Stock Market and Business News: Live Updates – The New York Times

The S&P 500 fell more than 3.5 percent by midday, headed for its biggest drop since June 2020.

Monday’s selling brought with it a new marker of the abrupt shift in investor thinking: The S&P 500 has now dropped more than 10 percent from its Jan.

This shift is happening because investors anticipate the Fed will have to raise interest rates quickly, and often, this year as it tries to tamp down inflation that’s at its highest level in 40 years.

“You’re starting to see a shift in psychology,” said John Canavan, an analyst at Oxford Economics.

troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, in what would be a major shift from its restrained stance on Ukraine.

Heightened tension in the region threatens Europe’s energy supply, because Russia provides the continent with more than 40 percent of its natural gas and 25 percent of its oil.

Racine, the attorney general for the District of Columbia, led the complaints following a three-year investigation, which was initiated after a report by The Associated Press showed the company recorded users’ movements even when told not to.

The search giant also misled and pressured users to enable more location tracking, for example by claiming products would not function properly if the location services setting was disabled when in fact it was not needed to use the app, according to the suit.

“The attorneys general are bringing a case based on inaccurate claims and outdated assertions about our settings,” said Jose Castaneda, a spokesman for Google.

Google is also fighting an antitrust lawsuit led by Texas in which states have accused the company of obtaining and abusing a monopoly over the systems that allow publishers to auction off ad space to marketers.

State and federal regulators have filed dozens of antitrust, consumer protection, privacy and trade lawsuits in an attempt to curb the business models or break up the companies.

The attorneys general of D.C., Texas, Washington and Indiana said their suits, filed under local consumer protection laws, sought to fine Google and to stop its practice of collecting location data collection for users who have opted out.

Now it must deal with one of Wall Street’s most prominent activist investors, Nelson Peltz, who has amassed a stake in the consumer products giant via his investment firm, Trian Fund Management, two people briefed on the matter said on Sunday.

It is unclear how much of a stake Trian owns or what it is calling for, though one of the people said the firm had begun buying shares in Unilever before the company’s pursuit of the GlaxoSmithKline business became public.

In a letter to the embattled at-home fitness equipment maker, Blackwells Capital called for directors to fire the company’s chief executive, John Foley, who is also a co-founder, and to weigh a sale as its shares tumble amid falling sales and growing inventory.

The company is in worse shape now than before the pandemic propelled its growth, Blackwells said, with “high fixed costs, excessive inventory, a listless strategy, dispirited employees and thousands of disgruntled shareholders.” Still, any fight might be an uphill battle: Peloton has two shares of stock, where Class B shareholders have drastically more voting power — and Mr. Foley alone controls nearly 40 percent of shareholder votes.

The department store Kohl’s has received a roughly $9 billion offer to go private in a deal with an investment consortium backed by the activist hedge fund Starboard Value, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The activist firm Macellum Advisors, which has a 5 percent stake in Kohl’s, urged the retailer in a letter last Tuesday to explore strategic alternatives, including a sale.

Sarah Palin has tested positive for the coronavirus, forcing the delay of her defamation trial against The New York Times until next week.

Ms. Palin sued The Times in 2017 after it published an editorial that erroneously asserted a link between her political rhetoric and the mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., in 2011 that left six people dead and gravely wounded Gabrielle Giffords, then a Democratic member of Congress.

“She wants to be here for jury selection, she wants to testify live,” Mr. Turkel told the judge, Jed S.

The law offers robust protections to journalists and news outlets when a public figure like Ms. Palin accuses them of defamation.

But Ms. Palin’s lawyers have argued in court filings and in public that the law is too broad in shielding journalists from liability.

Boeing on Monday announced an additional $450 million investment in Wisk Aero, expanding its bet on autonomous, electrified flight.

“With this investment, we are reconfirming our belief in Wisk’s business and the importance of their work in pioneering all-electric, A.I.-driven, autonomous capability for the aerospace industry,” Marc Allen, Boeing’s chief strategy officer, said in a statement.

A spokesman for Wisk, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., declined to say how much total investment it had received so far, but said Boeing had been the company’s largest investor since the joint venture was formed.

American Airlines, a major Boeing customer, invested in Vertical Aerospace and has said it plans to buy up to 250 of that company’s aircraft.

The Federal Aviation Administration has yet to approve any electric air taxi, autonomous or not, for flight, and experts say it could still be years before such aircraft are ready for public use.

Marcie Taylor, a marketing consultant in Santa Ana, Calif., said she received her tests on Friday after she ordered them on Tuesday at the recommendation of her friend who sent her a link to the website.

Zients, the White House’s Covid-19 response coordinator, said at a press briefing on Friday that this problem affected “a very, very small percent of people who live in apartment buildings” that are not registered as multiunit buildings within the Postal Service’s database.

Mr. Zients declined to say how many people had placed orders for the tests, but said that the White House would provide that data in the next few days.

After falling for a fourth day in a row on Friday, the stock market suffered its worst week in nearly two years, and so far in January the S&P 500 is off to its worst start since 2016.

The bond market is also in disarray, with rates rising sharply and bond prices, which move in the opposite direction, falling.

As the worst economic ravages of the pandemic appear to be waning, at least for now, the Fed is ushering in a return to higher interest rates.

This could be a good thing if it beats back inflation without derailing the economic recovery.

Microsoft earnings: The tech giant is scheduled to publish its earnings report for the last three months of the year.

World Outlook: The International Monetary Fund will provide an update for its biannual report on the outlook for a global economic recovery, which was published in October.

Boeing earnings: Investors will be looking for an update on when Boeing will resume shipping its 787 Dreamliner after quality concerns led the company to slow production and suspend deliveries.

Tesla earnings: With a major computer chip shortage slowing vehicle production for many companies, investors will want to hear more on how Tesla increased its deliveries 87 percent in 2021.

Southwest earnings: Investors will want to learn more about how the Omicron variant of the coronavirus upended Southwest Airlines during the busy holiday season, as well as the company’s forecast for the year.

Apple earnings: Analysts expect the company to share more about the effects of an update that allows Apple users to choose not to be tracked across apps and websites, which has disrupted companies that used that information to target ads.

Chevron earnings: The oil giant will report its earnings for the end of the year, giving investors more details on new drilling strategies and its profits as oil and natural gas prices rose throughout 2021.

Prices are rising faster than they have in 40 years, taxing consumers’ wallets and befuddling policymakers.

The New York Times asked readers for their questions about inflation, and received hundreds of responses.

It’s a risky time to jump into any market, or ramp up supply to take advantage of higher prices that might be temporary.

Even if companies wanted to produce new or more products, supply chain issues are a barrier.

Wages increased sharply alongside inflation in the 1970s and 1980s, but in the decades since, pay has struggled to keep pace with price increases.

But some think they should be tried again: A vocal minority of economists say the 1970s experience unfairly tarnished the idea and that it might be worthwhile to reopen the debate.

Employees at an REI store in Manhattan filed for a union election on Friday, making the outdoor equipment and apparel retailer the latest prominent service-industry employer whose workers have sought to unionize.

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