Fintech firm Plaid has hired Ripsy Bandourian, formerly a vice president at Booking.com, as its head of Europe.
Plaid’s former head of international, Keith Grose, now focuses largely on running the U.K. business.
The company says it’s planning an “aggressive” expansion in Europe this year.
Electric-vehicle maker Lucid is debuting a new edition of its popular and powerful Air luxury sedan.
The company’s Air sedan has impressed critics in many ways since its launch last fall, in part for the astounding performance of the 1,111-horsepower Dream Edition.
U.S. deliveries of the new Grand Touring Performance model will begin in June.
President Joe Biden’s approval rating slid to a new low of 38%, according to CNBC’s All-America Survey.
His approval rating on the economy dropped for a fourth consecutive survey.
As inflation rises, 47% of participants say the economy is “poor,” the highest number in that category since 2012.
The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage hit 4.72% on Tuesday, moving 26 basis points higher since just Friday, according to Mortgage News Daily.
As a result of the recent spike in rates, economists are now lowering their home sales forecasts for this year.
Most estimates at the end of last year had the average 30-year mortgage rate hitting 4.5% by the end of 2022, but the war in Ukraine, rising oil prices and inflation have all lit a fire under interest rates.
The 47.5% figure includes a hardware platform fee of 30% for sales made through the Meta Quest Store, where it sells apps and games for its virtual reality headsets.
On top of that, Horizon Worlds, will charge a 17.5% fee.
Meta’s fees for the sale of virtual assets on Horizon Worlds are significantly more than the 30% Apple charges developers on its App Store.
Since Russia began its invasion in February, Ukraine hasn’t been hit by any attacks as visibly destructive as those previous hacks of Kyiv energy companies. But Ukraine has faced multiple so-called “wiper” attacks, including ones that have targeted computers in Ukraine’s government, financial institutions and internet service providers. Those attacks also look to mass-delete files from hacked computers.
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Commodities have been a clear winner on Wall Street this year as global demand and the war in Ukraine strained supply. WTI crude oil topped $130 per barrel briefly last week — a 13-year high — during escalated geopolitical tensions. On the back of surging oil, the S&P 500 energy sector has rallied 30% this year, far outpacing the broader market.
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The Consumer Price Index jumped 8.5% in March 2022 from a year earlier, the fastest 12-month increase since December 1981, the U.S. Department of Labor said Tuesday.
The index is a gauge of rising prices across a swath of U.S. goods and services. A basket of items that cost $100 a year ago would cost $108.50 today, on average.
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David Zaslav officially takes over as the new CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery as the company begins trading on the Nasdaq on Monday.
Zaslav is known for his gregarious personality and has been on a monthslong “listening tour” of Hollywood.
Friends say he has a chance to be Hollywood’s next leader with high emotional intelligence, but he’ll have to be careful not to disenfranchise current leadership or get bogged down in minutia.
“It may be the right time for a new man because the industry is changing so rapidly,” longtime Zaslav associate Lloyd Blankfein told CNBC.
Dubai saw $35 billion worth of property market transactions in 2021, the highest recorded since the global financial crisis, according to real estate firm Savills.
“I’m sure a lot of Russians are trying to fix their problems and their issues, but Dubai will benefit ultimately from any crisis,” Emirati property magnate Hussain Sajwani told CNBC.
Tether plans to reduce its holdings of commercial debt in its reserves, Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino told CNBC.
Tether holds short-term corporate debt but does not disclose from which companies, which has raised transparency concerns.
But Ardoino said Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, will cut its holdings of commercial paper further than the current 30% of total reserves.
“I think a rotation into value names, coupled with Berkshire’s exposure to the energy and utility space ... and investors’ enthusiasm for Berkshire’s aggressive share buybacks drove the shares’ performance,” said Cathy Seifert, a Berkshire analyst at CFRA Research.
The rally in the stock pushed Berkshire’s market cap above $730 billion, surpassing tech pioneer Meta Platforms in market value and becoming only non-tech companies on the list of 10 most valuable U.S. public companies.
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Amazon said Wednesday it’s adding a 5% fuel and inflation surcharge to U.S. sellers who use its fulfillment services.
The surcharge is “subject to change,” according to a notice sent to sellers and viewed by CNBC.