest went to local buyers and set a new domestic record for Tesla, per Bloomberg.
Representatives for Tesla did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
The electric car company has suffered from production issues affecting its operations in China throughout the past year.
Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory accounted for half of the electric car manufacturer's total global output last year but the company had previously struggled to maintain its output after strict COVID-19 lockdowns were imposed in the city.
In March 2022, the plant was forced to close for three weeks due to rising Omicron cases.
Tesla took extreme measures to maintain production despite the lockdown with a "closed-loop" system that forced factory workers to sleep in temporary accommodation at the Tesla plant and be separated from friends and family.
The workers were eventually allowed to go home on June 10, Insider reported.
Overall car sales in China increased by 28% in the week to June 26 compared with the same period in May, per Reuters.
More: Tesla Electric car Car China
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2022-07-08T13:20:16Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Tesla's Production in China Hits Record High After Covid Shutdowns
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https://www.businessinsider.com/teslas-china-shipments-records-covid-shutdowns-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/teslas-china-shipments-records-covid-shutdowns-2022-7
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I make 6 figures a month in revenue from baking. I started in my apartment 2 years ago — here's how a billboard helped me scale it.
Katie Wilson, the founder of BelliWelli, wants to use her snack bars to normalize conversations around IBS and gut health.
Katie Wilson has IBS, so her husband did some research and made her favorite cookie gut-friendly.
The couple started selling the snack on Facebook and recieved 800 orders in their first month.
Here's how they scaled from their kitchen to make six figures a month, as told to Amber Sunner.
This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Katie Wilson, a 30-year-old based in Orange County, California, about starting a tummy-friendly business. It has been edited for length and clarity. Insider has verified Wilson's revenue with documentation.
I was the chief dating expert at Match.com when I started selling homemade, gut-friendly cookie bars out of my kitchen in June 2020.
I had struggled with IBS for years. My gut issues materialized almost overnight in 2016 after an instance of food poisoning that never resolved itself. I spent years trying to fix it myself; I paid for colonoscopies, endoscopies, and supplements.
I would eat the same three meals daily — it felt like gut issues were controlling my life
One night in 2019, just after having my first child, I cried because I wanted a chocolate-chip cookie so badly. I needed comfort food, but could only stomach gluten-free toast with a bit of butter.
My husband had the idea of making a chocolate-chip cookie that I could eat. He hired a food scientist and a dietitian over Zoom in December 2019 and began working on the cookie with them from our home kitchen.
It took five months to come up with the perfect recipe. The cookies are made of oats, chia seeds, and acacia fiber as substitutes for gut irritants like refined sugars, gluten, and dairy.
We began stuffing them into bar molds to bake so I could easily take them around with me.
In 2020, I also began entering Facebook groups for people with gut issues. I wanted to create a community where we could all try and share solutions for better gut health.
We officially started selling the bars via these Facebook groups in June 2020 under the name "IBSimple"
The bars were less than $4 each, and we received 800 orders in the first month.
To fulfill the orders, we pulled three all-nighters and had lots of help from friends and family. We realized this product resonated with a large group of people.
We decided to run the business out of our kitchen. We invested all our savings — $55,000 — into packaging, ingredients, and market research.
I was still working full-time, and my husband watched our baby during the day.
We bought shelving and ingredient containers and converted our single-oven kitchen into something as close to a commercial kitchen as we could. The ingredients came from local health-food stores.
Our daily routine for the first few months was to put the baby to sleep at 7 p.m., then I ran the business side of things while my husband put on a hairnet and gloves and baked.
We'd both go to sleep at 4:30 a.m. I would only get two or three hours of sleep a night.
I would package all of the bars into heat-sealed wrappers, pack all the boxes, get the labels printed, and, finally, UPS would come at 7 a.m. to collect the bars.
We did $50,000 in sales within the first five months, all out of our home kitchen
Orders came from our Facebook community, word of mouth, and Instagram.
We wanted to raise money to launch officially with a manufacturer. Three of my team members from Match became angel investors, and we got our first check in August 2020.
In preparation for our offical launch as BelliWelli, we hired a co-packing broker — someone who helps connect small businesses with commercial manufacturers — in September 2020. Once we had a commercial manufacturer, we could quickly scale the business.
The two heads of designs at Match helped us design our website on retainer: It cost just under $20,000 of the money we had fundraised.
We relaunched as BelliWelli in March 2021
We barely spent anything on digital marketing. Instead, we sent products out to celebrities who I thought had a personal connection to the brand. This technique drove sales for the first three months after our official launch in March 2021.
We began spending more money on digital marketing in our third month. Our current marketing strategy involves social media, influencers, and ambassadors.
While driving around LA, I thought billboards would be a great way to normalize the conversation around gut issues. There was also a trend going around TikTok at the time about gorgeous girls having gut issues.
I hired a billboard that said 'Hot girls have IBS' in LA in October 2021, and it was a hit
We posted a billboard video on TikTok, and it went viral. We started posting more regularly and now have over a million followers on the platform.
In April this year, we turned over six figures in revenue.
We have updated the BelliWelli formula more than 20 times since launch. We always want to keep improving our snack bars to appeal to what our community wants. Gorgeous girls deserve delicious, gut-friendly food.
More: contributor 2022 as told to Gut Health
homemade treats
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2022-07-08T14:46:41Z
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How My Homemade-Snack Business Makes Six Figures a Month in Revenue
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https://www.businessinsider.com/baking-business-making-six-figures-how-to-start-at-home-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/baking-business-making-six-figures-how-to-start-at-home-2022-7
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I manage Wimbledon's tennis balls. It's harder than you'd think to get 58,000 balls onto the courts of tennis' biggest stars.
Andy Chevalier is responsible for ensuring each court at Wimbledon gets 1,900 fresh balls daily.
AELTC/Thomas Lovelock.
Andy Chevalier, 41, is an actor, but for just over a month out of the year, he works at Wimbledon.
He started as a security guard in 2002 and has been part of the ball-distribution team since 2018.
Here's what his job is like managing ball distribution at the Grand Slam, as told to Emma Magnus.
This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Andy Chevalier, the 41-year-old ball-distribution manager at Wimbledon 2022. It's been edited for length and clarity.
Ball distribution is the hidden gem of the teams on-site at Wimbledon. A lot goes on behind the scenes to ensure enough balls are on the courts for the matches to proceed seamlessly.
If ball distribution were to go wrong, you'd hear someone on the BBC broadcast saying there are no balls on Centre Court.
This year is my first as the ball-distribution manager at Wimbledon. There are nine people on my team.
My role is to ensure that, with my team, there are always enough tennis balls in the right places: match courts, practice courts, under the umpire's chair, and even warm-up balls in the umpire's office.
We've done our job well if no one notices us or knows what we do, and everyone can just focus on the tennis
Last year, I comanaged with my predecessor, the wonderful Brian Mardling. Brian had managed ball distribution for decades and had taken over from the man who had been the manager for decades before him.
I've been on the ball-distribution team since 2018, but I started working at Wimbledon in 2002 as a security guard. I've always loved the buzz before the spectators arrive.
I work at Wimbledon for just over a month every year. The rest of the time, I work as an actor and a voice-over artist. Wimbledon is like another production to me; there's so much work to do to prepare for the main event.
I arrive almost two weeks before the Championships begin to receive the delivery of balls and prepare.
This year's order consisted of over 58,000 balls. Each of Wimbledon's 18 courts needs 21 new cans of balls a day — 18 cans is enough for the longest possible men's game, with three spares, just in case.
The outside courts get 1,900 balls a day. Behind each umpire's chair, there's a metal barrel where the ball boys and girls retrieve them.
Our day starts at 8:45 a.m. with transporting the balls around the venue by buggy. We drop the balls off at their respective courts, then the teams distribute them. For the match courts, like Centre Court or Court One, we deliver the 21 cans in special green bags and store them behind the umpire's chair.
On each court, there's a captain who delivers the used balls back to the ball-distribution office to exchange them for two new cans.
They need to work quickly to exchange the balls before the umpire arrives on the court for the next match
Those balls come back to my office at Centre Court so we can sort through them. We'll go through about 350 balls a day, which takes roughly two hours. We check the balls to see if they've been used in three, five, or seven games. We call these "3,5,7s."
You can tell which number each ball is by the wear of the Slazenger logo — the ball also gets fluffier the more it's used. We squeeze the balls to check that they've still got adequate pressure. If we leave them outside their cans, they'll lose pressure within a day.
We then send the "3,5,7s" back out to the courts.
The umpire stores one or two spare cans under their chair for when players hit the balls out of the court. When that happens, the umpire will examine one of the balls in rotation to match it with one of our "3,5,7s."
The umpire can then drop an equally used ball back into the rotation rather than a new ball, which would hit harder and faster compared to the used one.
Eventually, the balls all come back to the office. We re-tin them and sell them at the Ball-Resale Kiosks, which generate £15,000 for charity each year.
Gammy balls end up with the police dogs
The Umpire's Office also needs balls for when there's a rain delay. We have to keep all the balls from that game separate, so players can continue to use them when the match restarts. We also have to deliver more cans of warm-up balls to the office for when the players return to the courts.
When players get back to the courts, they need balls to warm up, too. Rather than giving them new balls, we give them two tins of five-game balls.
These championships had the worst possible start for me, with half an hour of play followed by a rain delay. The opening Monday was, by far and away, the busiest day I've had since 2018.
If we have a rain delay early on, there's potential for several delays during the day. All 18 courts come off, and when they go back on, they need 36 cans of five-game balls for the players to warm up with. If we're doing it two or three times a day, we'll work through closer to 700 or 800 balls. Sunny days are great for us.
Thankfully, we've never run out of balls on a court
The highlight for me is always the team — I'm lucky to have team members that love fun, long conversations into the night.
It's a lovely place to work; a lovely thing to be a part of. Do I plan to come back next year? Absolutely.
More: UK Freelance contributor 2022 Kiera Fields BI-freelancer
London Jobs
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2022-07-08T14:46:53Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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What My Job Is Like As Wimbledon's Tennis Ball Manager
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-get-job-wimbledon-ball-distrubution-manager
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-get-job-wimbledon-ball-distrubution-manager
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Western Union partnered with MercadoLibre to enable digital remittances in Mexico.
Mexico's remittance inflow is expected to grow to $56.24 billion this year.
The news: Western Union partnered with Argentina-based online marketplace MercadoLibre to enable digital remittances in Mexico, according to Reuters.
Recipients in Mexico can collect Western Union remittances from the US via Mercado Pago, MercadoLibre's Latin American digital payment platform.
Why it could work: Remittance inflows in Mexico grew 22.9% last year to hit $51.42 billion, according to our forecast. This makes Mexico one of the top five recipient countries, per World Bank, and more than 95% of those remittances came from the United States.
The sizable Mexican immigrant population in the US can take advantage of Western Union's 61,000 agent locations and a strong digital presence that comprises millions of digital wallets to send money back home. This isn't Western Union's first Mexico-based partnership, either: It teamed up with PagaPhone in May so US customers can send money to Mexico using Pagaphone's SmartPay mobile wallet.
Other US remittance providers have also dug into the region:
Walmart offers money transfers to Mexico via Walmart2Walmart, which relaunched in March.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has explored letting users send crypto remittances to Mexico.
And Brazilian neobank Nubank's remittance feature works in more than 100 countries, including Mexico.
The big takeaway: Mexico's remittance inflow is expected to grow to $56.24 billion this year, making up 7.3% of worldwide inflow, per Insider Intelligence forecasts. Western Union can capitalize on this growth through local partnerships with companies like MercardoLibre.
The company's tie-in with MercadoLibre is astute; it can take advantage of the ecommerce firm's vast user base of over 80 million as it looks to expand services to other Latin American markets. This can help Western Union maintain its dominance in an increasingly competitive space that has been flooded with money transfer fintechs eager to muscle in on the market.
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2022-07-08T14:47:11Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Western Union Partners With MercadoLibre to Enable Digital Remittances
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https://www.businessinsider.com/western-union-partners-with-mercadolibre-enabling-digital-remittances-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/western-union-partners-with-mercadolibre-enabling-digital-remittances-2022-7
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Layoffs are hitting the ad industry: Here are 6 companies that have cut staff so far
Lindsay Rittenhouse and Lucia Moses
Mobile firm AppLovin goes public
Layoffs have started to hit the ad industry as marketers trim spending amid a softening economy.
Those impacted including IPG's Huge, which relied on crypto clients, to adtech giants like AppLovin.
Insider is keeping track of which companies are laying off staffers and how many.
Layoffs have started to hit the ad industry as marketers tighten their purse strings in the face of recession worries.
Those cutting their outlays include big advertisers like Microsoft, which stopped spending on TV, putting an estimated $300 million in advertising at risk.
Also making deep cuts are the once high-flying finance and crypto areas, with companies like Coinbase and FTX collectively slashing spending as much as 70% in recent months.
Marketing is typically the first expense to get cut during economic downturns or times of uncertainty. A Gartner study found that marketing budgets dropped to their lowest level in recent history following the pandemic and have yet to fully recover. 2020 was also a brutal year in human terms, with 50,000 advertising jobs shed.
Still, some agency execs expect spending cuts to be milder this time around, saying some marketers learned a lesson from going completely dark during the pandemic. Said one agency exec: "I have seen some bold clients saying, 'If there is a economic downturn, this is a second chance for me to get ahead of my competition. We were too short-sighted during COVID. For obvious reasons, I don't want to make the same mistake twice in two years.'"
Nonetheless, agencies are bracing for budget cuts, project delays, and layoffs.
"Predicting agency growth strategies has never been more challenging as marketers continue to make knee-jerk post-COVID reactions," said Greg Paull, cofounder and principal of consulting firm R3.
As the ad industry responds to the changing market, Insider is keeping track of which companies are undergoing layoffs. They are listed in order of when layoffs occurred, with the most recent first.
NextRoll, a tech firm that helps small and midsize brands run marketing campaigns, has laid off just under 3% of employees, a company spokesperson confirmed Friday.
The cuts affected NextRoll's sales and recruiting teams, according to a source with knowledge of the cuts. NextRoll has 874 current employees, according to its LinkedIn page.
Read the full story: Marketing tech firm NextRoll has laid off about 3% of staffers, as cuts hit the ad industry
IPG's Huge
IPG agency Huge announced in July it would cut 3% of staff, or about 37 people, in July. Huge Global CEO Mat Baxter blamed the layoffs on clients pulling back spend due to concerns of a recession , noting the agency's heavy exposure to financial and crypto clients, which have been cutting marketing spend.
Baxter said Huge has also historically relied on project- versus retainer-based work, which tends to be the first area of marketing to be cut, and said the company was shifting its focus to digital transformation work and away from traditional advertising.
"I hate to have to be the CEO where layoffs are happening," Baxter told Insider. "Unfortunately, it's unavoidable. This is never a nice thing. But I don't think we're the first and I don't think we'll be the last to be taking actions like this."
Read the rest of the story: IPG ad agency Huge just laid off dozens as recession worries mount
Alon Alroy, cofounder, CMO, and CCO.
Bizzabo, an event management and marketing platform, said in July it would cut 30% of staff to prepare for the economic downturn and possibility of a recession , Skift reported.
Bizzabo is one of the best funded event tech companies, having raised close to $200 million. Its business boomed during the pandemic when it pivoted to virtual events. While scaling back, the company expressed confidence in the future of virtual events and its plan to use wearables to make events more data-driven.
Sprinklr, a publicly traded customer experience software platform, laid off dozens of employees in late June, Insider learned. The cuts affected at least 50 roles in the company's global marketing department, sources with knowledge of the situation said.
Sprinklr, which helps clients including L'Oréal, UBS, and IKEA software manage their relationships with their customers and market to them on digital channels like social media sites and messaging apps, posted a 31% lift in revenue year-on-year in its most-recent quarter.
However, the company warned that this growth could slow, citing tough comparisons with 2021 and the broader economic and geopolitical environment. Sprinklr CEO Ragy Thomas said on the company's June earnings call that while it hadn't seen a slowdown in demand, broader conversations with customers about "uncertainty and pullback" have ticked up.
Read the full story: Software company Sprinklr just laid off dozens of staffers in its marketing department
IPG's R/GA
R/GA, another IPG-owned agency, told staff in June it would cut 5% of staff at its New York office, or about 20 people, Adweek reported. The company cited the "current market downturn" leading to a "uniquely challenging financial situation in 2022." Nick Allen, the evp, managing director of R/GA New York, also announced his departure.
Adjust and parent AppLovin laid off 12% of their staff in late June, the company confirmed. The combined companies listed around 1,700 employees on LinkedIn.
"As we face uncertain economic conditions, we can confirm that we have made the difficult and prudent decision to reduce our workforce across our global organization by approximately 12%. Taking this proactive step allows us to optimize our resources so we can continue to focus on innovation and increasing shareholder value," an AppLovin spokesman said.
AppLovin, which makes monetization tools for app developers and also runs mobile game apps, acquired Adjust, a mobile measurement and marketing company, in 2021. It was one of a rash of adtech companies that IPOed in 2021 but which have since been hurt by Apple's privacy changes that have pinched app developers' ability to target ads to Apple device users.
More: Features Advertising Agencies Marketing
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2022-07-08T16:22:06Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Advertising Companies That Had Layoffs in 2022: IPG, NextRoll, AppLovin
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https://www.businessinsider.com/advertising-companies-that-had-layoffs-in-2022-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/advertising-companies-that-had-layoffs-in-2022-2022-7
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Mortgage startup Better pushed back on an executive who sued the company over allegations it violated securities and labor laws, calling her suit 'baseless' in a new court filing
Better employees pose for a photo at the headquarters in New York City.
Better and its CEO, Vishal Garg, denounced a former executive's suit as "baseless."
The exec said in her lawsuit that she was pushed out for raising concerns about Garg's conduct.
Better and Garg said she left Better on her own after making "outrageous demands" for pay.
Better and its leadership pushed back on a former executive who said she was ousted for calling out its CEO, Vishal Garg, over what she said were misleading financial projections and his handling of mass layoffs at the mortgage company.
Garg, Better's general counsel Nicholas Calamari, and attorneys for Better told a New York federal court on Thursday evening that the allegations made by Sarah Pierce, a former chief operating officer, were "baseless" and should be thrown out.
In letters filed to the court, they framed Pierce's lawsuit as a tactic to "extract unearned compensation" and indicated they planned to file motions to dismiss it.
Better, Garg, and Calamari disputed Pierce's narrative that the company had pushed her out for blowing the whistle on Garg. They said Pierce left on her own after asking for more payment.
While Pierce had accused the company of retaliating against her for complaining about Garg, Better told the court that Pierce had willingly resigned. Better pointed to a December email Pierce wrote to Better's chief financial officer, Kevin Ryan, that said "I'd like to begin transitioning out of my role and Better" and sought compensation including a "fixed per annum fee of $2 million" and the company's purchase of her nearly 2 million shares at $27 apiece.
Pierce wrote in her email to Ryan that she would help find her replacement and that she'd "agree to non-disparagement and to not affirmatively take action against the company with the information in my possession," adding, "I would advocate and promote the company rather than be its adversary."
Better argued that those statements demonstrated Pierce's attempts to negotiate additional compensation with the information she'd referred to in the email.
"Worse, in a cynical and opportunistic effort to force the company to accept her outrageous demands, plaintiff's email cryptically stated that she would agree 'not take action against the company with the information in my possession,' if the company agreed to her terms," Better said in its letter.
"But when Better's general counsel asked plaintiff to discuss what she meant by the 'information in her possession,' plaintiff objected, stating that the supposed 'information in her possession' was 'already known' by the general counsel and the executive team," the company said.
Neal Brickman, an attorney for Pierce, told Insider that Pierce wrote that letter in response to a transition proposal requested by Ryan while making it clear to him that it was not a resignation.
"She told him that she wasn't resigning," Brickman said. "They tried to characterize that as a resignation. It's a silly argument."
Pierce said in her lawsuit that Better leadership effectively threw her under the bus after bad press
Pierce alleged in her lawsuit in June that she was pushed out of Better for having raised concerns internally about what she described as Garg's "history of providing misleading financial statements and information to investors."
She said she had also challenged Garg's conduct after he laid off 900 employees in December over a Zoom call, including what she said were "defamatory" statements that employees were let go for working too few hours.
She said other leaders at the company also sought to pressure Garg to take a leave of absence following his handling of the layoffs and the negative publicity it generated.
Garg "attempted to deflect blame from himself by blaming others, including Pierce, for the fiasco, and creating a false and misleading narrative of the steps leading up to the call and the disastrous nature of the call," Pierce's suit said.
Garg and Calamari said in their letter to the court on Thursday that Pierce had resigned of her own volition after giving them "outrageous demands for an exit package that was simply not acceptable."
Better said that by December, Pierce was already earning annual compensation of $1 million and collected a bonus of the same amount.
Pierce's attorney disputed that characterization, saying motions to dismiss are typical in lawsuits.
"These motions that they're going to be making are not unexpected," he said. "They're going to do anything they can to avoid litigating this case on the merits. If people were to look at what actually happened, it paints a very ugly picture for Better and Mr. Garg."
More: Law Real Estate Vishal Garg
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2022-07-08T16:22:12Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Better, CEO Vishal Garg Dismiss Former Exec's Suit As 'Baseless'
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https://www.businessinsider.com/better-attorneys-vishal-garg-respond-sarah-pierce-lawsuit-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/better-attorneys-vishal-garg-respond-sarah-pierce-lawsuit-2022-7
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Ben Winck, Madison Hoff, and Juliana Kaplan
A Now Hiring sign at T.J. Maxx in Annapolis, Maryland, on May 16, 2022.
The US is just 524,000 payrolls away from returning to pre-pandemic employment levels.
The economy is on track to recover all lost payrolls by the end of August, Insider calculates.
While hiring has been uneven across industries, the current rebound is leagues faster than that seen after the Great Recession.
Hiring blew past economists' forecasts again in June, and the US is now within spitting distance of finishing its jobs recovery.
Data published Friday revealed the economy added 372,000 nonfarm payrolls in June, handily surpassing the average forecast of 268,000 new jobs. The unemployment rate held at a historically low 3.6% for the fourth month running and wages continued to tick higher at a healthy clip. Despite rising interest rates and waning consumer spending, companies are adding jobs at nearly twice the rate seen before the pandemic crash.
The economy is now just 524,000 payrolls away from the February 2020 peak. Should the current pace of job growth hold, the US will surpass its pre-crisis job count by the end of August. Job creation has held steady through much of the past year, even as the economy closes in on full employment.
The pace at which the US is still adding jobs is "truly remarkable," Daniel Zhao, a senior economist at Glassdoor, told Insider.
"It seems clear now that things haven't played out the way we were concerned that they might play out," Zhao said. "We saw many workers come back. We saw high demand for workers actually help promote wage growth and encourage workers to come back."
The payroll rebound mirrors the unemployment rate's extraordinarily quick recovery. The measure hit 3.6% in March and has stayed there since. That's just above the 50-year low of 3.5% observed just before the pandemic slammed the US.
The hiring rebound has been broadly superlative. The economy is just 0.3% down from the payroll count it boasted before the coronavirus recession started 28 months ago. By comparison, employment was down 5.6% in the same period after the Great Recession began. And while the current jobs recovery is expected to be completed in 30 months, it took 76 months for the labor market to fully heal from the 2008 crisis.
To be sure, a full payroll recovery doesn't necessarily mean the US labor market has fully healed. Labor force participation ticked lower in June and remains well below pre-crisis levels. That means there are still millions of Americans who were working before the pandemic and remain on the labor market's sidelines. Though retirements count for some of the trend, it doesn't explain the full decline. And with the labor shortage still running strong, the gap between worker supply and labor demand remains vast.
The recovery has also been uneven. Certain sectors, like professional and business services and retailers, tout payroll counts well above those seen in February 2020. Leisure and hospitality companies, however, are still down some 1.3 million jobs from the pre-pandemic peak after facing especially strong headwinds as the virus' spread and lockdowns crushed demand for in-person service providers like restaurants and bars.
The headline data suggests the labor market is nearly back to normal, but the picture looks very different depending on what pockets of the economy one focuses on.
Still, it can't be denied that the economic recovery has made extraordinarily large strides over the past two years. Hiring has held strong amid virus waves, elevated inflation, and soaring interest rates. And while some areas are far from a complete recovery, job creation is still running much faster than the pre-crisis trend.
"Overall, the recovery has been extremely impressive, especially given how severe the initial recession was," Zhao said.
More: Economy Economic Data BI Graphics Labor Market
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2022-07-08T16:22:36Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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The US Is Right Around the Corner From a Complete Employment Recovery
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https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-trends-jobs-report-june-labor-market-recovery-unemployment-rate-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-trends-jobs-report-june-labor-market-recovery-unemployment-rate-2022-7
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A German startup helping high-net-worth individuals invest in PE just hit $100 million in US client assets less than a year into its expansion in the region
Moonfare CEO Steffen Pauls.
Moonfare, a German fintech opening up access to PE funds, launched its US operations in January.
Its US branch now has $100 million in client assets.
CEO Steffen Pauls said the company has also reached $2 billion in global client assets.
Moonfare, a Berlin-based financial-technology company that provides ultra-high- net-worth investors access to multi-billion-dollar private-equity funds, has hit a milestone less than a year into its US expansion.
The firm reached $100 million in assets under management in the US, a spokesperson for the company told Insider. The news comes as the startup announced reaching $2 billion in global AUM.
The six-year-old startup launched its US operations in New York this January with a team of two, including head of the US business Dimitrios Magiakos, and support from its Series C lead investor Insight Partners. The startup now has 15 employees in the States, with plans to double the team before year end.
Moonfare's US operation is one of four hubs that include Berlin, London, and Singapore.
"The US is fully fleshed operations: legal, tech, marketing, operations, sales, business development, strategy, product development. It's all there. It's like a company within the Moonfare ecosystem," Pauls said in an interview.
Moonfare as streamlined its processes thanks to tech
Making the US a hub was a spontaneous move. Without an office chosen or licenses obtained, Pauls told Insider he made the decision last October and within months had a soft launch.
Coming to the States is a good strategy. Wall Street firms are making themselves more accessible to US high-net-worth-investors through fintech and wealth-management partnerships.
A host of Wall Street titans have clamored to back iCapital, a financial-technology firm that connects financial advisors and their clients to alternative investment funds. And private-equity firms like Apollo Global Management, KKR, and Blackstone have ramped up their wealth-management divisions and product distribution channels to support greater access to high-net-worth investors.
Moonfare was started in 2016 by Pauls and Alexander Argyros, both formerly with the private-equity firm KKR. The duo spent years helping clients get double-digit returns on their alternative investments and wanted to find a way to afford HNW investors like themselves the same opportunities.
Moonfare offers feeder funds, which are smaller pooled investment funds that use scale to invest in a master fund. Investors can enter feeder funds with a minimum investment as low as $125,000. Minimums for a top fund can reach millions of dollars. Some of the more than 50 direct funds Moonfare offers access to are Tiger Global's $12.7 billion technology growth fund Tiger PIP XV and KKR's North America Fund XII, which closed at $19 billion in April.
The company touts its proprietary technology as a differentiator in the space that allows it to operate more efficiently. That includes cutting management fees to 0.75% or 0.50%, depending on the size of the investment. If an investor were to go through a bank, there would be additional fees charged to their earnings.
Meanwhile, Moonfare's process for registering clients, which includes Docusign, has reduced the timeline to as short as 15 minutes.
The company has raised over $180 million in capital backing. Investment firm Vitruvian Partners led its $35 million funding extension earlier this year. And last November, it raised a $125 million Series C led by Insight Partners with participation from Fidelity International, who also entered into an exclusive distribution partnership with Moonfare.
"We are sitting on a pile of cash," Pauls told Insider.
According to a company spokesperson, the cash will be used to up the number of its locations, offer more asset classes to its customers, increase employee headcount, and make acquisitions.
But Moonfare is waiting out the current M&A environment because valuations are still too high for the companies it would be interested in, Pauls said.
"Not every founder and shareholder and the private markets company is yet willing to compromise on valuation. And at the prices of November last year, I would not buy a single one of my competitors," he told Insider.
When valuations enter an ideal spot for the fintech, Pauls said the Moonfare's looking to absorb companies that can grow its talent, client base and assets, product suite, and enhance its technology.
Disclosure: KKR is a major stakeholder of Axel Springer, which owns Insider.
More: Fintech alternative investments Technology
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2022-07-08T16:22:48Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Moonfare Hits $100 Million Client Assets From US Expansion
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https://www.businessinsider.com/moonfare-private-equity-fintech-100-million-client-assets-us-expansion-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/moonfare-private-equity-fintech-100-million-client-assets-us-expansion-2022-7
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A UK-based money app Quirk targets Gen Z by providing financial guidance through personality tests.
However, Quirk's personalization tactics raise some questions around data security and privacy.
The news: The Gen-Z-focused money app Quirk provides financial guidance through personality tests, per AltFi.
More about Quirk: The UK-based app launched to the public this week after accumulating 10,000 beta users. It received £300,000 ($412,600) in pre-seed funding in January 2021.
Users take a personality test through the app which assigns them to one of four types: optimizer, explorer, artist, or blissful.
Quirk's personality test is based on the "Big Five" personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.
Quirk also uses the open banking platform Plaid to get a picture of users' financial situations, and partners with digital insurance broker Anorak to educate younger generations on insurance products.
Targeting Gen Z: The app focuses on user spending and aims to help Gen Z navigate the increasing cost of living, from rent to groceries. But its emphasis on personality traits reflects its desire to put mental health first when it comes to finance.
The app doesn't push for daily engagement, which contrasts dramatically with most banking and money apps.
It points out that forcing someone to strictly follow a budget causes anxiety and makes them less likely to stick to it. Quirk prides itself on not shaming users for the financial decisions they make.
It also carefully curates its social media presence since so many Gen Zers look to it for financial advice.
Giving up personal data: Both digital and incumbent banks have increased the degree of personalization in their offerings as a means of engaging customers and gaining their loyalty. But Quirk's personalization tactics raise some questions around data security and privacy. By gathering personality traits and focusing on mental health, the app ends up with access to some pretty sensitive personal information. And it might not be clear how it's using that information.
Quirk claims to use "bank level" privacy and encryption standards, and works with read-only access into users' financial accounts.
It also says it never shares data with third parties.
Though that doesn't mean the firm isn't using personal data to develop new products or inform new models. Nor is any firm safe from hackers or cyber attacks. Earlier this year the UK adopted the Digital Markets Act, which outlined rules for Big Tech, especially around data privacy. But smaller fintechs are trying new tactics to differentiate their products, and a lack of regulation around the data they collect could open users up to risks.
The big takeaway: Quirk is hitting a sweet spot for Gen Zers, but lack of accountability and privacy concerns will make it harder for the app to succeed.
According to our research, finances are a main source of stress for Gen Z, and the stress will only heighten as the economy worsens and inflation increases the cost of living. We also found that 28% of Gen Zers rely heavily on social media for advice.
Quirk's attempt to lessen stress around money topics might be softer than competitor app Cleo, which uses wit and sarcasm to keep users on track, but there seems to be no clear method for holding Quirk's users accountable.
And the type of insights the app might glean from users via the personality test might make them uneasy about how much a technology company knows about them.
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2022-07-08T16:23:18Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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UK Quirk App Customizes Financial Guidance Through Personality Tests
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https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-quirk-app-customizes-financial-guidance-through-personality-tests-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-quirk-app-customizes-financial-guidance-through-personality-tests-2022-7
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Noctilucent clouds gather over Whitley Bay above St Mary's Lighthouse in England, on June 23, 2022.
Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images
Noctilucent clouds over Tynemouth Priory and Castle in England, on June 23, 2022.
Noctilucent clouds seen from the village of Nesutychi, west of Minsk, Belarus, on July 5, 2020.
NOW WATCH: Antarctica's sky just lit up with electric-blue clouds — here's why
More: Environment Clouds atmosphere Climate Change
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2022-07-08T17:56:05Z
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Climate Change May Be Making Rare 'Night-Shining' Clouds More Visible
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https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-may-be-making-rare-night-shining-clouds-more-visible-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-may-be-making-rare-night-shining-clouds-more-visible-2022-7
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren calls for the US to follow the lead of the EU in a universal charger plan.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren took to Twitter Thursday to call for "uniform standards" for device chargers.
Sens. Ed Markey and Bernie Sanders joined Warren in a letter to Department of Commerce on the issue.
The EU has already approved a plan for mobile devices to be compatible with USB-C charger.
Sen. Elizabeth is once again calling for the US to follow the European Union (EU) in standardizing universal chargers for smartphones and mobile devices.
In a tweet posted Thursday, Warren wrote that potential legislation to streamline chargers would create "less expense, less hassle, and less waste."
—Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) July 7, 2022
Her tweet follows a letter sent to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo penned by Warren and fellow senators, Ed Markey and Bernie Sanders which pushed for a device charger plan that would save consumers more money.
"The average consumer owns approximately three mobile phone chargers, and around 40 percent of consumers report that, on at least one occasion, they 'could not charge their mobile phone because available chargers were incompatible,'" the senators wrote.
The letter also highlights that chargers account for 11,000 tons of e-waste annually.
A similar plan in the EU was improved in June, which requires all smartphones and mobile devices to be compatible with a USB-C charger by fall 2024, CBS Boston reported.
The American senators didn't specify what type of charger should be considered the standard, but CNET editor-at-large Ian Scheer told CBS "it's unlikely companies will manufacture new products with different charging ports in different countries."
Although the EU parliament and 27 countries must sign off for this plan to take effect, consumers could be looking at new smartphone designs from several companies, including Apple.
"The EU has wisely acted in the public interest by taking on powerful technology companies over this consumer and environmental issue," the senators said in the letter. "The United States should do the same."
More: Smartphones Elizabeth Warren EU European Union
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2022-07-08T17:56:17Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Elizabeth Warren Continues Push for Universal Device Chargers in US
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https://www.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-warren-push-for-universal-device-chargers-us-eu-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-warren-push-for-universal-device-chargers-us-eu-2022-7
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Inside Gate Gourmet's Washington Dulles kitchen.
In March, ghost kitchen startup Butler Hospitality announced plans to expand its business and open new locations on the West Coast, including in Denver and Los Angeles. By May, the company had folded, leaving roughly 1,000 workers without jobs, TechCrunch reports.
Butler, which TechCrunch reports officially dissolved on May 13, was part of a growing number of ghost kitchen operators founded in the past few years.
The company was created in 2016 to provide room service to multiple hotels from centralized kitchens. The company had raised $50 million in funding, according to Crunchbase, and had locations in New York, Miami, Chicago, and Washington DC.
Butler's founder and CEO, Tim Gjonbalic, told TechCrunch that the company suffered from the lasting effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Still, TechCrunch reports that Butler's hotel partners and roughly 1,000 employees were given little notice that the company was in dire straights and would soon dissolve.
Butler had announced plans to expand its business just two months before the firings.
Attempts to reach Butler Hospitality by Insider were not successful.
Ghost kitchens, which are kitchens that cook and prepare food for delivery-only, have exploded in popularity in the past few years, with backers like Uber founder Travis Kalanick and celebrity-restaurateur Guy Fieri.
However, the ghost kitchens trend has come with some controversy. Insider reported that Reef, one of the leading ghost kitchen companies, has had locations shut down by health authorities for deliveries of raw and undercooked meals as it raced to expand. Travis Kalanick's CloudKitchens has faced lawsuits from employees who allege labor violations.
Despite these issues and Butler's failure, ghost kitchens appear to be here to stay. Kroger, the largest grocery chain in the US, confirmed to Insider last month that it is further investing in ghost kitchens.
More: Butler Hospitality Startup Lay-offs Firing
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2022-07-08T17:56:23Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Ghost Kitchen Startup Butler Laid Off 1,000 Workers After Raising $50M
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https://www.businessinsider.com/ghost-kitchen-startup-butler-laid-off-1000-workers-raised-50m-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/ghost-kitchen-startup-butler-laid-off-1000-workers-raised-50m-2022-7
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Best early Prime Day channel add-on deals
Check out other great early Prime Day deals
Prime Day is less than a week away, and we're already seeing great deals pop up all over Amazon. Right now, Prime members can find early discounts on movie rentals and add-on channels for Prime Video, Amazon's streaming service.
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With Showtime, you can watch award-winning original series like "Yellowjackets," plus hit movies, sports, and more. For a limited time, Prime Members can get their first two months for $1/month.
$0.99 from Amazon Prime Video Channels
Starz (Amazon Prime Video Channels)
Starz has original series, plus a rotating lineup of blockbuster movies. As part of an early Prime Day deal, you can get two months of Starz for just $2 through Prime Video.
Paramount Plus (Amazon Prime Video Channels)
Paramount Plus offers tons of on-demand content from Paramount, CBS, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET, and MTV. For Prime Day, you can get two months for $1/month.
Discovery Plus (Amazon Prime Video Channels)
Discovery Plus streams shows from Discovery, HGTV, and Food Network. For a limited time, the ad-supported plan is just $1/month for your first two months through Prime Video.
AMC Plus (Amazon Prime Video Channels)
AMC Plus offers select entertainment from AMC, BBC America, IFC, and Sundance TV, as well as everything from Shudder, Sundance Now, and IFC Films Unlimited. As an early Prime Day deal, you can get your first two months for $0.99/month.
$8.99 from AMC
'Sing' (Digital Rental)
A koala holds auditions for a singing competition to boost his business in "Sing." As an early Prime Day deal, you can rent "Sing" for $1.
'Coraline' (Digital Rental)
A little girl discovers a secret world that's just like her own, only better, in this stop-motion animated movie. For a limited time, digital rentals of "Coraline" are 50% off.
'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' (Digital Rental)
Two top-secret spy organizations join forces in the 2017 sequel to "Kingsman: The Secret Service." As part of an early Prime Day deal, digital rentals are only $2.99.
'Minions' (Digital Rental)
Without a leader to guide them, three minions set off on a journey to find a new boss. For a limited time, you can rent "Minions" for $1.99.
'Inglourious Basterds' (Digital Rental)
Jewish US soldiers plot to kill a Nazi leader during World War II; their plans converge with a theater owner set on avenging her family. As part of an early Prime Day sale, you can rent the movie for $2.
In order to sign up for Prime Video channels, you need to have an Amazon Prime or standalone Prime Video membership. You can learn more about Prime Video channels in our full guide.
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2022-07-08T17:56:29Z
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Early Amazon Deals: Save on Prime Video Channels and Movie Rentals
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How to send a voice message on your iPhone and change the 2-minute expiration length
If you're texting another iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you can send a voice message instead of text.
To send a voice message on iPhone, press and hold the record button next to the iMessage text box.
You can listen to a voice message by opening it in the Messages app and tapping the media file.
To stop voice messages from expiring two minutes after the recipient plays them, remove the limit in Settings.
While texting is the most popular form of communication these days, you can't always fit everything you want to say in a quick written message.
Thankfully, you can send a voice message on your iPhone. And the best part of a voice message is that it actually conveys tone, unlike text messages, where it can be hard to express excitement or joy.
Note: The feature only works when the person you're sending the voice message to is using an Apple device — like an iPhone, iPad, or even a MacBook — with iMessage installed.
Here's what you need to know about how to send a voice message on an iPhone, as well as listen to one you've received.
How to send a voice message on your iPhone
1. Open the Messages app on your iPhone.
2. Either begin a new iMessage conversation by tapping the pen and paper icon in the upper right-hand corner of the Messages screen or open an existing iMessage conversation.
Tap the pen and paper icon to begin a new conversation.
3. Press and hold the record button — it looks like a sound wave — to the right of the iMessage text box and begin recording your voice message.
Press and hold the record button to begin recording the voice message.
4. When finished, release the record button. You will then see two icons next to the message; a play button and an upward-facing arrow.
Release the record button when you’re done recording your message.
5. Press the play button to listen to what you've recorded, or tap the upward-facing arrow to send your voice message.
Quick tip: You can also instantly send a voice message. After recording it, don't release the record button. Instead, slide it up towards the upward-facing arrow.
How to listen to a voice message on iPhone
If you're the recipient of a voice message, you can access it from the Messages app.
2. Tap the conversation with the voice message to open it.
3. Tap the voice message's media file to listen to it.
Tap the media file of the voice message to listen to it.
How to change the expiration length of voice messages on iPhone
By default, voice messages are deleted two minutes after the recipient listens to them. However, you can choose to save the audio message you've sent by tapping the Keep option beneath the media file.
You can also change your iPhone's automatic settings to ensure your messages are kept longer on your device.
3. Tap Expire under the Audio Messages heading.
Tap “Expire.”
4. Tap Never.
This makes it so any voice message you send or receive won't expire on your device. Messages you send to others, however, will still expire on their devices, unless they've also changed their settings.
Disadvantages with using voice messages on iPhone
While a voice message can seem like the better option over lengthy text, it does come with a couple of disadvantages, including:
Not discrete: It might be a hassle for the receiver to listen to the voice message discreetly, especially if they're in a place that doesn't allow noise, such as a library or movie theater.
Issues with downloading: If the voice message is lengthy, it might take longer to download compared to one that's short and sweet. If the receiver is in an area with poor network coverage, it can take them a while or even multiple tries to finally download and listen to the voice message.
The voice message might disappear: Some users don't know that a voice message will disappear after two minutes if they don't save it. They might play it, not listen to it properly, and decide to do that later. And when they open it again, they'll find that it's gone.
You have to re-record the voice message if you mess up: You can easily edit any part of a text message before sending it. After you finish recording a voice message on your iPhone, however, you can't edit it. You either have to send it as it is or record it again without messing up.
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2022-07-08T17:56:41Z
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How to Send a Voice Message on iPhone
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-send-voice-message-on-iphone
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-send-voice-message-on-iphone
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Bianca Chan and Carter Johnson
Paxos serves as a bridge for traditional firms into the world of blockchain and crypto.
Wall Street is finally turning a corner when it comes to crypto — and one startup that's established itself as a critical link between the two worlds is gearing up despite the crypto downturn.
Paxos provides blockchain infrastructure for businesses to offer crypto features and services, from tokenization to buying, holding, and selling crypto. It's part of a new class of fintechs that has emerged to help traditional firms access the new world of infrastructure and offer crypto services to their customers.
The startup has raised $540 million to date, is valued at $2.4 billion, and has established relationships with firms like Bank of America, Credit Suisse, and Mastercard.
"They come to us to be able to use our technology and our regulatory stack as both the technology, but also the licensing to be able to provide those services," Walter Hessert, Paxos' head of strategy, told Insider of its typical client.
Walter Hessert, head of strategy at Paxos.
PayPal and its subsidiary Venmo both enable their users to buy, sell, and hold bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies by leveraging Paxos on the back-end. The same goes for LatAm fintechs Mercado Libre and Nubank.
Paxos' partnerships are similar to that of challenger banks and its back-end banking partners. While you've likely heard of Chime, it's less likely you've come across The Bancorp Bank or Stride Bank. But they're the reason the online-only bank can offer debit cards and checking accounts without a national bank license.
Just as neobanks need back-end banking partners that have the necessary regulatory approval and tech to offer financial products, traditional Wall Street firms need to pair up with a crypto partner to offer digital-asset features.
Wall Street eases into crypto
The boss of the nation's largest bank in JPMorgan could be one of the clearest signals of the industry's changing attitude toward digital assets and their underlying tech — and how nuanced it can be. JPMorgan CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon went from calling the asset class "a fraud" in 2017 to praising crypto's underlying technology, blockchain, just five years later in his 2022 annual shareholder letter.
Indeed, finance incumbents, from Goldman Sachs to Citigroup, have begun to embrace the technology in the past year. And global venture funding into blockchain startups increased to $25.2 billion last year — a more than 700% jump between 2020 and 2021 — according to CB Insights.
Another driver of Wall Street's embrace of crypto is "that this is ultimately just another rail on which these assets can move — and there's a lot of complexities to holding and trading and moving digital assets or tokenizing non-digital assets into digital assets," Hessert added.
For instance, Paxos' equities settlement service, used by Bank of America and Credit Suisse, enables faster processing because of its underpinning blockchain technology.
Those firms are "leveraging us to be able to turn cash and US stocks into tokenized forms for more transparent and closer to real-time settlement than what's available today," Hessert said.
Looking ahead, Paxos is eyeing a bigger piece of the Wall Street pie when it comes to tokenizing assets. In 2019, Paxos expanded into gold-backed tokens with Pax Gold, and that's just the beginning.
"There's $700 trillion of financial assets in the world and Paxos, our big bet is that over time — it may take 20 years — but that all of those financial assets effectively will be replatformed on the blockchain," Hessert said.
Other prime candidates include getting into FX markets via the rise of tokenized fiat currencies, real estate, and digital types of properties, like non-fungible tokens, he added.
And while the bear market has put downward pressure on the crypto industry, it's not Paxos' first rodeo.
The fintech has been around since 2012 and endured the crypto winter in 2018. The current downturn has seen "ebbs and flows of interest and motivation to integrate these solutions," Hessert said. But the company views the accelerated integration of crypto and blockchain in the last two to three years as offsetting the current pullback, he added.
"There's definitely a different sentiment in the retail crypto market than there was two months ago," Hessert said, but having Paxos' core product focused on the infrastructure layer between institutions has helped insulate the company somewhat from cryptocurrency trading volatility .
"Just because there is a sharp crash in the price of the underlying asset doesn't mean it's any less of an exciting or important technology that's being adopted," Hessert said.
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2022-07-08T17:56:47Z
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Behind-the-Scenes Fintech Paxos Powering Crypto Efforts on Wall Street
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https://www.businessinsider.com/paxos-blockchain-tech-powering-crypto-efforts-at-wall-street-giants-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/paxos-blockchain-tech-powering-crypto-efforts-at-wall-street-giants-2022-7
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INSEAD Europe Campus in Fontainbleau, France
A company's ESG strategy is becoming increasingly important in the eyes of consumers and investors.
But some companies need help. That's where the INSEAD Corporate Governance Centre steps in.
ICGC provides research, faculty member expertise, and certifications to support governance efforts.
Investors and consumers are increasingly considering an organization's environmental, social, and governance, or ESG, strategies as they choose where to invest, where to work, or where to purchase goods and services. But companies sometimes need extra support in the form of research and training to meet these expectations.
The INSEAD Corporate Governance Centre, or ICGC, provides this support. INSEAD is a top-ranked nonprofit business school whose original campus is outside Paris, with additional locations in Singapore, Abu Dhabi, and San Francisco.
ICGC works with companies, nonprofits, and governmental and educational organizations from around the world — and their leaders and boards of directors — to offer research and expertise from faculty members who have board or consulting experience, webinars and other training materials, and corporate governance certifications.
Sonia Tatar.
Courtesy of Sonia Tatar
"We receive different requests from organizations and individual board members for specific training solutions," Sonia Tatar, ICGC's executive director, told Insider. "For instance, organizations often reach out to us for support, guidance, and partnerships relative to individual or group learning solutions at the board level, while individual board members may contact us to inquire about the director certification pathway."
About 70% of board directors say they're moderately or not at all effective at integrating ESG into a company's strategy or governance, according to a survey by ICGC and Boston Consulting Group. Less than half think their boards are competent and experienced enough to challenge a company's ESG strategies, and many lack knowledge, data, and the capability to provide ESG oversight. ICGC's goal is to help companies develop high-performance governance strategies and drive impact in meeting investor demands and growing profits, Tatar said.
"We address the latest trends, topics, and challenges in corporate governance not only from the academic perspective but also practitioner, a practice-based perspective from real-life experience," she added.
Here's an overview of how an effective corporate governance strategy benefits companies, the challenges organizations face in building a strategy alone, and how ICGC steps in to help.
Helping companies overcome governance challenges to meet investor demand
Boards are the top decision-makers within organizations, representing the backbone of a company's governing system, Tatar said. It's crucial for companies to have a solid governance framework so their boards are high-performing, responsible, resilient, and creating value for investors and stakeholders.
There's growing pressure and scrutiny on boards and companies' corporate governance strategies from internal and external stakeholders, Tatar added. In 2019, 70% of the demands investors placed on companies revolved around governance, including board composition, compensation, accountability, voting rights, and leadership changes, according to a McKinsey & Co. report.
Governance is tied to a company's success or failure since accountability and responsibility are often linked to the board governing the organization, she explained.
She said ICGC helps companies with challenges like upskilling to expand a board's knowledge of new topics like ESG and digitization and preparing and onboarding the next generation of board directors. Family businesses often need help establishing more professional boards for longevity.
Continually reviewing governance strategies helps organizations respond to these demands and can improve operations, motivate employees, boost innovation, and make shareholder relations stronger, according to the McKinsey report.
Providing governance resources and education that drive value
ICGC works with companies via two models: corporate governance training programs and certifications for aspiring and experienced directors and board chairs. ICGC has a portfolio of training materials but also builds customized programs tailored to an organization's needs and goals.
ICGC partners with the European Confederation of Directors Associations, the Ukrainian Corporate Governance Academy, the Hellenic Corporate Governance Council, and the Corporate Governance Hub.
To assist companies, ICGC first learns about an organization's unique needs and determines which program or certification is the best fit. Developing a customized program includes identifying an organization's challenges, bringing in INSEAD experts and faculty, and conducting an analysis with board members and company leaders to uncover what the best outcomes for the company should be.
ICGC provides access to experts, research, reports, educational content, and case studies, as well as board simulations, feedback on leadership styles, executive coaching, and peer-to-peer global board of directors exchange programs.
ICGC's certifications include the INSEAD Certificate in Corporate Governance for board members that operate internationally. Participants take part in training on strategic management practices and financial value creation and write a paper showing how they put what they learned into practice. An advanced certificate is available for those who want to expand their knowledge.
Focusing on governance builds trust and spurs growth
A strong governance strategy creates value for companies. It builds a strong community and government relations, prepares organizations for regulatory and government requirements, motivates employees, heightens investor trust, and inspires consumer confidence, according to a 2019 McKinsey & Co. report.
Tatar said it also makes companies better prepared and resilient for the future, so organizations and boards are "strong forces for improvement" within economic markets and the ESG landscape.
ICGC helps companies ensure boards consist of the best talent that can contribute different perspectives, drive innovation, understand stakeholder expectations, and embrace new trends or regulations affecting them — both short-term and long-term, she said. Companies just have to take action, by assessing the board's composition, strengths, and weaknesses, and identifying gaps where training, upskilling, or changes are needed.
"We help directors stay ahead of the curve, which is a catalyst to drive governance for good to inspire and propel organizations to make a positive impact," Tatar said.
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2022-07-08T19:27:17Z
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How a Business School Helps Companies Build Their Governance Strategy
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-business-school-helps-companies-build-governance-strategy-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-business-school-helps-companies-build-governance-strategy-2022-7
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Juliana Kaplan, Madison Hoff, and Alex Ford
In this Sept. 22, 2021, file photo, a hiring sign is placed at a booth for Jameson's Irish Pub during a job fair in the West Hollywood section of Los Angeles.
In June, the country added 372,000 jobs — more than economists had estimated.
That means that the labor market is still booming.
But the number of workers actively looking for work or working also dropped in June.
The economic recovery chugged along in June with a still-booming job market, but that doesn't mean everyone in the country was working.
The latest data release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the US added 372,000 jobs in June — handily beating economists' estimates for 268,000 new payrolls, according to Bloomberg.
But even as the unemployment rate stayed low at 3.6% for the fourth consecutive month, and job growth boomed across industries, some workers were giving up on work altogether and left the labor force. In June, the labor force participation rate — which measures the number of people who were working or actively looking for work — dipped.
"The drop is disappointing, but it does take us back to levels that we saw just a few months ago," Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor, told Insider. "It is a setback, but I think the overall trend over the course of the recovery has still been improving labor force participation."
June's rate of 62.2% means the rate is also still below the pre-pandemic rate of 63.4% in February 2020.
"Hopefully, this is a one-month aberration for both overall workers and prime age and we get back to a situation where that's picking up," Nick Bunker, economic research director at Indeed Hiring Lab, told Insider.
Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, said the labor force participation decline seen in the Bureau's household survey could be a "one-month blip." She isn't "too worried about it" and believes "we will see people come back" to the labor force.
"There are signs in our marketplace that participation is increasing," Pollak told Insider. "We're seeing job seekers come back. We're also seeing employers appear not to face quite the same challenge attracting candidates as they did in the past."
Pollak added that ZipRecruiter surveys show inflation is a large reason people are returning to work, because it's "swallowing up their savings" and that older workers in particular "are feeling pressure to come back because of inflation."
The prime-age employment-population ratio, which measures the share of the population age 25-54 that has a job, also dropped in June. It shows one of the contradictions at heart of the current job market: Hiring and economic recovery is indeed on the fast track to full recovery, but some workers are still getting left behind, or opting out altogether.
Bunker said it would be good to see the prime-age employment-population ratio pick up too, which he said has "sort of flatlined."
"I would like to see that number start to grow more quickly again," he added. "That's definitely something to keep an eye on in reports in the month ahead."
It's a "little bit of a mystery" why people would leave the workforce right now, according to Zhao. Bunker similarly told Insider there isn't a "clear answer or cause of why we saw that downtick in June," adding "it could be one month of quirky data."
"I don't think that there's necessarily a reason why Americans would stop looking for work right now," Zhao said. "The job market is still very strong, demand for workers is very high."
Among people of color the recovery has looked very different, with Black unemployment rates persistently high — even amidst so-called labor shortages. In June, the Black labor force participation rate fell 0.8 percentage points, with labor force participation dipping equally precariously for both Black men and women.
The white labor force participation rate remained at 61.9% in June, the same as it was in April and May. That's still below the pre-pandemic rate.
The numbers from June do mark just one month in the US's recovery story. The latest data on workers quitting their jobs, shows that in May 4.3 million Americans felt no qualms about quitting at a near-record rate — and that hiring was still booming. That's still good news for job seekers.
Have you given up on the job hunt, or are feeling frustrated? Contact these reporters at jkaplan@insider.com and mhoff@insider.com.
More: Economy Job Growth Jobs Report labor shortage
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2022-07-08T19:27:23Z
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More Americans Gave up on Looking for a Job in June
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https://www.businessinsider.com/more-americans-gave-up-looking-for-job-labor-shortage-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/more-americans-gave-up-looking-for-job-labor-shortage-2022-7
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Layoffs hit plant-based meat company Motif FoodWorks a year it raised $226 million as sales growth and investments in plant-based foods cools
Alex Bitter
Motif FoodsWorks laid off an undisclosed number of employees this week.
The alternative protein company cited "economic conditions" as the reason for the layoffs.
Sales and investor interest in plant-based foods have slowed recently.
Motif FoodWorks has laid off an undisclosed number of employees, the latest sign that the plant-based meat world might be headed for a correction after years of easy funding.
Boston-based Motif's layoffs were first reported by Food Navigator USA. The company did not say which areas of the business were affected by its layoffs or how many people were being let go, but a spokesperson told Food Navigator the company is "pivoting our focus to key priorities that we know will return maximum ROI for our customers and investors."
Motif confirmed the layoffs to Insider, citing "current economic conditions."
Motif's main product line are ingredients that enhance the flavor and texture of alternative proteins. These include Appetex, which can connect plant-based proteins to simulate the effect of connective tissue, and Hemami, a protein that binds with heme to create a meatier flavor and smell.
More recently, Motif has started developing its own products to compete with the likes of Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. The company has filed trademark applications for the product names "MoPork," "MoChicken," and "MoBeef."
Motif has raised $345 million to date, including a Series B round worth $226 million that it announced one year ago.
At the time, CEO Jon McIntyre told Insider that the company was "going through a transition" from a company purely focused on research and development to one that devotes more time to finding applications for the ingredients it develops.
McIntyre also said at the time of the round that Motif wasn't interested in developing its own consumer-ready products, but based on its trademark filings, that may have changed.
Investor and consumer appetite for plant-based meats has slowed over the past year.
Year-over-year sales for plant-based meats has stalled out, staying flat at $1.4 billion in 2021, according to figures from data provider SPINS, the Plant Based Foods Association, and the Good Food Institute.
Beyond Meat's year-over-year sales growth slowed over the past two quarters as the company lowered prices on its products and dealt with new competitors entering the market.
Private companies in nearly every sector are finding it harder to raise money in 2022 as valuations fall and investors are hesitant to write checks given worries about a recession .
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2022-07-08T19:27:29Z
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Motif Foodworks Lays Off Employees As Plant-Based Meat Sales Slow
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https://www.businessinsider.com/motif-foodworks-lays-off-employees-plant-based-meat-sales-slow-2022-7
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How to save money on gas with Google Maps' fuel-efficient routes
Google Maps has a fuel-efficient mode that won't burn as much fuel.
Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock
Google Maps can suggest fuel-efficient driving routes that will save you gas money.
If Google Maps finds a driving route that uses less gas without taking more time, it'll put you on that route.
If you don't want to use Google Maps' fuel-efficient routes, you can select another route or turn them off.
The worst part of owning a car has to be paying for gas, which takes money and time. Even electric vehicles have to charge, which can be a drag if you run out of power in the middle of your trip.
That's why Google Maps now offers a "fuel-efficient" route mode, which is built to save time, energy, and money. Here's how it works.
Google Maps' fuel-efficient routes save money by using less gas
When you ask Google Maps for driving directions, it'll usually give you two or three different routes that you can choose to follow. If you look closely, you'll notice that one of these routes has a leaf icon on it — that means it's the fuel-efficient route that uses the least amount of energy.
These routes aren't always as fast as the others, but they take more direct paths with smoother traffic and less hills to reduce how much gas you burn. Although the difference might seem small, the savings will add up if you use Google Maps a lot.
Look for the leaf icon.
Aside from saving money, these fuel-efficient routes are also more eco-friendly. Burning less fuel means less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — Google estimates that eco-friendly routes could save enough gas every year to equal "removing over 200,000 cars from the road."
Here's how to use fuel-efficient routes, or how to turn the feature off if you prefer to always use the fastest route.
How to use fuel-efficient routes in Google Maps
Fuel-efficient routes are enabled by default in the iPhone and Android Google Maps apps. If you're getting directions and the fuel-efficient route is the fastest, or not significantly slower than the other routes, Google Maps will automatically put you on that route.
Once you've picked a route, you can swipe up on the panel at the bottom of the screen to see how much fuel you'll save on that route. Fuel-efficient routes usually save between 5% and 15%.
You can see how much fuel Google expects to save with the eco-friendly route.
If you'd prefer to always take the fastest route instead, you can turn off default fuel-efficient routes. When you reach the screen that shows you all the available routes, tap the three dots in the top-right corner and then select Route options. Toggle off the Prefer fuel-efficient routes setting.
Once turned off, Google Maps will still mark the fuel-efficient route with the leaf icon, but won't default to putting you on that path.
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2022-07-08T20:32:12Z
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How to Use Google Maps' Fuel-Efficient Routes
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https://www.businessinsider.com/google-maps-fuel-efficient-route
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The Kentucky home where Colonel Sanders and his wife Claudia lived is now on the market.
The house is listed alongside a restaurant formerly run by the couple, who also founded KFC.
Buyers will also get personal memorabilia of Colonel Sanders.
A piece of fast food history is for sale in Shelbyville, Kentucky.
The property once belonged to the late Colonel Harland Sanders, famous for founding KFC and developing the original secret recipe.
Sanders' likeness is now synonymous with the brand and appears on the restaurant's logo. The founder, who died in 1980, has been portrayed by actors including Norm Macdonald, Jason Alexander, Jim Gaffigan, and Reba McEntire in ad campaigns.
The Colonel's image is owned by KFC, but the buyer of this property will also receive the trademark and likeness of his late wife, Claudia Sanders.
Claudia Sanders Dinner House
The Sanders moved to the Shelbyville house in 1959, where they also relocated the KFC headquarters.
Three acres are for sale, encompassing both the 5,000-square-foot house the couple lived in and a 25,000-square-foot restaurant.
The same year they moved, Sanders opened the Claudia Sanders Dinner House.
"Claudia was the unspoken hero of her husband's success in business. And he wanted to honor her by creating Claudia Sanders Dinner House and associated brands," listing agent Jonathan Klunk said in a statement.
The restaurant, which is still open, is reportedly known for classic southern food including rolls and creamed spinach pies.
Source: The Courier Journal
The Sanders ran the restaurant themselves until they retired in the 1970s, when it was taken over by the Settles, family friends of the couple.
"The restaurant has only been owned by the Sanders and their close friends, the Settles. The Settles are now committed to finding the next caretaker of this historic brand," another listing agent Morgan Hancock said in a statement.
The family is looking for a buyer who will not only maintain the restaurant and the dishes its known for, but possibly expand the Claudia Sanders brand, Hancock said.
The restaurant includes multiple seating areas, a porch, and an upstairs bar.
The house, which was the primary residence of Claudia and Colonel Sanders for 25 years, comes with some other memorabilia that might be tempting to fans of the brands.
"There is so much rich history included in this sale; it is exciting to think about the potential that lies ahead for the right buyer — to honor and protect this legacy and grow the brand even further," Klunk said.
One of these historic documents is a 1972 letter from former President Richard Nixon to Colonel Sanders thanking the Colonel for how much he "contributed to one of the greatest landslides in American political history."
Colonel Sanders' original Kentucky Colonel certificate is also part of the sale.
The sale also includes personal items like Sanders' money clip, bible, watch, and other trinkets from the estate.
According to the listing, the property was last renovated in 1999.
The sale is being handled by Six Degrees Real Estate.
There's no price listed for the property, so interested buyers must contact listing agents to make offers.
See the full listing, below.
See Listing
More: Features Retail Fast Food Business Visual Features
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2022-07-08T20:32:24Z
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KFC's Former Hq and Colonel Sanders' Home Is Now for Sale: Photos
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https://www.businessinsider.com/kfc-hq-colonel-sanders-home-now-for-sale-photos-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/kfc-hq-colonel-sanders-home-now-for-sale-photos-2022-7
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Two commissioners who voted for proceeding with an investigation said the dismissal extended Trump's "remarkable win streak."
Federal regulators unlawfully dismissed allegations that Donald Trump's 2020 campaign concealed spending by laundering hundreds of millions of dollars in payments through firms closely tied to the former president, a watchdog group argued Friday.
In a 26-page lawsuit filed in US District Court for the District of Columbia, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center said the Federal Election Commission failed to enforce campaign finance disclosure requirements by declining to investigate the Trump campaign's use of two firms — American Made Media Consultants and Parscale Strategy — to hide the details of its spending.
The lawsuit followed a separate case, filed in March, in which the Campaign Legal Center accused the FEC of failing to respond to the group's July 2020 complaint and a January 2021 supplement laying out allegations against the Trump campaign.
An FEC spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The original complaint and supplement alleged that the Trump campaign "laundered upwards of three quarters of a billion dollars in 2020 campaign spending" through American Made Media Consultants and Parscale Strategy, a firm run by former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale.
The Campaign Legal Center drew in part from news investigations, including Insider's reporting that American Made Media Consultants' board included family members of Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.
In its lawsuit Friday, the Campaign Legal Center added that the FEC's failure to proceed with an investigation into the Trump campaign could embolden the former president and other candidates to repeat the same conduct and deprive voters of details about political spending.
The FEC's dismissal of "well-supported allegations encourages future campaigns — including any 2024 Trump presidential campaign — to seek to evade [federal campaign law's] transparency requirements by similarly laundering payments through a small number of reported vendors," Campaign Legal Center's lawyers argued.
In dismissing the group's complaint, the FEC went against the advice of the regulatory agency's own chief lawyer.
The agency's general counsel recommended in April that the FEC find reason to believe that the Trump campaign violated federal election laws by using American Made Media Consultants and Parscale Strategy as pass-throughs to disguise the ultimate recipients of spending.
Despite that recommendation, the bipartisan commission deadlocked 3-3, falling short of the four votes needed to proceed with an investigation into the alleged violations.
Two of the three commissioners who voted to approve the general counsel's recommendation issued a statement at the time describing the complaint as "meticulously documented" and the Trump campaign's conduct as concealing "exactly the type of information" that federal election law is intended to "expose to the sunlight of disclosure."
Democratic commissioners Shana Broussard and Ellen Weintraub also noted that the dismissal extended Trump's "remarkable win streak" before the FEC, in which the commission received more than 40 complaints against the former president or his campaign.
Broussard and Weintraub went on to tally the number of investigations the FEC had undertaken into Trump: "a grand total of zero."
More: Federal Election Commission Donald Trump American Made Media Consultants Parscale Strategy
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2022-07-08T20:32:30Z
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Federal Officials Failed to Investigate Trump Campaign's Money 'Laundering': Lawsuit
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https://www.businessinsider.com/lawsuit-trump-campaign-laundering-investigate-election-commission-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/lawsuit-trump-campaign-laundering-investigate-election-commission-2022-7
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Opening and using the Amazon Prime Rewards credit card on Prime Day can make the deals even sweeter.
The Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card is offering an elevated bonus in honor of Prime Day.
New cardholders can earn a $200 Amazon gift card instantly upon approval for a limited time.
Cardholders can earn 6% back at Amazon on Prime Day, but you need to be a Prime member to qualify.
This year's Amazon Prime Day is happening July 12 and 13, and if you're looking for a way to get an even better deal on your shopping, it's a great time to consider the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card.
For a limited time, the card is offering a $200 Amazon gift card instantly upon approval. Previously, the welcome offer included a $100 Amazon gift card, so this is double the usual bonus. And because you receive the gift card instantly when you're approved, opening the card is a terrific way to save on your Prime Day purchases.
Cardholders with an eligible Amazon Prime Membership can earn 6% back on Amazon purchases on Prime Day, and otherwise earn:
10% back or more on select products (limited-time offer)
5% cash back at Amazon and Whole Foods (requires a Prime Membership and that your card is loaded to your eligible Amazon account; otherwise earn 3% back on these purchases)
If you're a frequent Amazon or Whole Foods shopper, you can earn a ton of cash back by opening and using the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card. That said, if your typical expenses are mostly in other categories, a different cash-back card could be a better choice for you overall. Here's what to know to help you decide if it's worth applying.
Amazon Prime Rewards card: Earn a $200 Amazon gift card
5% cash back at Amazon and Whole Foods is hard to beat
Earns 2% cash back on other popular categories (restaurants, gas stations, drugstores)
No annual fee (though you have to be an Amazon Prime member)
Other cards offer higher cash-back rates on non-Amazon purchases
5% Back at Amazon.com and Whole Foods Market with an eligible Prime membership*
No annual credit card fee
Until July 29, 2022, new Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card cardholders can earn a $200 Amazon gift card instantly upon approval. This is one of the easiest credit card welcome bonus offers to earn, because it doesn't have a minimum spending requirement, and you receive your bonus immediately after you're approved.
The Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card has no annual fee and doesn't add foreign transaction fees, but to qualify you'll need an Amazon Prime Membership, which normally costs $139 per year.
Because the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card is a Visa Signature card, it comes with a solid range of purchase protections and travel insurance. Cardholders receive:
Visa Signature Concierge Cardholders
In addition, the card offers an option to save on interest if you're making big Amazon purchases. At checkout, instead of earning cash back, cardholders can choose to pay for an Amazon purchase of $50 or more in equal monthly payments (from six to 18 months) with a 0% APR (then a 15.74% - 23.74% Variable).
Monthly payment plans are available as follows:
Purchases of $50 or more: Six equal monthly payments
Purchases of $250 or more: 12 equal monthly payments
While you won't earn rewards if you take advantage of the 0% APR offer, it's useful if you're making a big purchase you can't pay off all at once and want to avoid high interest charges. While the full transaction is charged to your card at the time of purchase, you'll be responsible for the monthly payment amount which appears on each statement for the duration of your payment plan.
Alternatives to the Amazon Prime Rewards card
If you shop at Amazon and/or Whole Foods now and then but don't think you spend enough to justify opening the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card, there are a few other options to consider that can help you get the most return from your shopping. You can find a full list in our guide to the best credit cards for Amazon.
For example, you might consider a that earns a flat rate of cash rewards on all of your spending. The Wells Fargo Active Cash® Card is a great pick, earning 2% cash rewards on purchases, and it comes with a good welcome bonus offer too: $200 cash rewards bonus after spending $1,000 in purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. Here's our Wells Fargo Active Cash review with all the details.
Alternately, a card like the Bank of America® Customized Cash Rewards Credit Card might be a better choice if you tend to do a lot of online shopping in general. It allows you to choose one 3% cash-back category from a list that includes online shopping, gas, dining, travel, drug stores, and home improvement/furnishings.
Cardholders earn 3% cash back in the category they pick, as well as 2% back at grocery stores and wholesale clubs, on up to $2,500 in combined spending each quarter (then 1%). Read our Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards review to find out more.
PERSONAL FINANCE The best credit cards for Amazon purchases of July 2022: Earn cash back or flexible rewards points
More: Personal Finance Insider Credit Cards Credit card news Chase
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2022-07-08T20:32:36Z
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Amazon Prime Rewards Credit Card Offer: Limited-Time $200 Gift Card Bonus
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/amazon-prime-rewards-card-elevated-offer-limited-time-credit
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/amazon-prime-rewards-card-elevated-offer-limited-time-credit
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Proof of stake cryptocurrency list
Can you make money with proof of stake?
Proof of stake vs. proof of work
Proof of Stake: A process used to validate crypto transactions through staking
Any crypto earned from staking profits is considered taxable income, similar to how dividends earned from holding stocks might be.
Proof of Stake (PoS) is a consensus protocol — or a set of rules or system of agreement — that's used to validate cryptocurrency transactions.
PoS redefines how blockchain nodes agree on which record of crypto transactions is accurate and improves upon the Proof of Work (PoW) system.
PoS requires validators to stake tokens to validate transactions, while PoW requires miners to solve a cryptographic puzzle.
Proof-of-stake (PoS) is a consensus mechanism for blockchain networks. In PoS, the nodes of the network commit "stakes" of tokens for a set period of time in exchange for a chance at being selected to produce the next block of transactions. The node that's chosen — referred to as the "validator" — will receive the block rewards in the form of the native token of the network.
Note: A consensus mechanism is a set of rules or agreement for all of the nodes in a blockchain network to agree on which transactions are valid and which ones are not.
To answer the question "what is proof of stake," we must first define what it means for blockchains to achieve consensus.
Blockchain is a decentralized distributed ledger of transactions. Because there's no single server controlling the network, there has to be some way for everyone to agree on which transactions are valid. Otherwise, it would be possible for people to create fake transactions.
The servers in a blockchain are called "nodes." Nodes process transactions. Some nodes have the ability to add blocks of transactions to the chain, maintaining and growing the ledger. In Proof of Work (PoW) networks (which we'll cover later) like Bitcoin, these nodes are referred to as "miners."
For PoS, nodes commit funds to the network — a process known as "staking" — for a chance to be chosen as the next block writer instead of nodes competing with each other to be rewarded for solving cryptographic puzzles, as is the case with PoW.
In PoS networks, nodes that can add blocks are called "validators," which are individuals who are responsible for verifying transactions on a blockchain. Each validator has a chance at being selected to write the next block and receive its rewards.
It's kind of like a lottery – the larger the stake of tokens committed, the higher odds that node has of being chosen. "The choice of the next block writer, the next validator, is a pseudo-random process that's determined by the size of the stake that you as the user have dedicated to the network," says Daniel Gould, CEO and co-founder of Nodamatics.
PoS can improve upon some of the biggest problems presented by PoW, namely:
Energy consumption: PoS requires less energy than PoW.
Transaction throughput: PoS networks can handle more transactions than PoW.
Scalability: PoS networks can scale more easily than PoW networks.
Quick tip: For a deeper understanding of PoW and how it first made digital currency possible, read the Satoshi Nakamoto white paper.
A growing number of the most popular cryptocurrencies use some variation of the PoS protocol. Here's a partial list:
VeChain (VET)
These networks aim to accomplish a variety of different tasks.
Cardano and Solana are focused on providing smart contract functionality, much like Ethereum.
Cosmos helps different blockchain communicate with each other.
Tezos is designed to allow for the creation and trading of security tokens.
Because there is no "mining" involved in PoS, PoS networks often start with a "pre-mine," where the entire supply of tokens is brought into existence at once.
The short answer is yes. Those who become validators have the opportunity to win the next block reward of new tokens for their network of choice. But not just anyone can become a validator.
"You have to have a certain [number] of coins to become a validator that actually moves the chain forward," says Drew Beaudry, who works in Strategic Partnerships at Tendermint. "Most people can become a validator node if they want, but they won't actually have votes on moving the chain forward, and they won't be rewarded for participating."
The number of tokens needed to become a validator varies according to the network. For some networks, the price could be small, while others could require quite a large sum. Ethereum (ETH), for example, plans to require a stake of 32 ETH for people to become validators once the network transitions from PoW to PoS.
Thankfully, some crypto exchanges have made things easier for retail investors looking to stake their PoS coins.
Rather than having to set up your own validator node, some exchanges have become validators themselves. They then offer to stake tokens on behalf of users who hold PoS tokens in their exchange wallets (in exchange for a hefty fee of the profits). There's usually no minimum amount required.
Some of the largest exchanges, like Binance and Coinbase, offer staking for various tokens like Cosmos (ATOM), Tezos (XTZ), VeChain (VET), and others. To participate, users simply buy or deposit coins and hold them in their exchange wallet. Staking rewards will then be paid out to that wallet on a regular basis.
However, some have criticized this approach as being too centralized. If big exchanges become the majority of validator nodes for any given proof-of-stake token, then most of the network will be concentrated into the hands of a small oligarchy.
Gould acknowledged this in saying that Nodamatics is "actually doing research on this issue at the moment," with regard to the geographic and technical diversification of the infrastructure that runs proof-of-stake networks.
Beaudry also noted that the security of a PoS network is primarily tied to two things:
The value of its token
The extent to which the token's supply is decentralized
While PoS coins with market caps in the billions of dollars might not have to worry about the first issue, the second one could become problematic if exchanges wind up hosting too many validator nodes.
Both PoS and PoW mechanisms achieve the same end goal, but by different means.
The main difference between networks that use PoS and those that use PoW is how the network achieves consensus for its blockchain.
Gould notes that PoS is easiest to understand "if it's contrasted to proof-of-work." He goes on to explain that "in proof-of-work, the consensus is achieved by allowing a single participant to write the next block in the blockchain and be rewarded in the native cryptocurrency of that blockchain for their efforts."
Miners are effectively spending large amounts of computing power and electricity as they work on "solving a very hard cryptographic puzzle." This approach has been criticized as requiring too much energy, having difficulty scaling or growing the network, and not providing enough throughput (the ability to process many transactions).
Requires validators to stake tokens
Secured by value of tokens
Requires miners to solve a cryptographic puzzle
Secured by computing power
Proof of Stake (PoS) is a consensus mechanism used to validate crypto transactions and is meant to improve upon perceived flaws of Bitcoin's Proof of Work (PoW). Some of the largest and fastest-growing coins have implemented this protocol.
Holders of PoS tokens can earn a "crypto dividend" on their holdings by staking their crypto and becoming network validators. Because this sometimes requires a substantial investment, exchanges have taken it upon themselves to make the process simpler and more affordable for the average user.
Understanding how PoS is key to understanding cryptocurrency and how it works. In general, it's always better to know what you're investing in before getting involved.
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2022-07-08T20:32:42Z
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Proof of Stake (PoS): Definition, How It Works
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/proof-of-stake
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/proof-of-stake
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Is Schwab Intelligent Portfolios right for you?
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios vs. Fidelity
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios vs. Betterment
Ways to invest with Schwab Intelligent Portfolios
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios: Is it trustworthy?
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios — Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios review: Automated portfolio management for investors with at least $5,000
Schwab offers commission-free trading, automated accounts, IRAs, and much more.
Charles Schwab; Alyssa Powell/Business Insider
Bottom line: Schwab Intelligent Portfolios is best for hands-off investors in search of automated investment portfolios and access to multiple account types, goal planning, and features like tax-loss harvesting. While it doesn't charge advisory fees, it has a relatively high account minimum, so it may not be best for those who don't have at least $5,000 to invest.
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios
No advisory fees
Automatic rebalancing; portfolio re-adjusts back to target allocation any time you withdraw or add funds
More than 51 ETFs available (including Schwab ETFs)
$5,000 minimum is on the higher side
Tax-loss harvesting only available for those with $40,000 in their account
Promotion: Referred users can get up to $1,000
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios is one of the two automated investing accounts Charles Schwab offers. The platform comes in both web and mobile form, and it invests your money into a diversified portfolio of ETFs (this also includes Schwab ETFs).
Schwab's other automated account, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium, offers both automated advice and ongoing advisor guidance. This account has a $25,000 minimum, and it charges a $300 one-time fee and $30/month advisory fee, though.
With Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, you'll need a minimum of $5,000 to begin, but you won't have to worry about advisory fees. Schwab Intelligent Portfolios is available on both iOS and Android devices.
$0 self-directed accounts; $0 for Fidelity Go and $25,000 for Fidelity Personalized Planning and Advice
0% (Up to 0.35% for Fidelity Go automated account; 0.50% for Fidelity Personalized Planning and Advice)
Stocks, ETFs, options, mutual funds, bonds, CDs, annuities, and IPOs
Charles Schwab and Fidelity both offer a vast range of self-directed and automated account options. Fidelity's most basic robo-advisor , Fidelity Go, is the equivalent to Schwab Intelligent Portfolios. It has a $0 minimum requirement and Fidelity users with balances under $10,000 don't have to pay advisory fees.
However, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios is the cheaper option for those looking to invest with sums larger than $10,000. Once you reach the $10,000 mark with Fidelity Go, you'll incur advisory fees (it charges either $3 per month or 0.35% per year, depending on your balance).
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios and Betterment both strictly offer automated investing, making them ideal for hands-off investors who want a self-managing portfolio. Both offer features like tax-loss harvesting and portfolio rebalancing, and each platform only uses ETFs.
You'll pay more in advisory fees at Betterment, but you'll need less to get started. While Betterment's digital plan has a $0 minimum, Schwab requires $5,000.
The $5,000 minimum requirement grants you access to a portfolio of ETFs that Schwab Intelligent Portfolios manages for you. This minimum is higher than most robo-advisors on the market, but Schwab's lack of advisory fees make up for it.
To set up your account and receive a portfolio recommendation, you'll first need to figure out your initial investment amount, goals, risk tolerance, and time horizon (i.e., how long you want to invest). And as for its investment mix, Schwab can build more than 80 portfolio variations from the following:
51 ETFs that range across more than 20 expanded asset classes. Schwab professionals select and monitor these funds.
Three key investment strategies: Global, U.S. focused, and Income focused
Six risk profiles. These include conservative, moderately conservative, moderate, moderate growth, aggressive, and aggressive growth.
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios is also compatible with multiple account types. These include individual and joint brokerage accounts, trusts, custodial accounts, and IRAs (Schwab accepts traditional, Roth, SEP, SIMPLE, and rollover IRAs).
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios itself doesn't have an individual Better Business Bureau profile, but the BBB gives Charles Schwab an A+ rating. Since its ratings range from A+ to F, this is the highest rating a company can receive.
Bureau ratings are mainly based on its opinion of how well a business interacts with its customers, but they also consider the following: type of business, time in business, customer complaint history, advertising issues, and licensing and government actions.
However, BBB ratings don't guarantee reliability or performance, so it's important to additionally do your own research before setting up an account with a platform. Charles Schwab's profile shows that it closed more than 200 in the past three years and 99 complaints in the last 12 months. It currently has one unresolved complaint, according to BBB data.
What is the return on Schwab Intelligent Portfolios?
As of May 31, 2022, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios' one-year return is 0.01%. Its three-year return is 4.72%, while its five-year return is 3.91%.
Can you take money out of Schwab Intelligent Portfolios?
Yes. You can easily deposit or withdraw money at any time. Schwab Intelligent Portfolios uses a cash allocation in each portfolio, so users who withdraw less than that amount will typically receive withdrawal transfers overnight. If you're looking to withdraw an amount that exceeds the cash allocation in your portfolio, it may take four to six business days.
Is Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium worth it?
Unlike Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium offers robo-advice with unlimited guidance from a CFP. The account has a $25,000 minimum and a $300 one-time planning fee and $30/month advisory fee.
If you're looking to work with a human advisor, this account could be right for you.
Robo-advisor: These automated investing accounts use computer algorithms and/or expert oversight to build personalized portfolios based off each investor's preferences (e.g., target returns, risk tolerance, and time horizon).
Brokerage account: Available through investment platforms and broker-dealers, brokerage accounts let you invest in stocks, ETFs, options, and other assets.
ETFs: These funds typically contain a mix 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: Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Schwab Charles Schwab PFI Short Code
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2022-07-08T20:32:48Z
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Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Review: Pros, Cons, and Who Should Set up an Account
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/schwab-intelligent-portfolios-review
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/schwab-intelligent-portfolios-review
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Biden officials discussed declaring a public health emergency to protect abortion access.
Progressives have called on the administration to make the declaration.
But top officials feared it would be seens as a public relations maneuver, a Bloomberg Law report said.
President Joe Biden's executive orders to protect abortion access on Friday followed discussion among top officials about declaring a public health emergency, as progressives have urged him to do.
But White House and Department of Health and Human Services officials set aside the idea of a declaration, which could have expanded HHS powers to order that medication abortion can be prescribed across state lines or help shield doctors from legal liability for performing abortions, according to a Bloomberg Law report.
They were concerned that it would be seen as a public relations tactic and that it could draw lawsuits, the report said, based on "people familiar with the matter." The report also says some officials were concerned that a public health emergency declaration over abortion would take money from Covid-19 programs.
A declaration is "not off the table," Jennifer Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, told reporters on Friday. But she downplayed the significance of it, saying "it doesn't free very many resources" because only "tens of thousands of dollars" are in the government's public health emergency fund.
"And it also doesn't release a significant amount of legal authority," she said. "And so that's why we haven't taken that action yet."
Biden signed executive orders to expand access to medication abortion and emergency contraception, protect patients' digital and medical privacy rights, and provide legal support for those traveling for abortion care.
The move came as Democrats are fuming over what some considered a "tepid" response to the US Supreme Court's decision to reverse federal protections for abortion by overturning Roe v. Wade.
Progressives including Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have been calling on Biden to declare a public health emergency.
Pressley, who chairs the Pro Choice Caucus' Abortion Rights and Access Task Force, welcomed Biden's executive orders while also still urging him to make the declaration "to unlock critical flexibilities and resources to get patients the care they need now."
"Daily, I am hearing from patients, providers and advocates about the dire situation those seeking abortion care across the nation are in," she said in a statement. "Our work continues and I am not letting up."
In a New York Times guest essay on June 25, Warren and Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota warned of "a perilous time that threatens millions of women across this nation."
"We urge the president to declare a public health emergency to protect abortion access for all Americans, unlocking critical resources and authority that states and the federal government can use to meet the surge in demand for reproductive health services," they wrote. "The danger is real, and Democrats must meet it with the urgency it deserves."
More: Joe Biden Abortion Roe v Wade Public Health
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2022-07-08T22:29:35Z
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Biden Officials Downplay Public Health Emergency Declaration As Roe Response
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https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-abortion-access-public-health-emergency-declaration-look-like-pr-roe-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-abortion-access-public-health-emergency-declaration-look-like-pr-roe-2022-7
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Hilary Brueck and Natalie Musumeci
Passengers on a streetcar in Lisbon, Portugal wearing face masks in on June 3, 2022. Coronavirus infections are rising again, due to the spread of the more infectious BA.5 Omicron subvariant.
Ágata Xavier/picture alliance via Getty Images
The Omicron subvariant BA.5 is causing a fresh wave of reinfections in some people who recently had COVID.
BA.5 is more immune evading than other variants — prior infections and vaccines don't totally stop it.
Experts say masks in public indoor spaces, airflow, testing, and knowing where to get treatment are all key.
Like the Delta variant did last year, the new coronavirus subvariant BA.5 is putting a dent on summer fun — and experts say it's only going to get harder to avoid it in the weeks and months ahead.
"Those of us who've escaped for 2.5 years? It's gonna be hard to escape this one," Dr. Preeti Malani, an infectious disease physician from the University of Michigan, told Insider.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said much the same.
"You cannot avoid a respiratory virus like this forever, unless you completely cease interaction with all other human beings," he said.
COVID-19 reinfections are spiking around the globe — in some cases, even people who were infected just weeks or months ago are getting hit with COVID again.
"If you were infected with the original Omicron, or even BA2.12.1, the immunity from those infections does not protect very well against BA.4 and BA.5," leading infectious disease expert Dr. Celine Gounder, editor at large for Public Health at Kaiser Health News, told Insider.
The good news is vaccines still do very well at preventing serious disease in most people, and there are now evidence-based treatments (like Paxlovid) that work well for vulnerable populations, especially when taken early.
But it is getting trickier to avoid a COVID-19 infection altogether, so it's good to develop your own BA.5 action plan.
Here's what you need to know and how to reduce your risk, according to Gounder, Malani, Adalja, and three other experts.
1. Wear a mask, and reduce social contact before you see older relatives
Public health expert Katelyn Jetelina, who runs the popular "Your Local Epidemiologist" blog, told Insider she's still wearing a mask in "crowded, public indoor areas," and making it a priority to do a rapid test "before seeing vulnerable people, like my 92-year-old grandpa."
Malani said that about a week before a recent vacation with her family, she told everyone to "tighten up" their precautions.
"That means wear your mask at work," she said, and avoid "slumber parties."
"We can all do our part to try and protect people, but we also have to find ways to do the things that are really important to us," she said.
2. Infection risk is now very high in crowded spaces — even outdoors
Caroline Zeiss, a professor of comparative medicine at Yale, told Insider she's still "being careful" when in crowded, indoor spaces.
While Zeiss doesn't have "that kind of real fear that I used to have" about getting COVID, now that vaccines and treatments are widely available, "it just seems like everyone around me is getting it now."
"This is expected, as we become progressively more immune, the virus is escaping immunity in order to maintain its fitness," she said.
Experts agree that outdoor gatherings are still a good idea, because it's hard for the virus to get passed around between people when there's fresh air circulating everywhere. But given how transmissible BA.4 and BA.5 are, some pros are now reconsidering putting on masks outside, especially when they're in a crowd.
"The chances of being around someone outside or inside who is shedding virus is very high," infectious disease expert Dr. John Swartzberg from The University of California, Berkeley, recently told the San Francisco Chronicle.
"If I was crowded together with other people where I couldn't keep my distance, or if somebody near me was talking loudly or singing, I would just carry a mask with me and put it on if I feel uncomfortable."
A woman receives a dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine in Honduras on July 7, 2022.
3. Get vaccinated and boosted
Because vaccines are less protective against BA.4 and BA.5 infections, it's especially important for the most COVID-vulnerable people to make sure they're up to date on their COVID-19 shots.
Adults over 50 in the US, as well as anyone who's immunocompromised over age 12, should have had two boosters by now to better protect against severe disease outcomes with BA.5, Gounder said.
Aside from vulnerable populations, Gounder is worried about people who are completely unvaccinated, as federal hospitalization and death data suggests that prior infections are less protective than vaccines against the worst COVID-19 outcomes.
"The counties that have the biggest increase in hospitalizations are counties that have lower vaccination rates," she pointed out.
Zeiss recently authored a study that suggested we have at least another two years of "repeated waves of infections" until things stabilize. "So, we're all going to be seeing the virus multiple times."
Luckily, her new modeling also suggests that continuing to vaccinate through those new waves could help a lot.
"What vaccination does, it gives you a set dose, and it's known from the clinical trials how much immunity that will evoke, and it's known that that's protective," she said. She's hopeful that Omicron-tailored vaccines, slated to be rolled out this fall, will help speed up our progress.
4. If you're high risk, make sure you have access to Paxlovid — and take it as early as possible if you get sick
If you're someone who has a known risk factor for severe COVID, it's key to be "cognizant that cases are up," Adalja said. Have a plan to get Paxlovid (available for free across the US) "as quickly as possible if you do test positive," and know where you might be able to access monoclonal antibodies.
No matter who you are, being outside, social distancing, and wearing a mask at critical moments is still important. Consider staying home if you feel a little sick.
"A little tickle in your throat? That might be COVID," Malani said. "If you're with other people, put a mask on."
5. Improve indoor air quality
In addition to masking, vaccinating, and treating, improving indoor air quality, through ventilation (like open windows), filtration, and UV germicides is going to be critical, Gounder said.
"Because fewer people are willing to mask, I think it makes it that much more important that we look at improving indoor air quality," she added.
6. Accept that it's probably going to be years before COVID variants slow down, experts say
Departing travelers, some wearing face masks, wait in line O'Hare International Airport on June 30, 2022 in Chicago, Illinois.
A "post-pandemic world," experts agreed, is one where COVID-19 is present, but much more manageable.
"I don't think enough people are understanding that," Adalja said. "They somehow think that one day COVID-19 is going to go away — like a hurricane, it's going to pass and it's going to be gone, and it's going to be 2019 all over again."
The virus is "not just going to magically go back into bats and not be a human pathogen any longer," he said.
We know what to do in the meantime, though — the same lessons we've learned over the past two years remain true.
"Honestly, I'm not doing anything differently," Gounder said. "I've been doing the same thing I've always been doing, which is: masking in indoor public places, masking on the plane, testing if I'm going to be indoors in a smaller group with people."
More: coronavirus COVID-19 vaccine Omicron Public Health
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2022-07-08T22:30:05Z
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Experts: Why Omicron BA.5 Is a Concern, How to Avoid Infection
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https://www.businessinsider.com/experts-why-omicron-ba5-is-concern-how-to-avoid-infection-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/experts-why-omicron-ba5-is-concern-how-to-avoid-infection-2022-7
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Get $20 when you try Amazon Photos
Get $12.50 when you spend $50 on Amazon gift cards
Get $10 when you fill out a Prime Day stampcard
Get up to $10 when you buy 'Lightyear' tickets and merchandise
Get $5 with the purchase of 'Elvis' tickets
Get a $200 Amazon gift card when you open an Amazon Prime credit card
Check out our other great early Prime Day deals:
Amazon Prime Day kicks off in just a few days. The annual shopping event will take place on July 12 and 13. Before the sale starts, Amazon is giving you the opportunity to earn credits to put toward purchases made during the event.
You'll need to be an Amazon Prime member to start collecting credits. Memberships cost $15 a month or $139 a year.
Some of the offers require you to spend additional money to get credits, but others will grant you free credits in just a few simple steps. In most instances, the credits are only good on items sold directly by Amazon.com, not by third-party vendors.
Here are 6 ways to earn Prime Day credits in 2022:
You can earn a $20 credit, eligible to be used on a purchase of $40 or more during Prime Day , by trying out Amazon Photos for the first time.
Amazon Photos is a free app that allows Prime members to store an unlimited amount of full-resolution photos in the cloud. All you have to do to get the credit is save at least one photo through the app. You'll then get an email confirmation with your credit within four days.
This deal ends at 11:59 p.m. PT on July 8.
GaleanoStock/Shutterstock
You can earn a $12.50 Amazon credit when you buy a $50 Amazon gift card or reload an Amazon gift card with $50 on July 12 or 13.
To get the credit, add a $50 Amazon gift card to your cart and click the yellow "apply code to your cart" button or manually enter the code "EGCPRIME22" in the "Gift Cards and Promotional Codes" box during checkout.
You'll receive an email with the credit within two days of purchasing the gift card. Once earned, it expires on August 28.
Amazon introduced a stampcard program this year to entice Prime members to explore Prime benefits and earn credit.
To earn $10 in Amazon credit, first you'll have to click 'Activate Stampcard" on the stampcard landing page. To collect all four stamps, you'll have to do the following:
Make a Prime-eligible purchase of more than $5.
Within 24 hours of completing the final task, the $10 credit will appear in your account. The credit expires 365 days after you receive it.
The stampcard program closes on July 13 at 11:59 p.m. PT.
You can earn up to $10 in Amazon Credit when you buy "Lightyear" movie tickets and merchandise.
To earn $5 in credit, you'll have to buy at least one ticket to "Lightyear" from Atom. You must enter the code "LIGHTYEAR" during checkout on Atom. To earn another $5, you can buy eligible merchandise from Amazon, including LEGO sets, Funko Pops, books, and more.
The credits earned with this deal must be used during Prime Day . If not used by the end of Prime Day, they'll expire.
You can earn a $5 Prime Day credit when you buy at least one ticket to see "Elvis" in theaters.
Like the "Lightyear" credit, tickets have to be purchased on Atom with the code "ELVIS" at checkout. The $5 credit must be used during Prime Day ; it will expire at 11:59 p.m. PT on July 13.
You can get a $200 Amazon gift card instantly upon approval for the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Credit Card. You can apply for the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card online and receive an approval decision in seconds.
The card gives Prime members 5% back on Prime and Whole Foods purchases, plus 2% back at restaurants, gas stations, and drugstores, and 1% back on everything else. During Prime Day , Prime and Whole Foods purchases will earn 6% cash back.
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2022-07-08T22:30:17Z
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Early Amazon Prime Day Deals: Get $257 in Credits to Shop Online
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https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/deals/best-amazon-prime-day-credits-deal-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/deals/best-amazon-prime-day-credits-deal-2022-7
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Kali Hays and Grace Kay
Elon Musk has decided he no longer wants to acquire Twitter, he told the company Friday.
Although he signed a binding merger agreement, Musk said Twitter is in "breach" for allegedly refusing his information requests and making employee changes.
The deal has been tumultuous almost since it was announced in April.
Twitter is vowing to sue Elon Musk in order to force a close of his deal to acquire the company.
"The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement," the company said in a press release. "We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery."
Board chairman Bret Taylor, also the co-CEO of Salesforce, reiterated that statement on Twitter.
The company's stance is in line with what it has reiterated over recent weeks, as Musk pushed it for more data and seemed to be creating a scenario to renegotiate the $44 billion price of the deal or back out entirely. Musk began asking for more data from Twitter, which it has said it's provided, in order to perform his own analysis of "bots" or spam accounts on the platform, which he believes to be more populous on the site than Twitter admits.
Executives have explained to employees during internal meetings and in public statements that it would "enforce" the contract in place with Musk if it had to, meaning heading to court if he attempted to back out. Many employees have been expecting this turn of events since at least June, after Musk first accused the company in a letter of "actively resisting" his information requests.
More: Twitterl Elon Musk
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2022-07-08T22:30:41Z
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Twitter Will Take Elon Musk to Court to Close Deal
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https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-to-take-elon-musk-court-fight-close-deal-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-to-take-elon-musk-court-fight-close-deal-2022-7
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Tellus Boost Account
Boost Account features
How Tellus works
Is Tellus trustworthy?
Tellus vs. Chime
Tellus vs. Ally
Tellus is a online fintech company with a high-yield cash account.
The bottom line: Tellus might be worth considering if you're looking for a way to earn a high interest rate on your savings. You'll prefer other savings options if you prioritize live customer support or traditional banking features like physical locations or easy ATM access.
Create individual goals through Stacks
Interest compounded and paid daily
Online fintech platform, not a bank (not FDIC insured)
Limited ways to deposit money (may link only one bank account to a Boost Account)
Set aside money using Stacks or Reserve Accounts
High minimum deposit amount
$5 withdrawal fee if make a withdrawal request of less than $50
Can't deposit cash
Online-only fintech platform with high-yield cash account
Earn 3% APY when you open a Tellus Boost Account
Earn up to 6% APY through Boosts by answering a daily pop quiz question or participating in Tellus promotions
Transfer money into a Boost Account through an ACH transfer or Zelle; May only link one bank account
Minimum deposit of $125 to open an account and earn interest
Banking services provided by Chase Bank, Member FDIC
Tellus may be a good option if you're strictly looking for competitive interest rates on an account. The Tellus Boost Account is a high-yield cash account with a base rate of 3% APY. In comparison, a traditional savings account currently earns an average of only 0.08% APY, according to the FDIC.
The most notable perk to the 3% APY is the account's Boosts feature, which can temporarily increase your account's interest rate as high as 6% APY. Boosts are available every 24 hours. To earn the temporary rate increase, you'll have to answer a daily quiz question or participate in a Tellus promotion.
You'll want to consider other savings options if you're searching for an account that makes it easy to deposit cash or has a lower minimum deposit.
Tellus has several sub-accounts, which are accounts that stem from your Boost Account. These accounts are designed to set aside some money for a specific purpose.
Tellus Reserve Account: The Reserve Accounts pay 4.50% APY on up to $2,500, so it might be worthwhile if you'd like to set some money aside while earning a flat rate. Keep in mind this account doesn't allow you to add any Boosts.
Stack Accounts: Stacks allow you to save for personal goals, like vacations or rent. You may customize Stacks with descriptions and set targets to track your goals over time. Stack Accounts require a minimum balance of at least $125. You may apply Boosts to Stack Accounts.
Tellus is an online fintech company with a high-yield cash account. A high-yield cash account has similar features to a high-yield savings or checking account because you'll be able to earn a high interest rate on your savings. However, it isn't considered a bank account.
Tellus is not a bank, and it is not FDIC insured. However, banking services are provided by Chase Bank, Member FDIC.
Tellus is able to offer a high interest rate because it earns money through real estate investments which get passed down to Tellus member accounts.
The company also has rental property management tools. For instance, you can get a screening report on tenant applicants, receive rental payments through online rent collection, or communicate with tenants and employees through landlord-tenant chat.
Tellus has limited customer support. If you have questions about new accounts, you'll have to go through the website's FAQ section or send a message and wait for a response through email.
The fintech's mobile app is rated 4.6 out of 5 stars in the Google Play store and 4.3 out of 5 stars in the Apple Store.
Tellus trustworthiness and BBB rating
We use ratings from the Better Business Bureau to help determine how a business deals with customer issues. Tellus hasn't been rated by the Better Business Bureau or been involved in any recent public scandals.
Since banking services are provided by Chase Bank, we're also including Chase's BBB rating and recent public settlements.
JP Morgan Chase & Co. (Chase's parent company) received a A- rating because government action was taken against the business.
In 2020, JP Morgan Chase & Co. paid the Department of Justice $920 million when charged with wrongful trading.
In 2020, JP Morgan Chase & Co. also paid $800,000 in back wages in a settlement with the US Department of Labor that accused the company of underpaying women. The US Department of Labor also required the bank to provide a total of $9 million for compensation adjustments over five years.
You'll also want to talk to customers or read online customer reviews to get a better idea of whether Tellus may be suitable.
Chime is another popular online banking platform. See how the two compare below.
Tellus
high-yield cash account
high-yield savings account, checking account
Tellus pays a higher flat interest rate on its Tellus Boost Account than Chime does on its Chime Savings Account. You'll also be eligible to earn a temporary rate increase on your Tellus Boost Account if you participate in daily Boosts.
If you'd like to open a checking account or have easy ATM access, you might prefer banking with Chime. Chime has separate checking and savings account, and you must open a checking account to qualify for the savings account. Tellus only has a high-yield cash account with sub-accounts.
See how Tellus stacks up to Ally, an online-only bank with high-yield bank accounts.
high-yield savings account, checking account, CD, money market account
If you're strictly prioritizing high interest rates, Tellus might be more appealing than Ally. The Tellus Boost Account currently offers a higher interest rate than any of Ally's accounts.
Ally will likely be a better option if you're looking for a variety of savings options. For example, if you'd like to open an interest-earning account with a debit card, you might consider getting the Ally Money Market Account or Ally Interest Checking Account.
Ally will also stand out to you if would rather have more traditional banking features, like telephone customer support. Ally has 24/7 customer service available through live chat or by phone.
Is the Tellus FDIC insured?
No. Tellus is an online fintech platform, not a bank. Tellus is not FDIC insured.
FDIC insurance protects money in your bank account and can be an important factor in determining whether an unfamiliar financial institution is safe and trustworthy. If a bank fails, the FDIC will make sure that your money will be returned you. Up to $250,000 is secure in a bank account.
The Tellus Boost Account is not a savings or checking account, and it not FDIC insured. According to a disclosure on the Tellus website, your money will still be returned to you if Tellus goes bankrupt. Banking services are also provided by Chase Bank, Member FDIC.
Is Tellus free?
Yes, you may sign up for Tellus for free. The Boost Account and Reserve Account do not have monthly service fees or app fees.
Something to keep in mind is if you withdraw less than $50 from a Boost Account, there's a $5 withdrawal fee.
How does Tellus Boost work?
Boosts are a special feature on Tellus Boost Accounts that temporarily increases your account's interest rate. For example, you could earn an additional 0.5% on your Boost Account for a day and 12 hours.
You'll be able to get a free Boost every 24 hours. To earn the bonus rate, you'll have to answer a daily quiz question or participate in a Tellus promotion.
Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by The Bancorp Bank or Stride Bank, N.A., Members FDIC.
PERSONAL FINANCE Online bank vs online banking platform: Which is better for you?
PERSONAL FINANCE Saving an emergency fund is a good start, but where you put those savings can matter even more
PERSONAL FINANCE 6 ways to deposit cash into someone else's account
PERSONAL FINANCE What is APY?
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2022-07-09T00:01:05Z
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Tellus Review: Earn up to 6% APY on Tellus Boost Account
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/tellus-banking-review
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/tellus-banking-review
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Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone testified before the January 6 committee on Friday.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren said that he "did not contradict" previous witnesses, and the committee had "learned a few things."
The panel subpoenaed Cipollone last week following Cassidy Hutchinson's bombshell testimony.
Lofgren, a Democratic congresswoman and member of the panel, told CNN that the committee had also "learned a few things" after interviewing Cipollone for nearly eight hours.
The congresswoman said details of Cipollone's testimony would be rolled out in upcoming hearings.
Lofgren noted that Cipollone appeared voluntarily and said that he answered various questions in a candid, careful, and honest way.
However, she noted that just because he did not contradict previous testimony, it did not mean he confirmed all of it, particularly Cassidy Hutchinson's bombshell testimony.
Lofgren said that there were situations in which Cipollone was not present or "couldn't recall with precision."
It was reported earlier this month that Cipollone was in talks to testify about the riot publicly. He indicated that his testimony revolved around Jeffrey Clark, a former top Justice Department official, who used his position to aid Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, it is alleged.
Trump has criticized Cipollone's testifying in front of the panel, arguing that it could discourage future presidents from having "candid" conversations with a White House counsel.
"Why would a future President of the United States want to have candid and important conversations with his White House Counsel if he thought there was even a small chance that this person, essentially acting as a 'lawyer' for the Country, may some day be brought before a partisan and openly hostile Committee in Congress," Trump wrote on his social-media platform, Truth Social, on Wednesday.
"So bad for the USA!" he said.
More: pat cipollone White House Counsel January 6 committee UK Weekend
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2022-07-09T10:38:51Z
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Trump's Ex-White House Counsel Pat Cipollone Testifies to Jan. 6 Committee
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https://www.businessinsider.com/cipollone-testifies-before-jan-6-panel-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/cipollone-testifies-before-jan-6-panel-2022-7
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More theft, burglaries and even murders are the unexpected side-effects of rising prices, this criminologist warns
A Dollar Tree store in Urbandale, Iowa.
Inflation could spark sharp rises in theft, burglary and even murder, a criminologist said.
Richard Rosenfeld said high inflation was creating more demand for stolen goods.
Retailers fear police are now focusing more on violent crime than on burglary and theft.
Soaring inflation threaten to trigger a crime wave, a criminologist says, and your purchases might get caught up along the way.
Richard Rosenfeld, a professor of criminology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, told Insider that property crime would jump this year as rising prices push consumers into the black market.
The average price of goods and services in the US rose by 8.6% in May, a 41-year high, brought on by tight supply chains and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Rosenfeld, who has been researching the link between crime and macroeconomic variables for years, said inflation acts as a much better indicator of crime than unemployment or a recession .
Rosenfeld said inflation forces customers to shop at cheaper stores. While some will switch from Target to Dollar Tree, for example, he said that Dollar Tree and Goodwill shoppers will be more susceptible to the black market.
"As retail prices rise, we see people trading down to the underground market and stolen goods. That generates higher demand in those markets to supply them with goods acquired through robbery and property crime, and we see robbery and property crime rates increase," he said.
Rosenfeld thinks it's more likely that demand for non-essential illicit goods will rise, as consumers won't have anything left over after spending on food, which is also suffering big price rises.
Jason Straczewski of the National Retail Federation told Insider that organized crime had been rising in recent years, even before inflation began soaring.
Data published by the trade body last year showed about $700,000 for every $1 billion in sales annually is lost by retailers to organised crime. Designer clothes, laundry detergent and allergy medicine were top of the list, and Straczewski expected the top items stolen this year to be broadly similar.
Straczewski said some members also reported rising theft of perishable goods, including shoppers walking into supermarkets and stealing shopping carts full of fresh meat to sell on.
"I don't think there's a willingness among people to go actively seek out stolen merchandise to purchase," Straczewski said. "If you're a consumer, and there's products you need to take care of your family and your household, you're going to look for the best possible deal."
Straczewski said police attention being diverted towards violent crime and away from burglaries had emboldened some.
Crime rates have not yet risen, according to quarterly FBI data, but Rosenfeld expected that to change by the end of this year.
Violent crime fears
More violent crime could also be on the horizon. As the shadow economy grows, so too do the number of disputes that would ordinarily be settled in court. Rosenfeld says with that option gone, violent crime, including murder, can increase.
"The work that's been done on violent crime tends to suggest that high levels of inflation really produce reduced sizeable reductions in institutional legitimacy," he says.
"That is the perception on the part of the population, that social institutions are simply not operating properly. And that decline in institutional legitimacy has from a variety of perspectives been linked to increases in violent crime."
More: Weekend BI UK Inflation CPI Stagflation
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2022-07-09T10:39:51Z
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Why Rising Prices May Spark More Theft, Burglaries – and Even Murders
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https://www.businessinsider.com/why-soaring-inflation-spark-more-theft-burglaries-and-even-murder-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/why-soaring-inflation-spark-more-theft-burglaries-and-even-murder-2022-7
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Driven by the chip shortage and rising interest rates, the average monthly car payment has never been higher.
Not to mention other car-related expenses like gas, insurance, parking, and tolls, which add up for drivers.
Most American households own and use a car, suggesting few will be able to avoid these expenses.
It's never been less fun to be a "car person."
In June, rising auto prices and interest rates on car loans pushed the average monthly car payment to a record-high $712, per a Cox Automotive/Moody's Analytics analysis. The median number of weeks of income required to purchase the average new vehicle also grew for the fourth consecutive month, reaching 41.3 weeks in May, the highest mark since at least 2012.
The cause of presently elevated car prices can be traced back to the early days of the pandemic, when a steep decline in demand led manufacturers to cut orders for computer chips that are crucial for car production. As demand returned — aided by stimulus measures and people moving away from cities — manufacturers were short on chips, and this problem has yet to be fully resolved.
The price of new cars is up 12.6% compared to a year ago, and used vehicles — which saw an uptick in demand in response to the new-car shortage — haven't provided the savings consumers might have hoped. Prices are up 16.1%.
As the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to combat inflation, this elevates the borrowing costs for Americans buying cars as well.
Rising car payments don't even account for gas prices, which — while potentially easing some in the coming weeks — remain well above where they were a year ago. Then there's car insurance , parking, and — god-forbid — speeding tickets. Per a 2017 analysis by the data and analytics company INRIX, the average US driver spent over $10,000 on maintenance, fuel, insurance, parking, toll fees and other miscellaneous expenses, a number that has likely risen in recent years due to inflation.
The "average maintenance transaction cost" for a an automobile rose from $232 in 2019 to $259 in 2021, per the fleet management company Emkay, driven by increasing prices for parts, labor, and the customers keeping their vehicles longer as maintenance costs for older cars tend to be higher.
With drivers returning to the road en masse as COVID restrictions have eased, the number of accidents is also up. And when a vehicle needs repair, inflation's impact on car parts has made this process more expensive. Consequently, many insurance carriers have raised premiums to help foot the bill for drivers' claims. Per a 2022 Bankrate report, American drivers who have full coverage insurance spend an average of over $1,700 annually.
It's unclear whether parking rates are on the rise, but for those without a garage, the cost can add up. Per the automotive fintech platform Way.com, monthly parking in New York City costs roughly $550, or over $6,000 per year. With regards to speeding tickets, the introduction of "robo camera systems" have contributed to more being issued, especially in cities like Chicago.
While advocates argue electric vehicles make owning a car more affordable — due to less spending on fuel and maintenance — EV adoption has been slow. As of February, less than 1% of vehicles on US roads were electric.
Despite the costs, having a car remains important to millions of Americans — one analysis reported nearly 92% of US households had access to a car in 2020, up from roughly 91% in 2015.
Per a Statista survey, 76% of Americans commute to work via car, compared to 11% that use public transportation and 10 percent that opt for a bike. This is higher than many European countries; in Germany and the Netherlands for instance, only 65% and 56% of commuters get to work with a car, respectively.
In addition to Americans generally having longer commutes than Europeans — at times making a bike for instance impractical — some experts attribute insufficient investments in public transit and biking infrastructure as key reasons for the divide in car usage. Per a recent study, the US accounted for only three of the top 50 "bicycle-friendly" cities in the world: San Francisco, 39th; Portland, 41st; Seattle, 50th.
If employers and workers continue to embrace remote work even as the pandemic subsides — one expert estimated 25% to 35% of workers were remote as of April — the need for cars may diminish as well, enabling more people to choose "car-free" lives.
Until then, however, or until supply chains improve to help ease prices, Americans are expected to continue shelling out a lot for their vehicles. Even the beloved "new-car smell" might not be enough to brighten their moods.
More: Economy Transportation Cars Gas
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2022-07-09T12:10:14Z
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Inflation, Gas Prices Making Car Ownership More Expensive Than Ever
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https://www.businessinsider.com/buying-owning-car-inflation-gas-prices-chip-shortage-interest-rates-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/buying-owning-car-inflation-gas-prices-chip-shortage-interest-rates-2022-7
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Singapore Airlines relaunched its Airbus A380 on flights between New York and Singapore in March.
The mammoth plane features four fare classes, including the carrier's upgraded business-class seat.
Insider toured the lie-flat lounger, which can convert into a double bed.
Singapore Airlines is one of the largest operators of the Airbus A380 jumbo jet.
The carrier was forced to put the mammoth aircraft into storage during the pandemic but has started bringing them back into operation.
On March 28, the carrier relaunched its popular A380 route between New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and Singapore.
EQRoy/Shutterstock.com
The route stops in Frankfurt, Germany, which is a Fifth Freedom of the Air right. This allows airlines to carry revenue passengers from one foreign nation to another before continuing on to their home country.
Emirates operates a Fifth Freedom route from New York JFK to Milan.
Arnold Aaron/Shutterstock.com
Onboard the A380 is a huge cabin complete with economy…
…and First Class Suites. The suites come with a large leather lounger and a bed.
A first-class suite onboard a Singapore Airlines Airbus A380.
See inside Singapore's A380 first class suite that features a full bed, private bathroom, and large leather armchair
The company's business-class suites take up a majority of the upper deck of the A380, while the first-class suites sit at the very front. There is a staircase that leads to both cabins.
Staircase leading to first class suites.
Insider took a tour of Singapore's business-class cabin — take a look.
Singapore's A380s have different configurations, but the cabin I toured had 86 seats configured in a 1x2x1 layout. The lie-flat loungers feature purple Poltrona Frau leather and touches of brown and orange.
Testing out the seat, I immediately noticed the amount of space available. I was easily able to stretch my legs fully out with plenty of room to spare.
The seats are able to turn into a lie-flat bed stretching over six and a half feet, meaning even tall passengers can sleep on the long-haul journey.
Reclining the seat all the way back, I thought the lounger was plush and comfortable.
Singapore provides pillows and linens to make sleeping even easier.
Travelers can manipulate the seat using buttons on the armrest, allowing them to recline, lay flat, and adjust the leg rest.
According to Singapore, the center seats can merge to create a double bed, which is perfect for couples or families traveling together.
Source: Singapore Airlines
However, there is a privacy divider that can be fully raised...
...or only raised halfway. To create the bed, the divider can be fully lowered, according to Singapore.
The seats also come with several luxury amenities, like an 18-inch touchscreen TV that pairs with noise-canceling headphones…
…power outlets and USB ports...
…a swivel reading light that brightens and dims…
…a large tray table that deploys from the armrest…
…plenty of extra tabletop space...
…and a mirror.
Every seat is in a cocoon, meaning passengers can enjoy the extra privacy provided by the wings of the lounger.
Moreover, the inflight entertainment system offers over 1,000 movie and television-show options, and will even store loyalty passengers' preferences for future flights, according to Singapore.
Travelers can use the touchscreen on the TV or a remote to control the system.
Overall, I found the seat comfortable with plenty of amenities to keep passengers entertained on the multi-hour flights. I look forward to testing the seat in the future and hope it meets expectations.
More: Features Business Visual Features Singapore Airlines Singapore
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2022-07-09T12:10:48Z
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See Inside Singapore Airlines' Airbus A380 Business-Class Cabin
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https://www.businessinsider.com/see-inside-singapore-airlines-airbus-a380-business-class-cabin-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/see-inside-singapore-airlines-airbus-a380-business-class-cabin-2022-7
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Grace Panetta, Kimberly Leonard, and Joseph Zeballos-Roig
President Joe Biden speaks about his infrastructure agenda at the New Hampshire Port Authority in Portsmouth, N.H., Tuesday, April 19, 2022
Democrats have run into several blockades in their quest to pass ambitious policy.
They've hit a wall on issues such as voting rights, abortion, and climate.
We took a look at Democrats' priorities and evaluated what shot they have at passage.
President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats have checked some big-ticket items off their list before the first half of his term is over.
First, there was the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, followed by a bipartisan infrastructure bill, and a narrow gun safety bill that nevertheless was supported by Republicans and represented the biggest change to gun laws in 20 years. They confirmed the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
But when it comes to the 2022 midterm elections in November, it's what the party hasn't gotten done that's making the most headlines.
Time and time again Democrats have had to contend with the confines of legislating in a 50-50 Senate, weighing various priorities, as well as the prominent divisions between centrists and progressives. In recent months, Democrats are increasingly questioning whether Biden is the right person to deliver on the party's promises.
Time is running out on Democrats who want to deliver before the November midterms. Republicans are widely expected to win the House, which would make policymaking incredibly difficult during the last two years of Biden's term. The GOP also has a shot at winning a majority in the Senate.
But there is still time for Democrats to move ahead. We reviewed each of their big policy items, why they failed, and scored (out of 5) their chance of passage before the midterms:
Protester David Barrows carries a sign during a rally to press Congress to pass voting rights protections and the "Build Back Better Act," Monday, Dec. 13, 2021, in Washington.
Voting rights & democracy reform:
Biden and congressional Democrats placed passing voting rights legislation as a top agenda item in response to a years-long erosion of the Voting Rights Act at the hands of the Supreme Court, new restrictions tightening voting rights in Republican-controlled states, and President Donald Trump's brazen efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
But Democratic leaders' soaring rhetoric came careening against the math of the 50-50 Senate and the reality of the filibuster. Neither of the bills that Senate Democrats proposed, a sweeping voting rights and campaign finance reform bill and legislation to refortify the VRA, garnered firm support from Republicans. Most GOP senators decried the measures as a federal takeover of elections and a Democratic power grab and filibustered voting rights legislation four times in 2021 and 2022.
Biden expressed his frustration with the bills stalling out in a January 2022 speech in which he blasted the Senate as a "shell of its former self," saying the filibuster has been "weaponized" and "abused."
"I've been having these quiet conversations with members of Congress for two months," Biden said. "I'm tired of being quiet!"
After that speech, in which Biden endorsed filibuster reform to pass voting rights legislation, Schumer deployed the last-ditch tactic of calling for a vote on changing the Senate's filibuster rules via the "nuclear option," under which a simple majority of senators can vote to change the chamber's filibuster rules, in January 2022
But two Democrats — Sen. Krysten Sinema of Arizona and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia — have been steadfast in their opposition to scrapping or modifying the filibuster rules, arguing that lowering the threshold to pass Democratic priorities would come back to bite their party when Republicans retake power and exacerbate partisan divisions in the chamber.
The two Democrats joined all 50 Senate Republicans in shooting down Schumer's proposal to change the filibuster rules, striking the final nail in the coffin for Democrats' voting rights push.
Since then, Manchin and GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine have been leading a bipartisan group of senators in talks for more narrowly-targeted election reform focused on preventing partisan sabotage of elections, including modernizing and shoring up federal laws governing the counting of electoral votes and the presidential transition process.
But the group has yet to announce an agreement or legislative framework with the clock ticking toward August recess.
Any legislation they do propose would fall far short of the voting rights protections Democrats want. And it could be a heavy lift to get 60 votes in the Senate and pass the House.
Chances of priority passing before the midterms: 1/5
Benjamin Crump, center, the civil rights attorney representing the family of George Floyd, joined at right by NAACP President Derrick Johnson, speaking to reporters after they met with Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., about police reform legislation, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Police reform:
The May 2020 murder of George Floyd and police-inflicted killings of other Black Americans, including Daunte Wright and Breonna Taylor, sparked massive protests around the globe and reinvigorated a push to enhance accountability and overhaul standards for law enforcement at the federal level and in many states and cities.
After taking office, Biden directed Congress to deliver a police reform bill to his desk by May 25, 2021, the one-year anniversary of Floyd's murder.
In June 2020 and again in March 2021, the House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a wide-ranging bill sponsored by Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee that would ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants for federal drug cases, require all federal law enforcement officers to wear body cameras, end qualified immunity, impose more federal oversight of police departments, and restrict access to military-grade equipment.
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker and Republican Sen. Tim Scott took point on leading bipartisan negotiations to work out a version of the legislation that could earn 60 votes in the Senate.
But talks officially broke down in September 2021 "after months of exhausting every possible pathway to a bipartisan deal," and securing the backing of major law enforcement unions, Booker said.
The negotiations fell apart when the parties deadlocked over how far to rein in qualified immunity, the controversial legal doctrine that shields law enforcement officials from personal liability for actions they take on the job, including the use of force, that don't violate "established law."
"Unfortunately, even with this law enforcement support and further compromises we offered, there was still too wide a gulf with our negotiating partners and we faced significant obstacles to securing a bipartisan deal," Booker said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., express their frustration during a news conference as the Supreme Court is poised to possibly overturn Roe v. Wade and urge President Joe Biden to use his executive authority to protect abortion rights, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, June 15, 2022.
Enshrining abortion rights nationally:
On June 24, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a move that made abortion illegal in some states.
Most congressional Democrats are in favor of a national abortion rights law, and have voted in favor of the Women's Health Protection Act. The bill would make abortion legal in every state and undo most restrictions. It is similar to the abortion rights set out under the now-defunct Roe, though it also allows abortions after viability for undefined "health reasons."
For that reason, Republicans have called it "extreme" and refused to support the legislation. It passed the House but has already failed twice in the Senate this year. Eleven more senators would be needed to pass the legislation under the 60-vote threshold.
Manchin opposes the legislation, saying it goes beyond Roe.
That's why Biden calling for a filibuster carve-out on June 30 is unlikely to be effective. Manchin and Sinema remain staunchly opposed to abolishing the filibuster for any reason.
Even without the filibuster, Democrats lack the 50 votes they would need to pass their bill.
GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Collins both support abortion rights but say Democrats' bill has gone too far because it doesn't create moral or religious exemptions. Collins is working on a bipartisan abortion rights bill with Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, but one senior Democratic Senate aide told Insider that Democratic women senators and abortion rights groups say privately that they don't see the legislation going anywhere because nine Republicans would need to get onboard, "which everyone knows will never happen right now."
Democrats have stressed that they want to put Republicans on the spot over the issue to draw a contrast between the parties ahead of the November midterms.
Only remote possibilities exist for enshrining abortion rights nationally. One would be for some Republicans to cross over on the filibuster and on the abortion rights bill. Another would be for Democrats and Republicans to compromise on which measures they're willing to support.
One former leader in the reproductive rights movement told Insider that even a limited bill, such as guaranteeing access to abortion in the first trimester, would help 90% of patients seeking to terminate pregnancies. In such a scenario, states would be allowed to raise the gestation floor if they choose.
But both sides remain staunchly divided on the issue, meaning that without a supermajority in the Senate or the abolishment of the filibuster, it could remain in limbo with a patchwork of rules from state to state for years to come.
Job applicants fill out forms with CSC Global, left, and Skilled Staffing, right, at the 305 Second Chance Job & Resource Expo, Friday, June 10, 2022, in Miami
Lynn Sladky/AP
The economy and climate:
The Democratic record on the economy is a mixed one. The party's enormous legislative ambitions to overhaul the American economy and diminish worsening inequality have been undermined by their needle-thin majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Biden campaigned on restoring the economy after it sharply contracted at the onset of the pandemic with mass business closures and a drop in discretionary spending. Taking office, he instilled a sense of urgency as he sought to avoid the kind of drawn-out recovery that plagued past economic crises in the US.
"There is real pain overwhelming the real economy," Biden said as he introduced a COVID-19 rescue plan in January 2021. "The very health of our nation is at stake."
During Biden's time in office, Americans have poured back into the labor market and unemployment has fallen to lows last seen in the late 1960s. In 2021, the economy grew at its fastest pace since the Reagan years.
Some of that progress can be attributed to the $1.9 trillion stimulus law, which provided financial relief to Americans along with state and municipal governments. It also set aside money for vaccine distribution that helped states and cities ease pandemic restrictions. The law passed with unanimous GOP opposition.
However, the stimulus also partly caused another problem that blindsided Biden administration officials. Inflation is now at its highest level since the 1980s, largely the product of Americans with plenty of cash to spend facing supply-chain bottlenecks.
Democrats made limited legislative headway on what they intended to do. Biden secured a $1 trillion infrastructure law with some GOP support, locking in a victory that eluded past Republican and Democratic presidents. It contained $550 billion in new funding to repair roads and bridges, airports, ports and waterways.
Other parts of Biden's economic agenda — including climate initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and encourage the production of electric vehicles — remain an open question.
The infrastructure law was originally tied to the passage of a larger social spending and climate bill. Binding the priorities together was intended to keep the small but potent centrist faction in line with progressives. But when Republicans lined up against the larger bill, Democratic leadership decided to settle for the smaller infrastructure-only package, which Biden signed into law in November.
Efforts to advance immigration reform have also floundered. Some Democrats initially viewed setting up a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants as a way to finance their spending ambitions, arguing it would provide an economic boost. But it was knocked out of the social bill by a Senate official and separate talks with Republicans haven't yielded a breakthrough.
Manchin and Sinema both wielded immense influence over the Democratic agenda in the past year. That allowed them to shrink the size and scope of the original safety-net bill since Democrats couldn't afford to lose their votes in the 50-50 Senate.
The House-approved "Build Back Better" legislation died after Manchin torpedoed it in December. Democrats are poised to take another shot at passing a slimmer energy, climate and tax bill this month. But it won't include many of the initiatives that Biden pressed for, such as establishing a monthly child tax credit for parents, universal pre-K, tuition-free community college, and expanding affordable housing.
Senate Democrats face a serious time-crunch to approve the bill and send it to Biden's desk before the start of the August recess. But they've blown past deadlines before. Democrats have until Sept. 30 to pass it with many elements outstanding as lawmakers begin focusing on campaigning.
Expanding healthcare coverage:
Biden ran on a promise to expand the Affordable Care Act, more colloquially known as Obamacare, so that more people living in the US could buy health insurance.
Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress did deliver on that to a small extent. The 2021 American Rescue Plan Biden signed into law poured billions of federal dollars into the private health insurance market. Doing so allowed buyers to get health insurance at a lower price than before the stimulus law, sometimes even at no — or very little — cost to themselves.
But Democrats appear to have largely backed off Biden's promise to create a "public option" for health insurance. Such a system would give people the option to buy a health plan similar to Medicare, rather than going to private insurers.
As for the subsidies, they are limited and set to run out at the end of the year. That means that in the weeks leading up to the election Democrats will face a barrage of stories about soaring health insurance costs. An estimated 13 million people are expected to be affected, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Once again, Manchin holds the cards. In June, he signaled to Insider he was open to expanding the Obamacare subsidies but wanted to workshop them so they wouldn't go to wealthy people. Under current law, some people receive more generous subsidies than others depending on their income.
People with middle-class incomes and higher pay no more than 8.5% of their annual income on health insurance they buy through the Obamacare marketplaces, with the federal government picking up the rest of the tab.
Democrats may be able to extend the subsidies or make them permanent alongside their economic policy proposals. Health insurers are pressing lawmakers to get it done, and Democratic leaders have said it's a priority. Manchin has been noncommittal.
Democrats also are in talks about a bill that would allow the federal government to negotiate the prices of some prescription medicines. Doing so would help pay for the health insurance subsidies.
But pharmaceutical companies have been generous to Democrats during recent election cycles and will oppose any attempt to curb their profits. Plus the prescriptions proposal would need to get the agreement of the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, to ensure that it fits the rules of reconciliation. If it doesn't, then whether Senators accept it or not becomes moot.
More: Congress Democrats President Joe Biden
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2022-07-09T12:11:06Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Why Democrats Can't Pass Biden's Agenda
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https://www.businessinsider.com/why-democrats-cant-pass-bidens-agenda-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/why-democrats-cant-pass-bidens-agenda-2022-7
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Why TikTok stars may have a problem forming deep connections with fans, despite the platform's hold on Gen Z
Amanda Perelli and JP Mangalindan
TikTok's video format and feed has lowered the barrier to entry for becoming a creator.
But short form content could be the reason why some creators may struggle to build real fans.
We spoke with industry insiders to learn why some TikTokers struggle to form deep fan connections.
Grace Africa, an influencer who has 1.3 million followers on TikTok, recently posted a video documenting her meet and greet at VidCon. The problem? No fans came to see her.
"When you set up a meet and greet and no one comes," she wrote in a now viral video with 36 million views.
In 2021, TikTok was the most downloaded app in the United States, with 94 million downloads, according to Apptopia.
But while TikTok's short video format and For You Page have taken over social media, with nearly every major platform building its own copycat feature, some of its native stars say they are struggling to form a lasting bond with fans. Some blame the app's algorithm, while others say the short-form content doesn't allow the same kind of relationship building as YouTube videos.
Nowhere was this more apparent than at last month's VidCon, the annual creator economy conference that was sponsored by TikTok this year, where creators with millions of followers on the app spoke at panels and met with fans in person.
Even TikTok's second-most-followed creator Charli D'Amelio, who has a whopping 143 million followers, drew a crowd that paled in comparison with that of YouTubers like MrBeast or the Dream SMP players.
"Blowing up online over a 3-month span doesn't replace a multi-year grind on YouTube where you're nurturing a community over an extended period of time," said Chris Vaccarino, CEO and founder of creator merch company Fanjoy.
For a TikTok creators' business, this could mean that they could struggle to sell products, drive affiliate sales, or land endorsement deals.
In response, TikTokers are moving off platform, signing deals with major streaming services or starting podcasts in an attempt to garner fans attention.
Addison Rae, for example, signed a multi-film deal with Netflix and has a show on Snap. The D'Amelio family, meanwhile, has a Hulu reality series. Josh Richards hosts the "BFFs" podcast and recently inked a first-look deal with Amazon.
But those attempts may not be enough: Rae and the D'Amelios have seemingly halted their podcast projects.
Old-school YouTube may be their best bet: Brittany Broski, for example, went viral on TikTok and now posts regularly on YouTube, where she has 1.2 million followers.
How TikTok's algorithm impacts fan connections
The struggle TikTokers are facing to maintain success and fuel long-term relationships with fans in part stems from core features of the app.
TikTok's algorithm — the very thing that propelled many TikTokers to stardom — also makes it difficult to maintain success. The viewer doesn't choose who they are watching, TikTok chooses for them.
"You have a lot of creators that can't last," YouTuber Hank Green said in his recent video "The Curse of the Swipe." "They can't continue to grow. It's very hard to form community, and you have a platform that's undermonitized.
On YouTube, the viewer is actively choosing which creators they want to watch, making the relationship between viewer and creator more actionable and direct.
"I don't think it's surprising as TikTok fandoms are very different from YouTube," said Eyal Baumel, the president of the creator management firm Yoola about the little buzz around TikTok stars who attended VidCon. "Due to the experience and UI of TikTok, many people don't even know who they follow as they always browse the For You Page."
Plus, that algorithm tends to feature trends, rather than a handful of top creators. It's common to watch a TikTok on the For You Page without knowing even knowing the creator's name.
"TikTok has a huge long tail of videos that users might love, enjoy, and even click 'follow,' but you won't see another video from this creator for a long time," Baumel said.
Short-form content leads to short-term relationships
One problem TikTok creators are facing is inherent to the platform's short-form format: It's harder to connect with creators who post 30-second videos, than to creators who share significantly more about themselves and their lives in longer videos on YouTube.
"Think of any relationship-building process: We need to spend a lot of time with that person to build a true connection," said Danny Desatnik, creator initiatives manager at influencer-marketing firm #Paid. "Watching hundreds of 15 to 30 second videos a day from different creators doesn't encourage a deep connection like YouTube."
Many original YouTubers who found success were vloggers — creators who film scenes from their daily lives. Even gaming creators, like Dream SMP, spend hours with their audiences, engaging them in interactive storytelling.
"The last time we were here, daily vloggers were the people who had this crazy fanfare, that was like, 'I need to meet you, I will scream in your face if I see you,'" said YouTuber Colin Rosenblum on a recent episode of his podcast, The Colin and Samir Show. "Now I feel like streamers are the people who are demanding that type of fan fair ... and the fandom they have generated is insane."
Megan Leeds, a YouTuber with 3 million subscribers told Insider she attributes the strong connection she has with her fans to both YouTube and Twitch's longer-form formats, as well as the level of transparency she has around her personal life.
"People become attached whenever you are really open about your life," said Leeds, who dedicates a significant chunk of time to Roblox-related content. "They kind of feel like that you're very transparent, which I am. I've always been transparent about my life situation, my mental health, things I struggle with, things that make me happy, and personal interests."
More: TikTok Influencers Creators
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2022-07-09T12:11:08Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Why TikTokers May Face Problems Connecting With Fans, Gen Z
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https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tiktok-creators-may-face-problems-connecting-with-fans-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tiktok-creators-may-face-problems-connecting-with-fans-2022-7
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Take a look inside an abandoned 1990s Burger King store frozen in time after being left untouched in a Delaware mall
Inside an abandoned Burger King in Concord Mall, Wilmington, Delaware
Courtesy of Tom Dahlke
A Burger King restaurant in a mall in Delaware with retro decor has gone viral on social media.
The restaurant closed in 2009, but its decor appears to be largely unchanged from the 1990s.
This includes patterned wallpaper, a pastel blue and pink color scheme, and framed pictures on the walls.
A Burger King restaurant has gone viral after photos and videos posted on social media show how it had preserved its 1980s and 1990s decor after being closed. The restaurant is hidden from the public behind a wall in Concord Mall in Wilmington, Delaware, that only staff can access with a key.
In photos and a video touring the restaurant, which opened in 1987, the space looks like it has barely been touched since it closed. The dining room, which is kitted out with booths, is still furnished ...
... and photos suggest that its kitchen is intact, too.
Shared with Insider
The booth seats are pastel pink while some of the tables are the same color and others are pastel blue.
The walls appear to have white paper with a subtle gray pattern, along with pink and blue accents. There are also some framed scenic images throughout the restaurant.
It looks similar to the decor of a New York City Burger King photographed in 1992 ...
Yvonne Hemsey/Liaison via Getty Images
... as well as another restaurant snapped in 1997.
In a video tour of the restaurant, New Castle County CEO Matt Meyer said there was still litter in the trash cans and picked up a paper bag that contained fries.
Drink pumps and fans are still in place, too.
Burger King moved out in 2009, and mall management placed a wall over the 2,400 square foot restaurant while it waited to find a replacement tenant, Tom Dahlke, the mall's general manager, told Verify. Dahlke said that though management and some mall staff knew the restaurant was still there, it had gone viral after a vendor in the mall passed by while the door was open and took a picture.
Source: Verify
Though the Burger King has closed, Concord Mall is currently home to other restaurants and food outlets including Chick-fil-A and Auntie Anne's.
Chick-fil-A, closed Sunday
Scott Olson / Staff
More: Features Burger King Retail restaurant
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2022-07-09T13:41:26Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Abandoned Burger King Restaurant With 1990s Decor: Photos
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https://www.businessinsider.com/abandoned-burger-king-restaurant-decor-delaware-wilmington-concord-mall-photos-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/abandoned-burger-king-restaurant-decor-delaware-wilmington-concord-mall-photos-2022-7
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In 2018, I quit my full-time job that paid $60,000 a year without an emergency fund.
I wanted to be a full-time writer, but I had to take side gigs along the way until I got there.
I lost money driving for Instacart, and I made more from copywriting gigs.
As a recession looms in the coming months, I'm hearing more stories of friends getting laid off without emergency funds to fall back on. Having once quit a full-time job that paid $60,000 a year without any savings, I can relate to the deep financial panic that follows.
At the time, I quit my job because I couldn't handle the toxic workplace environment anymore, but I also had a lifelong dream of becoming a writer. I didn't have any formal writing education or experience, but I sent three cold pitch emails to editors every single day. It took a while for my writing work to actually replace the full-time income that I was used to, so I had to take side gigs along the way.
Here are the seven hustles that put food on the table while I was building my career as a writer.
1. Babysitter
Pay: $350 a week
At the time, I lived in Brooklyn while my parents lived in Amityville, Long Island. My parents needed someone to stay at home with my 8-year-old sister after school, so I stayed with them during the week and went home to my apartment during the weekends. They gave me a little cash each week to babysit, knowing I was struggling financially.
Pay: $25 an hour
Soon after my babysitting gig ended, a new neighbor moved into my building who needed a personal assistant for a few hours a week. While I was splitting a three-bedroom apartment with two other roommates, she had an entire three-bedroom with the same layout as ours to herself, with one bedroom converted into an office.
She mostly asked me to sort through her mail to unsubscribe from promotional junk, pick up dry cleaning, and take care of administrative tasks, like setting up her energy and electric bills.
3. Declutterer
Pay: $500 for a 1-bedroom apartment
Many years ago, while watching HGTV's "Clean House" starring queer femme icon Niecy Nash, I learned one important decluttering tip: If it takes more than five seconds to decide if you need to keep an item, you probably don't need it.
I took this hardcore approach with a client who needed to make more space in their home. Honestly, it was the most fun I had while making $500, since I love organizing and cleaning.
4. Dogsitter
At this point, most of my friends knew I was struggling financially, so they sent me any leads on gigs and jobs that they heard about. As a dogsitter, I got to stay at really fancy New York City apartments on my own, and I treated that time like a paid writing retreat.
When I moved to Los Angeles, I continued dog sitting to make ends meet. Thankfully, my New York contacts were more than willing to serve as references.
5. Instacart driver
Pay: After gas, I lost $2 an hour
In Los Angeles, I started driving for Instacart early in the pandemic because I was desperate for cash. The job sucked and people tipped poorly, but I was able to get cash to buy groceries quickly. After crunching the numbers, though, I realized I actually lost money since gas prices in LA are so high.
Pay: $13.25 an hour
I started working at a cookie shop in West Hollywood, making minimum wage. At the time, I was living in a hostel with 15 other people in a three-bedroom house. Before the pandemic started, the store opened at 3 p.m., so I would get there early to get some writing done without any distractions, even sometimes taking job interviews via Google Meet in the backroom of the store using my phone.
Pay: $100 to $800 per project, depending on the project
After sending hundreds of cold pitch emails with the hopes of being published, I started pivoting my strategy to copywriting. I knew a ton of entrepreneurs from my time in New York, so I sent daily emails to friends asking if they knew anyone who needed a copywriter — on top of the three daily pitch emails I was writing.
Copywriting was really enjoyable, even though it wasn't the kind of writing I wanted to do. I dove in headfirst, quit my cookie-baking job, and made over $9,000 in my most successful month as a freelance writer. Since then, I started writing full-time for Insider, and now I make more money than ever.
On the rare occasion that I order groceries from Instacart, I happily tip them 35% knowing it wasn't that long ago that I was in the same position.
PERSONAL FINANCE While bored at home one weekend, I researched various side gigs and found 4 where I could earn thousands in extra cash every month
More: side hustles side gigs Minimum Wage Writer
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2022-07-09T13:41:50Z
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7 Side Hustles I Tried That Helped Me Start a Career That I Love
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-worst-side-hustles-career-change-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-worst-side-hustles-career-change-2022-7
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A Subway tuna sandwich.
This was my best Subway experience, and I think it shows a bright future for the chain.
Subway just introduced 12 new subs to its menu, along with a major change to its entire business model.
The new Subway Series is made up of 12 sandwiches designed to be ordered as-is, a departure from Subway's typical create-your-own model.
Though it is the largest fast food chain in the world by locations, Subway has struggled with declining sales, restaurant closures, and disgruntled franchisees in recent years.
In July 2021, the chain completed a massive menu overhaul with more than 20 changes.
Subway just refreshed its menu.
Initially, the menu refresh seemed like a flop based on reports from Subway operators who said few customers turned up even with the promise of free sandwiches.
Subway store refresh in California
The menu updates and promotions seemed to work, though. Subway said it beat 2021 US sales expectations by $1.4 billion, and reached its highest average annual sales per restaurant since 2014.
Now almost exactly a year later, Subway is making further menu changes in hopes of continuing positive momentum.
The new sandwiches come in four groups: Italianos, chicken, clubs, and cheesesteaks.
I ordered one from each group to test them out.
All the ingredients on the sandwich are set, but you still pick what type of bread you want, and have the option to adjust ingredients to your taste.
The menu still seems new to workers, too. As they prepared my sandwiches, I noticed the employees turned around to confirm what ingredients went on each sandwich, and consulted each other to make sure they had it right.
I took my subs home to try them out.
I got each sample on a six-inch sub, which still ended up being plenty of food.
From the cheesesteak section I picked a classic Philly cheesesteak on garlic herb bread.
It came with steak, provolone, green peppers, and red onions, toasted.
It was delicious and felt very hearty, a promising start.
From the Italiano sandwiches, I went with the bella mozza.
It comes with ham, mozzarella, spinach, tomatoes, red onions, and banana peppers. I again ordered the Italian herb bread.
The mozzarella was a major highlight, making the sandwich better than any Subway sub I can remember eating.
I picked the great garlic sandwich from the chicken options after a worker recommended I try roasted garlic aioli.
I was grateful for her recommendation. It was delicious, with the aioli on rotisserie chicken, bacon, provolone, and vegetables on Italian bread.
Finally, I also ordered the all-American club with turkey, ham, bacon, American cheese, and vegetables.
The club was my least favorite of the bunch, and the most like what I usually think of as a Subway sandwich.
It wasn't bad, just a bit more bland and unmemorable than the others
On the whole, I was quite impressed with Subway's menu update, and it made me want to visit again and try the others.
Last year, when I sampled Subway's menu update, I thought it was okay but not good enough to save the struggling chain.
This year, my hopes are much higher. 2021's changes pushed sales up, and the new menu items are an even bigger improvement.
I think we're seeing the beginning of a new era for Subway.
More: Features Subway Business Visual Features Fast Food
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2022-07-09T13:41:56Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Subway New Menu Taste Test, Review in Photos: Steak, Turkey, Bacon
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https://www.businessinsider.com/subway-new-menu-taste-test-review-photos-steak-turkey-bacon-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/subway-new-menu-taste-test-review-photos-steak-turkey-bacon-2022-7
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There are 3 major signs inflation may have peaked — but they don't mean things are going to get cheaper right away
AP/Jessica Hill
Several signs suggest inflation has peaked, and will continue gradually cooling from the pace seen earlier in 2022.
The trend, known as disinflation, means prices will still broadly rise, just at a slower pace.
While some costs are set to drop, a prolonged decline would hint at an entirely new problem.
The US could very well be past the worst of its inflation problem. But don't expect things to get cheaper.
For much of the past two years, the pace of price increases has been accelerating. Headline inflation now sits at an 8.6% year-over-year pace, marking the fastest rate since 1981.
Yet recent data suggests that surge could be turning over. Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, has decelerated for three straight months, according to the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index. Month-over-month price growth is also down from the levels seen early in the year.
But even though inflation looks like it might be cooling off, don't expect things to get much cheaper.
To understand the path of inflation, one has to wrap their head around a key distinction. Inflation tracks the pace at which prices grow, not actual price levels. The cooldown seen over the past few months means that prices are still climbing, just at a slower pace.
The current decline is a perfect example of disinflation. The term describes inflation that's still positive but weaker than before, and it's exactly what the Federal Reserve and the Biden administration want to see.
Contrary to what many Americans probably believe, some inflation is good. It symbolizes a healthy amount of consumer demand and, more broadly, sustainable economic growth. The Fed has long targeted a one-year inflation rate of about 2%. That level is, according to the central bank, the best for balancing maximum employment and price stability. Allowing for higher inflation would conflict with the Fed's price-stability goal, and a lower target would likely foster a less inclusive labor market.
Many Americans likely want to see prices drop for some time after the past year's price surge. Yet a prolonged period of falling prices would make for an entirely different crisis. Such a trend, also known as deflation, can kickstart a vicious cycle for the entire economy.
Businesses tend to slow production when prices fall in order to protect their margins. That usually leads to layoffs and weaker pay growth. If the trend lasts long enough, widespread joblessness can lower demand and pull prices lower still. Deflation is a surefire sign of a weak economy and can quickly pull a country into a downturn similar to the Great Depression .
For now, it looks like the economy is experiencing disinflation, not deflation. Some prices have fallen in recent weeks, but a brief decline among a limited set of goods and services isn't enough to sound the deflation alarms.
Here are three reasons why that trend of disinflation is likely to continue for the rest of 2022.
(1) The biggest inflation drivers are weakening
Much of the latest inflation surge comes down to commodity prices, specifically food and energy commodities. Russia's invasion of Ukraine and resulting sanctions on the Kremlin slammed the global supply of several key goods including crude oil, wheat, natural gas, fertilizer, and nickel. That drove prices sharply higher throughout the first months of 2022 and exacerbated inflation that was already running at multi-decade highs.
That trend has reversed course in recent weeks. The S&P GSCI — a popular benchmark for global commodity prices — is down nearly 23% from the record high posted in early June. Crude oil futures have similarly plunged, and prices for food commodities like wheat, corn, and soybeans are also off of their early summer highs.
The declines are already offering Americans some relief. The average price of a gallon of gasoline slid to $4.78 on Wednesday, according to AAA, down from the mid-June record of just over $5. About 80% of gas stations are back to selling regular-grade fuel for less than $5 a gallon, Andrew Gross, a AAA spokesperson, said in a Tuesday release.
(2) Supply chains are healing
The supply chain snags that emerged in 2021 played a major role in pushing inflation to historic highs. Solving the tangle of port backlogs and shipping delays could cool price growth, and some indicators signal the situation is improving.
For one, shipping rates are almost half of what they were at the height of the logistics mess in the fall. The Freightos Baltic Index, which calculates the average price of shipping a 40-foot container of goods, fell to $6,577 in the week that ended July 1. That's down from $11,109 in September, and the decline has accelerated in recent months. The downtrend suggests kinks in the supply chain are being worked out, and as shipping costs fall, there will be less pressure on companies to boost prices.
(3) Companies are moving from price hikes to discounts
Easing inflationary pressures are an encouraging sign, but it takes time for that to translate to slower price growth at gas stations, grocery stores, and retailers. Commentary from several companies hints that shift is taking place right now.
In a first-quarter earnings call on June 29, Bed Bath & Beyond CFO Gustavo Arnal indicated the company will "work aggressively" to clear excess inventory that the company has built up, according to a transcript created by Sentieo. The clearance will all but certainly come with many price cuts as the company looks to trim its stock.
Bed Bath & Beyond is far from the only company pivoting from inventory build-up to huge sales. Walmart executive John Furner told investors in June that it could take "maybe a couple of quarters" to clear out unwanted inventory. Macy's CEO Jeff Gennette told The Wall Street Journal in late May that inventory boomed faster than expected, and that markdowns will weigh on profits as the department store chain clears some supply.
That's poised to skew the supply-demand imbalance in consumers' favor. After a year of soaring prices, Americans are likely to enjoy a summer of deals.
More: Economy Inflation disinflation inflation outlook
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2022-07-09T13:42:08Z
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Inflation Rate May Have Peaked, but Consumer Prices Won't Fall Right Away
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https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-inflation-disinflation-deflation-consumer-prices-growing-economic-outlook-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-inflation-disinflation-deflation-consumer-prices-growing-economic-outlook-2022-7
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Prosecutors outlined new allegations against suspected Oath Keepers charged in relation to the Capitol riot.
The Friday filing claims one co-defendant of the Oath Keeper leader had a "death list."
It also claims that one purported Oath Keeper transported explosives to Washington DC on Jan. 6.
The Justice Department leveled new accusations against suspected members of the far-right Oath Keepers on Friday relating to their involvement in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
A co-defendant of Oath Keep leader, Stewart Rhodes, had a "death list" with the name of a Georgia election official, and another co-conspirator came to Washington with explosives, they said.
Nine Oath Keepers, including leader Stewart Rhodes, have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol riot. All nine have pleaded not guilty.
The new accusations are laid out in a 28-page filing, viewed by Insider, which includes evidence prosecutors plan to introduce against the Oath Keepers during their trial in September.
Prosecutors will aim to prove that the group extensively prepared for violence and plotted to stop Joe Biden from rightfully assuming the presidency.
The new filing states that during a search of charged co-defendant Thomas Caldwell's Virginia home weeks after the riot, a document was found with the words "DEATH LIST" handwritten across the top.
The list included the name of a Georgia election official and a purported family member of the official, both of whom had become targets of unfounded accusations of being involved in voter fraud in the 2020 election.
In a statement through his attorney, Caldwell, a retired Navy intelligence officer, denied the allegations to The Washington Post: "The DOJ's claim that I intended to assassinate election workers is an absolute, 100% disgusting lie."
Prosecutors have previously accused the Oath Keepers of setting up a so-called "quick reaction force," or QRF, outside of Washington, DC, which included firearms stashed at a Virginia hotel.
In the new filing, prosecutors further stated that there was evidence that at least one alleged Oath Keeper, Jeremy Brown, transported explosives to the Washington DC area on the day of the Capitol attack.
The government last September also seized two illegal short barrel firearms from Brown's residence and military ordinance grenades from his RV, which was the same vehicle he used to travel to Washington DC on the day of the riot, the filing said.
Brown has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor counts relating to the riot and is not one of the nine Oath Keepers to have been charged in the seditious conspiracy indictment.
Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers.
Aaron C. Davis/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Prosecutors also allege in the filing that co-conspirators, including Stewart Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, and Jessica Watkins, discussed and prepared for violent conflict with government actors between January 6 and Inauguration day on January 20.
Prosecutors also say two bomb-making recipes in suspected Oath Keeper Jessica Watkins' home after a search weeks after the riot, which they say is evidence of her preparation to use force against the government.
Watkins' indictment alleges that she recruited several people for a "military-style basic" training class the group organized for the beginning of 2021.
A lawyer for Rhodes, Phillip Linder, told CNN that Rhodes had no knowledge of any plans for violence and did not participate in the violence at the Capitol.
Rhodes said on Friday that he would testify in front of the January 6 committee and waive his 5th Amendment rights under the condition that his testimony is broadcast live.
The Oath Keepers, a militia-styled vigilante group, recruits current and former members of the military and law enforcement and sees the current US government as illegitimate.
The group's more mainstream members fled the group in droves after January 6, Rachel Carroll Rivas, a senior research analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Insider's Laura Italiano.
The Oath Keepers had 88 chapters at the end of 2020, Carroll Rivas said. One year after the insurrection, the number of chapters has dropped by more than half, to 39.
More: Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy capitol riot january 6
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2022-07-09T15:13:02Z
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Oath Keeper Suspect Brought Explosives to DC Area on Jan. 6: DOJ
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https://www.businessinsider.com/doj-oath-keeper-explosives-dc-jan-6-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/doj-oath-keeper-explosives-dc-jan-6-2022-7
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Fitbit trackers are seeing big discounts for Prime Day, including 30% off the feature-packed Charge 5
Fitbit;Alyssa Powell/Insider
Taking advantage of a sale like Amazon Prime Day to score a fitness tracker at a massive discount isn't just savvy buying behavior, it's the only way to shop. And with Prime Day nearly here, it's the perfect time to pick up that Fitbit you've had your eye on.
Be it the smartwatch-style Fitbit Versa 3, or something a little more sporty like the Fitbit Charge 5, the variety of fitness wearables on sale right now is many. And we're huge fans of Fitbit here at Insider Reviews, having tested everything in the brand's lineup and highlighted our six overall favorites (plus some added tips on how to pick out the right one for your lifestyle).
No matter which one piques your interest, it's guaranteed you'll be saving some major dough on your purchase. Though Fitbits typically retail anywhere from $100 up to $200, we're seeing discounts of 15% and 30% on a number of models.
For help sifting through the sales, we've included a few of the best deals we've seen so far below.
Priced at an all-time low, the Charge 5 hits a budget-friendly price point while offering stellar activity tracking in a smaller footprint than a smartwatch.
The Charge 4 hits a budget-friendly price point while offering stellar activity tracking in a smaller footprint than a smartwatch.
With automatic activity tracking and a huge screen for both mid-run stats and the relax app, the Versa 3 has nearly all the perks of the Fitbit line at a not-totally-absurd price point and with a stylish design.
With its large, squared-off touch screen, the Fitbit Versa 2 is an attractive and affordable mix of smartwatch and activity tracker.
$149.95 $119.95 from Fitbit
The Fitbit Luxe is the company's latest fitness band that comes with a sleek design and advanced health features like stress management and the ability to measure heart rate variation.
$129.95 $99.95 from Fitbit
The Inspire 2 provides the standard features of Fitbit in a discreet, slim design that's comfortable on the wrist.
The Sense smartwatch has a ton of added features, focusing on heart health and stress management, giving you a more holistic look at your well-being. Now, enjoy a cool $100 off the regular price at several retailers.
Which Fitbit is best?
Fitbit makes a variety of smartwatches and fitness trackers, so it depends on how you intend to use it.
If you want something with a bright, colorful screen that sends smartphone notifications, offers a diverse range of tracked activities, yet has a more classy aesthetic, opt for something like the Fitbit Versa or Fitbit Sense.
If you're looking for a sporty tracker that's thin on smartwatch capability but straightforward and easy to use from a fitness perspective, go for the Fitbit Charge or Fitbit Inspire.
Are Fitbits on sale often?
Sometimes, yes. Fitbits tend to be discounted around sales events like Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday/Cyber Monday, though we do also see them discounted periodically throughout the year. Sales events like Prime Day are still the best time to pick one up if you've been on the fence, however.
Is a Fitbit better than an Apple Watch?
Depends on how you use it. The Apple Watch is a legit smartwatch that's designed to do more than just track steps or log fitness statistics. There are Fitbits that also do this (i.e. the Versa) but many of the brand's trackers are pointed more toward fitness and wellness than being standalone smartwatches.
What is Fitbit's Premium membership?
The Fitbit Premium membership is the brand's subscription service that allows users to access things like video workouts, meditations, in-depth health insights, and various workout challenges and goals.
Each of these added extras are accessible via the Fitbit app and many new watches (like the Versa, the Inspire, or the Charge) come with some sort of free trial. Outside of the free trials, the service costs $10 per month or $80 for an annual subscription.
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2022-07-09T15:13:08Z
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Best Prime Day Fitbit Deals 2022: Charge 5 Is at an All-Time Low
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https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/deals/amazon-prime-day-fitbit-deals-2022-7
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Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn at a campaign event in Brunswick, Ohio on April 21, 2022.
Dustin Franz/Getty Images
Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego called for Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to lose his pension.
It comes after Flynn was fined nearly $40,000 by the US Army for failing to disclose financial payments.
Investigators said Flynn received approximately $450,000 from Russian and Turkish interests in 2015.
A House Democrat called for Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the ex-National Security Advisor under former President Donald Trump, to lose his pension.
It comes after the US Army said it wants to collect nearly $40,000 from Flynn, who the Department of Defense cited for failing to disclose financial payments and in-kind compensation.
"Just take his pension away and call it even. Traitors don't get pensions from the government they try to overthrow," Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona, tweeted.
The Army fine stems from Flynn attending a 2015 Moscow gala to celebrate the anniversary of Russia Today, a Russian state news network. In a May 2 letter, the Army informed Flynn that they would be seeking $38,557.06 for his attendance at the gala, where he was seated next to Russian President Vladimir Putin, The Washington Post first reported.
The Army also said Flynn violated the US Constitution's Emoluments Clause, which forbids members of the military from accepting payments from foreign governments without prior authorization. Flynn received approximately $450,000 in compensation from Russian and Turkish interests in 2015, investigators said.
"When there is a finding that a military retiree has violated the Emoluments Clause, the United States Government may pursue a debt collection," Army lawyer Craig Schmauder said in the May 2 letter to Flynn, per The Post.
A spokesperson for Flynn did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on Saturday.
Flynn recently testified before the House January 6 committee, where he pleaded the Fifth Amendment when asked whether he believed the violence on January 6, 2021, was justified.
Flynn publicly advocated for Trump to impose martial law and to use the US military to seize voting machines across the US amid the Trump administration's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
More: Michael Flynn Mike Flynn Russia Army
The US Army
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2022-07-09T16:43:22Z
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Dem Calls for Michael Flynn to Lose Pension for Fine Over Russia Link
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VP Kamala Harris told CBS that Democrats didn't codify Roe v. Wade because it was "just settled."
President Biden signed an executive order to fortify abortion rights.
After the Supreme Court decision leaked, the White House scrambled to safeguard abortion rights.
Vice President Kamala Harris defended Democrats for not codifying Roe v. Wade when they had the chance in the last several decades.
In an interview with CBS News' Robert Costa on Friday, Harris said Democrats believed Roe was "just settled."
"When you look back, did Democrats fail, past Democratic presidents, congressional leaders, to not codify Roe v. Wade over the past five decades?" Costa asked.
"I think that, to be very honest with you, I do believe that we should have rightly believed, but we certainly believed that certain issues are just settled," Harris said. "Certain issues are just settled."
Costa said that was "clearly" not the case following Roe's overturn.
"No, that's right. And that's why I do believe that we are living, sadly, in real unsettled times," Harris said.
—CBS News (@CBSNews) July 8, 2022
It comes on the heels of the Supreme Court's overturn of Roe v. Wade, which revoked the federal right to an abortion. A draft of the decision leaked in early May, leaving the White House and Democrats scrambling to secure avenues to protect abortion rights.
President Joe Biden signed an executive order to direct the Department of Health and Human Services to protect access to abortion care, including medication abortion and contraception access, Insider previously reported.
Following the Supreme Court decision, advocates for abortion rights called on President Joe Biden to initiate sweeping changes, such as expanding the Supreme Court and establishing abortion clinics on federal land. Biden has said his "administration will use all of its appropriate lawful powers" to help Americans retain access to abortion, but he has insisted the power to codify the right lies with Congress, not with him.
"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," Biden said. "No executive action from the president can do that."
More: Kamala Harris Joe Biden Abortion Roe v Wade
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2022-07-09T16:43:52Z
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VP: Dems Didn't Codify Roe V. Wade Because It Thought to Be 'Settled'
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https://www.businessinsider.com/harris-democrats-didnt-codify-roe-believed-certain-issues-just-settled-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/harris-democrats-didnt-codify-roe-believed-certain-issues-just-settled-2022-7
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The annual Sun Valley conference for moguls in the tech, finance, and media industries is underway.
Elon Musk spoke Saturday about building civilization on Mars and population decline, but didn't address his deal to buy Twitter, Reuters reported.
One day prior, Musk told Twitter he was terminating his $44 billion deal to take over the company.
Elon Musk spoke at the uber-exclusive Sun Valley conference this weekend about a range of topics, but his Twitter deal wasn't one of them.
During an interview with Sam Altman — CEO of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, which Musk co-founded — the Tesla CEO notably avoided the topic of his $44 billion deal to take over the social media company, Reuters reported, citing two people in attendance.
Musk devoted most of his remarks to the topics of building a society on Mars and his belief in the need to boost birth rates on Earth, one source told Reuters.
Both are familiar topics for Musk. He recently tweeted, "Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis," after Insider reported that he fathered previously unknown twins in November with Shivon Zilis, a top executive at Neuralink, one of his companies. He also added that he's "planning to increase childcare benefits at my companies significantly."
On Friday, a day prior to his Sun Valley interview, Musk's lawyers notified the US Securities Exchange Commission that he wants to back out of his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. The social media giant said in a statement it plans to take Musk to court to force him to buy the company.
Speculation over whether Musk would discuss the Twitter deal had been mounting even before Friday in the days leading up to the annual conference, which convenes top executives in tech, media, and finance to Sun Valley, Idaho, for a few days of hobnobbing and deal-making.
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2022-07-09T21:17:01Z
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Elon Musk Stays Quiet on Twitter Deal at Sun Valley: Reuters
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https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-stays-quiet-twitter-deal-at-sun-valley-conference-2022-7
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Transit costs have been on the rise due to record-high fuel prices and labor shortages.
A new report from NetCredit breaks down the cost of hailing an Uber across US cities.
Each of the top 10 priciest US cities for Uber have a rate above $20 for a less than 10 mile ride.
Thanks to record-breaking fuel costs and persistent labor shortages, transportation prices are continuing to climb, impacting everything from plane and train fares to rates for taxis and ride-hailing apps like Uber.
While Uber added a surcharge to rides in March to help drivers offset the skyrocketing price of gas, the company later removed the fees in May, frustrating employees struggling to keep up with costs. Last month, a leaked memo showed that Uber was increasing rates for rides in Phoenix, Arizona as part of an improved cost assistance program to replace the gas surcharge, Insider reported.
And though rising transit costs have hit nearly every part of the country, cost per ride varies significantly per region. New data from NetCredit identified the most expensive cities in the US to hail an Uber, based on the average price to travel 10 kilometers, or 6.2 miles.
See the top 10 most expensive cities to get an Uber, below:
10. Boston - $21.63
Stephan Savoia/AP Images
9. Washington D.C. - $21.86
8. Las Vegas - $21.99
7. Austin - $23.92
6. Portland - $25.60
5. Baltimore - $27.27
Jose Luis Stephens/Shutterstock
4. Seattle - $32.63
3. Denver - $33.91
2. Nashville - $34.63
Adina Olteanu/Getty Images
1. New York City - $34.74
More: Features Cars Uber Transportation
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2022-07-09T21:17:13Z
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Top 10 Most Expensive Cities in the US for an Uber Ride
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https://www.businessinsider.com/top-10-most-expensive-cities-in-us-for-uber-ride-2022-7
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A chief market strategist at a $1.8 billion firm explains why you should consider buying 'beaten-up' Chinese stocks and a risk-free, inflation-protected asset with a guaranteed 9.62% return as the market continues selling off
Investors have been aghast to watch the market in the first half of 2022, but there are still pockets of smart investments.
The Fed may be aggressively hiking rates now, but Marc Chandler says it will reverse course in 2023.
He advised investors to hedge their portfolios by buying risk-free I bonds with a 9.62% return.
On the other end, Chandler also foresees the opportunity to make profits from Chinese equities.
At this point, whether or not there's a forthcoming recession no longer seems to be up for debate. Instead, the big question looming over Wall Street right now is: How exactly does the timeline of an economic downturn play out?
According to Marc Chandler, the chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex, a division of $1.8 billion firm First Financial Bancorp, the timeline relies heavily on the actions of the Federal Reserve .
"The Federal Reserve does not want to get bitten by that same dog twice. Everybody and their mother accused them of being behind the curve, so the biggest mistake the Fed could make is saying once again, inflation's transitory or declare victory too early," said Chandler on the July 6 episode of "The Contrarian Investor Podcast."
"The key issue, I think, is that the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates and shrinking its balance sheet while the economy seems to be slowing," he continued, referencing depleting savings and rising consumer borrowing from credit cards and home equity as signs of prices becoming too inflated to support consumption at current levels. "All these things point to an inescapable conclusion that the economy is slowing down very rapidly and that the Federal Reserve wanted it to slow down, so they're going to continue to tighten policy."
As for a timeline, Chandler estimates a recession will start brewing later this year, but not become "evident" to investors until early next year. And while the Federal Reserve is aggressively hiking rates now, with the market pricing in another 100 basis points of rate hikes for the remainder of 2022, Chandler actually foresees the central bank reversing course again next year.
"The Fed is going to tighten until something breaks," he explained. "The market thinks the Fed's going to continue to raise rates this year, but they're going to break something that's going to lead them to cut rates by 25 basis points in Q3 and Q4 of next year. That's already priced in."
Buy I bonds for capital preservation
Ahead of an imminent economic decline, Chandler urged investors to focus on protecting their portfolios by purchasing inflation-linked bonds, which he acknowledged were a less exciting prospect than certain other asset classes.
"Sometimes a boring investment might be a good idea in times when the return of your money is more important than return on your money. This capital preservation is important," he explained.
Chandler recommended investors look into Series I Savings Bonds — commonly known as I bonds — because of their current inflation premium. These thirty-year bonds are issued and backed by the US Treasury, meaning that they're one of the safest investments available to retail investors.
Because I bonds are linked to inflation, they're reset every six months, and their interest rate currently stands at 9.62% through October 2022, when they're next due to be reset based on the new inflation reading. Investors receive the initial interest rate for the first six months of ownership, but are only eligible to buy up to $10,000 of I bonds in each calendar year.
"They're as risk-free of an investment as one can think of — a bond where the government is underwriting the inflation for you," said Chandler. "It's fairly liquid, but you do get a minor penalty for early liquidation."
He continued: "But imagine what could happen two or three years from now if inflation's back down and the yield on I bonds have fallen. You give up a smaller yield to liquidate and buy the stock or crypto again that you're currently avoiding."
Buy "beaten-up" Chinese stocks
On the other end of the risk spectrum, Chandler also foresees opportunity in Chinese equities as the country continues to reopen. The Chinese stock market already outperformed last month, he explained, after previously being "terribly beaten up."
"Foreigners bailed out of Chinese bonds and stocks in the first part of the year when China was in a horrible lockdown. Their economy could have contracted, but most of that took place in April and May. In June, the economy's recovering," he explained, pointing to positive recent PMI numbers that indicate an expanding manufacturing sector.
At least in the near term, Chandler believes that the Chinese government will continue "juicing up" the economy, and he recommended investors buy into Chinese equity exchange-traded funds like the iShares China Large-Cap ETF (FXI) in anticipation of these policy actions.
"This is a trade idea, not a lifetime marriage — buying Chinese stocks that were pulled back and beaten up," he said. "They should have the kind of recovery we saw in the US and Europe, where you've got a jump in activity after the reopening."
More: Investing Stock Market Strategy 2022 stock market strategy
stocks Fed interest rates inflation
Chinese Stock market
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2022-07-10T10:09:18Z
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Bear Market Investing Advice: Buy I Bonds & Cheap Chinese Stocks
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https://www.businessinsider.com/bear-market-investing-cheap-stocks-to-buy-i-bonds-chinese-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/bear-market-investing-cheap-stocks-to-buy-i-bonds-chinese-2022-7
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GOLDMAN SACHS: These 13 stocks have the most dramatic upside as equities slowly recover from their bear market plunge — including 8 that will more than double in value over the next year
It's been a disappointing start to the year for investors, but Goldman Sachs sees hope ahead.
Goldman Sachs says US stocks have 10% upside overall for the remainder of 2022.
Like many firms, Goldman sees a stock picker's market ahead.
Chief US Equity Strategist David Kostin says eight names could double in value over the next year.
Like many of its Wall Street brethren, Goldman Sachs has steadily lowered its expectations for the stock market over the first half of 2022.
As of May, the firm believes the S&P 500 will finish the year at 4,300, about 10% above where it's trading today. That target would have been a serious disappointment to most traders on January 1, but after the index's worst first half of the year in more than 50 years, a rally like that would at least ease some of the pain.
Still, Chief US Equity Strategist David Kostin says earnings forecasts for S&P 500 companies are too high for both this year and next. If he's right and investors conclude that profits won't live up to their expectations, it could lead to even more stock market volatility .
While Kostin expects the US won't fall into a recession next year, he says the S&P 500 could decline to 3,150 if a recession hits. That would wipe out a year's worth of gains.
And it doesn't look like economic stimulus packages, easy monetary policy, or rock-bottom interest rates are going to keep stocks rising in relative unison. So Goldman Sachs, like many other firms, think this is going to be a stock-picker's market.
To that end, Kostin just published a list of the S&P 500 stocks with the most upside to his firm's price targets. Unsurprisingly, stocks that have been slammed in the pandemic because of their sensitivity to COVID-19 are well-represented. Those include casinos, cruise lines, and companies connected to travel.
The 13 stocks are ranked below from lowest to highest based on how much upside Goldman Sachs thinks they offer relative to those price targets. Percentages were calculated based on Thursday's closing prices.
13. Expedia Group
Upside to target: 78.9%
12. Freeport-McMoRan
11. Las Vegas Sands
Ticker: LVS
9. Generac Holdings
Ticker: GNRC
8. Wynn Resorts
Ticker: WYNN
Upside to target: 100.5%
Ticker: RCL
4. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings
Ticker: NCLH
Ticker: CCL
2. Penn National Gaming
Ticker: PENN
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2022-07-10T10:09:24Z
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Stock Picks to Buy: Goldman Sachs' 13 Highest Upside Investments
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https://www.businessinsider.com/investing-stock-picks-to-buy-goldman-sachs-high-upside-profit-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/investing-stock-picks-to-buy-goldman-sachs-high-upside-profit-2022-7
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After recent spikes, mortgage rates seem to have calmed a bit, with 30-year fixed rates holding steady below 5.5%.
Rates have been increasing consistently throughout 2022, and may continue to rise if inflation doesn't slow. Though higher rates aren't necessarily welcome news for hopeful homebuyers, they have led to a slightly more normal housing market.
Over the past two years, historically-low rates pushed a record number of buyers into the market, causing home prices to shoot up. As getting a mortgage has become more expensive, demand has cooled, which puts less upward pressure on home prices.
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2022-07-10T10:09:30Z
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Today's Mortgage, Refinance Rates: July 10, 2022 | Rates Steady
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https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/best-mortgage-refinance-rates-today-sunday-july-10-2022-7
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7 of the most affordable cities to buy a home surrounded by nature
Americans are moving to places where they can enjoy nature every day. Here are seven cities where that's actually affordable.
SanyaSM/Getty Images
There's often a premium on homes with views of nature in US cities.
An analysis suggests bucolic homes in these cities are below or around the US median asking price.
The cities — mostly in the South and mid-Atlantic — boast views of mountains, deserts, or forests.
Scoring a city house with a view of nature comes at a premium, but there are some cities where that's likelier to become a reality for the typical homebuyer.
A recent report from American Home Shield, a home-warranty company in Memphis that said it analyzed how a home's view affected the average price, suggests that finding a home with a picturesque view of a forest or mountain peak is easier in Southern states than in big cities in the Northeast and in California.
"The global pandemic has caused millions of Americans to reconsider where they live," the report said. "Working habits have changed, and an increasing number of people are seeking out a change of scenery."
Indeed, many people, unchained from their office desks, have left expensive cities behind for places where they can experience the great outdoors, often at a cheaper price.
The company said that using data from Zillow, it isolated how three variables affected the cost of homes in 76 cities: whether the home had a nature view, a water view, or a city view.
It determined that homes with a waterfront view had the highest premium, pulling up the price by about 78%. Meanwhile, homes with nature views cost homebuyers on average 44.2% more.
It found that the most expensive places to buy a home with a nature view included Santa Ana, California; Austin, Texas; and Glendale, Arizona. In these places, homebuyers looking to peer over the Pacific Ocean, watch bluebonnets bloom in Texas Hill Country, or ponder desert fauna from their living-room window are likely to pay over $1 million.
Luckily, those premiums don't apply to all the cities on the company's list. Homes with nature views in some places generally cost under or around the median asking price in the US, which hit $450,000 in June, according to Realtor.com.
Four of these cities are in the Sun Belt, while the other three are in Maryland, Virginia, and Nebraska.
While the company focused on cities, homes in smaller municipalities and rural areas, which typically have greater access to nature, generally cost less than homes in urban areas.
But if a combo of city life and nature at a reasonable cost is what you're looking for, here's where you're most likely to find it.
Mountains provide a desert backdrop near North Las Vegas, Nevada.
Katie Barker / EyeEm/Getty Images
Population: About 274,000
Possible nature views: Mountain ranges; views of wildlife in the Mojave Desert.
6. Chesapeake, Virginia
A Virginia landscape.
Grant Wills / EyeEm/Getty Images
Possible nature views: Indian River Park; forest; swamps; the Northwest River Natural Area Preserve.
5. St. Petersburg, Florida
The sun rises behind palm trees in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Possible nature views: Boyd Hill Nature Preserve; palm trees; forest.
Desert greenery in El Paso, Texas, at sunset.
Mark A Paulda/Getty Images
Possible nature views: McKelligon Canyon; Franklin mountain range; desert vegetation.
A home surrounded by trees and flowers in Baltimore, Maryland.
Greg Pease/Getty Images
Possible nature views: Carrie Murray Nature Center; parks including Federal Hill Park; dogwood and linden trees.
A forest edge in Lincoln, Nebraska, at dawn.
Austin Wehrwein / 500px/Getty Images
Possible nature views: Wilderness Park; meadows; forest; heritage trees.
A tree branch in Norfolk, Virginia.
Melanie Uadjit / 500px/Getty Images
Possible nature views: Weyanoke Bird and Wildflower Sanctuary; Norfolk Botanical Garden.
More: Features Real Estate Nature Homebuyer
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2022-07-10T11:53:58Z
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These 7 Cities Have Affordable Homes Surrounded by Nature
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https://www.businessinsider.com/affordable-cities-buy-home-nature-view-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/affordable-cities-buy-home-nature-view-2022-7
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Shoshy Ciment/Business Insider
Sam's Club, Costco's biggest competitor, has a very similar food court with roughly the same prices.
I visited both food courts to see how they stack up.
First up, I went to Costco.
Kate Taylor/Business Insider
I really appreciate the convenience of ordering at one of the many kiosks near the counter, which is especially useful as lines start to get long around meal time
I ordered a hot dog and soda combo, a slice of pizza, and a churro for $5.38.
The busy food court is very efficient, calling each order number as it's ready.
I picked up my food just a few minutes later and joined many other Costco customers to sit down and eat, though I typically take it with me to go.
The pepperoni pizza was large and smelled absolutely delicious.
Holding it up to see the full size, it looks like nearly a quarter of a full-size pizza.
Though it was a bit greasier than I'd prefer, I'd order it again any time.
The pepperoni was perfectly crispy.
I also ordered my first churro from Costco, which was temporarily removed from menus during the pandemic.
It was also quite large.
The churro was warm, sweet, and slightly cinnamon flavored. It's now going to be part of my regular order.
Costco is most famous for its $1.50 hot dog and soda combination, so I had to try that, too.
Even though I've had Costco hot dogs before, I was still shocked at how hearty it was. It comes wrapped in a paper bag.
The bun was soft and warm, substantial enough to stand up to the hot dog without getting soggy.
I was especially impressed by the texture of the hot dog, which wasn't too wet or mushy.
The drink selection wasn't especially extensive, but it was enough to get the job done.
Since my visit, Costco has raised the price of sodas and chicken bakes.
Even with the higher prices, I found Costco's food court to be basic but well done. It isn't fancy, but everything it sells is high quality and affordable.
Next up was Sam's Club, which has a small food counter near a corner of the store.
Though I visited at lunch time, it wasn't busy at all and I was able to quickly order at the counter.
While I waited for my food, I watched pizzas being prepared.
I got the hot dog and pizza combos.
My food was ready quickly, and I went to sit at one of the cafeteria style tables near the counter. They're the same type as at Costco.
Sam's Club branded disinfectant wipes on each table were a nice touch.
The pizza slice came on a paper plate while the hot dog was wrapped in paper.
The cashier also handed me an empty soda cup branded with Costco's private label, Member's Mark, which I could fill myself.
The soda fountain was large and impressive, with plenty of choices...
...including lemonade, iced tea, and different sodas. It was much larger than Costco's.
I was especially drawn to this berry lime Mountain Dew flavor.
The slice of pizza I was served was massive.
Here it is next to my head for scale.
It was delicious and not too greasy, definitely worth the $2.50 I paid.
I'm not sure I could distinguish between Costco and Sam's Club pizza, so they were roughly on par.
There was also ketchup, mustard, red pepper flakes, and parmesan.
Sam's Club and Costco have very similar food courts, but Costco wins thanks to a superior hot dog, more convenient ordering and service, and delicious churros.
More: Features business news visual features Retail food court
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2022-07-10T11:54:16Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Costco Vs. Sam's Club Food Court Comparison Photos: Hot Dogs, Pizza, Soda
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https://www.businessinsider.com/costco-vs-sams-food-court-comparison-photos-hot-dogs-pizza-soda-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/costco-vs-sams-food-court-comparison-photos-hot-dogs-pizza-soda-2022-7
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I traveled from London to Amsterdam by train and back by plane.
I got the Eurostar to Amsterdam and flew back.
My standard class Eurostar ticket cost $198.
It was free to bring suitcases on the Eurostar.
The flight took 75 minutes.
EasyJet warned me of delays at Schiphol.
Schiphol told people not to arrive more than four hours before their flight.
There was a huge line of passengers queueing to drop their bags off.
A screen said that EasyJet check-in wouldn't actually open until two hours before the flight departed.
There were long queues at Schiphol.
The Eurostar departs from St. Pancras station in London.
There were queues at St. Pancras, too.
I was able to keep liquids in my bags when traveling by Eurostar.
Schiphol's departure lounge really didn't seem too busy.
A lot of the concessions in the airport were closed.
Schiphol has a "library" in departures.
St. Pancras has a departure lounge for Eurostar passengers.
St. Pancras had a departure lounge for Eurostar passengers.
There are three seats on either side of the aisle on the plane.
I had plenty of leg room.
The Eurostar was split into two and four-person seating configurations.
I stowed my suitcase at the end of the carriage.
I had plenty of space on the train.
The free Eurostar WiFi was very unreliable.
Both companies sold food onboard, but it is expensive.
Grace Dean/
The Eurostar took me straight to the center of Amsterdam.
The Eurostar took me to Amsterdam Centraal station.
I had to spend a lot of time sitting around or queueing in airports before and after my flight.
Ultimately I preferred traveling by Eurostar.
More: Features Eurostar EasyJet plane
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2022-07-10T11:54:22Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Train or Plane? Eurostar and EasyJet From London to Amsterdam Compared
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https://www.businessinsider.com/eurostar-train-easyjet-flight-london-amsterdam-comparison-review-uk-netherlands-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/eurostar-train-easyjet-flight-london-amsterdam-comparison-review-uk-netherlands-2022-7
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Most national parks are welcoming fewer visitors this year.
George Frey/ Getty Images
National Parks are witnessing a drop in visitors this year as higher costs of fuel are putting off travelers, according to official figures reported by the Financial Times.
Most parks enjoyed a rise in visitors last year as pandemic restrictions eased but travelling overseas remained difficult.
However, 14 out of 19 national parks have recorded fewer visitors in 2022, data from the National Park Service showed.
The number of tourists the parks attract is slightly above 2019 levels, but down by 5% compared with last year.
An analyst at Morning Consult, Lindsey Roeschke, told the FT that people have preferred to travel by car because of the pandemic, but may be put off by soaring prices and therefore less inclined to drive.
The average cost of gas in the US on Sunday was $4.68 a gallon, according to AAA Gas Prices.
Joel and Deb Brettingen, who live full-time in a luxury RV, said the cost of gas had spiked and they now had to be more strategic about where they visited. "It's sucking everyone in the RV community. We budgeted $300 for gas and ended up paying $900 in May."
Another couple, Lindsey and Bruce Roberts, says they anticipated that prices were going up eight months ago when they chose to move to Yellowstone National Park and work part-time.
The Roberts have part-time jobs at a nonprofit bookstore at Yellowstone. "We actually anticipated that and it's why we're here and not traveling around the country having to pay for fuel," the couple said.
"We feel like we're hiding out from everything going on in the world for the summer but will have to deal with extra costs come October."
The Roberts said they could see on Facebook groups that RV owners have been cutting back. "It's affecting certain parts of the community so we are glad to be hiding out here in one of our favorite places," they added.
More: Travel Gas National Parks Transportation
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2022-07-10T11:54:52Z
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Soaring Gas Prices Are Keeping Visitors Away From National Parks
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https://www.businessinsider.com/soaring-gas-prices-are-keeping-visitors-away-from-national-parks-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/soaring-gas-prices-are-keeping-visitors-away-from-national-parks-2022-7
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Meet the stock market's biggest losers — and what they have in common
Meet the big, bigger, and biggest losers of the market crash: retail investors, hedge-fund titans, and crypto bros.
This time last year, the stock market was climbing ever higher, meme-stock traders were still riding the afterglow of their victories over rationality (and short sellers), and charlatans stood on every street corner of the media chiding would-be investors for missing out on this SPAC or that NFT.
But all of that is over now.
If 2021 was the bright, sunny day for markets, then 2022 is the cold, dark night. The bubble has popped and the charlatans I warned you about have all-but disappeared, leaving a trail of losses behind them. The S&P 500 is down 20% since the start of the year and booked its worst first half since 1970. The tech-heavy Nasdaq has fallen 30% — its worst half-year since 2001. And bitcoin, which peaked in November 2021 at $70,000 a coin, has collapsed below $20,000.
But amid the widespread carnage, not all losses are the same. Some investors will have lost a few thousand dollars in this rout and will never care to trade the markets again. Some will lose billions and return to Wall Street's casino in short order, flush with cash. And for some, this loss will be about more than money, it will be about a shattered dream.
What all of these losers have in common is that they thought this time was different — but it never is. They thought the rules of the market no longer applied, and that favorable economic conditions would never end. But they always do, leaving those who do not realize their moment has passed holding the bag.
Big losers: retail investors
A lot of bubbles crescendo as people in the market start to pretend what was old is new again. Take, for instance, SPACs — special-purpose acquisition companies. SPACs allow a company to go public without disclosing all of its financial and corporate data. Investors pool money into a public dummy company and merge with a private company, thereby taking the private company public. A SPAC's structure largely benefits those who get in early — that is to say, bankers, venture capitalists, and hedge funders who promote and raise money for the initial pool.
SPACs were hot during the tech bubble at the end of the 1990s, but interest died off until 2019, when one of tech's most vacuous luminaries, venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, decided to launch one. Suddenly, SPACs were all the rage: 248 launched and 64 companies went public via the process in 2020. Another 613 investment vehicles were launched in 2021, and 199 SPAC companies hit the public markets. Investors poured nearly $250 billion into SPACs over that two-year stretch.
But as soon as the SPAC ship took off, it came crashing back down to earth. Of those 199 SPACs that went public last year, only 11% were trading above their offer price as of April and had returned a collective loss of 43% year-to-date. Part of the reason for the flops is that the SPAC process allows investors to make lofty claims about future performance. That lets them sweep a lot of what is ugly about their financial condition under the rug. Regulators started paying attention to this trend, and have proposed rules to make it easier for investors to sue SPACs for this kind of doublespeak.
But the renewed regulatory attention comes too late for many mom-and-pop retail investors who have already been burned. The problem is that retail investors — who don't get to invest until the tail end of the SPAC lifecycle — end up bearing the brunt of the harebrained business schemes. (Meanwhile the banks and big funds that prop up these SPACs collect plenty of cash by way of fees and early investments.) A Harvard study found that while most SPACs "issue shares for roughly $10 ... by the time of the merger the median SPAC holds cash of just $6.67 per share." According to a report by Vanda Research, retail investors have lost $4.8 billion — and counting — investing in SPACs.
After touching the hot stove, retail investors are cooling on SPACs and the fad is starting to die. SPAC issuance has slowed and mergers are getting canceled right and left. Popular SPAC'd companies like Lordstown Motors — an electric-vehicle manufacturer — faced fraud allegations. Guys like Palihapitiya have stopped calling in to CNBC to pump their SPACs. Probably because they've all cratered.
Much like they relearned the SPAC lessons of the last tech bubble, retail investors are also relearning what happens when you dump everything into companies with big promises for the future but little cash in the present. Part of SPACs' and tech companies' struggles are due to rising interest rates — which makes new debt funding harder to come by and investors more interested in businesses that generate cash in the here and now. An estimated 20 million retail investors got involved in the market during the pandemic, pouring money into hot stocks. Now those same high-growth tech companies are taking it on the chin: Favorites like Etsy are seeing their stock prices slashed, from $274 a share at its peak in 2021 to $73 now, or Carvana, which peaked at $337 and now sits around $22.
Given the market's violent turn, retail investors have been backing away — albeit very slowly. In May, everyday investors were still pouring $1.4 billion into the stock market, according to Vanda, despite the fact that the average retail portfolio had lost about 32% for the year to that point. It's only in the last few weeks that firms like Goldman Sachs are seeing retail investors refuse to buy the dip.
The fact of the matter is, ordinary Joe investors have been beaten pretty badly by this rout, so here's some advice: Put down your Robinhood apps, buy a sensible index fund with any money you have left, and stop looking at your portfolio until the bear market is over. It was not different this time, and it won't be different next time. Lesson learned, if you can stomach it.
Bigger losers: hedge-fund managers
I can excuse retail investors for jumping into investing trends — everyone falls for a fad occasionally. But the bigger failures of this market rout are the Wall Street professionals and their sophisticated clients who should have known better.
There are lots of ways to lose money as a hedge-fund manager, and one of them is by no longer doing any actual hedging — protecting their portfolios by structuring them with positions with opposing risk. But in the wild ride higher, a bunch of supposedly sensible firms threw caution to the wind and started acting like drunk venture capitalists, taking big stakes in startups and throwing money at every tech founder with a PowerPoint presentation and the right bit of Silicon Valley pedigree. This is fine when assets are going up, but the point of a hedge fund — and what clients pay massive fees for — is to be protected when things start to come back down.
The biggest of these firms was Tiger Global, run by a blue-blooded New Yorker named Chase Coleman. Instead of sticking to trading securities, Tiger decided to go full tilt into the opaque world of high-growth tech startups. The firm launched a venture fund so aggressive it was raising eyebrows across Wall Street even before the crash. The Financial Times called its strategy "pay and spray." Now Tiger's strategy is coming back to bite it. The firm's year-to-date loss hit 52% through the end of May and wiped out $17 billion of assets. It's been a bloodbath, and it's not over.
Tiger, and other venture-fund wannabes like D1 Capital and Softbank, were able to charge eye-watering fees and raise incredible amounts of money from their supposedly sophisticated investors because the returns were astronomical — until they weren't. Yes, sophisticated market players kept warning that the day would come when interest rates would go up and all of this tech junk would get marked down, but perhaps the big investors thought the professionals would figure out how to turn the ship around before it was too late. The problem is, these firms are so big their ships are the Titanic.
There is, of course, an advantage to having a Titanic, and that is the titanic fees that managers are able to collect. Chase Coleman may be one of the bigger losers of this bear market, but he'll eventually land on his feet, as will most of his millionaire investors. What will suffer is his reputation. But who needs that when you have a $122 million mansion in Palm Beach? The dark secret of Wall Street is that men like Coleman blow up funds and start again all the time. Ideally, the next time they get to play a Master of the Universe, they've learned their lesson — but probably not.
Biggest losers: crypto bros
Retail investors have taken a hit, sure, and hedge funds have seen billions go up in smoke, yes, but let's be clear: The biggest losers in this current sell-off are the crypto evangelists who confused the financial markets with a movement, and returns with religion. They may hold (or HODL if you spend too much time on the internet) their investments until they go to zero and still not understand what went wrong.
If you turn on the financial news, you will see a parade of crypto investors whining about how they've "lost confidence in the Federal Reserve ." They are upset that the Fed has hiked interest rates to cool inflation, even though the point of so-called decentralized finance is that there is supposed to be no link between our financial system and the crypto market. That obviously isn't true, and now the crypto evangelists think it's the end of the world. That's because it is — but only for them.
Take this guy: Michael Novogratz, the CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners. He's a guy who got a giant tattoo on his arm inspired by the now-collapsed crypto currency called Luna and says the economy is going to collapse as well. Do not listen to people like this. They are, as we say on Wall Street, "talking their book." Their confidence in the handling of an economy is directly correlated to how much money they're making. And now that it has become a lot more difficult to make money on volatile assets like stocks, it has basically become an act of suicide to bet on imaginary assets like crypto.
I'm sorry to say, this won't end here. These investors will hold on until they're wiped out. Take Three Arrows Capital, a Singapore-based, crypto-focused hedge fund that once had $3 billion under management and just went bust, defaulting on a $665 million loan. The founders say they still believe in crypto. Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of crypto exchange FTX, is picking up other smaller crypto firms to add to his empire, despite the obvious fact that this is all built on quicksand. It's because — against all evidence — he still believes.
Despite all the shady characters, theft, ransom and pure fakery, crypto people still believe. Some of them will lose everything. But that doesn't mean they will go away.
Some of them are already retreads from previous busts. Michael Saylor, a crypto advocate and the CEO of the tech-services company Microstrategy, flew the firm into a mountain during the 2000 tech bubble. That didn't stop him from going all in on the crypto boom. Microstrategy plowed billions into buying bitcoin to supposedly diversify its holdings. Now the company's stock is down 70% for the year.
Finally, there are the people who got into crypto early and will linger because they'll always be rich. Take the Winklevoss twins — yes, of Facebook fame. They are currently going through a round of layoffs at their crypto firm, Gemini. And they have taken heavy personal losses, but they got into crypto so early that they'll stay rich even as crypto keeps tanking. It's likely that they'll be lurking on some corner of the internet for the rest of time, trying to lure people into what is, essentially, their crypto pyramid scheme. They may never be broke, but that has never stopped them from looking like gigantic losers.
Learn from these mistakes … or don't
Not all market crashes are created equal, nor do they treat everyone equally. What they all have in common is a near-collective temporary suspension of disbelief. This is a lesson that can turn people off the market for the rest of their lives, or mold them into better investors — the kind who can see a bubble forming. They'll know, from now on, that when it comes to stocks, always hold onto your skepticism — especially when it seems like anyone can play. And for the love of God, don't buy any more crypto.
More: Stock Market Stock Market Crash crypto Bitcoin
D1 Capital
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2022-07-10T11:54:58Z
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Biggest Stock Market Crash Losers: Retail Investors, Wall Street Hedge Funds, Crypto Bros
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https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-losers-investors-wall-street-hedge-fund-crypto-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-losers-investors-wall-street-hedge-fund-crypto-2022-7
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I went to one of Europe's biggest theme parks and met my Prince Charming on a surprisingly relaxing ride
Insider's Sam Tabahriti and the Europa entrance.
I went to Europa-Park, one of Europe's biggest theme parks that can welcome 60,000 visitors a day.
I tried several of the big rollercoasters but met my Prince Charming on a more relaxing ride.
I even felt at home in the French district and left the park feeling happy.
I went to Europa-Park, one of Europe's biggest theme parks in Rust, southwest Germany, tried some crazy rides - and met my Prince Charming.
The Poseidon rollercoaster.
Philipp von Ditfurth/Getty Images
Adult tickets cost $57 (€55) and parking is $8. An aquatic park called "Rulantica" is also attached to Europa.
The park's mascot is Ed Euromaus.
As I arrived at the entrance of the park, which can accommodate 60,000 guests a day, I became a kid again – excitement took over.
The entrance of the park.
I was so excited to hop on all the rollercoasters, including this wooden ride called Wodan. It's noisy, but it is the one I laughed the most on.
A view of the Wodan.
Sun was out – it reached nearly 100 degrees that day, and it couldn't be more pleasant. The park wasn't too crowded and the longest we waited to get on a ride was 45 minutes.
Insider's Sam Tabahriti.
Queue times vary, depending on what days you visit, but the queues tend to move quickly. There could be a 60-minute queue for Silver Star, but you rarely get held in one spot for too long.
Queues at the entrance of the park.
What surprised me was the church in the middle of the park. Its website says: "We consider the stave church as an oasis of quiet in the midst of fun-filled liveliness, between wildwater rafting and rollercoasters." It can be used for "a wedding anniversary, a themed service or a surprising conversation with us."
A church is located in the middle of the park.
The park is massive – about 234 acres, or 95 hectares. It has six hotels, a campground and a movie theater.
The park was not too crowded when I visited.
The Silver Star is probably one of my favorite rollercoasters. Fast and smooth, it feels as though you're flying. Compared with the Wodan, this one is gentle and it doesn't feel shaky.
Silver Star.
The park has many rides involving water. I wouldn't have minded a swim that day, but I went fjord rafting instead.
Fjord rafting.
Andrew Parsons/Getty Images
The Atlantica SuperSplash is also a great way to cool down. It starts by going up, before descending backwards and then hitting the big splash.
Atlantica SuperSplash.
The park has everything you could want, from children's rides to extreme rollercoasters for the most daring. There are even two ways of getting from one end of the park to the other: a train and a tram called the EP Express.
Blue Fire, one of the two biggest rollercoasters.
The EP Express takes you from Spain to the other side of Europa-Park, stopping at Greece, Germany and the hotels.
EP Express.
The park has more than 100 attractions and shows, 13 rollercoasters, and 18 themed areas including France – where I am from.
A map of Europa-Park.
The "Quartier Français" (French area) has bridges resembling those in Paris, as wel as restaurants with terraces. The smell of crepes filled the air, and music was playing softly in the background.
The park's French restaurant.
It even has a replica of the Moulin Rouge – a landmark of Parisian nightlife that has been lit up on Montmartre since the 19th century – and a ride called the CanCan Coaster.
A replica of the Moulin Rouge.
After a long day of being thrown into the air, having an adrenaline overdose, it was time for a calmer ride.
Josefina’s Magical Imperial Journey.
I was surprised how this calm ride made me feel. I wasn't ready for what came next.
Josefina's Magical Imperial Journey.
My Prince Charming, who was holding a golden rose, had been waiting for me this whole time. He looked at me and I knew straight away: let us continue this journey together.
Statue of my charming prince.
As we glided along, he introduced me to his mother (or so I assumed), Josefina. She was elegant and looked at me kindly.
Josefina's Magical Imperial Journey was truly magical. My day ended on a positive note and despite its madness I still felt rested.
More: Features Weekend BI UK europa-park theme park
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2022-07-10T13:42:50Z
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I Met My Prince Charming at One of Europe's Biggest Theme Parks
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https://www.businessinsider.com/i-visited-europe-biggest-theme-park-met-my-prince-charming-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/i-visited-europe-biggest-theme-park-met-my-prince-charming-2022-6
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"Zack Snyder's Justice League"
The research firm Parrot Analytics recently launched a new "movie demand" metric.
It measures engagement with movies beyond box-office results.
Here are the most in-demand movies since last July, according to the company's findings.
The research firm Parrot Analytics recently launched "movie demand," a metric that measures the engagement and popularity of films beyond the box office.
Parrot Analytics' audience demand measurement reflects engagement with a title that includes not just viewership, but also social-media interaction and online research.
The company provided Insider with a list of the most in-demand movies from July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022.
The movies are a mix of theatrical exclusives, streaming exclusives, and movies that were released simultaneously in both formats. They reflect the different strategies that Hollywood studios adopted during the pandemic.
The data shows how franchise IP, particularly superhero movies, will continue to dominate the theatrical space, while family animation is attractive on streaming platforms.
Demand in this case reflects how much more in demand each movie was compared to the average. The top 10 most in-demand movies during that time period follow.
10. "Encanto" (Disney)
Demand: 36.95
US box office: $96 million
Global box office: $256 million
9. "Black Widow" (Disney)
"Black Widow."
US box office: $183 million
*Debuted simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+ for an additional $30 fee
8. "Zack Snyder's Justice League" (Warner Bros.)
*Debuted on exclusively on HBO Max for no additional fee to subscribers; no box office reported
7. "Luca" (Disney)
*Debuted exclusively on Disney+ for no additional fee to subscribers; no box office reported
6. "Godzilla vs. Kong" (Warner Bros.)
*Debuted simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max for no additional fee to subscribers
5. "Turning Red" (Disney)
"Turning Red."
4. "The Batman" (Warner Bros.)
Robert Pattinson as Batman in "The Batman."
3. "Eternals" (Disney)
2. "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" (Sony)
1. "Spider-Man: No Way Home" (Sony)
Tom Holland in "Spider-Man: No Way Home."
Matt Kennedy/Sony Pictures/Marvel
Global box office: $1.9 billion
Breaking the data down by quarter reveals more movies that consumers heavily engaged with, even if they underwhelmed at the box office.
Emma Stone in "Cruella."
Laurie Sparham/Disney
"The Suicide Squad" made just $168 million at the global box office, including $55 million in the US. It was available to stream on HBO Max while it was in theaters.
While it disappointed at the box office, it was one of Warner Bros.' most popular movies last year on HBO Max, as part of its simultaneous release strategy. It was watched by nearly 3 million households in its first weekend, according to data by the measurement company Samba TV (which only measures viewership in the US on connected-TV devices).
The Parrot Analytics data reflects how the movie drove engagement despite its box-office woes. It was the sixth most in-demand movie of Q3 2021.
The most in-demand movies of Q3 2021:
"Luca"
"Black Widow"
"Cruella"
"Godzilla vs Kong"
"Space Jam: A New Legacy"
"The Suicide Squad"
"F9: The Fast Saga"
"Venom"
"Mortal Kombat"
Q4 2021 showed the power of a theatrical window in driving demand, and reflected studios' shift back to embracing the window, as over half of the most in-demand movies were exclusively in theaters.
"Dune."
The data also demonstrates how demand for a sequel can drive engagement with its predecessor. Both 2018's "Venom" and last year's sequel "Let There Be Carnage" were among the most in-demand movies of Q4.
Most in-demand movies of Q4 2021:
"Venom: Let There Be Carnage"
"Spider-Man: No Way Home"
"Eternals"
"No Time to Die"
"Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"
"Dune"
"Godzilla vs. Kong"
The first quarter of 2022 was dominated by "Spider-Man: No Way Home," the biggest movie at the worldwide box office that was released in 2021. Sometimes, a movie is so big that its financial success coincides with high demand, and vice versa.
Sony, which released "No Way Home," is the only major Hollywood studio without its own streaming component, meaning it has balanced between exclusive theatrical releases and licensing movies to streamers, like Netflix and Apple. Movies like "No Way Home," Parrot Analytics said, are a lesson in what kinds of films can drive demand while in theaters and then become a valuable streaming acquisition after its run.
"Since in-demand genres that perform well theatrically also tend to lead demand for titles on streaming, companies like Sony can hit on a double whammy for projects that play in theaters for a certain amount of time (between 35 and 45 days being the sweet spot) and then through ancillary revenue like PVOD and Pay-1 partners," Parrot Analytics said in its movie-demand report.
"Turning Red"
Demand in Q2 this year shows how word-of-mouth can drive demand, not just box-office returns. "The Northman" was a disappointment in theaters, but was in high demand, suggesting it could be a solid streaming movie.
"Sonic the Hedgehog 2"
More: Features Hollywood Movies Box Office
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2022-07-10T13:42:56Z
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Most 'in-Demand' Movies Go Beyond Box Office: 'Encanto,' 'No Way Home'
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https://www.businessinsider.com/most-popular-movies-beyond-box-office-justice-league-encanto-spiderman-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/most-popular-movies-beyond-box-office-justice-league-encanto-spiderman-2022-7
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Jason Lalljee and Ben Winck
Economist Dean Baker
Kevin G. Hall/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Economists have said a recession looks increasingly likely next year as consumer prices have continued to rise in recent months.
But the decreasing costs of gas and other goods means we may be able to avoid one, according to famed economist Dean Baker.
Lower inflation means the Fed wouldn't have to hike rates, which means a lower recession risk.
Inflation has been hitting Americans where it hurts, namely at the gas pump and the grocery store.
And it hasn't been inspiring confidence in the economy. One recent survey shows that most Americans think the country is currently in a recession , even though it's not. However, many economists are predicting that the US will be in one next year.
Data published in early June showed prices soaring at a year-over-year pace of 8.6% in May, reflecting the fastest inflation since 1981. The print played a major role in the Federal Reserve conducting its largest rate hike in nearly three decades.
The more aggressive rate hike and hints that the central bank could approve another such increase in July ratcheted up concerns that, in order to bring inflation to heel, the Fed would have to slam the brakes on the economy.
Wall Street quickly responded. Goldman Sachs economists raised the odds of a recession occurring in the next 12 months to 30% from 15%. Analysts at Morgan Stanley boosted the probability of such a downturn to 35%, and Bloomberg Economics pegged the odds at 38%.
There's reason, however, to be optimistic, according to economist Dean Baker, co-founder of the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research. Inflation is slowing, he told Insider, and that could keep the US from entering a recession next year.
"This should mean good news for both consumers seeing lower prices and also for the Fed in its efforts to contain inflation," he said. "If the reports of price cuts are reflected in inflation data for June and July, it will not be necessary for the Fed to continue on a path of aggressive rate hikes, which means the risks of a recession would be radically reduced."
"In principle, this could mean that we are back on a path of healthy growth, with moderate inflation, and low unemployment, by the end of 2022." he said.
Baker earned widespread acclaim earlier in his career as one of the first economists to sound the alarm on the housing bubble and ensuing crash in 2007 and 2008. He was given the Revere Award for his efforts, alongside Steven Keen and Nouriel Roubini.
Detailed below are Baker's three reasons inflation is abating and the odds of a recession have decreased.
(1) The cost of rent is tapering off in many cities
Rents were soaring in lockstep with home prices through much of the pandemic, but the latest data suggests the rally is cooling.
The median rent for a one-bedroom unit rose just 0.5% through June, according to Zumper's US rent index, reflecting much weaker growth compared to the 1% to 2% monthly increases typically seen over the past two years.
Two-bedroom rents, meanwhile, slid 2.9% last month. The decline could suggest some Americans who'd been waiting for a better time to buy a house are making the leap now that prices are easing, Zumper's analysts said.
Rent growth over the next several months will likely look more like a gradual slide than a sudden crash, they added. Still, the June data offers an encouraging sign that one of the most important inflation sources is returning to a more sustainable trend.
(2) Retailers are lowering their prices due to excess inventory
After months of insufficient supply and unwavering demand at some of the country's biggest retail chains, the script has flipped.
Walmart told investors in June that the company had stockpiled excess inventory, and that it could take "maybe a couple of quarters" to trim down its supply.
Macy's warned that markdowns on bolstered inventory could weigh on profits in the near future as the department store also tries to rebalance supply and demand.
Target issued a similar call to shareholders last month, noting its margins could weaken as it discounts unwanted goods.
With supply chains showing signs of improvement and Americans' spending easing, other stores could soon shift from price hikes to discounts.
(3) The prices of oil and other commodities are finally going down
Gas prices in the US are falling as sharply as they once surged, according to the Energy Information Administration. The average price for a gallon of regular-grade fuel fell to $4.77 in the week that ended July 4, marking a third straight weekly decline and putting the nationwide average nearly 5% below the mid-June peak of $5.01 per gallon.
And daily price data is even more promising, with the nationwide average dipping to $4.75 on Thursday, according to AAA. That's down from a record high of $5.02, recorded on June 14. Fuel-price tracker GasBuddy also recorded a nearly 3-cent decline in the average price per gallon on July 6, matching the second-largest one-day drop in the last decade.
Gas represents one of the biggest drivers of inflation in 2022, and the latest trend hints the US could be past the worst of the price rally. Should the decline continue, the next inflation reports could show prices falling through the summer. That would give the Fed crucial flexibility for raising interest rates and dramatically decrease the odds of a self-imposed economic downturn.
More: Recessions Great Recession Gas Prices Oil
Rising Oil Prices
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2022-07-10T13:43:08Z
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Recession Outlook 2022: 3 Ways the US Can Avoid One As Inflation Falls
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https://www.businessinsider.com/recession-inflation-outlook-2022-dean-baker-gas-prices-rent-walmart-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/recession-inflation-outlook-2022-dean-baker-gas-prices-rent-walmart-2022-7
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Matt Turner, Jordan Parker Erb, Hallam Bullock, and Lisa Ryan
Insiders say Amazon's new retail CEO is a mild-mannered leader with a lot of creative ideas — but few have taken off.
Last fall, Elon Musk had twins with one of his top executives.
Streaming services are pulling back on half-hour sitcoms. Writers are freaking out.
Here are the stock market's biggest losers right now.
Plus: On Friday, lawyers for Elon Musk notified the SEC that the deal to acquire Twitter is off — read the letter in full here. Twitter, in turn, said it would take Musk to court to force him to buy it for $44 billion. Our 10 Things on Wall Street newsletter will break down the latest news tomorrow morning. Sign up here to get correspondent Aaron Weinman's analysis in your inbox.
But for today: We're starting things off with some book recommendations for you.
Your summer reading list from Insider editors:
As likely evidenced by your friends' social-media feeds and colleagues' away messages on Slack , we're in prime vacation time. So if you're looking for a good read while you take some much-needed PTO — or simply while you unwind at the end of the day — Insider's top editors have some recs.
Nich Carlson, global editor in chief:
I'm reading "The Immortal King Rao," a great speculative science-fiction book. It asks what if, instead of having a government, we handed control of the world to a Steve Jobs or Sundar Pichai type, and asked an algorithm to make our most important decisions? It tells a story of globalization, the total meshing of our brains with the internet, and what we've gained and what we've lost. It's a ripper of a tale.
Julie Zeveloff West, editor in chief of Life:
I'm a big fan of word games, and A.J. Jacobs' new book, "The Puzzler," really hit the mark for a summer read. In it, he uncovers the history and allure of puzzle types from scavenger hunts to The New York Times' Spelling Bee. There's even a puzzle embedded in the book, and no, I haven't cracked it (yet).
Jennifer Cunningham, editor in chief of News:
I'm reading "Fall" by John Preston. I'm a big fan of historical nonfiction — "Fall," a comprehensive biography of Ghislaine Maxwell's father, helped me understand how he shaped her into the woman she became.
I'm also reading Carla L. Peterson's "Black Gotham," which charts the emergence of the small but mighty Black middle and elite class in New York City from the early 1800s onwards. After watching HBO's "The Gilded Age," I was fascinated by the history of this community that I'd never heard of. I just had to know more!
And a rec from me (Matt Turner):
I'm reading "Dead in the Water," a true-crime page-turner by Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel. (Kit is a former colleague from our days as reporters in London.) Their book focuses on the oil tanker Brillante Virtuoso, and through years of reporting stitches together a story involving global trade, money, and murder.
Meet Amazon's new retail boss
After Dave Clark stepped down last month, Doug Herrington — his near opposite — became Amazon's most senior retail executive.
Insiders described Herrington as a leader with creative ideas but said few of his ideas have panned out. They said that he's known for being soft-spoken and mild-mannered — and that his laid-back temperament might be exactly what CEO Andy Jassy thinks the company needs.
Read our full profile on Herrington here.
Elon Musk had twins with one of his top execs
Court documents show that Elon Musk and a 36-year-old Neuralink executive are the parents of 8-month-old twins.
Elon Musk now has nine known children, after quietly having twins with one of his top Neuralink executives, Shivon Zilis. Here's what we know about her.
The births, which were revealed in court documents, occurred weeks before Musk and Claire Boucher, who performs as Grimes, had their second child in December.
Here's the full report.
Major streaming services are cutting back on comedy
Lee Rodriguez, Ramona Young, and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan on season one, episode two of "Never Have I Ever."
Streaming giants like Netflix are producing fewer comedy shows in favor of "heavily serialized" content with cliffhangers, a creator of a 2019 comedy show told Insider.
Comedy writers say Netflix's model of releasing an entire season at once doesn't leave room to accommodate half-hour sitcoms.
Read more about the big blow to comedy.
The market meltdown's biggest losers
If 2021 was the bright, sunny day for markets, then 2022 is the cold, dark night. Senior correspondent Linette Lopez writes that the bubble has popped — leaving a trail of losses.
From the retail investors who hopped on trends to the hedge-fund managers who should know better, Lopez finds that the market meltdown's biggest losers have one thing in common: arrogance.
Here are the markets' major losers right now.
Electric cars are way dirtier than you think — and won't solve the climate crisis on their own.
An expert lays out why summer 2023 could be the time to buy real estate.
Employees say JPMorgan is becoming more secretive about its workplace tracking efforts.
Our correspondent went to Anna Delvey's art show — and saw his name in her work.
These rising stars of equity research are making calls to help investors separate winners from losers.
A cart girl for a Las Vegas golf course takes readers through a day in her life.
When you buy books through our links, Insider may earn an affiliate commission.
Curated by Matt Turner. Edited by Jordan Parker Erb, Hallam Bullock, and Lisa Ryan. Sign up for more Insider newsletters here.
More: Newsletter insider weekly Books
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2022-07-10T13:43:14Z
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5 Summer Book Recs From Insider's Editors in Chief
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https://www.businessinsider.com/summer-book-list-doug-herrington-amazon-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/summer-book-list-doug-herrington-amazon-2022-7
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Myrkl just launched in the UK for around $35 a pack.
Myrkl is a new pre-drinking pill that claims to be the first to effectively break down alcohol.
I took two pills that cost me less than $5 before going for after-work drinks.
The next morning, I had no hangover symptoms and was amazed at my productivity.
As long as we've been drinking alcohol, we've had to contend with the inevitable hangovers that follow.
The after-effects are helping deter some young people from booze, with a growing number embracing sobriety or turning to cannabis drinks. But technological advances mean skipping post-work drinks or a big night out may no longer be the only option.
A Swedish pharmaceutical company called de Faire Medical has come up with Myrkl, a pre-drinking pill that is "the first product in history to break down alcohol effectively," or so they claim. I decided to put the pill, which has been 30 years in the making, to the test.
How Myrkl works
According to its website, Myrkl breaks down 70% of alcohol within an hour. It says that after taking the pill, alcohol in the gut is broken down into water and carbon dioxide, rather than the usual acetic acid, which is the culprit for the worst hangover symptoms.
It claims its prime ingredients of "Myrkl bacteria" and L-cysteine, a non-essential amino acid previously touted as a "hangover cure," is the key. Experts, though, told Verywell Health they wouldn't trust limited research on its ability to ward off hangovers.
A good dose of vitamin B12, a nutrient typically found in meat, is meant to add a jolt to your recovery.
Myrkl cost £30 ($35.70) per packet of 30. At two tablets per dose, that's £4 ($4.76) per drinking session. That struck me as reasonable given the soaring cost of almost everything else.
They're available in the UK and some other European countries but Myrkl did not say when they go on sale in the US.
How I felt
I have no prior experience with hangover prevention tools. However, I am all too familiar with the usual symptoms including tiredness, nausea, headaches, lowered productivity, and ordering a McDonald's the next day in a desperate attempt to tell human again.
I hoped Myrkl could help me wind down without playing catch-up physically for days.
I took two pills an hour before heading to drinks in London's Regent's Park for a summer party, firmly aware I had to work the next day.
Myrkl pills are transparent capsules containing brown granules, and nearly an inch long.
I was firstly surprised at just how chunky the pills were. At about an inch long, they weren't your typical aspirin.
I didn't feel anything out of the ordinary while I drank, going through the usual Healthline-specified stages of euphoria, excitement, and eventual drowsiness. It seems the pill doesn't have any noticeable impact on the feeling you get while drinking.
As the night wound down, I realized I'd probably overdone it a bit with my drinking, and began to worry I'd ruined the experiment.
But when I woke up the next day after six hours of sleep, I was amazed at how fresh I felt. My heart rate felt normal, and my usual headache and nausea were non-existent, and I didn't feel dehydrated. It felt like I'd barely had anything to drink the night before.
By the afternoon, though, the symptoms slowly crept in, including a headache, some dehydration and intense tiredness. But I would say it was still relatively mild compared with hangovers in the past, and I was strangely grateful to be eased into it throughout the day.
Overall, Myrkl seemed to help me grapple with hangover symptoms and sustain my productivity without forcing me to sacrifice post-work drinks. It feels like a breakthrough, but I do wonder if it might encourage more excessive drinking.
While the best option is always to limit your alcohol consumption, Myrkl might make happy hour a little more cheerful.
More: Weekend BI UK Hangover Cures Hangover cure Reviews
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2022-07-10T13:43:20Z
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I Tried a New $5 Hangover Pill and It Might Change How I Drink Forever
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https://www.businessinsider.com/tried-5-dollar-hangover-cure-might-change-how-drink-forever-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/tried-5-dollar-hangover-cure-might-change-how-drink-forever-2022-7
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Tuesday's hearing will dissect 'that mob on the Mall,' Adam Schiff has promised — including its leadership and funding.
The role of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other extremist groups will be front and center.
Committee members have promised details on interactions between extremist groups and Trumpworld.
Tuesday's January 6 hearing will focus on "that mob on the mall," California Democrat Adam Schiff said last Sunday, promising that right-wing extremist groups — including the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters — will be front and center.
It's a tantalizing prospect, given what we've seen already.
Will there be more from ex-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who had a chatty cameo during the first hearing, and that other Proud Boy who testified membership "tripled" when Donald Trump told them to "stand back and stand by?"
Will there be more on how the words "Proud Boys" and "Oath Keepers" kept cropping up "when Mr. Giuliani would be around," as we heard from White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson during the sixth hearing?
We'll have to tune in to hearing 7, at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, to find out.
Meanwhile, here are five potential bombshells, based on what committee members like Schiff have teased is coming — and also based on the worried-but-wishful thinking of extremism watchdogs.
1. 'How a group of Proud Boys led a mob'
"In our hearings to come," Republican vice-chair Rep. Liz Cheney told viewers on June 9, kicking off the first hearing, "we will show specifically how a group of Proud Boys led a mob into the Capitol building on January 6."
Tuesday could be that hearing to come. And given that the general outlines of the Proud Boys' role on January 6 are already out there, the word "specifically" is key.
Federal indictments have long called the Proud Boys the spear-tip of the mob. The feds have alleged that members of the violent, pro-Trump group were first at the Capitol barricades, and first to bust a window into the building itself, allowing rioters inside.
But bombshell-dropping has become routine for the committee, especially given the sixth hearing on June 28, when Hutchinson lobbed a virtual evidence fusillade, including that Trump knew some in the mob were armed when he urged them to "fight like hell" and then tried to lead them to the Capitol.
So explosive new revelations about the Proud Boys may well come Tuesday, maybe through additional testimony by Tarrio and alleged North Carolina Proud Boys leader Jeremy Bertino, the "membership tripled" fellow.
We know from the first hearing that both men were pretty talkative during their taped committee questioning.
Elmer Stewart Rhodes, leader and founder of the network of anti-government militias comprising the Oath Keepers, has also appeared before the committee, though he mostly invoked the Fifth Amendment; on Friday he offered to testify again, but only if it was broadcast live.
Jonathan Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University's Program on Extremism, said it's a good bet that at least Tarrio and Bertino — an unindicted co-conspirator in the government's Proud Boys seditious conspiracy case — will have more to tell us on Tuesday, as will any surprise garrulous extremists the committee may have in the wings.
2. That extremist-Trumpworld backchannel
Minutes after the first public hearing, Rep. Bennie Thompson had a decisive answer for CNN's Jake Tapper, who asked, "are there going to be witnesses that describe actual conversations between these extremist groups and anyone in Trump's orbit?"
The committee chair's answer was "Yes."
There will be "a number of witnesses," Thompson promised, "that people have not talked to before, that will document a lot of what was going on in the Trump orbit while all of this was going on."
Here again, Tuesday may be the day for these promised new witnesses and new specifics.
Before the public hearings began, we already knew a little about extremist-Trumpworld coordination — including that the Oath Keepers were invited to provide security for January 6 rally organizers, among them longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone.
Then Hutchinson revealed that this coordination extended to the White House itself.
"I recall hearing the word Oath Keeper and hearing the word Proud Boy closer to the planning of the January 6 rally, when Mr. Giuliani would be around," the top aide to Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said in her pre-taped testimony.
"I'd really like to hear the story behind that," said Cassie Miller, a senior research analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
"How many people in the White House were talking about the Proud Boys or were talking about the Oath Keepers," Miller wondered in a recent interview. "And in what capacity were they talking about them?"
As a bonus backchannel bombshell, Tuesday's hearing may reveal more on how the Oath Keepers' Rhodes tried — and failed — to get Trump on the phone on the evening of January 6.
And speaking of backchannels, we'd sure like to learn more about any Congress-insurrectionist action — especially that riot-eve tour of congressional office hallways that GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia gave to a group of MAGA-hatted visitors.
One of Loudermilk's tour-goers was filmed at the riot the next day, shouting threats against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "We're coming to take you out and pull you out by your hairs."
3. Cooperation among extremist groups
A meeting between Rhodes and Tarrio in a parking garage on January 5, 2021, is another insurrection plot point where new information would be welcome.
A handshake and brief greeting were exchanged by the leaders of the country's two largest far-right extremist groups on the eve of what both had openly hoped would be an insurrection. Was anything more exchanged at this seemingly chance encounter?
"It's still kind of an open question of what was discussed there, whether that was any planning and organization or if that was just a kind of happenstance," said George Washington's Lewis, noting that it would be great to hear more about this on Tuesday.
Other signs of possible coordination among extremist groups have cropped up in court filings, Lewis said. Maybe these, too, will be fleshed out.
He pointed to a March court filing in which accused Oath Keepers conspirator Connie Meggs asked for bail. The filing included a December 19, 2020, Facebook post from her husband, accused Florida Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs.
"This week I organized an alliance between Oath Keepers, Florida 3%ers, and Proud Boys," his post said. "We have decided to work together and shut this shit down."
Something was certainly up in Florida. Key Proud Boys sedition co-defendants Tarrio and Joe Biggs, who is a former InfoWars staffer, live in the state, as do Stone and several of the Oath Keepers who were his bodyguards at the Capitol on January 5.
Lewis isn't expecting clear-cut diagrams of relationships, though, among extremists, Trumpworld, and Trump himself, who's a master at keeping his hands clean.
"It's all part of a small complex ecosystem, full of grifters, hangers-on, conspiracy-minded individuals," Lewis said.
"I mean, there's never more than one or two degrees of separation between a Mark Meadows, a Roger Stone, a Mike Flynn, Ali Alexander, Giuliani, Alex Jones, and then domestic violent extremists like Enrique Tarrio and Stewart Rhodes.
"So, you know, when you have talk about these relationships, it's less of a direct organizational chart or straight lines between persons A, B and C, than it is this kind of interconnected web of very strong personalities, each of whom are more power-hungry and conspiracy-minded than the last."
4. Did money cross hands?
Schiff said last Sunday that Tuesday's hearing will include new details on "who was financing" that mob on the Mall.
The possibility for funding-related bombshells is particularly intriguing.
Were Oath Keepers paid to provide security to rally organizers or participants? If so, where did the money come from?
And what about any Trumpy funding for Oath Keepers' and Proud Boys' legal bills?
On January 5, 2021, the day before the Capitol riot, Steve Bannon suggested on his podcast that he and others in Trump's orbit had tried to wrangle bail for Tarrio earlier that week. The Proud Boy leader was arrested after the December burning of a Black Lives Matter banner belonging to a historic Black church in DC.
And in March, it was revealed that Trump attorney Sidney Powell used some of the $15 million she raised from election conspiracy theories for the legal defense of January 6 defendants including some of the 9 sedition-charged Oath Keepers.
The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were otherwise generally self-sufficient, though, using membership dues or crowd-sourced funding to pay for travel and supplies, said George Washington's Lewis and the SPLC's Miller.
"It actually does not take a lot of money," Lewis said, "to get in a van with a couple of guys and some body armor and buy some bear spray and go to DC. That's just the reality."
5. How at risk was Mike Pence? Nancy Pelosi?
Previous hearings revealed that Vice President Mike Pence was at one point just 40 feet away from rioters.
We know from the committee's June 16 hearing and from court filings that a Proud Boys confidential informant told the FBI that the group "would have killed Mike Pence if given the chance" — and Pelosi, too.
Will there be more details on this?
"As we saw time and time again, as the Proud Boys were part of this mob, they played that role in egging on, inciting, encouraging other rioters at very specific, important flash-points throughout the day," said Lewis.
As for the Oath Keepers, the DOJ said in its January 12, 2022 seditious conspiracy indictment that a subset of the extremist group at one point peeled off from the Rotunda "toward the House of Representatives in search of Speaker Pelosi. They did not find Speaker Pelosi."
"Based on everything we know," said Lewis, "I don't think they were going to try to lobby her."
We shouldn't lose sight, extremism watchdogs warned, of how well-armed some rally-goers were, and how violent their rhetoric was.
"They've engaged in violence for many years, and their words do have meaning," Miller said of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.
In focusing on "that mob on the Mall," and the revolution-bent extremists who allegedly were its vanguard, Tuesday's hearing may shed new light on how close to real harm key lawmakers came.
"There is this version of events where one or two small things break differently," said Lewis, "and the story we're telling a year and a half later is much different.
"Because the mob wanted to use violence and did use violence against more than 140 law enforcement offers. And had they found Mike Pence, had they found Nancy Pelosi, I am fairly confident they would have used violence against them as well."
More: extremism Oath Keepers Proud Boys capitol riot
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2022-07-10T15:26:31Z
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5 Bombshells We Hope Drop at Tuesday's J6 Committee Hearing
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https://www.businessinsider.com/five-bombshells-that-could-drop-next-j6-committee-hearing-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/five-bombshells-that-could-drop-next-j6-committee-hearing-2022-7
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DoorDash scrapped its fuel surcharge at the end of April.
Delivery drivers are not accepting orders that cost them more to deliver than their are paid.
The food delivery company scrapped its fuel surcharge in May despite soaring costs.
One driver told Insider that he rejects nine out of ten orders.
Some DoorDash drivers are rejecting most orders after the food delivery company ended its fuel surcharge despite soaring prices at the pump.
DoorDash started offering $5 for drivers in March per 100 miles as a small assistance with the cost of gas. However, the food delivery company reversed its decision in April and ended its fuel surcharge.
Curtis Demientieff, a delivery driver from Elizabethtown, KentuckyY, told Insider he now rejects nine out of ten orders. His acceptance rate is 13% and he spends $140 on gas from his average weekly earnings of $700.
"You learn what restaurants to stay away from, or which ones to not accept during certain times," he said. "Some restaurants I won't go to unless it's a certain dollar amount for a certain delivery distance."
Demientieff uses the company's DasherDirect card to receive 10% cashback on fuel purchases. However, not all "dashers" are signed up to receive their pay on the card, meaning some miss out on the perk.
Another delivery driver has stopped working with Doordash altogether and now delivers for a local company in Bloomington, Indiana.
Karissa Jacobs, who has been a delivery driver for two years, said she was only getting $2 to $3 for orders that would take 30 minutes or more. "With high gas prices anything I made was going towards that and it got to a point where it wasn't worth it," she said.
Jacobs used to pay $20 for half a tank of gas but was spending almost triple that sum.
"I've also seen drivers cancel orders because it's not worth it and people had to wait hours for food," Jacobs said.
"When I first started DoorDash I'd take lower orders but since fuel has gone up I haven't been able to accept jobs that are not worth it."
Another DoorDash driver, based in Long Island, New York, says he has witnessed restaurants throwing away food because no driver would pick it up.
DoorDash will increase the base pay to convince drivers to take orders after about an hour if an order is still undelivered, he said.
"I often check the time stamps on receipts to see when the order was made and I've made deliveries when the order was placed more than two hours prior," he said.
More: Retail food delivery DoorDash Fuel
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2022-07-10T15:26:43Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Some DoorDash Drivers Rejecting Most Orders After Fuel Surcharge Ends
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https://www.businessinsider.com/some-doordash-drivers-rejecting-most-orders-after-fuel-surcharge-ends-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/some-doordash-drivers-rejecting-most-orders-after-fuel-surcharge-ends-2022-7
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By Jessica Orwig and Jenny McGrath
With inflation still high, Prime Day is a great time to stock up on household essentials.
Even small discounts can make a huge difference when buying in bulk.
While Prime Day is still a few days away, we're already seeing discounts on paper towels, toilet paper, and soap.
Amazon Prime Day is nearly upon us, and we're seizing this opportunity to stock up on some household essentials. Ahead of Prime Day 's official start on July 12, 2022, we've rounded up some of the best early home deals.
As inflation continues, some people may be tempted away from their usual brands by lower-priced alternatives. But we're finding discounts on brands like Tide, Mrs. Meyers, and Charmin. With discounts on items from ibuprofen and cleaning cloths to heartburn medication and toilet paper , Prime Day 2022 is shaping up to be a great time to stock your home. Deals could be even better once Prime Day begins.
Whether you need to replenish your medicine cabinet or snag some new cleaning supplies, you shouldn't have a hard time finding what you need. But if you can't find what you need on Amazon, don't fret. Other outlets like Target and Best Buy have their own competing sales.
Here are some early deals on home essentials
Charmin’s soft toilet paper is absorbent and cushiony. It’s usually on sale for around $27, so you can save a few bucks if you’re stocking up.
A+ Health 200-Milligram Ibuprofen Mini Softgels (240 Count)
These gel tabs contain 200 milligrams of ibuprofen and are slightly smaller than usual gel pills. Right now, they’re on sale for $1.83 off.
All Health Flexible Fabric Adhesive Bandages
This variety pack of bandages comes with 80 small bandages, 70 medium bandages, and 50 large bandages. This is a very low price that we’ve rarely seen.
HealthCareAisle Famotidine 20-Milligram Maximum Strength Acid Reducer (170 Tablets)
These tablets contain 20 milligrams of famotidine, an acid reducer that relieves heartburn. This medicine is usually on sale for around $11, so this is a good deal.
These Tide Pods include Downy fabric softener, helping you eliminate a step. Usually on sale for around $21, this is a rare deal.
Heinz All Natural Cleaning Vinegar (2 Pack)
Vinegar is one of the most versatile tools in a good cleaning kit. Be sure to apply the coupon to save an extra 5% at checkout.
Mrs. Meyer's All-Purpose Cleaner Spray in Lavender (3 Pack)
Mrs. Meyer’s makes some of our favorite cleaning products, including the all-purpose spray. Right now, you can save about 90 cents on this three-pack.
We like the scent and cleaning power of Mrs. Meyer’s dish soap. This three-pack is currently on sale for about $1 off, matching its usual sale price.
Amazon Basics Liquid Hand Soap Refill in Milk-and-Honey Scent (Pack of 2)
This two-pack of soap refills from Amazon Basics comes in a milk-and-honey scent, with 112 ounces of soap total. You’ll often pay around $12 for this set, so now is a good time to save a bit of money.
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2022-07-10T18:45:50Z
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Early Prime Day Deals on Household Essentials: Toilet Paper, Paper Towels, Medications
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https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/deals/prime-day-household-essentials-deals
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Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday told CBS News that the return of WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner and other Americans detained overseas "is on our highest priority list."
"President and I and Jake Sullivan and others have been in touch with Cherelle Griner, Brittany Griner's wife, to do what we can to lend support," Harris said on "Face the Nation."
"I can't talk to you about the details, what's happening behind the scenes, but I can tell you that it is one of our highest priorities to bring these Americans home."
Last week, President Joe Biden and Harris contacted Griner's wife, Cherelle, on Wednesday to ensure her of their efforts to bring the seven-time WNBA All-Star back to the US.
"The President called Cherelle to reassure her that he is working to secure Brittney's release as soon as possible, as well as the release of Paul Whelan and other U.S. nationals who are wrongfully detained or held hostage in Russia and around the world," The White House said in a statement last week.
Just days before, Griner wrote an Independence Day letter to Biden expressing how "terrified" she is while in Russian jail, where she has been since mid-February after customs officials there claimed they found vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage at an airport.
Additionally, Griner plead guilty to drug smuggling charges during a court appearance on Thursday, a move a legal expert called "simply a faster path to the finish line," Insider's Cork Gaines and Meredith Cash reported.
During the interview, "Face the Nation" host Robert Costa asked Harris how "confident" she feels about Griner coming home.
"We're gonna do everything we can to bring her home as soon as possible," Harris responded. "That is for sure."
More: Kamala Harris Brittney Griner Russia
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2022-07-10T18:45:56Z
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VP: Return of Griner, Other Detained Americans Is a High Priority
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https://www.businessinsider.com/kamala-harris-brittney-griner-detained-russia-americans-biden-high-priority-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/kamala-harris-brittney-griner-detained-russia-americans-biden-high-priority-2022-7
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GOP Rep. Liz Cheney and GOP Sen. John Barrasso.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP and Bonnie Cash/Pool Photo via AP
A GOP senator from Wyoming said Rep. Liz Cheney has "a lot of work to do" to win her upcoming primary.
Cheney's position on the Jan. 6 panel has earned her GOP disdain and support from Democratic voters.
However, "there's really not that many Democrats out there," Wyoming GOP Sen. John Barrasso said.
A Republican senator from Wyoming said Rep. Liz Cheney has "a lot of work to do" to win her upcoming primary on August 16.
Cheney, a Republican representing Wyoming's at-large district since 2017, has been on the outs with the GOP due to her involvement with the January 6 Committee, where she serves as vice chairwoman.
Sen. John Barrasso told Fox News Sunday that Cheney faces an uphill battle to defeat her Trump-backed challenger, Harriet Hageman.
"Wyoming politics is very personal," Barrasso said. "It's face-to-face. It's town to town, and as you know, Liz and I disagree. I voted against the impeachment of President Trump. She was for it. I voted against the partisan January 6 commission. She's all in on that."
Former President Donald Trump has thrown his support behind Hageman, who has echoed his debunked claims about widespread voter fraud altering the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
"Now the election isn't for another month," Barrasso told Fox News. "The travel that I have done around the state, I think she has a lot of work to do if she hopes to win the primary."
Cheney has reportedly drawn Democratic donors thanks to her role on the January 6 Committee. Her campaign turned to Democrats, mailing instructions to voters in the red state on how to switch parties to vote for her.
But Barrasso cast doubt that Democrats could help Cheney in her tough reelection challenge against a Trump-backed primary opponent.
"There's really not that many Democrats out there," he said. "Even the chairman of the Democratic Party said there are not enough Democrats to do that."
More: Liz Cheney Donald Trump John Barrasso Fox News Sunday
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2022-07-10T20:21:34Z
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Cheney Has 'a Lot of Work to Do' to Win Her Primary: WY GOP Senator
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https://www.businessinsider.com/cheney-lot-of-work-to-win-her-primary-gop-senator-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/cheney-lot-of-work-to-win-her-primary-gop-senator-2022-7
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Uber co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick
Leaked documents reveal Uber's co-founder dismissed concerns over drivers safety in violent protests against the ride-sharing app.
It was part of a strategy to keep "controversy burning," a former exec said, according to the Guardian.
The exec said it was an effort to "weaponize drivers" to pressure government officials to shift policies.
Uber co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick reportedly dismissed concerns from executives over violent threats against drivers during turbulent taxi protests, documents leaked to the Guardian reveal.
The documents suggest Kalanick urged drivers to participate in demonstrations against the ride-sharing app, and leveraged attacks against employees to pressure government officials to shift policies in favor of Uber.
One former senior Uber executive who worked with Kalanick during taxi riots in France in 2016 recalled feeling the former CEO was trying to strategically "weaponize drivers" and keep "the controversy burning," the Guardian reported.
"If we have 50,000 riders they won't and can't do anything," Kalanick said in a message to executives in 2016, according to the Guardian. "I think it's worth it. Violence guarantee[s] success. And these guys must be resisted, no? Agreed that right place and time must be thought out."
The finding is part of a global investigation based on 124,000 internal Uber documents leaked to the Guardian and shared with a consortium of media outlets.
Following Kalanick's comments, European Uber drivers were pushed to sign letters to the French president and prime minister to save their jobs as demonstrations backed by the company were organized, the documents allege.
Uber went so far as to publish a manifesto in French media, according to the report.
Mark MacGann, Uber's head of public policy for Europe, Middle East and Africa, voiced his concerns of violence against drivers in 2015 — a year prior to the Paris protests. At the time, nearly 100 drivers had been attacked and "dozens of cars destroyed."
MacGann wrote a statement in response to the leak: "There is no excuse for how the company played with people's lives. I am disgusted and ashamed that I was a party to the trivialization of such violence," he wrote.
Other executives also appeared willing to let violence continue in an effort to pressure governments into letting Uber bypass certain regulations, according to the Guardian.
"We keep the violence narrative going for a few days, before we offer the solution," one manager wrote.
In a statement shared with Insider, Jill Hazelbaker, Uber's svp of marketing and public affairs, said the company "will not make excuses for past behavior that is clearly not in line with our present values."
"Instead, we ask the public to judge us by what we've done over the last five years and what we will do in the years to come," Hazelbaker said in the statement.
More: Uber Travis Kalanick leak Tech Insider
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2022-07-10T21:57:06Z
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Uber Founder Travis Kalanick's Attempt to 'Weaponize Drivers': Report
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https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-founder-travis-kalanicks-attempt-to-weaponize-drivers-report-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-founder-travis-kalanicks-attempt-to-weaponize-drivers-report-2022-7
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US Army Green Berets fast-rope out of a Hungarian Mi-17 helicopter during Exercise Trojan Footprint, April 28, 2022.
US Army/Sgt. Hannah Hawkins
More than 3,300 special operators from 30 countries took part in Trojan Footprint 22 in May.
The exercise was twice as big as it was last year, sending a message about NATO's resolve and capabilities.
The exercise and its message come as Russia's war on Ukraine clouds the future of European security.
As Russia's war against Ukraine raged on, US Special Operations Command hosted its biggest exercise ever in Europe.
More than 3,300 special operators from 30 countries took part in Trojan Footprint 22 in May, doubling the size of last year's version of the exercise and sending a message about the special-operations capabilities of NATO and its partners.
Trojan Footprint 22 focused on mission command for special-operations units that rotate between the Baltics and the Black Sea. Moreover, according to the exercise's planners, it set the conditions for increased interoperability between special-operations forces and conventional units during "during combined, joint, and multi-domain warfare."
US Navy SEALs, British Royal Marines, and Romanian naval special forces train in Romania during Exercise Trojan Footprint 22, May 6, 2022.
US Army/Spc. Michael Germundson
Coming just a few months after Russia renewed its attack on Ukraine, Trojan Footprint 22's main scenario reflected the pre-war situation.
"It was designed to be a slow-boil — a low-intensity conflict that can span years but creates constant pressure in various ways," Derek Coker, lead exercise planner, said in a press release. "The adversary attacks certain nations' ability to govern, creating internal dissonance and infighting that hacks away at the legitimacy of these governments, in essence trying to demonstrate that these nations are unable to govern themselves."
The exercise ran from May 2 to May 13, and among the more than 3,300 special operators were commandos from Sweden and Finland, which have applied for NATO membership.
Beyond its size, Trojan Footprint 22 was the first time an exercise had a combined joint force headquarters that simulated the joint command of several special-operations units from different NATO militaries.
Croatian army special forces joint terminal attack controllers identify a target for US Air Force F-16s during Exercise Trojan Footprint 22 in Croatia, May 11, 2022.
From the US special-operations community, the 10th Special Forces Group took the lead. The Green Berets of the unit are always on the frontlines, training with and advising NATO allies and members in Europe.
Green Berets from the 10th Special Forces Group have also been largely responsible for training the Ukrainian special-operations forces that have wreaked havoc on Russian forces in Ukraine.
Planning for exercises like Trojan Footprint begins more than a year in advance, and while its focus seems heavy on US special operations, it really improves interoperability of the forces involved, John Black, a retired Army Special Forces warrant officer, told Insider.
"For America to work with its allies [and] with an ever-changing threat situation globally, it's important for us to be able to work fluidly with another nation, and Trojan footprint provides a great base and foundation for that to happen," added Black, who was on the ground during Trojan Footprint 22.
Russia in the background
US pilots fly an AC-130J gunship over Poland during Exercise Trojan Footprint, May 6, 2022.
US Air Force/Staff Sgt. Max Daigle
The exercise took place amid unprecedented events in Europe. Russia's attack on Ukraine is the continent's largest conflict since World War II, and the exercise in May was the first time since the attack began in February that NATO special operators from so many countries have trained together.
While events in Ukraine were on the participants' minds, they didn't let that war take away from Trojan Footprint 22.
"From my perspective it really wasn't a focus or concern," Black said. "We just really wanted to work with our partnered nations to accomplish a large list of training tasks and improve our relationships with that country."
"It was great to see many nations that are very capable and have a fighting force. For me, this reinforced my belief in a safer tomorrow," the retired Green Beret added.
Croatian naval special forces and members of US Naval Special Warfare do a night-time dive exercise in Croatia during exercise Trojan Footprint, May 4, 2022.
As the special-operations component of US European Command, Special Operations Command Europe is a constant presence in Europe and frequently trains with allies and partners there to build their capabilities and counter malign activities — mainly those of Russia.
"One of our priorities is building resilience against adversary efforts to undermine democratic processes and values. This joint, combined training in Europe will continue to build and strengthen those relationships with our allies and partners, establishing a common sight-picture for combat and peacekeeping missions abroad," Maj. Gen. David Tabor, the head of Special Operations Command Europe, said in the release.
NOW WATCH: These are the favorite weapons of the Army Special Operations Forces
More: NATO Russia Ukraine Special Operations Command Europe
US Special Operations Command
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2022-07-10T23:32:44Z
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SOCOM's Biggest Exercise in Europe Sends Message Amid Russia Tensions
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https://www.businessinsider.com/socoms-biggest-exercise-in-europe-sends-message-amid-russia-tensions-2022-6
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https://www.businessinsider.com/socoms-biggest-exercise-in-europe-sends-message-amid-russia-tensions-2022-6
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An Airbus A350-1000 aircraft is parked on the tarmac at Sydney international airport on May 2, 2022, to mark a major fleet announcement by Australian airline Qantas. - Qantas announced on May 2 it will launch the world's first non-stop commercial flights from Sydney to London and New York by the end of 2025, finally conquering the "tyranny of distance".
Wendell TEODORO / AFP
A baggage handler who spoke with The Guardian Australia on the condition of anonymity said one in 10 bags are not making it onto Qantas flights at Sydney airport.
According to the news organization, the baggage handler works for Swissport, a company Qantas outsourced its jobs to. Swissport is having it's own labor challenges. The Guardian Australia reported the company made contracts with two separate hiring firms in order to find workers to fulfull its Qantas shifts.
The aviation industry is struggling to keep up with summer travel demand. As of June, Sydney Airport had 1,200 vacancies in security and ground-handler positions.
The Guardian Australia reported that employees are quitting frequently due to poor working conditions. In response, Swissport has introduced a $50 per day bonus for baggage handlers if they show up for their shifts for the remainder of the year.
The employee said baggage handlers are overworked, underpaid, and unable to handle the increase in baggage due to the surge in domestic travel.
"I would tell everyone, don't check in bags when you fly with Qantas right now, or even better if you can avoid it, don't fly Qantas at all," the worker said.
In 2020, Qantas outsourced around 1,700 jobs, which has contributed to the company's shortage of baggage handlers. A federal court ruled the decision was unlawful and partially motivated by anti-union sentiment.
More: Qantas Sydney Travel baggage
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2022-07-11T05:37:20Z
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One in 10 Bags Are Not Making It Onto Qantas Flights at Sydney Airport
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https://www.businessinsider.com/one-in-10-bags-not-making-qantas-flights-sydney-airport-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/one-in-10-bags-not-making-qantas-flights-sydney-airport-2022-7
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Elon Musk is trying to walk away from his bid to buy Twitter for $44 billion.
Musk started tweeting about the news over the weekend, posting memes about it.
Twitter said it plans to take Musk to court to force him to close the deal at the agreed price.
Elon Musk is commenting on his decision to abandon his bid to buy Twitter by posting memes ... on Twitter.
Musk's lawyers informed the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday that the Tesla billionaire wishes to abandon his proposed acquisition of Twitter.
Musk agreed to buy Twitter in April for $44 billion. Twitter said in a statement Friday it is preparing to take Musk to court over his abandonment of the deal.
Late on Friday evening Musk started to joke about the situation on Twitter.
In one meme posted late Sunday featuring a series of photos of Musk laughing, similar to a popular meme featuring WWE boss Vince McMahon, Musk said Twitter would have to "disclose bot info in court."
Musk also tweeted an image of actor Chuck Norris playing chess, and captioned it "Chuckmate." It's unclear whether this was in reference to his dealings with Twitter.
Musk's lawyers said in the SEC filing Twitter's provision of information around how many bots are on its platform is why Musk is walking away from the deal.
"Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk's requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information," the filing said.
Musk first brought up bot numbers in May, when he tweeted the deal was "temporarily on hold" citing the need for proof that Twitter's calculations for how many of its account are fake or spam was correct.
Musk said at the time he was "still committed" to the acquisition, but analysts said Musk might be looking to renegotiate the price of the deal or even walk away entirely.
Twitter in June provided Musk with its internal trove of data also known as its "firehose," The Washington Post reported.
More: Elon Musk Twitter memes deal
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2022-07-11T10:11:11Z
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Elon Musk Memes After Dropping Twitter Acquisition
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https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-memes-after-dropping-twitter-acquisition-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-memes-after-dropping-twitter-acquisition-2022-7
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A portfolio manager beating 99% of his peers this year details his 4-part process for picking winners even as the market struggles — and shares 7 recession-proof stocks he loves right now
James Abate is the managing director of Centre Asset Management and runs its top-ranked American Select Equity fund.
Centre Asset Management
James Abate of Centre Asset Management has beaten 99% of funds this year.
The fund manager believes that a recession could be worse than persistent inflation.
Here are seven of Abate's favorite stocks and the four qualities he looks for in investments.
Being in the top 1% of one's field should be a cause for celebration in any industry, especially one as ruthless and unforgiving as finance.
But such a performance is nothing new for James Abate. Abate is the founder, managing director, and CIO at Centre Asset Management, and through his flagship fund, the Centre American Select Equity Fund (DHAMX), Abate has beaten 99% of competitors in not only 2022 but also in 2020. In fact, Abate's fund is in the top 1% on a one-, three-, and five-year basis, per Morningstar.
Secrets to success from a top fund manager
Since his fund's inception in late 2011, Abate told Insider that he's targeted stocks with four key attributes: those that invest in their businesses, expand their profit margins, improve their balance sheets, and benefit from changes in cyclicality. The first three qualities are straightforward, while the latter refers to buying cyclical names when the economy is booming and leaning on defensively oriented companies during times of weakness.
"What distinguishes our process is that it is not myopically focused in on just looking at earnings per share changes," Abate said in a recent interview with Insider. "And unfortunately, the way the business has evolved, I think price momentum — and price as a determining variable — has really kind of overtaken much of the 'securities analysis.'"
In other words, Abate believes that stock analysts spend more time following the pack than truly breaking down a firm's fundamentals. This herd mentality can cause analysts to be influenced by what's happening instead of what should be happening. For example, an analyst might view a stock more favorably based on the fact that it's rising instead of on its underlying business.
That momentum mindset may have worked in the previous five years when interest rates were at rock-bottom levels, but Abate noted that investors have now shifted their focus to earnings as interest rates rise dramatically in response to inflation that's at its highest level in over 40 years.
Tighter financial conditions mean that investors are less willing to pay a premium for earnings and growth that could be years away, Abate noted. That dynamic has turned markets upside down, the portfolio manager said, which has made it much tougher to make a quick buck.
Expect the inflation problem to persist
The Federal Reserve has embarked on an anti-inflation crusade, and the consequences of that decision extend far beyond the stock market. A swath of market pundits now believe that the Fed's sudden hawkish pivot will send the US economy hurtling into a recession.
"Ultimately, we think the Fed will win the battle, but the question really becomes: How much pain do they inflict in terms of the economy and financial markets?" asked Michael Sheldon, the chief investment officer at RDM Financial Group, in an interview with Insider.
Leading portfolio manager Jeff Muhlenkamp recently told Insider that the Fed might even welcome a recession if it caused inflation to fall back to a normal level, even though doing so could be a mistake. And Abate went as far as to say that the Fed might "engineer a recession ."
However, Abate thinks that the Fed's purported cure to inflation may be worse than the disease itself. And it's not because the portfolio manager believes that inflation will abate on its own.
"At some point, there's going to come recognition that a recession and throwing people out of work and slowing down the economy is a worse outcome than inflation staying in place," Abate said.
The portfolio manager continued: "So perhaps unique to maybe almost every other person that you're going to talk to, we think the Fed is going to be unsuccessful — and actually purposely unsuccessful — in basically bringing inflation under control."
If Abate is right in his hunch that the Fed will decide not to take a wrecking ball to the economy and will instead let inflation linger in the long term, he said that investors would "absolutely" be smart to buy the dip in energy stocks, which are down about 23% in the past month.
"For people who want to move into the sector at this point in time, we think this is an excellent opportunity to start building significant positions in all the companies which have exposure in the domestic natural gas market as well as the integrated oils," Abate said.
Oil and gas prices are historically high right now because of a supply-demand imbalance, Abate said. The resumption of travel has helped energy demand rebound sharply from pandemic lows, and there aren't enough oil rigs to keep production up and prices in check, Abate explained.
Crude oil is trading near $100 per barrel, and Abate noted that oil companies "are immensely profitable at anything north of $65 a barrel." Many of these firms fit Abate's criteria, as they're reinvesting, keeping margins high, staying financially healthy, and enjoying a cyclical boom.
"The companies maintaining and, in fact, fortifying their capital discipline because of this recent selloff are going to be just essentially cash-flow-generating machines for the foreseeable future," Abate said.
7 top stock picks
Outside of the energy sector, Abate listed seven of his top stock picks. He said that he's been "relatively selective" within the tech sector and other growthy groups, though he sees some opportunities. However, Abate made it clear that stocks that have sold off aren't always cheap.
Below are seven of Abate's favorite stocks along with the ticker, market capitalization, price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, and thesis for each.
Ticker: BABA
Thesis: "From our perspective, it represents genuinely first-class leadership in internet infrastructure. Obviously within China, the stock has been under enormous pressure and has suffered at a greater derating than any of the US-based technology companies of that tier."
"The stock's down from over $300 down to sub-$100. It's rallied now about 20% off of the low. So that's clearly a name that we think is a name that's poised to at least try to buck the trend or hold up well in a continuing down market."
2. Corteva
Ticker: CTVA
Thesis: "It offers seeds and crop protection. So obviously what we've seen in terms of the inflation in agricultural prices, general farm inflation, what people don't realize with Corteva is that the pricing of seeds tends to be done on a forward basis, meaning that most of the real benefit from rising prices and scarcity of seeds to farmers won't be actually realized by the company until coming quarters because farmers pre-buy most of these products."
"Corteva is a stock that we think is going to really maintain its leadership position in seed sale product and benefit from the overall economy that we see in the agricultural space remaining buoyant."
3. Agnico Eagle Mines
Ticker: AEM
Thesis: "It's a recent merger of AEM and another producer and provides a significant capability with regard to gaining the economies of scale on its gold and mining operations that we think can do well. And we remain bullish on the price of gold as well."
4. International Flavors & Fragrances
Ticker: IFF
Thesis: "Here's a company going through a change in executive leadership, digesting some previous acquisitions, all in an effort — and again, this is a very consistent theme within the portfolio — a company that can move margins and asset efficiency higher in potentially a difficult macro environment and has products that are somewhat recession resistant and be able to also gain the benefits of pricing power in that regard. So you've got multiple levers that can help this company do well."
5. Allegheny Technologies
Ticker: ATI
Thesis: "It's a steel manufacturer, but the real key for this is its footprint in the titanium market. And with titanium exports from Russia being embargoed, here's a company that has a capability — particularly for titanium use within the aerospace market — to take a significant amount of market share and benefit from its own restructuring opportunities and specialty within the materials space."
6. Range Resources
Ticker: RRC
Thesis: "Here's a company from our perspective that has quite a leverage opportunity on US natural gas. It's got extensive facilities in the Marcellus and shale in north Louisiana, but its real prospect is from the Appalachian basin."
"Our perspective is on natural gas. As we see this amazing differential in price between US natural gas and natural gas around the world, it's been offset or been impacted in the short term from one of the LNG facilities actually coming offline."
"But at some point, what we have done now with regard to cutting off Russian natural gas is we have essentially set up for homogenization of natural gas prices — in our opinion — globally, meaning that US gas prices we anticipate are actually going to catch up to Europe and not the other way around."
Thesis: "It remains our favorite within the FAANGs, simply because of its footprint. And one of the other things is, we have seen its valuation reach a level on a multiple of revenues, which is back down at essentially 5x revenues. Which to us, given its margins, being very healthy, represents somewhat fair value for the stock, particularly on a relative perspective."
"The only concern we have with Alphabet is that we've seen the rate of change in sales growth start to tick a little lower. It's still very healthy, don't get me wrong — we're talking 40% sales growth — but it's down from the peak that we've seen."
"Some of the real bigger concerns we have with names like Facebook or Meta and others is that they're — at this point in time — they're witnessing or going through a period of profit margin deceleration as well as sales growth deceleration. Which, for high-flying technology stocks, is typically the double dose of poison in terms of derating."
More: Features Investing investing 2022
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2022-07-11T10:11:36Z
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Stock Picks, Investing Strategy From a Top 1% Fund Manager
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https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-picks-to-buy-top-fund-manager-bear-market-strategy-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-picks-to-buy-top-fund-manager-bear-market-strategy-2022-7
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Good morning. Phil Rosen here — it's good to be with you on a Monday morning, especially as the Elon Musk-Twitter drama continues to unspool.
More on that below, but first let's talk energy.
Oil remains top of mind for both investors and everyday Americans, whether you're watching costs per barrel or prices at the pump.
Much of Wall Street expects crude to go up, but one analyst is expecting the opposite to happen, in dramatic fashion.
Asian countries have been buying more Russian oil.
SONGPHOL THESAKIT/Getty Images
1. From Goldman Sachs to UBS, top firms have made bullish predictions for oil, with JPMorgan even eyeing a worst-case scenario of $380 a barrel.
But Citi has taken the opposite view, and the investment bank's strategists predict oil will take nosedive by the end of the year.
Francesco Martoccia, Citi's head of European commodities strategy, said oil prices could slump as low as $65 a barrel if a recession takes hold.
Oil demand plays a key role, Martoccia explained, and Europe is a likely candidate to cut back on energy consumption.
"When you look at the gas demand, for instance, from the industrial complex in Italy, or even the orders of one of the biggest industrial facilities, it's going down," he said.
The US has tried to do its part to alleviate the global energy crunch by tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserves. But there's been an unintended consequence — America's been sending more crude to other countries.
But, to oil analyst Matt Smith, exporting barrels overseas can bring crude prices down as effectively as keeping them in the US.
"Part of the goal was in response to Russia, so those SPR barrels are meant to backfill Russian crude," Smith said.
Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)
2. US stock futures fell early Monday, while oil prices dropped after Russia cut off natural gas supply to parts of Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to conduct maintenance. But the big news today is Elon Musk backing out of the Twitter deal — shares of the social media company dropped 6.9% in premarket trading this morning. Here is your market wrap.
3. On the docket: National Grid plc, COSMOS Pharmaceutical Corp, and more, all reporting.
4. Barclay's acclaimed internet stock analyst Mario Lu said trouble could be ahead for unprofitable firms in the sector. Recession risks are rising, and that's bad news for internet names, he explained. But these two companies look attractive with substantial upside — and one in particular could surge 106%.
5. Europe's scramble for gas is depriving poorer nations from getting enough amid the global energy crunch. The continent has ramped up liquefied natural gas imports by 49% this year, as countries like India, Bangladesh, and Brazil have had to slash purchases. As one analyst told the Wall Street Journal: "The European gas crisis is sucking the world dry of LNG."
6. Goldman Sachs forecasts that oil will hit $140 a barrel. Investors are overplaying recession risks, and the bank's analysts said commodities traders are worrying too much about a downturn. Goldman doesn't think a collapse in crude demand is in the cards.
7. Bonds aren't doing what they normally would in a bear market. That's according to top strategist Melissa Brown, who told Insider that aggressive rate hikes are changing the dynamic in the debt market. She explained why bonds are looking more attractive than stocks in the current landscape.
8. This batch of stocks have some of the most stable earnings on the market. And together they are set to be a magnet for investors' cash amid a broad economic slowdown, according to Morgan Stanley. See the list of 37 companies here.
9. A top-4% fund manager is keeping nearly half his portfolio in cash because he thinks there's more weakness ahead for stocks and the economy. He sees several key risks still ahead — but he shared what it will take for him to change his mind and turn bullish once again.
10. The US is right around the corner from recovering the jobs lost during the pandemic. After Friday's jobs data, the country is just 524,000 payrolls away from returning to pre-COVID levels. The rebound has been drastically different from that of the Great Recession.
More: Newsletters Markets 10 things 10 things opening bell
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2022-07-11T11:42:42Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Here's Why Citi Thinks Oil Prices Will Fall
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https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-citi-thinks-oil-prices-will-fall-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-citi-thinks-oil-prices-will-fall-2022-7
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Aer Lingus and Ryanair planes seen grounded at Dublin airport.
Le Bas International diverted five jets due to Dublin airport's lack of staff, per The Times of London.
The airport was "so badly staffed" that it couldn't accept the flights, LBI's chairman said.
Boeing flights were redirected to Kerry airport, more than 160 miles away from Dublin, it added.
A California-based air charter company diverted five Boeing jets from Dublin to another Irish location 160 miles away because a staff shortage at Dublin airport meant there were no landing slots available.
The Times of London reported the news.
The diversion meant that more than 1,000 American passengers landed at Kerry airport rather than Dublin, Peter Le Bas, chairman of Le Bas International (LBI), told the publication.
Dublin airport couldn't land the Boeing 737s because of a lack of staff to handle aircraft, Le Bas added.
The air charter brokerage had tried for six weeks to land a jet at Dublin airport, but only managed to get one plane on the ground there last week, Le Bas said in the publication's interview.
Le Bas told The Times of London that LBI was annoyed that Dublin airport was "so badly staffed" that it couldn't accept the company's business.
"We couldn't get [landing] slots. Dublin slots are 15 minutes apart," Le Bas told The Times of London. "In New York, they're every three minutes. The idea that an international airport can only take four aircraft an hour on a Saturday is ridiculous."
The flights to Dublin were part of corporate incentive trips to Ireland, which were arranged for a client, according to the publication.
Instead, LBI had to turn to a regional Irish airport in Kerry, which was willing to welcome the air charter firm with VIP treatment for its clients despite being busy, according to Le Bas' interview with The Times of London. This saved LBI from telling its top clients they couldn't land in Ireland, Le Bas added.
A spokesperson of Dublin airport told Insider: "We do not comment on commercial agreements or discussions with customers."
LBI didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
A mass redirection of flights isn't unheard of in the airline industry at the moment. Airports and airlines are struggling to recruit the staff needed to cope with the soaring number of passengers, leading to diversions, lost luggage, and flight cancellations.
More: airliner Charter Airline travel chaos
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2022-07-11T11:43:00Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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5 Boeing Jets Diverted After Understaffed Airport Refused Planes
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https://www.businessinsider.com/labor-shortage-boeing-jets-air-charter-diverts-passengers-airport-travel-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/labor-shortage-boeing-jets-air-charter-diverts-passengers-airport-travel-2022-7
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See the 14-page pitch deck that sold Citi on Claira, a startup using AI to help firms read through financial contracts in a fraction of the time
Bianca Chan
Eric Chang and Alex Schumacher, co-founders of Claira.
Claira is a startup that provides AI for financial contract analysis.
It was born out of Exos, an investment bank founded by a former Citadel CTO and Credit Suisse CEO.
The upstart scored Citibank as a client and funding from the bank's strategic investment arm.
It was a match made in heaven — at least the Wall Street type.
Joseph Squeri, a former CIO at Citadel and Barclays, had always struggled with the digitization of financial documents. When he was tapped by Brady Dougan, the former chief executive of Credit Suisse, to build out an all-digital investment bank in Exos, Squeri spent the first year getting let down by more than a dozen tools that lacked a depth in financial legal documents.
His solution came in the form of Alex Schumacher and Eric Chang who had the tech and financial expertise, respectively, to build the tool he needed.
Schumacher is an expert in natural-language processing and natural-language understanding, having specialized in turning unstructured text into useful business information.
Chang spent a decade as a trader and investment strategist at Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, and AQR. He developed a familiarity with the kinds of financial documents Squeri wanted to digitize, such as the terms and conditions information from SEC filings and publicly traded securities and transactions, like municipal bonds and collateralized loan obligations (CLOs).
The three converged at Exos, Squeri as its COO and CTO, Schumacher as the lead data scientist, and Chang as head of tech and strategy.
Squeri, who was working alongside Chang in finding a vendor partner, asked Schumacher why there was nothing in the market that provided deep insights, transparency, and accuracy in a timely manner without training.
Joseph Squeri, CTO and COO of Exos.
"He says, 'Well it's because they're all using the same open source libraries and the same approaches and no one has rethought the problem,'" Squeri told Insider of Schumacher's response. "Eric and I looked at each other and said, 'Oh, here lies the opportunity,'" he added.
Two weeks later, Schumacher had a prototype and Claira was born.
And opportunity it was — Exos went on to save 90% of time and effort on the investment bank's LIBOR remediation and has expanded the tech to other use cases.
Meanwhile, Citibank has since signed on to use the tech and make a strategic investment in the startup.
A new approach wins over Citi
Claira's underlying framework uses a field of data science called computational linguistics that essentially breaks down documents into sentences. The sentences, entities, and relationships between the entities are translated into a map that machines can work with, Chang said.
Then, depending on who's using the tech — from a municipal bond trader to an investor — analytics are customized and pertinent info is pulled and summarized.
"Traditional approaches to the digitization of documents has been the natural-language processing, machine-learning approach of data science, which really only gets you so far," Squeri said.
That's because most systems work by pattern matching, or turning sentences and paragraphs into numbers. But there are shortcomings to the approach. When AI provides an answer in a black box there is no way to trace back how the answer was derived, Squeri said. Legal language is also sometimes ambiguous, meaning it doesn't translate to a one or a zero, he added.
Because Claira starts at the sentence and builds a map from there, each insight can be traced back to the exact sentences used, Chang said.
For example, the bot can ingest a 500-page document and instead of an analyst using keyboard commands to find certain terms or reading the whole package, Claira will essentially highlight certain sentences that the user needs to read.
Exos was the first finance firm to use the product for its remediation of the LIBOR index at the end of 2020. The company saved 90% of time and effort compared with using outside counsel to read the documents and send back an Excel spreadsheet, Squeri said. And the accuracy was higher with the AI compared to using humans, whose accuracy rates for reading documents and annotating agreements range from 85% to 90%, Squeri added.
Since then, Citibank has signed on to use the tech in its capital markets group to provide a lift to the trading desks dealing with CLOs and municipal bonds, Chang said. The bank's traders use Claira to get data around provisions found in the offering memorandum for CLOs and offering statements for municipal bonds to better price and measure risk for each transaction.
As part of the deal, Citi's strategic investment arm, SPRINT (spread products investment technology), invested an undisclosed sum in Claira. Chang declined to disclose the startup's total funding.
Here's the 14-page pitch deck Chang and Schumacher used to pitch Citi on Claira.
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2022-07-11T11:43:06Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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The Pitch Deck for Claira, a Fintech Using AI to Navigate Contracts
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https://www.businessinsider.com/pitch-deck-claira-fintech-ai-machine-learning-financial-contracts-tools-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/pitch-deck-claira-fintech-ai-machine-learning-financial-contracts-tools-2022-7
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McCarthy and Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming at a press conference touting their lawsuit against Pelosi over proxy voting on May 27, 2020.
Republicans privately offer support to Liz Cheney, a new book says.
But few do so in public for fear of President Donald Trump, it said.
Cheney is one of few Republicans to oppose Trump, earning his wrath in the process.
Republican lawmakers privately support to Rep. Liz Cheney but refuse to do so in public for fear of former President Donald Trump, according to extracts from a new book.
The claim appeared in "Thank You For Your Servitude," by Mark Leibovich, a political writer who speak years at The New York Times Magazine and now writes for The Atlantic.
The book is devoted to exploring Trump's circle, and alleges that many people who support him in public are hypocrites who privately dislike him.
One Republican member of Congress to vocally oppose Trump is Cheney, who was stripped of a party leadership role in 2021 for criticizing the former president.
Since then, Cheney has found an influential spot as one of two Republicans on the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol.
In his book, Leibovich wrote: "The wonder of this was that many Republicans agree with Cheney, quite a few of them members of her caucus. They say as much, tell her what a great job she is doing, how heroic she's been."
"But they only ever tell her this privately, always privately—just between you and me, please don't repeat this, off the record, okay?"
Cheney has been made a pariah in the GOP over her opposition to Trump and is facing several ardently pro-Trump primary challengers for her Wyoming congressional seat.
The extract continued: "Colleagues approach Cheney, people she's been friendly with for years, a colleague who might have just trashed her into a microphone or voted to bounce her as the House Republican Conference chair.
"They look at her, as if they were really worried about her well-being— especially certain male colleagues. They look her in the eye, all faux caring and protective, maybe touch her arm. And they'll ask, 'Are you okay? You hanging in there?' Cheney tends not to appreciate these gestures of concern," wrote Leibovich.
In the wake of the January 6 riot, some senior Republicans, such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, were publically critical of Trump, and in private conversations called for him to be held to account for provoking the violence.
But as Trump's popularity with Republican voters held firm, most backed away from their positions and positioned themselves as Trump loyalists, and have since sought to undermine the credibility of Cheney and the rest of the January 6 panel.
More: Liz Cheney Donald Trump Republican Party News UK
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2022-07-11T13:14:01Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Republicans Back Cheney but Not in Public, Fearing Trump: Book
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https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-back-cheney-but-not-in-public-fearing-trump-book-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-back-cheney-but-not-in-public-fearing-trump-book-2022-7
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A famous Japanese video game creator was falsely linked to the assassination fo Shinzo Abe. Now he says he's considering legal action.
A false claim linking video game creator Hideo Kojima to the assassination circulated online.
Kojima's production company said it is considering legal action.
Video game luminary Hideo Kojima became the subject of a viral rumor online falsely linking him to the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.
Kojima is famous for the making the video game series "Metal Gear" as well as "Death Stranding" which featured performances from stars including Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen.
Abe died on July 8 after he was shot at a campaign event. Japanese police arrested a 41-year-old man named Yamagami Tetsuya following the shooting.
PC Gamer reports that shortly after the assassination a post appeared on message board site 4Chan placing a picture of Kojima's face next to a photo of the suspect.
This claim that Kojima was linked to the assassination circulated online and was shared in a now-deleted tweet by far-right French politician Damien Rieu.
Vice and The Verge report Rieu tweeted a picture of Kojima with the words: "The far-left kills."
"I naively took a joke for information," Rieu said in a follow-up tweet. "My apologies to Hideo Kojima and to fans of Metal Gear," he added.
Vice reported news outlets in Greece and Iran shared images of Kojima in connection with Abe's assassination following Rieu's initial tweet.
Kojima Productions, Kojima's game production company, put out a statement on Twitter saying it: "strongly condemns the spread of fake news and rumors that convey false information."
"We do not tolerate such libel and will consider taking legal action in some cases," it added.
Kojima Productions did not immediately respond when contacted by Insider for more detail.
More: Shinzo Abe Assassination Hideo Kojima Metal Gear
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2022-07-11T13:14:13Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Hideo Kojima Falsely Linked to Shinzo Abe Assassination
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https://www.businessinsider.com/shinzo-abe-assassination-hideo-kojima-falsely-linked-considers-legal-action-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/shinzo-abe-assassination-hideo-kojima-falsely-linked-considers-legal-action-2022-7
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Wizz Air released a trading update on Monday.
Wizz Air announced in a trading update that it is cutting 5% of its scheduled summer flights.
The decision aims to limit travel disruption, which is an ongoing problem for the airline industry.
The firm also said it was set to report a Q1 operating loss of 285 million euros ($289 million).
Low-cost European carrier Wizz Air is the latest airline to announce a reduction in summer flights to cope with ongoing travel disruption.
The company said in a first-quarter trading update on Monday that it was cutting 5% of its summer schedule to "reduce the impact of ongoing external disruptions."
Last month, UK lawmakers and an aviation regulator ordered airlines to bring an end to a wave of last-minute cancellations after the sector struggled to meet the soaring demand for flights.
Wizz Air's decision to cut its summer timetable follows British Airways' announcement that it was cancelling 10,300 short-haul flights, which represented about 13% of its total summer schedule.
Scandinavian airline SAS also cancelled 51% of its scheduled flights this month and later filed for bankruptcy in the US on July 5 after a pilot strike over pay crippled the company's operations.
London-listed Wizz Air said in the trading update that it was set to report an operating loss of 285 million euros ($289 million) for the first quarter. It cited unrealized foreign currency exchange losses, ongoing travel disruptions, and lower utilization throughout the quarter.
Shares in Wizz Air fell 4.6% in London trading on Monday, according to Bloomberg, with the airline's stock declining around 58% so far this year.
Wizz Air said in its trading update that it expects to post a "material operational" profit in its second quarter, following an increase in commercial flight ticket prices.
More: Airlines Wizz air Travel Flights
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2022-07-11T13:14:31Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Labor Shortage: Wizz Air Cuts 5% of Flights Over the Summer
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https://www.businessinsider.com/wizz-air-airlines-travel-chaos-labor-shortage-flights-summer-schedule-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/wizz-air-airlines-travel-chaos-labor-shortage-flights-summer-schedule-2022-7
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Sam Tabahriti and Abby Wallace
An airline passenger says his bag has been missing in Europe for almost four weeks.
Justin Camilleri told Insider his bag has been to several cities, including Munich, Athens, and Venice.
He flew Air Canada from Orlando to Venice to board a cruise ship.
An airline passenger with the inflammatory bowel disease Crohn's says he has been trying to get back lost luggage containing his medication for almost thirty days after it went missing on a flight to Europe.
Justin Camilleri, who flew with his mother and father from Orlando to Venice, Italy with Air Canada, said two of their bags which contained important medication have now been lost twice during the trip.
"They sent my luggage to about four incorrect locations including Munich, Athens, and last we heard it was in Venice," Camilleri told Insider.
The luggage was later misplaced again after the airline located it in Venice and tried to send it Camilleri's new location in Malta, he added.
Camilleri said he has been trying to get the bags back for 25 days. His family were able to get some free clothes and laundry washed onboard the cruise they later took from Venice, but have struggled to get through to Air Canada despite calling them multiple times, Camilleri told Insider.
"It's just a huge headache," he said. "I had to see my mother upset and on the verge of tears a few times. It usually takes about an hour or more to just get in contact with Air Canada."
Air Canada did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment made outside normal working hours.
Camilleri is only one of scores of passengers who have had their baggage lost this summer amid chaotic scenes at airports around the world.
Another passenger — who also flew via Air Canada — told Insider she deliberately packed a carry-on bag specifically to avoid the chaos, but was later made to check the bag, which was then misplaced.
Both airlines and airports have been struggling to cope with surging demand for travel this summer with pandemic-era staff shortages still plaguing their ability to process a high volume of passengers.
A number of airlines have been forced to trim their flight schedules to avoid disruptions and delays.
Meanwhile, luggage has also been piling up at airports including Toronto Pearson and London Heathrow amid the spat of cancellations.
More: Airline Aviation News Air Canada
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2022-07-11T14:45:14Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Airline Passenger's Bag Went on Europe-Wide Tour, Missing for 25 Days
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https://www.businessinsider.com/airline-passenger-lost-luggage-travel-chaos-aviation-industry-air-canada-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/airline-passenger-lost-luggage-travel-chaos-aviation-industry-air-canada-2022-7
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The 25 best CEOs at large companies, rated by women employees
This year, HubSpot's Yamini Rangan ranked number one in Comparably's "Best CEOs for Women" list among those at large companies.
Comparably just published its latest CEO ranking only using ratings from women.
HubSpot's Yamini Rangan ranked as number one on this year's "Best CEOs for Women."
Here are the leaders that made the top 25 on the large company list, or those with over 500 employees.
25. Dan Rosensweig, Chegg
Employee quote: "It's clear that Dan cares about each one of his employees by how he communicates with us and the perks and work-life balance that he offers."
24. Fidji Simo, Instacart
Fidji Simo.
Employee quote: "Leads a diverse company that is based on the foundation of equality and belonging."
Kenneth Lin
Employee quote: "Transparent, thoughtful, and empathetic."
22. Pierre Naudé, nCino
Pierre Naudé
Employee quote: "I've felt discriminated against at past employment, but feel complete acceptance at nCino."
21. Ian Siegel, ZipRecruiter
Ian Siegel.
Employee quote: "Always inclusive, and I truly feel like I can talk to anyone, from the CEO on down."
20. Mary Powell, Sunrun
Mary Powell.
Employee quote: "Our CEO Mary treats every person like they matter and takes time out of her day to get to know you as a person. I have never seen someone in such a high role take time to see to it that their employees are seen as people."
19. Susan Benoit, CenterWell Home Health
Susan Benoit.
Employee quote: "Leads actual conversation around social and human rights topics. We also have a higher than average number of women in upper leadership."
Employee quote: "Regardless of title, everyone's voice is heard and valued. Our CEO demonstrates inclusion and is a model of our culture and values."
Martin Migoya
Employee quote: "I was a recent mom, and the CEO took the time to tell me how much he supports professional mothers. I felt really good."
Employee quote: "Our leadership team treats every employee as an equal; meaning that if you want to give our CEO Carl a call, he'll answer the phone and have a great conversation with you."
15. Christoph Schweizer, Boston Consulting Group
Christoph Schweizer.
Employee quote: "Genuine empathy and effort above and beyond expectations to support staff during challenging times."
Robert G. Painter
Employee quote: "The CEO sets the tone for DEI actions, general kindness, and innovation, which sets a direction for the entire company."
Employee quote: "Empowerment is valued at TaskUs. Our CEO personally ensures that employees feel welcome and safe."
Employee quote: "Very progressive, innovative, and forward thinking. Cares about diversity, inclusion and making people feel heard."
Employee quote: "The Stanley Black & Decker leadership team, particularly the CEO, publicly supports DEI initiatives and women."
Employee quote: "We are led by a CEO who is super empathetic, plus she puts diversity and inclusion at the forefront for all of us in the company. Kumsal is a great CEO."
9. Fabrizio Freda, Estée Lauder Companies
Fabrizio Freda.
Employee quote: "The CEO and the company put women in an amazing position to work while being a mother. Their maternity leave, healthcare, and supportive scheduling cannot be matched."
Employee quote: "The CEO has a lot of empathy towards the team and their wellbeing."
Employee quote: "They care, and they roll out programs for real change, not just for the PR benefit. Experian changed from being a good company to being a great company."
6. Jeffrey Dailey, Farmers Insurance
Jeffrey Dailey.
Industry: Insurance
Employee quote: "Best place to work hands down. The CEO encourages diversity of thought and inclusion."
Employee quote: "The CEO is a very down to earth person, a great human being, and a huge advocate for diversity and equity."
Shantanu Narayen
Employee quote: "I have had a very positive experience with the company due to its culture, diversity, sense of belonging, and a feeling that every voice matters to leadership starting with the CEO."
Employee quote: "I feel truly cared for by all levels of leadership, including our CEO, Carlos Rodriguez."
Employee quote: "A lot of diversity and inclusion, as well as promoting women, and providing help with climbing ladders and needed training."
Employee quote: "The company truly believes in culture and they walk the walk. It's positive, very woman friendly (the most women I've ever worked with at a tech company) and truly energizing to be here."
Here's the list for large companies:
Comparably is a career and compensation review site, and its newly released ranking highlights highly rated CEOs for women. To do this, the site only looked anonymous ratings written by women employees from June 24, 2021 to June 24, 2022.
The "Best CEOs for Women" list of large employers only includes companies with over 500 employees, such as RingCentral and Stanley Black & Decker.
Based on the methodology used by the company-review site, Yamini Rangan of HubSpot ranked at the top of this year's list among executives at large companies. Adobe's Shantanu Narayen may have moved down from number one this year but still made up the top five — ranking first in the 2021 list and fourth in the 2022 iteration.
There were only a few women leaders who made the top 25 on the large company list. Rangan and Elsevier's Kumsal Bayazit are the only women to land spots in the top 10 this year.
The above anonymous employee quotes and industries were shared with Insider from Comparably.
The full list can be found on Comparably for both CEOs of large companies as well as the list of those at small and midsize companies.
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2022-07-11T14:45:20Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Best CEOs at Large Companies, Rated by Women Employees
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https://www.businessinsider.com/best-ceos-at-large-companies-rated-by-women-comparably-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/best-ceos-at-large-companies-rated-by-women-comparably-2022-7
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The 25 best CEOs at small and midsize companies, rated by women employees
Company and compensation review site Comparably released its latest ranking: "Best CEOs for Women."
William J. Tessar of Civic Financial Services made the top of the small and midsize company list.
Using ratings from women on the site, here's who made the top 25 on the small and midsize company list.
25. Jason Fan, Forma
Jason Fan.
Employee quote: "Very business outcome-focused, but equally culture-focused. Humble and committed to making (and keeping) Forma a place that people are excited to work."
24. Jeffrey Glass, Hometap
Jeffrey Glass.
Employee quote: "Supportive and flexible when it comes to work/life balance."
Employee quote: "The guys are extremely respectful/professional and I'm always amazed how my skills are so greatly appreciated."
22. David Grace, Deem
David Grace.
Industry: Business travel
Employee quote: "I greatly appreciate the inclusive and supportive environment that has been created here."
Employee quote: "The CEO is a cheerful idealistic dreamer and those vibes spread through the rest of the company."
20. Kip Hollister, The Hollister Group
Kip Hollister.
Employee quote: "Our CEO Kip is arguably the nicest and most caring person I've met. She cares about everyone at the company from our day 1's to our 20+ year employees."
19. Eyal Feldman, Stampli
Eyal Feldman.
Industry: Accounting software
Employee quote: "Not only encourages work-life balance, but practices it themselves and encourages others to do the same."
Employee quote: "Our leadership team lead with empathy above all else, and value feedback from all levels. There is no bureaucracy, and you feel heard as an employee."
17. RJ Pittman, Matterport
RJ Pittman
Employee quote: "Fosters open communication, equality among peers, and responsiveness from coworkers."
Lindsay Poe
Employee quote: "We're a very inclusive company — constantly providing opportunities to get together for team bonding opportunities."
Employee quote: "Leadership approaches changes with transparency and empathy."
14. Kendall Garrison, Amplify Credit Union
Kendall Garrison.
Employee quote: "Does a tremendous job of being direct while still practicing empathy."
13. Simha Sadasiva, Ushur
Simha Sadasiva
Employee quote: "Inclusivity and oneness among the team leads to the greatest experiences imagined."
12. Shauna Smith, Savory Restaurant Fund
Shauna Smith
Employee quote: "Leadership really cares about their employees. Even as high up as the CEO, they interact with you as much as possible while also keeping a great business running."
Employee quote: "Leadership has a great level of respect for work/life balance, so it makes for a very respectful, sustainable culture."
10. Larry Dunivan, Namely
Employee quote: "Understanding of your personal life and encourages work-life balance."
9. Christian Gormsen, Eargo
Employee quote: "Prizes equality and acceptance and is family-oriented."
Nandan Banerjee
Employee quote: "Understanding and empathy make a great environment to work in."
Employee quote: "High empathy, balance of short and long-term focus, strong operator."
Neha Sampat
Employee quote: "The company and the CEO recognize the importance of work-life balance."
5. Dave Thomas, ThomasARTS
Industry: Marketing and advertising
Employee quote: "I feel like our CEO truly cares about cultivating an environment that is inclusive, positive, and friendly."
4. David Coppins, IntelyCare
David Coppins
Industry: Healthcare staffing agency
Employee quote: "Love that we get paid time off, retirement plan, and real work/life balance."
3. John Swigart, Pie Insurance
John Swigart
Employee quote: "Pie has been a huge blessing for this single mom. Thank you!"
2. Melanie Nallicheri, EQRx
Melanie Nallicheri
Employee quote: "Alexis, Melanie and Robert are fabulously experienced, and complimentary to each other. Rare to get three CEO caliber folks on one leadership team."
Employee quote: "I love that leadership gives me the opportunity of letting me work from home and having a more balanced life with my child."
Here's this year's list for small and midsize companies:
There are different CEO rankings that get published each year. One of Comparably's annual publications includes its list of the best CEOs using ratings from women.
This iteration of the annual "Best CEOs for Women" was based on women employee ratings on the workplace site from June 24, 2021 through June 24, 2022. Comparably defined small and midsize companies as those with no more than 500 employees working there. For the small and midsize list, there had to be at least 25 participants at a business.
Based on the ratings of CEOs from just women, Civic Financial Services' William J. Tessar ranked first place on the small and midsize employer list. Tessar was third last year. Melanie Nallicheri of EQRx and Neha Sampat of Contentstack were the only two women to make the top 10 in this year's ranking among those at small and midsize companies, according to women reviews.
Along with the ranking, Comparably provided to Insider all the above anonymous employee quotes and the industries the companies that the leaders work at are part of.
This year's list for small and midsize companies and large companies is available on Comparably.
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2022-07-11T14:45:26Z
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www.businessinsider.com
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Best CEOs at Small and Midsize Companies, Rated by Women Employees
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https://www.businessinsider.com/best-ceos-small-midsize-companies-rated-by-women-comparably-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/best-ceos-small-midsize-companies-rated-by-women-comparably-2022-7
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UBS says the dollar's surge is 'unlikely to endure' as the Fed will be forced back into rate-cutting mode. Strategists reveal when this could happen and name 3 global currencies that are now a better bet.
Declining consumer prices may seem like a good thing, but they can derail an economy.
The dollar index has hit 20-year highs following a strong, sustained rally since last September.
That trend may not last much longer according the UBS Global CIO office, led by Mark Haefele.
UBS lays out why the dollar rally could end and names 3 other currencies that are a better bet.
The US dollar's dominance as the global reserve currency has been unhindered by the pandemic and recent stock market slump, despite the aspirations of China and the countries that formulated the euro.
The DXY (US dollar index) has been on a strong and sustained upward move since around last September as its "safe-haven" status remained unrivalled and it hit its highest in 20 years this month.
That trend may not last much longer according the UBS Global CIO office, led by Mark Haefele, In a note co-authored with senior US economist Brian Rose, UBS warned that while the DXY bull run has some legs left due to continued risk aversion among investors, things are set to turn around within months.
"The US dollar has resumed its surge, with the DXY index hitting its highest level since 2002 for a more than 11% gain year to date," UBS said.
"A resurgent US currency is also near to pushing the euro to parity—at EUR 1.0155 early Monday—with investors concerned that the European Central Bank's efforts to curb inflation will be hampered by energy shortages and widening peripheral bond spreads. The US dollar has also forced the pound back below levels seen at the low point of the pandemic and the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit vote."
UBS said that further US dollar upside is likely to be capped by slowing US economic growth and market perceptions that the Federal Reserve will start to cut rates again in 2023, despite a mixed economic picture.
"Friday's employment report showed 372,000 net new jobs being created in June, about 100,000 more than expected," UBS said. "But earlier in the week there were earlier signs that the US economy is starting to cool. The number of Americans submitting new claims for jobless benefit rose last week, with layoffs hitting a 16-month high in June. This chimed with the release earlier this week of the ISM's services survey, in which the employment component dropped to a two-year low."
The UBS team noted that the futures market now suggests the Fed will need to start cutting rates again around May next year to support growth, which will provide what it says is a "less supportive backdrop" for the dollar.
Given this assessment, UBS is suggesting clients consider rotating into the Swiss franc, which now looks more attractive than the US dollar as a safe haven, given the willingness of the Swiss central bank to allow currency appreciation to curb inflation.
"The Swiss National Bank's (SNB) surprise 50-basis-point rate hike in June was considered an early first tightening step, especially given that inflation at the time was slightly below 3%, UBS said. "Even with inflation of 3.4% in June, the highest rate since 1993, price pressures are still moderate relative to other parts of Europe and the US."
"Meanwhile, the SNB has indicated more willingness to allow the franc to rise, in order to contain inflation. This combination helps to explain why the franc is only modestly lower against the US dollar and is now worth more than the euro for the first time since a brief spike in 2015."
UBS also picked out two other major currencies that could outperform the dollar due to their close links to the commodities bull market ; the Canadian and Australian dollars. UBS is unconvinced recent oil price weakness signals a sustained downward shift in commodities prices.
"The price of Brent crude came under renewed pressure in the past week, falling from over $114 a barrel last Tuesday to around $107 on Monday, reflecting worries over slowing global growth," the bank said. "We expect this move to reverse as OPEC+ nations struggle to meet production quotas, and future pandemic restrictions in China are less strict than feared."
The banking giant also pointed to recent data underlining the strength of both the Canadian and Australian economies.
"In Australia, domestic credit, housing starts, and retail sales all surprised positively of late. Canada's GDP grew at a solid 3.1% annualized pace in the first quarter while retail sales exceeded expectations in May. As a result, we expect the central banks of both nations to remain on a tightening path, supporting their respective currencies, along with our expectation for a renewed rally in commodities."
"So, we advise investors against positioning for a continuation of the US dollar rally. Instead, our preferred safe-haven currency is the Swiss franc," the bank said. "We also favor commodity currencies, which we expect to benefit as commodity prices rebound from the recent dip."
More: stocks to buy 2022 Stock Market Analysis stock recommendations 2022 stock market crash 2022
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2022-07-11T14:45:44Z
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Dollar Bull Run 'Unlikely to Endure' As 3 Other Currencies Do Better
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https://www.businessinsider.com/dollar-dominance-bull-run-unlikely-endure-as-other-currencies-better-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/dollar-dominance-bull-run-unlikely-endure-as-other-currencies-better-2022-7
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How a 'Shark Tank' billionaire runs meetings — and why he's OK with letting discussion go off topic
Daniel Lubetzky.
Shark Tank investor Daniel Lubetzky is the founder of Kind snacks and the Mexican food brand Somos.
As he's balancing multiple companies, he breaks up his day into percentages to stay productive.
His tips for running meetings effectively include budgeting time for creativity and redirection.
Serial entrepreneur Daniel Lubetzky, 53, started his first company, PeaceWorks, which connected Israelites and Palestinians so they could build businesses together, in 1994 after graduating from Stanford Law School. He then wanted a healthy snack to match his on-the-go lifestyle, and the idea for his billion-dollar business Kind was born.
In 2020, he sold Kind to Mars for a reported $5 billion and has since launched the Mexican plant-food brand Somos, an investment arm Equilibra, and the nonprofit Starts With Us.
Lubetzky told Insider he prefers to communicate with his teams face-to-face, whether that's around the same table or virtually. He views meetings as vital, he said, and focuses on moving toward a shared goal, practicing active listening, and even at times injecting humor to diffuse tension.
While Lubetzky will hold meetings every day of the week, he said he asks his team to block time on his calendar to answer emails. His personal assistant and executive assistant also know that the last meeting they can schedule for him is late afternoon, as Lubetzky makes it a priority each day to have dinner with his wife and children. His team also can't schedule any meetings on the weekend.
Here's how Lubetzky likes to run meetings.
He dedicates his time by percentages
Lubetzky's personal assistant and executive assistant manage his diary and make sure he dedicates his time to the right meetings by using a percentage-based system.
"My assistants know that 25% of my time has to be on Kind, 35% of my time has to be on Equilibra, and 40% of my time has to be on philanthropy and Starts With Us in particular," Lubetzky said. "They'll structure my calendar and allocate meetings based on this. They'll also push back and tell me or my team if anything looks as if it might affect this."
He makes sure it's not all business
Lubetzky's companies embraced the hybrid and remote models long before COVID-19, so he's keenly aware of the need to build bonds when holding virtual meetings with his teams. For him, it's not a case of glibly ticking a box and going back to the agenda.
"You need to talk about values, you need to connect with each other, you need to be there for each other," Lubetzky said. "We try to make sure that our meetings are not just about what's on the agenda." To get the conversation going, he'll ask team members about their family and what life is like in their part of the world.
He deescalates tension by not making it personal
Lubetzky's first company PeaceWorks taught him how to handle difficult conversations. "These meetings involved talking with Palestinians and Israelis until one in the morning in East Jerusalem about a product we wanted to create jointly. It was like fireworks," Lubetzky said. "I learnt you can heartedly disagree without ever making it personal."
Lubetzky still faces tough meetings. "I was recently at a retreat with some well-known business leaders, and one guy, who I was sitting at a table with, was very loud, aggressive, and rigid in his point of view," Lubetzky said. "I leaned in, listened, and said, 'Okay I believe that you're saying a, b, and c.' I acknowledged his valid points, then I built in some hypotheticals to create a little friction in his assumptions. I didn't change his mind, but I did change his approach to the conversation. It showed him how he could be equally passionate while not being so aggressive."
He always leaves room for creativity and redirection
Lubetzky believes creativity is a precious commodity and always pays attention to new ideas and encourages brainstorming. "If we're talking about finance and an unrelated idea comes to somebody and they say: 'What about this for our plant-brand Somos?' We're very comfortable going in other directions," he said.
But if he thinks the meeting is being hijacked, he turns to a couple of simple phrases to make sure the conversation remains productive. "If, for example, a team member is telling too many jokes, I may say, 'Okay, let's just get going' or, 'Okay guys, what's our agenda?'" he said.
He wraps up with deliverables
While Lubetzky is willing to break away from the agenda at the beginning of a meeting, he said he always makes sure each meeting ends in the same way: with a focus on growth, timetables, and goals. "Toward the end of the meeting, it should be very clear what the deliverables are, who is responsible for the deliverables, when they need to deliver them, and if there are any milestones along the way," he said. "In the wrap-up, it's very important to have ownership."
How each team stays in the loop differs — the Start With Us team uses Asana to organize action items and for project management, while other teams prefer Slack . Lubetzky is not part of the Asana or Slack conversations, he said, as he wants to empower his team members to oversee the finer details. He'll give his input during meetings or by email.
More: BI-freelancer kind snacks kind founders
Zoom Virtual Meeting
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2022-07-11T14:45:50Z
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How Shark Tank Billionaire Daniel Lubetzky Runs Meetings Effectively
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-shark-tank-billionaire-daniel-lubetzky-runs-meetings-effectively-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-shark-tank-billionaire-daniel-lubetzky-runs-meetings-effectively-2022-7
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These 13 cities still look significantly overvalued with house prices holding steady across the US, according to 2 economists
House prices are still rising across the US and the vast majority of markets still look overvalued, according to economists Ken Johnson and Eli Beracha.
US house prices haven't started slowing down yet, even though mortgage rates are rising.
Two Florida-based economists expect the market to calm eventually, but overvaluations remain.
These 13 major cities still look significantly overvalued, according to their house price index.
House prices aren't slowing down just yet, according to an economist who surveys the US's largest cities.
Some analysts have argued that rising mortgage rates will help to cool a potentially overheating market.
But while housing demand appears to be softening across the US, home prices rose in 99 of the country's 100 largest markets last month, Florida Atlantic University's Ken Johnson said in a recent report.
"There are plenty of reports that mortgage applications and home showings are falling as interest rates rise," Johnson said. "But so far prices continue to rise in the vast majority of markets."
Johnson is one of two lead researchers on the Beracha and Johnson Housing Market Ranking, an index that assesses whether the US's top 100 housing markets are over-or-undervalued.
Nearing the peak
Many real-estate investors are now focussed on timing the top of the current market cycle.
Johnson said that, while prices are still rising, the US housing market appears to be close to its peak. He expects rising mortgage rates and a potential recession to drive the eventual slowdown.
"We expect prices eventually will level off as well, particularly if a recession occurs and lending rates remain high," he said. "The evidence continues to suggest that we are nearing the peak of the current housing cycle."
So now isn't the time to start eagerly snapping up real estate, according to Johnson. He warned that investors who buy now could find themselves stuck with overvalued homes through a long downturn period.
"People buying homes now in the most overvalued markets should be prepared to stay there for at least several years to ride out what could be a bumpy stretch for prices," Johnson said.
Overvalued cities
Boise City, ID has consistently been identified as one of the US's bubbliest housing markets. Back in March, it topped FAU's list of the most overvalued cities in the country.
But while Boise still looks overvalued by around 71%, it was the only housing market among the US's top 100 where home prices declined over the past month.
Austin, TX could soon take Boise's place as the US's most overvalued city, according to Eli Beracha, an economist at Florida International University's Hollo School of Real Estate who developed the housing index alongside Johnson.
"At this rate, it won't be long before Austin overtakes Boise as the most overvalued market in the country," he said. "Austin has a lot going for it, including weather, culture and the economy, so it's naturally attracting more residents who are driving up home prices there."
Austin buyers paid a premium of nearly 68% last month, according to Beracha and Johnson's housing index.
Phoenix, AZ is another one of the US's most overvalued housing markets, according to Beracha and Johnson. Some industry experts have warned that house prices in the Arizona state capital could crash 25% if the housing bubble pops.
Read more: Has the Phoenix Valley real estate market hit its pandemic ceiling? 7 industry experts debate if Phoenix's lofty home valuations are justified — or if there's a housing correction on the horizon for the Valley of the Sun
Beracha and Johnson determine overvalued cities by measuring the gap between average house prices and what historical trends indicate the average house price should be.
Here are 13 major cities that still look overvalued, even as house prices start to slow:
1. Boise City, ID
Expected price: $302,449
Average price: $516,468
Premium: 70.76%
4. Atlanta, GA
6. Charlotte, NC
8. Spokane, WA
Nicholas K. Geranios/AP Photo
Kevin J. King/Shutterstock
13. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
Nathanael Hovee/Getty Images
More: Investing Real Estate Investing House Prices
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2022-07-11T14:46:02Z
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These 13 Housing Markets Still Look Significantly Overvalued: FAU, FIU
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https://www.businessinsider.com/real-estate-investing-house-prices-overvalued-markets-cities-housing-bubble-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/real-estate-investing-house-prices-overvalued-markets-cities-housing-bubble-2022-7
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Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., chairs a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing with Ranking Member Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) in June 2021.
Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming is seeking to pressure Sen. Joe Manchin against backing a revival of the Democrats' stalled economic agenda.
"To my friend Joe Manchin from West Virginia, whose vote is going to be necessary for this, I would remind him that Joe Biden's popularity in that state it is as low as it is in Wyoming," Barrasso, the third-ranked Senate Republican, said in a "Fox News Sunday" interview. "Only 17 percent. Joe shouldn't walk the plank for Joe Biden."
Barrasso assailed Democrats for pushing additional government spending during a stretch of painful inflation, arguing it would weaken the economy. "That is not the solution the American people are looking for, which is why only 1 in 10 Americans support the direction of the country right now," Barrasso said.
Democrats counter their bill would be paid for with tax increases, blunting its effect on rising prices.
It comes as Democrats ramp up efforts to revive a smaller version of their economic spending plan after Manchin tanked it at the end of last year. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Manchin have convened numerous times since late April to determine whether a deal can be struck on a slimmed-down climate, energy and tax bill and pass it by the start of August through the intricate reconciliation process.
Reconciliation allows Democrats to circumvent a Republican filibuster and approve bills with a simple majority vote, but the party needs all 50 Democratic senators aboard to pass legislation.
Manchin's chief priorities include slashing prescription drug costs, shrinking the federal deficit, and raising taxes on the rich and large firms. Democrats have struck a deal on the first measure, but other pieces of the bill are still up in the air. They also seem poised to raise taxes on some high-earners to extend Medicare's lifespan by three years.
One area includes settling on the amount of spending for clean-energy tax credits meant to transition the US away from fossil fuels. Democrats aim to incentivize the production of electric vehicles, though Manchin has repeatedly slammed the idea for months.
Another outstanding element involves the extension of enhanced financial assistance under the Affordable Care Act that's set to expire at the end of the year. Democratic leaders are seeking to renew the program and avoid the specter of voters getting notified about steep premium increases next year just before they cast ballots in November. Manchin has sent mixed signals on whether he'd support it.
Republicans like Barrasso may try to pressure Manchin into bucking the Democratic Party once again. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has threatened to tank a bipartisan bill to strengthen US competitiveness against China if Democrats advance their party-line spending bill.
Biden's approval rating has tumbled in recent months, partly due to worsening inflation. A New York Times/Siena College poll released on Monday indicated only 33% of registered voters approved of Biden's performance, Insider's Grace Panetta reported.
More: Policy Joe Manchin John Barrasso Congress
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2022-07-11T16:16:34Z
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Top GOP Senator Raises Pressure on Manchin to Oppose Biden Economic Agenda Again
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https://www.businessinsider.com/gop-senator-manchin-biden-economic-agenda-2022-7
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https://www.businessinsider.com/gop-senator-manchin-biden-economic-agenda-2022-7
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Amazon Prime Day 2022 begins tomorrow, but there are already a wide range of great products on sale today. The shopping event will be filled with thousands of great deals across all categories on the site. However, we've been diligently working to only show you the deals worth shopping.
Below, we've rounded up all of the best deals available during Amazon Prime Day 2022. Insider Reviews' team of expert reporters and editors have vetted each of the deals below — because a heavy discount doesn't mean much if the product on sale isn't any good. We'll be updating this post with new deals several times per day, so bookmark this page to quickly find the latest deals. All the deals below are still live and available to purchase.
The Kindle Kids Edition pairs a basic Kindle with a kids-only operating system, so kids can have access to thousands of books without distractions. It comes with a two-year warranty and a one year free subscription to Amazon Kids+, even if you already have a paid subscription. Ahead of Prime Day , you can snag this model for just $50, which is an all-time low price.
Amazon Fire TV 43-Inch 4 Series
If you're looking for an entry-level TV, this Fire TV is an excellent choice. It supports 4K Ultra HD resolution and has modern smart TV functions.
The Omni Series might not be the best in picture quality for 55-inch TVs, but packs tons of smart TV functions like hands-free Alexa, video calling, and built-in Fire TV.
We typically wouldn't recommend a 720p TV, but at only 24-inches, this HD Smart TV from Insignia is perfect for compact, casual viewing.
Featuring Dolby Vision picture quality and Fire TV's latest software, this 4K Ultra HD TV is a great entry-level option.
Apple Watch SE 44mm GPS
The Apple Watch SE balances modern smartwatch features and affordability. On sale, it's an even better deal.
Amazon's cheapest Kindle features a 6-inch screen with a built-in front light, battery life, and storage for thousands of books. This Kindle bundle includes a power adapter and a printed cover for 50% off heading into Prime Day .
Amazon Prime members can get two months of Kindle Unlimited for $5. The subscription will auto-renew to $10 a month after two months.
If you're in the market for a powerful all-in-one streaming device that can support high-end AV formats, the Fire TV Cube might be what you're looking for. Simply connect it to your current TV to unlock an array of smartwatch features.
Amazon Echo Dot + Sengled Bluetooth Color Bulb
Amazon Amazon Echo + Sengled
If you're looking for better sound quality than the Echo Dot, the fourth-gen Echo is the device you'll want. It also comes bundled with a Sengled color bulb.
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.
Amazon's fitness tracker often sees discounts throughout the year, but $45 is the lowest price we've seen for it yet. The Halo Band tracks your steps, heart rate, and sleep. It also comes with a free six-month subscription trial.
Amazon's Glow is a video calling device with an 8-inch vertical screen and a projector that displays 19-inch touch-enabled interactive books, games, and drawing apps.
With incredible sound quality and noise-canceling technology, Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 are the perfect headphones to pair with your Samsung phone.
With a built-in Tile, you'll be able to track your headphones whenever they get misplaced.
The Instant Pot Duo Crisp is a pressure cooker, slow cooker, air fryer, and sous vide machine all in one, making it one of the most useful and economical small appliances we tested. We recommend them to everyone from beginner cooks to experienced chefs.
The 72-oz. Total Crushing Pitcher pulverizes ice to snow in seconds for creamy frozen drinks and smoothies with a powerful 2-plus horsepower motor.
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2022-07-11T16:16:40Z
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LIVE: the 31 Best Deals for Amazon Prime Day 2022
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With its large selection of can't-miss deals, Amazon Prime Day 2022 is the perfect time to buy a mattress online. Prime Day starts Tuesday, July 12 and runs through July 13 at 11:59 p.m. PT, but many deals are already live, including savings of up to $500 on a broad range of top brands.
Throughout Prime Day , we will keep updating this guide with the latest sales. Purple, Casper, Nectar, and other top retailers also have sales to compete with Amazon's deals for Prime members. Many discounts continue beyond the end of Prime Day, giving you extra time to choose the bed you want.
The Casper Original Hybrid Mattress has outstanding edge support, and its firmer-than-average feel offers back support. This is a great deal, though we've seen the price dip lower in the past.
The new Element mattress is a cheaper alternative to some of Casper's other options, and offers a firm base and excellent edge support. This is a deal we see frequently, so we wouldn't recommend spending more than this.
$1,295.00 $1,165.50 from Macy's
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2022-07-11T16:16:52Z
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Best Prime Day Mattress Deals 2022: Tempur-Pedic, Serta, Casper
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https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/deals/amazon-prime-day-mattress-deals-2022-7-11
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https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/deals/amazon-prime-day-mattress-deals-2022-7-11
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