Stocks swing to losses as markets react to the Fed’s interest rate plans.
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The Federal Reserve on Wednesday said it would “soon” be appropriate to raise interest rates, as inflation runs above policymakers’ preferred target and the job market strengthens.
Although central bankers left rates unchanged at near-zero — where they have been set since March 2020 — the revised statement after their two-day policy meeting laid the groundwork for higher borrowing costs as soon as the Fed’s next meeting in March.
“I would say that the committee is of a mind to raise the federal funds rate at the March meeting, assuming that the conditions are appropriate for doing so,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said at a news conference following the meeting.
“The economy no longer needs sustained high levels” of monetary policy support, he said earlier in his remarks.
The Fed is already slowing a bond-buying program it had been using to bolster the economy, and officials left that program on track to end in March. Central bankers have signaled that they could begin to shrink their balance sheet holdings of government-backed debt soon after they begin to raise interest rates, a move that would further remove support from markets and the economy.
The Fed’s policy committee released a statement of principles for that process on Wednesday, setting out plans to “significantly” reduce its holdings “in a predictable manner” and “primarily” by adjusting how much it is reinvesting as assets expire.Investors are nervously eyeing the Fed’s next steps, worried that its policy changes will hurt stock and other asset prices and rapidly slow down the economy. At the same time, consumer prices are rising at the fastest pace since 1982, eating away at household paychecks and posing a political liability for President Biden and Democrats. It is the Fed’s job to keep inflation under control and to help foster full employment.
Mr. Powell said that it was tough to guess what pace of rate increases would be appropriate, that it was important to be “humble and nimble” and that “we’re going to be led by the incoming data and the evolving outlook.”
“We are aware that this is a very different expansion,” Mr. Powell said later in the news conference, with “higher inflation, higher growth, a much stronger economy — and I think those differences are likely to be reflected in the policy that we implement.”
The Fed’s withdrawal of policy support could cool off consumer and corporate demand as borrowing money to buy a car, a boat, a house or a business becomes more expensive. Slower demand could give strained supply chains room to catch up. By slowing down hiring, the Fed’s moves could also limit wage growth that might otherwise feed into prices.
The Fed has pivoted away from providing full-blast support as the economy rebounds strongly from its pandemic shock, and the new signal of an impending rate increase is the latest step in that process.
“They’re reinforcing market expectations of a March liftoff,” said Priya Misra, head of global rates strategy at TD Securities. Ms. Misra said she viewed the Fed’s release of how it would approach reducing its balance sheet as a sign that the central bank could begin that next step in pulling back support very soon, perhaps after the central bank increases rates once or twice.
“They are trying, I think, to reduce market uncertainty around the balance sheet — but they’re telling us it’s happening,” she said.
Mr. Powell noted that both of the areas the Fed is responsible for — fostering price stability and maximum employment — were pushing the central bank to “move steadily away” from high levels of accommodation. He said that most committee members thought that the job market was consistent with maximum employment, defined as the level of employment that is possible without putting pressure on prices.
“There are many millions more job openings than there are unemployed people,” Mr. Powell said. “I think there’s quite a bit of room to raise interest rates without threatening the labor market.”
The unemployment rate has fallen to 3.9 percent, down from its peak of 14.7 percent at the worst economic point in the pandemic and near its February 2020 level of 3.5 percent. Wages are growing at the fastest pace in decades, though they are struggling to keep up with rapid price increases.
Inflation picked up sharply in 2021 and is likely to remain uncomfortably high well into 2022. The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge is expected to show that prices picked up by 5.8 percent in the year through December when the latest report is released on Friday, more than double the 2 percent pace the Fed aims for annually and on average.
Mr. Powell said that problems pushing inflation up had been “larger and longer-lasting” than officials had expected and noted that the Fed was “attentive to the risk” that rapid wage growth could further fuel price gains.
Prices are high partly because global supply chains are struggling to produce and transport enough couches, cars and clothing to keep pace with booming demand for goods. The pandemic had changed consumption patterns, and households have money in their pockets thanks to long months at home and government relief.
By making it more expensive to buy a lawn mower on credit or a car with an auto loan, Fed rate increases might help to cool off America’s spending spree.
If the virus fades, that would also help things to get back to normal by allowing factories to operate at full speed without rolling shutdowns and by enabling consumers to spend their money on trips to the nail salon or the Alps instead of on new kitchen tables and garage renovations.
But Fed officials — and many economists — spent much of 2021 hoping that conditions would get back to normal and that inflation would go away on its own. That didn’t happen.
“Since the December meeting, I would say that the inflation situation is about the same but probably slightly worse,” Mr. Powell said when asked about the Fed’s previous expectations.
Central bankers have continued to estimate that the price pickup will fade substantially by late this year, but they have also guided policy into a position from which it can fight against any lasting inflation pressures.
Policymakers projected at their last meeting, in December, that they would raise interest rates three times this year. They did not release a fresh set of economic projections with this policy statement. The next quarterly estimates will come in March.
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Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, took questions from reporters after the central bank’s latest policy statement.
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3:25 p.m.: Mr. Powell finishes speaking, and stocks regain some of the ground they lost earlier. The S&P 500 is down 0.4 percent, and the Nasdaq is up 0.1 percent. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note remains at 1.85 percent, a high for the day.
Chair Powell takeaways:
– The economy is different this time (he said this many times)
– Inflation is too high, and it’s gotten worse
– The job market is v strong
– The Fed is set to hike rates in March + after that, but not ready to say how much
– “nimble” + “humble”— Jeanna Smialek (@jeannasmialek) January 26, 2022
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3:20 p.m.: The S&P 500 falls 1 percent, taking the index into a correction, a market term for a 10 percent decline from a recent peak, set on Jan. 3.
“High inflation is taking away some of the benefits of these large wage increases we’re seeing now,” Chair Powell says.
— Jeanna Smialek (@jeannasmialek) January 26, 2022
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3:15 p.m.: “I would not say that I would expect the supply chain issues to be completely worked out by the end of this year,” Mr. Powell says.
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3:10 p.m.: Stocks have turned negative, with the S&P 500 now down 0.8 percent. Bond yields continue to rise, with the 10-year Treasury note up to 1.85 percent.
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3:04 p.m.: Inflation “hasn’t gotten better, it’s probably gotten just a bit worse,” since December, Mr. Powell says, “and that’s been the pattern.”
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3 p.m.: The S&P 500 is up 0.2 percent, giving up more ground, and the 10-year Treasury yield is up to 1.84 percent.
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2:50 p.m.: “We haven’t made a decision yet, and we will make that decision at the March meeting,” Mr. Powell says of raising rates. “I would say that the committee is of a mind to raise the federal funds rate at the March meeting, assuming that the conditions are appropriate for doing so.”
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2:45 p.m.: The S&P 500 pares its gains to less than 1 percent as Mr. Powell speaks. Bond yields rise to highs for the session.
“There are many millions more job openings than there are unemployed people,” Chair Powell says. “I think there’s quite a bit of room to raise interest rates without threatening the labor market.”
— Jeanna Smialek (@jeannasmialek) January 26, 2022
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2:40 p.m.: Asked about a timeline for raising rates, Mr. Powell says that it is tough to guess what pace of rate increases will be appropriate, that it’s important to be “humble and nimble” and that “we’re going to be led by the incoming data and the evolving outlook.”
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2:30 p.m.: As Mr. Powell prepares to speak, the S&P 500 is up 1.7 percent, down slightly from its spike following the statement. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note has climbed to 1.81 percent.
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2:10 p.m.: An index tracking the financial services industry is up 1.8 percent. Shares of these companies, which are particularly sensitive to changes in interest rates, were 1.2 percent higher before the statement.
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2:02 p.m.: The S&P 500, which had been up about 1.6 percent before the Fed’s statement was released, increases its gains to more than 2 percent. The Nasdaq composite jumps as well, to a 3 percent gain, up from a 2.4 percent increase. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rises to 1.80 percent, climbing from 1.78 percent before the statement.
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2 p.m.: The Fed says that officials left interest rates unchanged at their January meeting but said it would “soon be appropriate” to raise rates. The Fed’s bond-buying program remains on track to end in March.
Wall Street gave up early gains on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 flirting with a correction, after Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, suggested the central bank could move quickly to raise interest rates.
Stocks initially rose, with the S&P 500 climbing to a gain of as much as 2.2 percent, after the Fed issued a hotly anticipated statement about its plans that fell mostly in line with expectations, signaling that higher borrowing costs could come soon and noting that the high inflation warrants a change in policy. Interest rates have been near zero since March 2020.
But trading became volatile as Mr. Powell discussed the details of the central bank’s thinking during a news conference, eventually turning those gains into a drop of as much as 1.2 percent.
The S&P 500 rebounded slightly to a 0.4 percent loss after Mr. Powell finished speaking.
The key question for investors now is how quickly rates will rise, and Mr. Powell indicated that the central bank thought the economy could withstand higher interest rates, saying that “there’s quite a bit of room to raise interest rates without threatening the labor market.”
“The labor market is very, very strong right now,” he said. He noted that the central bank would adapt its plan to any changes in economic conditions.
He also noted that inflation “hasn’t gotten better, it’s probably gotten just a bit worse,” since December, “and that’s been the pattern.” He also noted that “overall, we’re not making progress” on supply chain issues.
“The market is facing the fact that the Fed is ready to be more aggressive than what they had earlier thought,” said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P Global Ratings. “Markets were already expecting an aggressive policy, but they got spooked by the statement and Chair Powell.”
The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes, a benchmark for borrowing costs across the economy and a measure of the outlook for growth, jumped to 1.84 percent, from 1.78 percent.
Wednesday’s trading added to a remarkably volatile stretch for stocks, with major indexes swinging between gains and losses this week as the central bank’s officials discussed their plans to pull back on support for the economy.
The Fed had already said in December that it would speed up plans to pull back on the monetary policy stimulus that has helped support the economy since the start of the pandemic as it aims to ease inflation, but uncertainty over whether the Fed may surprise investors with a more aggressive timeline has pushed major indexes sharply lower this month.
On Monday, the S&P 500 briefly crossed the threshold of a correction, a Wall Street term for a drop of 10 percent from the recent peak. Corrections are an infrequent occurrence that serve as a signal that investors have turned more pessimistic about the market. The S&P 500 recovered enough of its losses by the end of Monday to avoid the designation, only to temporarily dip into correction territory again on Wednesday as Mr. Powell spoke.
The Nasdaq composite, which fell 0.4 percent on Wednesday, is 16 percent off its peak and has been nearing an even more serious designation: a bear market, or a drop of 20 percent.
Oil prices were higher Wednesday, with Brent crude, the international standard, up 1.9 percent to $89.83 a barrel. Futures for West Texas Intermediate rose to their highest levels since October 2014, up more than 1.9 percent to $87.25 a barrel.
Rising oil prices suggest that investors believe the global economy isn’t headed for a significant slowdown, which would reduce demand.
But a shortage of natural gas, particularly in Europe, has also helped drive the rally, along with fears of war in Ukraine, which could disrupt Russia’s supply of energy to world markets. Russia has amassed thousands of troops on the border of Ukraine, creating the threat of an invasion. The White House is considering deploying several thousand U.S. troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe.
“It’s still unlikely that oil and gas will be used as a weapon any time soon, but if it was, it could lead to a serious surge in prices given how tight the markets are,” said Craig Erlam, a senior market analyst at OANDA.
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is preparing to crack down on what it calls junk fees — late payment charges, hotel resort fees and other tacked-on expenses that collectively add billions to what Americans pay for goods and services.
“Junk fees make it harder for us to choose the best product or service because the true cost is hidden,” Rohit Chopra, the bureau’s director, said at a news conference on Wednesday as the bureau initiated a request for public comment on the use of such fees. Such a request is the formal first step in the lengthy process of creating new rules for financial services providers.
Mr. Chopra said his agency was particularly interested in areas in which providers seem to operate in lock step — for example, the $25 to $35 fees that many credit card companies charge for overdue payments, which reap them an estimated $14 billion annually. Balance transfer fees are another focus: Consumers transferred $35 billion in 2020, incurring fees that averaged around 3 percent.
Bureau officials also cited the service fees levied by concert ticket providers and the resort fees imposed by hotels as areas of concern.
The junk-fees request is the latest move by the consumer bureau to focus on charges levied on users. In December, the agency issued a report on the $15 billion a year that banks collect in overdraft and insufficient funds fees. Under regulatory pressure, banks are paring them back: Bank of America recently said it would trim its fee to $10 from $35, and Capital One and Ally Financial eliminated theirs entirely.
Mr. Chopra said on Wednesday that those changes were “progress, but it is not enough.”
The agency set a March 31 deadline for comments on so-called junk fees. Bureau officials said they intended to proceed quickly to rule-making, but they also indicated that this issue was likely to remain a focus throughout Mr. Chopra’s five-year term, which is scheduled to run through 2026.
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Boeing reported a $3.5 billion charge in the final three months of last year from prolonged delays in making and delivering its 787 Dreamliner jet, driving the company to a bruising $4.2 billion loss for the quarter.
The Dreamliner costs were caused in part by a realization that the fixes Boeing needed to make to win Federal Aviation Administration approval for the twin-aisle plane would take longer than expected, the company said Wednesday. Boeing did not provide an update on when it would restart deliveries of the plane and said it now expected that the delay of more than a year would generate a total of $2 billion in “abnormal costs” over the next two years, bringing the total price of the delays to $5.5 billion.
“On the 787 program, we’re progressing through a comprehensive effort to ensure every airplane in our production system conforms to our exacting specifications,” David Calhoun, Boeing’s chief executive, said in a statement announcing the financial results, including a $4.3 billion loss for the year, the third annual loss in a row.
“While this continues to impact our near-term results, it is the right approach to building stability and predictability as demand returns for the long term,” he said. “Across the enterprise, we remain focused on safety and quality as we deliver for our customers and invest in our people and in our sustainable future.”
The company reported $14.8 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, falling short of analysts’ estimates. But there were bright spots: Boeing continued to celebrate the return of the 737 Max and reported operating cash flow of $716 million, its first positive showing since the first quarter of 2019.
The Max was grounded by aviation authorities around the world in early 2019, after a total of 346 people died in two crashes aboard the plane. The F.A.A. became the first regulator to approve the Max, with service resuming in late 2020. Since then, most of the world has followed suit, and the plane has been used for more than 300,000 flights.
Boeing tallied 356 new Max orders in 2021, helping to deliver the company’s best year for commercial airplane sales since 2018, beating its rival Airbus. Boeing said Wednesday that it was producing about 27 Max planes per month, up from 19 in October, and was on track to reach a target monthly output of 31 early this year.
But the success of the Max’s return was offset by the Dreamliner delays, which date back more than a year. In September 2020, Boeing said it expected deliveries of the jet, typically used for long-distance international trips, to be delayed as it worked with the F.A.A. to address a handful of quality concerns.
Boeing restarted deliveries in March only to pause again months later as the company and the F.A.A. disagreed over how to identify planes requiring follow-up inspections. Boeing said Wednesday that it and the agency were still discussing the work needed before deliveries could resume.
Production of the plane was slowed, and the delays could hold back a rebound for the airline industry. American Airlines said last month that a delay in receiving 13 Dreamliners this winter had caused it to trim the number of international flights it expected to offer this summer. Last week, the airline said that it still expected to receive the planes starting in April and that it was in discussions with Boeing about compensation for the delay, some of which it had already received.
United Airlines has similarly said it was forced to pare its offerings as a result of the delays in delivering Dreamliners that it had expected to receive in the first half of 2021 and now expects to receive after this summer.
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Wind energy projects are being proposed around the world to help meet climate goals, but the largest maker of turbines is finding that supply chain issues and pandemic lockdowns are hampering wind farm construction and hurting financial results.
“It is troubling and challenging out there,” Henrik Andersen, chief executive of the Danish company Vestas Wind Systems, said on a call with analysts on Wednesday.
Mr. Andersen said the company had to recently navigate the disruption caused by the compulsory mass testing of 14 million residents in Tianjin, China, where Vestas has a manufacturing hub, after 20 Covid-19 cases were discovered.
“This is actually what causes some stop and go, and simply just disturbance,” he said. The company warned that profit margins could fall to as low as zero in 2022.
The situation at Vestas is emblematic of problems facing the wind industry as a whole. Costs of components are rising fast because of soaring prices for steel and other materials. At the same time, choppy delivery schedules and Covid precautions are hampering factory operations and delaying the completion of wind farms.
Utilities and other wind farm developers are hesitating to order new machines because volatile prices for electricity, especially in Europe, are making it difficult to come up with the long-range financial calculations essential for electricity supply contracts.
Mr. Andersen said developers could find themselves in a situation where they were unable to bring wind farms online on time and so, to meet contractual obligations, were forced to buy power at prices that could in Europe be 10 times what they were 18 months ago.
Such problems appear to be industrywide. Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, Europe’s other giant turbine maker, also recently warned that profits would be lower than expected for similar reasons.
Analysts say the long-term case for wind energy as a source of clean electric power remains strong, although various problems could kill off some of the weaker component makers and will delay projects. In the longer run, higher electric power and oil and gas prices could even spur the shift to renewables, the thinking goes.
“The mid- to long-term outlook for wind energy is unchanged,” Deepa Venkateswaran, an analyst at Bernstein, said in a note to clients after the Vestas announcement.
On the face of it, the preliminary results that Vestas announced on Wednesday in advance of the detailed report scheduled for Feb. 10 do not look so bad.
Vestas’s revenue from making and servicing the giant wind machines rose 5 percent in 2021 to 15.6 billion euros, or about $17.6 billion. Operating profit, though, fell 38 percent, to €461 million.
Over the year, Vestas, which has about 30,000 employees, managed to deliver turbines around the world with the generating capacity comparable to about five modern nuclear power stations.
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The International Monetary Fund urged El Salvador on Tuesday to end its recognition of Bitcoin as legal tender. Adopting a cryptocurrency in this way “entails large risks for financial and market integrity, financial stability and consumer protection,” the fund’s executive board wrote.
The price of Bitcoin has fallen more than 50 percent from its peak in November, and the cryptocurrency market as a whole has lost more than $1 trillion in value over that time. For prominent institutions that have bought into Bitcoin, from El Salvador’s government to some multinational corporations, the downturn could prove costly — and may create regulatory headaches, the DealBook newsletter reports.
A year ago, when the meme-stock frenzy was about to morph into a crypto boom, Bitcoin was worth just over $30,000. Since then, it has twice more than doubled in price and then given up the gains. Crypto evangelists like President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, Elon Musk of Tesla and Michael Saylor of MicroStrategy seem undeterred.
El Salvador has spent about $85.5 million on Bitcoin since adopting the cryptocurrency as legal tender in September, including a $15 million purchase a few days ago, during the latest dip. The country has paid an average of about $47,500 per Bitcoin, and the current price is about $37,000, meaning that the Salvadoran investment has lost about 23 percent of its value.
“Most people go in when the price is up, but the safest and most profitable moment to buy is when the price is down,” Mr. Bukele said on Twitter, where he announces Bitcoin purchases and rebukes critics of this investment strategy. “It’s not rocket science.”
MicroStrategy is also unmoved by the downturn. The business intelligence software company has spent about $3.75 billion on Bitcoin, an investment now worth about $4.5 billion. The company’s finance chief told The Wall Street Journal that it would keep on buying.
But holding cryptocurrency is an accounting hassle. In December, the Securities and Exchange Commission told MicroStrategy to revise how it reported the value of its hefty Bitcoin holdings.
MicroStrategy argued that the crypto should be treated like other assets, with gains and losses recognized immediately. The S.E.C. treats Bitcoin like intangibles, with losses reflected by impairments but gains recognized only upon a sale. (Tesla, which bought $1.5 billion in Bitcoin last year, reports quarterly results on Wednesday and may face questions on the value of its holdings.)
From an accounting perspective, then, holding on to crypto can only ever be a neutral or losing proposition.
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General Motors plans to hire more than 8,000 engineers and other highly specialized workers this year as part of a push to transform the company from an old-line manufacturer into a software and high-tech innovator.
The company said Wednesday that it had started the hiring and was looking for engineers with expertise in fuel cells, battery technology, vision systems, robotics and materials science. It is also looking for software developers and computer scientists as well as electrical, mechanical and manufacturing engineers.
“Our commitment to hiring 8,000 tech employees in 2022 is an exciting sign of G.M.’s momentum, our quest to innovate technology with impact and our focus on helping people find their purpose in the workplace,” Jessika Lora, G.M.’s director of global innovation, said in a statement.
G.M. will need legions of technical workers to develop the electric and self-driving vehicles — along with new software and services — that it sees as the foundation for a rapid expansion over the next decade. In October, G.M. said it aimed to roughly double its annual revenue by 2030, to about $280 billion, with much of the growth coming from electric vehicles, driverless ride-hailing services, new insurance products and an expansion of its military contracting.
Other traditional automakers are on similar hiring sprees. Ford Motor, Volkswagen, Toyota and others have each hired thousands of software developers and other computer specialists over the last several years.
These efforts are partly aimed at catching up with Tesla, which developed a central software architecture for its electric cars. This approach has given Tesla several competitive advantages, like the ability to add features and modify its cars through the kind of over-the-air updates consumers typically get for their smartphones.
Traditional automakers also have to compete with start-ups and other tech companies to attract younger workers.
G.M. said it hired 10,000 salaried employees in 2021, a third of them in software development. A portion of those new hires replaced workers who had retired. A third of the people G.M. hired last year were women, and 42 percent belonged to minority groups. The company said it intended to increase those percentages in its 2022 hiring.
“We strive to make General Motors the world’s most inclusive company, and a destination for top talent in all functions and areas of our business,” said Mary T. Barra, G.M.’s chief executive.
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Barbie and Elsa are buddies again.
On Wednesday, Mattel announced that it had won back the license to produce dolls and toys based on the Walt Disney Company’s popular ice princesses Elsa and Anna from the “Frozen” movie franchise. The deal also brings other Disney characters who cause young children to squeal in delight — like Cinderella, Ariel and Moana — back into the house that Barbie built.
After years of making the Disney dolls that brought in hundreds of millions of dollars each year, Mattel lost the license in 2016 to its chief rival, Hasbro. That loss badly hobbled Mattel, creating a giant hole in its business and leading to a merry-go-round of top executives over a four-year period.
Mattel’s stock jumped 9 percent on the news to $21.44, while Hasbro’s stock slipped 1.5 percent to $94.10.
“We are incredibly proud to welcome back the Disney Princess and ‘Frozen’ lines to Mattel,” Richard Dickson, president and chief operating officer of Mattel, said in a statement. Financial terms of the deal were not announced, and the company said the new dolls and figures would hit retailers’ shelves at the beginning of 2023.
Since being named Mattel’s chief executive in 2018, Ynon Kreiz, a former entertainment and media-distribution head, has worked feverishly to shore up Mattel’s finances by slashing expenses, laying off employees and closing or selling factories. He has also aimed to raise interest among children by rolling out a number of films featuring its toys, games and figures.
Among the prominent film projects in the works are “Barbie,” a live-action adventure starring Margot Robbie (“I, Tonya”) and directed by the Oscar-nominated Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”); a live-action movie featuring Hot Wheels cars; and a Thomas the Tank Engine movie that will combine animation and live action.
Mr. Kreiz’s ambition has been to use Mattel’s vast catalog of intellectual property to become more like Marvel Entertainment, a comic book company that morphed into a Hollywood giant.
“In the mid- to long-term, we must become a player in film, television, digital gaming, live events, consumer products, music and digital media,” Mr. Kreiz told The New York Times in July.
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After World War II, corporations moved to exclusive gated suburban campuses to escape traffic, crowds and big-city clamor. Now companies are designing a little city hubbub back into suburban headquarters by adding shops, restaurants, hotels, residences and public parks.
The change in the concept of the corporate campus reflects two related trends that executives say appear to be unaffected by the pandemic. The first is the public and private investment in communities across the country that is making suburbs more dense, walkable, bike-friendly and less dependent on cars. The second is the competition to attract the brightest young employees who want to live and work in lively places, Keith Schneider reports for The New York Times.
“It’s urbanization of the suburban experience,” said Alex Krieger, professor of urban design at Harvard and a principal at NBBJ, an architecture and planning firm in Boston. “Companies are bringing some of the characteristics of the city to their suburban campuses.”
One prominent example is in Tysons, Va., a Washington suburb where Capital One has expanded its 24-acre campus with a theater, a Wegmans supermarket, a 300-room hotel and a rooftop park, all for corporate and public use. Across the street, a 30-story office building under construction will include ground-floor retail and restaurant space.
Other examples are appearing across the country:
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Walmart is building a 350-acre headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., that includes 2.4 million square feet of office space, a hotel, a food truck plaza, a walking and biking trail and retail shops open to visitors.
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In 2018, JPMorgan Chase opened a regional headquarters in a $3 billion mixed-use development in Plano, Texas, called Legacy West, which has apartments, stores, restaurants and hotels.
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Microsoft spent $149.5 million last year to buy 90 acres on the western edge of Atlanta to build a regional headquarters.
Such concerns are a sharp departure from the expansive, private, single-use suburban headquarters built in the 20th century that featured large parking lots and typically included cafeterias. READ THE FULL ARTICLE →
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A judge in Santa Clara County has granted Apple a temporary restraining order against a woman accused of stalking and threatening the company’s chief executive, Tim Cook. In court documents filed last week, Apple accused the woman, a 45-year-old Virginia resident, of making increasingly alarming threats and statements toward Mr. Cook over email and Twitter since late 2020. She also claimed that she was in a romantic relationship with him and that he was the father of her twin children, according to the documents.
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Microsoft announced record profit and sales on Tuesday despite investor fears that the pandemic-fueled tech boom may be over. The first of the largest tech companies to report earnings for the three months ending in December, Microsoft said it had $51.7 billion in sales, up 20 percent from a year earlier, and profit rose 21 percent to $18.8 billion. The company saw particularly strong growth in its cloud services while locking up long-term customer deals. READ THE ARTICLE →
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The inflation rate in Britain is at its highest in 30 years, and isn’t expected to peak for several more months. Two-thirds of adults have said their cost of living has increased in the past month, according to the Office for National Statistics. Household budgets are facing a squeeze that is only likely to get worse when energy bills jump and tax increases are introduced in the spring.
The New York Times would like to speak to people in Britain facing tighter financial conditions. Have you noticed price increases already and cut back on spending, in ways big or small? Are you planning to change your spending habits in anticipation of higher energy bills and taxes in the spring?
Please answer the questions below. A Times reporter or editor may contact you to hear more.
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Today in the On Tech newsletter, Shira Ovide writes that creators who want to make a living online say the fees are too high.
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In a defeat for the European Union’s tech antitrust efforts, a top court on Wednesday threw out a $1.2 billion fine issued against Intel more than a decade ago over practices to undercut a rival in the semiconductor industry.
The court said the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s main antitrust regulator, made key mistakes about the competitive impact of Intel’s behavior when determining the chip maker had violated antitrust laws in 2009. Intel had been charged with paying illegal rebates to companies that used its semiconductors over rival Advanced Micro Devices.
The decision by the E.U. General Court in Luxembourg can be appealed, though the commission said it needed time to review the judgment.
The ruling shows how efforts by European regulators to crack down on the world’s largest tech companies can be undercut by the courts. In 2020, Apple won an appeal of an order to repay 13 billion euros in taxes to Ireland, worth about $14.7 billion today. A higher court will hear another appeal of that case.
The courts will also decide the fate of more than $9 billion in fines against Google related to unfair business practices in the company’s shopping, mobile phone and advertising businesses. Antitrust investigations are also underway against Amazon, Apple and Meta, the new company name for Facebook. And the European Union is drafting new antitrust laws that would expand the commission’s power to go after the tech giants.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/26/business/fed-rate-decision-stocks-inflation/stock-market-today
