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85a20e1a03f16e1c599c6bc38c87a231 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/10/purrfect-profits-2-month-wait-for-nys-1st-cat-cafe.html | Purrfect profits: 2-month wait for NY’s 1st cat cafe | Purrfect profits: 2-month wait for NY’s 1st cat cafe
Window of the Meow ParlourKerima Greene | CNBC
It might be a dog-eat-dog world on Wall Street, but cats rule the day in one trendy New York neighborhood.
Meow Parlour is a new patisserie on the Lower East Side that allows visitors to pet and hold dozens of adoptable felines while sipping organic coffee, tea and "cat-shaped" cookies.
Four dollars for a half-hour buys time for cuddling and nuzzling resident cats that roam the compact space, complete with lounge areas, benches, pillows and toys.
Cats playing at the Meow ParlourEthan Covey | Meow Parlour
Intrigued by the popularity of cat cafes in Paris and Tokyo, co-owner Christina Ha decided to launch the cat café last December, just around the corner from her existing bakery, Meow ParlourPatisserie
"My co-worker, Emilie Legrand, and I are obsessed with cats. We talk about them all day long. I own four, Pickle, Putty, Bobo and Mr. Socks. Since cats are such a big part of my life, it made sense to expand our bakery concept to include our feline friends. One day, Emilie and I just looked at each other and a light bulb went off," Ha said. "The next thing you know, Meow Parlour was born."
Think of it as the 'purr-fect' therapy for stressed-out office workers. There's even free WiFi so you can work while your furry companion cat naps on your lap.
Pet lifestyle expert Wendy Diamond, president and founder of Animal Fair Media, said cat cafes are an ideal solution for urban dwellers who can't keep pets in their cramped apartments.
Interior of Meow ParlourChrista Hamilton Photography | Meow Parlour
"This is the purr-fect business opportunity. People would rather adopt a cat in a cafe than a shelter! Cats are definitely cleaner than most people, and you don't have to worry about mice running around, which is a huge meow in big cities like NYC," Diamond said.
Reservations have been sold out for months, and there is currently a two-month waiting list to visit. Despite Meow Parlour's success, Ha said there are currently no plans to expand or franchise.
But given the popularity of animal cafes overseas, Ha might soon change her mind. London's first owl and cocktail pop-up cafe sold out within minutes. Japan boasts dozens of cat, dog, parrot, rabbit, reptile, goat cafes. There's even an all-black cat cafe in Himeji and four penguin bars in Tokyo.
Perhaps the most unusual is in Seoul, South Korea, which claims the world's only sheep cafe.
Meanwhile back at Meow Parlour, the lengthy wait list has not scared off one hopeful visitor, Laure Woods, who believes she has a sure-fire way to score a reservation with her daughter, Lexi.
"I'll just stare at the window for an hour or two. Maybe by then one of the cats will open the door and let me inside," she said.
—CNBC's Katie Iacovella and Brian Dorr contributed to this report.
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bb73d67d860215db28a6bf9908c8a5d2 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/11/druckenmiller-this-could-end-very-badly.html | Druckenmiller: This could end 'very badly' | Druckenmiller: This could end 'very badly'
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller has once again warned that the easy money policies of recent years could end poorly.
"I know it's so tempting to go ahead and make investments and it looks good for today," the retired founder of Duquense Capital Management said, "but when this thing ends, because we've had speculation, we've had money building up four to six years in terms of a risk pattern, I think it could end very badly." (Tweet this)
The investor's comments were made at an event in Palm Beach, Florida on Jan. 18, but the transcript was just circulated on Friday.
Druckenmiller cited warning signs like the high number of initial public offerings of companies that are unprofitable, and high levels of debt issued to companies, often with poor credit ratings and without many lending restrictions—so called covenants.
Read More Druckenmiller: Fed policy 'fraught with unappreciated risk'
Druckenmiller also said that comparing modern day economic policy to that of the Great Depression-era was totally inaccurate. He implied that the U.S. Federal Reserve would not cause to another recession by tightening the flow of money into the system.
Druckenmiller showed slides at the event displaying how net worth per household hadn't returned to pre-1929 levels in 1937, before rates began rising. He compared that to how wealth has risen today far beyond pre-crash levels in 2007.
"We're not even close to the kind of numbers we had in 1937," he said.
Some, recently including Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates, have said too fast of an interest rate increase by the Fed could push the country back into an economic recession, similar to what happened in 1937 when stimulus programs were likely cut back too early.
Read MoreRelax, the Fed isn't risking a 1937-style slump
Despite the pessimism, Druckenmiller said he was not "net short" stocks, a term that would indicate his negative bets—or shorts—outweigh his positive ones, or longs.
"You have to be on alert to that ending badly. Is it for sure going to end badly? Not necessarily. I don't quite know how we get out of this, but it's possible," he said.
The remarks were made at an event that also featured Home Deport co-founder Ken Langone at the Lost Tree Club, a golf club in affluent North Palm Beach.
A spokesman for Druckenmiller declined to comment.
He is now chairman and CEO of the Duquesne Family Office. Druckenmiller, also a veteran of Soros Fund Management, closed his hedge fund in 2010, following one of the best long term investing track records in money management.
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2db7d00a03e99736aea2928a56032ae8 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/big-funds-pour-money-into-online-lending.html | Funds rush to pour money into online lending | Funds rush to pour money into online lending
Ron Bailey | Getty Images
Nobody is a bigger champion of the emerging online lending industry than venture capitalist Charles Moldow.
A general partner at Silicon Valley firm Foundation Capital, Moldow was an early backer of LendingClub and OnDeck Capital, which both held initial public offerings in December. And last year, he published a white paper that's been widely cited on the trillion-dollar market opportunity in what he termed marketplace lending.
So when an entrepreneur who wants to crack the fast-growing online debt market gets a dinner invite from Moldow, attendance is a no-brainer—especially when many of the industry's biggest names will also be at the table.
Read MoreA holiday treat for tech investors: IPOs
That's the setting Monday night for Moldow's second annual dinner tied to the burgeoning LendIt conference. In addition to the top execs from LendingClub and OnDeck, joining Moldow in New York will be the CEOs of start-ups including SoFi, LendingHome, Funding Circle, Orchard, RateSetter out of the U.K. and Germany's auxmoney.
"Last year, the conversation was intense for three-and-a-half straight hours," said Moldow, who's also an investor in LendingHome, auxmoney and a personal backer of Chinese online lender Dianrong. "There was a lot of energy around—when LendingClub goes public, this industry is going to explode."
Now LendingClub, which primarily facilitates consumer loans, is public with a market capitalization of about $7 billion, and business lender OnDeck is valued at $1.4 billion. Additionally, LendingClub rival Prosper Marketplace just raised private capital at a $1.87 billion valuation.
VIDEO2:4802:48Peer-to-peer lending 'here to stay': Zopa CEOSquawk Box Europe
If you need more evidence that the online lending market is exploding, just take a look at the crowd at this year's LendIt conference. (Tweet This) Launched in 2013 by industry analyst and blogger Peter Renton, the conference expanded from 350 people in its 2013 New York debut to 950 last year in San Francisco to an expected attendance of 2,200 this year. The two-day event starts Tuesday at New York's Marriott Marquis.
A year ago, at San Francisco's upscale Italian restaurant Flour + Water, Moldow started what he expects to be an annual tradition of bringing the industry's most influential minds together for a single night to discuss such issues as the economic, interest rate and regulatory environments and international growth challenges.
"There will be some point in time when it will be very hard to have this set of companies together, where they open up and are willing to share," Moldow said.
Read MoreWhat do rising rates mean for online lenders?
He's got at least one more night, and is taking advantage of it at a Mediterranean restaurant in Manhattan.
Matt Humphrey, CEO of San Francisco-based LendingHome, is dining with Moldow for a second straight year. But this time he has much more to share.
Humphrey co-founded the company in 2013 as a new kind of mortgage lender. LendingHome's technology does all the underwriting and servicing for the borrower, while the capital comes from a wide swath of institutions seeking fixed income returns.
At last year's dinner, Humphrey was mostly a listener, because his fledgling 15-person start-up had only originated $1 million in loans. He's since multiplied his staff by almost sixfold to keep up with surging demand that's pushed loan volume past $100 million.
"We're very excited to tell the story of where we've come," said Humphrey, who's also speaking on a panel at the conference. "It's 10 to 12 of the best minds in marketplace lending coming together to have an open dialogue about challenges, successes and strategies for growing."
Just as LendingClub and Prosper have taken on consumer loans by replacing bank capital with investor money, and companies like Funding Circle have done the same for small-business loans, LendingHome and others are similarly going after the mortgage market.
Read MoreHow LendingClub aims to end banking as we know it
LendingHome is one of more than a half-dozen real estate companies in marketplace lending, and Moldow said in his white paper, titled "A Trillion Dollar Market by the People, for the People," that they're competing in a $230 billion real estate lending market.
The trillion dollars represents Moldow's rough (but catchy) estimate for 2025, based on the many areas where new software-powered lenders could displace banks.
Marketplace lending in its entirety is taking off fast, with almost $9 billion of loans issued in 2014, up from $3.4 billion in 2013 and half a billion dollars two years earlier, the report said
This will be the coming out party for this space with institutional investorsMatt BurtonOrchard CEO
Sitting right in the middle of the action is Matt Burton, co-founder and CEO of Orchard Platform and a first-time attendee of the Moldow dinner.
Burton is taking a pure technology play, providing a platform that lets money managers invest in debt across the various consumer, business, student and real estate loan issuers.
Six months ago, New York-based Orchard saw about $1 million of new capital a day entering the system. That's now up to $6.5 million.
For Burton, a dinner with the leaders in the space means getting to hear from people he often shares the stage with at events but with whom he rarely has the chance to exchange tips, anecdotes and war stories.
Read MoreSoFi's alternative mortgage
One theme he expects to hear plenty about at the meal is the amount of money entering the market from some of the biggest financial institutions across the globe.
"This will be the coming out party for this space with institutional investors," said Burton. "Before, talk about institutional investors in the space was mainly about a handful of specialty hedge funds and BDCs (business development companies). Now, the largest asset managers in the world are aware of this space, and a lot are attending LendIt this year."
To that, the dinner guests will all raise a glass.
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dce673fe351e680d7d8a6f261b5320ab | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/bionic-creepy-crawlies-in-the-factory-of-the-future.html | Bionic creepy crawlies in the factory of the future? | Bionic creepy crawlies in the factory of the future?
Bionic ants and robot butterflies may sound surreal, but they are part of the vision one German firm has for the factories of the future.
The tiny, 5.4-inch long ants are intended to carry items and work autonomously with other factory ants, mimicking the cooperative behaviour of the insects in their natural environment, said Heinrich Frontzek, the vice-president for corporate communication and future concepts at German automation firm Festo.
"We have been looking at how the factory of the future might be run, and we have focused on bionics, with nature as our inspiration," Frontzek told CNBC on Monday at Germany's Hannover Messe, the world's biggest industrial and technology fair. A focus for the conference is the use of robotics in manufacturing.
Festo
Festo also showcased its "eMotion Butterflies" that can fly pre-programmed routes inside an area mounted with infrared cameras that serve as a GPS system. The infrared sensors on these robot butterflies help them avoid bumping into each other. They even flap their wings like their real-life counterparts.
The robot ants and butterflies are still in the early stages of development.
"We are still getting a feeling of how they could work and operate in the factory of the future," said Frontzek.
Read MoreRobots the new low-cost worker?
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b1f8ec9913b3d705e3102522b0be0e96 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/economic-data-earnings-will-be-positive-tom-lee.html | Economic data, earnings will be positive: Tom Lee | Economic data, earnings will be positive: Tom Lee
VIDEO4:5904:59Optimistic about earnings and economic data: Pro
Despite the recent economic data and Wall Street's poor outlook on corporate earnings, Fundstrat Global Advisors' Tom Lee said Monday he is optimistic for what's to come.
"I'm a little disappointed with the tenor of the data, but the markets have been rising in the face of that. It is very reassuring. Expectations have really come down for Q1 earnings, but I think there's a margin story," Lee told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." "I think we're going to have a stretch of a couple of months where the data's going to be good and the markets are going well into it."
U.S. equities tried to post their first four-day winning streak in more than two months on Monday, as the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 both were up about 0.1 percent, while the Nasdaq composite rose nearly 0.5 percent in late-morning trading.
Corporate earnings season will officially kick off on Tuesday with several companies reporting their first-quarter results, including blue chip stocks JPMorgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson and Intel.
On the data front, retail sales are scheduled to be released Tuesday, while natural gas inventories and consumer sentiment are expected to be reported on Thursday and Friday, respectively, along with other economic data sets.
Read More What earnings will—and won't—tell us about the economy
"The drop of gasoline prices should really light a fire under the consumer, so we anticipate consumer spending is going to be a lot stronger," Scott Brown, Raymond James' chief economist, said in the same interview. "Now we need to see the proof. We need to see the data come in stronger and we may begin to see that in this week's reports."
Gasoline prices have declined considerably amid oil's most recent decline. U.S. crude was up 0.6 percent at $51.95 per barrel in late-morning trading.
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0ce148d9a223ff3ebd48639a765563ad | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/the-next-thing-that-could-rock-stocks.html?__source=fincont&par=fincont | The next thing that could rock stocks | The next thing that could rock stocks
VIDEO1:2901:29Stocks try to build on highest April closesstocks
Earnings season may not give investors that warm and fuzzy feeling this quarter.
For the first time in six years, earnings are in a real decline, expected to be negative with a 2.9 percent drop in net income, according to Thomson Reuters. That comes as price-to-earnings ratios, or valuations, are at the highest levels in a decade, and the question is whether those are weak earnings already priced in to the market.
The first big wave of earnings reports is expected in the week ahead, with major banks and financials, like J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo and American Express, and other blue chips like Intel and Johnson & Johnson.
A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.Getty Images
Quarter after quarter, earnings have topped Wall Street forecasts, beating by a wide margin of 70 percent plus, and that's still what many strategists expect, even if profits fall below last year's level.
"I expect the market to remain largely range bound until we get further into the earnings season," said UBS equities strategist Julian Emanuel. His theory is that companies will beat sharply reduced guidance, clearing the way for the market to move ahead.
Wall Street's economists expect the slow-growing first quarter to give way to a spring rebound, and many analysts expect the earnings decline to end in the second half.
"The problem comes if the economic numbers don't pick up over the next month or two as you come out of earnings season, assuming the market has rallied in the interim because we're about to look through the first quarter as we expect," Emanuel said. "If the economy doesn't pick up, you have to confront the idea that the entire year could be a down year for earnings, and while that's not going to kill the market, that could make later spring into early summer into a more volatile period."
Read More Fed's Lacker repeats view of 'strong' case for June rate hike
Stocks were higher in the past week, with the Dow at 18,057, a gain of 1.7 percent. The S&P 500, meanwhile, was up 1.7 percent at 2102, and the Nasdaq was up more than 2.2 percent at 4,995.
Stocks recently have struggled against a stronger dollar, but this past week was also good for the greenback. The dollar index gained 1.8 percent for the week to just over 99.30, as of the stock market close on Friday.
Brown Brothers Harriman chief currency strategist Marc Chandler said technically the dollar looks set to continue its advance. If the dollar index regains 100.39, it's next target would be 102.25, he said.
"This is probably one of the best weeks for the dollar in several years," he said, noting the dollar's gain came after it declined on March's weak jobs report on Good Friday. "We did have some widening of interest rates, but it was more of a function of no follow-through from last Friday…. We had a decent JOLTs number and jobless claims are at cycle lows, suggesting that people not get too excited about the slowing economy."
Read More US added 126K jobs in March, vs 245K expected; jobless rate stays at 5.5%
Besides earnings, there are a number of important economic reports, including retail sales for March on Tuesday and industrial production on Wednesday. There are also producer inflation and consumer inflation data on Tuesday and Friday.
A handful of Fed officials are also speaking, most importantly Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer, who will attend the IMF spring meeting Wednesday and Thursday. The European Central Bank also meets Wednesday, and it is not expected to take action but will discuss its quantitative easing program.
Economic data has taken on even more importance after the Fed last month said it is likely to raise rates this year, and its decision will be based on the performance of the economy.
"Retail sales should be an up number after a couple months of down numbers," said Chandler. "That'll help give the idea that the U.S. consumer hasn't dried up and gone away."
But it is earnings news the stock market has been most anticipating. The decline in profitability comes as the S&P 500 has become ever pricier, now with a trailing price-to-earnings ratio of 17.3. That's the highest level since 2005, aside from 17.5 in February of this year, according to FactSet data.
"I think you'll continue to see choppy (market) conditions. I wouldn't say I'm super cautious, but I think with valuations this elevated, I know there's a lot of pessimism around earnings and I have a hard time saying it's priced in," said Lori Calvasina, chief U.S. equity strategist at Credit Suisse.
The hit to earnings has largely been in the energy sector, due to the steep drop in oil prices. But the strong dollar has also been a factor that is expected to bite into profits of multinationals who make revenues overseas.
Read More How traders cashed in big on the GE deal
Goldman Sachs strategists expect a first-quarter revenue decline of 3 percent for the S&P 500, but a gain of 4 percent if energy is not included. In a note, the strategists said the near 50 percent decline in oil prices shaved six percentage points off of revenues growth, while the dollar's 11 percent gain likely took off only three points.
Even as the earnings recession has been much discussed, Calvasina said investors are going into the quarter with a skittishness about valuations. "They're (economists) making the case we're going to slow in the short term and reaccelerate in the back half. That's kind of consensus expectations. I would say people are using that to justify the high multiple, but I do think people are worried about valuation," she said.
Calvasina said while the S&P p/e is 18 on future earnings, her valuations model is at a higher level than it was just before the financial crisis, though not as high as during the tech bubble. It was at 1.59 standard deviations above the 30-year average in March, and it was 1.88 during the tech bubble. Her model combines trailing and forward price-to-earnings ratios, price-to-book and price-to-sales.
With the problem of valuations and wobbly earnings, Calvasina said corporate buybacks are one of the best catalysts remaining for the stock market.
General Electric Friday announced a $50 billion buyback, on par with the largest-ever buyback of the same size announced by Apple two years ago. According to Citigroup strategists, the S&P 500 has bought back $4 trillion of its stock in the past 10 years.
"The cash deployment theme is the thing we count as the big positive. We have been a little concerned that you might be in the final stages. You might be in the late innings…. This doesn't mean it has to stop. We've seen cash levels go down. Debt levels have gone up. You're starting to see a little more interest in M&A," Calvasina said.
The benefits have been twofold: Buybacks give companies smaller float and help on the earnings side, with a small share count boosting earnings per share.
"It has been a strong underpinning and you can't underestimate the positive of that," she said.
What to Watch
Monday
Earnings: Commerce Bancshares, Pep Boys
Tuesday
Earnings: JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Johnson & Johnson, Intel, CSX, Linear Tech, JB Hunt Transportation, Fastenal
7:30 a.m.: NFIB small business survey
8:30 a.m.: Retail sales
8:30 a.m.: PPI
10 a.m.: Business inventories
8 p.m.: Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota
Wednesday
Earnings: Bank of America, US Bancorp, Burberry, Charles Schwab, PNC Financial, Netflix, SanDisk, Universal Forest Products, Progressive, ASML Holdings
8:30 a.m.: Empire State survey
9 a.m.: St. Louis Fed President James Bullard
9:15 a.m.: Industrial production
10 a.m.: NAHB survey
10:40 a.m.: Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer, moderating IMF panel
2 p.m.: Beige Book
4 p.m.: TIC data
Thursday
Earnings: BlackRock, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, American Express, Schlumberger, Celanese, Crown Holdings, UnitedHealth, Taiwan Semiconductor, Philip Morris, First Republic Bank, KeyCorp, Mattel, Sherwin-Williams, Sonoco Products, PPG Industries, WW Grainger
8:30 a.m.: Initial claims
8:30 a.m.: Housing starts
10 a.m.: Philadelphia Fed survey
1 p.m.: Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart
1:10 p.m.: Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester
1:30 p.m.: Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren
3 p.m.: Fed Vice Chairman Fischer on inflation at IMF spring meeting
Friday
Earnings: GE, Honeywell, Synchrony Financial, Comerica
8:30 a.m.: CPI
10 a.m.: Consumer sentiment
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1c12c8eb32ae63f47767ccb727754cc9 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/us-stocks-open-mostly-lower-ahead-of-earnings.html?__source=fincont&par=fincont | Stocks break 3-day rally; JPMorgan earnings in focus | Stocks break 3-day rally; JPMorgan earnings in focus
VIDEO2:5702:57Trading Nation: Bank earnings on tapTrading Nation
VIDEO5:0705:07Will the big banks deliver on earnings?Halftime Report
VIDEO3:3503:35Which banks will underperform?
VIDEO2:0902:09Pisani's market open: Why the China rally?
U.S. stocks closed lower on Monday, ending three consecutive days of gains as investors remained cautious ahead of earnings season. (Tweet This)
"There's not a single catalyst," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities. "I think we have pre-game jitters ahead of earnings reports."
First quarter earnings season officially kicks off on Tuesday with blue chips JPMorgan Chase reporting before the bell and Intel after the close. Wells Fargo also reports before the open.
"It will be very interesting to listen to the companies on where they see the economy and how they are handling the current situation," said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management.
Read MoreStock-boosting maneuvers stoke bondholder concern
Kim Forrest, senior equity analyst at Fort Pitt Capital, is watching Tuesday's retail sales and JPMorgan earnings.
"I don't think any of the economic data points to a recession but the banks would be the first to show if the people they lend to—especially in the credit card sector—are seeing signs of pressure," she said.
Under pressure from the strong dollar and low oil prices, corporate profit expectations are significantly negative for the first time in six years, with Thomson Reuters reporting a likely 2.9 percent drop in S&P 500 net income.
"We really have a bias towards financials this week in terms of earnings reporting," Hogan said. "Everyone tries to extrapolate what JPMorgan means for P&G."
"Last week was really driven by the strong energy trade and M&A," he said.
General Electric closed down 3 percent, pressuring the Dow and S&P 500 industrials. The stock surged 10.8 percent on Friday after the announced restructuring of GE Capital and stock buybacks. The appliance and industrial products manufacturer reports quarterly earnings before the bell on Friday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up morning gains to close down 80.61 points, or 0.45 percent, at 17,977.04, with JPMorgan Chase ending 0.60 percent higher to lead five blue chip advancers and GE the greatest laggard.
The also lost early gains to closed down 9.63 points, or 0.46 percent, at 2,092.43, with industrials the greatest of 9 declining sectors and financials the only advancer.
The Nasdaq dipped in and out of negative territory before closing down 7.73 points, or 0.15 percent, at 4,988.25, despite the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) holding modest gains of 0.24 percent.
The Russell 2000 edged higher but fell short of setting a record.
"Today really ... is just a waiting game," said Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group. Stocks are moving "a little bit (on) the dollar and oil. That's going to help us but I'm not sure which way."
The U.S. dollar rose against major world currencies, with the euro lower below $1.06. Oil pared gains with crude settling up 27 cents at $51.91 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The United States ended the month of March with a , up 43 percent from the same period last year, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Monday.
U.S. Treasury yields traded just below recent highs, with the 10-year Treasury note yield near 1.93 percent. The was 0.52 percent.
"Technically speaking the market is in pretty good shape. That could change once earnings begin to flow in," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital.
Earlier, the major indices attempted to hold above key levels, with the S&P 500 briefly above 2,100, the Nasdaq near 5,000 and the Dow Jones industrial average mostly trading above 18,000.
Read MoreThe next thing that could rock stocks
BTIG Chief Technical Strategist Katie Stockton noted intraday resistance levels for the S&P 500 of 2,107 to 2,109.
Despite some expectations of a short-term pullback, Stockton said in a morning report that "we expect the SPX to follow the leaders to a new all-time high, with the belief that earnings season is likely to yield more breakouts than breakdowns among individual stocks."
S&P and Nasdaq breakouts above resistance are significant indicators for the overall market trend, said JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade. "If we do get financials going and tech going the market can really drive higher," he said.
The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, traded above 14.
Decliners were a step ahead of advancers on the New York Stock Exchange, with an exchange volume of 662 million and a composite volume of 2.9 billion in the close.
Gold futures settled down $5.30 to $1,199.30 an ounce.
Major U.S. Indexes
Chinese equities continued to advance, closing at 7-year highs on Monday, despite a greater-than-expected decline in Chinese exports. The negative data weighed on mining stocks, sending European stocks lower to close mixed after a week of strong gains.
Greece remained an issue, with the Financial Times reporting that in case debt talks with its international creditors fail before the month's end.
U.S. stocks closed higher on Friday, marking a three-day rally with the Dow topping 18,000 for the first time in April.
"I think the markets are really geared to company-specific news (this week and next)," Kingsview's Nolte said. "We may not see too much movement in the underlying index because of them."
Read More Instead of audit, maybe the Fed needs stress test
Qualcomm closed down 0.62 percent following news that activist investor Jana Partners has held "constructive discussions" with the tech firm about potentially spinning off its chip unit from its patent-licensing business.
Apple ended mildly lower following news that the Apple Watch customers will have to wait longer than expected for delivery. The iPhone maker pushed back shipping times to May and June after the wearable saw a surge in orders. A Bank of America report estimates Apple will ship about four million Apple Watches during the June quarter.
Sears closed 0.72 percent higher after it struck a 50/50 joint venture deal with Simon Property, designed to unlock the real estate value in the 10 properties it will contribute to the venture. The news follows a similar deal with another mall operator, General Growth Properties, earlier this month.
Read MoreEarly movers: SHLD, UNH, ABBV, NFLX, AAPL & more
Pandora closed 0.71 percent higher after a Wall Street Journal report said rival Spotify was near a deal to raise $400 million in a round that values it at $8.4 billion.
—CNBC's Patti Domm and Peter Schacknow contributed to this report.
On tap this week:
Tuesday
Earnings: JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Johnson & Johnson, Intel, CSX, Linear Tech, JB Hunt Transportation, Fastenal
7:30 a.m.: NFIB small business survey
8:30 a.m.: Retail sales
8:30 a.m.: PPI
10:00 a.m.: Business inventories
8:00 p.m.: Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota
Wednesday
Earnings: Bank of America, US Bancorp, Burberry, Charles Schwab, PNC Financial, Netflix, SanDisk, Universal Forest Products, Progressive, ASML Holdings
8:30 a.m.: Empire State survey
9:00 a.m.: St. Louis Fed President James Bullard
9:15 a.m.: Industrial production
10:00 a.m.: NAHB survey
10:40 a.m.: Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer, moderating IMF panel
2:00 p.m.: Beige Book
4:00 p.m.: TIC data
Thursday
Earnings: BlackRock, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, American Express, Schlumberger, Celanese, Crown Holdings, UnitedHealth, Taiwan Semiconductor, Philip Morris, First Republic Bank, KeyCorp, Mattel, Sherwin-Williams, Sonoco Products, PPG Industries, WW Grainger
8:30 a.m.: Initial claims
8:30 a.m.: Housing starts
10:00 a.m.: Philadelphia Fed survey
1:00 p.m.: Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart
1:10 p.m.: Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester
1:30 p.m.: Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren
3:00 p.m.: Fed Vice Chairman Fischer on inflation at IMF spring meeting
Friday
Earnings: GE, Honeywell, Synchrony Financial, Comerica
8:30 a.m.: CPI
10:00 a.m.: Consumer sentiment
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6e4e6ef9a2a715282708064386c4c2ae | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/wall-street-eyes-budget-big-earnings-ahead.html?__source=fincont&par=fincont | Wall Street eyes big earnings, dollar | Wall Street eyes big earnings, dollar
U.S. stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Monday, ahead of a busy week of data releases and bank results.
Read MoreThis is the next thing that could rock stocks
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Earnings will also be in focus this week, with major banks and financials, like J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo and AmericanExpress reporting, and other blue chips like Intel and Johnson & Johnson. For the first time in six years, earnings are expected to decline significantly, with a 2.9 percent drop seen in net income, according to Thomson Reuters.
Commerce Bancshares posted earnings of 61 cents a share, versus the prior quarter's 62 cents a share. The financials services firm also posted a decline in net income from the previous quarter and the first quarter last year.
The waves of corporate reports comes amid persistent dollar strength. The dollar index against a basket of currencies gained 1.8 percent last week to just over 99.30 and is expected to test new resistance levels in coming weeks.
Ahead of several Federal Reserve speakers later in the week, The Lindsey Group's Peter Boockvar noted the rise in Treasury yields.
The 2-year note yield traded near 0.57 percent and the 10-year note yield rose as high as 1.98 percent.
"In the FOMC minutes released last week, they said 'Further improvement in the labor market, a stabilization of energy prices, and a leveling out of the FX value of the dollar were all seen as helpful in establishing confidence that inflation would turn up,'" Boockvar said in a morning note. "We know the labor market has improved, oil prices are at the same level seen 3 months ago and thus reflecting 'stabilization' and we'll see what the U.S. dollar does on this retest of its recent highs."
Oil extended gains after last week's rig count showed a slowdown in U.S. drilling. Crude rose above $52 a barrel and brent traded juts below $59 a barrel.
Meanwhile, European equities were lower in morning trade on Monday as investors paused for breath and digested fresh economic data from China, after stellar gains last week.
U.S. stocks closed higher on Friday, with GE news boosting the Dow to over 18,000 for the first time in April as investors looked ahead to the official start of earnings season next week.
In U.S. corporate news, Sears struck a 50/50 joint venture deal with Simon Property, designed to unlock the real estate value in the 10 properties it will contribute to the venture. The news follows a similar deal with another mall operator, General Growth Properties, earlier this month.
Apple Watch customers will have to wait longer than expected for delivery, with Apple having pushed back shipping times to May and June after the new product saw a surge in orders. A Bank of America report estimates Apple will ship about four million Apple Watches during the June quarter.
Read More Early movers: SHLD, UNH, ABBV, NFLX, AAPL & more
Pandora gained after a Wall Street Journal report said rival Spotify was near a deal to raise $400 million in a round that values it at $8.4 billion.
—CNBC's Peter Schacknow contributed to this report.
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6c1665b89ae896f1177009b1b6fd8a10 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/14/asian-stocks-cautious-ahead-of-china-q1-gdp.html | Asian shares mixed in choppy trade after China GDP | Asian shares mixed in choppy trade after China GDP
VIDEO3:3303:33Shanghai Composite stung by China GDP dataCapital Connection
Asian stock markets saw choppy trade on Wednesday as the keenly-anticipated reading on China's economy showed first-quarter growth at its slowest pace since the global financial crisis.
Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 7 percent in the three months to March from the year ago period, according to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics, in line with the forecast in a Reuters poll and the 7.3 percent print in the previous quarter.
Scheduled for release alongside the GDP data are figures for factory output, fixed asset investment and retail sales for March - all of which came in below market consensus, underlining the urgency for Beijing to do more to curb the marked slowdown.
Overnight, U.S. stocks ended mixed as investors reacted to the first of the major earnings reports, which topped modest expectations following worries about a stronger U.S. dollar. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 closed up 0.3 and 0.2 percent each, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq shed 0.2 percent.
Mainland markets volatile
Chinese shares wavered between gains and losses after the data release and eventually closed down 1.3 percent. Intra-day swings were huge; the Shanghai Composite index climbed as high as a new 7-year high of 4,175 points and stumbled as low as 4,069 points.
Banking shares were among the most active; Agricultural Bank of China rose 0.8 percent, while Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Bank of Communications made gains of 3 and 2.3 percent. Property developers, however, raked in steep declines; China Vanke and Poly Real Estate plummeted 1.6 and 2.7 percent, respectively.
The benchmark index has been on an uptrend for the past six weeks, with hopes of further stimulus buoying sentiment driving the "bad news is good news" stance to full effect, analysts say. "As a result, it didn't take long for Chinese equities to unwind some of the gains we've been seeing recently. With Hong Kong and Shanghai turning negative on the back of the data, it's clear stimulus speculation has spurred equities to outperform economic reality over there," IG's market strategist Stan Shamu wrote in a note.
Read MoreWhy China is worrying US CEOs: Pritzker
In Hong Kong where a blistering rally occurred ever since markets reopened post-Easter, the key Hang Seng index rebounded 0.2 percent at the close, edging back to Monday's 7-year closing high of 28,016 points.
Among gainers, Alibaba Health Information Technology rocketed nearly 90 percent to its highest level since March 2000 after Alibaba Group said it would inject its online pharmacy business into the healthcare unit. The H-shares of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China ralled 3.6 percent, while oil-related counters like China National Offshore Oil Corporation and Sinopec charged up 3.4 and 2.6 percent each.
Blue-chip perennials remained unfavored by mainland investors who have sent Hong Kong shares skyrocketing over the past 9 sessions. CK Hutchison Holdings and Swire Pacific shed 1.7 and 0.6 percent each.
VIDEO3:4903:49China seeing a multi-year bull market: ExpertStreet Signs Asia
Nikkei sheds 0.2%
Japan's Nikkei 225 index edged down on Tuesday, pulling away further from the 20,000-point psychologically-important level, which it pushed through for the first time in 15 years end of last week.
Recent gainers continued to be the target of profit-taking; Meiji Holdings extended losses to fall 3.5 percent Tuesday, while drugmaker Shionogi & Co settled 2.7 percent lower.
Firms with exposure to the mainland were in focus following the GDP print; industrial robot maker Fanuc ticked up 0.3 percent, while Fast Retailing and construction machinery maker Komatsu eased 1.2 and 1.9 percent each.
Read MoreChina says no to Taiwan on AIIB: What it means
ASX falls 0.6%
Australia's S&P ASX 200 index finished at a one-week low, reversing a higher open, as worries about slowing growth momentum in the world's second-biggest economy offset the rebound in mining plays.
Westpac led losses with a 1.6 percent decline, while Australia and New Zealand Banking, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and National Australia Bank retreated between 1 to 1.5 percent. Retailers were also on the backfoot; JB Hi-Fi and Myer lost over 2 percent each.
The resources sector fared better on Tuesday. After an extensive sell-off in the past few sessions, major iron ore producers rebounded as prices of the commodity found some reprieve. BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto rose 1.3 and 1.6 percent, respectively, while Fortescue Metals climbed 1.1 percent. Woodside Petroleum and Santos closed up 0.4 percent each.
Meanwhile, the Australia dollar was hit by China's growth data, falling to a low of 0.7583 against the dollar from $0.7604 before, and briefly touching 90.78 yen.
Read MoreAussie property's bubbly days are numbered: Goldman
Kospi adds 0.4%
South Korea's benchmark Kospi index closed up 0.4 percent to chalk up a four-day winning streak, claiming further grounds above the 2,100-point level after crossing the landmark for the first time in nearly four years on Tuesday. Soft data from the mainland - South Korea's largest trading partner - did not have much immediate impact.
Grand Korea Leisure surged 3.1 percent following media reports that the state-run casino operator is close to signing an agreement with U.S.-based Mohegan to build a 1 trillion won casino resort. Posco firmed up 0.6 percent after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway said it still owns "a considerable amount" of the steelmaker's shares.
Asiana Airlines is in focus after one of its plane skidded off a runway while landing in western Japan and about 20 passengers received minor injuries. Shares of the carrier slumped 4 percent.
Meanwhile, markets in Thailand remain closed for the annual Songkran Festival.
— CNBC's Li Anne Wong contributed to this report
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c51dba5f7cc35c371ce208576a77fdac | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/14/dont-let-these-decisions-crack-your-nest-egg.html?__source=fincont&par=fincont | Take these steps to avoid cracking your nest egg | Take these steps to avoid cracking your nest egg
VIDEO0:0000:00How to reduce retirement needsReturn on Retirement
It was supposed to be enough: a nest egg sufficient in size to cover your living expenses during retirement. So where did it all go?
One bad decision as you convert your savings to income can undermine a lifetime's worth of good ones, draining your hard-earned retirement funds and leaving you in a financial lurch.
Here are five of the most common and costly distribution mistakes—from overly aggressive spending habits to unbalanced portfolios and inefficient tax moves—that, with proper foresight and know-how, can easily be avoided.
Swell Media | UpperCut Images | Getty Images
1. Spending too much. Perhaps the biggest blunder when it comes to retirement plan distributions is spending too much, said Dave Richmond, a financial consultant and president of Richmond Brothers.
Many new retirees get lulled into a false sense of security when they see the size of their nest egg, forgetting that they may need that money to last up to 30 years, based on current life expectancies. They forget, too, that their expenses will likely rise as they age due to health-care costs.
Read MoreScared to outlive your nest egg?
Fidelity Benefits Consulting reports that a 65-year-old couple with traditional Medicare coverage retiring this year will need an average of $220,000 to cover out-of-pocket medical expenses during retirement—not including the costs of nursing-home care.
"Especially if they get a lump-sum dollar amount from a pension, that looks like a lot of money sitting there, and they think they can take $20,000 here and $20,000 there, plus their annual draw, and the next thing you know, they're taking 10 percent a year," said Richmond, noting retirees who are no longer collecting a paycheck must stick to a budget if they hope to outlive their savings.
It's even worse when investors retire into a bull market, as has been the case over the last few years. Many labor under the illusion that they can safely take more of their profits off the table than their projections would allow.
"Over the last few years, the markets have been so good that people think they can get away with taking more," said Richmond. "You have to be careful."
Taking too much from your savings too soon, he said, has a disproportionately negative impact on future returns, since it denies those dollars the opportunity to continue earning compounded interest.
2. Forgetting your RMD. This one stings. The Internal Revenue Service does not allow you to leave your money in a traditional individual retirement account indefinitely.
Generally, you are required to begin taking withdrawals when you reach age 70½. Your required minimum distribution, or RMD, is the amount you must withdraw from your account each year as taxable income. (There are no RMDs associated with Roth IRAs, since they are funded with after-tax dollars.)
Read MoreSandwich generation hit hardest
"I've seen this happen a lot," said Allan Katz, a certified financial planner and president of Comprehensive Wealth Management Group. "They turn 70½, but they don't need the money, so they forget about taking the RMD. I've seen people come in in their 80s and say, 'I've never taken that.'"
In addition to the regular taxes you will owe on the distribution, the government will impose a 50 percent excise penalty on any portion of your RMD not withdrawn. Ouch!
One of the most important predictors of a successful financial retirement is what the markets do during the first three to five years of your retirement.Richard Salmenmanager of financial planning services at BOK Financial
3. Neglecting the 4 percent rule. Retirees also frequently forget to adjust their withdrawal rate from their IRA based on market performance.
As a general rule, financial planners recommend an initial withdrawal rate of 4 percent of one's portfolio value during the first year of retirement, with annual pay raises thereafter to match the rate of inflation.
When the markets produce above-average returns, however, you may be able to convert slightly more of your earnings into income. Likewise, when market returns are lean, you should give yourself a pay cut and live on less.
"One of the most important predictors of a successful financial retirement is what the markets do during the first three to five years of your retirement," said Richard Salmen, a CFP and manager of financial planning services at BOK Financial. "If we have good investment markets during the first years, you're off to a really great start. But if you retired in 2007, when the was down 30 percent, that's a big hole to dig yourself back out of. You need to either go back to work or reduce your spending."
To avoid selling into a bear market, said Salmen, consider banking one to two years' worth of cash in a liquid interest-bearing account, from which you can pay the bills while your stock portfolio recovers.
4. Shortchanging Social Security. Many retirees fail to consider the impact that retirement plan distributions may have on the taxability of their Social Security income, said Salmen.
If you and your spouse file a joint return with a combined income below $32,000, your Social Security benefits are tax-free. If your income from wages, self-employment, interest, dividends or retirement plan distributions falls between $32,000 and $44,000, however, up to 50 percent of your benefit may be subject to tax. And if your total household income is above $44,000, up to 85 percent of your benefit may be taxable. The thresholds for single taxpayers are $25,000 and $34,000.
Read MoreSet retirement goals now
"If you're in a situation where your total income is $30,000 and you take $15,000 from your retirement plan, you just went from Social Security not being taxable to all of it being taxed at 85 percent," said Salmen. "It's a big deal, and not many retirees are aware of it."
Wealthy retirees who already have income above $44,000 need not worry about the added impact of distributions, as they already pay the maximum tax on their Social Security income. Likewise, those with income well below the minimum threshold for taxation are generally in the clear.
It's the millions of taxpayers who fall somewhere in between who should factor taxes into their distribution plan.
If you're younger than age 70½, when RMDs begin from your IRA, you can potentially minimize the tax you will pay over the long run by doubling up your distribution one year and not taking one the following—thus ensuring your Social Security checks will only be taxed every other year.
5. Retiring too early. It can be equally costly to cash out early from your 401(k) plan or IRA.
Before age 59½, any money you withdraw will not only get taxed as ordinary income but incur a hefty 10 percent penalty, as well.
You can potentially avoid the penalty in the case of a financial hardship or when the money is used to cover expenses related to college education, medical expenses or the purchase of a first home.
There are also exceptions for your IRA. You may be able to access your IRA funds penalty free before age 59½ by taking advantage of IRS code 72t, which allows taxpayers to take substantially equal distributions from their IRA for five years or until they reach 59½. The distribution amount is determined by your account balance and age.
But penalties aren't the only downside to early withdrawals, according to Richmond of Richmond Brothers.
Read MoreLoosen U.S. grip on retirement saving
Early withdrawals deny your savings the chance to produce compounded returns, which can seriously shortchange your nest egg. That's increasingly dangerous with life expectancies on the rise.
Mistakes related to when, how and how much you distribute from your 401(k), IRA and other retirement plans can derail your financial future faster than you can say "zero account balance."
To ensure your hard-earned savings go the distance, keep your spending in check, factor in tax implications, and avoid penalties at every turn.
—By Shelly Schwartz, special to CNBC.com
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2d8d80556022a36c3d6d1f6e1c1b24c4 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/14/julie-rice.html | Julie Rice | Julie Rice
Julie Rice and her partner Elizabeth Cutler founded SoulCycle on the belief that fitness should be inspiring. Their vision of a motivational 45-minute indoor-cycling workout combined with a chic branded environment, and "above and beyond" customer service came to life in 2006. Today, SoulCycle has 47 locations nationwide, with plans to open over 55 studios worldwide by 2015.
Julie has been honored as one of Goldman Sachs' 100 Builders + Innovators in 2013 and 2014, and SoulCycle was voted one of the World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Fitness of 2013 by Fast Company. In 2015, Julie was voted one of Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business.
She will be speaking at iCONIC: DC on November 11, 2015. Register today.
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9790c52d1f18f040c9e670bb5d0c3838 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/14/ron-paul-watch-out-dollars-in-a-huge-bubble.html | VIDEO3:3903:39This is the next financial crisis: Ron PaulFutures Now
Despite rising stock prices and a falling unemployment rate, the United States is on the brink of a catastrophic "financial crisis," according to former U.S. presidential candidate Ron Paul. And the culprit could be the .
"There's a huge bubble with the dollar," Paul said on Tuesday's "Futures Now." The Dollar index, which measures the dollar against a basket of other major currencies, is near 12-year highs as the Fed has retreated from its stimulative programs at just the same time that other central banks have introduced their easing measures. But rather than take the rally as a sign that investors see strength in the U.S. economy, the outspoken former congressman sees the dollar's massive move higher as simply a byproduct of a world awash in easy money.
Read More Gold cuts losses on lower dollar after US data
"It's not so much that the dollar is a great currency. It's the fact that nothing else is any better, said Paul. "The fundamentals are a disaster. The economy is in bad shape when you have more than half the people hardly making ends meet."
Ron PaulAdam Jeffery | CNBC
Paul declined to offer a catalyst or even a timeframe for when the dollar "bubble" could pop, but did warn that it does happen, it will be quick and unexpected. "Most of the time, these things are unforeseen," he said. "Did anybody warn us about 2007, 2008 in Lehman Brothers? Nobody warned us about that."
According to Paul, the collapse of the dollar, and by extension, the stock market will likely come when the Fed begins to raise interest rates, something many expect it will do later this year. In his view, the Fed's policies, and not real economic growth, have been the real reasons the dollar and U.S. equities have rallied. And the absence of those policies could lead to disaster.
Read More Instead of audit, maybe the Fed needs stress test
"Right now, the markets have tried to correct things since '08 and '09 but the correction has been prohibited," Paul said. "It's just like in the Depression; we prohibited, we delayed the inevitable."
Of course, Paul has made similar bearish warnings in the past couple years, none which have really come to fruition. But his latest cries of caution come at a curious time. His son, the Kentucky senator, Rand Paul, recently announced his candidacy for the 2016 presidential election. But has he warned his son about this brewing "crisis?"
"I haven't talked to him about that in recent months," Paul said.
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1dd2f148374efc333de2a1ecacb975b0 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/14/the-robot-revolution-on-the-factory-floor.html | Your next workmate could be a robot | Your next workmate could be a robot
VIDEO2:1202:12It's the robot revolutionRise of the Robots
A new generation of robots able to work alongside humans on the factory floor is a development that some experts at this week's industrial fair in Germany have described as "revolutionary."
The big deal about these "collaborative robots" is that they mark a departure from their predecessors which had to sit in cages or be fenced off to protect humans, said Olaf Kramm, the general manager at Fanuc Germany.
Fanuc is a machinery manufacturer showcasing its newest collaborative robot at Hannover Messe – the world's biggest industrial and technology fair.
"Collaboration is already a revolution," Kramm told CNBC late Monday. "The fencing we had around robots was a show-stopper. But that was for safety reasons; now we're talking about industry 4.0 – a smart factory with no borders, where robots and humans work alongside another."
Read MoreBionic creepy crawlies in the factory of the future?
He added: "What we're focused on is a workplace where if a human cannot work for a long time we use a robot instead -- for example working on spare parts."
Fanuc on Monday unveiled its collaborative robot, called "CR35-iA," at the Hannover Messe fair. The robot has been in development for roughly two years and is bright green – a colour picked deliberately to signify collaboration between humans and robots, according to Kramm.
Demonstrating how the robot can be stopped by a light touch of the hand as it loaded a tyre into and out of a car, Kramm said the CR35-iA can take a payload of up to 35 kilograms, allowing it to handle heavy-duty, industrial manufacturing operations.
The use of robots across the manufacturing spectrum is growing and the International Federation of Robotics estimates that 225,000 industrial robots were sold in 2014, up 27 percent from 2013.
Fanuc is one of a number of companies working on collaborative robots, which analysts expect to become a growing feature of the factories of the future.
ABB, an automation company based in Switzerland, was another firm displaying a collaborative robot at Hannover Messe.
An attendee looks at a YuMi robot, manufactured by ABB Ltd.Krisztian Bocsi | Bloomberg | Getty Images
"YuMi -- short for you and me working together -- is a dual-arm, assembly robot that has the ability to see and feel.
Read MoreHow robots are stealing a march on the military
"YuMi really is a revolution in human-machine collaboration," ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer told CNBC. "The robot learns movements in a very fast time, has intuitive programming and is the first robot that is fully connected to our remote service centre in India."
According to ABB, YuMi is built to handle anything from the delicate parts of a wristwatch to the components found in tablets and mobile phones. Its makers say it performs with an accuracy which enables it to thread a needle.
Indeed, YuMi certainly had a flock of visitors at Hannover Messe, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stopping by during their tour of the fair to see the robot in action.
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5091fa96e0255234200559c079997fec | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/14/what-would-a-greek-default-look-like.html | What would a Greek default look like? | What would a Greek default look like?
While Greece has denied it is about to default on its debt obligations, there are growing concerns the country will not be able to make a slew of onerous loan repayments to its international creditors—prompting analysts to debate what form a future default could take.
These analysts are unconvinced that further negotiations, due to take place on April 24 between Greece and the Eurogroup of finance ministers, will be fruitful. This could see further aid withheld from Greece, leaving the country struggling to make upcoming repayments and potentially liable to default.
Robert Kuenzel, director of euro area economic research at Daiwa Capital Markets, warned on Tuesday that Greece's cash buffers were "increasingly thin" and that a default could be "very nasty."
Aris Messinis | AFP | Getty Images
"There are different sequences of events that could happen if Greece defaults, all of which might end up in a very nasty scenario - especially, when Greece is no longer able to access ECB (European Central Bank) funding facilities, such as its Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) provision – as solvency is a requirement for ELA," Kuenzel said.
"Any kind of default would be an extremely messy affair. It could trigger bank runs, a downgrade (of sovereign credit rating) to default status, and could set in motion massive financial instability. The country would have to introduce its own parallel currency, IOUs (I owe yous) or literally something that resembled a bank note."
Greece has been reliant on international aid from its two bailout programs since 2010, worth a combined 240 billion euros ($254 billion). As the coffers run low, Greece is hoping a last tranche of aid from its bailout program will be released, but the country has not yet instigated the reforms that creditors are demanding as a precondition.
Read MoreGreece hits back atreports of euro zone 'shock'
On Monday, Greece firmly refuted a report by the U.K.'s "Financial Times" newspaper on Monday that said on its loan repayments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if an aid deal was not struck. Instead, Greece said negotiations were proceeding "swiftly" towards a solution.
Bob Parker of Credit Suisse told CNBC that Greece could face a "nightmare scenario" if it did not make the reforms demanded by creditors, leading to no further aid and a default.
"This is when you get a collapse in the banking system and a withdrawal in ECB support - and that would lead to a Greek exit," the senior advisor in investment, strategy and research said.
"There is a high probability that that could not be managed easily and that would be a messy withdrawal of Greece. If they did get a new drachma (Greece's former currency) it would probably involve a 50 percent-plus devaluation. That would result not just in a default of the Greek state but also major defaults of Greek companies, Greek individuals that borrowed in euros and the banking system, so I think everyone realises that nightmare scenario has to be avoided."
Despite the desire in Athens and the euro zone to avoid a default and the upheavals it would bring to both Greece and the single currency union, some market analysts think a default is now as question of "when" not "if."
"I think default is inevitable," Michael Hewson, chief markets analyst at CMC Markets, told CNBC Tuesday.
"Whatever happens, even if they agree some tranche of aid for Greece, its economy is not going to achieve the rate of growth it needs to start paying down the debts. There is no prospect of Greece not defaulting, in my view, and if markets don't realise this they're living on another planet."
The so-called troika of international lenders will not "throw good money after bad," Hewson said, throwing cold water on hopes that Greece can be rescued with more aid, irrespective of whether it make the necessary reforms before its extended bailout program ends in June.
Read More'It's treason!'Greek anger at government U-turn
Hewson added that Greece would inevitably exit the euro zone in the event of a default—potentially putting the integrity of the entire region in doubt.
- By CNBC's Holly Ellyatt, follow her on Twitter @HollyEllyatt. Follow us on Twitter: @CNBCWorld
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370866e64e1e2126ec50ba6bb35a017f | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/15/5-biggest-banks-now-own-almost-half-the-industry.html | 5 biggest banks now own almost half the industry | 5 biggest banks now own almost half the industry
VIDEO1:3201:32BofA misses on both top, bottom line Squawk Box
Too-big-to-fail banks, instead of getting smaller, are pretty much taking over the financial universe.
The largest five banks in the U.S. now control nearly 45 percent of the industry's total assets, according to an analysis from SNL Financial that comes amid an earnings season that has been generally positive for the largest institutions. (Tweet this)
In total, the five institutions—JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and U.S. Bancorp—had just under $7 trillion in total assets as of the end of 2014. That's good for 44.61 percent of the industry total. It also leaves the other 55.4 percent of the assets to be divided up among 6,504 other institutions. Banks had total assets of just over $15 trillion at year's end, a number that has grown to about $15.3 trillion in 2015, according to the Federal Reserve.
Big banks getting bigger
Bank Total assets ($B) Share of industry assets (%) JPMorgan Chase2,074.9513.34Bank of America1,574.0910.12Wells Fargo1,532.789.86Citibank1,356.788.72U.S. Bank398.982.57
The asset total for the five institutions in 2014 represents a 2.3 percent gain from the previous year.
Read MoreOuch! Here's Wall Street's next headache
As an industry, banks made $36.9 billion in the year, a decline of 7.3 percent from the 2014 total due mainly to legal expenses at some of the largest institutions, according to the FDIC. Though the total profits declined, the number of banks that operated at a loss dropped to 9.4 percent from 12.7 percent in 2013.
JPMorgan showed the biggest growth in terms of its share of assets, increasing 13.3 percent on a quarterly basis and 6.7 percent annualized, SNL reported. BofA and Wells Fargo saw modest increases in their share, while Citi's assets fell $20.84 billion quarterly as part of a year when its total increased by less than $1 billion.
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ef6007e8f14f99f85412a2200979e8bf | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/15/california-drought-farmers-under-attack-for-heavy-water-use.html | California farmers under attack for heavy water use | California farmers under attack for heavy water use
VIDEO1:4901:49Urban dwellers vs. farmers Power Lunch
If you tuned in to talk radio in Los Angeles last week, you might have heard some screaming.
"The farming industry is using 80 percent of the water, and they're 2 percent of the economy, justify that!" shouted John Kobylt of KFI radio's "John and Ken Show."
Kobylt was ripping into Brad Gleason, who manages almond and pistachio operations in California. When Gleason argued that the actual water usage was lower, and that nuts use less water than other California commodities like dairy cattle, Kobylt wasn't having any of it.
Read MoreHow to fix California's drought problem
"You're full for crap," he told the farmer.
California has the most people and the biggest farm economy, but an epic drought is turning the two against each other.
Signs referring to the water shortage in Kettleman, California's Central Valley.Harriet Taylor | CNBC
Craig Underwood's family has been farming in California for decades. He's survived pests, floods, and (so far) drought. Nothing, however, has prepared him for the PR onslaught farmers now face as California runs dry.
"We're producing food and fiber which is vital to our existence," Underwood said, standing in a lemon grove. "Currently crops are doing better, farms are doing better, and all of a sudden we're being criticized for doing better."
Farmers are being criticized for using too much water and not sacrificing enough in the state's four-year drought. As Gov. Jerry Brown ordered city residents and businesses to slash water usage by 25 percent, reports have surfaced that 80 percent of the state's water goes to agriculture, where the governor is not ordering cuts.
Read MoreCalifornia's four-year drought starts a 'water truck' boom
Farmers say the real percentage is closer to 40 percent, but that is still four times as much as the water going to city homes and businesses. The idea of slashing minutes off morning showers and ripping out lawns at the expense of growing nuts exported to Asia has some city dwellers gushing with resentment.
"They're growing almonds, which takes 10 percent of the water supply in a desert climate. How nuts is that?" Kobylt asked during a break at the KFI studios. (Disclosure: This reporter occasionally fills in on KFI.)
Co-host Ken Chiampou believes that asking cuts from city residences and businesses, who use only 10 percent of the state's water, is penalizing the wrong group. "I need to eat," he said, "but I don't need to eat pistachios."
The two are among the most vocal critics in the growing backlash against farmers. Almond ranchers in particular have been questioned for their water use, as it takes about a gallon of water to produce one nut. Of the state's $6 billion almond production last year, 70 percent was exported.
It's kind of ironic that now that we are actually growing crops that are in great demand, we are being criticized that we are growing crops that are being exported. It's a little frustrating.Mark Borbafarmer, California Central Valley
"Everybody could use fewer of every crop I'm sure, but almonds are in such demand not only in the U.S. but around the world," said Mark Borba, who farms 9,000 acres in the Central Valley, including almonds. He said there's no better climate anywhere for growing the nuts ("bees don't pollinate where it's cold and wet") and his drip irrigation is extremely efficient.
"It's kind of ironic that now that we are actually growing crops that are in great demand, we are being criticized that we are growing crops that are being exported," he said in one of his orchards. "It's a little frustrating."
Read More
Farmers point to the water sacrifices they've been making for years, and the hundreds of thousands of acres they've stopped planting. "We are getting zero surface water allocations from our (federal) contracts," said Borba, meaning he has to rely on groundwater, and there are concerns that even that water is being dangerously depleted.
The threat of less water and higher prices now has some farmers taking aim at each other. The Associated Press reports that authorities are investigating the disappearance of water from the Sacramento Delta after complaints from water agencies representing some farmers in the Central Valley. The main culprits could be farmers closer to the source who tell the AP they aren't breaking any rules because they have senior water rights in a system that goes back a century.
Mark Borba farms 9,000 acres in the Central Valley including garlic and almonds.Harriet Taylor | CNBC
Every day the public is learning more about the byzantine system of water regulations and rights in the Golden State. The Los Angeles Times reports that for years, California has been overpromising the amount of water it can deliver.
Meanwhile, homeowners in San Juan Capistrano have gone to court claiming that a tiered rate system, which charges higher rates for people who use more water, violates state law.
And agriculture isn't the only sector getting new scrutiny. For all the water that goes to farming, even more goes to environmental purposes. "I don't hear criticism of water that's being used to bring back fish, which is a good goal, but is it effective?" asked farmer Underwood. "We're providing food with very few people and tremendous resources, and it takes water to grow food."
Borba believes if the situation really becomes dire, farmland groundwater will be pumped and diverted to the aqueduct to send to cities. "Ultimately," he said, "people will always have the first call on water."
Kobylt and Chiampou would prefer that sooner rather than later.
"We can do without the almonds, I can't do without a glass of water," said Kobylt. "So we win, they lose."
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85a978d9f21602070fdc9620cfa4ec41 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/15/economic-growth-slight-manufacturing-weak-but-autos-housing-gain-fed-beige-book.html | Economic growth 'slight,' manufacturing 'weak,' but autos, housing gain: Fed | Economic growth 'slight,' manufacturing 'weak,' but autos, housing gain: Fed
VIDEO2:0302:03Fed Beige Book: Growth moderate to slight & steady
Federal Reserve officials painted a mostly uninspiring picture in their latest economic assessment, calling growth overall "slight" or "moderate" across most of the country.
Overall, the Fed's 12 districts did report strength in real estate and housing. However, manufacturing in recent days has been "weak" and retail sales "mixed," according to the latest Beige Book account.
District observers blamed much of the weakness on a West Coast port strike, inclement weather and lower oil prices. There were oil-related layoffs across several districts and only "modest" or "moderate" wage pressures.
Manufacturing profits were "down significantly."
"Demand for manufactured products was mixed during the current reporting period," the report said. "Weakening activity was attributed in part to the strong dollar, falling oil prices and the harsh winter weather."
The report comes amid sharply diminished expectations for first-quarter growth. The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tracker has gross domestic product for the U.S. economy gaining just 0.2 percent for the period, though that has seen a slight uptick in recent weeks.
On the employment front, companies reported having problems finding skilled workers.
Retail sales, though, got a lift from better weather and low energy costs. Auto sales and travel also rebounded from the winter weather.
Services firms, particularly those with a tech orientation, were fairly positive. East Coast ports reported gains because of the West Coast port strike.
Perhaps most importantly, signs began to emerge that consumers were spending the savings they reaped from falling energy prices.
Banking conditions were "positive" while agriculture "slightly worsened."
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a1618f7947503a0b6e9f6e71177a3752 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/15/gage-applications-drop-as-rates-tick-higher.html | Weekly mortgage applications drop as rates tick higher | Weekly mortgage applications drop as rates tick higher
VIDEO0:3500:35Mortgage applications down 2%Mortgages
Mortgage applications decreased 2.3 percent from the prior week as interest rates ticked up slightly, according to an industry report.
The Mortgage Bankers Association reports that seasonally adjusted applications to purchase a home fell 3 percent, while refinance applications fell 2 percent.
"With rates little changed for the week, we saw a dip in application volume. It is important to note that purchase volume remains 7 percent above last year's level, and has been up on a year over year basis for 6 weeks now," said Mike Fratantoni, MBA's chief economist.
The contract interest rate on the popular 30-year fixed rate mortgage with a conforming loan balance ($417,000 or less) increased to 3.87 percent from 3.86 percent. Jumbo loans ($417 or higher loan balance) with the same term increased to 3.84 percent from 3.81 percent.
Tight credit continues to hold back the mortgage purchase business. Speaking at FSR's Housing Policy Council forum on Tuesday, Peter Carroll of Quicken Loans said the problem stems from regulations around income and appraisals. Income for borrowers who are self-employed or make much of their salary in bonuses are difficult to document. The home appraisal process is also tripping up borrowers without a lot of money for a down payment.
Read More
"We are seeing a chronic tightening of appraised values that very frequently come in below the sales price and when you are talking about consumers with lower down-payment loans, that's going to pull a lot of people out of eligibility with these products," said Carroll.
Regulators have taken steps to expand credit availability, putting in place low down payment loan option for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac backed loans, decreasing fees for FHA loans, and working on a new credit score models to help more borrowers qualify for home loans.
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1efbb7be7ea2b3e14c9c038f49725522 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/15/helping-fans-enjoy-the-suite-life.html | Helping fans enjoy the suite life | Helping fans enjoy the suite life
VIDEO5:2805:28Fans enjoying the suite lifePower Pitch
One entrepreneur is offering fans a ticket to those coveted luxury suites.
Todd Lindenbaum, founder and CEO of SuiteHop, says, "Billions of dollars are left on the table every year as suites are left half full, or even worse, completely empty for thousands of events." To fill them, Lindenbaum has created the first online platform where individuals and businesses alike can book suites in sports and entertainment venues.
Watch Lindenbaum pitch his start-up in just 60 seconds to a board member of New York Angels, Alicia Syrett, president of Corum Group, Nat Burgess, and a partner at Collaborative Fund, Kanyi Maqubela. Will the founder hit a home run or strike out? Click the video to find out.
Before SuiteHop, Lindenbaum founded Sports Shares, a membership program with access to suites in Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, and Denver. But members started to request suites in new cities.
"Excessive middleman arbitrage, lack of wide availability and a complex sales process all contributed to the challenges in the luxury suite market," said Lindenbaum.
According to the founder, SuiteHop aims to change all that. Lindenbaum said he has developed relationships with many suite owners and teams, who provide much of his inventory, which the company then lists on its website. Availability and pricing operate in real time. And customers do not have to sign any contracts.
SuiteHop even gives users the option to book an entire suite, or individual seats within a suite. Events range from top sporting events like NBA, NFL and NHL games to Taylor Swift and Stevie Wonder concerts.
Depending on the event and venue, customers can expect to pay anywhere from $2,000 to upward of $30,000 for a private suite. Individual tickets purchased for a shared suite can range between $25 and $1,500.
Currently SuiteHop has 917 suites available on its website.
One of the suites that can be booked through SuiteHop.Source: SuiteHop
During the "Power Pitch" segment, Maqubela asked about SuiteHop's customer demographics.
"We're doing business with Fortune 50 brands and doing suite tours for them across the country. We have local and small, medium-sized businesses that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford a suite, and then birthday parties and bachelorette parties. We're really opening the eyes to the public that suites can be an option for them," Lindenbaum responded.
Burgess then asked what the company's suite access will look like in the next couple of years.
Lindenbaum answered that many of the new stadiums built over the last 25 years were financed with long-term suite contracts. He added: "After the financial meltdown, renewal rates have not supported the inventory. Teams are now selling suites to ticket brokers, and they're starting to view the suites as needing help to be sold."
SuiteHop makes money by charging a 10 to 25 percent transaction fee for all purchases. The company also offers its customers event planning, event management and day-of-event services such as an in-suite concierge staff and celebrity appearances.
Since its launch in July 2014, more than 500 suites have been booked with SuiteHop. Lindenbaum told CNBC that the company is profitable and has raised $1 million from private investors. It's headquartered in Denver and has 14 employees.
—Comments, questions, suggestions? We'd love to hear from you. Follow us @CNBCPowerPitch and join the #PowerPitch conversation
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0b509117c146b23fd8527f04a6dd78bd | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/15/oil-demand-seen-rising-but-iran-calls-for-cut.html | Oil demand seen rising, but Iran calls for cut | Oil demand seen rising, but Iran calls for cut
Demand for oil will be higher this year than previously thought, according to new forecasts from the International Energy Agency (IEA), released Wednesday.
The IEA's expectation for a "notable acceleration" in demand for oil in 2015 comes as Iran called on fellow Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members to cut production.
View of Iran's oil industry installations in Mahshahr, Khuzestan province, southern Iran.Kaveh Kazemi | Getty Images
Oil is currently trading at around half of last June's price, making it harder for countries and companies which produce the commodity to make a profit.
Despite the low price, some producers have continued to ramp up supply, with Saudi Arabia – OPEC's biggest oil exporter – betting that lower prices will make more-expensive U.S. shale gas production less economically viable.
Read MoreOPECslams oil producers' 'go-it-alone'attitudes
Some of the smaller Middle Eastern producers are feeling the impact of low prices, however.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh called on OPEC to cut production quotas by "at least 5 percent" on Tuesday, according to the country's Oil Ministry website.
Read MoreSaudis, ETFs could speed oil decline: Citigroup
It comes after major global powers agreed a framework deal with Iran over its nuclear program, leading to fears of further oversupply in the oil market if sanctions on Iran are lifted.
Given this uncertainty, the IEA warned that it could be some time before the oil price recovers.
"Advances in talks on Tehran's nuclear program not only call into question past working assumptions on future Iranian output, but may already have encouraged other producers to hike supply and stake out market share ahead of Iran's potential return," the agency said in its report.
"All in all, that suggests the market rebalancing may still be in its early stage."
A colder-than-forecast first quarter and a "steadily improving global economic backdrop" should see global demand rise, however, according to the IEA. It expects demand to hit 93.6 million barrels a day in 2015, -- up by 90 kilobarrels a day on its earlier forecast.
VIDEO1:3101:31Non-OPEC producers need to correct oil glut: ProSquawk Box Europe
Yet supply still rose – by around 1 million barrels a day in March, to 95.2 barrels a day – with OPEC production recording its highest monthly hike in close to four years, the IEA said.
"Months into the process of market rebalancing from the oil price collapse, one might be hoping for more clarity on supply and demand impacts. Yet, in some ways, the outlook is only getting murkier," the agency said in a release.
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b3a2b4f47ab0cb1a70174ca5c7e12131 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/15/protester-rushes-mario-draghi-disrupts-ecb-news-conference.html | Protester rushes ECB President Mario Draghi | Protester rushes ECB President Mario Draghi
VIDEO0:3500:35Protest disrupts Mario Draghi news conference Squawk Box
A protester briefly disrupted a Wednesday press conference with European Central Bank President Mario Draghi.
The protester jumped up on the table in front of Draghi, wearing a shirt calling for the end of the "ECB dick-tatorship."
The protester also appeared to dump white paper confetti on the central bank chief.
Read MoreLive blog of ECB's Draghi press conference
Security wrestled the woman away, and she was reportedly removed from the premises.
Draghi was just beginning to speak about the European economy when the protester rushed the stage.
ECB security is "investigating the disruption," according to a representative for the central bank who declined to comment further.
An official statement from the ECB praised its security staff for "immediate and effective action."
"Initial findings suggest that the activist registered as journalist for a news organisation she does not represent. Like all visitors to the ECB, she went through an identity check, metal detector and x-ray of her bag, before entering the building," the statement said, adding that Draghi "calmly" proceeded with the press conference after the disruption.
The protester was apparently Josephine Witt, who posted about the experience on the Twitter later on Wedhesday.
Witt tweet 1.
Witt tweet 2.
Below is a sequence of the protest:
A protester jumps on the table in front of the European Central Bank President Mario Draghi during a news conference in Frankfurt, April 15, 2015.Ralph Orlowski | Reuters
A woman interrupts a press conference by Mario Draghi in Frankfurt, April 15, 2015.Daniel Roland | AFP | Getty Images
A woman is stopped by security after she interrupted a press conference by Mario Draghi, Frankfurt, April 15, 2015.Daniel Roland | AFP | Getty Images
—CNBC's Matt Clinch contributed reporting.
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8b9cbc7dd8fbf054262cee4dc9e531da | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/15/wall-street-eyes-further-financial-earnings-economic-data.html?__source=fincont&par=fincont | Wall Street eyes more financial earnings, economic data | Wall Street eyes more financial earnings, economic data
U.S. stock index futures indicated a higher open on Wednesday, amid more first quarter financial earnings and a swathe of economic data.
Bank of America posted a first-quarter profit, swinging from a surprise loss a year earlier when it took a charge of $6 billion for litigation expenses. However, the bank saw a slight decline in its investment banking and equity and debt market businesses while JPMorgan Chase reported investment banking fees and core trading revenues were both up about 20 percent year over year.
Among the several other financial firms posting results before the bell, US Bancorp reported earnings in-line with estimates on revenue that missed. PNC Financial beat on earnings but missed on revenue. Charles Schwab also reports.
Read MoreBlast of financial earnings, oil pricing and economic reports
Delta Air Lines earned an adjusted 45 cents per share for its latest quarter, one cent above estimates, with revenue essentially in line. Delta said this represented the best March quarter in its history, although it added that the strong dollar was presenting headwinds for its international revenue.
After the bell, reports are expected from Netflix,Kinder Morgan, Universal Forest Products and Wintrust Financial.
Pedestrians walk past Bank of America Corp. signage in New York.Jin Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Financial company earnings are expected to grow by 12 percent, in what is seen being a down quarter for the S&P 500, according to Thomson Reuters.
In other stock news, Nokia confirmed on Wednesday it would buy Franco-American Alcatel-Lucent for 15.6 billion euros ($16.6 billion), in a blockbuster deal that has been endorsed by the French government.
On the data front, industrial production for March showed a greater-than-expected decline of 0.6 percent, following a slight gain in February. Capacity utilization also came in slightly below the previous month.
Read MoreOil demand seen rising, but Iran calls for cut
Mortgage applications decreased 2.3 percent from the prior week as interest rates ticked up slightly, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Meanwhile, the Empire Manufacturing survey showed growth in New York State unexpectedly contracted in April, weakening for a third straight month as the pace of new orders fell to a multi-year low, a New York Federal Reserve survey showed on Wednesday. The index showed a decline of 1.19 in April versus March's 6.90 read.
The latest National Association of Home Builders housing market index is due at 10:00 a.m. and the Federal Reserve's Beige Book comes at 2:00 p.m. ET . Treasury data on international capital flows is due at 4 p.m.
There will be a flurry of Fed speakers, including Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer, who is part of a panel discussing macroprudential tools at 10:30 a.m., the International Monetary Fund's spring meeting.
Away from the meeting, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard will speak on the U.S. economy and monetary policy and Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker will discuss investing at a business summit in South Carolina.
The oil market and the U.S. dollar could also be factors for markets, after a boost to crude prices on Tuesday gave energy stocks and the broader stock market a lift.
Brent crude oil prices rose by around 1.5 percent on Wednesday, but gains were capped by keenly-awaited data that showed Chinese economic growth slowed in the first three months of the year.
In Europe, equities continued to hold higher on Wednesday as the European Central Bank announced it would not change rates.
Germany's Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that Greece is in a very difficult situation and that no one has an idea how to get an agreement on an ambitious program for the country, Reuters reported.
He added that the new Greek government has damaged an improving economic trend in the country but he cannot see any contagion in the market from Greece troubles and that the markets have priced in all possibilities.
The problem with Greece is not its loans but its lack of competitiveness, he said.
Read MoreEarly movers: BAC, DAL, PNC, ALU, CMG & more
In other regional news, the European Union has formally filed formal charges against Google over its comparison shopping service, and said it would open a formal investigation of Google's Android operating system and whether the company uses its market power to hinder rival systems.
—CNBC's Patti Domm and Peter Schacknow contributed to this report
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30a00c310619464cfcbb8e80c1b45b64 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/15/yahoo-in-talks-to-buy-foursquare-techcrunch-citing-sources.html | Yahoo not in talks to acquire Foursquare: Sources | Yahoo not in talks to acquire Foursquare: Sources
Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Yahoo is not in talks to acquire Foursquare, the location-based social "check-in" app, at this time, sources told CNBC Wednesday. (Tweet This).
A previous report by TechCrunch hinted at a possible deal to the tune of $900 million, citing unnamed sources early Wednesday morning. Nevertheless, this rumor has no truth to it, CNBC's David Faber said on "Squawk on the Street," citing sources close to the situation.
VIDEO3:4103:41Can Marissa Mayer change the game at YHOO?
Still, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is moving toward reviving the company's mobile presence. Yahoo previously acquired social blogging app Tumblr and inked a deal with Yelp to power location-based reviews.
Yahoo's stocks were down 0.35 percent at midday trading. Click here to see the latest.
—CNBC's David Faber contributed to this report.
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1a6cc4afc84cecdc204b8739ee31b5f1 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/16/oecd-urges-japan-to-keep-an-eye-on-qe.html | OECD urges Japan to keep an eye on QE | OECD urges Japan to keep an eye on QE
VIDEO7:2507:25OECD: Japan's QQE is successfulSquawk Box Asia
Japan must keep an eye on how much its massive bond-buying program is disrupting the bond market, but it is right to tackle perpetual crippling deflation, says the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development's top regional economist.
"QQE (qualitative and quantitative easing) has been very successful at raising inflation expectations to around two percent…and we have to trade off the risk of qualitative and quantitative easing with allowing deflation to continue," Randall Jones , the OECD's Head of Japan & Korea Desk, told CNBC.
After two years of a 80 trillion yen ($671 billion) monetary easing program, the Bank of Japan's 2 percent inflation target has proven to be elusive. If anything, the country is again flirting with deflation. In February, core consumer prices were flat year-on-year and many economists are forecasting low oil prices will tip Japan's inflation rate into the negative over the next months.
However, Japanese consumers certainly feel like prices will rise: on average, they believe prices will rise by 4.8 percent over the next year, according to the most recent BOJ survey of consumers published on April 2.
In the works
The OECD does acknowledge in its report published on Wednesday that the BOJ's asset purchases -- which are designed to free up banks to help kickstart the economy by getting people spending more and push up prices -- carry some risks. The main hazard is that the sheer size of the QE program could disrupt the bond market. In Tokyo, many are worried that has already happened.
Tomohiro Ohsumi | Bloomberg | Getty Images
With the BOJ sweeping up all the Japanese government bonds (JGBs), liquidity has dried up which in turn has led to sharply swings in prices, analysts say.
"It's calmed down a little for now, but rates have tumbled and liquidity has dried up because the BOJ is buying up all the JGBs," Mizuho Securities senior rates strategist Noriatsu Tanji told CNBC by phone.
The yield on 10-year JGBS has fallen from just above 1 percent before the BOJ launched its first round of monetary easing in late April 2012, to a record low of 0.207 percent on January 19 2015, two months after the second round of easing was launched on October 31. The yield on the 10-year JGBs was quoted at 0.326 percent at mid-day Asia time on Thursday.
Watch out for 2016
The main reason for the BOJ's increased appetite for JGBs is the momentous shift in public pension funds' asset allocation strategies, said Tanji.
The Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan, the world's largest public pension fund with assets of 137 trillion yen ($1.15 trillion), is in the midst of reducing its JGB holdings from 60 percent to 35 percent of its portfolio in a bid to improve returns. Many state-related pension funds are following suit, creating a flood of JGBs for sale.
The biggest risk for the BOJ's QE program may be lurking when that supply dries up, however.
If no one offers to sell JGBs to the BOJ, QE will cease to function, Tanji warns.
"For now, the GPIF and other pension funds will sell to the BOJ. But who knows what will happen after that," he said.
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45597e20dd2addf9baf2c779e35a70cd | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/16/robo-firms-gaining-traction-with-traditional-advisors.html | Robo firms gaining traction with traditional advisors | Robo firms gaining traction with traditional advisors
When certified financial planner Sean Burgess began offering investment management services to his clients six months ago, he turned to an asset manager that some of his peers consider direct competition: a robo-advisor.
"No one comes close to their [low] cost," said Burgess, principal of Burgess Financial Planning. "I thought it was perfect for my business."
Image source: Kay | E+ | Getty Images
So-called robo-advisors are automated online investment advisory services that are gaining a foothold in the asset management industry. Along with providing automated algorithm-based portfolio management advice, some robo-advisors offer automatic portfolio rebalancing and tax-loss harvesting.
While the assets they hold—an estimated $19 billion at year-end 2014—represent a sliver of the roughly $36.8 trillion of all managed assets, industry watchers say they are poised for growth.
Read MoreAdvisors going high-tech
"We think this is the next big disruption in wealth and asset management," said Bill Doyle, a vice president and principal analyst with Forrester Research. "I think incumbent fees will be pushed down and customer expectations are going to rise."
Burgess pays 0.25 percent of assets managed to Betterment Institutional, the robo-advisor platform he uses. Depending on the volume of assets they're managing, financial advisors can pay upward of 0.65 percent to third-party managers.
Betterment's lower cost allows Burgess to charge less than the industry standard of 1 percent of assets managed. His clients pay 0.50 percent for his services, which include both investment management and financial planning.
And because Betterment has no account minimum, Burgess can pass on that advantage to investors who typically don't meet minimum account balances for financial advisors' investment management services.
"There was the idea that we must be bad for human advisors," said Jon Stein, CEO of Betterment. "It's not about humans [vs.] technology; it's about how humans employ technology."
The company also has a strategic partnership with Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services that is putting Betterment's offerings on the radar of the 3,000 registered investment advisors that use Fidelity's services.
Read MoreHow a firm can go digital
"There's a natural resistance to change," Stein said. "But the people who meet with us get it almost immediately."
With $1.8 billion in assets under management after four years of existence, Betterment's core business has been its retail investors. Of its 63,000 clients, 75 percent are younger than 50 and 25 percent are older. The average client is a 30-something professional earning $150,000 a year.
Betterment's fees range from 0.15 percent to 0.35 percent, depending on account size.
At Wealthfront—the largest robo-advisor, with $2 billion-plus in assets under management—90 percent of the firm's 21,000-plus accounts come from clients under age 50. Sixty percent of its clients are under age 35.
VIDEO3:3103:31Schwab launches robo-advisor: Betterment reax
"They're hitting a point in their careers where they're making decisions about savings and investing," said Adam Nash, president and CEO of Wealthfront. He added that most of their clients have come from referrals.
Wealthfront does not charge an advisory fee on the first $10,000 of a client's assets. For larger amounts, the company charges 0.25 percent of assets under management.
Wealthfront has no plans to offer its services to intermediaries and instead will count on its technology selling itself to individual investors looking for quality investment automation, Nash said.
"One of the big differences between Silicon Valley and traditional investment companies is that we come from a world where we don't think software is a commodity," he said. "We actually believe that software is something that offers value."
On top of competition coming from start-up robo-advisors, companies like Wealthfront and Betterment face growing competition from financial giants such as Vanguard and Charles Schwab.
Since 2013, Vanguard has been offering its version of robo services to clients with $100,000 or more. For an annual fee of 0.3 percent of assets under management, plus fund fees that average 0.2 percent, clients get a financial plan, portfolio management and an online relationship with a CFP. The money is invested in Vanguard funds and/or exchange-traded funds.
Read MoreAdvisors turn to social media
Charles Schwab launched its robo platform for retail clients in early March; a version for registered investment advisors should debut soon.
Both Wealthfront and Betterment invest client money in ETFs, too.
Nash, of Wealthfront, pointed out that it took his company two and a half years to reach $1 billion in assets, while it took Schwab six years.
Today, however, Schwab manages some $2 trillion. Nevertheless, Nash said he welcomes the competition.
"The best thing about Schwab entering the market is they are validating the fact that the automated investment category is very real," Nash said.
Michael Kitces, a certified financial planner and a founder of the new XY Planning Network, said the group has struck a deal with Betterment Institutional to bring the latter's technology to its roughly 75 advisors.
As its name implies, the network's advisors, scattered around the country, focus on Generations X and Y.
Good technology is here to stay. But whether [robo-advisors] are primarily going to be used by consumers or by advisors is the unknown.Michael Kitcesfounder of XY Planning Network
"It is possible that human advisors could use robo-advisors to do what they've always done, but with better technology," said Kitces, who also is a partner and director of research for Pinnacle Advisory Group and blogs about the robo space.
Other robos have rolled out advisor platforms. For instance, Upside Advisor's platform came out of the gate last year exclusively focused on advisors. Upside got a vote of confidence last year when TD Ameritrade began making its technology available to the 4,000-plus independent RIAs using TD Ameritrade's custody and trade-clearing services.
"Good technology is here to stay," Kitces said. "But whether [robo-advisors] are primarily going to be used by consumers or by advisors is the unknown."
—By Sarah O'Brien, special to CNBC.com
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8b1e3cc6795f26b793d3aef2fdbad4ce | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/16/why-even-high-earners-are-struggling-to-save.html | Why even high earners are struggling to save | Why even high earners are struggling to save
VIDEO0:5100:51Retire well: Salary saving tipsDebt
VIDEO1:0301:03When should you retire?Debt
VIDEO1:0401:04Retire well: Best and worst states to retireDebt
VIDEO1:0301:03Retire well: Maximizing social security benefitsDebt
Even wealthier Americans are struggling to save enough for retirement, according to a new survey.
The report, released Thursday by SunTrust, found that even among households with incomes of $75,000 or more, roughly a third live paycheck to paycheck at least some of the time, and one-fourth of those with incomes of $100,000 or more do the same. (Tweet This)
According to Census Bureau data, less than a third of households across the country earn $75,000 or more a year, though median incomes are higher in some areas than others.
A third of respondents said a lack of financial discipline at least sometimes holds them back from achieving their goals. But older respondents were significantly more likely than the younger cohort to say they were not saving enough for retirement, or were not sure if they were. To some extent, that may reflect lifestyle habits more than financial struggles. Respondents cited spending on things like entertainment, clothing and dining out as affecting their ability to save.
Read More7 habits of highly effective retirement savers
Pamela Sandy, CEO and founder of Confiance, a financial advisory firm, points to other causes as well. Her clients are contending with such things as student loans, the cost of child care and the need to help family members. "Do I think people are just out there being frivolous? It is damn expensive to live in the country today, and it's damn expensive to raise kids, and that's just the bottom line," she said.
There is also the matter of financial smarts. A survey released Thursday by Guardian Life Insurance found that 401(k) plan participants have a low understanding of financial concepts and practices, which the company said "likely contributes to lower plan engagement and less successful retirement outcomes."
Read MoreAmericans' retirement know–how rates an 'F'
The Guardian survey also found that saving for retirement is low even among those nearing that life stage, with the average 401(k) plan participant over age 50 contributing $9,100 per year. (Tweet This) And only half of all the survey respondents are confident they will reach the level of retirement income they are targeting.
Sandy said low savings rates are to be expected. "We don't really have a problem with savings vehicles," she said. "We have a problem that people don't have the money to save."
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b9dcca081488771f54a8eff3da60ee18 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/16/why-you-shouldnt-fear-the-robot-revolution-yet.html | Why you shouldn’t fear the robot revolution—yet | Why you shouldn’t fear the robot revolution—yet
VIDEO2:1202:12It's the robot revolutionRise of the Robots
From household chores like vacuuming, to assisting in surgery and on the factory floor, robots are increasingly becoming a part of everyday life.
It's a trend that is met with both excitement about the potential transformation of society, and fear about a loss of jobs -- and even possibly the end of civilisation.
"If you look back at history, you can see time and time again that the introduction of machines and technology has been met with fear – if you substitute a human with a machine it will be destructive," said Hal Sirkin, a senior partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and co-author of the firm's series of reports on the shifting economics of global manufacturing.
Read MoreHollywood's robots get a life off screen
"But this hasn't happened yet and it will be same with robots," he told CNBC. "The machines we are talking about today are not at risk of taking over the world – down the road that could be an issue and it is not something that can be ruled out."
Abdulselam Durdak | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Indeed, it is a concern that has been voiced by some high-profile names in recent months.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller told CNBC earlier this year that technology "seems to be changing life in such a fundamental way" that it has people thinking about where they will be in 30 years' time.
Meanwhile, U.K. scientist Stephen Hawking told the BBC in December that the development of full artificial intelligence (AI) could "spell the end of the human race," and last week Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School called for a ban of fully autonomous weapons by international treaty.
Although robots, in some shape or form, have been used for decades in industries such as automobiles, analysts say a new generation of flexible, sensing and in some ways human-like robots have the potential to change the landscape of many industries.
The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) estimates that 225,000 industrial robots were sold last year, up 27 percent from 2013.
Read MoreYour next workmate could be a robot
And according to BCG, global spending on robots is expected to jump from just over $15 billion in 2010 to about $67 billion by 2025, driven by falling prices and improvements in performance.
VIDEO1:2801:28Farewell local bartender?Tech
But a fear that robots are about to take over our jobs is not always justified, some experts say.
"The fact is the following: the three highly-robotized economies of the world -- Germany, Japan and South Korea -- have the lowest unemployment levels," said Ulrich Spiesshofer, CEO of Swiss automation firm ABB, told CNBC this week.
The unemployment rate stands at 4.8 percent in Germany, 3.5 percent in Japan and 3.9 percent in South Korea. The three countries share some of lowest levels of unemployment in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
"So the right combination between robots and humans safeguards jobs and safeguards humans," Spiesshofer added, speaking at a major industrial fair in Germany.
ABB was just one firm showcasing so-called "collaborative robots," which can work safely with humans on the factory floor, at Hannover Messe, the world's biggest industrial and technological fair.
Elaine Chen, senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management, added that job loss due to adoption of robotics is a real concern, but is not always based on the right set of assumptions.
"Robots are not replacements for people," she told CNBC. "People are massively more versatile and adaptable than the smartest robots that researchers and robotics companies can create today."
But robots can bring benefits to an economy -- especially ones with an aging workforce such as Japan, Europe and the U.S. – such as increased productivity, the ability to do mundane, repetitive tasks, and lower costs.
"Without robots, Europe will not survive competitively," Olaf Kramm, general manager for machinery manufacturer Fanuc Germany, told CNBC at Hannover Messe.
"Zero robots are not possible. We have high labour costs so we have to automate production to stay competitive."
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a0016874ffdd1275dff916071cfeedcf | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/17/build-a-bot-app-makers-want-your-kids-to-love-and-learn-robotics.html | Build a bot: App makers want your kids to love robotics | Build a bot: App makers want your kids to love robotics
It's hard to deny that when R2D2, RoboCop and the Terminator sprang onto cinema screens, every kid wanted their own robot, but making one appear at the click of a finger was only something that dreams were made of back then.
Now, companies can utilize the smartphone space to make education a fun activity for kids, and what better way to teach kids exciting new things than with robots?
In 2012, Latitude Research published a study about children's interaction with robots, which demonstrated that 64 percent of those interviewed, said that robots felt like "natural, human-like companions." Many app companies have capitalized on this concept, and made apps that educate young children about robots.
David Maung | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Award-winning software company Tinybop Inc., based in Brooklyn, N.Y., has launched its latest app this month, called The Robot Factory, a paid iOS app that allows kids to let their imaginations go wild and create their own robot friend.
In the works since 2010, The Robot Factory allows children to build their own robots in a factory, whether it's a robot cat, samurai or moonwalker with 10 heads, and then lets them test out their robots "in a world" on the app.
Already more than 500,000 robots have been created on the app and it's been named a top iPad app overall in the app store in 27 countries, on top of being ranked first on iPhone for education, in 17 countries. Children can "supply the narrative" in the app and test out their robots to see if they work.
Raul Gutierrez, CEO of Tinybop Inc., told CNBC that they had "created an environment where building a robot that doesn't work doesn't feel like failure, but rather an invitation to tinker some more. This play pattern is essential in developing creative problem-solving skills."
Read MoreA robot friend to make doctor visits less painful
A key objective was to get children "excited about learning" and "excited about releasing the potential energy of their imaginations," said Gutierrez.
When asked whether using smartphones for education was seen as counterproductive, Gutierrez said that smartphones weren't just about content delivery but had all "sorts of wonderful technology."
"It's our responsibility as content creators to harness that power in ways that create meaningful experiences for kids," he added.
The Robot Factory is just the first app in Tinybop's Digital Toys series, who plans on expanding this with two more apps in 2015.
The Lego Group is famous for its power to inspire kids to build new ideas with their Lego building blocks. In fact, in February, Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO of Lego, told CNBC that children still find fun in creating things and that whilst focusing on their "core physical Lego building experience," they wanted to stay competitive by getting involved in technology.
Enter the Robot Commander app and the EV3RSTORM. The EV3RSTORM is a small physical robot created by Lego, which has a "blasting bazooka and a spinning tri-blade."
For it to work, children can use the EV3 Robot Commander mobile application, which allows children to manage their own robot and tell them how to do a lot more than just walking and talking.
EV3RSTORM is just one of many robots created by Lego Mindstorms series, which uses EV3 software to teach children how to physically build their own robots and operate them. On the Lego website, the company shows their dedication to let kids imaginations run wild, stating online that "only the mind is the limit for what you can create."
Read MoreLego to build onsuccess of movie: CEO
VIDEO1:0901:09Lego CEO sees strong growth in Russia
Award-winning educational entertainment company LeapFrog Enterprises has created My Robot Friend to entice kids with robots and education.
The app uses the idea of that children bond with robots by giving them the opportunity to operate a "robot friend" and answer puzzles based on mathematics, logic, spelling and problem solving.
With 80 levels of gameplay to work through, My Robot Friend gets children interested in solving the brainteasers with invisibility cloaks and shrink rays. Similar to The Robot Factory, LeapFrog's app lets kids redesign the original robot's form, with over 180 options available to the children, including a cowboy and Santa Claus outfit.
However, many have commented on how appropriate this app really is for kids, with a U.S. nonprofit organization, Common Sense, saying that it was a "fun puzzler" but that it had "some crude humor with a sarcastic burping cat and some mild violence." Consequently, the game is targeted at children 9 and older.
Read MoreA new era for robotics in industry?
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f20723a9b84c487172e9aaee560af777 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/17/cashin-says-threefold-reason-for-selloff.html | Cashin says: Threefold reason for selloff | Cashin says: Threefold reason for selloff
VIDEO3:0803:08Cashin says: Threefold reason for selloffWorld Economy
Three key factors played into Friday's massive selloff in the U.S. market, said Art Cashin, director of floor operations at UBS (Tweet This).
First, "there were reports in the media [saying] that the ECB and/or banking authorities suggested to banks to get rid of any sovereign Greek debt they had, which suggests that maybe the next step will be Greece exiting," Cashin told CNBC.
Read MoreWhat traders are buying on a down day
The second factor for the selloff is tied to Chinese authorities banning margin trades on over-the-counter stocks, Cashin added. "That whacked the after-hours futures by more than 5 percent."
Finally, the third factor driving the selloff is the temporary outage of the Bloomberg Terminal, which "was disruptive enough to force the U.K. to postpone a bond offering," Cashin also said.
Read MoreWhat is the Bloomberg Terminal?
These three factors have "taken the S&P 500 below what was pretty important support at 2,082 to 2,085. That is going to damage the chart and you run the risk, if they close below there, of setting up a negative chart," he said.
U.S. stocks were down more than 1 percent across the board, with the Dow Jones industrial average shedding about 285 points. Click here to see what the markets are doing now.
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1aaaeb125e73f6e6db2e457b66a92eb9 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/17/google-embraces-mobile-friendly-sites-in-search-shake-up.html | Google embraces 'mobile-friendly' sites in search shake-up | Google embraces 'mobile-friendly' sites in search shake-up
VIDEO0:3100:31Google shaking up the search engine business
Google is about to change the way its influential search engine recommends websites on smartphones and tablets in a shift that's expected to sway where millions of people shop, eat and find information.
The revised formula, scheduled to be released Tuesday, will favor websites that Google defines as "mobile-friendly." Websites that don't fit the description will be demoted in Google's search results on smartphones and tablets while those meeting the criteria will be more likely to appear at the top of the rankings—a prized position that can translate into more visitors and money.
Although Google's new formula won't affect searches on desktop and laptop computers, it will have a huge influence on how and where people spend their money, given that more people are relying on their smartphones to compare products in stores and look for restaurants. That's why Google's new rating system is being billed by some search experts as "Mobile-geddon."
Read MoreWhy the EU is suspicious of Google's Android
"Some sites are going to be in for a big surprise when they find a drastic change in the amount of people visiting them from mobile devices," said Itai Sadan, CEO of website-building service Duda.
The Google logo is displayed on the screen of an iPhone.Jason Alden | Bloomberg | Getty Images
It's probably the most significant change that Google has ever made to its mobile search rankings, according to Matt McGee, editor-in-chief for Search Engine Land, a trade publication that follows every tweak that the company makes to its closely guarded algorithms.
Here are a few things to know about what's happening and why Google is doing it.
Making mobile friends
To stay in Google's good graces, websites must be designed so they load quickly on mobile devices. Content must also be easily accessible by scrolling up and down—without having to also swipe to the left or right. It also helps if all buttons for making purchases or taking other actions on the website can be easily seen and touched on smaller screens.
If a website has been designed only with PC users in mind, the graphics take longer to load on mobile devices and the columns of text don't all fit on the smaller screens, to the aggravation of someone trying to read it.
Google has been urging websites to cater to mobile device for years, mainly because that is where people are increasingly searching for information.
Read MoreIs 'clueless' Europe going to destroy Google?
The number of mobile searches in the U.S. is rising by about 5 percent while inquiries on PCs are dipping slightly, according to research firm comScore. In the final three months of last year, 29 percent of all U.S. search requests—about 18.5 billion—were made on mobile devices, comScore estimated. Google processes the bulk of searches—two-thirds in the U.S. and even more in many other countries.
Bracing for change
To minimize complaints, the company disclosed its plans nearly two months ago. It also created a step-by-step guide and a tool to test compliance with the new standards.
VIDEO7:4307:43Google must play ballMad Money with Jim Cramer
Google has faced uproar over past changes to its search formula. Two of the bigger revisions, done in 2011 and 2012, focused on an attempt to weed out misleading websites and other digital rubbish. Although that goal sounds reasonable, many websites still complained that Google's changes unfairly demoted them in the rankings, making their content more difficult to find.
Still caught off guard
While most major merchants and big companies already have websites likely to meet Google's mobile standard, the new formula threatens to hurt millions of small businesses that haven't had the money or incentive to adapt their sites for smartphones.
"A lot of small sites haven't really had a reason to be mobile friendly until now, and it's not going to be easy for them to make the changes," McGee said.
Burying helpful content
Google's search formula weighs a variety of factors to determine the rankings of its results. One of the most important considerations has always been whether a site contains the most pertinent information sought by a search request.
Read MoreBillions at stake on Apple-Google search deal
But new pecking order in Google's mobile search may relegate some sites to the back pages of the search results, even if their content is more relevant to a search request than other sites that happen to be easier to access on smartphones.
That will be an unfortunate consequence, but also justifiable because a person might not even bother to look at sites that take a long time to open or difficult to read on mobile devices, Gartner analyst Whit Andrews said.
"Availability is part of relevancy," Andrews said. "A lot of people aren't going to think something is relevant if they can't get it to appear on their iPhone."
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7beb987f28236a5e784913fdebf4aebd | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/17/porn-and-pot-the-new-business-bedfellows.html | Porn and pot: The new business bedfellows | Porn and pot: The new business bedfellows
Justine Joli on the red carpet at the 2014 AVN Awards in Las Vegas.Chris Morris | CNBC
A couple years ago, Justine Joli, an actress who has performed in nearly 250 adult films, found herself in a quandary.
She enjoyed marijuana—finding it the most effective way for her to deal with stress—and particularly enjoyed pot-infused edible products. But brownies, cookies, Rice Krispies Treats and other sugar-focused edibles aren't a part of the everyday porn star diet.
"You can't eat a ton of sweets all the time and expect your butt or any other of your parts to remain the same size," she said.
Read More So, Taylor Swift totally bought domain names for porn sites
Worse still, those sweets had often been on the shelves for weeks—which might have been even more problematic for the self-confessed foodie.
Unable to find alternatives, she got licensed by the state of California, bought a business from a friend and began making pot-infused beef jerky.
Joli, who is now the sole employee of Green Fairy Edibles, said she's able to produce about 1,000 ounces of the pot jerky per month. Her profit from that, she says, is about $3.50 per ounce. And the business has grown to the point where today she's swapping porn for pot full time.
She hasn't been on an adult film set for some time, she said—and now Joli's in the process of dissolving her website, and plans to reinvest that money in Green Fairy.
"I'm doing what most entrepreneurs do," she said. "I'm selling off my life and going all in. ... One day of making jerky [makes me] the exact same amount I would make on set. For me, it's a shift in the sense that it's harder work because it's more intensive labor, but I'm not under hot lights and I can eat."
Porn and pot are hardly strangers. Some adult entertainment industry performers—such as Skin Diamond—have been very vocal about their enjoyment of the product. But some actors and actresses say they prefer to keep their appreciation of marijuana more quiet, as enthusiasm for the drug can sometimes be misinterpreted as interest in other, harder drugs that are sometimes on set.
Still, as the legal marijuana industry grows—and calls for national legalization get louder—Joli's not the only star forging business ties with the pot world.
Layla Price has recently licensed her name to the Natural Cannabis Co., which has three locations in the greater Bay Area, for regular new marijuana strains. Price will help promote the products—as well as assist with the selection of the strains and their names.
So far, she has worked with the company on two offerings—dubbed Pineapple Dream and Booty Kush—and an edible blue raspberry lollipop.
"Dona [Frank, owner of Natural Cannabis] was looking for a porn star that had a name," said Price. "I'm not as big a name as [some other performers], but I smoke weed on a regular basis and I'm a big cannabis fan."
VIDEO2:2202:22Porn star investment plans Adult Entertainment
Price said while she could have gone the traditional licensing route and worked with adult novelty companies for a branded sex toy, she feels the marijuana industry is more of a blue ocean—an opportunity with more potential return.
"There are so many girls out there," she said. "The last thing people need is another toy or website. This is something different. ... I make a lot more money in the cannabis industry than, say, if I created my own site or if a big toy company were to offer me my own toy because cannabis is growing. Before you know it, marijuana is going to be legalized everywhere, so I think it's a smarter move."
Read MoreAmid California woes, some eye Vegas as new Porn Alley
The move also helps her get a foot in the door of the marijuana industry. While Price says she doesn't plan on retiring for another five years or so, she hopes to start her own dispensary when she leaves the adult entertainment world.
She's using her present fame (she has 138,000 followers on Twitter) as a marketing tool for her own branded weed—promoting appearances at Natural Cannabis stores. But Joli, who has nearly 32,000 Twitter followers, says she hasn't seen a lot of impact from her previous career.
"So far I've found there's no [impact] whatsoever except my fans noticing that I'm changing what I'm doing. Instead of being naked, I now make pot treats. ... I'm not sure most of them knew I was an avid stoner."
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042fff3496e780ae439f86c3091c8e7b | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/17/t-improve-the-restaurant-experience.html | Digital bites: Apps taking the annoying out of restaurants | Digital bites: Apps taking the annoying out of restaurants
Americans love to eat out, but for a consumer habit that can oftentimes lead to over-the-top indulgence, it's somewhat surprising how frustrating the dining-out experience can still be. That's why apps are going far beyond GrubHub and Seamless, and the days of a Foursquare check-in by a friend to pick your dining establishment are waning.
"Everyone is trying to get a piece of the app business now," said senior research analyst Peter Saleh of Telsey Group, who covers the restaurant business. "And consumers want the tech. One of the No. 1 complaints that they have regarding the food-service industry is the speed of checkout," he said.
iStock / 360 | Getty Images | Getty Images
The following five services are examples of how the app economy is trying to make eating out less annoying and more profitable for the entrepreneurs in the high-risk restaurant arena.
1. Chefs Feed: Eat where Mario Batali eats, and hate on Yelp!
The Chefs Feed app, website and YouTube channel offer restaurant reviews, suggestions and tips from top-notch chefs covering many cities across the U.S.
"We like to think of food as the new rock and roll, and chefs as the new rock stars," said CEO Rich Maggiotto.
Chefs Feed currently features reviews from more than 1,000 chefs in over 25 cities, including all the major metro areas. Reviews for Charlotte, Nashville, Minneapolis and Charleston will launch in the coming weeks. "Expect four new cities a quarter," Maggiotto said.
Read MoreCan this technology help a dying fast-casual chain?
The site hopes to help chefs regain control of the conversation surrounding food. Or in other words, it is the antithesis to Yelp, which Maggiotto said often features the "rambles" of angry guests.
For those who think celebrity chefs are just shilling for their buddies (negative reviews are not encouraged by Maggiotto), he responded that "we believe if you don't have something nice to say, then it's not worth mentioning. Also, the chefs we use say that everything they do affects their brands. This causes people to avoid simply recommending their friends."
Not every chef is able to join this network, which includes Mario Batali, Eddie Huang and Daniel Boulud, among many other celebrity chefs. New members must be invited by current members.
2. Reserve: Leaving OpenTable without a seat at the table
Restaurant reservation apps are nothing new. However, the Reserve app goes a step beyond OpenTable by allowing customers to get recommendations based on your dining preferences (or view alternatives if a favorite is fully booked for the night), book the table and pay for the meal they haven't yet had on their smartphones.
"We help manage the entire dining experience," said Greg Hong, Reserve founder and CEO. "From getting a great recommendation for a great restaurant to being greeted by name at the door and paying without having to fumble for your wallet, the entire experience is invisible and all taken care of."
Reserve services are currently free to its restaurant partners, which include James Beard Award holders and Michelin star winners. The catch: It charges a $5 concierge fee whether the party consists of two people or eight.
Reserve launched in October 2014, and according to Hong, it is the only app to aggregate the recommendation, booking and payment process. The new company is tight-lipped about the total number of active users but raised $15 million in funding this year, including investments from Hollywood celebs Jon Favreau (director and star of the aptly named indie flick "Chef") and Jared Leto.
3. Hello Vino: Saying good-bye to a pricey label only snobs would understand
Hello Vino aims to help take the intimidation and annoyance out of selecting wines from bulky wine lists. It allows consumers to pair foods with wines, log the brands and varietals they've tried, and scan and upload photos of bottle labels for additional information.
Currently, only 23 percent of Hello Vino users use the app while eating out, opting instead to use the app to vet retail purchases, but Rick Breslin, founder and CEO, said that there is room for more growth for the app as an in-restaurant experience.
"The wine industry is a $36 billion industry," he said. "And ninety-five percent of what the wine people consume happens in restaurants."
4. Caviar: The delivery app for the 1 percent
Even with all of the app happenings aiming to get you out of the house, the delivery app is a key piece of the American dining habit. As its name suggests, Caviar tends to partner with pricier brands than those available on Seamless and Grubhub. In some cases, Caviar allows consumers to order delivery from elite restaurants that do not even employ in-house delivery personnel. It currently covers 17 U.S. cities.
Read MoreCan Square replace $1 trillion in checks?
The Ramen Bar, which doesn't have a delivery team, has seen as much as a 13 percent increase in sales via delivery since it started using the Caviar app in March. Alyssa Reaves, assistant director of operations for the San Francisco-based restaurant, said, "We have captured a lot of the downtown lunch market. But with Caviar, we are able to reach the people who can not always run out for lunch." Reaves also said you have to know your audience: "The Financial District of San Francisco is a tech-driven community, so the demand for tech is there."
Diana Hardeman, founder of the New York City-based MilkMade locally sourced ice-cream maker and delivery club—it delivers two new flavors a month and never repeats them—is certainly a good fit for Caviar with her refined palate. And she does use it—as a customer. Caviar is MilkMade's first choice when ordering food for the start-up's staff. In addition to it being easy to use, "it filters out some of the places like the $1 pizzas from up the street that I wouldn't want to order from," Hardeman said.
5. Vurb: PayPal co-founder Max Levchin uses it for his nights out on the town
Vurb aggregates sites like Foursquare, Yelp, Google maps and Uber so that users do not have to leave Vurb to make plans with friends. Vurb's algorithm allows users to search for dinner reservations, event tickets, Uber car services and more, and create cards (think interactive PowerPoint slides) of their selections, compile the cards into decks, and send the decks to friends for review.
"Google hasn't won when it comes to finding things on our phones," said Vurb CEO and founder Bobby Lo. "You still need to toggle from app to app and open up a bunch of different tabs. We waste time copying and pasting links to different places into iMessage and sending them to our friends when planning nights out. Vurb provides a cohesive search experience that allows all of the different elements to work together."
Lo, an MIT grad, double-majored in business and computer science and also received a master's degree in business from MIT and did much of the site's initial development himself. "I couldn't create a scrappy version of the app and just release it," he said. "It took three to four years to build."
Earlier this year, Vurb raised $8 million in funding, including investments from PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston and Naval Ravikant of AngelList.
Getting stuck with a bigger bill
It's not all about your convenience: Average bill size may also rise, thanks to the apps.
"Technology never forgets to ask you what kind of drink you want or if you need a new one, and so it's better at upselling," Saleh said. "Consumers are more likely to provide personal information and sign up for loyalty programs via tablet than they are to sign up with pen and paper," he added. Tablets and other technologies also have the potential to save business owners money in labors costs by eliminating the process of waiting for a waiter to print your bill and swipe your card,
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ff7126d27b5c834207f2833f701b7eb7 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/18/whatsapp-you-say-weve-got-800-million-users-founder.html | WhatsApp you say? We've got 800 million users: Founder | WhatsApp you say? We've got 800 million users: Founder
Getty Images
WhatsApp's breakneck growth has apparently hit a new milestone.
The rapidly-growing messenger application now has 800 million active users, according to a Facebook post made by its founder, Jan Koum, who used the occasion to take a swipe at its competition.
"WhatsApp - now serving 800,000,000 monthly active users," Koum posted on the social network late Friday. "Reminder for the press out there: active and registered users are not the same thing," he added, with a smiling emoticon punctuating the end of the post.
The new milestone comes just a few months after WhatsApp said it had surpassed 700 million users, and comes a year after Facebook paid a multi-billion price tag to acquire the company. Facebook's own message software recently broke 600 million users.
At the current rate of growth, WhatsApp is well on pace to catch up to the social network's more than 1 billion monthly users.
Microsoft was also eyeing WhatsApp, but apparently wasn't willing to pay as much as Facebook for the messaging app, according to a 2014 report in Rolling Stone.
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1da70da23d2a2c85c254bb9898fa882a | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/19/aussie-new-zealand-dollars-helped-by-china-stimulus.html | Dollar rises as Greece anxieties sting the euro | Dollar rises as Greece anxieties sting the euro
Getty Images
The dollar rose broadly on Monday, with the euro sliding more than half a percent against the U.S currency, on growing concern that Greece may default on debts.
The euro was last off 0.70 percent against the dollar at $1.0730, weighed down by the European Central Bank's bond-buying program and the risk Greece could leave the single currency within months.
Athens is in negotiations with its euro zone partners and the International Monetary Fund over reforms required to unlock remaining bailout funds. Public sector entities in Greece were ordered to transfer idle reserves to the central bank to help with a cash squeeze.
The European Central Bank's vice president, Vitor Constancio, said on Monday that Greece would not necessarily have to leave the euro if it defaults on its debt. Still, ECB officials are concerned about the country's looming 1 billion-euro bill due to the IMF in May.
VIDEO2:3702:37Fed the only market engine: ProClosing Bell
The dollar also gained against the Japanese yen and the British pound, rising 0.30 percent against each.
The Australian dollar fell against the U.S. dollar after the country's top central banker said the currency, which has lost 12 percent in the last six months, is likely to fall further.
The U.S. dollar index was last up 0.50 percent. The dollar slumped last week, continuing a run of weakness after a year-long rally.
"Since the dollar was on the back foot, you may be seeing a repositioning where some investors have decided that at these new levels it may make sense to be long the U.S. dollar," said Charles St-Arnaud, senior economist and strategist at Nomura Securities.
The Australian dollar last traded at $0.7715, off 0.70 percent. Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens said he expects the Australian dollar to fall further.
Read MoreJack Welch: How strong dollar could 'crater us'
"I'd be a bit surprised actually if it doesn't go down some more," Stevens said in New York, during a question-and-answer session following a speech before the American Australian Association.
The Australian and New Zealand dollars had earlier gained after China moved to boost banks' lending power in Asia's biggest market. The Aussie hit $0.7844, near a one-month high, after the China move.
The People's Bank of China on Sunday cut the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves in a move to increase lending and combat slowing growth.
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a507e4004ce3824bbd9dba4ae928eeb3 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/19/cell-phones-a-harder-hack-target-than-computers-fireeyes-president-says.html | VIDEO1:3901:39Preventing cybercrime
In the cyberwar against hackers, your phone could actually be safer than your computer. That's coming from a top cybersecurity executive who tells CNBC that cell phones make a harder target.
"Using mobile devices sometimes shrinks the target area a little bit." says FireEye President Kevin Mandia.
Read MoreFireEye CEO: Cyber danger has never been more real
Smartphones and mobile devices are safer, he says, because Apple's iOS operating system is a closed environment. "You buy the apps from the App Store, a single app store, and unless you 'jailbreak' it, it's a small operating system so there's less ways to hack it right now. "
Mandia tells CNBC that for hackers, the competing Android platform is "a little bit more open so there's a little bit more ways".
But the reason mobile is more difficult for hackers to break through is, "you can't find those mobile devices via IP [Internet protocol] addresses like you can find a server at a company.
FireEye CEO Kevin MandiaGetty Images
Mandia knows a lot about cyber threats. The Silicon Valley-based FireEye has worked for more than 200 of the Fortune 500's companies, helping major corporations protect their computer systems from cyberattacks.
When hackers hit Sony Pictures in December and health insurer Anthem in February, both companies hired FireEye to fix the breach after data was compromised. However, Mandia claims that the "average risk is low" to most people's data on their own computers and smartphones.
"At the end of the day, most attackers are not targeting people unless you're very high net worth, or you're a prominent government official, or you're a famous person," he says. Mandia adds that if you're not in any of those categories that doesn't mean you're completely out of the woods.
Read MoreFrench broadcaster says victim of Islamist hacking
"You will probably be maybe a 'drive by shooting' on the information highway," he added. To keep your information data from becoming a casualty, however, Mandia suggests you practice common sense.
He says be careful and don't click on links in e-mails or invites via Skype or instant messaging "that don't make sense."
A report from Symantec found global cyber attacks against large companies were up 40 percent in 2014 versus 2013.
Frequently, hackers are successful because employees simply respond and click on tainted e-mails, allowing the cyberattack into the company's computer system. But how can companies combat the accidental employee who opens the door for hackers, with a simple click?
"If you have a company of 100,000 people, you're never gonna get all 100,000 people to never open that link," he said.
What you hope to do, he says, is "train enough people so you can raise the bar of human detection."
Mandia explained, that means "hoping one of the ten recipients" of that tainted e-mail will "detect the threat and tell security staff."
Mandia's career as a cybercrime investigator began at the Pentagon, where he worked as a computer security officer. He then moved on to become a special agent in the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
He founded his security consulting firm Mandiant in 2004. After Mandiant was acquired by FireEye, Mandia came aboard as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. He's now FireEye President.
While cyberattacks continue to escalate, Mandia tells CNBC "we're getting better" at dealing with the threat. He hopes international collaboration against cyber criminals will arrive in the future.
"We're all aware there [are] a lot of state-sponsored attacks, and I'm hopeful we will have some kind of agreement" among countries to curb the wave of breaches.
Mandia sees upcoming agreement on rules of engagement in cyberspace. "So if something bad takes place, we can have proper attribution and catch the bad guys."
"On the Money" airs on CNBC Sundays at 7:30 pm, or check listings for airtimes in local markets.
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db7c07cee462c3f5af72c98edd674dfd | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/20/a-simple-savings-tactic-that-can-boost-your-nest-egg.html | A simple savings tactic that can boost your nest egg | A simple savings tactic that can boost your nest egg
VIDEO1:0301:03When should you retire?Debt
Many Americans may not save enough, but most admit they have the ability to save more.
A new survey finds half of American workers say they don't save—or don't save more—for retirement because of their cost of living and day-to-day expenses. As a result, nearly six in 10 (57 percent) have saved less than $25,000, according to the Employee Benefits Research Institute's 2015 Retirement Confidence Survey, released Tuesday. Yet, seven out of 10 workers surveyed admit they could put a little more money away, even if it's just $25 a week.
The EBRI survey, one of the most comprehensive annual reports about American's retirement savings, finds that over the last two years U.S. workers have grown more confident about their ability to have enough money to live comfortably in retirement. After falling to record lows between 2009 and 2013, retirement confidence has been on the rise. More than half of workers are "somewhat" or "very" confident they'll have enough money to retire. "But this is based on the increasing optimism of those who indicate they and/or their spouse have a retirement plan," say the report's authors.
Read MoreAt what age can you really retire?
Whether saving in an IRA, a defined contribution plan like a 401(k) or 403(b), or a defined benefit plan like a pension, having a retirement plan makes a huge difference, the survey found. Six out of 10 workers with no retirement plan had saved less than $1,000. Among the most aggressive savers with over $100,000 or more, 34 percent had a plan.
"Amazingly, only 48 percent of workers surveyed said they've taken the time to calculate the amount of money they'll need in retirement," according to Luke Vandermillen, vice president of retirement and investor services at Principal Financial Group. "Even a small contribution over the course of someone's career, even with a moderate rate of return, can provide a significant difference in the amount that you have accumulated for retirement," said Vandermillen.
The compounding interest and potential tax savings of stashing money in a retirement plan can have a big impact. Putting away an extra $25 a week or $1,300 a year could potentially result in a tenfold increase in your nest egg over the next few decades. If you start saving $1,300 in a Roth IRA at age 30, for example, and save until you reach 67, you'll have amassed $48,100 in contributions alone, according to Bankrate.com. Factor in a modest annual rate of return of 4 percent, and that extra $25 a week will result in a retirement balance of $110,461 (assuming a current tax rate of 25 percent and a retirement tax rate of 15 percent).
Read MoreOne-third of high earners live paycheck to paycheck
What does it take to squeeze out an extra $25? It's definitely doable. More than half of workers who haven't saved any money for retirement said they could come up with the cash. Cooking at home instead of eating out or ordering take-out food, forgoing soft drinks from vending machines, movies, videos, DVDs or streaming video, coffee from specialty shops and lottery tickets are some of the ways they said they could scrape together the extra dollars.
And a quarter of workers admitted they wouldn't need to give up anything in order to save the extra $25 a week.
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971de62a85035c3d0b9d93b8afaac344 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/20/advisors-put-insurance-on-menu-to-cater-to-clients.html | Advisors put insurance on menu to cater to clients | Advisors put insurance on menu to cater to clients
Insurance is an essential part of any financial plan, but what's the best way to incorporate this expertise into a financial advisory practice?
"We bring the experts to our clients," said certified financial planner Andrew Savant, a financial advisor with Rinehart Wealth Management. "They want us to provide a collaborative concierge service to them."
Charlie Roy | Getty Images
"As a fee-only advisor, we do not sell any investment or insurance products, but we provide insurance analysis and review our clients' current policies and then provide recommendations that are in their best interest," he said.
"If the client needs additional insurance or we think there are better alternatives, we bring in an insurance professional to our office to meet with the client."
This has been an extremely effective and popular practice with clients, Savant said, for several reasons.
Read MoreSocial Security consulting thrives
"Because … we are in the room with the client, they are assured that they are not going to be sold something that they don't need or doesn't fit their budget," he said.
Beyond the convenience, it saves them time and builds trust. The brokers shop multiple insurers to find the best product for the client; often, it leads to an opportunity to consolidate multiple policies.
"It's good for the brokers, too, because they know they don't have to do any selling," Savant said.
Savant's firm works with two brokers: one who specializes in long-term care, disability and life insurance, and another who specializes in property and casualty. While clients are not required to work with these brokers, most of them choose to.
VIDEO4:2004:20Get in shape, earn health discountsPower Lunch
"I have a separate risk-management [piece] of my practice," said Craig Cowles, CFP and partner with Cardinal Wealth Advisors. "Since it is one of the disciplines with the CFP designation, I use it as a tool to help clients."
Cowles divides the financial conversation with clients into two parts, telling them that he is changing hats from financial planner to insurance broker.
"Don't be afraid to add additional compensation for the firm if you clarify with the client each area you're working in," he said.
"The client should know that there is a commission paid on the transaction and that the planning agreement says that they do not have to pick our firm for their insurance needs," Cowles said.
Read MoreMore advisors go high-tech
Clients appreciate the in-house aspect.
"Someone is going to get paid if they need the insurance, so we offer them the option to work with us, since we already know some of the best alternatives," he said.
How does this fit in with fiduciary responsibility?
"The plan dictates the action," Cowles said. "We are giving the client the best choices based on the original planning document. In this way, we've completed the plan."
Working in the benefits area is a big help when reviewing that aspect of a client's financial plan, which is often an important piece of their situation.Robert Wanderowner of Wander Financial Services
For Robert Wander, CFP and owner of Wander Financial Services, the employee-benefit consulting half of his practice informs the other, financial planning, half.
"Working in the benefits area is a big help when reviewing that aspect of a client's financial plan, which is often an important piece of their situation," he said.
This is especially true during clients' fall enrollment periods, when they need to make choices about health insurance, supplemental disability, supplemental life insurance, flexible spending plans, health savings accounts and 401(k) plans.
Read MoreSEC examining your advisor?
"They can give me access to all the information, and I'll guide them as to what elections to make," Wander said. "Many clients are not taking full advantage of what's being offered to them, especially with HSAs and flexible spending accounts—they tend to overlook these options because they don't understand them."
Wander said his expertise allows him to integrate all these benefits into the client's whole financial picture and to be more thorough. Furthermore, if clients retire or are between jobs, they still need his help to deal with benefit options.
"Commissions are not bad; they're just another way to serve my client," said Juli McNeely, CFP with McNeely Financial Services.
"I am solidly in the commission model," she said. "About 80 percent of my clients are smaller accounts who wouldn't meet minimum asset requirements.
"In a very small community like this, it has to fit the client base of the advisor," McNeely added. "It's the best model for my practice."
McNeely is the current president of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors and also holds the Chartered Life Underwriter and NAIFA's Life Underwriter Training Council Fellow designations.
"If you want to move to the insurance side, NAIFA is a great source of education and information," she said.
For those wishing to grow their insurance-related knowledge base, McNeely recommends the newly revamped LUCTF program, which is relaunching this July through a new partnership with the College for Financial Planning.
Read MoreCrafting your firm's digital strategy
Shortened to one year, the program is targeted to new associates and others new to the insurance industry. The curriculum provides an industry overview, training in sales skills and real-world action-plan assignments.
McNeely also recommends NAIFA as a useful local, state and national referral network to find professionals to service out-of-state clients, professionals within other insurance specialties and mentors.
—By Deborah Nason, special to CNBC.com
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934250b45951cbf4b712c2b157bdcdb1 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/20/europes-growing-migrant-crisis-explained.html | Migrant tragedy in Mediterranean Sea highlights crisis | Migrant tragedy in Mediterranean Sea highlights crisis
As the death toll mounts following the latest migrant disaster in the Mediterranean this weekend, the tragedy has highlighted Europe's urgent need to tackle the growing crisis in the region.
Hundreds are feared dead after a boat bound for Europe carrying migrants capsized and sank off the Libyan coast on Sunday.
Only 28 people have been saved and 24 bodies found, the Italian coastguard said on Sunday, but one of the survivors is reported to have informed Italian authorities that there were up to 950 people on board.
Rescued migrants watch as the body of person who died after a fishing boat carrying migrants capsized off the Libyan coast, is brought ashore along with 23 others retrieved by the Italian Coast Guard vessel Bruno Gregoretti at Boiler Wharf, Senglea in Malta on April 20, 2015.Matthew Mirabelli | AFP | Getty Images
In common with other recent migrant disasters, it is reported that the boat capsized when the migrants sighted a ship they hoped would save them and all moved to one side of the boat, unbalancing it.
If the death toll is confirmed, it will bring the total number of people who have died from similar disasters this year alone to around 1,500.
The tragedy has prompted widespread calls for emergency talks on the immigration crisis in Europe and for urgent investment in disaster-prevention efforts.
The International Organization for Migration's Director-General, William Lacy Swing, also said in a statement Sunday that Europe and other countries needed to act.
"The world needs to react with the conviction with which it eliminated piracy off the coast of Somalia a few years ago," Swing said in a statement on the IOM's website.
"All of us, especially the EU and the world's powers, can no longer sit on the sidelines watching while this tragedy unfolds in slow motion and well over 1,500 have drowned since the beginning of January."
In 2014, the IOM published a study in which it estimated that up to 3,072 would-be migrants died in the Mediterranean last year, compared with an estimate of 700 in 2013.
On Monday, there were media reports of another boat in distress on the Mediterranean with more than 300 migrants on board and around 20 fatalities.
The large increase in deaths recently has largely been driven by a surge in the number of fatalities in the Mediterranean region, the IOM said, although migration and its risks are not new to the region.
Since 2000, over 22,000 migrants have lost their lives trying to reach Europe, the body estimated, with conflict, persecution and poverty in northern Africa and the Middle East, in countries like Syria, key drivers of migration attempts.
Over 112,000 irregular migrants were detected by Italian authorities in the first eight months of 2014, almost three times as many as in all of 2013.
European leaders are increasingly concerned that the region cannot cope with the influx, or respond fast enough when those attempts go terribly wrong.
Following Sunday's disaster, several government leaders called for emergency talks and as the European Union (EU)'s Foreign Affairs Council met in Luxembourg on Monday, foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said the focus of talks was to "build together a common sense of European responsibility on what is happening in the Mediterranean, knowing that there is easy or magic solution."
Mogherini added that both foreign and interior ministers must share the duty in tackling the "presence at sea and sharing the responsibility in welcoming refugees and migrants."
European Council President Donald Tusk said he was considering calling a special meeting of EU leaders, a summit that Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had called for earlier.
Countries like Italy and Greece bear the largest burden of the region's migrant crisis, as both are close to North Africa and the latter is near to the Middle East as well. Hence, these countries are often the first port of calls for people smugglers' migrant boats – which are often unseaworthy and overcrowded.
Italy and Greece are also dealing with deep economic crises, however, and have been struggling to fund large-scale search-and-rescue efforts for boat disasters.
Italy ended its "Mare Nostrum" maritime patrol program last October and the EU's replacement program, Triton, is primarily based on coastal border control rather than search-and-rescue missions.
Prior to Sunday's disaster, experts had warned that the reduced rescue program would not deter desperate people from making the dangerous sea crossing. Tellingly, while Mare Nostrum had a budget of 9.5 million euros ($10.2 million) a month, Triton's monthly budget is estimated to be only 2.9 million euros.
CNBC contacted the Frontex agency, which is in charge of Triton, to ask whether it was considering increasing resources to tackle human trafficking, but has not yet received a response.
On Sunday, Pope Francis appealed to the international community to take rapid action to avoid more tragedies, telling his regular audience in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican City that the victims were "men and women like us, our brothers seeking a better life."
On the same day, France's President Francois Hollande said the EU had to do more, telling Canal+ television that rescue and disaster prevention efforts needed " a much more intense battle against people trafficking," Reuters reported.
"I make a heartfelt appeal to the international community to react decisively and quickly to see to it that such tragedies are not repeated," Hollande said.
- By CNBC's Holly Ellyatt, follow her on Twitter @HollyEllyatt. Follow us on Twitter: @CNBCWorld
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84d721a98b072ce3b5bb11e1bd4f8547 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/20/millennials-often-make-this-investing-mistake.html | Gen Y's big investing mistake: Millennial money manager | Gen Y's big investing mistake: Millennial money manager
VIDEO3:2403:24How young investors can build a fortuneSquawk Box
When millennials—young adults also known as Generation Y—finally decide to overcome their skepticism about financial markets and invest in stocks, many of them are chasing the wrong names with costly consequences, said Patrick O'Shaughnessy, a 30-year-old portfolio manager at O'Shaughnessy Asset Management.
"Here is the biggest mistake they're making as investors in public equity markets: They're buying all the expensive, exciting names like GoPro and Twitter, and Tesla," O'Shaughnessy told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Monday, rather than taking a more conservative approach that will pay off over time. (Tweet This)
That's if they're investing at all. A recent survey by Bankrate.com found that just 26 percent of Americans under age 30 are investing in the stock market, compared to 58 percent of people between ages 50 and 64 who invest. In surveys, they cite a dearth of financial knowledge, a lack of money and distrust of Wall Street among reasons for their skittishness about stocks.
"They don't know enough about the stock market. They are skeptical of stock brokers. Or they're just skeptical of markets in general," said O'Shaughnessy, whose father, Jim O'Shaughnessy, started the investment firm that bears the family name.
Read MoreWhy millennials are avoiding the stock market
But by staying on the sidelines, millennials—loosely defined as people born in the early 1980s through the late 1990s—can miss out on their biggest advantage: time. Young investors' biggest value proposition, said O'Shaughnessy, is the power of compounding interest. "The best advantage in investing is a long, long time horizon," he said, noting that the market is up about 2,000 percent since he was born in 1985.
"That's a huge return over 30 years, which is roughly what we're facing between now and retirement," he added, but acknowledged, "you have to live through a lot of downturns." That's something millennials know all too well. They experienced the shock of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the resulting economic downturn, followed closely by the Great Recession sparked by the 2008 financial crisis.
As the fortunes of millennials grow, though, so should the number of Gen Y investors. And there are signs that's beginning to happen.
A third of adults under 30 years old say their overall financial situation is better than it was 12 months ago, according to Bankrate.com's financial security index for April, released Monday. By comparison, only 19 percent of the 50 and older crowd reported a better overall financial situation.
"It's really hard getting people motivated about something three or four decades from now versus a student loan debt that they have to pay right now," said O'Shaughnessy, who is also author of the book, "Millennial Money: How Young Investors Can Build a Fortune."
But for those who do start investing early, it can really pay off.
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dccc8b0da0c5e761b35fa437c637ccca | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/20/mobilegeddon-google-search-change-could-hit-small-businesses.html | 'Mobilegeddon'?: Google search change could hit small businesses | 'Mobilegeddon'?: Google search change could hit small businesses
Artur Debat| Getty Images
A change in Google's search algorithm that favors sites that are mobile friendly could hurt small businesses, which generally can't afford to have a vibrant mobile presence compared to larger companies.
Beginning Tuesday, Google will alter how it ranks websites in mobile searches based on mobile-friendly criteria. The change was announced in February, and the Web giant said the shift will make it easier for consumers to get "relevant, high-quality search results that are optimized for their devices."
With Google's change imminent, social media has latched on to the shift as a potential "mobilegeddon" for small businesses. Roughly 80 percent of smaller employers don't have a mobile-friendly website or app. (Tweet This)
Read MoreGoogle search change could cause 'mobilegeddon'
So what's a small business to do?
VIDEO0:2900:29A big change for GoogleInternet
The short answer is move ahead on mobile solutions, and fast.
Small businesses often hold back on mobile investments because they perceive a high barrier of entry due to costs and lack of understanding of the technology, says Hari Ravichandran, chief executive of Endurance International Group, which provides cloud-based solutions to small businesses.
In fact, creating a mobile site can be an extension of a standard desktop website, says Doug Brackbill, CEO of San Francisco-based Line2, which helps businesses get on board with the broad BYOD, or bring your own device to work, trend. "Reach out to whoever started your site to begin with," Brackbill said.
Google, meantime, is offering tips on its blog including a view function that allows businesses to see how their pages look during a mobile search. The mobile-friendly test can be found here.
The company's nod to mobile-friendly pages comes as mobile traffic via smartphones and tablets continues to soar. Traffic on emerging platforms accounts for nearly 60 percent of all digital media time spent, according to a 2014 report from comScore.
"As people increasingly search on their mobile devices, we want to make sure they can find content that's not only relevant and timely, but also easy to read and interact with on smaller mobile screens," according to a Google statement.
Read MoreWhat the Uber, Lyft lawsuits mean for the US economy
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0c493b539807be762060507a88c8d473 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/20/watch-out-hbo-may-know-youre-viewing-game-of-thrones-illegally.html | Watch out: HBO may know you're viewing Game of Thrones illegally | Watch out: HBO may know you're viewing Game of Thrones illegally
For most fans, April 12 marked the highly anticipated return of "Game of Thrones." However, millions had already illegally downloaded the season's first four episodes by the time HBO aired the fifth season's first episode.
With Game of Thrones one of the world's most pirated television series since it launched in 2011, Time Warner's HBO is now cracking down on those who are watching illegally, according to reports.
Read More'Game of Thrones' battles pirated waters
"Game of Thrones"Source: HBO
In a forum on social networking site Reddit, Game of Thrones viewers reported receiving emails concerning the downloading of leaked episodes.
One Reddit user posted the full email he had received from Bell Canada, whose online television packages include the HBO Canada channel. The email stated that Bell Canada had received notification that a leaked Game of Thrones episode had been illegally downloaded from the user's IP address.
"The title in question is: Game of Thrones. As the owner of and/or subscriber using the IP address, HBO requests that you immediately take steps to prevent further downloading or uploading of HBO content without authorization," Bell Canada stated in the email.
Bell Canada added that no one was authorized to "exhibit, reproduce, transmit or otherwise distribute HBO Properties" without written consent.
The Reddit user believed that Bell Canada had been contacted by HBO's anti-piracy partner, IP-Echelon. When contacted by CNBC, IP-Echelon declined to comment.
Read MoreDinner is coming! Game of Thrones pop-up restaurant on its way
Jeff Cusson, senior vice president of corporate communications at HBO, told CNBC that the type of emails described by Reddit users were nothing "new" and weren't specific to the four leaked episodes.
"This action is not specific to the four episodes, nor is it new. Notifications to Internet service providers that their users are illegally downloading is standard operating procedure in our digital anti-piracy efforts," Cusson told CNBC on Monday.
VIDEO3:2003:20'Game of thrones' leakPower Lunch
The four episodes leaked from season five "originated from within a group approved by HBO to receive them," according to a statement by HBO this month.
HBO has also been cracking down on Twitter-owned app, Periscope, whose users live streamed the premiere of this season's Game of Thrones. In a statement, HBO said it had issued Periscope with takedown notices.
Those screening episodes in public are under threat too. Brooklyn-based Videology Bar & Cinema, which streamed episodes to customers on Sunday nights for two years, has received a cease-and-desist letter from HBO, according to "Village Voice," a New York news site.
Tweet: Sorry guys. No Game of Thrones showing tonight. Or ever. Not our choice. #WinterIsHere
Read MoreGame of Thrones Season 5? There's no escape
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49b8cc5ded78e4bb54c66d137ad367e0 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/21/apple-watch-apps-promise-to-help-with-budgeting-and-saving.html | How Apple Watch apps may help you save more money | How Apple Watch apps may help you save more money
VIDEO1:2801:28Best money apps
The Apple Watch app store won't officially be open for business until Friday, when the device itself is released. But banks, brokerages and consumer finance sites are already angling for virtual shelf space in the Apple Store.
Among the more than 1,000 apps already submitted this month, several are aimed at helping you budget, save and invest your money. (The CNBC App for the Apple Watch is also available starting Tuesday.)
It's not clear yet how many of the money management apps will differ from those available for smartphones, but details are starting to emerge.
"Having something on your wrist is a great physical cue for behavioral change, and design matters when you are dealing with behavioral nudges," said Stephen Wendel, author of "Designing for Behavior Change." "I find the notification capabilities of the Apple Watch to be very promising."
Read MoreWant an Apple Watch? Be prepared to wait
Don't expect many budgeting apps on the Apple Watch to bombard you with notifications about overspending on dinner and drinks when you're out on the town, though. "If you go negative all the time, users will start to ignore you," said Wendel, who is also a principal scientist at HelloWallet, which provides personalized financial guidance to workers through web and mobile apps. (The company is still working out the details on its watch app.)
Instead, apps are more likely to congratulate you when you meet your budgeting goal or reach a savings target in your bank account.
A businessman tries on Apple Watch.Chesnot | Getty Images
Mint, one of the most popular personal finance apps in iPhone's app store, lets watch wearers set monthly savings targets, and then track their progress over time. The app reviews day-to-day spending in the context of larger goals and suggests short-term spending levels to stay on track but still "keep up with your lifestyle." The app also allows users to get email or text alerts of upcoming bills, bank fees, low bank account balances, unusual spending activity and more.
Read MoreOne-third of high earners live paycheck to paycheck
Other budgeting apps include Unspent, which lets you create custom budgets and log your spending, and MoneyWiz 2, which goes a few steps further, allowing users to manage their budgets, log and track spending, and view bank account balances from the watch's touchscreen face. Similarly, the iBank app will let users check their budget status and see how their investments are performing via the "Glance" screen. But the budget area also gives a clear visual of how they're doing with a "progress circle" that shows inner and outer rings for income and expenses and a "today" line to see how well users are sticking to their budgets.
Some apps are taking a different tack with financial notifications, banking on the fact that users often need to know negative information quickly, too. For example, BillGuard, which has an iPhone app that aims to detect fraudulent credit card charges, has an Apple Watch version in the works. And brokerages, such as Fidelity and E-Trade, plan to launch Apple Watch apps that stream trading updates (good and bad).
Read MoreCNBC Apple Watch app launches
Citibank, which announced its Apple Watch app a month ago, has taken a more utilitarian approach. The app will allow U.S. debit and credit card customers to view account balances and recent transactions and to receive real-time notifications of credit card transactions through their Apple Watch.
While the opportunity to receive notifications on your wrist may help prevent you from making bad financial decisions and empower you to take action quickly when, say, a fraudulent charge is spotted, advisors worry that some Apple Watch notifications could focus people's attention on their short-term financial picture rather than their larger goals.
"I'm not terribly impressed with all the apps for second-by-second, real-time portfolio updates," said Bill Winterberg, a certified financial planner and founder of FPPad.com, a technology news website for financial advisors. "I would like to see an app that tells me, 'Despite a drop in the market, your financial plan is still on track.' "
That may be yet to come. It's not clear yet what features will catch fire on the Apple Watch and what developments may still be on the horizon. "There's tremendous promise with the Apple Watch," said Wendel. "[But] it's early days. We still have a lot of testing to do before we really see what works."
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d07f766e5c03114ba28aecbe9e373626 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/21/cramer-basics-how-to-save-save-save.html | VIDEO12:1212:12Cramer: You'll never get rich from your paycheckMad Money with Jim Cramer
Every once in a while, Jim Cramer likes to go back to the basics. Do you want to be held hostage by your paycheck for the rest of your life? Didn't think so. That is why Professor Cramer is taking a dive into the first item on his syllabus: saving.
He doesn't consider saving as just a way to make sure you have a comfortable future, but it can be fuel for investments in the stock market. Investments that will free you from the shackles of a paycheck—and could even make you filthy rich.
"My ultimate goal on this show is to teach you how to become better at managing your money—not just investment, but every aspect of your financial life," he said.
For many people the reality is that Social Security may not be enough during retirement. However, Cramer recommends that saving and investing money year after year will increase assets.
The first step? Start by saving 15 percent of your paycheck, or 10 percent if that's what you can afford, he said.
Getty Images
Once the money is saved, the question now becomes where to put the cash. Invest in retirement first, because that is your longevity, the "Mad Money" host advised.
Start by putting half to two-thirds of your savings into a retirement account, such as a 401(k) or individual retirement account (IRA). Those are tax-favored vehicles, and you only pay tax when you withdraw the money at retirement.
---------------------------------------------------------- Read more from Mad Money with Jim Cramer Cramer: The single biggest investment mistake ever Cramer: Make $ as bull or bear—not hog! Cramer: Ferreting out the best funds ----------------------------------------------------------
The other portion of your funds should go into a discretionary, or Mad Money, account. This is a normal brokerage account, which Cramer advised is best to use with a cheap online broker with low commissions.
Why have multiple accounts? Technically, you are supposed to take fewer risks with retirement income.
This way you can save for retirement and also take more risks with your income. If you are under 30, Cramer recommends that you can take even more risks with your income since you have the rest of your life ahead of you to make back any losses.
Following these few simple steps will help ensure you have a retirement portfolio to take care of you when you stop working, and you might even have a little fun with your money. Even if it is under neon lights of a cubicle.
Questions for Cramer? Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBC
Want to take a deep dive into Cramer's world? Hit him up! Mad Money Twitter - Jim Cramer Twitter - Facebook - Instagram - Vine
Questions, comments, suggestions for the "Mad Money" website? madcap@cnbc.com
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f88ee45085e778e238ff952c1a042d6e | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/21/robot-with-100-bitcoin-buys-drugs-gets-arrested.html | Robot with $100 bitcoin buys drugs, gets arrested | Robot with $100 bitcoin buys drugs, gets arrested
VIDEO0:5700:57What is a bitcoin?CNBC Explains
VIDEO1:4301:43Meet the blockchainBitcoin
VIDEO1:3401:34Bitcoin: Top 5 biggest scandalsBitcoin
This is the curious story of how a robot armed with a weekly budget of $100 in bitcoin managed to buy Ecstasy, a Hungarian passport and a baseball cap with a built-in camera—before getting arrested. (Tweet this)
The "automated online shopping bot" was set up in October last year by Swiss art group, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, as an art installation to explore the "dark web"—the hidden, un-indexed part of the Internet.
Each week, the robot was given $100 worth of Bitcoin— the major hard-to-trace cryptocurrency—and programmed to randomly purchase one item from Agora, an online marketplace on the dark web where shoppers can buy drugs and other illegal items. The items were automatically delivered to a Swiss art gallery called Kunst Halle St Gallen to form an exhibition.
The robot was christened "Random Darknet Shopper" and its purchases included a Hungarian passport, Ecstasy pills, fake Diesel jeans, a Sprite can with a hole cut out in order to stash cash, Nike trainers, a baseball cap with a hidden camera, cigarettes and the "Lord of the Rings" e-book collection.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the robot and his artistic creators had a run in with the law. In January 2015, the Swiss police confiscated the robot and its illegal purchases.
However, three months later, the Random Darknet Shopper was returned to the artists, along with all its purchases except the Ecstasy (also known as MDMA) tablets, which were destroyed by the Swiss authorities.
!MEDIENGRUPPE BITNIK
The artists behind the robot escaped without any charges.
"This is a great day for the 'bot, for us and for freedom of art!" !Mediengruppe Bitnik said in a blog post last week. "In the order for withdrawal of prosecution, the public prosecutor states that the possession of Ecstasy was indeed a reasonable means for the purpose of sparking public debate about questions related to the exhibition."
Read MoreGoogle, governments team up to fight paedophiles
The Swiss authorities confirmed that the artists and the robot would not be charged.
"We decided the Ecstasy that is in this presentation was safe and nobody could take it away. Bitnik never intended to sell it or consume it so we didn't punish them," Thomas Hansjakob, a spokesperson for the Swiss St Gallen police, told CNBC on Tuesday.
He added that the artists had not informed the police before undertaking this project and that the authorities had heard about it from the media.
!Mediengruppe Bitnik said that all the items except the Ecstasy had been returned to them.
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80107dafd8a1a939425e96cba789d1f9 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/22/americas-165-billion-food-waste-problem.html | America's $165 billion food-waste problem | America's $165 billion food-waste problem
VIDEO1:2301:23Listen to your soilRetail
VIDEO1:1901:19Green is the future of foodRetail
VIDEO1:1301:13Save those stems and make a great slawRetail
Can you afford to throw away $2,000 a year? If you are the average American, the answer is, apparently, yes—and you may not even be aware of it.
Americans throw away approximately $165 billion worth of food each year, and for the average American family, that can be up to $2,200 per household, according to a recent study by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
That all adds up to 35 million tons of food each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency in its most recent estimate. That's 50 percent more than in 1990 and three times more of what Americans discarded in 1960. That's a sad statistic, considering hunger in America. According to Feeding America, right now 1 in 7 Americans—or 46.5 million people—use food banks.
Oxford | Getty Images
It's a costly trend. "The amount of food Americans waste has increased over 50 percent in the last four decades, one contributor to the staggering 40 percent of all food which goes to waste in this country," according to an excerpt from the soon-to-be-released book "The Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook" by NRDC staff scientist Dana Gunders.
Read MoreThis kitchen teaches you how to cook!
The runaway portion sizes in the American food industry exacerbate the waste issue.
"From 1982–2002, the average pizza slice grew 70 percent in calories. The average chicken Caesar salad doubled in calories, and the average chocolate chip cookie quadrupled," revealed the NRDC study.
"This is a cultural phenomenon that needs to change. Before the iconic anti-littering campaigns of the 1970s, littering was a common practice," said JoAnne Berkenkamp, senior advocate for food & agriculture at the NRDC. "Today it isn't acceptable to throw your leftover cheeseburger out the window of your car, but most of us don't think twice about throwing it in the trash."
Much of household waste is due to overpurchasing, food spoilage and not maximizing the way we use the food we purchase.
The NRDC study cites three key ways to tackle consumer waste.
1. Make a shopping list.
This first step might seem relatively simple. However, the average family wastes about 20 percent of their groceries, according to the NRDC. That's because people impulse-buy at the supermarkets, giving in to the psychological tactics stores use to encourage consumers to shop more, such as strategically placing products at the ends of the aisles or offering product samples. But if you stick to your list, the savings can be big.
Read MoreGwyneth Paltrow fails $29 food stamp challenge
2. Don't put too much stock in the expiration date.
There is a great deal of confusion about expiration dates, and contrary to popular belief, most dates aren't statements about food safety.
There are two kinds of dates that commonly appear on food products. A "sell by" date is intended to be a message from the food manufacturer to the retailer so the store knows how long to display an item. It indicates that the product will still have significant shelf life once it reaches a consumer's home. "Best by" dates refer to quality, not safety, and signifies best flavor or peak freshness. A product will still be edible for several days afterward.
Read MoreA chef going where fast-casual boom has failed: healthy fare
Unfortunately, due to the lack of federal regulation about date labeling and confusion among consumers, many retailers and consumers throw food out on or before the date on the package, no matter what the date was intended to mean. "This contributes to enormous food losses at home and in the store," Berkenkamp said. "The best bet for consumers is to use your own judgment about whether the food in your fridge is still good. And if you think you can't use it up soon enough, pop it in your freezer rather than throwing it out," she said.
3. Learn from the top chefs—they don't waste.
Consumers need to start thinking like chefs. Restaurant chefs try not to waste any food, because they know better than anyone else that food is money. They use every part of the fare, from stalk to stem; no ounce goes to waste.
"Chefs do this every day in their kitchens, using culinary technique to transform 'lowly' ingredients into something delicious because it doesn't make sense—economically or ecologically—to throw them out," said Dan Barber, co-owner and executive chef at Blue Hill Farm and a leader in the sustainable food movement. "That's the real power of good cooking, and it's at the root of the world's great peasant cuisines."
—By Lauren Flick, CNBC producer
VIDEO1:1601:16Don't waste those carrot topsRetail
VIDEO1:2601:26Recover overripe fruitRetail
VIDEO1:3801:38Vegetable peels can be repurposedRetail
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2feb22fddf1b6bde9fe179869d16da54 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/22/criminals-staging-ddos-attacks-available-by-hour-anonymously.html | Criminals staging DDoS attacks available by hour anonymously | Criminals staging DDoS attacks available by hour anonymously
John Lund | Blend Images | Getty Images
Even the world of cybercrime is getting hit by falling prices and cheaper labor.
You can now anonymously hire a cybercriminal online for as little as $6 to $10 per hour, says Rodney Joffe, senior vice president at Neustar, a cybersecurity company. (Tweet This)
The company specializes in troubleshooting a kind of cyberattack called distributed denial of service attacks, or DDoS for short. Such aggressive attacks basically make an online site and services unusable, and more of such attacks are hurting businesses, large and small, according to new data.
As it becomes easier to engineer such attacks, with costs falling, more businesses are getting targeted. About 32 percent of information technology professionals surveyed said DDoS attacks cost their companies $100,000 an hour or more. That percentage is up from 30 percent reported in 2014, according to Neustar's survey of over 500 high-level IT professionals. The data was released Monday.
"A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is a generalized attack that stops users from gaining access to a service," said Joffe of Neustar, based in Sterling, Virginia.
More than 3.4 million DDoS cyberattacks were perpetrated worldwide in 2014, up more than 60 percent from 2.1 million, according to Arbor Networks, a cybersecurity company based in Burlington, Massachusetts. DDoS attacks target businesses large and small, government websites and large tent pole events such as the Olympics.
Read MoreIBM fights cybercrime with its own social media platform
DDoS attacks have become so prevalent that committing the cybercrime is as easy as filling out an online form. You can track down such cyberthieves through a basic online search, Joffe said. Enter the website you want to target, how long you want the site to be disabled, and how you want to pay for the cybercrime—often in the form of virtual currency, , Joffe said.
VIDEO1:2201:22Turning to social media to fight cybersecurityOn the Money
As a point of reference, many of these cybercriminals available for hire are based in Russia or Eastern Europe, says Dan Holden, director of security research with cybersecurity company Arbor Networks. The bad guys also know when to strike and create the most damage, including targeting retailers during the holiday hopping season, Holden said.
DDoS attacks, of course, can cut into revenue and damage a company's brand. But some cyberthieves are only getting started.
Some use DDoS attack as a ruse to distract cybersecurity teams and then go in to level real damage. "For a large number of victims, [DDoS] attacks are used as a smokescreen or cover for other compromises," said Neustar's Joffe. Since many companies only have one cybersecurity team, cybercriminals try to distract them with a DDoS attack so they do not realize their network has been breached in other ways.
Read MoreInternet speeds are rising sharply, but so are hack attacks
So what's a business to do?
The upside is more companies are paying more attention to DDoS attacks. About one-third of IT professionals surveyed by Neustar said their companies were investing more in DDoS protection infrastructure.
And more businesses are turning to a hybrid solution that includes having an on-site team that can start mitigating a DDoS attack, while a more skilled contractor is brought in simultaneously. More than 30 percent of companies surveyed are using a hybrid system, up from 20 percent in 2013, according to Neustar's data.
Says Arbor's Holden, "DDoS attacks are completely defendable."
Read MoreGlobal business may still be vulnerable to Heartbleed
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2f4ff1bb834e6ec58e65adf0f96ef8b1 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/22/harvard-alums-start-ups-shorts-not-dads-jock-strap.html | Harvard alum’s start-up's shorts 'not dad's jock strap' | Harvard alum’s start-up's shorts 'not dad's jock strap'
VIDEO5:2405:24Harvard alum's start-up's shorts 'not dad's jock strap'Power Pitch
Recent Harvard alum, Terry White, says the North Moore Short is "not your dad's jock strap." White promises his shorts will hold everything a guy on the go would need.
Watch White pitch his shorts to Alicia Syrett, board member of the New York Angels, Patrick Chung, founding partner of seed stage venture firm, Xfund, and David Wu, general partner at VC firm, Maveron.
Will the panel think the shorts are a good fit? Watch the video to find out!
White, who was a college athlete, spent a little over a year working in real estate development, but quickly shifted gears.
He founded e-commerce start-up Wolaco, which stands for Way of Life Athletic Co. Wolaco's first product is the North Moore Short, named after a street in New York's Tribeca neighborhood where White first lived.
The North Moore Short fits under an athlete's workout clothes. It consists of two water-resistant compression pockets, one large enough for a phone and another one for keys, cash and credit cards.
"You are now free to run, jump, pull up, push up, sprint and pick up some beers on the way home ... only if you've earned it," says the start-up's website.
The shorts are manufactured at a factory in Los Angeles and are priced at $45 a pair. For now, White offers four styles, and he's only focusing on male customers.
The North Moore ShortSource: Wolaco
But The North Moore Short is running into a crowded space.
During the Power Pitch, Alicia Syrett asked how White would prevent the biggest players in the industry, like Nike and Under Armour, from replicating his shorts.
"I've become less concerned about the Under Armours and Nikes of the world because mainly at this point, if they wanted to do it, they'd do it," White answered.
A successful Kickstarter campaign blew through the company's goal by 400 percent, and White ended up raising $122,000, plus an additional $15,000 in seed loans. The start-up has sold a total of 3,300 pairs of shorts.
White told CNBC that he sold out of Kickstarter pre-sales quickly, but Wolaco is still taking orders on its website, with shipments expected to go out in May.
"Once we raise our first round of funding, I suspect that it will take about six months to reach profitability," said White.
Wolaco launched in February of 2014. It has two full-time employees and is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan. The start-up plans to enter its first round of angel funding in the next three to five months and told CNBC it will be expanding beyond the shorts this summer.
—Comments, questions, suggestions? We'd love to hear from you. Follow us @CNBCPowerPitch and join the #PowerPitchconversation.
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ed4d90d877d73dccc53c28d2eba31ea4 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/22/nearly-a-third-of-savers-have-less-than-1000-for-retirement.html | Nearly a third of savers have less than $1,000 for retirement | Nearly a third of savers have less than $1,000 for retirement
VIDEO3:4403:44Give your retirement savings an extra boostClosing Bell
Most Americans know they should be saving more, but few of them are actually making plans to do it.
Twenty-eight percent of workers have less than $1,000 in savings that could be applied toward their retirement, according to a new Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and Greenwald and Associates survey. And of the pool of respondents—1,003 workers and 1,001 retirees interviewed by phone—57 percent say they have less than $25,000 in retirement savings. (Tweet This)
That may help explain why nearly six in 10 Americans (58 percent) believe their financial planning needs improvements and 21 percent are "not at all confident" they'll be able to reach their financial goals, according to separate data released this week from Northwestern Mutual's 2015 Planning & Progress Study.
While a majority have taken steps to address that, 34 percent said they have taken no action at all.
"Intending one thing and doing another is human, but it's an impulse we should all fight hard to resist," said Rebekah Barsch, vice president of planning and sales at Northwestern Mutual, in a statement. "Intentions only get us so far. And when the stakes are high, it's taking action that's critical."
There's no question the stakes are high.
With health-care costs rising and lifespans increasing, retirement has become an increasingly expensive proposition.
According to the latest report by HealthView Services, which helps financial advisors forecast health-care costs for their clients, the average lifetime retirement health-care premium costs for afit, hypothetical 65-year-old couple retiring this year is now $266,589, including Medicare parts B and D coverage as well as supplemental insurance. (The estimate assumes a life expectancy of 87 years for men, and 89 for women.)
Read MoreRetiree health-care costs may be higher than you think
Americans are also living longer after they stop working, which means their savings have to last longer. A man reaching age 65 in 1970 could expect to live 13 more years, but by 2011 that figure was 18 years. A woman's life expectancy at age 65 rose from 17 years in 1970 to 20 years in 2011 (the most recent year for which such data is available from the Centers for Disease Control).
Not surprisingly, a growing number of Americans are worried about running out of savings in retirement. Almost two-thirds of workers (64 percent) say they feel they are behind schedule when it comes to planning and saving for retirement, according to the EBRI Retirement Confidence Survey report.
Martin Prescott | E+ | Getty Images
"People don't prioritize retirement savings enough. A lot of people are hemmed in by high expenses, stagnant incomes and find it difficult to save in a meaningful way for retirement or anything else," said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst for Bankrate.com.
Craig Copeland, senior research associate at EBRI, said having an employer-sponsored plan can help. The survey found savings and investment rates were higher among workers with a retirement plan like an IRA, a defined contribution plan like a 401(k) or defined benefit plan like a pension. Among those without a plan, the percentage of workers who saved less than $1,000 was seven times more than those with a plan.
"Those without a retirement plan seem to understand they are likely to have difficulties accumulating adequate financial resources for retirement," said Jack VanDerhei, EBRI research director and co-author of the report, in a statement.
Read More How to get lucky with your savings
As a result, some said they planned to postpone retirement for years, even indefinitely. About 36 percent of workers surveyed by the EBRI said they expected to retire after age 65. And 10 percent said they didn't plan to retire at all.
That has many financial advisors concerned. "The notion that you are going to work forever is not a sound retirement plan," said McBride. "That's not entirely under your control."
In fact, Copeland pointed out that in the EBRI survey "many retirees continue to report that they retired before they expected to due to an illness or disability, needing to care for others, or because of a change at their job."
Marty Durbin, a personal financial specialist at Aperture Retirement Designs in Arlington, Texas, suggests that instead more efforts should be made to boost participation in retirement plans.
Read MoreA simple savings tactic that can boost your nest egg
Many employers have tried to increase employee participation by automatically enrolling them in retirement plans with an opt-out option. There have also been efforts to provide more ways to save for those without access to employer-sponsored plans.
Two Democratic lawmakers proposed legislation in January that would allow workers to automatically deposit payroll contributions into IRAs if they didn't have access to other retirement plans. The Automatic IRA Act would also mandate employers with 10 or more workers to participate, unless enough employees opted out. (It's worth noting, though, that similar legislation has been proposed for the last five years without adoption.)
In the meantime, the Treasury has also begun rolling out the myRA—short for "my Retirement Account"—that was introduced by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address last year, another effort to get the approximately 50 million Americans who don't have access to a 401(k) retirement plan through their employers a vehicle for saving for retirement.
A shift in mindset among workers themselves could help, too, said Durbin. "We have a consuming society and not much of saving society," he said. "We need to help get people more involved in thinking about their futures."
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a27413e218eebda95543f8a74fc6cbee | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/22/shazams-apple-watch-strategy-make-it-dead-simple.html | Shazam's Apple Watch strategy: Make it dead simple | Shazam's Apple Watch strategy: Make it dead simple
Stefanie Loos | Reuters
For Shazam Chief Product Officer Daniel Danker, waiting for Apple's vice president of technology to showcase his company's app for the upcoming smartwatch was among the scariest moments of his life. (Tweet This)
Hundreds of fanatics and bloggers were in attendance for the Apple Watch launch on March 9, and any glitch in the music discovery app would be instantly magnified on Twitter, where "Apple Watch" was trending all day.
"Watching the live demo on stage is simultaneously terrifying and incredibly rewarding," said Danker, who along with two of Shazam's iOS app developers spent two months building the service. "It was a moment of total relief and pride after that."
Read MoreWill the Apple Watch end up on your wrist?
Nerves are the price of admission for being one of Apple's chosen few, especially as the world's most valuable company enters its first new product category in the Tim Cook era. Perfection, speed and secrecy are also part of the package (Shazam isn't allowed to release a high-resolution image of the app until the phone hits stores on Friday).
Of course, as Apple's Kevin Lynch strolled up on stage, it was all worth it. No other company gives developers this kind of exposure. And nobody else can sell a million units under pre-order on day one, despite the gadget being priced higher than competitive products and with so few people having tested it.
Danker knew early on, even before getting his hands on an Apple Watch, that Shazam could be a very useful service. The app has been installed almost 600 million times and is among the 10 most popular music apps on iPhones and Androids.
VIDEO2:0302:03The 'Shazam Effect'Street Signs
Music fans use Shazam to get artist information, song names and lyrics on whatever it is they're listening to, whether in a car, restaurant or shopping mall, with the push of a button. The London-based company more recently added TV shows to the mix.
A function called Auto Shazam, introduced in late 2013, allows users to keep the app perpetually open so that it's always listening and collecting data as new songs and shows pop up.
In developing for the watch, there were some surprises along the way. For example, with Auto Shazam on the watch, which is activated by a hard press on the screen, the team originally thought it would send physical notifications anytime a new song was recognized. Instead, it opted to have updates pop up on the screen and just let users catch them with a glance at their wrist.
"It would be really annoying if every 3½ minutes your wrist would light up and shake," Danker said. "It wasn't clear how that was going to feel until we used it on the device."
Tweet
Critical to the app's success will be its simplicity in the eyes of consumers. The Apple Watch is such a new gadget, and every app will offer an unfamiliar experience that requires some education, so it's a good bet that any service that's difficult to use won't get much traction.
Danker's team started off complicated and kept peeling away features so that in the end consumers have one button to push to start the Shazam process and can swipe up to see past activity.
Read MoreThe first Apple Watch is a tease for developers
Danker says the company has a "fairly ambitious roadmap of ideas" regarding Shazam's direction, including taking advantage of sensor data when Apple eventually makes it available to developers. Mostly, the company will take its cues from users to see where it should go next, as consumers will—no doubt—loudly voice their opinions.
"Starting on the 24th, we will be glued to those forums to see how people react and what they want," Danker said.
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a9613dc3830d7f0ba615245e0122414a | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/22/some-apple-watch-buyers-to-get-shipments-sooner-than-expected.html | Some Apple Watch buyers to get shipments sooner than expected | Some Apple Watch buyers to get shipments sooner than expected
Customers look at the new Apple Watch displayed at an Apple Store in New York.Mike Segar | Reuters
Some Apple Watch buyers who thought they would have to wait until June to receive their new gadgets will get them sooner, Apple said on Wednesday.
When online pre-orders for Apple's first smartwatch started on April 10, many customers were surprised to see delivery times as far out as June instead of on April 24, when the devices officially go on sale.
On Wednesday, Apple notified some buyers that they would not have to wait so long after all.
VIDEO1:3201:32Will the Apple Watch end up on your wrist?Tech
"Our team is working to fill orders as quickly as possible based on the available supply and the order in which they were received," Apple said in a statement.
An Apple spokesman declined to say how soon the company would ship the watches or how many customers would be affected.
Shazam's Apple Watch strategy: Make it dead simple
The Cupertino, California company previously predicted that demand would exceed supply at product launch. It has not said how many watches its customers have pre-ordered.
In a note to clients on Wednesday, FDR analyst Daniel Ives estimated Apple would take over 2 million pre-orders for the watch and ship 20 million of them in 2015.
"The longer-term consumer adoption curve for the Apple Watch remains a major 'hot button' question among tech investors as broad customer feedback is yet to be seen," Ives wrote.
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e48ef0dd9272fbb6fda5338ec7ddfc97 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/22/trickle-down-economics-has-failed-stiglitz.html | Trickle down economics has failed: Stiglitz | Trickle down economics has failed: Stiglitz
VIDEO3:3203:32Joseph Stiglitz: Saving private sectorSquawk Box
VIDEO3:3503:35Closing 'the great divide': Joseph StiglitzSquawk Box
VIDEO2:0102:01We've created 'false capitalism': Joseph StiglitzSquawk Box
Trickle down economics isn't working, so the U.S. should reform the tax structure and offer more effective incentives to companies that create jobs for Americans, Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said Wednesday.
"Right now we have some perverted incentives, the way our tax structure actually encourages people to invest abroad," the Columbia University professor said on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "If you're investing in America, yes you should get lower rates."
The key is not only providing incentives for companies that invest in the United States, but creating a big tax differential between those that contribute to U.S. growth and those that do not, Stiglitz said.
Read More This will boost corporate earnings: Thomas Lee
The middle class is worse off after 35 years of the supply-side economics experiment, he said. The policy's mix of lower taxes at the top and less regulation has failed to deliver on its promise of giving middle- and low-income Americans a bigger piece of the pie as the entire economy grows, he said.
"The results are in. A third of a century, and what do we find? Growth was slower than before we tried that experiment, and the middle … it was right that they were going to get a smaller share, but the slice of their pie … has gone down."
In his new book, "The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them," Stiglitz argues that capitalism does not have to produce inequality. Instead, he says inequality is the result of choices capitalist countries make.
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69cb43bc5423e0be75d9404a324dff0a | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/23/heres-what-obamacare-customers-think-of-their-plans.html | Here's what Obamacare customers think of their plans... | Here's what Obamacare customers think of their plans...
People with Obamacare plans—particularly those who re-enrolled this year—were significantly more satisfied with their experience signing up for health insurance than customers were last year, according to a new report.
Obamacare customers nationally also tended to be more satisfied with their plans bought in 2014 than people who primarily have traditional job-based health coverage—the majority of those with insurance—the study by the J.D. Power market research company found.
Read More2 states' surprise Obamacare success
And those customers from last year were as happy with their coverage as other people who had multiple choices when it came to buying plans outside Obamacare markets from insurers or brokers, according to the J.D. Power report, which was released Thursday.
"Cost is the most influential attribute driving satisfaction among [Obamacare] plan enrollees," the report said.
Ariel Fernandez, left, sits with Noel Nogues, an insurance advisor with UniVista Insurance, as he signs up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act in Miami.Getty Images
Rick Johnson, director of the health-care practice at J.D. Power, said that Obamacare "marketplace shoppers are very cost-sensitive."
"Unlike many traditional health-plan members, who are often tied to a single employer benefit offering, marketplace members have the option to switch plans annually, allowing them to shop for either the most affordable or the most valuable plan."
However, the study, which questioned 3,037 new enrollees and returning enrollees, found that Obamacare customers' satisfaction with their plans tended to vary depending on the kind of government exchange they used to buy coverage.
People most satisfied with their plans bought them on HealthCare.gov, the federally run marketplace.
HealthCare.gov customers tended to be more satisfied with their plans if their state had partnered with the federal government to conduct enrollment, as opposed to if they were states that opted out of running their own exchanges.
Read MorePatient costs rise, ability to pay falls
Customers overall who used one of the 14 individual exchanges run by a state or the District of Columbia had the lowest satisfaction with their plans of any kind of Obamacare customer.
But notably, HealthCare.gov scored dead last among federal government agencies in the U.S. Customers Experience Index report issued by earlier this week. And federal government agencies, as a rule, tend to score much lower on Forrester's index than any of the other 17 industry sectors examined.
A spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which operates HealthCare.gov, declined to comment on either the J.D. Power or Forrester Research report.
Both reports come two months after the end of Obamacare's second open-enrollment season, which saw nearly 11.7 million select plans on government insurance exchanges. Those marketplaces were established to help people, often with federal financial assistance, comply with the Affordable Care Act rule requiring nearly all Americans to have health coverage or pay a fine.
Among Obamacare opponents, one complaint is that the health-care law forces uninsured people to buy coverage that is too expensive for their personal health needs, and that they will have difficulty actually using their benefits.
But the J.D. Power study suggests that, on average at least, Obamacare customers are more or as satisfied with their insurance than other people who are insured under private plans, as opposed to by government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
The study measured satisfaction with plans by evaluating customer's satisfaction with cost, as well as with coverage and benefits, provider selection, claims processing, communications and customer service. The study also looked at the "enrollment experience"—how long it took to sign up, the clarity of instructions, ease of navigating websites and understanding benefits, among other factors.
Last year, the first for Obamacare enrollment, J.D. Power found that customers' satisfaction with the sign-up experience had a score of 615, based on a 1,000-point scale. In 2015, that satisfaction level grew by 55 points to a 670 score, the study found.
Read MoreIs Obamacare getting (marginally) popular again?
Customers' satisfaction with their plans used in 2014 won a score of 696. That is 17 points higher than overall health-plan satisfaction among people surveyed in the 2015 J.D. Power Member Health Plan Study in "traditional, mostly employer-based plans not purchased on a [Obamacare] exchange," the report said.
People in that other study who had multiple plans to choose from were as satisfied with their plans as were Obamacare customers.
California, which runs their own Obamacare marketplace, "is the only state in which satisfaction with non-marketplace plans [bought off the exchange] ... is higher than with marketplace exchange plans." California exchanges-sold plans scored just 656 in customer satisfaction, while non-exchange plans scored 695.
Dana Howard, a spokesman for Covered California, when asked for comment, said he could only speak to the customer reaction seen by the exchange.
"We had strong interest, and strong re-enrollment," said Howard. "We had a 92 percent retention rate of those people who were ... already paying their plans and renewed, more than 900,000. We had 500,000 people additional people select plans for this enrollment."
"We're always looking for ways to have consumers find better value in the plans," he said.
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a59b49d0cf58698dfa72424e62dacdbc | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/23/microsoft-earnings-61-cents-per-share-vs-expected-51-cents.html | Microsoft earnings: 61 cents per share, vs expected 51 cents | Microsoft earnings: 61 cents per share, vs expected 51 cents
VIDEO0:4100:41Microsoft beats on top and bottom lineClosing Bell
Microsoft posted quarterly profit and sales that beat Wall Street's expectations on Thursday, as strong growth in hardware and cloud computing canceled out a stronger U.S. dollar's drag on international business.
The software and technology company posted earnings of 61 cents per share on $21.73 billion in revenue for its fiscal 2015 third quarter. Profit dropped 10 percent while sales increased 6 percent from the year-earlier period.
"Customers continue to choose Microsoft to transform their business and as a result we saw incredible growth across our cloud services this quarter," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a release.
Shares were up 3 percent in extended trading. (Click here to see how Microsoft shares are doing now.)
Analysts expected Microsoft to post quarterly earnings of 51 cents per share on $21.06 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.
Read MoreGetting bullish on Microsoft ahead of earnings
Sales in commercial cloud computing, which includes Office 365 and Azure services, soared 106 percent year-over-year, helping Microsoft overcome declines in commercial Office and licensing segments. Microsoft has attempted to shift to cloud and mobile-based revenue streams as more consumers shift from personal computers.
Nadella in Microsoft's earnings call touted the cloud business. He noted that Office 365 has 50 million active monthly users, while 50 trillion objects are stored in Azure.
Revenue in the company's devices and consumer segment floated 8 percent higher year-over-year. Sales of Surface tablets rose 44 percent from the previous year to $713 million, while advertising revenue in the company's Bing search engine grew 21 percent.
Xbox Live video game usage also climbed 30 percent year-over-year.
Fred Dufour | AFP | Getty Images
Microsoft's phone unit, which it has integrated since completing an acquisition of Nokia's device business last year, accounted for $1.4 billion in revenue on 8.6 Lumia units sold in the quarter. The technology company cited the continued inclusion of Nokia as part of its $190 million in restructuring expenses for the quarter.
It also said a strengthening U.S. dollar against key global currencies had a "significant impact" on business in the quarter.
The stock has slipped 7 percent this year.
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af23bdc0b7299c8c55c9451ecf2b66c5 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/23/nato-cyber-war-drills-to-focus-on-russia-expert.html | NATO cyber war drills to focus on Russia: Expert | NATO cyber war drills to focus on Russia: Expert
NATO cyber security drills in Estonia this week are likely to mimic attacks launched by Islamic State extremists and Russia, one expert told CNBC.
Nearly 400 experts across 16 countries are taking part in this year's "Locked Shield" exercise organized by NATO in Tallin, Estonia, which neighbors Russia to the west. NATO, officially known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a military alliance of 28 independent countries that does not include Russia, China nor any countries of the Middle East except Turkey.
The drills this year will test threats coming through Windows 8 and 10 operating systems, among others, alongside elements of "active defence," according to a statement on the NATO's Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence website.
A representative of the NATO cyber center said that the threat scenarios would be fictional, but based on realistic technologies and existing networks and attack methods. She told CNBC that for NATO'S purpose, the "nature of the aggressor was irrelevant."
However, one cyber security specialist outside of NATO told CNBC on Wednesday that simulated attacks would be aimed at keeping NATO allies abreast of sophisticated hacks by real-life adversaries.
"NATO will be focusing on threats you might see from Russia and, I imagine, on threats from groups that support the Islamic state or extreme Islamist movements," Robert Pritchard, associate fellow in cyber security at the Royal United Services Institute in the U.K., told CNBC.
Read MoreRussian hackers target Nato, military secrets
Pritchard noted that Russian hacking attacks had typically focused on espionage, quietly stealing valuable information, as opposed to "noisier" attacks that blocked activity, leaked information or took down websites.
Last October, a report by cyber security firm FireEye claimed a group of Russian hackers had targeted NATO in a long-running campaign to uncover military and government secrets. The group, known as APT28, had reportedly spied on NATO for at least seven years.
Pro-Russian groups in January also took responsibility for an . This followed hacks on the Ukrainian prime minister's offices that facilitated access to German, Belgium and Chinese embassies last summer.
Earlier this month, French President Francois Holland denounced attacks launched by hackers claiming to be supporters of the Islamic State, who took over channels and web pages run by French public broadcaster "TV5Monde."
VIDEO2:1102:11Need international protocols against hacking: ObamaCybersecurity
Russia neighbors boost defence spend
Countries that border Russia have become increasing worried about outward aggression, following Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region last year.
The president of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, recently called for a permanent NATO presence in his country. In an interview with "The Telegraph" newspaper, he cited concerns over Russian military flights in the area and unannounced military exercises near the Estonian border.
Data from IHS Jane's Defence shows that Russia's neighbors, including Estonia, are bumping up their defence expenditure.
"The Baltics are all very, very worried and are already starting to rearm in a serious way," IHS Defence and Aviation Analyst Ben Moores told CNBC.
Read MoreCould Russia conflict 'move beyond Ukraine'?
Estonia is buying heavy, on-the-ground weaponry, including armoured carriers and self-propelled howitzer missile launchers, while Latvia is projected to spend $858 million annually on defence by 2025, marking an increase of nearly 9 percent from 2014.
IHS forecasts a 20 percent jump in defence spending in Finland—which borders Russia to the north west—over the next 10 years. Norway, meanwhile, is diverting defence spending towards "military capability" in the Arctic, which Moores said was entirely in response to Russian actions.
Moores said the spending increases were definitely in response to events in Ukraine.
"You don't buy long-range air defence equipment because you're going to do peace-keeping," he told CNBC.
Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect that the cyber drills this year will test threats coming through Windows 8 and 10 operating systems, among others.
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90fa22d80dd40238b05ef1fa52e116a0 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/23/starbucks-earnings-33-cents-per-share-vs-expected-eps-of-33-cents.html | Starbucks stock perks up as key metric beats | Starbucks stock perks up as key metric beats
VIDEO4:1204:12Starbucks CEO: Strongest non-holiday quarter Closing Bell
VIDEO3:0403:04Earnings palooza: Reasons to buy SBUXFast Money
VIDEO1:2501:25Starbucks beats on revenue Closing Bell
VIDEO0:3100:31Starbucks to expand mobile service
Coffee retailer Starbucks met quarterly earnings and revenue estimates and reported a key restaurant metric that topped analysts' forecasts on Thursday.
The company's fiscal second-quarter earnings rose to 33 cents per share from 28 cents a share in the year-earlier period.
Revenue increased 18 percent to $4.56 billion from $3.87 billion
Global comps, a key metric, jumped 7 percent with a 3 percent tick up in traffic. Same-store sales were forecast to rise 5 percent during the quarter, according to Consensus Metrix.
Analysts had expected the giant coffee retailer to report earnings of 33 cents a share on $4.53 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.
Starbucks stock jumped 5 percent after the news. (Click here to track its shares.)
"This is the strongest non-holiday quarter in our over 20 year public life so it's pretty incredible," said Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz on CNBC's "Closing Bell."
Comps in its China/Asian Pacific unit were especially robust, rising 12 percent.
Schultz noted the chain is seeing a significant amount of interest in its new flat white beverage.
During the quarter, a record 1.3 million new rewards members joined the program, bringing total active membership to 10.3 million.
Revenue in the company's channel development segment, which includes sales of packaged coffee, jumped 16 percent.
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794b7bdee1c954fbf3c0b12daafc8c0e | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/23/why-iron-ore-wont-snatch-australias-aaa.html | Why iron-ore won’t snatch Australia’s AAA | Why iron-ore won’t snatch Australia’s AAA
Scott Barbour | Getty Images
Iron-ore's plunge has put Western Australia state's credit rating under pressure, but that's not likely to imperil Australia's AAA rating just yet, analysts said.
"Undoubtedly, Australia's fiscal position has weakened over the past year, and the May Budget will almost certainly reveal upward revisions to forecast budget deficits, and consequently government debt," analysts at ANZ said in a note Thursday. But it added, "Despite the deterioration in the fiscal outlook, current forecasts suggest that net government debt is unlikely to hit levels that could threaten Australia's sovereign credit rating."
Commodity hit
The country's outlook has taken a big hit from declines in the prices of key commodity exports, particularly iron ore, as demand from China wanes.
Read More These iron ore players face metal fatigue: Goldman
Iron-ore prices are down more than 50 percent over the past year, with the April contract Nymex iron ore 62 percent FE CRF China trading at $49.30 a tonne Thursday, compared with around $108.50 12 months ago.
The metal's outlook isn't likely to find much support from data Thursday showing China's manufacturing activity fell to a one-year low in April. The flash HSBC Purchasing Managers' Index was at 49.2, below expectations and down from March's 49.6. A figure below 50 signals contraction.
Western Australia
That's already led S&P to put Western Australia state's rating on Credit Watch negative, indicating a rating change could soon be in the offing.
"Slumping iron ore prices will considerably reduce the state's mining royalties, and without corrective actions by the state, we forecast that its operating position will sustain deficits for the foreseeable future," S&P said earlier this month. It forecast the average debt burden would rise to 114 percent of operating revenue in fiscal 2018.
The state had around 6.03 billion Australian dollars ($4.67 billion) of mining royalties in 2014, but that could fall to around 2.69 billion Australian dollars this year, S&P estimated.
Sturdy sovereign rating
But even if S&P cuts Western Australia's rating, that may not affect the country's sovereign rating.
Read More Aussie property's bubbly days are numbered: Goldman
"Rating agencies have been sanguine about Australia's fiscal standing," ANZ noted. While S&P has suggested Australia's AAA could be at risk if net general government debt rises above 30 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), that's not likely, it said.
If iron ore prices fall to around $35 a tonne -- a level Treasurer Joe Hockey has warned could become the government's official forecast -- that would wipe 21.8 billion Australian dollars from central government revenue, ANZ estimated, although it added it doesn't expect iron ore prices to head quite that low.
"Even with this deterioration, net general government debt does not breach – or even get close to – S&P's 30 percent 'line.' In fact, based on these numbers, we look for general government debt to peak at just below 24 percent of GDP in 2016-17," ANZ said.
LNG, consumption to support
Moody's also said earlier this month that Australia's Aaa is still well supported, citing 2014 GDP growth of 2.7 percent.
"The modest slowdown we expect in China could lower Australia's resource related investment and mining exports, but liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports will still grow and, coupled with consumption growth will keep Australia's GDP growth above 2 percent for the next two years," Moody's said.
But it also warned about rising levels of government debt.
"If fiscal deterioration is not reversed through policy action, as we expect it to, it could pose sovereign credit risks," Moody's said.
--Li Anne Wong contributed to this article.
—By CNBC.Com's Leslie Shaffer; Follow her on Twitter @LeslieShaffer1
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e320a4cee30d99d23601ae4ed66f1771 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/24/abercrombie-ditches-shirtless-models-with-new-policies.html | Abercrombie ditches shirtless models with new policies | Abercrombie ditches shirtless models with new policies
Say goodbye to the scantily clad "models" and suggestive marketing that have become synonymous with Abercrombie & Fitch.
On Thursday, the company sent out a memo to regional and district managers regarding store policy changes at its namesake and Hollister stores. The moves include no longer hiring store associates based on body type or physical attractiveness, and changing store associate titles from "model" to "brand representative." (Tweet This)
Read MoreRetail blunders: 10 brands that crossed the line
The brands' presidents also said that by the end of July, there will no longer be "sexualized" images printed on shopping bags, gift cards or other marketing materials. Both brands will also discontinue the use of shirtless models at store openings and events.
Abercrombie and Fitch modelsGetty Images
The teen retailer's changes come as the presidents, Abercrombie's Christos Angelides and Hollister's Fran Horowitz, try to turn around the company's image in the post-Mike Jeffries era.
The 70-year-old former CEO, whose two-decade tenure at the company's helm ended in December, was often criticized for leading Abercrombie down a path that preached noninclusion. In 2013, consumers protested the label and targeted Jeffries in a Change.org petition, after comments he made in a 2006 interview were republished.
Read MoreTeen retail's carnage leaves these two survivors
In that interview, Jeffries told Salon, "In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids."
"Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."
The company landed in hot water again when it denied employment to a Muslim job applicant because her religious attire went against its dress code, which prohibited employees from wearing headwear. That case was argued in front of the Supreme Court in February, but a decision hasn't yet been handed down.
In the store policy guidelines issued Thursday, Abercrombie and Hollister outlined that "other than pursuant to an approved accommodation," store employees should not wear headwear.
VIDEO2:0202:02Retail rundown: URBN, AEO & ZUMZPower Lunch
Abercrombie has been making other changes to try to rebuild its reputation. They include launching an anti-bullying campaign in 2013, and adding some plus-size apparel to its assortment.
The company's shares are down nearly 40 percent over the past year and are trading near $23.
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8171c0340109fb8a5351e6ce2daf566d | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/24/competition-in-stock-exchanges-coming.html | Competition in stock exchanges coming | Competition in stock exchanges coming
Competition in stock exchanges coming.
It's been known for some time that dark pool IEX, which was prominently featured in Michael Lewis' "Flash Boys" book, aims to become a stock exchange later this year. It will be known as Investors' Exchange.
Late last night Patrick Healy announced that he would be joining IEX. Healy ran Issuer Advisory Group, which advised companies on where they should be listing and also acted as a general advocate for those companies.
Healy didn't say what he will be doing, but it's pretty clear that Investors' Exchange is bringing in Healy to get new listings for the nascent exchange.
Despite the weak equities business, NYSE/ICE still gets a significant portion of its revenues from listings (about 12 percent), so this is a sign that Investors' Exchange is going to be going after the listings business of both NYSE and Nasdaq.
Separately, BATS Global Markets, the third exchange, this week hired Laura Morrison, who until last week was the NYSE's head of ETFs.
New BATS CEO Chris Concannon has made no secret that he wants to beef up his ETF trading business (several ETFs already list on BATS), and this is a sign he is very serious about increasing the already substantial trading of ETFs on BATS.
Competition is alive and well in the equity space!
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97330e3d6dd0e6c6bc0fb17bb74c377d | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/24/does-a-sub-1-billion-atlanta-hawks-signal-a-burst-bubble.html | Does a sub-$1 billion Atlanta Hawks signal a burst bubble? | Does a sub-$1 billion Atlanta Hawks signal a burst bubble?
VIDEO0:3300:33Tony Ressler to buy Atlanta HawksCollege Sports
The NBA's Atlanta Hawks announced this week that the team was sold to an investment group for $850 million. This is the first league transaction since former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer bought the LA Clippers for $2 billion in 2014. After such a massive price paid by Ballmer, the question is whether the Atlanta deal signals the bursting of an NBA asset bubble.
In January, CNBC reported on what price industry insiders thought the Hawks would sell for. At the time, the range of estimates was quite high, anywhere from $700 million to $1 billion. The final amount ended up right in the middle.
Read More NBA's Atlanta Hawks to be sold to businessman Ressler
More than three months later, we can look back now to see who was right, and what that possibly suggests for future transactions. In January, here were the estimates:
January 2015 Hawks purchase price estimates:$900 million - $1 billion: Unnamed NBA co-owner $900 million - $1 billion: Scott Rosner, Wharton $750 million - $1 billion: Patrick Rishe, Sportsimpacts $700 million - $750 million: Andrew Zimbalist, Smith College
The only one to get it right was Patrick Rishe, but his range was much wider than the others. Everybody else had a narrower $50 million to $100 million range—but were all wrong. "I'm certainly not surprised by this outcome," said Rishe, founder and president of market research firm Sportsimpacts, and incoming director of the sports business program at Washington University in St Louis.
Rishe expanded on his analysis: "Considering how the Hawks were ranked 22nd at $825 million by Forbes in January 2015, valued at $425 million the prior year and were purchased in 2004 at $189 million, I'd say NBA owners and the former Hawks owners in particular are feeling pretty good today about the short-term and long-term financial health of their league."
Read More NHL cracks down on streaming apps during playoffs
He continued with a positive outlook to the future: "With greater revenue sharing than ever before, stricter luxury tax rules, and massive local and national media deals, they have every reason to feel this way."
Contrast that assessment with the unnamed NBA co-owner who expected at least $900 mllion. He said this deal was "significantly lower than anyone expected," and "probably not a bad deal" for incoming owners Grant Hill and Tony Ressler. He thought the process reflected a "clear bifurcation of the market and absolutely no pricing in of a move to Seattle."
He also said that this idea of automatically assuming every NBA team was worth a billion dollars is over. "It's probably not a great sign for lower-market teams whose owners thought their teams were worth at least a billion, as Atlanta is a midtier market versus Sacramento or Milwaukee or Minneapolis."
Eight hundred and fifty million dollars is a really strong number for this marketIrwin Raijsports attorney at Foley & Lardner
"Eight hundred and fifty million dollars is a good price for this team," said Irwin Raij, a sports attorney at Foley & Lardner. "Putting it into context, not that long ago you could buy a piece of the Hawks at an enterprise value below $400 million."
Raij said the "price reflects the strength of the NBA product right now" and "takes into account the national and local media deals and the trend of increasing NBA team valuations."
Read More
As far as using the Clippers sale price as an example for other teams to go by, he thinks that's irrelevant. "More simply, Los Angeles is a different market with a different set of circumstances." And in his mind, the bubble hasn't burst yet. "Some may have wanted to see it exceed $900 million, but $850 million is a really strong number for this market."
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ba5f4b2dd1fc12e1a27c3a9f4de9538a | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/24/facebook-to-buy-meerkat-one-insider-says-yes.html | Facebook to buy Meerkat? One 'insider' says yes | Facebook to buy Meerkat? One 'insider' says yes
VIDEO4:5704:57Growth of the 'instant' economy: AngelSquawk Alley
Facebook could make its way into the mobile live-streaming space very soon, Weblogs CEO Jason Calacanis said Friday.
"Meerkat is going to be bought by Facebook, I think, in the next six months," Calacanis told CNBC's "Squawk Alley."
"As you know, I have a lot of inside information," Calacanis said. "I'm not an investor in Meerkat, sadly, or, Periscope—I missed both of those—however, I do have a lot of inside information," he said, adding that he doesn't trade stocks.
However, in early March, Meerkat CEO Ben Rubin told CNBC's "Squawk Alley" he was not ready to sell his company just yet. "Our main focus right now is to continue to grow, and try to find more uses [for the app]," Rubin said. "Right now we're just focused on making something awesome"
Meerkat, a mobile live-streaming app, launched earlier this year at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, and was an instant success. "Twenty percent of [users] watch a minimum of two hours a day, [while] 8 percent watch a minimum of three hours, and on top of that, 4 percent watch a minimum of four hours," Rubin told CNBC's "Squawk Alley" last month.
Nevertheless, Rubin's company saw Twitter quickly hop on the mobile live-streaming bandwagon when it launched Periscope, its own live-streaming app, on March 26.
Calacanis told CNBC months ago that Twitter would start accepting payments for verified accounts.
Read More Twitter's Periscope tackles live streaming, Meerkat
Facebook said it doesn't comment on rumors. Meerkat did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
—CNBC's Eli Langer contributed to this report.
Disclosure: CNBC's parent company, Comcast, is an investor in Meerkat.
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54d2917d6b25bee4a2a6d6ef739a2acf | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/24/shareholders-should-hold-bank-of-america-accountable-analyst.html | Shareholders should hold Bank of America accountable: Analyst | Shareholders should hold Bank of America accountable: Analyst
VIDEO3:1903:19BofA: Miss you target, get promoted?Squawk Box
Shareholders should throw out Bank of America's corporate governance board following its decision to promote CEO Brian Moynihan to chairman of the board in October, CLSA bank analyst Mike Mayo said Friday.
"Bank of America said they missed their targets last year, and what happens to the CEO? He gets promoted to also have the chairman position," Mayo told CNBC's "Squawk Box." "Is that the way things work for the over 200,000 employees at Bank of America? Miss your targets, get promoted?"
Mayo also criticized Bank of America for its problems in past Federal Reserve stress tests, a $4 billion regulatory capital misstatement and for falling short in return on equity. He continued to say the bank does not have a time frame for any public financial target.
"They don't have the self-criticism that, say, JPMorgan has or Citigroup has. So this to me looks like poor governance," Mayo said.
Read MoreBank of America swings to a profit in first quarter
Bank of America declined to comment. It holds its annual shareholder meeting on May 6.
About 57 percent of analysts have a buy or overweight rating on the bank's shares, and 34 percent rate the stock hold, according to FactSet data. The average price target is $18.14, above its last closing price of $15.69.
Mayo made his comments after two proxy advisers—Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS)—told shareholders they should vote against members of BofA's corporate governance committee in response to the company's decision to appoint Moynihan chairman without consulting shareholders, The Wall Street Journal reported.
In 2009, shareholders passed a rule that said the roles should be split between two individuals. Bank of America told the Journal the rule was passed in the aftermath of the financial crisis and during the tenure of a different CEO, Kenneth Lewis.
Read MoreHSBC launches review into moving HQ from UK
Mayo said Glass Lewis and ISS did not go far enough in their advisory.
"I say, also look at the failed financial performance relative to what I think are their targets, the lack of a public time frame for future financial targets, the poor tone at the top of the company, and lack of accountability," he said.
He said regulators will step in to fill the void if investors do not step up and hold Bank of America accountable.
"If you want more regulation, go ahead. Let the directors stay on Bank of America's board. If you want to show that we collectively are taking ownership of the financial industry and stop being embarrassed by bad practices, then let's do something May 6," he said.
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549d518e1a514a38767e5fb3945f3ef8 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/24/the-greek-crisis-has-a-new-buzzword-grimbo.html | The Greek crisis has a new buzzword: Grimbo | The Greek crisis has a new buzzword: Grimbo
If you've been following the ongoing Greek solvency crisis, you have probably heard the terms "Grexit" – referring to Greece exiting the euro zone -- and "Grexident" – if it accidentally leaves the bloc – being branded about.
But now there's a new term on the block to sum up the current impasse over reforms: a "Grimbo" – or Greece in limbo.
Tourists visit the archaeological site of the Temple of the Olympian Zeus in Athens last November.Alkis Konstantinidis | Reuters
The latest buzzword sums up the drawn-out negotiations between the Greek government and its creditors over its bailout program, which was extended by four months in February to give the country time to enact reforms. The word was coined by the same group of Citi economists – led by Chief Economist Willem Buiter – which thought up the now widely-used "Grexit" term in February 2012, when Greece leaving the euro zone first became a possibility.
In a note published this week, the term said "Grimbo" described a possible "drawn-out" process of negotiations between Greece and its lenders that could result in the country leaving the euro zone.
Read MoreChances of Greek deal 'virtually nil'
"In our view, a last-minute agreement on a new program (and additional funding) without capital controls or a government default remains plausible. But it is similarly plausible that capital controls will be imposed in Greece or a government default takes place before an agreement is struck or that no agreement will be reached," the economists said.
VIDEO4:1804:18Beware of a contagion if Greece leaves EU: UBSStreet Signs Asia
If Greece did default on its debts and capital controls were issued, a Grexit would not necessarily be inevitable, the economists said. But they added that this could lead to a drawn-out process – a Greek limbo that could, if the gridlock persisted, lead to a Grexit.
"Grexit in the next few months is not inconceivable, and it is certainly more likely if we consider Grimbo durations of a year or more," Buiter and his colleagues remarked.
Read MoreTraders focus on tech, but keep one eye on Greece
The warning comes against a backdrop of fraught, drawn-out negotiations over Greece's financial future. On Friday, the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers is meeting in Latvia to discuss Greek reforms in return for aid.
Neither the ministers involved in the discussions nor analysts are confident any agreement will be reached, however, raising the prospect that the issue will be kicked further down the road while Greece's funds run low and bankruptcy approaches.
- By CNBC's Holly Ellyatt, follow her on Twitter @HollyEllyatt. Follow us on Twitter: @CNBCWorld
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a04e287c1e3de8a0361afcbac7a23afb | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/25/russian-hackers-read-obamas-unclassified-emails-officials-say.html | Russian Hackers Read Obama's Unclassified Emails, Officials Say | Russian Hackers Read Obama's Unclassified Emails, Officials Say
President Barack Obama speaks at the Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., Feb. 13, 2015.Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Some of President Obama's email correspondence was swept up by Russian hackers last year in a breach of the White House's unclassified computer system that was far more intrusive and worrisome than has been publicly acknowledged, according to senior American officials briefed on the investigation.
The hackers, who also got deeply into the State Department's unclassified system, do not appear to have penetrated closely guarded servers that control the message traffic from Mr. Obama's BlackBerry, which he or an aide carries constantly.
But they obtained access to the email archives of people inside the White House, and perhaps some outside, with whom Mr. Obama regularly communicated. From those accounts, they reached emails that the president had sent and received, according to officials briefed on the investigation.
Read more from The New York Times: Pentagon announces new strategy for cyberwarfare House Passes Cybersecurity Bill After Companies Fall Victim to Data Breaches Obama expands options for retaliating against foreign hackers
White House officials said that no classified networks had been compromised, and that the hackers had collected no classified information. Many senior officials have two computers in their offices, one operating on a highly secure classified network and another connected to the outside world for unclassified communications.
But officials have conceded that the unclassified system routinely contains much information that is considered highly sensitive: schedules, email exchanges with ambassadors and diplomats, discussions of pending personnel moves and legislation, and, inevitably, some debate about policy.
Officials did not disclose the number of Mr. Obama's emails that were harvested by hackers, nor the sensitivity of their content. The president's email account itself does not appear to have been hacked. Aides say that most of Mr. Obama's classified briefings — such as the morning Presidential Daily Brief — are delivered orally or on paper (sometimes supplemented by an iPad system connected to classified networks) and that they are usually confined to the Oval Office or the Situation Room.
Read More Hacked Tesla Twitter feed leaves one phone ringing
Still, the fact that Mr. Obama's communications were among those hit by the hackers — who are presumed to be linked to the Russian government, if not working for it — has been one of the most closely held findings of the inquiry. Senior White House officials have known for months about the depth of the intrusion.
"This has been one of the most sophisticated actors we've seen," said one senior American official briefed on the investigation.
Others confirmed that the White House intrusion was viewed as so serious that officials met on a nearly daily basis for several weeks after it was discovered. "It's the Russian angle to this that's particularly worrisome," another senior official said.
While Chinese hacking groups are known for sweeping up vast amounts of commercial and design information, the best Russian hackers tend to hide their tracks better and focus on specific, often political targets. And the hacking happened at a moment of renewed tension with Russia — over its annexation of Crimea, the presence of its forces in Ukraine and its renewed military patrols in Europe, reminiscent of the Cold War.
Inside the White House, the intrusion has raised a new debate about whether it is possible to protect a president's electronic presence, especially when it reaches out from behind the presumably secure firewalls of the executive branch.
Mr. Obama is no stranger to computer-network attacks: His 2008 campaign was hit by Chinese hackers. Nonetheless, he has long been a frequent user of email, and publicly fought the Secret Service in 2009 to retain his BlackBerry, a topic he has joked about in public. He was issued a special smartphone, and the list of those he can exchange emails with is highly restricted.
When asked about the investigation's findings, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, Bernadette Meehan, said, "We'll decline to comment." The White House has also declined to provide any explanations about how the breach was handled, though the State Department has been more candid about what kind of systems were hit and what it has done since to improve security. A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment.
Officials who discussed the investigation spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the hacking. While the White House has refused to identify the nationality of the hackers, others familiar with the investigation said that in both the White House and State Department cases, all signs pointed to Russians.
On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter revealed for the first time that Russian hackers had attacked the Pentagon's unclassified systems, but said they had been identified and "kicked off." Defense Department officials declined to say if the signatures of the attacks on the Pentagon appeared related to the White House and State Department attacks.
The discovery of the hacking in October led to a partial shutdown of the White House email system. The hackers appear to have been evicted from the White House systems by the end of October. But they continued to plague the State Department, whose system is much more far-flung. The disruptions were so severe that during the Iranian nuclear negotiations in Vienna in November, officials needed to distribute personal email accounts, to one another and to some reporters, to maintain contact.
Earlier this month, officials at the White House said that the hacking had not damaged its systems and that, while elements had been shut down to mitigate the effects of the attack, everything had been restored.
One of the curiosities of the White House and State Department attacks is that the administration, which recently has been looking to name and punish state and nonstate hackers in an effort to deter attacks, has refused to reveal its conclusions about who was responsible for this complex and artful intrusion into the government. That is in sharp contrast to Mr. Obama's decision, after considerable internal debate in December, to name North Korea for ordering the attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, and to the director of national intelligence's decision to name Iranian hackers as the source of a destructive attack on the Sands Casino.
This month, after CNN reported that hackers had gained access to sensitive areas of the White House computer network, including sections that contained the president's schedule, the White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, said the administration had not publicly named who was behind the hack because federal investigators had concluded that "it's not in our best interests."
By contrast, in the North Korea case, he said, investigators concluded that "we're more likely to be successful in terms of holding them accountable by naming them publicly."
But the breach of the president's emails appeared to be a major factor in the government secrecy. "All of this is very tightly held," one senior American official said, adding that the content of what had been breached was being kept secret to avoid tipping off the Russians about what had been learned from the investigation.
Mr. Obama's friends and associates say that he is a committed user of his BlackBerry, but that he is careful when emailing outside the White House system.
"The frequency has dropped off in the last six months or so," one of his close associates said, though this person added that he did not know if the drop was related to the hacking.
Mr. Obama is known to send emails to aides late at night from his residence, providing them with his feedback on speeches or, at times, entirely new drafts. Others say he has emailed on topics as diverse as his golf game and the struggle with Congress over the Iranian nuclear negotiations.
George W. Bush gave up emailing for the course of his presidency and did not carry a smartphone. But after Mr. Bush left office, his sister's email account was hacked, and several photos — including some of his paintings — were made public.
The White House is bombarded with cyberattacks daily, not only from Russia and China. Most are easily deflected.
The White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and intelligence agencies put their most classified material into a system called Jwics, for Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System. That is where top-secret and "secret compartmentalized information" traverses within the government, to officials cleared for it — and it includes imagery, data and graphics. There is no evidence, senior officials said, that this hacking pierced it.
But as data has gone mobile, the challenge has been to balance the desire for speed and connectivity with security. The State Department, for example, has 285 posts around the world, with tens of thousands of people who need access to data — and often connections to more heavily protected databases.
Officials say that while the State Department's email system was compromised, the databases were not. The attackers on the State Department did not attempt to slow the system down, or to destroy computer systems — which is what happened to Sony. Instead, the goal was exfiltration of data. The same appears to be the case at the White House.
The "Internet protocol" addresses that the attacks appeared to come from were false, designed to mislead investigators. And the code was new and extremely sophisticated, clearly designed to evade even advanced security systems.
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6b4a01acc320a74c79dac0e57317bf52 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/26/dc-and-mattel-look-to-turn-girls-into-superhero-fans.html | DC and Mattel look to turn girls into superhero fans | DC and Mattel look to turn girls into superhero fans
A New Super Hero Universe Designed Just For Girls, Slated For Fall 2015.Source: DC Entertainment
Last Halloween, math teacher and comic book enthusiast Jenn Reddig found one of her advanced seventh-grade students drawing a picture of her favorite superhero, Batman, during a costume-making project. But her student had made one major adjustment: She had reimagined the iconic 75-year-old character as a girl.
"She had never heard of Batgirl and she couldn't be Batman because he's a boy," Reddig said.
Batman publisher DC Comics and its parent Warner Bros. are hoping to change that. Last week, the Time Warner-owned companies announced they would launch a new slate of animated features, books, apparel and toys for girls 6 to 12.
Dubbed DC Super Hero Girls, the brand will feature the publisher's female characters—including Wonder Woman, Supergirl and Batgirl—portrayed as teenagers who are still learning to master their superpowers and crime-fighting skills.
Read More Netflix brings Daredevil to the visually impaired
The companies will also seek to dislodge dolls from at least part of playtime by partnering with Mattel to create the first line of action figures made to appeal to girls.
Reddig said she is thrilled DC has decided to reach out to girls. Her female students often find her after class to ask for comic book recommendations when they find out she's a fangirl. Up until fifth or sixth grade, these same girls have no problem playing with "boys' toys," she said.
"It's around this age they start realizing that boys and girls are different and start becoming afraid to consume the material produced for boys of similar age," she said.
VIDEO2:3902:39How to invest in comic booksWorldwide Exchange
Toy and media analysts, too, say the endeavor is not so far-fetched.
Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Stephanie Wissink said it dovetails with two-major trends in the toy industry: the rise of the rebel or independent girl and the strength of products backed by media content, such as My Little Pony.
The same holds true for movies and television, said Eric Handler, who covers Time Warner and Mattel at MKM Partners.
"I think it's a very interesting potential franchise. Girls content has been very strong. We've seen that a lot of movies that have been girl-oriented have done very well, from 'Frozen' to 'The Fault in Our Stars,'" he said. "Strong female-driven characters are resonating well."
Read More Spider-Man swings into Marvel's cinematic universe
Time Warner is the big winner in the deal because the company can not only make money from television specials and direct-to-video content, but profit by signing additional leases for DC Super Hero Girls-branded products.
He noted that DC has performed well in animation, producing shows and movies that demonstrate range, from the dark and critically acclaimed "Batman: The Animated Series" to the more recent comedic romp, "Teen Titans Go!" on Cartoon Network.
(No more) Babes in Toyland
The stakes are high for Mattel, which will lose its lucrative Disney Princess license at the end of the year to rival Hasbro.
The leap to action figures from dolls is not a big one because whether girls play with Supergirl or Barbie, it all boils down to using their imagination to create stories, analysts said.
Still, Mattel must take into account a lesson that took Lego years to learn, Wissink said. While girls are likely interested in the type of toys traditionally marketed to boys, they play differently. Lego created multiple girl-oriented products before finally marketing one, Lego Friends, that acknowledges girls want to keep their play sets after they construct them—not demolish them, as boys more often do, she explained.
VIDEO5:5205:52The World of Cosplay: Professionals by day, superheroes by night
The rise of Batgirl could also be bad news for Mattel's Barbie, Wissink said.
"Anything you introduce in the girls category comes at the expense of something else. The toy industry is only growing 3 or 4 percent a year, so if you want a category to really dominate, it's going to come at the expense of something else."
Will teens stick around?
Whether or not DC can bring more girls into the broader world of comics remains to be seen.
The relationship between women and comics has long been fraught. In an industry dominated by men in creative positions, women have often been portrayed as hypersexual and frequently play second fiddle to their male counterparts.
DC has recently tried to appeal to a younger female demographic by rebooting Batgirl with a more buoyant tone while keeping the action and derring-do intact.
Read MoreDC's 'Batgirl' cover art triggers furor over sexism, censorship
Still, Reddig believes publishers have not achieved enough progress to make the superhero genre truly appealing to a wide range of teenage women. She said middle-school children aging out of the DC Super Hero Girls brand will find the more adult-oriented comic books jarring.
"These girls need a follow-up piece to demonstrate the characters in DC Super Hero Girls transition into the current lineup of comics, something palatable for girls of high school age," she said. "While it's great for the grade school girls, it's leaving the high school ladies with nothing."
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a70e478ad0780f7aac7685dbbe300cf6 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/26/nepal-quake-impact-could-exceed-20-percent-gdp.html | Nepal quake impact could exceed 20% of GDP | Nepal quake impact could exceed 20% of GDP
A man stands on top of debris from collapsed buildings on April 26, 2015 in Bhaktapur, Nepal.Getty Images
The economic costs of Nepal's devastating earthquake, which has claimed the lives of at least 3,200 people so far and injured thousands more, could exceed $5 billion, equivalent to 20 percent of the impoverished nation's gross domestic product (GDP), says IHS.
"With the death toll and total casualty estimates from the Nepal earthquake rising rapidly, the economic impact on the nation is severe," said Rajiv Biswas, chief economist, Asia-Pacific at IHS wrote in a note.
"The total long-term cost of reconstruction in Nepal using appropriate building standards for regions vulnerable to severe earthquakes could exceed $5 billion," he said.
VIDEO5:0205:02Nepal earthquake death toll rises to 3,218Squawk Box Asia
A powerful earthquake measuring 7.8-magnitude struck an area between the capital, Kathmandu, and the city of Pokhara, around midday on Saturday, collapsing buildings and homes, toppling centuries-old cultural monuments, severely cracking roads and damaging communications infrastructure.
"The standard of housing construction in Nepal is extremely low, which is why the damage to buildings has been extremely severe," Biswas noted.
As a poverty-stricken nation, Nepal's capacity to fund disaster relief and long-term reconstruction efforts is extremely limited, said Biswas.
Read MoreTechnology to the rescue as Facebook, Google tools help ease Nepal jitters
Nepal's per capita GDP stood at $694 in 2013, according to the World Bank, compared with $1,497 in neighboring India and $ 6,807 in China.
"A coordinated international disaster relief and long-term reconstruction program will need to be funded by bilateral assistance from donor nations and development financing agencies under the coordinated management of multilateral institutions such as the United Nations," he said.
Relief efforts
Governments and aid agencies are rushing search-and-rescue and disaster relief personnel to Kathmandu, with India, China, Pakistan and the U.S. leading international efforts.
However, rescue work has been hampered by a series of aftershocks and adverse weather conditions.
Widespread damage to road networks, which has essentially cut off access to rural areas, is also presenting a grave challenge for aid workers.
"[Our personnel] are driving as far as they can and they are going the rest of the way by foot, its taking sometimes up to 6, 7, 8 hours for some of our teams to get to the areas that they want to assess," Mark Smith, senior director, Emergency Affairs at World Vision told CNBC.
"We're starting to get some preliminary reports but it's going to take 2-3 days before a lot of aid is going to get mobilized into these rural areas because of the access issues," he said.
While Kathmandu's airport opened on Sunday, some aid flights were prevented from landing by aftershocks, according to Reuters.
Sanjay Karki, country director at Mercy Corps, who is on the ground in Kathmandu, highlighted the pressing need for medical assistance.
"Hospitals have been overflooded. When you enter hospitals, you can see all the patients lying in open spaces. There will be a shortage of medicine soon," he said.
The country has just 2.1 physicians and 50 hospital beds for every 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organization.
"There have been blood donation camps organized by communities in the neighborhood, but that will run out," he added.
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eb5a3af63fec208115cfbc333250a08b | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/27/financial-sector-rooting-for-rate-hike-diamond.html?__source=mnd%7Cnews%7C&par=mnd | Financial sector 'rooting' for rate hike: Diamond | Financial sector 'rooting' for rate hike: Diamond
VIDEO5:0005:00Financial services rooting for higher rates: DiamondPower Lunch
Financial services stocks are primed to break out from a sluggish patch partly fueled by sustained low interest rates in the United States, former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond said on Monday.
Diamond now serves as CEO of Atlas Merchant Capital, which focuses on financial services. The sector is "rooting for higher rates" and Diamond believes they are overdue, he told CNBC.
"There's virtually nothing in the financial services area that's benefiting from continued lower and lower rates," he said from the Milken Institute conference in Los Angeles.
Bob Diamond, former CEO of Barclays.Justin Solomon | CNBC
Markets—and many investors in financials—have watched for indications of when the U.S. Federal Reserve will hike the federal funds rate after years of near-zero rates. Diamond noted that a move higher likely would not happen "quickly."
Read MoreWill the Fed push stocks into new breakout territory?
The S&P 500 financials sector has dropped 2 percent this year versus a 2 percent gain for the . Still, Diamond remains "very bullish" on financial stocks.
But the sector may have to wait to break out. A sluggish first quarter for the U.S. economy and low inflation has fueled broad speculation that the Fed may act on interest rates later rather than sooner.
Diamond added that he supports the European Central Bank's bond-buying program, but feels monetary policy alone will not solve Europe's problems. Labor and capital market and bank reforms are likely needed to boost Europe, as well, he said.
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a5bb0cccd9ad96b5fffa9d6babf34662 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/27/fitch-downgrades-japan-warns-on-fiscal-policy.html | Fitch downgrades Japan, warns on fiscal policy | Fitch downgrades Japan, warns on fiscal policy
Getty Images
Fitch Ratings downgraded Japan's credit rating by one notch after the government failed to take steps in this fiscal year's budget to offset a delay in a sales tax increase, the agency said on Monday.
Fitch cut its rating on Japan by one notch to A, which is five notches below the top AAA rating. The outlook is stable.
A plan to lower the corporate tax rate also increases uncertainty about whether the government will generate enough revenue to address its debt burden, Fitch said in a statement.
Last year Moody's Investors Service downgraded Japan to A1, which is one level above Fitch's rating, due to the delay in the sales tax increase.
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059b2969cff29eeedb49e1fd1b4a9269 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/28/iron-ore-rally-mere-dead-cat-bounce.html | Iron ore rally: Mere dead cat bounce? | Iron ore rally: Mere dead cat bounce?
Philip Gostelow | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A breath-taking rally in iron ore prices in recent weeks has put the sector back in bull market territory, but strategists warn that the upside may be short-lived.
The beleaguered commodity has recovered 25 percent since hitting a ten-year low of $46.70 per metric ton earlier this month; a 20 percent gain from recent lows is typically considered in bull market territory.
Spot prices traded just below $60 a ton on Tuesday, extending a two-and-a-half week run and pushed Australia's benchmark stock index to seven-year highs on Monday.
"Let's not get too carried away. Iron ore is still down 60 percent over the course of 12 months and the supply-demand response has not changed," warned Gaurav Sodhi, resources analyst at Intelligent Investor. This [rally] is a short-term bump; it's not suggestive of a change of trend."
Capital Economics agrees: "The bigger picture is that the market remains massively oversupplied. As such, we expect prices to fall back once market dislocations ease," senior commodities economist Caroline Bain said in a note.
Increased Chinese demand for the key steelmaking ingredient is fuelling current price gains. The China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) reported on Friday that output rose 5.1 percent in the first ten days of April compared with the previous ten days.
An additional boost came from BHP Billiton's recent announcement to delay plans to expand its Port Hedland facilities, signaling reduced output. April's reserve requirement ratio cut from the People's Bank of China also lifted sentiment on expectations the stimulus will translate to more infrastructure spending.
A supply glut from top producers saw iron ore halve in value last year and Sodhi says the market remains plagued by oversupply, with 300 million additional metric tons due to come online over the next two years.
VIDEO4:1404:14Don't get too excited about iron ore: ProStreet Signs Asia
"Iron ore has seen no fundamental change to supply – in fact quite the opposite having seen quarterly reports from Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton last week," echoed Evan Lucas, market strategist at IG. Both miners are on track to deliver record production numbers, with BHP lifting guidance by 2 percent.
Read MoreWhy iron-ore won't snatch Australia's AAA
The world's big four miners (Vale, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Fortescue Metals) all remain committed to increasing low-cost output, with their total combined production increasing 15 percent on year in the first quarter, Bain added. Keeping that in mind, she expects total surplus to rise 10 percent this year.
Iron ore is the raw material used in steel, and with output from world's top producer China remaining on the downtrend, iron ore prices will remain under pressure.
The rebound in Chinese steel output in April came from an unusually low base, noted Capital Economics. Production from January to March dropped 1.7 percent on year, marking it the worst first quarter in a decade.
The World Steel Association expects Chinese steel demand to shrink 0.5 percent to 707 million metric tons this year and fall to 703.7 million tons in 2016.
For now, China has yet to prove it is back in the game, IG's Lucas said. "If iron ore can sustain these prices for a month, then we will know China is absorbing the supply glut. But, be aware the price trend hasn't been broken and a snap back is likely."
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822156e0f6e705aa4e388611f44cbcff | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/29/chinas-commodity-demand-returns-but-will-it-last.html | China's commodity demand returns, but will it last? | China's commodity demand returns, but will it last?
Copper production in Johor, MalaysiaMunshi Ahmed | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Chinese demand for a wide range of commodities has been surprisingly strong this year despite worsening economic data, raising questions over how long the demand recovery can last.
For the first three months of the year, oil demand grew an annual 7.7 percent, its biggest gain in over two years while March iron ore imports soared 18.5 percent on month, snapping a two-month run of declines. Imports of refined copper metal rose to a four-month high last month, building on an 11.4 percent gain in copper consumption in February. And in the precious metals sector, March platinum imports jumped 26 percent on year, hitting their highest since December 2013.
The spike in demand seems at odds with recent growth indicators. Manufacturing activity in March remain in contraction territory while April's figure fell to a one-year low, according to HSBC's preliminary purchasing manager's index (PMI) survey. Meanwhile, industrial production logged its worst performance in March since the global financial crisis and first-quarter gross domestic product hit a six-year low.
According to Barclays, government spending on infrastructure is a key factor fueling demand for commodities, referring to the 300 infrastructure projects valued at $1 trillion slated for this year.
"While fixed asset investment growth in March slowed to 10.3 percent y/y, infrastructure investment rose 24.5 percent," the bank said in a report on Wednesday, adding that energy and metal intensive sectors like transportation, water conservation and public utilities, saw the biggest inflows.
The new Silk Road initiative is also attracting investment into transport infrastructure, supporting demand for related commodities, Arjen van Dijkhuizen, senior economist at ABN-AMRO, said last week Where things will go from here aren't clear, analysts say.
Read MoreTherisks behind China's growth gamble
While China's deliberate shift away from an investment-led economic model could dampen its demand for resources, aggressive monetary easing by policymakers could provide a buffer.
VIDEO4:3304:33Copper unlikely to bounce above $3 per pound: AnalystInvesting Edge
The People's Bank of China slashed its reserve requirement ratio, or the level of deposits banks must hold, by 100 basis points last week, its second cut since February.
"Looser credit conditions or fiscal stimulus may temporarily boost China's demand for coal, copper and iron ore but the bounce will be fleeting," Daniel Rohr, director of materials research at Morningstar, said in a note earlier this month.
Beijing's transition into a consumer-oriented economy will "diminish main demand growth engine for mined commodities globally," he added.
ABN-AMRO believes certain commodities face a greater threat of a slowdown, with industrial metal imports likely to see the biggest contraction as a result of economic rebalancing and the drive towards cleaner and more efficient production methods.
Read MoreWhy uranium is a smart investment: Experts
"We expect much lower growth rates going forward and for some industrial metals even import compression from time to time," said van Dijkhuizen.
Meanwhile, soft commodity imports like coffee and cocoa could buck the trend and keep rising thanks to a rise in average wealth levels and subsequent shift towards higher-quality consumption goods, he added.
Barclays, on the other hand, is more optimistic, expecting 2015 to be a better year for commodities than 2014.
"We suspect that it (demand strength) is likely to prove a high point for this year...extra government spending on infrastructure is real, as is the growth in car ownership and demand for air travel," the bank said.
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76e1f0ba5f4315a227b961dbdf74bdd6 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/29/mayweather-vs-pacquiao-where-the-money-comes-from.html | Mayweather vs Pacquiao: Where the money comes from | Mayweather vs Pacquiao: Where the money comes from
VIDEO1:4401:44Two boxing freaks give their pick for the fightBoxing
Rivers of money are flowing into boxing's biggest bout in years, and it's not just the fighters who stand to gain a windfall.
Saturday's welterweight fight pits Floyd Mayweather Jr. against Manny Pacquiao in an event the boxing world has demanded for years. While a likely astronomical pay-per-view haul and lofty ticket prices have drawn attention, the bout will almost certainly generate huge cash for venues, promoters and broadcasters on a number of other fronts.
"If you call it the fight of the century, you might be underestimating it" in terms of revenue, said Rick Horrow, a sports business consultant and visiting lecturer at Harvard Business School.
Pay-per-view purchases will account for the biggest piece of the estimated sales. With a suggested price of about $90, and the potential for 3 million or more buys, pay-per-view could generate $300 million, according to a CNBC analysis.
Tickets for the bout at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas may rack up an estimated $70 million, according to The New York Times. International broadcasts could take in $35 million, while licensing fees for closed-circuit broadcasts could fetch another $13 million.
Read MoreTickets to Mayweather-Pacquiao bout reach Super Bowl prices
Sponsorship revenue may reach $12 million, while $1 million in merchandise could be sold.
Those sums may just be the start. Within the geographic confines of Las Vegas, the fight can be seen only at MGM's locations in Vegas, allowing the company to charge for entry and generate more foot traffic, said David Carter, a sports business professor at the University of Southern California.
And those estimates do not account for the enormous cash flow into Las Vegas itself, said Horrow. He could not put an estimate on figures, but noted that the bout will almost certainly lead to significant hotel, restaurant and, of course, gambling revenue.
Floyd Mayweather (left) and Manny Pacquiao attend the press conference in Los Angeles in March to announce their fight.Paul Archuleta | FilmMagic | Getty Images
On the surface, at least, the fighters will see a massive payday. Estimates have placed Mayweather and Pacquiao's combined pay at $200 million, if not more.
But even those figures don't factor in what the boxers themselves will pay out, Carter said. After taxes and payments to promotion companies, the fighters could see half of that disappear.
Mayweather Promotions and Top Rank—the promoters representing Mayweather and Pacquiao, respectively, will also see a boon. Carter noted that promoters can take up to 30 percent of a fighter's cut, though the number may drop significantly for established fighters.
Read MoreHow the biggest boxing match will bring its fighters millions
Neither Mayweather Promotions nor Top Rank responded to CNBC's requests for comment.
Media and cable company profits will likely soar, mostly because costs to put on the bout will not increase significantly enough from the average match to cancel out the huge revenue boon, Carter said, though he was unable to quantify the comparison.
Time Warner-owned HBO and CBS-owned Showtime, which will co-produce the broadcast, will split a 7.5 percent cut of the pay-per-view, or $22.5 million, based on the $300 million projection.
Other cable and satellite distributors will split a 30 to 40 percent cut of the pay-per-view haul, according to the Times. That sum could reach $100 million, as well.
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6cf1260fc849fcf6664c787712efc4ee | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/29/meet-the-man-who-could-be-the-next-ruler-of-oil-market.html | Meet the man who could be the next ruler of oil market | Meet the man who could be the next ruler of oil market
Khalid Al-FalihSeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images
There's no one individual who has the power to shake the world oil markets quite like Ali al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia's octogenarian oil minister.
So the replacement of al-Naimi as chairman of state-owned Aramco with its former CEO Khalid al-Falih is being read as a signal by oil traders that he could now be the front runner for oil minister when al-Naimi retires. He was also named to the post of health minister in a series of key appointments by King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, which included a sweeping succession plan with a new generation in line.
"First of all, al-Naimi, the oil minister, is remaining in his seat, but what's interesting is you now have a new chairman of Aramco. They moved up the former chief executive and people are saying this new chairman could become the next oil minister," said Helima Croft, head of commodity strategy at RBC.
VIDEO3:4103:41The royal Saudi shakeupHalftime Report
The changes made by King Salman could potentially seal the kingdom's succession for decades. He named his nephew, Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef as heir to the throne, and his son, Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman, as deputy crown prince, now second in line.
Read MoreWhat the Saudi royal shakeup means for oil
King Salman ascended to the throne after the death of his brother, the late King Abdullah, three months ago. Since then, Saudi Arabia has become more aggressive on the foreign policy front, last month launching air strikes in Yemen. Mohammed bin Salman has had a leading role in the Saudi war against Houthi rebels in Yemen, and King Salmon is now further empowering a new generation.
The oil market showed minimal reaction to the news but rallied Wednesday after U.S. government data showed a drawdown in oil supply at the Cushing, Oklahoma, hub. Oil traders, however, were still intrigued by the message being sent by al-Falih's appointment since it is usually the oil minister who chairs Aramco, not the health minister. Another strong candidate for oil minister is said to be King Salman's son, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the deputy oil minister.
Read More
Falih joined Saudi Aramco has been CEO of Aramco since January 2009, and he has not yet been replaced. He has been with the company for more than 30 years, and as CEO he has worked to modernize the company, making it more like its Western rivals.
"He has been the CEO of Aramco, and he's a man of considerable capability and breadth, and he is really respected throughout the oil world," said Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS.
Croft, speaking on "Fast Money Halftime Report" said she believes the changes have more to do with the security concerns the kingdom is facing than its oil policy. She noted the government made a point of announcing the arrest of 93 terror suspects this week.
There is not expected to be a change at the oil ministry through the next OPEC meeting in June, Croft said. Saudi Arabia and al-Naimi have led a campaign to let market forces determine the oil price, not the traditional lever of OPEC output.
At the November meeting, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries held production steady, sending already declining oil prices even lower. Saudi Arabia made it clear it would not cut production unless high cost producers, like U.S. shale drillers, did as well.
The price of oil has been recovering after West Texas Intermediate futures hit a low of around $42 on signs the U.S. industry is slowing down. WTI futures closed 2.7 percent higher Wednesday at $58.58 per barrel, the highest settle since Dec. 11. Brent, the international bench mark, was at about $65.60 Wednesday.
Read More
Croft just returned to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia Wednesday. "Nobody's talking about oil prices being $40 next year. They're talking about a recovery into the $70s," she said, adding the Saudis could have a bigger military budget demand next year.
"I think if the recovery in prices does not come before 2016, that's potentially when there could be a shift in policy," she said.
John Kilduff of Again Capital said the changes in Saudi Arabia appear supportive of the price of oil, which has begun to be more impacted by geopolitical events in recent weeks.
"I think what we're seeing with Saudi Arabia in Yemen is a result of the new generation wanting to move more forcefully," he said. "We're going to see a more robust, active Saudi Arabia in the region.... I think it's supportive of prices, not because of a lack of continuity but a more muscular Saudi Arabia."
Kilduff said he believes there's an $8 to $10 premium in the price of oil due to conflict in the Middle East, a premium that had evaporated earlier in the year.
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eb7867b6161c3d41c6350fc548744678 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/30/europe-is-much-hotter-than-us-for-airbnb-.html | Airbnb is now bigger in Europe than US: Exec | Airbnb is now bigger in Europe than US: Exec
VIDEO2:4802:48Economic impact of Airbnb servicesSquawk Alley
Europe accounts for more than half of Airbnb's business, the company's co-founder and CTO, Nathan Blecharczyk, said recently.
"We are far bigger in Europe now than we are in the U.S.," he told CNBC in an interview Monday. "This concept has been growing faster there, actually over half of our business is now based in Europe."
Airbnb is a website that connects travelers to hosts who want to rent out rooms or entire homes. The rates are generally much cheaper than most local hotels. The San Francisco-based company was founded in 2008 and now has listings in 190 countries around the world.
Nathan Blecharczyk, co-founder and CTO of Airbnb.David A. Grogan | CNBC
Blecharczyk attributes Europe's roughly 600,000 Airbnb listings to the slow economic recovery.
"People have been looking for ways to supplement their income and they've been opening up their houses in order to do that," he said. "Europe is geographically a small area and it makes it really easy to travel and there is a lot of culture."
Blecharczyk said that the company is seeing more Americans travel around the world because of a stronger dollar. "Europeans travel a little less outside of Europe, so it all kind of balances out at the end of the day." he said.
Read More Airbnb on shortlist to provide rooms for 2016 Olympics in Rio
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91602ee432d525579d9efbeb5c372e26 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/30/pricy-robots-tug-hospital-supplies.html | Pricy robots 'Tug' hospital supplies | Pricy robots 'Tug' hospital supplies
VIDEO1:3601:36Robots 'tugging' hospitals forwardEnterprise
Traveling 115 miles, roving robots make their way around the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, transporting medication, linens and medical waste.
"The hospital is set up almost as a virtual railroad. … If they encounter an obstacle along the way, that's when they use their various sensors, laser, sonar and infrared to navigate around those items and continue on their path," said Brian Herriot, director of Mission Bay operations planning at UCSF Medical Center.
Read MoreThe wearable robot that helps people walk again
The hospital purchased 25 of the "Tug" robots, manufactured by Pittsburgh-based manufacturer Aethon, for $3.5 million, Herriot said in an email Wednesday. It spent another $2.5 million retrofitting the bots and the hospital, allowing them to travel freely, he said. A handful of other hospitals also have purchased robots.
Based on current employee pay and benefits, Herriot estimates that the hospital will at least break even on that investment within two years.
The Tug robot by AethonSource: Aethon
Plus, the robots could reduce workplace injuries, which the hospital doesn't factor into that equation, Herriot said. Soiled linen carts, for instance, can weigh several hundred pounds, Herriot told CNBC in an interview.
Another security measure can require a code and a biometric fingerprint scan access pharmaceuticals transported by the Tug, to according to Aethon's website.
Read MoreThis kitchen teaches you how to cook!
Despite retrofits at the hospital, however, elevator and fire-door maintenance can get in the way of the Tug robots' path, Herriot told CNBC.
While the Tugs need four hours of charging time, plus charges between deliveries, having 25 robots could make that downtime less of an inconvenience, Herriot said.
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5cef85394abeef5240ab19a7fcc5923d | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/30/russian-central-bank-slashes-interest-rate-to-125.html | Russian central bank slashes key interest rate to 12.5% | Russian central bank slashes key interest rate to 12.5%
People walk past a board showing currency exchange rates in Moscow.Maxim Zmeyev | Reuters
Russia's central bank dramatically cut interest rates by 150 basis points to 12.5 percent Thursday, and signaled that it is likely to cut rates further soon.
The Bank of Russia cited the better performance of Russia's currency, the ruble, as part of its reason for lowering rates.
Russia's economy shrinks 2-4% despite Putin's positive spin
The cut comes after a surprise hike in the country's key interest rate in December 2015, from 10.5 percent to 17 percent, as the central bank tried to shore up the weakening ruble and combat inflation.
Russia's central bank raises rates to 17 percent
Recently, a rally in the ruble and lower inflation expectations for the country have made Russia's economic future look slightly less bleak, however.
President Vladimir Putin and other Russian politicians have insisted that its economic crisis has peaked.
However, Russia is still expected to undergo recession this year, after plunging prices for oil - its biggest export - a ruble which is still devalued, and sanctions by Western countries following Russian activities in Ukraine helped stymie economic growth.
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92136b7e19ce93876626ef9a01e3dec8 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/01/build-the-economy-here-on-earth-by-exploring-space-tyson.html | VIDEO2:3102:31The final frontier
A passion for exploration is the fuel to an innovative economy, says astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
In an interview with CNBC's "On the Money," the host of the new National Geographic Channel TV show "StarTalk"—based on Tyson's podcast and Sirius XM radio show of the same name—described the dynamic implications of scientific discovery.
"You have to innovate," said Tyson, arguably the most famous astrophysicist in America. When "an engineer comes out with a new patent to take you to a place, intellectually, physically, that has never been reached before, those become the engines of tomorrow's economy."
When it comes to space innovation, many of the headlines about exploration beyond Earth have been generated by private enterprise like Elon Musk's SpaceX, tech giant Google and even Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Separately, Sir Richard Branson-founded Virgin Galactic and Space Adventures, companies that offer tourism opportunities for non-scientists.
Space tourism is expected to grow into a $1 billion sector over the next several years, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Meanwhile the National Space Society estimates the industry's size could eventually swell to as high as $1 trillion, with the proliferation of satellites, global positioning systems and other technology already giving consumers a taste of space's vast reaches.
Still, boldly going where no one has gone before is expensive, time-consuming and potentially rife with numerous dangers, Tyson says. He believes it could limit the long-term interest of private enterprise.
He suggests, "If you're a business person, what's the first thing you're going to ask? 'What's my return on investment?' "
Read MoreTime to cash in on the space race revival
Neil deGrasse Tyson on the set of his new talk show series “StarTalk” filmed with a live studio audience in the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. “Star Talk” premieres on National Geographic Channel in April.Scott Gries | National Geographic Channels
The question is a legitimate one, as the government reduces its investment in space exploration. NASA's budget is less than 0.5 percent of the total federal budget, topping out at $17.5 billion in the Obama administration's fiscal year 2015 budget proposal. According to figures from the Office of Management and Budget, the high point of NASA expenditures was during the Cold War years of the space race in FY 1966, when it accounted for 4.5 percent of national spending.
Read More
Rethinking exploration as part of the national interest is part of what Tyson suggested is key to revitalizing enthusiasm about the universe and getting humans out into it.
"The first Europeans to the New World were not [part of] the Dutch East India Trading Company," he says. "It was Columbus—paid by Spain. It was a national initiative."
The astrophysicist added: "Once he drew the maps and knew where the trade winds are and (where) the friendlies and the hostiles were, then commercial enterprise can come in."
Much like the universe itself, Tyson sees the opportunities for commercial enterprise to be endless, but he has one idea for a starting point. "The first trillionaire there will ever be is the person who exploits the natural resources on asteroids," he says.
There are millions of these odd-shaped rocks orbiting in space, and many are packed with carbon-rich chemicals, water and even rare metals. Those alloys, a series of chemicals limited in mineable concentration on Earth, are key to the production of many modern technologies, everything from smart phones to fighter jets.
"There's this vast universe of limitless energy and limitless resources," Tyson says. "I look at wars fought over access to resources. That could be a thing of the past, once space becomes our backyard."
Tyson has been the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History since 1996. A best-selling author and radio host, his role in popular culture was cemented with the 2014 broadcast of a revitalized "Cosmos" series on the Fox television network, a combination homage and update to the 13-epsiode PBS series hosted by Carl Sagan in the 1980s.
Tyson's version consistently attracted more than 3 million viewers in the U.S. each week of its run.
StarTalk airs on Monday nights at 11 p.m. ET, and features the scientist interviewing cultural and political figures like George Takei of the original "Star Trek" series, film director Christopher Nolan and former President Jimmy Carter. His slate of high-profile visitors almost makes Tyson a science geek's version of Oprah Winfrey.
"In many ways, I see myself as a servant of people's cosmic appetite," he said.
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70e043170681037bef138685050a3e60 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/01/career-slump-customize-a-new-one.html | Career slump? Customize a new one! | Career slump? Customize a new one!
VIDEO2:1902:19Customizing a second careerCareers
For more than a decade, Wendy Raizin enjoyed the fast-paced financial world of arbitrage trading and investment banking. That was while working for the likes of Oppenheimer & Co. and Wyser-Pratte Management Co. Then, she jumped at the chance to earn an MBA from Oxford University in England and suddenly found pleasure in strolling around, appreciating her surroundings.
"I started to get very interested in architecture and design," she told CNBC.
When she returned to the States and to her job on Wall Street, sitting at a desk and staring at a financial ticker no longer energized her. She said she found herself devouring architectural design magazines while feeling obligated to read financial newspapers. Having no formal training in interior design, she wondered if she would be any good at it or even be able to make a career out of it. To find out, she enrolled in a few classes at Parsons School of Design in New York.
"If I'm terrible at it, then there's no point," she said.
Read MoreMedical school cures a midlife crisis
A Spa bathroom that includes a large screen TV hidden behind the mirror designed by former arbitrage trader, Wendy Raizin of Raizin Design.Raizin Design
For several years, she diligently trudged to Wall Street during the day while skipping off to design classes on nights and weekends. She found she had a flair for re-fashioning furniture, re-modeling rooms and re-designing buildings. Friends started asking her for help and soon she had a handful of paying clients including a real estate agent who played a key role in Raizin's career switch.
"When people would come to their house for dinner," Raizin said, "they would say, 'Oh I love this! Who did this?' And the calls just started coming in."
After 5 or 6 years of dabbling in design, she decided it was time to finally quit her day job. "It was like a money or freedom thing and I went with the freedom." It was the freedom to pursue a career she was truly passionate about, paid for by the generous salary of the job she was leaving behind.
Read More Woman escapes her cubicle for a cardboard box
Her husband was in favor. Her parents—not so much. "You work for an amazing hedge fund," she said her parents told her at the time. "It's an opportunity people would kill for. I mean, how can you give that up?"
But she happily gave it all up in 2002 to start her interior design consulting firm, Raizin Design Group out of her house. Thirteen years later, Raizin has a full time employee who works out of a small boutique office in southern Florida and a slew of trusted architects, craftsman and luxury technology experts whom she calls on to help handle clients across the country including celebrities like Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann. She also continues to expand her own expertise with knowledge of the latest design.
The crowning glory? She said her paycheck is reaching the level of her Wall Street days. But her biggest piece of nuts-and-bolts advice is, "If I could do it over, I would do it sooner."
"I would tell my younger self ... take the leap, have a little faith!"
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460b18a0baa5edc5bb75964c0cddf8a2 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/01/dan-loebs-third-point-buys-yum-devon-japan.html | Keith Meister’s Corvex takes large stake in Yum Brands: Sources | Keith Meister’s Corvex takes large stake in Yum Brands: Sources
VIDEO2:3602:36Third Point takes new positions
Keith Meister's Corvex Capital has taken a large take in Yum Brands, sources told CNBC.
Corvex is now one of Yum's top five shareholders, purchasing shares early in the first quarter of 2015, according to sources. Meister will offer more details about his investment on Monday at the IRA Sohn Conference.
Meister bought Yum stake earlier in the first quarter, according to the sources.
Shares held their sharp gains.
Earlier, Dan Loeb's Third Point took new positions in Yum Brands and Devon Energy while adding to stakes in Japan, according to a letter sent to investors Friday.
While Loeb is bullish on the U.S., he noted that Third Point had "invested in more single name shorts this year than in all of 2014 combined," the letter said, referring to bets he made against some companies.
The letter said the firm was "constructive" on the U.S. because of improving economic data and the likelihood of continued low interest rates.
"These factors should create an environment where growth improves and monetary policy stays flexible, which is generally good for equities (higher multiples notwithstanding)," the letter said. "We may follow last year's playbook and ignore the old adage to 'sell in May and go away.'"
A spokesman for Third Point declined to comment. The firm manages about $17.5 billion. Its main fund is up 3.8 percent net of fees through April, according to performance information obtained by CNBC.
Read MoreWatch for these bubbles, pros at Milken warn
Loeb said his hedge fund's new position in Yum was "significant."
He wrote that the KFC and Pizza Hut-owner was in the "early stages of turning the page on recent troubles" in China.
That development, Loeb said, "should neutralize the largest overhang on the stock, set the stage for a dramatic profit recovery over the next 12-24 months, and change the public market narrative around long-term shareholder value-creation for the company."
"We appreciate their confidence and investment in Yum Brands," a company spokesperson said via email.
On Devon, Loeb wrote that the "value proposition is compelling."
"Devon stands out by combining limited downside with an under appreciated, valuable asset base that can be unlocked through continued portfolio management and improved operations," the letter said about the Oklahoma City-based oil and gas company.
Devon's stock was up slightly by late morning.
Read MoreBillionaire investors reveal their best ideas
The letter also noted Third Point was even more bullish on Japan, thanks to corporate governance reform.
"Abe identified corporate governance reform as a key element of his "Third Arrow" and while it took its time hitting its target, it is in full bloom this Spring," the letter said, referring to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
It said the firm now has nearly 10 percent of assets invested in the country. Current holdings include Fanuc, "the Apple of Japan," according the Loeb, and IHI, a broad-based manufacturer.
—CNBC's Kate Kelly and Scott Wapner contributed to this report.
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442c0852a4477b2e5ab75a7df66df2f9 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/01/floyd-mayweather-will-make-more-in-one-night-than-these-companies-do-all-year.html | Floyd Mayweather will make more in one night than these companies do all year | Floyd Mayweather will make more in one night than these companies do all year
VIDEO1:2201:22How much will Mayweather make?Power Lunch
VIDEO1:3501:35The $500 million fight?Boxing
VIDEO2:3102:31Betting on the fightPower Lunch
Floyd Mayweather is expected to make $120 million in Saturday night's fight against Manny Pacquaio, according to some estimates. His giant payday would actually put him ahead of the annual take of so many well-known companies.
For a quick comparison, here are just a sampling of American companies that have $75 million to $120 million in net income, according to FactSet data. Notice some especially hot names, like GoPro and Buffalo Wild Wings. Mayweather will make more in one night than these companies do in a year.
Moving on from net income, we can consider the companies that had around $120 million in revenues for the year. For our analysis, we considered 45 companies with net sales of $115 million to $125 million. These companies include Shake Shack (with $118.5 million in annual revenue), Boingo Wireless ($119 million), Carbonite ($123 million), and Brightcove ($125 million). Of these companies below, the median market cap is $304 million.
Obviously, the $120 million isn't the full picture for Mayweather's profitability on Saturday night. He might make more money—but he also has to pay taxes and his personnel, like trainers and managers. But as a rough snapshot, it's clear to see that Mayweather by himself is up there with some heavyweight American companies.
Read MoreWhat the stats say about Mayweather and Pacquiao
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8cbc834e82a4a861005bbb4b580f1459 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/01/iowa-governor-declares-state-of-emergency-over-avian-flu.html | Iowa governor declares state of emergency over avian flu | Iowa governor declares state of emergency over avian flu
VIDEO1:1101:11Iowa Gov. declares bird flu state of emergencyClosing Bell
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad announced on Friday a state of emergency due to the outbreak of avian flu in his state. (Tweet this)
Millions of birds have been infected by the highly contagious disease.
"While the avian influenza outbreak does not pose a risk to humans, we are taking the matter very seriously and believe declaring a state of emergency is the best way to make all resources available," said Branstad in a press release.
Read More
"Even before the virus began in Iowa, our office was monitoring the outbreak in other states. We'll continue our work—as we've been doing since the first outbreak in Buena Vista County—in hopes of stopping the virus' aggressive spread throughout Iowa."
Iowa, the top egg-producing state in the United States, is the third state to declare a state of emergency because of the viral outbreak, which either has led or will lead to the extermination of up to 21 million chickens and turkeys nationwide.
Read More US poultry exports plunge with avian flu scare
Minnesota and Wisconsin declared states of emergency in April.
At the time this story was published, 21 sites in 10 counties across the state have reported cases of the disease. The counties include: Buena Vista, Cherokee, Clay, Kossuth, Madison, O'Brien, Osceola, Pocahontas, Sac and Sioux.
VIDEO1:2601:26Bird flu: should you be worried?Food & Beverage
In a news conference Friday, Governor Branstad said he will enhance the state's agencies' abilities to use resources to fight the outbreak and activate the state's response center.
The state of emergency is effective immediately now until the end of the month, depending on developments, Branstad said.
Read MoreHere's how to kill 3.8 million chickens
The governor's plan to tackle the outbreak includes containing the spread through "depopulation, disinfections, and disposal of livestock carcasses." The plan will also allow for a temporary suspension of regulations pertaining to commercial vehicle drivers hauling the infected poultry carcasses.
So far, an estimated 16 million egg-laying chickens in Iowa are in infected or presumed infected farm facilities - meaning that at least one-quarter of the state's flock will have to be killed and disposed of, state officials said.
for the latest on the markets.
—Reuters contributed to this report.
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5fb02a6934719185659352fdf7dc8dbd | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/01/lowes-halts-sales-of-chinese-flooring-over-formaldehyde-fears.html | Lowe’s halts sales of Chinese flooring over formaldehyde concerns | Lowe’s halts sales of Chinese flooring over formaldehyde concerns
People walk outside a Lowe's store in East Peoria, Ill.Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Home improvement retailer Lowe's says it is halting sales of some of its Chinese-made laminate flooring "out of an abundance of caution" after a financial blogger said that it may have the same issues with formaldehyde that have been dogging Lumber Liquidators.
"Today, we want to reassure our customers if there are quality issues with the laminate flooring products we sell, we will take aggressive action to address them," Lowe's Chief Merchandising Officer Mike McDermott said in a statement. The company said it would conduct independent testing on the products in question.
In a post Friday on the Seeking Alpha blog, hedge fund analyst Xuhua Zhou—who acknowledges he is a short seller of Lowe's stock—cites testing performed by an anonymous "industry source" that allegedly shows high levels of formaldehyde in a sample of laminate flooring purchased from Lowe's. The flooring was manufactured in China by Tecsun, which is also a supplier to Lumber Liquidators.
Read More Lumber Liquidators defends its products
A Lowe's spokeswoman, Connie Bryant, notes that the company had already begun moving away from Chinese-made laminate flooring, with plans to sell only U.S.-made product by July 1. She said the decision came in response to customer concerns after a report on the CBS program "60 Minutes" in March alleging formaldehyde issues in Lumber Liquidators products.
Unlike at Lumber Liquidators, flooring makes up a small part of Lowe's business—just 6 percent of sales. Bryant says less than 10 percent of its laminate product is manufactured outside the U.S. She also notes that the sample in question was a special order product, while "the vast majority of the laminate flooring we sell is in-stock product that customers purchase in-store and carry out."
Also after the "60 Minutes" report, Bryant said Lowe's sought and received written confirmation from its Chinese suppliers that their products met U.S. safety standards. But a picture of the sample cited in the blog post shows the box is labeled "California 93120 Compliant for Formaldehyde Phase 2," meaning it purportedly meets the standards of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the only government agency that currently regulates formaldehyde levels in laminate flooring.
Read MoreBuilders assure customers after Lumber Liquidators scare
A CARB spokesperson told CNBC earlier this week that the agency has collected samples from a variety of retailers, and that in preliminary testing some samples exceeded the state's formaldehyde limits. But she would not say which companies were involved or when the investigation might be complete.
Lumber Liquidators, which has insisted its products are safe, disclosed on Wednesday that it expects criminal charges relating to its overseas sourcing, based on recent communications with the Justice Department. The company said it too plans to move toward North American and European suppliers for laminate flooring and scale back its purchases from China. But an industry source tells CNBC the company still has considerable amounts of the Chinese laminate in stock.
The decision by Lowe's to halt the sales of its Chinese laminate flooring was reported earlier by Bloomberg News.
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e96741715cf347d87748dd2bbcc35969 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/01/race-to-2-billion-the-fastest-growing-start-up.html?utm_source=Copy+of+Copy+of+Unicorns+and+Sharks%3A+Foresight+Valuation%27s+Summer+Report&utm_campaign=Unicorns+and+Sharks%3A+Foresight+Valuation%27s+Summer+Report&utm_medium=email | Race to $2 billion: The fastest-growing start-up | Race to $2 billion: The fastest-growing start-up
Slack co-founder and CEO Stewart ButterfieldDavid Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Scores of start-ups worth more than $1 billion, known as "unicorns" in the industry, have gained substantial venture-capital funding in the last two years. Dozens have surpassed a $2 billion valuation. And several have passed the $2 billion in just two years.
Slack, the enterprise communication platform that's taken on traditional email platforms, has become the fastest start-up company to reach a $2 billion valuation, according to data from financial information firm Pitchbook.
The platform, founded in part by Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield, got its start in 2009 as an internal platform for an online game called Glitch, but it ultimately failed in that first iteration. It relaunched in 2013 for external use, becoming the product Slack is today.
Read MoreDon't chase unicorns, chase dragons: Expert
Slack is a cross-platform communication product for desktop and mobile. Slack creates a messaging and file-sharing tool for companies that feels more conversational than email.
"They hadn't had too much success. So, they tried [Slack] for about four years. The product was a tool they had developed, among themselves, and they liked it so much that rather than pursue this gaming idea, they would produce what is now Slack," said Mike Volpi, partner at Index Ventures and a Slack board member.
The possibility of Slack going public is unrealistic "in the short term," Volpi told CNBC, but it may be a possibility in the future. "It's still a young company," he said.
Slack reported $12 million in annual recurring revenue in early February.
Read MoreFounders Fund partner sees red flags, but not in the Nasdaq
The San Francisco-based company has more than 200,000 paid users, and 750,000 people access the service daily, according to company records. Adobe, The New York Times and SoundCloud are among its users, and Slack employs about 130.
Smashes like Slack have risen so sharply in valuation partly because of the immediate, widespread availability of software. The cost of launching a start-up has also dropped.
The emergence of crowdfunding is another integral reason that valuable start-ups have recently grown exponentially, said Christian Catalini, professor of technological innovation, entrepreneurship and strategic management at MIT Sloan School of Management.
Read More How social media's plunge could punish start-ups
"There is a lot of investment by VC, angels and super-angel groups into a lot of new businesses. Many of these will fail, like during the dot-com bubble," said Catalini.
Slack reached a valuation of $2 billion before the company's two-year anniversary, at a rate faster than Twitter, Snapchat and Uber, according to recent PitchBook data.
The price of building a company based on software has gone down, said Efrat Kasznik, president and founder of Foresight Valuation Group, a Silicon Valley-based start-up advisory firm. Platforms such as Amazon Web Services have made launching companies, especially those, like Pinterest, that create a community, feasible for entrepreneurs.
Read MoreSlack valuation more than doubles to $2.8 billion
"It's easier to develop software, especially when you have good marketing and good traction," said Kasznik, who is also a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business. "You cannot grow so quickly in hardware."
"There is so much pain in the workplace right now," said Bill Macaitis, Slack's chief marketing officer, because of the tedious nature of traditional email platforms. Slack is focusing on redefining the way companies communicate. Macaitis said just as he thinks of Uber as a "disruptor" in its industry, he thinks of Slack as a disruptor in the way of workplace communication.
"For Slack, there are 100 similar companies who didn't make it," said Kasznik. "You only see the ones who make it."
Correction: Crowdfunding is named as one reason certain start-ups have grown exponentially. That was misstated in an earlier version of this article.
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1928ffad63de74f5f3956d6b5584c87f | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/01/ut-where-are-the-crowds.html | Rioters in Milan smash shopfronts, throw smoke bombs as Expo opens | Rioters in Milan smash shopfronts, throw smoke bombs as Expo opens
VIDEO1:3901:39Violent protests rock Milan
Milan has been waiting since 2008 for this day and now it has finally come—but takeoff for the World Expo 2015 looks to be overshadowed by violent protests.
The turnstiles and doors officially opened on Friday in Italy's commercial and fashion capital.
But opening day excitement for the six-month-long commercial event wasn't necessarily present among the crowds on Friday. The wet weather may have dampened the number of visitors to the event on its first day—with noticeably empty entrances and security checkpoints.
Phil Han, Special to CNBC.com
Meanwhile, thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Milan behind a banner reading "No Expo, Eat the Rich," according to Reuters.
The No-Expo movement has been critical of the amount of money the government has poured into the event, when there are fears of austerity and cuts to public services.
A large anti-expo march through the center of Milan was overtaken by anarchists groups that smashed shopfronts and clashed with police.
There were several banks with smashed-in doors and windows and the streets were strewed with detritus.
Teargas was used by riot police to try and disperse parts of the crowd. Although most of the march was peaceful, around 200 demonstrators threw rocks, in addition to setting off flare and smoke bombs.
Phil Han, Special to CNBC.com
A large six-story building was torched, as well as the ground floor of a two-story building. At least six cars were burnt and fire crews were deployed at multiple spots across the city.
Associated Press television footage appeared to show police using water cannons on protesters.
Friday is Labor Day, also known as May Day, and is a traditional occasion for anti-capitalist protests.
The Expo is bringing together 145 countries from around the world with the theme "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life."
The organizers are expecting up to 20 million visitors during the length of the Expo and as many as 250,000 on a particularly busy day. However, estimates for attendee numbers on Friday were only in the tens of thousands.
Italy is hoping for a big economic boost because of the Expo, which is held every five years in different world location and is designed to showcase innovation.
Some say the Milan Expo could generate up to $10 billion. But the event has come under criticism, particularly for skyrocketing costs and a number of corruption scandals.
Read More Has Italy wasted this billion-dollar opportunity?
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edd15738ed2fa47b6af3f1aad6deb686 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/02/warren-buffett-to-cnbc-i-bought-more-ibm-in-q1.html | Buffett Watch | Buffett Watch
VIDEO0:3300:33Warren works the floor
Warren Buffett said on Saturday he bought more IBM stock for Berkshire Hathaway in the first quarter, but didn't specify by how much.
In a conversation with CNBC's Becky Quick ahead of today's shareholders meeting in Omaha, Buffett told her the exact numbers will be in the company's SEC filing revealing its stock holdings as of the end of March. That filing is due around the middle of this month.
Read MoreBuffett welcomes shareholders to changing Berkshire
At the beginning of February this year, IBM shares fell as low as $149.52 each, apparently giving Buffett a buying opportunity.
With the stock now trading near $174, IBM is up 8.2 percent since the end of the first quarter on March 31.
As of December 31, Berkshire reported holding 76,971,817 shares. That stake would be worth almost $13.4 billion at Friday's closing price.
Becky's Tweet
It's Berkshire's third largest stock stake, after Wells Fargo at $25.6 billion and Coca-Cola at $16.4 billion.
Read MoreLive Blog: Buffett's annual meeting
You can see all of Berkshire's U.S. stock holdings, as listed in the latest SEC filing, by going to CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
Buffett first revealed in a November, 2011 CNBC interview that he had been building an IBM stake then worth $10.7 billion. The initial series of purchases, mostly between March and September of that year, were made at an average price of $170 per share.
After answering shareholder questions for five hours today, Buffett will be live with Becky in Omaha for all three hours of "Squawk Box" starting at 6 a.m. ET Monday.
—By CNBC's Alex Crippen. Follow him on Twitter: @alexcrippen
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6a97376d90647af757874b8b368637cf | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/03/rba-will-they-or-wont-they.html | RBA: Will they or won't they? | RBA: Will they or won't they?
Glenn Stevens, governor of the Reserve Bank of AustraliaBrendon Thorne | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) decision may come down to the wire at its monetary policy meeting Tuesday, as economists eye an interest rate cut despite policymakers' concerns over a too-strong Australian dollar and home price gains.
"The RBA can't have its cake and eat it," Capital Economics said in a note last week. "The only way to ensure that the Australian dollar weakens, which would support the real economy, is to reduce interest rates further, but this would boost the already hot housing market,"
It expects the RBA's concerns over the real economy will trump worries about bubbly housing prices.
Other analysts, including those at Goldman Sachs, Moody's Analytics and AMP Capital, are also forecasting an interest rate cut of 25 basis-points to a record low of 2 percent in what would be the central bank's first move since February. Spread better IG noted that the swaps market is now pricing a 62 percent chance of a cut.
The case for action remains strong, noted Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy and chief economist at AMP Capital. He cited a weak outlook for business investment and the risk of the Australian dollar rebounding further, but he also cautions that a third straight of month of inaction wouldn't be surprising either.
Cutting rates will further take the shine off the Australian dollar, often called the Aussie dollar, a necessary step to help the export‐facing service sectors improve, according to Moody's Analytics.
But aiming for a weaker Aussie dollar might not be enough to counter the central bank's concerns over home prices, which have climbed as borrowing costs have fallen. Prices across major cities increased 7.9 percent on year in April, from 7.4 percent in March, according to property consultant CoreLogic RP Data. Affordability has deteriorated, with Sydney households spending 35.1 percent of their income on repayments, higher than the city's 10-year average and up from 32.8 percent in 2014, according to new Moody's data.
Read MoreAussie property's bubbly days are numbered: Goldman
That could keep the RBA on hold.
VIDEO4:2904:29A RBA rate cut in May? It's now 50-50: WestpacStreet Signs Asia
But Goldman Sachs isn't too worried. "Will rising house prices stop the RBA from easing in May? We think the RBA will look increasingly to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority to address what is largely a localized surge in Sydney house prices rather than delay easing interest rates any further," Goldman said on Friday.
But not everyone expects the RBA will cut rates.
HSBC is expecting the central bank to stand pat, forecasting a 25 basis point cut in the third quarter instead.
The RBA's reluctance to cut rates in March and April "suggests that it may need a convincing trigger to push it over the line," said Paul Bloxham, HSBC chief economist of Australia and New Zealand.
"Although underlying inflation is low enough not to constrain the RBA from cutting, it is not low enough to be an obvious trigger for a cut," he said. March consumer price inflation rose an annual 1.3 percent, below the central bank's 2-3 percent target.
"Although the decision could go either way next week, we expect the RBA to be on hold," Bloxham added.
Comments by Governor Glenn Stevens this week concerning retirement could also be a sign that the central bank will stay on hold, Evan Lucas, market strategist at IG, said.
"The fact that [he said] retirees are now worse off than they were a decade ago may be another reason he won't cut rates further unless forced – and the current data to hand certainly doesn't force anything," Lucas noted, noting the robust 37,700 jobs created in March and a better-than-expected 4 percent annual rise in February retail sales.
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38debcd9e1a0e19ac1fe194f488dd393 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/04/beware-oil-rally-is-premature-analyst.html | Beware, oil rally is 'premature': Analyst | Beware, oil rally is 'premature': Analyst
VIDEO3:0303:03Oil rally is premature: CommerzbankWorldwide Exchange
Anyone hoping the recovery in oil prices is here to stay could be in for a rude awakening, as prices could fall below $50 a barrel on a glut of supply, a commodities expert warned on Monday.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude oil hit six-year lows in January, but have recovered somewhat on the back of a decline in U.S. rig counts and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, which have taken supply out of the market.
Eugen Weinberg, head of Commodity Research at Commerzbank, told CNBC Monday that while he wouldn't rule out further price rises, the rally in oil prices was "premature." He added that the price of U.S. crude could fall below $50 should the rally stall.
"I wouldn't be surprised if we saw the current $59 go even below $50, should this rally stall and should we come to this correction," Weinberg told CNBC on Monday.
Read MoreAfter oil's high, (sharp) fall may be on cards
"I think it's more hopes driving the market rather than the real facts. I wouldn't be surprised to see a short-term correction, a strong correction because of all the fundamental data," he said, adding "I think the rally is premature and would be probably looking for the prices (to go more) below $60 in a month's time than above $70, for Brent."
Rusted out 'pump-jacks' in the oil town of Luling, Texas.Getty Images
Oil prices came under pressure earlier on Monday, after the latest data from China showed its vast manufacturing sector continued to contract in April, potentially hitting demand from the country for oil.
Following the China data, benchmark Brent crude traded around $66.85 per barrel, with U.S. crude around $59.38.
Last week, however, both benchmarks hit peaks for 2015, prompting hopes that oil prices could be on the road to recovery after their sharp declines from last June, when prices were around $114 a barrel.
Oil prices have fallen on the back of a global glut in supply and lack of demand. Exacerbating this was the decision last year by the Organization of the Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC)—a group of 12 oil-producing countries led by Saudi Arabia—to hold production at 30 million barrels a day in order to retain market share—and potentially put rival U.S. producers out of business.
Despite data suggesting U.S oil output may yet fall, as producers struggle to meet production costs amid lower oil prices, Weinberg said: "The supply and demand situation is quite bleak at the moment."
Read MoreIs Big Oil getting its groove back?
"At the moment, the market is more thinking in terms of the prices, than concentrating on fundamentals," he said, adding that supply showed no signs of falling yet, a factor which could support prices.
"The fundamentals are quite bleak and should Iran's (supply) come back on the market, should Libya come back on the market then we'll have a two-year supply in the market—even without OPEC itself reducing or increasing production—so I think the situation is justifying much lower prices than the markets hope," Weinberg added.
- By CNBC's Holly Ellyatt, follow her on Twitter @HollyEllyatt.
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6db178e2f9e4589b487b75ecdd7b2625 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/04/critic-says-remington-still-hiding-the-truth-about-its-rifles.html | Critic says Remington still hiding the truth about its rifles | Critic says Remington still hiding the truth about its rifles
A shooter takes aim with a Remington Model 700 SPS Varmint rifle at the Spurwink Rod and Gun Club in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.Joel Page | Reuters
The Montana man whose nearly 15-year search for answers about the death of his son paved the way for a nationwide class action settlement with the Remington Arms Co. says the gun maker still is not coming clean. So now, Richard Barber says he is launching a new push to "inform and educate the public" about one of the most popular firearms in the world, and his claim that the guns can fire without the trigger being pulled.
Barber's 9-year-old son Gus was killed during a family hunting trip in 2000 when a Remington Model 700 rifle went off as the boy's mother was unloading it. At the worst possible moment, Gus had run behind a horse trailer and into the path of the bullet. Barbara Barber has consistently maintained that her hand was nowhere near the trigger.
Richard Barber says he eventually found thousands of customer complaints and internal documents that suggest Remington had known for decades about an alleged design flaw in the gun's firing mechanism but did nothing about it despite dozens of deaths and injuries. Allegations of the defect and a cover up—both of which Remington has steadfastly denied—were the subject of the 2010 documentary "Remington Under Fire: A CNBC Investigation."
"The Model 700, including its trigger mechanism, has been free of any defect since it was first produced," Remington told CNBC in 2010. "And, despite any careless reporting to the contrary, the gun's use by millions of Americans has proven it to be a safe, trusted and reliable rifle."
Last month, a federal judge in Missouri tentatively approved a nationwide settlement in which Remington agreed to replace the triggers on more than 7 million rifles equipped with what has become known as the Walker Fire Control—the same mechanism that was in the Barbers' rifle. But the company still maintains the guns are safe, and has said it is settling the case to put an end to lengthy litigation. Barber says that stance is part of the reason he feels the need to speak out again.
"I wholeheartedly support the provisions in the class settlement in replacing the triggers," Barber told CNBC in an interview Monday. As a result, he said, he will not formally object to the tentative settlement. Nonetheless, he said, "Remington's statements (following the CNBC program in 2010) potentially constitute a fraud that not only endangered the public, but resulted in loss of life."
VIDEO2:2802:28Remington settlement triggers questions
Barber said he is concerned that Remington's continued defense of the gun, as well as the company's decision at the same time to launch a recall of a much smaller group of Model 700 rifles with a different firing mechanism, could either confuse customers or lull them into complacency.
"No deal is perfect," he said, acknowledging that the company will likely never agree there is a problem.
"Nothing can force them to do that," he said.
Barber says that makes it all the more important for him to continue speaking out as well as defending his reputation. Part of that effort was on display in Seattle on Monday, where Barber's attorney, Richard Ramler, argued that a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should reinstate a defamation suit Barber filed against Remington after the company's response to the 2010 CNBC documentary.
The response, which included a lengthy video and a dedicated website that the company has since taken down, claimed that the Barber rifle "had been modified in multiple ways" and "was heavily rusted."
In fact, experts from both sides in the Barbers' wrongful death claim against the company conducted a joint examination of the gun in 2000, about a month after the incident. Notes of the examination from both plaintiff and defense experts, reviewed by CNBC, say there was rust on the barrel of the gun—far from the trigger. And other experts said the only adjustment reported in the inspection would have made the gun harder to fire, not easier.
Barber claims Remington raised the allegations of a poorly maintained rifle in order to discredit him, his statements in the CNBC program and the reputation he had developed as a firearms safety expert.
"They attacked Mr. Barber the same way a trial lawyer attacks an expert witness," Ramler argued in court.
Read MoreJudge approves massive Remington rifle fix
But an attorney for Remington, James Brian Vogts, argued the company was merely repeating statements it had made while defending the wrongful death case, and that a lower court had correctly ruled that Barber had signed away any future claims relating to Gus Barber's death as part of the 2002 settlement in that case.
"Remington did not initiate this conversation in 2010," Vogts said in court, noting that Barber had chosen to go on national television to talk about the rifles. "Remington simply responded as it had a right to do," Vogts said.
But Barber says there is more to it than that.
"In the course of defending yourself, you are obligated to tell the truth," he said. "This is solely about who told the truth and who lied to the public in 2010."
Vogts declined to comment beyond his arguments in court, citing a Remington policy not to discuss ongoing litigation. The appeals court has multiple options including letting the dismissal stand, reinstating the defamation suit, or referring it to the state supreme court in Montana for further review.
Barber says the lawsuit is just a small part of a much bigger picture.
"The truth directly bears on the safety of the public," he said, something he said was brought home to him in recent weeks when he says he learned of three incidents involving children—one fatal—linked to inadvertent discharges of Remington rifles during this past hunting season.
"I've drawn a line in the sand," Barber said, "and this seals the deal."
Correction: Richard Barber says he recently learned of three firearm incidents involving children, one of which was fatal. That fact was misstated in an earlier version of this article.
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292e055d10b99cc3cf186cb4383d17a9 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/04/hard-rock-hotel-casino-reports-possible-credit-card-security-breach.html | Hard Rock Hotel & Casino reports possible credit card security breach | Hard Rock Hotel & Casino reports possible credit card security breach
Hard Rock Hotel, Chicago, Il.Getty Images
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas said on Friday a malware attack may have allowed hackers to steal credit card information used at its retail and service locations.
The potential breach may have included names, credit card numbers and their CVV security codes but not PIN numbers or other sensitive customer information, the company said in a statement.
The attack, discovered on April 3, was limited to credit or debit card transactions between Sept. 3, 2014 and April 2, 2015, at the company's restaurant, bar and retail locations, including the Culinary Dropout Restaurant.
Transactions at the hotel, casino, Nobu, Affliction, John Varvatos, Rocks, Hart & Huntington Tattoo or Reliquary Spa & Salon were not affected, it said.
The company said it is actively cooperating with law enforcement and credit card companies to investigate the attack.
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4083d5661ecdd6a89b98530835dc69ad | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/04/meet-europes-newest-tax-haven-and-micro-state.html | Meet Europe’s newest tax haven and micro-state | Meet Europe’s newest tax haven and micro-state
Europe's newest "state" welcomed its first citizens this weekend, after a small group of libertarians declared independence for a patch of land on the border between Croatia and Serbia.
The "Free Republic of Liberland" has received no official recognition, but celebrated its first "Liberty Day" on May 1, doling out honorary citizenship to the first 100 attendees to arrive at the party in country.
Its "president", Vit Jedlicka, is a 31-year-old Czech, who is a former financial analyst and self-described libertarian. He said that long-term, he hoped Liberland could become a successful financial center due to its loose tax laws.
"I would categorize it as a tax heaven," Jedlicka said. "The reason why Liberland was created was that the rest of the world ended up being a tax hell."
The self-declared country of Liberland lies on the banks of the Danube River.From the Liberland website
Nearly 300,000 people have already applied for Liberland citizens, 80 of whom are billionaires, according to Jedlicka.
Jedlicka and two other Czechs formed the new state on April 13 on a patch of woodland near the Danube River between Croatia and Serbia in South East Europe. Liberland said the area was left unclaimed following a border dispute between Croatia and Serbia in the 1940s. For much of the 20th century, both states were part of Yugoslavia.
The new country measures only 2.7 square miles in area, meaning it would rank among Vatican City and Monaco as one of the world's smallest "micro-states."
Jedlicka said forming Liberland was an attempt to shake up the political status quo.
"I tried for five years to change something in politics, but taxes were still rising, regulations were more and more intruding into people's lives, so I sort of found out that I couldn't change it for better," Jedlicka told CNBC.
"My political opponents always told me I should create my own state to show how my liberalism would work. And then I did."
Liberland's coat of armsFrom the Liberland website
Neither Croatia nor Serbia has recognized Liberland's sovereignty. In an official statement sent to CNBC, the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described Jedlicka as a right-wing politician and said the "newly created country" was outside Serbia's territory.
"The Ministry also considers this a frivolous act which needs no further comment," the Serbian Ministry added.
A spokesperson for Croatia's Foreign Ministry reiterated a Facebook comment posted shortly after Liberland declared independence in mid-April.
"Virtual quips, no matter how interesting they occasionally sound, remain what they are—virtual quips, and for them we do not have any official comment," the spokesperson said.
But Jedlicka still hopes to gain recognition from other nations and has already set up an an office in Serbia that he plans to convert to an embassy.
Liberland's founders have pulled out all the stops, providing the country with its own laws, constitution, flag and motto: "To live and let live."
For those who missed gaining citizenship on Liberty Day, the country continues to accept citizenship applications online. Anyone is allowed to become a citizen as long as they have a clean criminal record and "do not have communist, Nazi or other extremist past."
Jedlicka said costs of developing and running the country would initially come from citizens, some of whom had already helped raise $15,000 to fund accommodation for the 20 volunteers running the presidential office.
Liberland will be run as a constitutional republic with elements of direct democracy, according to its website. Any currency will be accepted, including Bitcoin, Jedlicka said.
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dc183f3f72468c9131acbeaadba20602 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/04/the-return-of-the-milkman-.html | The return of the milkman | The return of the milkman
VIDEO2:4102:41The return of the milkman
Let's face it. Shoppers have long seen a difference between buying sweaters and shoes on retail websites, and strawberries and chicken.
However, some suspect the return of the milkman might be around the corner.
Online grocery retail is predicted to grow rapidly in the near future. IBIS World quantifies it as an $11 billion industry in just the U.S., and estimates it will grow 9.6 percent annually through the year 2019. (Tweet This)
To get there, a shift will be needed. According to Nielsen, a quarter of global consumers—and only 13 percent of Americans—currently order groceries online. That compares with the 78 percent of the U.S. population ages 15 years and older who bought something online in the first quarter of 2014, according to the latest data from ComScore.
Steve Lewis | Getty Images
A Nielsen survey suggests consumers are willing to buy more of their groceries online in the future. More than 55 percent told Nielsen they were willing to do so in the future—particularly among millennials.
But "willing to try," and making online grocery ordering and delivery a regular habit, are two different things.
Consumers note several pain points when it comes to an online grocery ordering and delivery process.
Read MoreMissed opportunity? Retail's plus-size problem
Many consumers want to choose their own produce and meat, by touching and seeing it in person. Plus, if the desired product isn't available, many consumers want to make their own choices about substitution.
"You're talking about consumers that like to go into the store for the sensory experience, who want to feel and touch the product, and that's a really strong powerful motivator for consumers specifically within grocery," said James Russo, Nielsen's senior vice president for global consumer insights. "You have to provide a similar experience for consumers within that online environment that allows them to have a high degree of comfort in the quality of that product."
Read MorePain before gain? Coach's earnings 'well worse'
Even if you are ready to outsource those decisions, you have to be home when the food is delivered. Then there's the issue of when the groceries will be delivered, which is often hours after the order is placed. That gap time between ordering and needing to have the groceries on-hand is often a deal breaker for many consumers.
Plus, there's the issue of the cost of product-picking and order delivery. While most consumers do want a more painless grocery shopping process, not many are willing to pay much for the convenience.
Which means grocery retailers with razor-thin profit margins to begin with will need to figure out how to bear the burden of the cost. It's a challenge to make a delivery model financially efficient, particularly in nonurban markets for grocery retailers. Some of the costs include refrigerated trucks and added insurance, delivery drivers, as well as software and technology platform investment.
"The last mile of e-commerce presents sizable logistics and cost concerns that have not yet been solved," Patrick Dodd, president of Nielsen's global retailer vertical, said in the "Future of Grocery" report. "Retailers need to experiment with clear 'delivery' options that circumvent these issues."
So while companies like Amazon, Whole Foods and Fresh Direct offer some form of online ordering and home delivery, it's yet to be widely adopted by U.S. consumers, particularly those who live outside bigger cities. But the answer might be to partner with start-up on-demand delivery companies.
"While the challenges are very macro, the solutions get very local, quickly and require a collaboration between some very large organizations and some of the smaller flexible, start-up organizations that are playing in this space," said Russo.
Read MoreRetailers with the biggest online businesses
Uber has just started a program in New York City and Chicago called UberEATS, quickly delivering a small sample of ready-to-eat meals. Russo suggested grocery delivery could be a logical next step.
Whole Foods is working with InstaCart to improve its grocery delivery service. Wholesale club Costco also works with InstaCart. The grocery delivery start-up is currently available in 15 major metro areas and charges anywhere from $3.99 to $9.99 for deliveries for non-Express Members. InstaCart Express Members get free delivery on orders $35 or more by joining for $99 a year.
Weighing the possibility of a more competitive grocery-delivery space, InstaCart CEO Apoorva Mehta told CNBC that an Uber entrance into the grocery market wouldn't mean much for InstaCart.
"I think it's a fantastic idea from Uber's perspective, they already deliver passengers, why not deliver packages?" Mehta said.
Amazon is still piloting its Amazon Fresh grocery ordering and delivery service in Los Angeles, Seattle and New York. While delivery on orders more than $35 is free, it costs $299 per year to subscribe to the service.
"Amazon has a fundamental disadvantage in this space, and the reason for that is because we deliver within one hour, two hours, same day from your favorite stores," said Mehta, a former Amazon engineer. "Amazon delivers the next day with their Amazon Fresh program and they deliver it from their warehouses."
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart is piloting online grocery ordering in five cities with curbside pickup or delivery, but it isn't working with a delivery partner.
Peapod said it established not only the first online grocery delivery concept, but also the world's first e-commerce-only company in 1989. It now serves 24 markets in the U.S. but still, the fastest delivery option is next day and the smallest delivery window is a two-hour span.
So while the challenges on both sides of the equation are tangible, so is the financial opportunity, according to Russo.
"When you think about a billion consumers globally are willing to purchase their grocery items online, that's a staggering number, that's an opportunistic number, and one that has not been met just yet," he said.
(CORRECTION: Peapod serves 24 markets. An earlier version of this story misstated the number.)
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735696398bf4f286c3da894fba30df9f | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/04/what-the-growing-2016-gop-lineup-will-mean-for-the-election.html | What the growing 2016 GOP lineup will mean for the election? | What the growing 2016 GOP lineup will mean for the election?
VIDEO2:3402:34Chris Christie: Not the favorite candidate?Worldwide Exchange
This is the week we will begin to see the GOP field blossom toward its eventual full size with the addition of multiple candidates with little chance of getting the nomination but with the potential to fracture the campaign in significant ways.
Already, Dr. Ben Carson and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina have announced they are running. And former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is expected to join the race later this week.
That will put the field of announced or likely candidates at a dozen with possibly more to come. That's even more than 2012, which saw a parade of GOP front-runners and a race to the right that badly damaged eventually nominee Mitt Romney.
The 2016 field could wind up doing the exact same thing to whoever survives the primary contest, though the GOP has at least succeeded thus far in limiting the number of debates.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee speaks in Waukee, Iowa.Getty Images
Of the three new candidates this week, Huckabee is perhaps the most potent. The former Fox news host is a darling of the religious right with the potential to mount a strong challenge in Iowa, where the evangelical vote remains dominant.
Read MoreCan Hillary turn the page on controversial new book?
Huckabee may not have the establishment support to translate a strong Iowa showing into further early state wins but he could push other candidates, including Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker, to the right in ways that could complicate a general election campaign.
Carson is a major wild card. An African-American retired neurosurgeon, Carson has never held elective office. But he generates strong appeal in the party's conservative base and hopes to electrify audiences as the plain speaking, nonpolitician in the race. His odds are very long but dynamics in such crowded fields are hard to predict.
Fiorina also has a very tough path to the nomination. She will attempt to run in the business-friendly, center-right lane already occupied by Bush, Walker and Rubio. Fiorina failed in her only other political campaign, losing to California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2010.
Read More
Fiorina will also have to contend with criticism of her tenure as HP CEO and her advocacy of an unpopular merger with Compaq that hammered the company's stock price and helped lead to her eventual ouster. The Democratic National Committee wasted no time on Monday blasting out a release criticizing Fiorina's business career as one characterized by "mass layoffs, tumbling stock prices, and a failed merger."
VIDEO4:2204:22HP's Fiorina, Carson join GOP 2016 raceSquawk Box Asia
None of the new candidates in the GOP field is likely to challenge a strong group of front-runners for the eventual nomination. But the sheer size of the field suggests a long and grueling campaign that may not produce a nominee until late in the process.
In fact, the first few contests could all produce different winners with a more conservative candidate (Huckabee, Ted Cruz et al) taking Iowa, an establishment candidate (Walker, Bush, Rubio et al) winning New Hampshire and multiple contestants fighting it out in South Carolina and beyond.
Read MoreHillary's tightrope walk with Wall St. and the people
It is always possible that a single candidate will emerge as dominant early in the process. But with such a crowded field and no clear "next-in-line" candidate, it will be difficult. There is a case to be made that this process will toughen and battle test the eventual nominee. But there is an even stronger one to be made that it will batter the eventual standard bearer and cost vast sums of money even as Hillary Clinton and the Democrats hoard cash and prepare for the general election.
Clinton is not guaranteed the nomination without a fight but it does not seem that she will get any serious challenge. Former Baltimore mayor and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is expected to announce soon and will put some pressure on Clinton from the left on trade and taxes. But he does not have the stature or the record to mount a serious insurgency. If Clinton is not the nominee it will be because of scandal or some unforeseen crisis and not because someone beats her.
But O'Malley, Sen. Bernie Sanders, who announced last week, and whoever else gets in on the Democratic side could wind up providing just the kind of light tune-up Clinton wants while the eventual GOP nominee gets beat up in a 15 round heavy weight brawl.
—Ben White is Politico's chief economic correspondent and a CNBC contributor. He also authors the daily tip sheet Politico Morning Money [politico.com/morningmoney]. Follow him on Twitter @morningmoneyben.
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2ce99b59c32c667421d019346e4f02c5 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/05/doubtful-microsoft-will-buy-salesforce-analysts.html | 'Doubtful' Microsoft will buy Salesforce: Analysts | 'Doubtful' Microsoft will buy Salesforce: Analysts
VIDEO1:4601:46Saleforce's most likely buyer: AnalystSquawk Box
VIDEO2:1802:18Salesforce shares pop on bid rumorsSquawk Box
VIDEO2:3602:36Salesforce trading resumes after volatility haltClosing Bell
Despite reports that Microsoft is interested in buying Salesforce.com, Oracle is still the most likely buyer of the cloud services firm if reports of buyout talks are indeed true, analysts said Wednesday.
Shares of Salesforce shot higher Tuesday afternoon amid reports that Microsoft was considering a bid for the company.
Microsoft declined to comment. Salesforce said it does not comment on rumors or speculation.
"Whether Microsoft would make a serious bid, I'm more doubtful. I think Oracle probably makes the most sense," Rick Sherlund, director of technology research at Nomura Securities, said on CNBC's "Squawk Box."
No deal is imminent, according to Bloomberg. Last week, Bloomberg reported that Salesforce hired financial advisors after being approached by potential buyers. Industry watchers have since speculated that Oracle is the company behind the initial reported bid.
Read MoreHere's why Microsoft could buy Salesforce
Sherlund ticked off a list of reasons why Oracle is the more likely suitor: It's a better strategic fit, Salesforce founder Marc Benioff used to work for Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison, and Oracle has excess sales capacity that would help it do a deal.
FBR Capital Markets' Samad Samana also believes Oracle is the most likely bidder.
However, he and Sherlund said a deal would make sense for both Oracle and Microsoft.
"There's not any type of transformative acquisition in the cloud that you can do that's bigger and more marquee than Salesforce," Samana told "Squawk Box."
Microsoft has placed increased emphasis on cloud computing during CEO Satya Nadella's tenure. The company reported last month that its cloud business grew 106 percent year over year in its most recent full quarter.
Nadella last week projected that Microsoft could hit $20 billion in cloud revenue by 2018, a leap from the current annualized rate of $6.3 billion.
Read More IBM and Facebook in marketing partnership
"Satya Nadella, he has a vision for the cloud," Samana said. "They've given analysts a peg out there, and what better way to get there than acquiring Salesforce.com, which would make them an even more robust enterprise application provider?"
The acquisition would also block Amazon, the dominant player in cloud computing infrastructure, from consolidating its lead through a purchase of Salesforce.com's platform.
Trading in Salesforce was briefly halted around 3 p.m. EDT Tuesday with the stock up 6 percent after Bloomberg reported that the software giant was evaluating a bid. Another company previously approached Salesforce about a potential bid, the news service said, citing sources.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Benioff may not necessarily be ready to sell the company he founded, Samana said.
"I think Marc Benioff has a vision of what he wants to accomplish, and I don't think he's quite done cementing what he wants to do," Samana said.
Salesforce has a market cap of about $48 billion, compared with Microsoft's roughly $385 billion. In December, the companies tightened their partnership, making it easier to use Salesforce on Windows Mobile phones and in Office.
That close relationship, as well as Benioff's focus on customer experience, could influence his decision on whether to accept a deal, Samana said.
"If they can be more productive and more valuable with his customers being with Microsoft and more tightly integrated, I think it's something he would certainly consider because at the end of the day, they're a customer company," he said.
Salesforce shares ended Tuesday up 1.6 percent, while Microsoft fell 1.3 percent. Shares of Salesforce were up more than 1.5 2 percent in premarket trading Wednesday. (Click here for Salesforce's latest price.)
Disclosure: Samana and Sherlund do not own shares of Salesforce.com. FBR Capital Markets holds greater than a 1 percent share in the stock. Nomura does not. Neither firms provide investment banking services to Salesforce.com.
—CNBC's Ari Levy contributed to this report
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ecd1b1949707c4326770bbc037a0a632 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/05/how-cities-can-cope-with-tech-disruption.html | How cities can cope with tech disruption | How cities can cope with tech disruption
An UBER application is shown as cars drive by in Washington, DC.Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images
Cities everywhere are coping with the labor disruptions posed by new technologies, and perhaps no company embodies this process more than start-up Uber.
When the car-hailing company enters a new market, backlash from the taxi industry often follows. And local governments are forced to either embrace change, or fight to keep the same system in place.
But Uber is really emblematic of a bigger challenge municipalities face, and going forward, governments will need to have a much bigger role in helping people whose jobs are disappearing because of technology, said Kasim Reed, mayor of Atlanta, during a panel at eMerge Americas on Tuesday.
Read More Uber competitor bans surge pricing
"Cities are going to have to play a better, more bold role in training people who are being pushed out by technology. That's going to have to be a permanent space we have to be in," Reed said
"It is the fear of having worked in a trade for very long time and then losing that ability that causes people to become destabilized. So the government has to be forceful in that space. So first, folks know we really do care and that care is backed up by real opportunity and that it directs people to the sectors that are the future," he said.
Just like how Uber's mobile approach is impacting the taxi industry, other technologies like robotics also continue to change the employment landscape around the world. In fact, by 2025 smart robots will take 1 in 3 jobs, according to Gartner Research. (Tweet This)
But technology isn't necessarily replacing workers, instead, it is displacing them. And it's in the government's best interest to invest in helping its constituents get the skills they need for new jobs, said Carlos Gimenez, mayor of Miami-Dade County.
"We as mayors have to think about what we are going to do about people who are being displaced by technology," Giminez said. "This change is going to accelerate. So we have to have the programs in place that you can be re-educated to do something else. It could be that whatever you are in today is not going to be what you are doing tomorrow."
Read More Work in NYC, Chicago? Uber wants your lunch order
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7fe31e531377937586e1a637f40a2f69 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/05/the-price-is-right-just-gave-a-treadmill-to-a-contestant-in-a-wheelchair.html | 'The Price is Right' just gave a treadmill to a contestant in a wheelchair | 'The Price is Right' just gave a treadmill to a contestant in a wheelchair
Source: The Price Is Right
Come on down! You're the next contestant on "The Prize is Wrong."
On Tuesday's "The Price is Right," Danielle, a contestant in a wheelchair, participated in the game show, and won. Her prize? Well, she got two. A sauna and…a treadmill.
Cue the tweets. Hundreds took to Twitter to voice just how awkward the scene was.
"A woman with no legs just a won a treadmill on The Price is Right," wrote user @luscioushes. Viewer Chrissie Johnson asked whether this was a "producer fail, insensitive or nah?"
Read More Model on 'The Price is Right' makes $21,960 mistake
After host Drew Carey asked George, the show's announcer, to reveal the prizes, George appeared to rush through the unveil of the treadmill and seemed to be more impressed with the sauna, as heard in the video below.
"Those are really nice," said the seemingly shocked Danielle, after laying eyes on the prizes.
"Every member of 'The Price Is Right' studio audience has a chance to be selected to play," CBS said in a statement to CNBC.com. "Prizes are determined in advance of the show and are not decided based on the contestants."
On other occasions, prizes have not always been the best match. For example, contestants have won trips to their hometown or nearby cities.
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e31060fa69109730971cc177d826fe7c | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/06/could-age-discrimination-derail-your-retirement-plans.html | Could age discrimination derail your retirement plans? | Could age discrimination derail your retirement plans?
VIDEO2:3402:34Can you retire early? Power Lunch
Age discrimination isn't something most people factor into their long-term career plans, but maybe they should.
A growing number of older workers say they've experienced it both in job searches and at their office, and it's had an impact on their ability to find work and save for retirement.
Read MoreFor boomers, it's the retirement that never was
While the overall unemployment rate among those 45 years and older is no higher than among other age groups, the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted in a recent report that the incidence of long-term unemployment does increase dramatically with age. In 2014, for example, about 22 percent of the unemployed under age 25 had looked for work for 27 weeks or longer compared with nearly 45 percent of those 55 years and older.
Although it's impossible to suss out how much of the difference in the percent of long-term unemployed is attributable to age discrimination, half of workers between 45 and 70 years old who've been out of work over the past five years reported age discrimination negatively affecting their ability to get a job, according to a March survey by the AARP Public Policy Institute.
And discrimination isn't limited to the job search.
An AARP survey conducted two years ago found two-thirds of workers between 45 and 74 had seen or experienced age discrimination on the job. And the overall number of age discrimination complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has jumped 15 percent over the last decade. (Tweet This)
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act, passed in 1967, protects those 40 years or older from employment discrimination based on age at employers with 20 or more employees. Under the law, these employers may not discriminate against a person because of his or her age with respect to hiring, firing, promotion, layoffs, compensation, benefits, job assignments and training.
Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have age discrimination laws that are stronger than the ADEA. But a 2014 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco found "very little evidence that stronger state age discrimination protections helped older workers weather the Great Recession."
It's also become harder in recent years for workers to win age discrimination lawsuits because of the 2009 Supreme Court ruling in Gross v. FBL Financial Services that an older worker suing under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act must satisfy a higher standard of proof than a plaintiff suing for employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
Thousands of complaints are filed annually with the EEOC, and millions of dollars are awarded in settlements—monetary benefits topped $77 million in 2014 and reached nearly $98 million the year before. But for the majority of complaints filed each year, no reasonable cause is determined from the evidence submitted. In 2014, for example, the agency received 20,588 age discrimination complaints, and it found 13,159 complaints to have no reasonable cause. (The complaint filer may still pursue litigation.)
"Age discrimination is prevalent in the workplace, but proving age discrimination in hiring decisions is very difficult," said Lori Trawinski, director of banking and finance at the AARP Public Policy Institute.
Read MoreFor many older workers, a new job comes with a pay
Nonetheless, it is crimping the retirement plans of baby boomers who counted on working longer to bolster their nest eggs.
A third of more than 1,100 boomer households surveyed by retirement marketing research company Hearts & Wallets last year cited age discrimination as the reason they retired earlier than they wanted, and 29 percent said it had prevented them from working as much as they would like. "Every time we do focus groups with retirees, we always hear about age discrimination," said Chris Brown, principal of Hearts & Wallets.
Eighty-two percent of American workers age 60 or older expect to keep working past age 65 or do not plan to retire, according to a recent survey of American workers from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. But the fact is—whether it's age bias or a down job market or physical constraints—they may not have control over how long they work. And there's little recourse if they suspect discrimination is the culprit.
"Age discrimination exists in the workplace in a big way and we as individuals have to learn how to navigate through it and overcome it," said Ford R. Myers, 60, a Philadelphia career coach and author of "Get the Job You Want Even When No One's Hiring."
Read MoreEven the rich are afraid of running out of money
Whether discrimination plays a role or not, older workers face unique challenges in finding employment and even opportunities within their own companies. For one, there are fewer senior-level jobs than junior or midlevel positions, and they're often competing against younger candidates for those roles—a reality that can catch workers over 50 off guard.
The 55- to 75-year-old retirees who participated in nine focus groups run by Hearts & Wallets in 2013 cited the dearth of senior-level opportunities as the biggest surprise they encountered late in their careers, Brown said.
Given the real or perceived bias against older workers—that they're more expensive, less productive, and may be out of touch with the latest technology and trends—they must learn to adapt, said Myers. "And you don't need $500,000 in plastic surgery," he added.
So what should older workers do?
Take advantage of one of their greatest assets: The experience and extensive networks they've developed throughout their careers.
"In many cases, mature workers are their own worst enemies" when it comes to finding a job, Myers said. One of the biggest mistakes they make, he added, is not tapping the extensive professional networks they've built up if they are laid off because they are "too embarrassed or ashamed to tell anyone."
Read MoreOlder workers: Good or bad for business?
Showcasing and upgrading technical skills is also a must for older workers. Myers recommends putting relevant technical expertise front and center on the resume. Why? Recruiters spend only six seconds reviewing an individual resume, according to a 2012 study by online job marketplace TheLadders, which used eye-tracking technology to evaluate the behavior of 30 professional recruiters during a 10-week period.
Myers, who charges individuals $1,500 to $7,000 for his coaching services, which include individualized career plans and training for job seekers, also urges clients to work on a part-time or project basis if they lose their full-time jobs to prevent gaps on their resume and maintain skills and income.
"We have to get rid of this concept that 'if you're not working full-time with benefits, it's a waste,'" Myers said. "Employers are going to ask you what you've been doing now, that's what matters to them."
Rather than listing every experience, Myers also advises focusing on the skills that are vital to your particular industry. "It's not about chronological age," he said. "There are people who are 24 and act like they're 97. Mature workers need to strive to be the 'get it done' people at their organizations."
After all, in the end, the ability to get the job done is what really matters.
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bd32f3025a289cfeab5abc49e3a5d66a | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/06/feds-yellen-financial-regulators-have-made-significant-progress-on-incentives.html | Yellen says equity valuations generally high | Yellen says equity valuations generally high
VIDEO1:3601:36Yellen: Equity valuations are running high
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Wednesday warned that equity market valuations were "quite high," though she said the Fed was not seeing the hallmarks of a bubble.
She also noted that the Fed was watching the issue closely.
"I would highlight that equity market valuations at this point generally are quite high," Yellen said, according to Reuters. "There are potential dangers there."
Read MoreStocks getting 'fully valued': Michael Farr
Stocks, which had turned lower after a strong open, fell further following Yellen's comments.
"She's really raising those questions that valuations are pretty full. I agree with that," said David O'Malley, CEO of Penn Mutual Asset Management.
Yellen also made note of the risks to open-ended mutual funds, Reuters reported, particularly dangers to liquidity if redemptions rose.
"It's more likely that Janet Yellen's comments spilled over into the downturn. Yellen's comments are in line with things she said in the past on overstretched valuations," said Ben Garber, capital markets economist at Moody's Analytics.
Read MoreRon Insana: Jobs report may tip the Fed's hand
Janet YellenGetty Images
Earlier Wednesday, Yellen said the Fed and other banking regulators have made significant progress in correcting flaws in the financial system that triggered the worst banking crisis in seven decades.
Banking regulators are remaining "watchful" for any areas where further reforms may be needed, she said in remarks at a financial conference.
Yellen cited the need to address the problem of "too big to fail"—the perception among investors that some institutions are so large that the government will step in and save them if they get into trouble.
She said the Fed and other regulators are taking steps to make sure that the collapse of even very large banking institutions can be handled in ways that don't jeopardize the stability of the entire system.
Read MoreThe list of big money bond market bashers is growing
Yellen's comments came in a joint appearance with International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde at a conference sponsored by the Institute for New Economic Thinking.
Lagarde told the group that a recent IMF report found that risks to financial stability around the globe are rising with increasing risks at non-bank financial institutions and in emerging market countries.
"We need to build a financial system that is both more ethical and oriented more to the needs of the real economy—a financial system that serves society and not the other way around," Lagarde said.
Read MoreFed's Evans: Here's when rate hike is appropriate
Yellen said a well-functioning financial sector promotes job creation, innovation and economic growth but that problems arise when the incentives become distorted, prompting bank executives to pursue risky strategies to increase profits.
"Unfortunately, in the years preceding the financial crisis, all too many firms took on risks they could neither measure nor manage," she said.
"The result was the most severe financial crisis and economic downturn since the Great Depression," the Fed chief said, noting that 9 million American lost their jobs and roughly twice that many lost their homes.
—CNBC.com and wires contributed to this report.
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2a247d86c92eea56960db7a2b2ae3d8e | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/06/fight-the-wildlife-trade.html | Using economics to fight the $10B illegal wildlife trade | Using economics to fight the $10B illegal wildlife trade
The global wildlife trade—catching animals in the wild and selling them as pets or food—is a multibillion dollar business that ecologists say is a leading threat to species around the world. But determining the size of the threat is difficult—it's usually a black-market business, and tracking animals costs money and requires locally placed experts.
Oriental Magpie RobinPhoto: Adam Miller
Enter a team of researchers from Princeton University and Indonesia—and some of the most basic principles of economics. The group identified several species of birds under threat in Southeast Asia, based solely on the prices people were paying for the birds in local markets. In a study published in the journal Biological Conservation, the researchers said analyzing the going rate for an animal, along with the number being sold, can help identify which species are most threatened. (Tweet This)
Previous research cited in the study puts the global wildlife trade at about $10 billion a year and estimates that about one-third of the world's bird species are trapped and sold for food, as pets, or for other purposes. David Wilcove, one of the researchers on the team, found the problem is especially intense in Southeast Asia, where a thriving trade for birds sold in open markets may be threatening several species.
Read MoreAlligator: The newest, cold-blooded food trend
An important hub for the commerce is the city of Medan on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. More than 200 species of birds are sold in markets there—two-thirds of all bird species traded in the country, according to the study. Many birds are caught in other countries and sold to domestic buyers, who value the animals as status symbols.
The trade in birds in Indonesia alone is "huge," said J. Berton Harris, the study's lead author.
"We are talking about thousands of birds being bought and sold all the time," he said. "I have been studying birds my whole life, and I had no idea how big the trade actually was. It's mind-boggling. And when I was in Sumatra, it was hard to find any patch of forest that wasn't being trapped for birds."
Shoppers look at birds in a market place in Sumatra, Indonesia.Photo: Tomas Busina
The team began by interviewing Indonesian ornithologists to get an idea of which bird species were declining in the wild. They then tried to identify which of them might be disappearing due to the wildlife trade, by counting the birds bought and sold in markets and noting the prices people were paying for them.
Read MoreOceans fill withplastic—and it's hard to remove
The team identified 14 species of Indonesian birds that have been falling in number—nine more than are currently identified by international conservation groups, such as the Red List. That may be because the Red List focuses on species facing global, rather than regional declines, the researchers wrote in their study.
They researchers found that higher-priced birds in the markets tended to be declining in numbers in the wild. They found four species that were going up in price and down in volume—meaning demand for the birds was likely outstripping supply, which suggested these bird were the most threatened.
VIDEO0:0000:00Dangerous Trade: Exotic Animals
"We discovered that changes in the prices of the various species being sold in the markets, combined with changes in the numbers of individuals for sale in the markets, provided a pretty reliable and inexpensive way to identify the species that were probably being overexploited," Wilcove said in an email to CNBC.
The study says further research is needed, but the team is confident that its model points in the right direction. For example, their method pointed to two species of birds already known to be under threat from the trade in Asia—the yellow-crested cockatoo and the Bali myna.
Read MoreA brain trick that will make you save more money
The study notes that its method can't replace traditional field monitoring—where scientists attempt to count species in the wild. However, it could be a cheap and efficient tool for researchers when more expensive and time-consuming methods aren't available.
Wilcove said the birds most threatened by the wildlife trade are likely the straw-headed bulbul, the yellow-crested cockatoo and Bali myna, in Asia; the red siskin and Spix's macaw in South America; and the yellow-headed parrot in central Mexico.
"The macaw, in fact, has been driven to extinction in the wild by the bird trade—the only individuals left are those in zoos and private aviaries," Wilcove said.
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a9d74399489c6d39e6acf673d4114845 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/06/zenefits-an-hr-start-up-now-worth-45-billion.html?__source=msn%7Cmoney%7Cinline%7Cstory%7C&par=msn&doc=103627547%7CThe%20biggest%20change%20to%20hit | Zenefits, an HR start-up, now worth $4.5 billion | Zenefits, an HR start-up, now worth $4.5 billion
VIDEO2:3502:35Zenefits raises $500 million
Zenefits, a cloud-based automated human resources business, said Wednesday it has raised $500 million in a series C round of funding, giving it a valuation of $4.5 billion.
The funding marks the largest public or private round for a software-as-a-service company since the Workday IPO in October 2012. A variety of backers, including Andreessen Horowitz and Fidelity Management, are supporting Zenefits.
The company sees a massive opportunity to offer human resources services to millions of small and medium-sized businesses overlooked by larger companies, said Parker Conrad, Zenefits' founder and CEO. The company offers employers a free dashboard that lets them manage payroll, health insurance and other services. It then collects fees from benefit providers that use the system.
For Andreessen, an early backer, Zenefits has just become its largest investment ever. Zenefits launched in 2013 and has signed up more than 10,000 small- and medium-sized businesses in the interim.
Zenefits intends to use the latest round of funding to hire employees in all lines of work to fuel further growth, Conrad said.
Read More Salesforce shares jump amid Microsoft bid reports
Private equity financing of $200 million in tech and biotech were, until recently, almost unheard of. Now they're routine. Prior to Wednesday, of the 25 such funding rounds since the end of 2010, eight happened in the first four months of 2015, according to data compiled by DataFox.
This year's biggest was SpaceX's $1 billion round announced in January, and among business-software companies the largest was Domo's $200 million financing in April.
Last month, peer-to-peer small business lender FundingCircle pulled in $150 million, and LendingClub rival Prosper Marketplace raised $165 million. SoFi—a Web-based start-up focused on refinancing student loan and, increasingly, mortgages—pulled in $200 million.
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6fa81e5155bb8fe9e6ab8bfa4fc3b659 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/07/crisis-will-happen-again-but-not-like-2008-geithner.html | Crisis will happen again, but not like 2008: Geithner | Crisis will happen again, but not like 2008: Geithner
VIDEO2:1602:16Another crisis will happen again: Tim GeithnerSquawk Box
VIDEO2:4002:40Financial system more stable today: Tim GeithnerSquawk Box
VIDEO2:3202:32Yellen doing 'excellent' job: Tim GeithnerSquawk Box
Former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Thursday that a financial crisis will happen again at some point, but the structural reforms undertaken after 2008 can serve to mitigate the damage.
The U.S. economy now is a more stable, resilient, and stronger economy than before the 2008 financial crisis, Geithner said in an interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box." Even with the challenges in the U.S. economy, America is a "lucky country," he added.
Read MoreFed's Evans: Why rate hikes should wait until 2016
"People thought [in 2008] that we were going to have a Great Depression. People thought we might have hyperinflation. We thought we might turn into Greece," he said. Instead, he added, "the American economy is doing relatively well, making steady progress."
If a financial crisis does happen in the future, however, the Federal Reserve and the government would need to act again, he said. "The only way you protect people from the effects of classic panics is to have the central bank and the government step in and take the risks the market can't take."
The market reforms after 2008 put "much more capital into the system" and "much tougher rules on risk-taking," Geithner said. "They're strong enough, if they're not eroded, to buy this country a relatively long period of financial stability."
Geithner supported a strong dollar when he led the department. But he refused on Thursday to comment on the 18 percent rise in the dollar over the past 12 months against a basket of major currencies.
While the dollar has recently backed off its highs, a stronger U.S. currency makes goods sold by American companies overseas more expensive, which can put them at a pricing disadvantage to their foreign competitors.
The negative impact of that dynamic has shown up in corporate earnings in recent quarters.
Geithner was also asked to react to Fed Chair Janet Yellen's comments Wednesday that stock market valuations appear "quite high."
Read MoreYellen: Equity valuations high
"It's very hard to know what markets reflect at any given point in time. It's really hard to know, except in retrospect when market prices, valuations are defying gravity," he said.
"[Yellen] knows that. She's a very thoughtful, smart person," he said, but he refused to speculate why Yellen made those remarks.
"I can say she's doing an excellent job," he said.
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e7bb527d753778ea94727080fafcf93a | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/07/heres-how-millennials-are-shaking-up-the-health-care-system.html | Want a clearer medical bill? Act like a millennial | Want a clearer medical bill? Act like a millennial
VIDEO1:2801:28Retire Well: Managing healthcare costsDebt
If you're pleased that McDonald's and other restaurants are switching to healthier foods, like chickens raised without antibiotics, you might want to thank a millennial.
And if you're unhappy with a recent doctor's bill, you might want to act like one.
It turns out millennials are twice as likely to challenge the cost of their medical care than the general population, according to a new PwC report called "Money Matters: Billing and Payment for a New Health Economy."
Nineteen percent of those ages 25 to 34 said they've asked for a discount on medical care, compared with just 8 percent of the general population. They are also twice as likely to ask for cheaper treatment options and to seek help from providers to pay for costly medical bills.
Alex Raths | iStock | Getty Images Plus
And it's behavior like this that could help shake up the way the health-care industry does business.
Read MoreThese patients pay 3-times as much for health care
"It surprised us in health care that millennials would be so opinionated and vocal on this," said Ceci Connolly, director of PwC's Health Research Institute. "For the most part, they're still young and relatively healthy, so we didn't think that they would engage much on this topic."
But the findings come as no surprise to millennial Jen Mishory, executive director of Young Invincibles, a lobbying group that focuses on policy issues impacting young people.
"You're looking at a generation that has significant student debt, that has wages that have declined more rapidly than for older workers," she explained.
Read MoreCutting health costs in retirement
Mishory points to a Commonwealth Fund study that showed just over 1 in 3 young adults struggled to pay health bills or medical debt before the expansion of Obamacare coverage in 2012. An updated version of that survey found the number had not changed last year.
"Young people are trying to make sure they are getting the best deal possible because they need the best deal possible," Mishory said.
Having grown up being able to compare prices for everything from air fares to electronics, millennials expect the same transparency in health care. While just 10 percent of the general population will inquire about costs for a treatment, 17 percent of 18 to 24 years olds surveyed by PwC said they ask about pricing, and 21 percent of those ages 25 to 34 said they ask for a price check on medical care.
"I think it's going to be great for the health-care system to have people actually really making sure that they're getting the best deal possible and really demanding transparency," said Mishory.
There are generations of us who have come to be frustrated...in our health-care system and feel...powerless. These younger generations are saying they're just not going to accept that.Ceci Connollydrector, PwC's Health Research Institute
PwC analysts estimate that Americans will spend $435 billion in out-of-pocket co-payments, co-insurance and deductibles this year. That number reflects the fact that many consumers are bearing more of the burden of their health-care costs. As a result, the health-care industry needs to move away from business-to-business billing and pricing—with hospitals and doctors contracting on rates with insurers, who then contract with employers on premiums—to a more consumer-friendly model.
Read MoreTech-savvy dentists save $$$, space
Consumers of all ages told PwC the two most important things they want when it comes to buying health care, insurance and drugs are to be able to know prices ahead of time and to be able to comparison shop online. Millennials are just more vocal about it.
"I think there are generations of us who have come to be frustrated, but tolerate the frustrations in our health-care system and feel even a little bit powerless. These younger generations are saying they're just not going to accept that," said Connolly.
Major insurers like Aetna and United Health, and more tech-oriented start-ups like Oscar Health Insurance are providing members with more online and mobile pricing and comparison tools. The PwC report says more hospitals are working on simplifying the way they bill patients, embracing online and mobile bill payments. All things that are especially important to millennials.
"If you just stop and think about demographics, pretty soon they're the customers that are going to matter a whole lot to the health-care industry," said Connolly, "So it's an early warning sign."
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eeb02d3c22114c7d0656215cbd831df2 | https://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/07/rba-lowers-2015-gdp-growth-forecast-to-25.html | Australia central bank cuts growth forecasts | Australia central bank cuts growth forecasts
Reserve Bank of AustraliaGetty Images
The Reserve Bank of Australia has lowered its growth and inflation estimates for 2015 and 2016, saying the economy will continue to grow at a subpar rate for a longer than expected period.
The Australia dollar had a brief spike on the news, jumping to $0.7924, before turning lower to trade at $0.7872.
In its 70-page quarterly monetary policy report, the RBA narrowed its growth forecast for 2015 to 2.5 percent versus 2.25-3.25 percent previously and saw the economy growing at 2.75-3.75 percent in 2016, down from 3-4 percent.
Underlying inflation was adjusted to 2.5 percent for 2015, versus 2-3 percent previously, and brought down its 2016 forecast range to 1.75-2.75 percent, from 2-3 percent.
Still, the RBA suggested there are green shoots in the economy, and recovery could happen sooner than expected.
"Many preconditions for a recovery in non-mining business investment are in place, so it is possible that the recovery could begin earlier or be stronger than currently forecast," it said in the statement. "It is possible that employment growth will be stronger than expected and the unemployment rate will not increase to the extent anticipated, although this could probably only be achieved with ongoing moderating in wage growth."
The RBA gave no clear indication about the future of interest rates, but reiterated that the Australia dollar is not yet weak enough to support the economy, and further falls are likely and necessary.
The central bank lowered rates this week for a second time this year, lowering the benchmark borrowing rates to a fresh record low of 2 percent.
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