Category: Business

Medium Gives Buyouts to Editorial Staff

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Post date March 24, 2021

Medium Offers Buyouts to Editorial Employees

Medium, the platform that provides a platform to individual writers and has launched its own online magazines in recent years, offered voluntary takeovers to all editors on Tuesday when it announced it was cutting back on its journalism.

During a monthly all-hands meeting via video conference, employees were also informed that Siobhan O’Connor, Vice President for Editorial Affairs since 2018, would be leaving the company.

Evan Williams, a Twitter co-founder who founded Medium in 2012, told staff in a long email after the meeting that Medium was making “some changes” to its publishing strategy. He said Medium would reduce the budget of the company-powered publications and redirect resources to support independent writers on the platform.

Medium has made an effort to gain a foothold with independent journalism. It started as a blogging platform that anyone could post on, with the aim of creating “a new model for media on the Internet”. In 2017, the company laid off a third of its employees – 50 employees – after Mr Williams decided to move away from ad-supported content. In 2019, the company stepped up its own journalistic efforts with the launch of OneZero, a tech and science publication, which was followed by others including GEN (Politics and Culture), Elemental (Health), and Zora (Women in Color).

“Our goal has never been to replicate the traditional publishing model as we’ve seen the challenges facing the industry,” Williams wrote in Tuesday’s email.

He said that Amplify, a program that offered writers on the editorial and promotion platform, worked well, but it had been less successful in commissioning stories from professional writers for Medium’s publications.

“To be clear, we had no illusion that these releases would pay for themselves in the short term,” he said. “The bet was we could develop these brands and they would develop loyal audiences that would grow the overall middle subscriber base. What happened, however, is that Medium’s subscriber base continued to grow while our publications audience did not. “

Some employees wept over the video call, including two people who were aware of the meeting and who were not authorized to speak publicly. Employees were told they didn’t have to take over the acquisitions, but that their jobs would most likely change if they stayed, people said.

Those who take advantage of the acquisitions will receive a five-month lump-sum salary and six months of healthcare benefits. The fate of the Medium publications was uncertain, and Mr Williams said in the email that “it would take a lot more experimentation to find out what role they play on the platform”.

A trade union action at Medium failed less than a month ago. The middle-class union has one vote less than a simple majority of workers required for union recognition, a March 1 statement said.

A spokeswoman for Medium said in a statement that the company “remains fully committed to the high quality editorial and open platform model that independent writers support”.

“The voluntary buyout reflects changes we are making to our editorial team to create a more flexible organization that focuses on both,” the statement said.

The spokeswoman said that after Ms. O’Connor’s departure, Medium’s content operation will be led by Jermaine Hall and Scott Lamb.

Tags Buyouts, Editorial, Employees, Medium, Offers

Business

electrical vehicles face rising battery lithium nickel cobalt prices

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Post date March 24, 2021

electric cars face rising battery lithium nickel cobalt costs

A GM employee poses with an example of the company’s next generation lithium metal batteries at the GM Chemical and Materials Systems Lab in Warren, Michigan on September 9, 2020.

Steve Fecht | General Motors | Handout | via Reuters

BEIJING – Growing demand for electric car batteries will drive up prices for key materials, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a March 18 release.

This, in turn, will increase battery prices by about 18%, which will affect the overall bottom line of electric car manufacturers, as the battery accounts for about 20% to 40% of vehicle costs, according to Goldman analysts.

While the report did not set specific price targets for the commodities, the analyst model forecast that a return to historical highs would more than double lithium costs for electric battery manufacturers. That of cobalt would also double, while the cost of nickel would increase by 60%.

A new type of battery

The limited availability of nickel, which is suitable for car batteries, could even accelerate the switch to a different type of battery called lithium iron phosphate (LFP), the report said. Tesla and the Chinese start-up Xpeng are among the automakers who are already using this type of battery, which uses no nickel or cobalt but stores relatively less energy.

If nickel prices hit their all-time high of $ 50,000 per tonne, it could add $ 1,250 to $ 1,500 per electric vehicle, which could hurt consumer demand for cars, analysts said.

Ultimately, the growth of the electric car industry and the demand for battery materials depends on how many vehicles people buy. The tipping point for consumers to switch from gas-powered vehicles to electric cars is generally expected when battery costs are down enough.

That shift could take place in the next decade. Goldman predicts that battery costs will fall below internal combustion engines in 2030.

Tags Battery, cars, cobalt, Costs, electric, Face, lithium, nickel, Rising

Business

E.U. Set to Curb Covid Vaccine Exports for six Weeks

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Post date March 24, 2021

E.U. Set to Curb Covid Vaccine Exports for 6 Weeks

BRUSSELS – The European Union completes emergency legislation that gives it extensive powers to curb exports of the block-made Covid-19 vaccines for the next six weeks. This is a marked escalation in their response to domestic supply shortages that have created a political vortex amid a rising third wave on the continent.

The bill, due to be released on Wednesday, has been reviewed by the New York Times and approved by two EU officials involved in the drafting process. The new regulations will make it harder for pharmaceutical companies that make Covid-19 vaccines in the European Union to export them, and supplies to the UK are likely to be disrupted.

The European Union has come into conflict with AstraZeneca in the first place, as it drastically reduced its supplies to the bloc and cited production problems in January. The company is the main target of the new regulations. However, legislation that could block the export of millions of doses from EU ports could also affect Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Britain is by far the biggest benefactor of EU exports and will lose the most to these rules. However, they could also be used to curb exports to other countries such as Canada, for example the second largest recipient of vaccines made in the EU. and Israel, which is receiving doses from the block but is very advanced in its vaccination campaign and is therefore seen as less needy.

“We are in the crisis of the century. And I’m not ruling anything out for now, because we have to make sure that Europeans are vaccinated as soon as possible, ”said Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, in comments last week that paved the way for the new rules. “Human life, civil liberties and also the prosperity of our economy depend on it, on the speed of vaccination and on further development.”

The legislation is unlikely to affect the United States, which has received fewer than one million doses from facilities in the EU.

The Biden government has announced that it has received enough doses from its three authorized manufacturers – Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson – to cover all adults in the country by the end of May. Most of this supply comes from plants in the United States. The country also exports vaccine components to the European Union, which is reluctant to risk disrupting the raw material supply chain.

The European Union allowed pharmaceutical companies to perform their contracts by authorizing them to export more than 40 million doses of vaccine to 33 countries between February and mid-March, with 10 million going to the UK and 4.3 million going to Canada. The bloc has kept about 70 million at home and distributed them to its 27 member states, but its efforts to run mass vaccination campaigns have been set back by a series of missteps.

Liberal overseas exports when domestic supply is low was a significant part of the problem, and the bloc was criticized for allowing exports at all when the United States and Britain practically closed domestic production through contracts with pharmaceutical companies .

The result was a problematic introduction of vaccines for the richest group of nations in the world. The impact of the outages is compounded by a third wave that puts health systems across the continent on emergency mode and instigates painful new lockdowns.

Updated

March 23, 2021, 8:03 p.m. ET

The European Commission, which ordered the vaccines, and individual governments in member states responsible for their national campaigns, have been banned by voters fed up of being banned and increasing the number of Covid-19 cases because of their failure , heavily criticized. Public anger and political costs have risen as the bloc has fallen behind several wealthy counterparts in the world in promoting vaccination campaigns, despite major manufacturers based here.

The bloc has seen recipients of vaccines made in its member countries as well as other rich countries drive their vaccination campaigns. Almost 60 percent of Israelis have received at least one dose of vaccine, 40 percent of British and a quarter of Americans, but only 10 percent of EU citizens have been vaccinated, according to the latest information released by Our World in Data.

The export restrictions are being enforced by the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, and while changes to the new rules could take place before the law is finalized, officials said they are unlikely to be substantial. They are expected to enter into force quickly.

EU officials said the rules would allow for a degree of discretion, meaning they would not result in a blanket export ban, and officials still expected many exports to continue.

“The proposed measures concern,” said Youmy Han, spokeswoman for Canada’s Minister for International Trade, Mary Ng.

“Minister Ng’s colleagues have repeatedly assured her that these measures will not affect vaccine shipments to Canada,” said Ms. Han. She added: “We will continue to work with the EU and its member states, as we have done throughout the pandemic, to ensure that our essential health and medical supply chains remain open and resilient.”

Canada depends on the European Union for almost all of its vaccine supply: all of Canada’s Moderna and Pfizer vaccines come from Europe, although the country received a small shipment of the AstraZeneca vaccine from India.

The new rules come after months of escalating tensions between the European Union and AstraZeneca in a situation that has become toxic to the bloc’s fragile relations with its recently deceased member, the UK.

The problems started in late January when AstraZeneca notified the block that it would cut its shipments by more than half in the first quarter of 2021, which turned plans to launch vaccines upside down. In response, the European Union has put in place an export authorization process whereby pharmaceutical companies must obtain permission to export vaccines and give the European Union the power to block them if they are seen as a breach of a company’s contractual obligations to the bloc.

As of February 1, the European Union has blocked just one of more than 300 exports, a small shipment of AstraZeneca vaccines to Australia, on the grounds that the country is virtually Coviden-free while the block struggles with increasing infections.

The new rules will introduce more reasons to block exports, the drafts show. They will encourage blocking shipments to countries that do not export vaccines to the European Union – a clause clearly targeting the UK – or to countries that have “a higher vaccination rate” than the European Union, “or where the current epidemiological situation is less serious “than in the block according to the Times.

In recent days, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has tried to use a conciliatory tone to avert an EU export ban that would deal a severe blow to his country’s rapidly advancing vaccination campaign.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Mr Johnson said he was against blockades and was “encouraged by some of the things I’ve heard from the continent.” The UK news media reported that his government would be ready to have the block produce four million AstraZeneca cans in an EU factory.

Benjamin Mueller reported from London, Sharon LaFraniere from Washington and Ian Austen from Ottawa.

Tags Covid, curb, Exports, set, Vaccine, Weeks

Business

Cramer says ‘Easter rally’ might imply upside in these retail shares

Post author By
Post date March 23, 2021

Cramer says 'Easter rally' could mean upside in these retail stocks

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday broke down a seasonal trading pattern in retail stocks that he believes investors should be familiar with.

The “Mad Money” host checked out well-known tech Larry Williams’ stock analysis, which was taking previous trades into account to determine which direction Costco, Amazon, Walmart and Shopify stocks could head in the early spring days.

“If history is a guide, Williams is betting that a rising tide in April can lift all retail ships,” Cramer said.

Every stock is down year over year, with the exception of Shopify, which is trading 2% higher. Costco is down 10% so far this year after rising 28% in 2020.

These retail-focused stocks are capable of rising higher in the short term, Williams says. Cramer called it an “Easter rally” and named it after the holiday that was less than two weeks away.

“I think the move may have already started,” he said.

Analyzing Williams’ charts, Cramer noted how the retail group tends to rebound in the days before or after the Easter break. However, he paused and recommended how market participants could trade in the moment and make a profit.

“If you’re concerned about rotation, you might want to take advantage of the rally at major retailers to call the register,” Cramer said. “As much as I like these companies long-term and don’t want to trade them, I can’t blame anyone for taking profits.”

Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable foundation owns shares in Walmart, Costco, and Amazon.

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Tags Cramer, Easter, rally, retail, Stocks, Upside

Business

Intel plans to spend $20 billion on two new chip factories in Arizona.

Post author By
Post date March 23, 2021

Intel’s new CEO doubles chip manufacturing in the US and Europe, a surprise bet that government officials worried about component shortages and dependency on factories in Asia may please government officials.

Patrick Gelsinger, who took the top position in February, said Tuesday he plans to spend $ 20 billion on two new factories near existing facilities in Arizona. He also vowed that in addition to making the processors it has long developed and sold, Intel would become a major manufacturer of chips for other companies.

Intel had stumbled in developing new manufacturing processes that improve chip performance by packing more tiny transistors onto each piece of silicon. The lead in this costly miniaturization race had shifted to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Samsung Electronics, whose foundry services manufacture chips for companies such as Apple, Amazon, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.

Some investors and analysts had urged Intel to outsource or stop manufacturing in favor of outside foundries, an approach most other chipmakers are taking to drive profits.

However, a pandemic-induced shortage of semiconductors for automobiles, appliances and other products has underscored the critical role that chip factories play in supporting many industries. And before recent concerns, concerns over Asian foundries’ proximity to China had already led Congress and several branches of the Trump and Biden administrations to support plans to encourage more domestic chip manufacturing, even though funding had not yet been made available.

Officials in Europe have also made proposals for new factories to reduce reliance on chips made abroad.

The Intel strategy recognizes that “the world no longer wants to depend on the ring of fire that is right next to China,” said G. Dan Hutcheson, industry analyst at VLSI Research. “It’s very trend-setting.”

TSMC previously announced plans for a new factory in Arizona, a $ 12 billion project that is expected to receive federal funding. Samsung is seeking government incentives to expand its Austin, Texas facility by $ 17 billion.

Mr. Gelsinger, who first came to Intel at the age of 18, left the company in 2009 after 30 years. He was CEO of software company VMware for eight years before Intel’s board of directors persuaded him to replace Robert Swan, who was fired in January.

Intel said its new global foundry service will be operated from the US and Europe. Further plant expansions are expected to be announced in the next year. It already has plants in Ireland and Israel.

“The industry needs more geographically balanced production capacities,” said Gelsinger.

Intel hopes to negotiate with the Biden administration and other governments to get incentives to expand manufacturing, said Donald Parker, vice president of Intel.

Although Intel manufactures most of its products in-house, Intel has long used outside foundries for some less advanced chips. Mr Gelsinger said the company will add some flagship microprocessors, the calculating machines used in most computers, to that strategy. This will include some chips for PCs and data centers in 2023 and will give Intel more flexibility in meeting customer needs.

However, manufacturing will remain the core of Intel’s strategy despite recent technical problems, Gelsinger said.

He said significant improvements were made in the next production process, which was delayed last summer. Intel will also form a new partnership with IBM to develop new chip manufacturing technologies, he added.

Mr Gelsinger’s plans are met with skepticism. In addition to recent manufacturing technology issues, Intel has historically tried to act as a foundry for other companies with little success.

However, Intel has changed these plans in several ways. For one, it will be ready for the first time to license its technical crown jewels – the so-called x86 designs used in most of the world’s computers – so customers can incorporate that processing power into chips they are developing for the Intel company, said.

Tags Arizona, Billion, chip, factories, Intel, plans, Spend

Business

Disney to debut ‘Black Widow,’ ‘Cruella’ in theaters and Disney+

Post author By
Post date March 23, 2021

Scarlett Johansson plays Natasha Romanoff, AKA Black Widow, in Marvel’s “Black Widow”.

Disney wonder

Disney made some key changes to its summer movie on Tuesday.

The studio announced that “Cruella” and “Black Widow” will be released in theaters and on Disney + with world-class access, and its Pixar film “Luca” will go direct to Disney +.

“Today’s announcement reflects our focus on providing consumers with choice and meeting the changing preferences of audiences,” said Kareem Daniel, chairman of Disney’s media and entertainment distribution.

“By leveraging a flexible sales strategy in a dynamic market that is gradually starting to recover from the global pandemic, we will continue to leverage the best of options to bring the Walt Disney Company’s unparalleled storytelling to fans and families around the world,” he said.

“Cruella” will debut as scheduled on May 28th and “Black Widow”, which was originally scheduled for May 7th, will now debut on July 9th. Both titles will also be available on Disney + for an additional $ 30 rental fee.

Originally slated for theatrical release, Luca will be streamed direct on Disney + as part of the traditional subscription. In markets where Disney + is not available, “Luca” will be released in theaters.

Other changes to the theatrical release date are:

“Free Guy” moves to August 13, 2021
“Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” from September 3, 2021
“The King’s Man” arrives on December 22, 2021
“Deep Water” has been postponed to January 14, 2022
“Death on the Nile” for February 11, 2022

Tags Black, Cruella, debut, Disney, Theaters, Widow

Business

Watch as Powell and Yellen Testify on Financial Restoration: Dwell Updates

Post author By
Post date March 23, 2021

Here’s what you need to know:

VideoThe Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome H. Powell, and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen testify before the House Financial Services Committee on the state of the economy.CreditCredit…Jessica Mcgowan/Getty Images

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell told lawmakers that the economy is healing from the pandemic downturn and continued to play down inflation concerns at a hearing before House lawmakers on Tuesday.

Mr. Powell, in response to a question about whether the $1.9 trillion spending package to combat the virus, combined with President Biden’s plan to spend as much as $3 trillion on an infrastructure bill, could cause prices to shoot higher, said any spike would likely be temporary.

“We do expect that inflation will move up over the course of this year,” Mr. Powell said, saying that some of that would be mechanical as low readings from March and April 2020 drop out of the data, and part of it might be driven by a bounce-back in demand.

“Our best view is that the effect on inflation will be neither particularly large nor persistent,” he said.

Mr. Powell is testifying along with Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary, before the House Financial Services committee on the economic recovery from the pandemic.

The testimony is the first time Ms. Yellen and Mr. Powell have appeared side by side in their current roles. President Donald J. Trump chose to replace Ms. Yellen with Mr. Powell at the Fed, but the two economic officials spent several years working together at the Fed and have a good rapport.

Mr. Powell told lawmakers on Tuesday that the economy was healing and that although many workers and businesses continued to suffer, the aggressive response from the central bank, Congress and the White House helped to avoid the most devastating economic scenarios.

“While the economic fallout has been real and widespread, the worst was avoided by swift and vigorous action,” Mr. Powell said at House Financial Services committee.

Ms. Yellen is expected to face questions on executing Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic relief legislation, as well as the existing programs that were created during the Trump administration that the Treasury is still required to oversee.

The Treasury Department has been racing to distribute $1,400 checks to millions of Americans, posing a test for Ms. Yellen’s team, which is not yet fully in place.

Ms. Yellen pushed hard for a robust fiscal relief package and has suggested that the next bill needs to be focused on addressing longer-term structural issues facing the economy that have led to vast income inequality.

In her opening statement, Ms. Yellen described the rescue legislation as precisely what the economy needed.

“With the passage of the rescue plan, I am confident that people will reach the other side of this pandemic with the foundations of their lives intact,” Ms. Yellen said. “And I believe they will be met there by a growing economy. In fact, I think we may see a return to full employment next year.”

Mr. Powell pointed out that the economy has recently improved and that the labor market has begun adding back jobs after a winter lull. But he will note that those metrics may not capture the full extent of the damage to workers.

“However, the sectors of the economy most adversely affected by the resurgence of the virus, and by greater social distancing, remain weak, and the unemployment rate — still elevated at 6.2 percent — underestimates the shortfall,” Mr. Powell said.

The Fed chair added that the central bank, which has rates at near-zero and is buying bonds to keep credit flowing and to bolster the economy, “will not lose sight of the millions of Americans who are still hurting.”

Mr. Powell told lawmakers that the Fed’s many market-facing programs in 2020, which supported credit to corporations, midsize businesses and municipalities, helped to “keep organizations from shuttering and put employers in both a better position to keep workers on and to hire them back as the recovery continues.”

And he underlined that the programs, in most cases, have either shut down or will soon end. Mr. Powell consistently has said that the lending efforts, supported by the Treasury, were emergency tools that the Fed would stop using once conditions were stable.

Credit…Nathan Bajar for The New York Times

Cineworld, the parent company of the U.S. movie theater chain Regal Cinemas, announced on Tuesday that it would reopen its cinemas in the United States in April and in Britain in May as those countries ease lockdown restrictions.

“We have long-awaited this moment,” said Mooky Greidinger, the chief executive of Cineworld, which is based in London. “With capacity restrictions expanding to 50 percent or more across most U.S. states, we will be able to operate profitably in our biggest markets.”

Regal Cinemas is the second largest theater chain in the United States, after AMC Theaters. The announcement by Cineworld comes six months after the movie theater chains were forced to shut down across the United States and Britain last October in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The decision affected a total of 45,000 employees in both countries and forced studios to postpone film releases.

Cineworld also announced a multiyear agreement with Warner Bros. starting in 2022 that will allow the theater chain to show the studios’ films for 45 days in the United States and 31 days in Britain. The deal shortens the typical window that theaters have to show movies before they are released to on-demand streaming services.

The reopening plans in the United States will coincide with the release of two movies from Warner Bros. Pictures, “Godzilla vs. Kong” on April 2 and “Mortal Kombat” on April 16.

“We are very happy for the agreement with Warner Bros.,” Mr. Greidinger said. “This agreement shows the studio’s commitment to the theatrical business.”

Last week, AMC Theaters announced the reopening of nearly all of its U.S. theaters.

The moves come at a time of concern that looser restrictions will lead to rise in coronavirus cases. On Monday, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that relaxed pandemic restrictions could lead to another spike. “If we don’t take the right actions now,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, “we will have another avoidable surge.”

In September, Cineworld reported a pretax loss of $1.6 billion for the first half of 2020. In 2019, 90 percent of the company’s revenue was generated in the United States and Britain.

Credit…Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA, via Shutterstock

Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami is selling his city as the world’s cryptocurrency capital. “We want to be on the next wave of innovation,” he told the DealBook newsletter.

To make that happen, Mr. Suarez said he was “refashioning” the city’s “fun in the sun” image. Thanks in part to the mayor’s marketing efforts, tech and finance titans have flocked to Miami during the pandemic.

Last month, Mr. Suarez, a Republican, suggested Miami pay municipal workers and accept tax payments in Bitcoin, as well as invest city funds in the cryptocurrency. Local officials have agreed to study the proposals.

The notion has made Mr. Suarez popular in the crypto community, advancing his rebranding campaign. His efforts have also won him campaign donations from tech investors, attracted money to cultivate Miami’s growing tech sector and may soon pay a big county bill.

The cryptocurrency exchange FTX is seeking naming rights for the city’s N.B.A. arena, known as AmericanAirlines Arena. Miami-Dade County took over branding deals in 2018 and is supposed to pay the team $2 million per year, sponsor or no (American Airlines’ contract ended in 2019). The FTX agreement is nearly final, pending a vote by county commissioners on Friday. “It’s awesome that we’ve attracted a huge cryptocurrency exchange,” Mr. Suarez said, noting that FTX’s bid “complements the brand” that Miami is establishing.

It would be the N.B.A.’s first crypto sponsorship of an arena, but it would also tie a county revenue stream to a relatively young exchange and chief executive. FTX was founded in 2019 and is run by Samuel Bankman-Fried, a 28-year-old billionaire who was one of the biggest donors to President Biden’s campaign.

The pandemic has prompted people to relocate to Florida from Silicon Valley and New York as Bitcoin gained legitimacy and value. The mayor sees the trends as interrelated, and he is seizing the moment.

“People come here and start realizing that there’s way more tech talent than they thought,” he said. All that’s missing, he added, is a regulatory overhaul: Lawmakers are modeling Florida’s approach on Wyoming’s crypto policies.

But the success of the mayor’s effort won’t be apparent until it’s clear that people are making their moves permanent and maintaining their enthusiasm for crypto if — or when — there is another market downturn.

Credit…Reuters

Baidu, the Chinese search company that some people once called the Google of China, raised $3.1 billion in a share listing in Hong Kong on Tuesday, the latest homecoming of a Chinese company against a toughening regulatory backdrop in the United States.

Investors showed a muted appetite for the company, which already has a listing in New York and has been eclipsed by other Chinese technology firms in recent years. In the United States, Google has used its search power to become a dominant internet company, but Baidu has not grown as quickly as Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce company, or Tencent, a conglomerate with holdings in video games and social media.

Its stock finished its first day trading on the Hong Kong exchange flat at 252 Hong Kong dollars, or about $32, a share.

The broader Hang Seng exchange fell 1.3 percent amid rising tensions between the United States and China. The United States said on Monday it would join the European Union, Canada and Britain in sanctioning Chinese officials over human rights abuses against China’s mostly Muslim Uyghur community.

Baidu follows other New York-listed Chinese companies like Alibaba, NetEase and JD.com in offering their shares to Chinese retail investors through a listing in the Chinese territory of Hong Kong. More companies have done “homecoming listings” in recent years as Chinese officials have tried to lure back companies that chose to list overseas.

Secondary listings by Chinese companies have also become more popular as American regulators have pledged to delist Chinese companies from their exchanges if they do not adhere to local accounting rules. Baidu is among a group of Chinese companies that has denied access to inspections by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, an auditing watchdog created by the U.S. government.

An executive order by former President Donald J. Trump preventing Americans from investing in companies deemed to have ties to the Chinese military has also led to an exodus of Chinese companies. The New York Stock Exchange delisted China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom earlier this year.

The Hong Kong market has shown less interest for secondary listings than it has for newer technology companies like Kuaishou, a short-video app, that nearly tripled in value on its debut last month and valued the company at $160 billion.

Baidu is valued at $92 billion on the Nasdaq stock market.

Credit…Manu Fernandez/Associated Press

Stocks were uneven on Tuesday amid new concerns about the global economic recovery from the pandemic.

Europe has been reporting a rise in new virus cases and increasing lockdown restrictions. Fresh confusion about the AstraZeneca vaccine were raised on Tuesday morning as U.S. health authorities questioned whether some of the U.S. trial data submitted by the drugmaker was outdated.

Investors were awaiting testimony from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, about the recovery of the U.S. economy. They will be questioned by the House Financial Services Committee later Tuesday. According to prepared remarks, Mr. Powell is expected to tell lawmakers that “while the economic fallout has been real and widespread, the worst was avoided by swift and vigorous action.”

In the Markets

Wall Street was up slightly midday after wavering between losses and gains. The S&P 500 was up 0.2 percent coming off a 0.7 percent rise on Monday. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note dropped slightly to 1.66 percent.
European indexes were trading lower, with the Stoxx Europe 600 down about 0.1 percent.
Energy prices fell. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark, was down about 4 percent to below $60 a barrel. Brent, the international benchmark, fell by more than 3.5 percent, to about $62.30 a barrel. Natural gas also fell.

GameStop’s chief customer officer, Frank Hamlin, will leave the company at the end of the month, according to a regulatory filling on Tuesday. The video game retailer, which was at the center of a retail trading frenzy earlier this year that sent its share price soaring, will release its quarterly earnings later on Tuesday. Last month, GameStop also said its chief financial officer, Jim Bell, would leave. The company is under pressure from an activist shareholder to complete a digital transformation. It will report earnings Tuesday afternoon.
Microsoft shares were up about 2 percent after reports late Monday that the company was in talks to acquire Discord, a social media company popular with gamers.

Credit…CJ Gunther/EPA, via Shutterstock

The Senate confirmed Martin J. Walsh, the mayor of Boston and a former leader of the city’s powerful building trades council, as labor secretary on Monday. The vote was 68 to 29.

The confirmation filled the last leadership role for the 15 executive departments in President Biden’s cabinet. Of nine other cabinet-level leadership roles, seven have been filled.

In a statement after the vote, Mr. Walsh said that he was grateful for the Senate’s bipartisan support and that he shared Mr. Biden’s and Vice President Kamala Harris’s “commitment to building an economy that works for all.”

“I have been a fighter for the rights of working people throughout my career, and I remain committed to ensuring that everyone — especially those in our most marginalized communities — receives and benefits from full access to economic opportunity and fair treatment in the workplace,” Mr. Walsh said in the statement. “I believe we must meet this historic moment, and as the nation’s secretary of labor, I pledge to help our economy build back better.”

Mr. Walsh’s nomination had won widespread praise from union officials, who were enthusiastic about having one of their own oversee the department, a historical rarity. Many union officials regard his close relationship with the president as an advantage for labor groups.

“Because he enjoys mutual trust and respect with President Biden, he will be positioned to put labor’s concerns front and center on the national agenda,” Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in an email.

One of Mr. Walsh’s top priorities as labor secretary will be re-energizing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which critics have accused of failing to protect workers during the pandemic. The safety agency recently put out new guidance to employers on protecting workers from Covid-19 and is considering a new rule to mandate safety measures that the Trump administration rejected.

The department has already moved to set aside a number of rules issued by the Trump administration that weakened worker protections. One of those rules would probably have deemed most gig workers to be independent contractors rather than employees, making them ineligible for the federal minimum wage and overtime pay.

Under Mr. Walsh, the department will be charged with crafting replacements for some of these rules. It will most likely move to expand other protections, such as raising the threshold — currently set at about $35,500 — below which most salaried workers are automatically eligible for time-and-a-half overtime pay.

As mayor, he offered support to undocumented immigrants whom federal officials were seeking to detain, pressed contractors to set aside at least 40 percent of their work on public construction projects for racial minorities, and created gender-neutral bathrooms in City Hall.

“If you know Marty Walsh, you know that he has transcended race and class lines and fights for all with a real focus on the vulnerable,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Mr. Walsh plans to resign as mayor on Monday evening, according to an aide.

Credit…KTVU-TV, via Associated Press

Federal officials are looking into a series of recent accidents involving Teslas that either were using Autopilot or might have been using it.

Autopilot is a computerized system that uses radar and cameras to detect lane markings, other vehicles and objects in the road. It can steer, brake and accelerate automatically with little input from the driver. Tesla has said it should be used only on divided highways, but videos on social media show drivers using Autopilot on various kinds of roads.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration confirmed last week that it was investigating 23 such crashes, Neal E. Boudette reports for The New York Times.

In one accident this month, a Tesla Model Y rear-ended a police car that had stopped on a highway near Lansing, Mich. The driver, who was not seriously injured, had been using Autopilot, the police said.
In February in Detroit, under circumstances similar to the 2016 Florida accident, a Tesla drove beneath a tractor-trailer that was crossing the road, tearing the roof off the car. The driver and a passenger were seriously injured. Officials have not said whether the driver had turned on Autopilot.
NHTSA is also looking into a Feb. 27 crash near Houston in which a Tesla ran into a stopped police vehicle on a highway. It is not clear if the driver was using Autopilot. The car did not appear to slow before the impact, the police said.

“The Ellen DeGeneres Show” has lost more than a million viewers, according to the research firm Nielsen, averaging 1.5 million viewers over the last six months, down from 2.6 million in the same period last year. This year’s season opener in September, in which Ms. DeGeneres apologized in the wake of reports of workplace misconduct at her show, had the highest ratings for an “Ellen” premiere in four years. But since then, the show has seen a 43 percent decline in viewers. Even with the complications affecting all talk shows during the pandemic, the show has suffered a steeper decline than its rivals. “Dr. Phil” is down 22 percent, and “The Kelly Clarkson” show has lost 26 percent of its viewers.
Some investors have started distancing themselves from Dispo, a fast-growing photo-sharing app, after its co-founder, the YouTube creator David Dobrik, became embroiled in controversy. In an investigation by Insider that published last week, Mr. Dobrik was accused of playing a role in a sexual assault scandal involving a former member of his “Vlog Squad.” He later told The Information that he would leave Dispo and step down from its board. And some of Dispo’s investors, including Spark Capital, Seven Seven Six and Unshackled Ventures, have also started backing away.
President Biden on Monday nominated Lina Khan to the Federal Trade Commission, installing a vocal critic of Big Tech into a key oversight role of the industry. If her nomination is approved by the Senate, Ms. Khan, 32, would fill one of two empty seats earmarked for Democrats at the F.T.C. Ms. Khan became recognized for her ideas on antitrust with a Yale Law Journal paper in 2017 called “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” that accused Amazon of abusing its monopoly power.

VideoCreditCredit…By Timo Lenzen

In today’s On Tech newsletter, Shira Ovide looks at one more way technology companies are becoming more like conventional corporations: When they talk about jobs, it’s often a political message.

Tags Economic, Live, Powell, recovery, Testify, Updates, Watch, Yellen

Business

Chipotle to open its first Canadian restaurant since 2018

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Post date March 23, 2021

A chicken burrito, guacamole, bag of tortilla chips and a drink at a Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. restaurant in El Segundo, California.

Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Chipotle Mexican Grill announced Tuesday that it will be opening a new restaurant in Canada for the first time since 2018 as it accelerates its Canadian expansion over the next 12 months.

The new restaurant will open on March 30th. The Burrito chain announced that it will add eight new locations in Canada, including one with a “Chipotlane” for picking up digital orders. Chipotle operates 23 Canadian restaurants, most of which are concentrated in and around Vancouver and Toronto.

“We will experiment with different location formats and restaurant designs across the country to measure consumer preferences in different markets,” CFO Jack Hartung said in a statement.

It has taken Chipotle longer than its peers to grow its international footprint as it focused on revitalizing US sales after a string of foodborne disease outbreaks battered its business a few years ago. Chipotle implemented new security measures and added menu items to lure customers back. It has also built several sites with chipotlanes.

The company has more than 2,750 locations worldwide, most of them in the United States

Chipotle’s shares are up more than 5% this year, equating to a market value of more than $ 41 billion. The stock gained 1.6% on Tuesday.

Tags Canadian, Chipotle, open, Restaurant

Business

U.S. Well being Officers Query AstraZeneca Vaccine Trial Outcomes

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Post date March 23, 2021

U.S. Health Officials Question AstraZeneca Vaccine Trial Results

This US trial, which was attended by more than 32,000 participants, was the largest test of its kind for the shot. The results, AstraZeneca released on Monday, came from an interim look at the data after 141 Covid-19 cases occurred in volunteers.

The company had only announced on Tuesday how up-to-date this data was. This information is important because sometimes a more up-to-date look at clinical trial results may reveal different efficacy and safety.

If the analysis was done on data from a month or two ago, it is possible that a more recent look may give a different picture of the vaccine’s effectiveness and safety. The company has announced that it will provide the FDA with a more comprehensive and up-to-date dataset than it released on Monday. Although no clinical study is large enough to rule out extremely rare side effects, AstraZeneca reported that its study did not identify any serious safety issues.

The new data may have arrived too late to make a big difference in the United States, where the vaccine has not yet been approved and is not expected to be available until May. By then, federal officials say, there will be enough vaccine doses for all adults in the country from the three already approved vaccines: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson.

Even so, the better-than-expected results have been seen as an encouraging turn for AstraZeneca’s shot, whose low cost and simple storage requirements have made it an important part of the quest to vaccinate the world.

The results were also believed to allay concerns about the AstraZeneca vaccine in Europe. Regulators there said the shot was “safe and effective” last week after conducting a review after a small number of people who had recently been vaccinated developed blood clots and abnormal bleeding. The US study found no evidence of such problems, although some real-world safety issues can only be identified when a drug or vaccine is widely used.

Millions of people have received the AstraZeneca shot worldwide, including more than 17 million in the UK and the European Union, almost all without serious side effects. To increase public confidence, many European political leaders have received the injections in the past few days. The AstraZeneca vaccine was also given to executives in South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand last week.

Tags AstraZeneca, health, Officials, question, results, trial, Vaccine

Business

Unfair to accuse EU of vaccine nationalism, Dombrovskis says

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Post date March 23, 2021

An employee in Schwaz, Austria, creates a syringe and container with the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine.

JOHANN GRODER | AFP | Getty Images

LONDON – The European Union “is facing a serious situation” with the introduction of Covid-19 shots, but it is “highly unfair” to accuse the bloc of vaccine nationalism, the region’s commercial chief told CNBC on Tuesday .

The EU has faced a number of problems since the start of its vaccination program Criticism, among other things, for being too slow to approve vaccines and for blocking the export of Covid-19 shots.

At the same time, delivery issues with the AstraZeneca vaccine in the first quarter hampered the use of gunshots, and there are concerns in Brussels about whether contractual commitments will be fully met over the next three months.

“We are clearly facing a serious situation with the introduction of vaccines. We need to speed up vaccination, we need to speed up both vaccine production and vaccine supply,” Valdis Dombrovskis, EU chief of commerce, told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, has worked with various pharmaceutical companies to increase vaccine production in the Member States. The facility wants 70% of Europe’s adult population to be vaccinated by the end of the summer.

Achieving this goal, however, depends on companies delivering the amount of vaccines expected by the bloc and on member states being able to distribute the shots among their populations.

AstraZeneca already has cut its delivery numbers twice for the first quarter and said it will distribute less than half of its original target for the second quarter as well.

We consider it extremely unfair to accuse the EU, which is one of the largest vaccine exporters, of vaccine nationalism.

Valdis Dombrovskis

Executive Vice President of the European Commission

Given the importance of the AstraZeneca shot to the EU’s vaccination program, European officials are considering imposing stricter export restrictions. For example, you could prevent shots made in the EU from being sent elsewhere, particularly to the UK, where the vaccination rate is significant higher than among the 27 countries.

That triggered Allegations that the EU practices vaccination nationalism.

“We consider it extremely unfair to accuse the EU, which is one of the largest vaccine exporters, of vaccine nationalism,” said Dombrovskis.

The EU reported last week that it had exported 41 million cans of Covid-19 shots to 33 countries, with the UK being the largest recipient. At the same time, the EU has stated that it does not see the same level of reciprocity with other parts of the world.

However, the EU also stopped shipping AstraZeneca vaccines to Australia earlier this month due to delivery problems with the pharmaceutical company.

The legislation that allowed the EU to stop this broadcast expires at the end of the month. As a result, EU officials are considering whether to expand and tighten these laws in the future.

“What is important right now is that companies actually honor their contracts, as the problem we face, especially with a company that fails to honor the contract, is that vaccine shipments are falling far short of what was agreed “said Dombrovskis.

Over the next three months, the European Union expects 55 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson shot, 200 million doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, 35 million doses from Moderna and another 70 million doses from AstraZeneca.

Tags Accuse, Dombrovskis, nationalism, Unfair, Vaccine