China's Alibaba strives to keep New York listing amid audit dispute - Reuters.com

The logo Alibaba Group for is seen on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., Aug. 3, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo

Aug 1 (Reuters) - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (9988.HK) on Monday said it would work to maintain its New York Stock Exchange listing alongside its Hong Kong listing after the Chinese e-commerce giant was placed on a delisting watchlist by U.S authorities.

Alibaba stock was down 4.5% in a near-flat Hong Kong market (.HSI) in early trade, following its 11.1% decline in New York on Friday.

The company on Friday became the latest of more than 270 firms to be added to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's list of Chinese companies that might be delisted for not meeting auditing requirements. read more

The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA) is intended to address a long-running dispute over the auditing compliance of U.S.-listed Chinese firms.

It aims to remove foreign companies from U.S. exchanges if they fail to comply with American auditing standards for three consecutive years.

Alibaba on Monday said being added to list meant it was now considered to be in its first 'non inspection' year.

"Alibaba will continue to monitor market developments, comply with applicable laws and regulations and strive to maintain its listing status on both the NYSE and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange," it said in a statement to the Hong Kong bourse.

U.S. regulators have been demanding complete access to audit working papers of New York-listed Chinese companies, which are stored in China.

Beijing bars foreign inspection of working papers from local accounting firms.

The U.S. rules give Chinese companies until early 2024 to comply with auditing requirements, though Congress is weighing bipartisan legislation that could accelerate the deadline to 2023.

China has said both sides are committed to reaching a deal to solve the audit dispute.

Alibaba said last week it planned to apply to convert its Hong Kong secondary listing to a dual primary listing which would make it easier for mainland Chinese investors to buy its shares. read more

A dual listing would allow Alibaba to apply for admission to Stock Connect, the scheme connecting Hong Kong and mainland exchanges. Analysts estimated there could be $21 billion worth of inflows from mainland investors into Alibaba stock through Stock Connect.

Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics

Alibaba's Hong Kong-listed shares have fallen 49% from HK$176 at the time of its secondary listing in November 2019 to HK$90.15 on Monday. In New York its shares were listed in 2014 at $68 each and are trading at $89.37.

Both sets of listed shares are down nearly 25% so far this year as the company battles the delisting threat, ongoing Chinese tech regulation and the prospect of its founder Jack Ma ceding control of the firm's affiliate Ant Group.

Analysts at Jefferies described Alibaba's share price drop as a "knee-jerk reaction" to the news of a potential delisting, and added that the 2024 deadline for Chinese American Depository Receipt delisting gives China adequate time to resolve its audit issues.

"China is serious about wanting to resolve the audit issues with the U.S., and talks will continue," they wrote.

Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Hong Kong and Josh Horwitz in Shanghai; Editing by Christopher Cushing

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Banks Are Making Big Profits as Saving Accounts Pay Small Interest - Bloomberg

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Banks Are Making Big Profits as Saving Accounts Pay Small Interest  BloombergView Full Coverage on Google News
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Air Canada revoked a worker's flying privileges after her daughter complained about poor service - Yahoo News

• Air Canada revoked an employee's flying privileges after her daughter complained.

• The woman was upset that her mother was being punished for an issue between her and Air Canada.

• The airline said the employee broke its code by allowing a family member to file a grievance.

Air Canada revoked an employee's flying privileges after her daughter complained about her treatment trying to board a flight.

The woman, who did not wish to be named, told Insider that she filed a complaint with the airline after what she deemed to be poor customer service by gate staff. She had bought a ticket using flying privileges given to her by her mother.

The woman emailed senior officials at the airline and copied in media outlets, which appeared to prompt the airline to retaliate by revoking her mother's flying privileges for two years.

An email sent to the employee suggested her daughter had misrepresented herself as a revenue-generating customer.

Her 62-year-old mother, who is an administrator, also was then disciplined by the airline and issued with the same punishment.

An email seen by Insider shows a senior official telling the employee that she would not be allowed to fly standby for two years.

"I had a really like sickening feeling when my mother told me what they did to her," the woman said. "It's one thing for me to be reprimanded, but it's totally different for my actions impacting my mom."

Stand-by tickets allow airline employees to fly anywhere for a fraction of the normal cost and are one attraction of working for a long-established carrier such as Air Canada.

The woman told Insider that stand-by privileges were the main reason her mother, who is close to retirement, took the job. She is now worried she will lose her job if the situation escalates.

The woman said her mother went to her union, but was told there was nothing they could do, and suggested she apologize to try to reduce her penalty.

In a statement to Insider, Air Canada said: "We deal with our employees directly on internal matters. However, we can confirm employee travel is a special privilege and a unique and generous perk of working for an airline that comes with responsibilities which the overwhelming majority of employees and families understand and value.

"We take feedback about our services seriously. In fact, we undertook an investigation into the complaint lodged, and subsequently found facts which did not align with what was presented." The airline did not elaborate further.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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Elon Musk countersues Twitter - Teslarati

By Johnna Crider

Posted on July 30, 2022

After being sued by Twitter, Elon Musk responded with his own countersuit in his legal fight against the social media network.

Twitter decided to sue Elon Musk and both will go to court in October to resolve the $44 billion deal. Earlier this year, Twitter accepted the Tesla CEO’s offer to buy the platform.

Although Elon Musk had promised not to back out of the deal, this was well before he realized that something was up with Twitter’s claims that its spam and fake accounts represent fewer than 5% of its users.

He placed the acquisition on hold and then later made it clear that he would back out of the deal if Twitter wouldn’t accurately portray the number of spam, fake, and bot accounts using its platform.

Twitter sued Elon Musk, and now Elon Musk is countersuing Twitter.

Elon Musk countersues Twitter

Reuters reported that Elon Musk countersued Twitter on Friday adding that the 164-page document was not publicly available.

The lawsuit was filed a few hours after Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery ordered an October 17th trial.

Luigi Crispo, a Twitter shareholder with 5,500 shares in the company, also sued Elon Musk on Friday. Crispo wants the court to order Elon Musk to close the Twitter deal and to find that he breached his fiduciary duty to Twitter shareholders.

He also wants the court to award damages for losses. According to Reuters, Elon Musk owes a fiduciary duty to Twitter’s shareholders due to his 9.6% stake in Twitter. And also because the takeover agreement enables ElonMusk to veto many of Twitter’s decisions.

The Silver lining

Although there really isn’t much of a silver lining for Twitter or Elon. Lawsuits are not an ideal source of joy for many parties involved in them–at least, I wouldn’t think they are.

However, I feel as if the lawsuit is bringing some of the issues many people on Twitter are dealing with to the forefront. Such as shadow banning.

This happened to a few people (including Teslarati!) on Twitter. In many cases, a user will tweet but that tweet will not show up in searches.

And if they reply to a tweet or like that tweet, Twitter hides it. In my tweet below, I shared a thread filled with screenshots and video evidence of this happening to Teslarati.

🤔

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 18, 2022

Twitter has four types of bans:

1. Search suggestion ban.
2. Search ban.
3. Ghost ban.
4. Reply deboosting.

Fortunately, the ban on Teslarati is lifted, although for a while there, there was a back and forth for a couple of days after Elon had replied to my tweet.

It shouldn’t have to take a response from Elon Musk for Twitter to remove bans on real accounts. That’s not fair to Elon Musk or the users who are being silenced by Twitter.

I’ve also noticed that there have been fewer bots since the lawsuit has begun. However, I’ve noticed that there have been fewer engagements and I am not the only one noticing this.

Whether or not these are directly or indirectly caused by the ongoing legal saga, no one knows. But we are noticing.

Yes 100%- also noticing less spam bots impersonating you.

— Zack (@BLKMDL3) July 30, 2022

One thing we can count on is for this lawsuit to reveal a lot.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, or concerns, see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @JohnnaCrider1

Elon Musk countersues Twitter

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Hershey warns it won’t ‘fully meet consumer demand’ this Halloween, Christmas - Fox Business

Check out what's clicking on FoxBusiness.com.

Hershey Co. warns of an upcoming Halloween horror, announcing on Thursday that it would fall short of meeting demand for this year's trick-or-treat and Christmas holiday seasons. 

Like many manufacturers, Hershey has been hit by supply chain issues and the war in Ukraine, making ingredients like cocoa, edible oil and other food ingredients hard to find. 

"Seasonal consumer engagement is expected to remain high, and we expect high single digit sales growth for both our Halloween and holiday seasons," said CEO Michele Buck in the company’s second-quarter earnings call this week. "Despite this strong growth, we will not be able to fully meet consumer demand due to capacity constraints." 

HOME DEPOT'S 12-FOOT $300 SKELETON IS BACK IN STOCK FOR HALLOWEEN

Hershey Co. brand Halloween candy is displayed for a photograph inside a pumpkin themed treat bucket. | Getty Images

Hershey Chief Executive Officer Michele Buck said those issues, along with the company's focus on meeting demand during non-holiday periods, would lead to a likely shortage during Halloween, but added that sales will still top last year.

The period around the Halloween holiday in October is Hershey's busiest time of the year, making up about 10% of the company’s annual sales, as kids and their parents stock up on Twizzlers, Jolly Ranchers and Kit Kat bars.

VAMPIRE SLAYING KIT SELLS FOR $15K AT AUCTION

Still, shares of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup maker rose 2.5% in morning trading after the company lifted its profit and sales forecasts, benefiting from price hikes amid resilient demand for its chocolates and candies.

Hershey's net sales rose over 19% to $2.37 billion in the quarter ended July 3, beating analysts' estimates of $2.22 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

While Hershey expects more consumer pushback over higher prices in the second half of the year, the company is relying on price increases to boost growth.

A child holds a Mars Inc. brand Snickers bar and a Hershey Co. brand milk chocolate bar. | Getty Images

The 128-year-old company raised its 2022 adjusted profit per share growth forecast to 12% to 14%, from 10% to 12%. Hershey also said it now expects net sales to grow between 12% and 14%, compared with 10% to 12% estimated earlier.

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"Historically, Hershey's sales growth has been driven by higher prices and not necessarily volume ... The company is entering this period from a position of strength with that expertise," CFRA Research analyst Arun Sundaram said

Hershey Co. did not immediately reply to Fox News' request for comment.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Banana Boat sunscreen recalled due to cancer-causing chemical - New York Post

Banana Boat is recalling three batches of its “hair and scalp” sunscreen after tests found that the product contains trace amounts of cancer-causing chemical benzene, the manufacturer said in an announcement submitted to the Federal Drug Administration.

Exposure to benzene through skin contact, inhalation and by mouth has been linked to cancer such as leukemia, Fox Business reported.

The Shelton, Connecticut-based company claimed in the Friday release that it “has not received any adverse events related to this recall” and that “daily exposure to benzene in the recalled products would not be expected to cause adverse health consequences.”

The recalled products have expiration dates of December 2022, February 2023 and April 2024, the company said. Banana Boat said it will also offer reimbursement to consumers who bought the recalled products.

The FDA assured that the levels found in the defective sunscreen “would not be expected to cause adverse heath consequences.” 

Edgewell Personal Care/FDA

No other batches made before or after those expiration dates listed were affected, according to the FDA release, and no other Banana Boat sunscreen is subject to the recall. 

The FDA recommends that buyers of Banana Boat’s Hair and Scalp sunscreen should “stop using the affected product immediately and appropriately discard.”

Consumers with questions regarding the recall can contact Edgewell Personal Care at 1-888-686-3988 or visit www.bananaboat.com for more information. Banana Boat also announced that they are offering reimbursement for consumers who have purchased a product marked with one of the lot of codes, which is on the bottom of the cans. 

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Rising mortgage rates forcing buyers out of the market - KHOU 11

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Raising Cane's CEO purchases additional $100,000 worth of lottery tickets for employees - Fox Business

Raising Cane's CEO AJ Kumaran shares why he bought 50,000 lottery tickets for all his employees as the Mega Millions jackpot hits $810 million

The Mega Millions jackpot has risen once again, now topping $1 billion dollars. On Tuesday, Raising Cane's CEO AJ Kurmaran told "Fox & Friends" that the company purchased 50,000 lottery tickets for each employee in the company, but they didn't stop there. On Friday, Fortune reported that the company got another $100,000 worth of lottery tickets ahead of Friday's drawing. 

On Tuesday, the lottery numbers were up to $830 million, but there was no winner, growing the Mega Millions jackpot to $1.02 billion. 

During the company’s first round of ticket purchases, Kurmaran told "Fox & Friends" "it's not a joke.

"We've been around for 25 years now. We've always believed in staying together as a family, taking care of each other, everything." 

The lottery jackpot has topped $1 billion and Raising Canes plans on splitting the winnings amongst their 50,000 employees.  (Nam Y. Huh  / AP Newsroom)

Raising Cane's founder and former CEO Todd Graves paid for the first and second round of tickets. Kurmaran said that if they were to win the money, it would be split amongst all of their employees. When they bought the first 50,000 tickets, they had to go to multiple banks for cash and visited two different 7-Elevens to get them all printed. Kurmaran told "Fox & Friends" this process took seven to eight hours.

These billion dollar lottery numbers mark the third time in Mega Millions history the winnings have been this high. The highest jackpot was back in 2018 when it hit $1.537 billion and was won in South Carolina. The lottery drawings take place at WSB-TV studios in Atlanta, Georgia on Tuesday and Friday at 11 p.m. ET. 

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Mortgage rates fall sharply after negative GDP report and Fed's latest hike - CNBC

Just one day after the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate, mortgage rates took a sharp turn lower.

The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 5.22% on Thursday from 5.54% on Wednesday, when the Fed announced its latest rate hike, according to Mortgage News Daily. The rate fell even further Friday to 5.13%.

Rates hadn't moved much in the days leading up to the Fed meeting earlier this week, but they had been slowly coming off their most recent high in mid-June, when the 30-year fixed briefly crossed 6%.

A sign is posted in front of a home for sale on July 14, 2022 in San Francisco, California. The number of homes for sale in the U.S. increased by 2 percent in June for the first time since 2019.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

The drop Thursday also came on the heels of the Bureau of Economic Analysis' gross domestic product report, which showed the U.S. economy contracted for the second straight quarter. That is a widely accepted signal of recession. GDP fell 0.9% at an annualized pace for the period, according to the advance estimate. Economists polled by Dow Jones had expected growth of 0.3%.

After the news, investors rushed to the relative safety of the bond market, causing yields to fall. Mortgage rates loosely follow the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond.

Read more real estate coverage

Pending home sales fell 20% in June versus a year earlier as mortgage rates soared

Homebuilders are boosting incentives as they suddenly struggle to sell homes

"This is an exceptionally fast drop!" wrote Matthew Graham, COO of Mortgage News Daily. "Perhaps even more interesting (and uncommon) is the fact that mortgage rates have dropped faster than U.S. Treasury yields. It's typically the other way around as investors flock first to the most basic, risk-free bonds."

Graham said the big picture shift in rates over the past month has created a situation where investors greatly prefer to be holding mortgage debt with lower rates. 

"In a way, mortgage investors are trying to get ahead of the game. If they're holding mortgages at a higher rate, they will lose money if those loans refinance too quickly," he added.

The question now is whether the market is in a new range, and rates will settle where they are now.

"If rates reverse course, volatility could be just as big going in the other direction," Graham warned. He also noted that mortgage rates could move even lower if economic data continues to be gloomy and inflation moderates.

Already, lower rates appear to be having a slight impact on potential homebuyers. Real estate brokerage Redfin just reported seeing a slight uptick in searches and home tours in the past month, as rates came off their recent highs.

"The housing market seems to be settling into an equilibrium now that demand has leveled off," Redfin's chief economist, Daryl Fairweather, said in a release. "We may still be in for some surprises when it comes to inflation and rate hikes from the Fed, but for now an ease in mortgage rates has brought some relief to buyers who were reeling from last month's rate spike."

The increase in buyer interest, however, has not translated into new contracts, nor sales. The supply of homes for sale is increasing slowly, and there are reports of more sellers dropping their asking prices.

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Reality Labs lost Meta $2.8bn in the last three months - Eurogamer.net

Meta has released its quarterly financial results, giving insight into its recent decision to increase the price of its Meta Quest 2 headset.

Reality Labs, the division of Meta which works on its virtual reality and metaverse products, posted a net $2.8bn loss over the last three months.

Revenue during this period saw a 48 percent increase to $452m, which CFO Dave Wehner attributed to sales of Meta Quest 2 during Meta's earnings call with investors, but this was heavily outweighed by the costs and investments Meta is putting into Reality Labs.

Eurogamer Newscast: What do Rockstar's changes really mean for GTA6 and the games industry?

In the earnings call, the newly announced price hike of Meta Quest 2 units was seemingly confirmed to have been put in action in an attempt to mitigate losses of Reality Labs by Wehner.

"Cost of revenue decreased 4 percent, as growth in core infrastructure investments and content-related costs were more than offset by a reduction in Reality Labs loss reserves as a result of the announced price increase of Quest 2."

Wehner informed investors that Meta expects Reality Labs to make an even bigger loss over the next three months due to plans to increase investment in virtual reality and the metaverse.

In Meta's follow-up call with investors, Wehner repeatedly reiterated Meta's dedication to Reality Labs.

"This is obviously an area that is on our priority list. And so, we do plan on continuing to invest in Reality Labs… And in terms of our expense growth from 2021 to 2022, the bulk -the largest component of the expense growth is Family of Apps, but we do think that Reality Labs will continue to be an investment area for us."

Meta previously cited rising production and shipping costs as the factor behind the £100 / $100 price increase for Quest 2 but it sounds like this will do little to offset the losses predicted as the company continues to invest in the metaverse.

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The Proposed EV Tax Credit Extension Has Some Caveats - Jalopnik

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1. The Proposed EV Tax Credit Extension Has Some Caveats  Jalopnik
2. EV tax credits are back — and bigger — in new Senate climate bill  The Verge
3. Senate expands tax credit for EV drivers  Yahoo Finance
4. Why Tesla, Nikola, and Lordstown Motors Stocks Are Rising Today  The Motley Fool
5. Could new Federal EV tax credit crater EV sales until end of the year?  Electrek
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The Proposed EV Tax Credit Extension Has Some Caveats - Jalopnik
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Amazon Stock Jumps After Hours on Quarterly Sales Increase, Revenue Outlook - The Wall Street Journal

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1. Amazon Stock Jumps After Hours on Quarterly Sales Increase, Revenue Outlook  The Wall Street Journal
2. Amazon jumps on revenue beat and rosy guidance for third quarter  CNBC
3. Amazon earnings miss, revenue beats  CNBC Television
4. US tech titans stumble after pandemic boom  Economic Times
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Amazon Stock Jumps After Hours on Quarterly Sales Increase, Revenue Outlook - The Wall Street Journal
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Pfizer quarterly sales surge to record high, driven by Covid vaccine and antiviral treatment Paxlovid - CNBC

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) treatment pill Paxlovid is seen in boxes, at Misericordia hospital in Grosseto, Italy, February 8, 2022.

Jennifer Lorenzini | Reuters

Pfizer's second-quarter revenue and profit beat Wall Street expectations, driven by sales of its Covid-19 vaccine and its antiviral treatment Paxlovid.

Pfizer booked $27.7 billion in revenue, a 47% increase over the same period last year and its largest quarterly sales on record. The pharmaceutical company reported $9.9 billion in net income, a 78% increase over the second quarter of 2021.

Here's how the company performed compared with what Wall Street expected for the second quarter, based on analysts' average estimates compiled by Refinitiv:

• Adjusted EPS: $2.04 per share, vs $1.78 expected
• Revenues: $27.7 billion, vs. $25.7 billion

Pfizer's Covid vaccine brought in $8.8 billion in revenue for the second quarter, while sales of Paxlovid totaled $8.1 billion. The company maintained its 2022 sales guidance for the vaccine of $32 billion and is still expecting $22 billion for Paxlovid.

Pfizer also largely reiterated its overall 2022 revenue and earnings guidance. Pfizer is expecting $98 billion to $102 billion in sales this year and earnings per share of $6.30 to $6.45. The company raised the lower end of its earnings guidance by 5 cents.

Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech inked a $3.2 billion deal in June to provide 105 million vaccine doses to the U.S. government ahead of an expected fall vaccination campaign. The order may include updated shots that target omicron and its subvariants. The U.S. has the option to purchase another 195 million doses.

The companies said delivery of the shots could begin as soon as late summer with shipments continuing through the fourth quarter.

The Food and Drug Administration has told the vaccine makers to start developing shots that target the omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, which are now dominant in the U.S. BA.4 and BA.5 have caused a wave of summer infection because they are more transmissible than past variants.

Public health officials are worried that the U.S. will face a major wave of Covid infection this fall as immunity from the vaccines wanes and people head indoors to escape the colder weather. Scientists and health officials hope that updated shots that also target omicron will provide more durable protection this fall.

CNBC Health & Science

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Fed Watchers Say Markets Got It All Wrong on Powell 'Pivot' - Bloomberg

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

1. Fed Watchers Say Markets Got It All Wrong on Powell 'Pivot'  Bloomberg
2. Surprise? How the stock market has reacted on day of each Fed rate hike in 2022  MarketWatch
3. The Fed is bushwhacking through uncharted territory  CNN
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Fed Watchers Say Markets Got It All Wrong on Powell 'Pivot' - Bloomberg
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JetBlue, Spirit near takeover deal that could come on Thursday-source - Reuters

July 28 (Reuters) - JetBlue Airways Corp (JBLU.O) is nearing a deal to buy Spirit Airlines (SAVE.N) that could be announced as soon as Thursday, a source familiar with the matter said, after Spirit canceled its $2.7 billion sale to Frontier Group Holdings (ULCC.O).

The latest developments mark a victory for JetBlue in its months-long battle for the ultra-low-cost carrier, though the potential combination is expected to kick off a fight with antitrust regulators, who have already sued to block JetBlue's alliance with American Airlines (AAL.O).

A combination of JetBlue and Spirit would create the fifth-largest U.S. airline and be the most consequential U.S. airline industry merger since Alaska Air Group (ALK.N) bought Virgin America Inc for $2.6 billion in 2016.

JetBlue is offering terms similar to what it had proposed earlier, the source said. In June, JetBlue had offered $33.50 per share for Spirit, or roughly $3.7 billion, and a breakup fee of $400 million.

It will also keep its Northeast Alliance (NEA) partnership with American but is expected to announce minor route divestitures to ease antitrust concerns, according to the source.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the potential agreement between JetBlue and Spirit.

Both JetBlue and Spirit did not respond to Reuters requests for comment outside regular business hours.

The source spoke on condition that they are not identified ahead of an official announcement of the agreement.

Earlier on Wednesday, Spirit canceled its sale to Frontier after failing to convince shareholders about its merits.

That development, first reported by Reuters, came after Spirit pushed back a shareholder vote on the Frontier deal four times, hoping it could muster enough support. Spirit had earlier argued that antitrust regulators were unlikely to clear JetBlue's $3.7 billion bid.

The outcome was a setback for Frontier and its chairman Bill Franke, who was instrumental in kicking off talks between the sides last year. Franke's airline-focused buyout firm, Indigo Partners, is a major shareholder in Frontier.

"While we are disappointed that Spirit Airlines shareholders failed to recognize the value and consumer potential inherent in our proposed combination, the Frontier board took a disciplined approach," Franke said in a statement.

JetBlue sees Spirit as an opportunity to expand its domestic footprint at a time when the U.S. airline industry is dogged by labor and aircraft shortages.

"We are pleased that the merger agreement with Frontier has been terminated and we are engaged in ongoing discussions with Spirit toward a consensual agreement as soon as possible," JetBlue said in a statement.

ANTITRUST RISK

But Spirit also could choose to remain independent.

The airline has expressed concern about JetBlue's partnership with American. The U.S. Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against American and JetBlue in September seeking to end the alliance, saying it would lead to higher fares in busy airports in the U.S. Northeast.

JetBlue has refused to pull out of the alliance and instead offered sweeteners like a higher breakup fee and route divestments.

Frontier shares rose 6.4% to close at $11.27 on Wednesday as investors expressed relief that the company exited what had become a bidding war for Spirit. Spirit shares rose 4% to $24.30, while JetBlue shares rose 3.6% to $8.35.

With the end of the proposed Spirit-Frontier tie-up, Spirit will pay Frontier $25 million for merger-related costs that it incurred. As per the terms of the deal, Spirit would owe Frontier an additional $69 million if it ends up striking a merger deal with JetBlue or any other competitor within the next 12 months.

“Now that Spirit Airlines has terminated the Frontier merger agreement, we hope that Frontier management will put aside its merger distraction and invest the same amount of resources and focus to improving conditions at their own airline," said the Frontier pilots' union, which is a subset of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA).

Reporting by Anirban Sen and Greg Roumeliotis in New York, additional reporting by David Shepardson, Juby Babu in Bengaluru Editing by David Gregorio and Muralikumar Anantharaman

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Facebook lawsuit delivers on FTC chair Lina Khan's progressive agenda - CNBC

In this article

• META

FTC Commissioner nominee Lina M. Khan testifies during a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, April 21, 2021.

Graeme Jennings | AFP | Getty Images

Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan's lofty vision of bringing challenging cases to expand the bounds of antitrust enforcement is no longer just talk.

That's the message sent with the agency's new lawsuit seeking to block Facebook-owner Meta's acquisition of virtual reality fitness app maker Within Unlimited. The complaint, filed Wednesday, alleges Meta is trying to buy dominance in an emerging market at the expense of creating greater competition and innovation that would otherwise benefit consumers. A Meta spokesperson said in a statement the case is not backed by evidence and the company is "confident" the acquisition will benefit the space and consumers.

"In the area of merger enforcement, this is the most important case that either of the agencies has brought so far," said William Kovacic, a former FTC commissioner who now teaches competition law at George Washington University.

"This is exactly the kind of case they'd been promising," Kovacic added.

Risky cases that expand antitrust law

Until now, the major tech cases carried out by the FTC and Antitrust Division have been inherited from the Trump administration: the Facebook and Google monopolization cases, respectively.

The FTC's new merger case against Meta represents a major milestone under Khan's stewardship, just a couple months after she finally got a fifth tie-breaker vote with the confirmation of Democratic Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya.

Both Khan and her counterpart at the Department of Justice Antitrust Division Jonathan Kanter have said it's important to bring risky cases to at least have a shot at expanding antitrust law at the edges. That strategy looks even more important for progressive enforcers now that it's increasingly unclear if a key tech antitrust bill will receive a vote before Congress' August recess.

Khan described her philosophy behind risky lawsuits in a January interview with CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin and contributor Kara Swisher.

"Even if it's not a slam dunk case, even if there is a risk you might lose, there can be ... enormous benefits from taking that risk," Khan said. "I think what we can see is that inaction after inaction after inaction can have severe costs. And that's what we're really trying to reverse."

Khan also said in her September memo to agency staff that the FTC should be "forward-looking" in its enforcement and pay special attention to "next-generation technologies, innovations, and nascent industries across sectors."

Facebook has made a number of strategic acquisitions as it grew, most notably buying photo social network Instagram and private messaging app WhatApp for $19 billion in 2014. Some antitrust advocates believe the FTC at that time let the company off the hook during its reviews of those mergers, allowing Facebook to buy nascent rivals without obstruction.

The FTC now alleges in a separate lawsuit, first brought under Khan's predecessor, that Facebook actually used those acquisitions to grow its monopoly by eating up potential rivals.

But while some of the circumstances may be similar, Kovacic noted that the FTC's Meta-Within merger complaint does have unique features that could make its case more challenging to prove. For example, he said, this deal is an example of a vertical merger, where Meta would be using the acquisition to add a complementary feature.

"The theory in Instagram was more that Instagram was a real threat to become a direct rival as a social network," he said.

The Within case is "deliberately experimental," he added.

He suspects there will be more risky cases to come from the enforcement agencies.

"I sense that this is the first of a series of cases that are designed very consciously to test the boundaries of doctrine," Kovacic said. "I have to think there are others in the pipeline. But it's a big step."

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Rocked by fears of inflation and recession, White House tries to hold steady - Yahoo News

WASHINGTON — For months, the White House has been arguing that it has inflation under control, that rising prices for gasoline, groceries and other goods are painful but temporary. That argument has recently been complicated by fears of a recession, one that could be brought about by measures — namely, higher interest rates — intended to control inflation.

There is little doubt that when the Commerce Department releases gross domestic product figures for the second quarter of the current fiscal year on Thursday, they will show two straight quarters of economic contraction, thus meeting at least one somewhat narrow but accepted definition of a recession.

The White House rejects that definition, projecting confidence in the face of a potential recession, even though similar confidence about the prospects of inflation in early 2021 came back to haunt the administration this year.

Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, at the daily White House press briefing on Tuesday. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

“We’re not going to be in a recession. My hope is we go from this rapid growth to a steady growth,” President Biden said Monday. Other officials have used the analogy of a runner slowing from a torrid pace in the early portion of a race to a more consistent and sustainable speed intended for the many miles ahead.

Though administration officials concede that their ability to control global forces is limited — a reality that every president confronts — they believe that the American economy is equipped to withstand the ongoing shock of inflation coupled with whatever unwelcome surprises a slowing economy might bring. “The totality of the economic data,” National Economic Council head Brian Deese said at a Tuesday briefing at the White House, “is not consistent with a recession.”

The question of whether the economy is heading into a recession is partly academic, since there is no consensus about exactly when that line has been crossed. “This would be what I call a ‘soft recession,’” says Stephen Moore, a former top Trump administration economist currently at the Heritage Foundation. In a telephone interview with Yahoo News, Moore rejected the harshly anti-Biden narrative proffered by some other conservatives, even as he faulted the White House for not doing enough to stop inflation.

“This really is a tough economy to figure out,” he says.

Economics is a science based in large part on the expectations of ordinary people, which are not always rational or predictable. In the last two years, Americans have faced business closures and have been sent relief checks; they have encountered supply chain shortages and pleas from employers desperate to hire. The year began with Russia invading Ukraine, which further destabilized global markets, in particular when it comes to energy and food.

Meat prices in Los Angeles in June reflect rising inflation. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

For all that, the American economy has chugged along, rocked to and fro but never coming close to truly flying off the rails.

“I’m taking a lot of signals from the health and strength of the U.S. labor market,” T. Rowe Price economist Blerina Uruci said in a Bloomberg Surveillance interview earlier this month, pointing to job gains of 375,000 per month for the current fiscal year quarter. “The labor market will matter a lot for the outlook of the U.S. consumer and their confidence to continue spending in the coming quarters. So from that, I think the doom and gloom on recession is a little bit exaggerated at the moment.”

The doom and gloom has been driven by a number of factors, including the most consequential pandemic since the 1918 influenza (which actually killed fewer Americans) and the first major land war in Europe since the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. Then there are the lockdowns in China and devastating wildfires, not to mention political divisions that not only paralyze Congress but also turn every economic development into a potential culture war battle to be played out on cable news.

“There is an unusual amount of uncertainty right now,” says Jason Furman, a former top economist in the Obama administration who has sometimes criticized the Biden administration for its economic policies. Furman told Yahoo News that he believes inflation remains the greater danger, despite the recent attention devoted to an economic slowdown.

“I think the U.S. is actually in better shape than, for example, Europe.” he says. Dependence on Russian energy, in particular, could pose a problem for countries like France and Germany in the coming months. “If the world slips into recession, perhaps the last country to slip into it will be the United States,” Furman surmised.

President Biden during a virtual meeting with his economic team on July 22. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)

Globally, a recession looks inevitable. In a blog post published Tuesday, chief International Monetary Fund economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas offered an exceptionally pessimistic vision of the near future. “The outlook has darkened significantly since April,” he wrote. “The world may soon be teetering on the edge of a global recession, only two years after the last one.”

The White House argues that American households, despite whatever happens elsewhere, are on the whole equipped to weather any shocks that may come, pointing to low rates of credit card and mortgage delinquencies as well as declining gas prices and, in an echo of the argument that Uruci of T. Rowe Price made, consistent job gains.

“​​Those risks in the global context are real,” Deese said Tuesday when asked by Yahoo News about the IMF assessment. “And, certainly, we are attentive to those risks internationally and the impact they have on the U.S. economy.”

In a seeming assent to Furman’s view that recession is the lesser of two risks, Deese argued that the United States is “in a stronger position to actually train our focus on tackling inflation than virtually any other country.”

Tackling inflation will require the Federal Reserve to keep raising interest rates, as it is expected to do on Wednesday and to continue doing until the end of the year. Predictions point to a policy rate of 3.75% by the start of 2023. “Inflation is like a cancer cell in the economy,” says former Trump economist Moore. “They should have taken care of this six months ago.”

Furman says that to avoid economic catastrophe, the U.S. would have to keep to 1% growth projected by the IMF between the fourth quarter of the past fiscal year and the fourth quarter of the current one, a feat that would allow for the so-called soft landing the Fed believes is possible with the right monetary policy.

“I do think the American economy is a very strong and resilient thing,” Furman says. “I am confident we’re going to get through this.”

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Twitter to hold vote on Musk merger on Sept. 13 - CNBC

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Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Twitter said that it would hold a shareholder meeting to vote on the company's $44 billion acquisition by Elon Musk on September 13.

The shareholder meeting will commence at 10:00 AM PT, and will be available via a webcast. Shareholders will be able to watch the meeting live and then vote, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Twitter's board of directors has previously urged its shareholders to approve the company's sale to Musk.

Musk notified Twitter on July 8 that he planned to cancel the acquisition, citing allegations that the company failed to properly account for the number of spam and fraud accounts on its service, among other disputes.

Twitter then sued Musk to enforce the deal and alleged that the Tesla chief "refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests."

The case is set to go to trial in October, although the two parties are still fighting over the date.

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Microsoft Shares Rise on Upbeat 2023 Sales Growth Forecast - Yahoo Finance

(Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. gave an upbeat sales forecast for the fiscal year that just began, easing investor concerns about growth that had flared up following a lackluster fourth-quarter earnings report. Shares jumped more than 5% in late trading, reversing earlier declines.

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On a conference call Tuesday, the software giant said it expects revenue and operating income to increase at a double-digit pace for fiscal 2023, which ends next June. Currency fluctuations will cut sales by about 4% for the year and about 5% in the current quarter, Microsoft executives said, tempering worries that the strong US dollar would have an even bigger impact on the value of overseas sales.

The forecast was “shockingly strong,” said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush. The forecast “will be the guidance heard around the world and Street.”

Microsoft said it is attracting more large deals to its Azure cloud-computing software and moving clients to pricier versions of Office cloud programs. The company’s expenses will decelerate as the year goes on and as the pace of hiring slows after it adds a planned 11,000 workers in the current period. The turbulent economic picture will lead some customers to gravitate to Microsoft’s products and to cloud software more generally because it can help them control what they’re spending on technology, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said on the call.

“Coming out of this macroeconomic crisis, the public cloud will be even a bigger winner,” Nadella said.

Microsoft shares rose as high as $269.41 in extended trading following the forecast. They had dropped about 2% immediately following the earnings report, after falling to $251.90 at the close in New York. While the stock jumped 51% in 2021, it has fallen 25% so far this year amid a rout in large technology stocks.

Earlier, the company reported fourth-quarter sales and profit that fell short of analysts’ projections, held back by unfavorable currency exchange rates and weaker demand for cloud-computing services, personal-computer software and advertising on its online properties.

Revenue in the fourth quarter, which ended June 30, rose 12% to $51.9 billion, the software maker said in a statement. Net income rose to $16.7 billion, or $2.23 a share. On average, analysts had estimated sales of $52.4 billion and $2.29 a share in earnings, according to a Bloomberg survey. Revenue growth in Azure cloud-computing services slowed to 40%, a closely watched rate that also missed predictions.

The surging US dollar, which reduces the value of foreign sales, hurt revenue and profit in the recent quarter, prompting Microsoft to cut its forecasts in early June. The company has slowed hiring in some divisions, like Azure and Office, which makes PC productivity software. Overall sales rose the least since September 2020, with Azure growth rates continuing to tick lower and the broader personal-computer market on track for an annual decline. Demand slowed further in the last few weeks of Microsoft’s quarter, as customers delayed purchases in anticipation of a possible global recession, said Derrick Wood, an analyst at Cowen.

“Post-Memorial Day, things started getting slower and you started hearing more cautious buying behavior and longer sales cycles,” Wood said.

Analysts predicted Azure revenue would rise 44%, according to a note from Jefferies. In the fiscal third quarter, the division posted growth of 46%.

Excluding the impact of currency, Azure growth was 1% lower than forecast in April, Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said in an interview. Still, the company signed a record number of Azure contracts worth more than $100 million and $1 billion, she said.

Commercial bookings, a measure of future sales to corporate customers, were “significantly” better than the company expected, rising by 25%, an indication corporate demand for Microsoft software remained strong in the quarter, she said.

“We do the majority of our commercial bookings business in June,” Hood said. “It was a record quarter for us and much better than we had planned.”

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft in June reduced its sales and profit forecast for the fourth quarter, blaming the stronger US dollar for a revenue hit of $460 million. The software giant on Tuesday said currency impacts in the period were even steeper than it projected. The war in Ukraine prompted the company to scale back in Russia, leading to accounting charges of $126 million. Additionally, hardware-production shutdowns in China and a worsening PC market hurt sales of the Windows operating system software to computer makers.

Microsoft also recorded $113 million in severance payments in the recent period. Earlier this month, Microsoft said it cut less than 1% of its 180,000-person workforce, affecting groups such as consulting and customer solutions, but said it planned to finish the current fiscal year with increased headcount. The company has also eliminated many open jobs and slowed hiring including in units that make Azure, Windows, Office and security software. These hiring constraints will continue for the foreseeable future, the company said last week.

Microsoft’s overall revenue from cloud products, which includes Azure and web-based versions of Office software, rose 28% to $25 billion, the company said in slides posted on its website.

Google parent Alphabet Inc., which also reported earnings Tuesday, has sounded a similar note of caution on hiring, as have Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. -- and shareholders are scrutinizing technology industry numbers closely for signs of wilting demand. Social media companies Twitter Inc. and Snap Inc. last week reported disappointing sales -- and Microsoft said lower advertising spending hurt results at its LinkedIn professional network and in the Search division.

Global PC shipments dropped more than 15% in the quarter, according to IDC, although they remain above pre-pandemic levels. Microsoft has been able to post higher PC software revenue by shipping more versions of higher-priced corporate versions of its programs.

On the call, Microsoft executives said they expect weakness in the PC and ad markets to persist.

(Updates with comment from analyst in third paragraph, CEO in fifth paragraph.)

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