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Inventory Markets Rise Amid Hopes for Fiscal Stimulus: Stay Updates

Commercial space for rent in New York City. Stay-at-home orders and other restrictions have left millions without work as businesses close.

Here’s what you need to know:

The already sputtering economic rebound went into reverse in December, as employers laid off workers amid rising coronavirus cases and waning government aid.

U.S. employers cut 140,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department said Friday. It was the first net decline in payrolls since last spring’s mass layoffs, and though the December loss was nowhere near that scale, it represented a discouraging reversal for the once-promising recovery. The U.S. economy still has about 10 million fewer jobs than before the pandemic began.

The December losses were heavily concentrated in leisure and hospitality businesses, which have been hit especially hard by the pandemic. The industry cut nearly half a million jobs in December, while sectors less exposed to the pandemic continued to add workers.

The unemployment rate was unchanged at 6.7 percent, down sharply from its high of nearly 15 percent in April but still close to double the 3.5 percent rate in the same month a year earlier.

“We’re losing ground again,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at the accounting firm Grant Thornton. “Most notably, this is still very much a low-wage recession, and the losses were where we first saw them when the pandemic hit.”

Unemployment rate

By Ella Koeze·Seasonally adjusted·Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Hiring has slowed every month since June, and the economy lost more than nine million jobs in 2020 as a whole, the first calendar-year decline since 2010 and the worst on a percentage basis since the aftermath of World War II.

Congress last month passed a $900 billion relief package that will provide temporary support to households and businesses and could give a boost to the broader economy. And in the longer run, the arrival of coronavirus vaccines should allow the return of activity that has been suppressed by the pandemic.

But the vaccine and the aid came too late to prevent a sharp slowdown in growth.

“We did have a pullback in the economy,” said Michelle Meyer, head of U.S. economics at Bank of America. “If stimulus was passed earlier, maybe that could have been avoided.”

When the economy shut down last spring, many workers thought they would be out of a job for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months.

Nine months later, many still aren’t back on the job.

The Labor Department’s monthly jobs report on Friday showed that nearly four million Americans had been out of work for more than six months, economists’ standard threshold for long-term unemployment. That was up by 27,000 from November, and roughly quadruple the number before the pandemic began.

Those figures almost certainly understate the scope of the problem. People who aren’t looking for work, whether because they don’t believe jobs are available or because they are caring for children or other family members, aren’t counted as unemployed.

The number of people who have been unemployed long-term is still rising

Share of unemployed who have been out of work 27 weeks or longer

By Ella Koeze·Seasonally adjusted·Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

When the data was collected in mid-December, many of the long-term jobless faced a frightening deadline: Federal programs that extended unemployment benefits beyond their standard six-month limit were set to expire at the end of the year. The aid package later passed by Congress and signed by President Trump extended the programs, but by less than three months.

Long-term joblessness was a defining feature of the last recession a decade ago, when millions eventually gave up looking for work, in some cases permanently. If that pattern repeats, it could have long-term consequences, particularly for people with disabilities, criminal records or other characteristics that make it hard to find jobs even in the best of times.

“These are the kinds of workers who are really only recruited and called upon in a very tight labor market, and it may take us a long time to get back there,” said Julia Pollak, a labor economist with the hiring site ZipRecruiter. “That is the worry, that there are these groups of people who will drop out now and who will only really find good opportunities again after a sustained and lengthy expansion.”

State and local governments continued to cut payroll employment in December, a sign that a crucial sector was bleeding jobs nine months into the pandemic.

Those governments account for about 13 percent of employment in the United States, which makes their trajectory extremely important to the nation’s labor market outlook. Because most are required to balance their budgets, lower income or higher expenses can lead to big job cuts.

State and local employers shed 51,000 workers in December compared with the prior month. As of last month, they reported 1.4 million fewer jobs than in February, the month before the pandemic job losses started.

The big employment cuts come despite revenue losses that appear milder than many analysts had expected at the pandemic’s outset. Louise Sheiner at the Brookings Institution estimated in a recent post that states would miss $350 billion in revenue over three years. Meanwhile, by her estimation, they received about $280 billion in direct and indirect federal aid in a March relief package, and about $120 billion more — largely indirectly — with the most recent fiscal package.

But expenses have shot up as the states try to deal with the public health crisis, which could leave budgets under strain even as federal aid helps to overcome revenue shortfalls. And the economic hit from the virus has not been evenly spread — some places are struggling more acutely.

From an employment standpoint, it’s also important that states were finalizing budgets when worse outcomes were expected, and may have cut back as a result, Ms. Sheiner wrote.

“What we’re seeing is that it’s different state to state,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said at a news conference in December. But he pointed out that many employees had been cut from state payrolls, at least temporarily. “We’re watching carefully to understand why that many people have been let go and what really are the sources,” he said.

Wall Street continued its rally on Friday, fueled by bets on robust fiscal stimulus coming from a Democratic-led government in Washington, despite fresh evidence that the United States economy is backsliding as the pandemic surges.

The S&P 500 rose less than half a percent in early trading, after reaching a record on Thursday. The Stoxx Europe 600 was 0.6 percent higher, and the FTSE 100 in Britain dipped slightly. In Asia, the Nikkei 225 in Japan closed with a gain of 2.4 percent, climbing to a level it last hit in 1990.

Though Washington continues to reverberate after a pro-Trump mob overran the Capitol building on Wednesday, the investing world is instead focused on the wave of spending that could come as Democrats assume leadership of the White House and both houses of Congress.

Investors also seemed to look past the Labor Department’s report on December payrolls, which showed U.S. employers cut 140,000 jobs last month, the first drop since last spring. The weak report bolsters the argument that more economic stimulus is needed.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs said they expected $750 billion in additional spending in the first three months of the year, while their counterparts at Morgan Stanley are forecasting as much as $1 trillion in spending.

At the same time, few on Wall Street seem to think Democrats will prioritize tax increases, which had previously been seen as a potential risk of a Democratic sweep. The result is almost an ideal scenario for a range of investments geared to the short-term outlook for economic growth.

That’s been most evident in the so-called cyclical areas of the stock market, which include industrial, material and financial shares. Small-capitalization stocks, closely tied to the outlook for shorter-term American economic growth, are also rallying, as are companies that will profit from President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s pledges to spend heavily on infrastructure and alternative energy.

“Now you have the potential for more stimulus, even possibly an infrastructure spend,” said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at the investment management firm Invesco on Thursday. “So, I think the stock market is enthused right now. And that enthusiasm is pretty strong.”

Gains continued in other financial markets too. Oil prices continued their rally, with Brent crude climbing 1.6 percent, to $55.25 a barrel, and West Texas Intermediate rallying to above $51 a barrel.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note also continued to rise, reaching 1.09 percent on Thursday. The rise in yields most likely reflects expectations that the Treasury will be issuing large amounts of debt to finance renewed government spending.

Credit…Mohamed Sadek for The New York Times

Several states say they are moving quickly to restore federal unemployment benefits that lapsed last month when President Trump delayed signing a second round of federal pandemic relief.

A handful, including New York, Texas, Maryland and California, say they have started sending out the weekly $300 supplement that was part of the legislation, while others like Ohio say they are awaiting more guidance from the U.S. Labor Department.

Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, said that “at least half of the states should have something up by next week.”

Congress approved 11 weeks of additional benefits, and the entire amount will ultimately be delivered to eligible workers even if payments are initially delayed.

“Any claims for the first week will be backdated,” said James Bernsen, deputy director of communications at the Texas Workforce Commission.

In addition to a $300-a-week supplement for those receiving unemployment benefits, the $900 billion emergency relief package renews two other jobless programs created last March as part of the CARES Act.

One, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, covers freelancers, part-time hires, seasonal workers and others who do not normally qualify for state unemployment benefits. A second, Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, extends benefits for workers who have exhausted their state allotment.

This latest round also offers additional assistance for people who cobble together their income by combining a salaried job with freelance gigs. The new program, called Mixed Earner Unemployment Compensation, provides a $100 weekly payment to such workers in addition to their Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits.

Credit…Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

  • Boeing agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion in a legal settlement with the Justice Department stemming from the 737 Max debacle, the government said on Thursday. The agreement resolves a criminal charge that Boeing conspired to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates the company and evaluates its planes. With less than two weeks left in the Trump administration, the agreement takes the question of how a Biden Justice Department would view a settlement off the table. President Trump had repeatedly discussed the importance of Boeing to the economy, even going so far last year to say he favored a bailout for the company.

  • Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, is now the richest person in the world. An increase in Tesla’s share price on Thursday pushed Mr. Musk past Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 wealthiest people. Mr. Musk’s net worth was $195 billion by the end of trading on Thursday, $10 billion more than that of Mr. Bezos’s. Mr. Musk’s wealth has increased by more than $150 billion over the past 12 months, thanks to a rally in Tesla’s share price, which surged 743 percent in 2020. The carmaker’s shares rose nearly 8 percent on Thursday.

  • Wayfair, the furniture and home goods e-commerce business, said on Thursday that all of its U.S. employees would be paid at least $15 an hour. The increase, which took effect on Sunday, applies to full-time, part-time and seasonal employees. More than 40 percent of Wayfair’s hourly workers across its U.S. supply chain and customer service operations received a pay bump.

  • The Tiffany-LVMH saga has finally come to a well-polished, multifaceted end. LVMH, the French conglomerate, completed its acquisition of the American jewelry brand on Thursday, and it was out with the old and in with the new — executives, anyway. After a brief transition period, gone will be Reed Krakoff, Tiffany’s chief artistic officer. Also leaving will be Daniella Vitale, the chief brand officer. In their place comes Alexandre Arnault, who will become executive vice president, product and communications.

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Fb Extends Trump Ban ‘at Least’ By Finish of Time period: Stay Updates

President Trump at a rally in Dalton, Ga., this week.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Facebook will block President Trump on its platforms, including Instagram, at least until the end of his term, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on Thursday.

“The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote.

“We believe the risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great. Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”

United States › United StatesOn Jan. 6 14-day change
New cases 255,728 +8%
New deaths 3,964 Flat
World › WorldOn Jan. 6 14-day change
New cases 785,681 +1%
New deaths 14,266 –5%

Where cases per capita are
highest

By: Ella Koeze·Source: Refinitiv

Stocks rose again on Thursday, after having maintained gains on Wednesday even as chaos erupted in Washington as a pro-Trump mob overran the Capitol building, as investors kept their focus on the prospects for increased federal spending by the incoming government.

The S&P 500 rose more than 1 percent in early trading, after a 0.6 percent gain on Wednesday. Shares in Europe and Asia were also mostly higher, oil prices and government bond yields edged higher.

The gains on Thursday reflect Wall Street’s eagerness to look past violence in Washington and to the impact of a government unified under Democratic leadership, analysts said. The rally began on Tuesday after it became apparent that Democrats would effectively control the Senate, after winning a pair of runoff votes in Georgia, and be able to more forcefully push forward with President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s plans to bolster the economy with government spending.

“As disturbing as these events were, markets were largely unfazed, which, we hope, points to this being an aberration,” equity analysts at J.P. Morgan wrote to clients on Thursday. “The longer-term cue for markets and policy comes from the result of the two Georgia senate runoffs, which both went to Democrats and thus enlivened the ‘blue wave.’”

After the order in the Capitol was restored, the Senate and House of Representatives voted early Thursday to certify Mr. Biden as winner of the 2020 presidential election.

Investors are also banking on the rollout of coronavirus vaccines to eventually energize business activity that has been dormant during the pandemic, and, as they have for months, also looked past fresh evidence of the economic catastrophe unfolding. On Thursday, the Labor Department reported that 922,000 workers filed new state claims for unemployment benefits last week, while another 161,000 new claims were filed under a federal program.

Treasury bond yields continued to rise, lifted by expectations that additional fiscal spending in Washington will generate more bond issues, reaching as high as 1.06 percent on 10-year notes. The yield climbed above 1 percent this week for the first time since March.

Economists at Goldman Sachs said they expected Democrats to pass $750 billion in fiscal stimulus in the first quarter of the year. The U.S. investment bank also raised its forecast for economic growth this year to 6.4 percent from 5.9 percent.

Oil was holding on to an 11-month high, after Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday it would cut oil production. The U.S. crude benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, hit $51.28 a barrel before slipping a bit, while Brent crude reached $54.90.

The Royal Divinity Food Bank in Birmingham, Ala., says it has been feeding hundreds more families each month since the pandemic began. The job market has improved, but millions remain unemployed.Credit…Audra Melton for The New York Times

New claims for unemployment benefits remained high last week, the government reported on Thursday, the latest evidence that the pandemic-racked economy still has a lot of lost ground to make up heading into a new year.

A total of 922,000 workers filed initial claims for state benefits during the final week of 2020, the Labor Department said, while another 161,000 new claims were filed under a federal pandemic jobless program. Neither figure is seasonally adjusted. On a seasonally adjusted basis, new state claims totaled 787,000.

The labor market has improved since the coronavirus pandemic broke out and closed down the economy. But of the more than 22 million jobs that disappeared in the spring, 10 million remain lost.

With a recently enacted $900 billion relief package that includes an extension of federal unemployment benefits, most of the unemployed can at least look forward to more financial help.

Still, “this winter is going to be very difficult,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief U.S. financial economist at Oxford Economics. “We’re seeing overall economic momentum is slowing, and that feeds through to the labor market.”

“Employers are very cautious about rehiring at the same time they have had to increase layoffs,” Ms. Bostjancic said, “but the resurgence of the virus is really the main culprit here.”

A fuller picture of December employment will come Friday when the Labor Department releases its monthly jobs report, and most analysts are expecting minor payroll gains — or even the first net loss since April.

As for Thursday’s report, there was a sharp increase in claims for extended state benefits — payments to the long-term unemployed whose regular benefits have run out. But new claims under the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program fell, most likely reflecting the exhaustion of benefits before Congress acted.

Some fuzziness surrounding the count could be related to the difficulty of seasonally adjusting the numbers over the holidays, said Ernie Tedeschi, the head of fiscal analysis at Evercore ISI. The unadjusted number for new state claims was up by 77,000 from the previous week, while the seasonally adjusted number scarcely budged.

But longer-term trends, Mr. Tedeschi noted, are more meaningful than any week-to-week changes.

Even with the arrival of vaccines, “employers are still cautious related to their work force strategy,” said Amy Glaser of the staffing firm Adecco USA.Credit…Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

While the availability of vaccines will speed the economy’s return to normal, employers remain wary about hiring, job recruiters say.

Job postings and hiring typically fall off at the end of December, and the trend after the latest holiday season has been more pronounced than usual. “Right now, employers are still cautious related to their work force strategy,” said Amy Glaser, senior vice president at the staffing firm Adecco USA.

The rebound has been bumpy, and employers have responded in kind, retaining flexibility to increase or reduce their staffing through the use of temporary workers, Ms. Glaser said. That could mean more people are cycling through jobs.

Julia Pollak, a labor economist at the online job site ZipRecruiter, has seen the same caution.

“Employers are being apprehensive, and job seekers are not yet flocking back to the market in droves, either,” Ms. Pollak said. “The virus is still spreading, hospitalizations have hit a new record, and there is a pullback in demand for certain services. A lot of stay-at-home orders and restrictions are causing a further decline.”

Some industries have managed to thrive. A key measure of manufacturing, for instance, rose this week to its highest level since 2018. Construction spending and employment have grown along with a surge in home buying. Staffing agencies say they have seen hiring in the automotive business and financial services. The demand for warehouse and delivery workers also remains strong.

One of the biggest trends has been the increase in customer service workers and call center representatives operating from home, Ms. Glaser of Adecco said. Those jobs require greater digital literacy than in the past, she said, because individuals must be able to set up their computers and solve problems themselves.

“There is no tech person sitting down the hallway,” she said.

Farley's East in Oakland, Calif., was able to stay open with help from the Paycheck Protection Program. Small businesses are waiting for details about the next round of lending aid.Credit…Nathan Frandino/Reuters

The federal government released updated rules for lenders just before midnight on Wednesday for the next round of Paycheck Protection Program lending, but it did not set a date for when it expects to begin taking applications.

Lenders anticipate the program could restart as soon as next week. Last month’s stimulus package included $284 billion for new loans through the small-business relief program, which ended in August after distributing $523 billion to more than five million businesses. In this next round, the hardest-hit business — those whose sales have dropped at least 25 percent from before the pandemic — can qualify for a second loan. First-time borrowers will also be eligible for loans.

The Small Business Administration, which runs the program, plans to give small lenders a head start. In its first two days, the program will accept loan applications only from community lenders like Community Development Financial Institutions, which specialize in working with low-income borrowers and in areas underserved by larger lenders.

For second loans of more than $150,000, applicants will need to provide their lender with records proving their sales have declined. Lenders will need to do a “good faith review” of those documents, but will be allowed to rely on borrowers’ certifications that their claims are accurate — a win for lenders, which are concerned about being held liable for fraudulent claims.

For smaller loans, borrowers will not need to provide their sales records as part of their application, but the S.B.A. can request them later.

The S.B.A. is scrambling to release a variety of relief measures included in last month’s stimulus bill, including a $15 billion grant program for music clubs, theaters and other live-events venues. The agency has not yet released any details on that program, and it will not start until after President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. takes office.

When Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, issued a statement condemning the violence in Washington on Wednesday, he urged “our elected leaders” to call for an end to it. He did not directly mention President Trump.

Nor did the Charles Scharf, the chief executive of Wells Fargo (“The behavior in Washington, D.C., today is unacceptable”) or the chief executives of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America or Citigroup. Business leaders and organizations often instead referred to “leaders” or called for “the peaceful transition of power” to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Business leaders have rarely criticized Mr. Trump directly. When he announced, shortly before he was inaugurated, that Stephen K. Bannon would be his chief strategist in the White House, Democrats on the congressional committees that oversee the finance industry asked industry leaders to publicly oppose the appointment. The lawmakers called Mr. Bannon a “bigot beloved by white supremacists” and said the business leaders had “a moral obligation to speak out.”

None did.

After Mr. Trump took office, chief executives found themselves in the uncomfortable position of deciding whether to take part in so-called business advisory councils, common forums for business leaders to influence the policy of a new president, even as he was rolling out policies many saw as hateful. Several such councils disbanded after Mr. Trump declined in 2017 to condemn violence by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., and said there were “very fine people” and “blame” on “both sides.”

With the president’s increasing efforts to subvert the election, organizations have grown bolder. On Monday, for example, 170 business leaders signed their names to a statement, organized by the business advocacy organization Partnership for New York City, urging Congress to certify the result of the presidential election, though some prominent members were missing.

On Wednesday, as a mob stormed the Capitol, organizations not known for vocal statements seemed to no longer worry about the political ramifications of speaking up against Mr. Trump.

The research group High Frequency Economics suspended regular publication of its research notes for the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and sent a note to its clients: “We at High Frequency Economics are disgusted by the role of the president of the United States in inciting this riot, and we are saddened that he cannot find the character to stand up in front of the mob he has created, quell the violence and send everyone home.”

And the Business Roundtable, a group of chief executives, including Mr. Dimon, from some of the nation’s largest companies, was direct as to the cause of the violence.

“The chaos unfolding in the nation’s capital is the result of unlawful efforts to overturn the legitimate results of a democratic election,” the group said. “The country deserves better. Business Roundtable calls on the president and all relevant officials to put an end to the chaos and to facilitate the peaceful transition of power.”

Commercial space for rent in New York City. Stay-at-home orders and other restrictions have left millions without work as businesses close.Credit…Mohamed Sadek for The New York Times

Several states say they are moving quickly to restore federal unemployment benefits that lapsed last month when President Trump delayed signing a second round of federal pandemic relief.

A handful, including New York, Texas, Maryland and California, say they have started sending out the weekly $300 supplement that was part of the legislation, while others like Ohio say they are awaiting more guidance from the U.S. Labor Department.

Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, said that “at least half of the states should have something up by next week.”

Congress approved 11 weeks of additional benefits, and the entire amount will ultimately be delivered to eligible workers even if payments are initially delayed.

“Any claims for the first week will be backdated,” said James Bernsen, deputy director of communications at the Texas Workforce Commission.

In addition to a $300-a-week supplement for those receiving unemployment benefits, the $900 billion emergency relief package renews two other jobless programs created last March as part of the CARES Act.

One, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, covers freelancers, part-time hires, seasonal workers and others who do not normally qualify for state unemployment benefits. A second, Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, extends benefits for workers who have exhausted their state allotment.

This latest round also offers additional assistance for people who cobble together their income by combining a salaried job with freelance gigs. The new program, called Mixed Earner Unemployment Compensation, provides a $100 weekly payment to such workers in addition to their Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits.

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

  • President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. set aside plans to deliver a speech on the economy on Wednesday afternoon, instead calling for an end to violent protests in Washington and calling on President Trump to stop what he called an “insurrection.” Mr. Biden’s speech was expected to emphasize several of his economic priorities, including reiterating calls for another round of financial aid to help people, businesses and state and local governments weather ongoing economic pain from the virus. The president-elect is still expected to deliver economic remarks in the coming days, a transition spokesman said.

  • Federal Reserve officials were warily eyeing a surge in coronavirus cases at their Dec. 15-16 meeting, but they hoped that vaccine breakthroughs might set the stage for a strong economic rebound in 2021. “With the pandemic worsening across the country, the expansion was expected to slow even further in coming months,” according to minutes from the gathering of the Federal Open Market Committee, released Wednesday. “Nevertheless, the positive vaccine news” was “viewed as favorable for the medium-term economic outlook.”

  • The Labor Department on Wednesday released the final version of a rule that could classify millions of workers in industries like construction, cleaning and the gig economy as contractors rather than employees, another step under the Trump administration toward endorsing the business practices of companies like Uber and Lyft.

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Stay Enterprise Updates – The New York Instances

Here’s what you need to know:

For the past two months, Wall Street’s investors have found comfort in the idea that the government was heading for gridlock, with Democrats controlling the White House and Republicans in the majority at the Senate.

It’s a view that highlights Wall Street’s preference for the low-tax, low-regulation policies championed by the Republican Party. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is expected to push for more spending on infrastructure and more support for the economy, but without the Senate’s backing, he wouldn’t be able to reverse the Trump tax cuts have been a boon to corporate profits or enact major laws that increase regulation.

That consensus helped bolster stocks late last year, adding to the rally that lifted the S&P 500 to a record.

Bear

market

amid the

pandemic

Bear

market

amid the

pandemic

But there’s one more threshold to cross before investors can be sure of that outcome.

On Tuesday, two Democratic Senate candidates — Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock — are challenging two Republican incumbent senators — David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler — in a runoff. If both Democrats win, the party will take control of the upper chamber of Congress. (Democrats already have control of the House of Representatives.)

In recent days, analysts and traders have fixated on polling data and prediction markets that show a growing chance that the race could be closer than expected.

That Democrats could in fact win was one factor behind Monday’s 1.5 percent drop in the S&P 500, the index’s steepest daily decline since the days before the election.

At the same time, the economic crisis caused by the pandemic has scrambled the usual political calculus for investors.

On Wall Street, it’s generally agreed upon that Democratic control of the Senate could lead to a large amount of deficit spending in the early days of the Biden administration, a potential boon to the still-struggling American economy.

“A unified Democratic government will have broad leeway on fiscal policy, and in the current economic environment, unified Democratic government will mean more stimulus,” economists with Mizuho Securities wrote in a note to clients on Monday.

And there are parts of the economy that definitely stand to gain from the Biden agenda, such as alternative energy, infrastructure and some parts of the health care industry. On the other hand, businesses such as military contractors and larger pharmaceutical companies are expected to fare better if Republican keep control of the Senate.

How else might Wall Street find an upside in a Democratic victory? One answer comes from the rationalizations that investors offered before the November election, when polls (incorrectly as it turns out) indicated that Democrats would clobber Republicans up and down the ballot in a so-called Blue Wave.

Back then, analysts offered the view that even if Mr. Biden had the backing of both houses of Congress, tax increases wouldn’t be his first priority anyway.

So even if Tuesday’s election gives investors a reason to worry, they might also get over it quickly.

A China Telecom office in Shanghai in November.Credit…Alex Plavevski/EPA, via Shutterstock

The New York Stock Exchange said late on Monday that it had reversed a decision to delist China’s three major state-run telecommunications companies.

The Big Board said it took the step after consulting with the U.S. Treasury Department.

Last week, the exchange said it would stop the trading of shares in China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile by Jan. 11 in response to a Trump administration executive order that blocked Americans from investing in companies tied to the Chinese military.

The statement did not give a reason for the decision, though it appeared that the executive order may not require the exchange to delist the companies. The exchange said that its regulatory department would continue to evaluate the applicability of the order to the telecommunications companies.

The delisting would have had little practical impact on the companies, which also have shares listed in Hong Kong and are state-owned. Still, the disappearance from the American exchange had hefty symbolic value for worsening economic ties between China and the United States.

A quiet Westminster Bridge in London on Wednesday. Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday announced England’s third national lockdown. Credit…Neil Hall/EPA, via Shutterstock

  • European stocks dipped lower on Tuesday morning, unwinding some of their recent gains a day after the S&P 500 index suffered its steepest drop in more than two months.

  • Futures indicated stocks on Wall Street would open lower when trading begins. Two Senate runoff elections in Georgia underway on Tuesday will determine which political party controls the Senate — and how successful President-elect Joseph R Biden Jr. will be getting his agenda through Congress.

  • The Stoxx Europe 600 index was down 0.4 percent after gaining 0.7 percent on Monday. The CAC 40 in France declined 0.7 percent and the DAX in Germany fell 0.7 percent. The FTSE 100 in Britain slipped 0.1 percent, despite gains by energy companies like Royal Dutch Shell, which rose 2.1 percent.

  • Oil prices gained after an OPEC Plus meeting was suspended on Monday evening without an agreement on whether the oil-producing nations should continue curbs on production; the group will resume later on Tuesday. The growing number of restrictions on businesses and social life around the world in recent days have weakened the outlook for energy demand.

  • Shares in the FTSE 250, a British index with more domestic stocks, rose 0.5 percent on Tuesday even as the country was put under strict stay-at-home orders, most schools were closed and nonessential businesses were shuttered. For England, it is the third national lockdown.

  • For traders, the lockdown was widely expected given the sharp rise in coronavirus infections, said Susannah Streeter, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

  • “Many companies had glimpsed light at the end of the tunnel but now that tunnel appears much longer,” she said, adding that the entire first half of 2021 will be challenging as the expectations of a double-dip recession in Britain have grown.

  • The British government said an additional 4.6 billion pounds ($6.3 billion) in grants would be made available to businesses that have been forced to close.

  • “While fresh movement restrictions could delay the anticipated economic rebound, developed economies continue to receive ample fiscal and monetary support, which should help them bounce back swiftly once vaccines become widely available,” analysts at UBS wrote in a note. “We continue to like German and U.K. stocks for their catch-up potential.”

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. boarded his plane at the New Castle County Airport in Wilmington, Del., on Monday. Republicans plan to attempt to disrupt certification of Mr. Biden’s electoral votes on Wednesday.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

Chief executives and other leaders from many of America’s largest businesses on Monday urged Congress to certify the electoral vote on Wednesday to confirm Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential victory.

“Attempts to thwart or delay this process run counter to the essential tenets of our democracy,” they said in a statement. Included in the list of 170 signers were Laurence D. Fink of BlackRock, Logan Green and John Zimmer of Lyft, Brad Smith of Microsoft, Albert Bourla of Pfizer, and James Zelter of Apollo Global Management.

Over the weekend, President Trump called Georgia’s Republican secretary of state in an effort to subvert the election results. On the call, which was recorded, the president pressured the official to “find” enough votes to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory. The president’s demand raised questions about whether he violated election fraud statutes, lawyers said, though a charge is unlikely. President-elect Biden won the Electoral College, 306 to 232, and the popular vote was 81.2 million for Mr. Biden to Mr. Trump’s 74.2 million.

Members of the president’s party are divided over whether to accept that he lost the election: While top Republicans, such as Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, have pushed back on a futile attempt in Congress to reject the results, about a dozen senators and senators-elect have lined up behind President Trump’s bid to hold on to power.

The urging from business leaders came on a volatile day for financial markets and just a day before runoff elections in Georgia, which will determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the Senate. Coronavirus cases are surging, and vaccinations are taking more time than hoped.

Business leaders took issue with Washington’s new divide at a moment of grave uncertainty.

“Our duly elected leaders deserve the respect and bipartisan support of all Americans at a moment when we are dealing with the worst health and economic crises in modern history,” the business leaders wrote. “There should be no further delay in the orderly transfer of power.”

The statement, which was organized by Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy organization, came on the same day that Thomas J. Donohue, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, issued a statement urging certification of the vote.

“Efforts by some members of Congress to disregard certified election results in an effort to change the election outcome or to try a make a long-term political point undermines our democracy and the rule of law and will only result in further division across our nation,” Mr. Donohue wrote.

“The United States of America faces enormous challenges that not only require an orderly transition of administrations, but the focus of the incoming Biden administration and the new Congress, and cooperation across party lines,” he continued. “We urge Congress to fulfill its responsibility in counting the electoral votes, the Trump administration to facilitate an orderly transition for the incoming Biden administration, and all of our elected officials to devote their energies to combating the pandemic and supporting our economic recovery.”

Quibi, founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg, struggled as soon as it became available in April.Credit…Etienne Laurent/EPA, via Shutterstock

  • Quibi, the much-hyped short-form video platform, is in talks to sell its content to Roku, the streaming device maker with a streaming app of its own. The deal is close to completion, said one person with knowledge of the discussions, who was not authorized to speak publicly. Quibi and Roku declined to comment. Quibi was a quixotic attempt to capitalize on the streaming boom. Its shows, chopped into installments no longer than 10 minutes, were meant to be watched on smartphones. But it announced it would close just six months after it launched.

  • Haven, the joint venture of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase that was formed three years ago to explore new ways to deliver health care to the companies’ employees, is disbanding, according to a statement posted on its website. It will cease its operations at the end of February. Haven aimed to improve how people gain access to health care by pulling together the know-how and scale of three of the largest employers in America. Its formation sent shock waves through the markets. But two people familiar with the collaboration said logistical hurdles had made it harder than expected to come up with new ideas that made sense for all three companies.

  • Chief executives and other leaders from many of America’s largest businesses on Monday urged Congress to certify the electoral vote on Wednesday to confirm Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential victory. “Attempts to thwart or delay this process run counter to the essential tenets of our democracy,” the 170 leaders said in a statement. The statement, which was organized by Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy organization, came on the same day that Thomas J. Donohue, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, issued a statement urging certification of the vote.

VideoCinemagraph

In the West, few issues carry the political charge of water. Access to it can make or break both cities and rural communities. It can decide the fate of every part of the economy, from almond orchards to ski resorts to semiconductor factories. And with the worst drought in 1,500 years parching the region, water anxiety is increasing.

In the last few years, a new force has emerged: From the Western Slope of the Rockies to Southern California, a proliferation of private investors have descended on isolated communities, scouring the driest terrain in the United States to buy coveted water rights.

Rechanneling water from rural areas to thirsty growth spots like the suburbs of Phoenix has long been handled by municipal water managers and utilities, but investors adept at sniffing out undervalued assets sense an opportunity, Ben Ryder Howe reports in The New York Times.

To proponents of open markets, water is underpriced and consequently overused. In theory, a market-based approach discourages wasteful low-value water uses, especially in agriculture, which consumes more than 70 percent of the water in the Southwest, and creates incentives for private enterprise to become involved. Investors and the environment may benefit, but water will almost certainly be more expensive.

“They’re making water a commodity,” said Regina Cobb, an Arizona assemblywoman. “That’s not what water is meant to be.”

As investor interest mounts, leaders of Southwestern states are gathering this month to decide the future of the Colorado River. The negotiations have the potential to redefine rules that for the last century have governed one of the most valuable economic resources in the United States.

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Health

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo updates the general public as state rolls out Covid vaccines

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo updates the public as state rolls out Covid vaccines

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will hold a press conference Wednesday on plans to distribute Covid-19 vaccines amid threats of further economic shutdown of the state.

Last week, Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio noted that the state may close non-essential stores in some regions in January. For weeks, Cuomo has been saying he will put more restrictions in parts of the state where hospitals are so overwhelmed they can’t care for every patient.

However, he has determined that it is up to New York residents to follow public health precautions to limit the spread of the coronavirus and avoid a shutdown.

“Of course, a shutdown in January is possible,” Cuomo said last week. “But there is a big but,” he said and spelled the word “BUT” one letter at a time.

– CNBC’s Noah Higgins-Dunn contributed to this report.

Read CNBC’s live updates for the latest news on the Covid-19 outbreak.

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Business

Markets Rebound After Stimulus Bundle Is Handed: Reside Enterprise Updates

Small business owners protest in Los Angeles on December 12th. Congress provided $ 285 billion in additional credit to help small businesses.

stimulus

Recognition…Ringo Chiu / Agence France-Presse – Getty Images

The pandemic relief bill includes $ 285 billion through March 31 for additional credit under the Paycheck Protection Program – the government’s small business program created under the CARES Act – while removing the restriction that put more than $ 100 billion in the summer. Dollars not spent. Stacy Cowley of the New York Times shares what we know based on the outline of the law that circulated among Congressional officials on Monday:

  • The new credit relief bill provides a second cash infusion for those meeting stricter conditions: Borrowers with fewer than 300 employees who have seen a 25 percent year-over-year revenue decline in at least one quarter could apply for an additional loan of up to $ 2 million Qualify dollars.

  • Hotels and food service companies are eligible for larger loans this time, up to 3.5 times their average monthly payroll. Other borrowers, in turn, would be limited to 2.5 times their payroll.

  • Listed companies will not be eligible for the new loans, removing a provision that caused public outcry as restaurant chains, software companies and drug makers, among others, received taxpayer-funded loans.

  • The new bill expands the list of expenses that could be paid for with a loan, which was previously mainly limited to payroll, rent, and utilities. Companies could now use the money to buy supplies from their suppliers, buy protective equipment for their employees, or repair property damage “due to public disruption,” according to a summary by the House Small Business Committee.

  • The plan would allow business owners who received tax-free loans under the program to claim deductions for expenses they paid for with loan proceeds.

  • The bill would also provide the Small Business Administration with $ 50 million for audits and other anti-fraud measures in the program, which was a significant problem in the first round of funding.

  • The bill contains other relief measures that are not specifically part of the paycheck protection program but could still help many small businesses. This includes a $ 15 billion grant fund for closed theaters, museums, zoos, and venues for live events, and $ 12 billion for community development financial institutions that provide loans and grants to people and communities who often don’t are able to get traditional banks to do business with them.

Categories
Business

Tesla Joins the S&P 500: Dwell Inventory Market Updates

A supermarket in London earlier this month. Britain relies on the European Union for about a quarter of its food, mainly fresh fruit and vegetables. 

Here’s what you need to know:

By: Ella Koeze·Source: Refinitiv

Financial markets were jolted on Monday by the news that a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus had led to the suspension of some trade and travel with Britain and another lockdown in London, a new threat that overshadowed progress in Washington toward a long-awaited economic aid package.

But Wall Street’s major benchmarks bounced off their lowest levels of the day, with the Dow Jones industrial average recouping all of its losses and the S&P 500 index down a little more than half a percent by 1 p.m. in New York.

The retreat was sharper in Europe, where the Stoxx Europe 600 index dropped 2.7 percent. The FTSE 100 in Britain fell 1.7 percent, while the FTSE 250, which includes companies that are more oriented to the British economy, declined more than 2 percent.

The British pound fell against all other major currencies. It declined as much as 1.8 percent against the dollar. Crude oil prices were nearly 4 percent lower, but also off of their worst levels of the day.

Over the weekend, nearby countries shut their borders to travelers from Britain as London and the surrounding area were put into a lockdown after the government’s health secretary said a new strain of the coronavirus was “out of control.” France also stopped freight imports from Britain, a move that will worsen border disruptions and has raised concerns about the supply of fresh food.

By Monday, some countries outside of Europe also began to close their borders to travelers. Israel said most foreign nationals wouldn’t be allowed to enter, while Saudi Arabia announced a one week ban on all international travel.
But concern about the economic impact of such restrictions didn’t weigh on Wall Street quite as heavily as it did in Europe, in part because of the fact that congressional leaders have reached a deal on a $900 billion stimulus package, which is expected to include $600 stimulus payments to millions of Americans and strengthen unemployment benefits.

The congressional spending package is expected to include most of the elements that economists have long said were crucial to avoiding further calamity and aiding a recovery. It extends unemployment benefits for millions at risk of losing them, and adds money to their checks to help pay their bills. It revives the Paycheck Protection Program, which kept many small businesses afloat last spring.

Trading in the U.S. did reflect some concerns about the new restrictions in Europe. Shares of Airlines, cruise lines and casinos — companies that will be hardest hit by travel restrictions — fared poorly. As crude oil prices retreated, reflecting worry about the global economy, energy stocks were also amng the worst performers.

But another factor was also weighing on the S&P 500 on Monday — the addition of Tesla to the index.

With a market cap of more than $600 billion, Tesla is the largest ever addition to the index, requiring roughly $90 billion worth of trading as fund managers who have to try and match their holdings to the index have to sell other stock.

Gainers were concentrated in the financial sector, after the Federal Reserve on Friday said that the country’s largest banks were sturdy enough financially to survive a severe economic shock related to the pandemic. The Fed will allow them to return more money to shareholders in early 2021 as long as the banks show that they are profitable.

Goldman Sachs rose over 7 percent, Morgan Stanley jumped nearly 6 percent and JPMorgan Chase climbed more than 4 percent.

United States › United StatesOn Dec. 20 14-day change
New cases 179,803 +10%
New deaths 1,422 +19%
World › WorldOn Dec. 20 14-day change
New cases 536,082 +4%
New deaths 7,561 +5%

Where cases per capita are
highest

U.K. Virus Crisis

Credit…Andy Rain/EPA, via Shutterstock

British shoppers were warned Monday of the possibility of a “serious disruption to U.K. Christmas fresh food supplies” stemming from France’s decision to suspend all trucks arriving from Britain.

Consumers were advised by trade groups not to panic shop in the days leading to Friday’s Christmas holiday.

France is trying to stop the spread of a more contagious strain of coronavirus that Britain’s health minister said had grown “out of control” in parts of England. Over the weekend, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced tighter restrictions on people living in London and the surrounding area.

On Sunday night, France suspended the arrival of goods that are transported by truck and cross the English Channel either via ferry or through the Eurotunnel, over fears the drivers could carry the disease. The rules are to last 48 hours.

As a result, the Port of Dover, just 21 miles across the Channel from France and one of Europe’s busiest ferry ports, with just two operators moving 10,000 trucks each day, was closed to outbound traffic on Monday. About 20 miles west, the transport hub at Folkestone, connected to France by the Eurotunnel, was also closed. Truck drivers bound for the continent parked along the roadways leading to Dover, in a procedure known as Operation Stack that was devised to deal with potential disruptions caused by Brexit.

Grant Shapps, Britain’s transport minister, said about 20 percent of the freight moving in and out of England was affected by the closures. Unaccompanied goods — such as those loaded in shipping containers, carried on vessels — will continue to be admitted into France and goods can still be driven to other countries, such as the Netherlands, from smaller ports.

Still, Britain relies on imported fresh fruit and vegetables trucked in from Europe, especially in the winter. Food can still be taken by truck from France into Britain, but there are concerns truck drivers won’t go if they risk getting marooned in Britain.

The travel ban has “the potential to cause serious disruption to U.K. Christmas fresh food supplies — and exports of U.K. food and drink,” Ian Wright, the chief executive of the Food and Drink Federation, said in a statement.

The closure of ports is also disrupting parcel deliveries. Deutsche Post DHL said deliveries of parcels to Britain would also be stopped as more countries impose travel bans on Britain.

Mr. Johnson said on Monday afternoon that “the vast majority of food, medicines and other supplies are coming and going as normal.” In a news conference, Mr. Johnson added that he was in touch with French President Emmanuel Macron to try to find a way to get goods moving again “as fast as possible.”

The impact is also being felt in France, where shipments of fresh fish and shellfish will not arrive. Britain sends more seafood to the European Union than it imports, especially stocks of salmon, lobster and langoustines. A Scottish salmon trade group warned that more than £1 million of fresh salmon would be caught up in the port closure during this peak season.

The BBC reported that Sainsbury’s, one Britain’s largest supermarkets, said food for Christmas was already in hand, but if the travel suspension lasted longer, there would be “gaps over the coming days” in items such as lettuce, salad leaves, cauliflowers, broccoli and citrus fruit.

About a quarter of food consumed in Britain is imported from the European Union, Research from the London School of Economics estimated that more than half of the tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, mushrooms, peppers and lettuce Britain consumes are imported. And 75 percent to 100 percent of these were from the European Union last year.

Because Britain is set to end its transition period for leaving the European Union on Dec. 31, importers of many goods, including medicines, had already been stockpiling. London and Brussels haven’t reached a trade deal yet, and so importers have sought to get goods into the country ahead of customs checks and, potentially, new tariffs, actions that have caused delays and congestion at larger container ports.

U.K. Virus Crisis

Passenger numbers on the Eurostar have plunged 95 percent since March.Credit…Suzie Howell for The New York Times

A bad year for Eurostar, the international high-speed train, turned worse on Monday.

The sleek and speedy mode of travel that ties London, Paris, Amsterdam and other cities is a shadow of itself, crippled by the pandemic:

  • Its ridership has all but vanished.

  • Its finances are threatened.

  • More than 90 percent of its employees have been furloughed, one of its union said.

Heightening the crisis, all service from London to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam was suspended on Monday for at least 48 hours as governments on the continent banned travelers from Britain, a precaution as health officials try to control a new variant of coronavirus sweeping across parts of England. Trains will continue operating from Paris to London, the company said.

The company’s woes reflect a struggle for survival playing out across the European train industry, as the pandemic continues to upend the business of transportation. Like Europe’s airlines, the railway sector is facing its worst crisis in modern history, reports Liz Alderman for The New York Times.

Ridership has slumped 70 to 90 percent amid lockdowns and social-distancing requirements, pushing the industry toward a staggering 22 billion euros in losses this year, around the same expected for European airlines, according to CER, a Brussels-based trade group representing passenger and freight train operators. Thousands of trains have been mothballed, and tens of thousands of workers are on government-subsidized furloughs.

“It’s a totally extraordinary situation,” said Libor Lochman, CER’s executive director. “There is no comparison for it, and it can and will lead to the bankruptcy of a number of companies, unless there is the political will to prevent it.”

With more than nine billion passengers and 1.6 billion tons of freight carried on tracks stretching from Spain to Sweden, Europe’s trains are as vital as planes for whisking people and goods across the continent.

But even after the pandemic, analysts say work-from-home practices, online socializing and the rise of internet shopping will have a lasting impact on rail travel of all types, leaving privately owned companies like Eurostar and state railways including DeutscheBahn in Germany and SNCF of France, Eurostar’s biggest shareholder, struggling to survive.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has extend a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures on home mortgages its insures against default, protecting many first-time home buyers.

The moratorium will now run through Feb. 28. It had been set to expire at the end of the month.

The foreclosure moratorium applies to mortgages backed by the Federal Home Administration, a division of the federal housing department. In recent years, F.H.A. guaranteed mortgages have become a major way for first-time buyers to acquire homes. The biggest underwriters of F.H.A. mortgages have been so-called nonbank lenders that are not affiliated with a major bank.

HUD is also similarly extending the deadline for cash-strapped homeowners to seek a reprieve from making full mortgage payments for up to six months.

The HUD extensions are just the latest efforts by government housing officials to help homeowners. Earlier this month, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, extended the foreclosure moratorium for home loans guaranteed against default by those two big mortgage finance firms through the end of January.

The stimulus legislation under negotiation in Congress is expected to contain measures to help renters as well.

The new coronavirus stimulus agreement being finalized by Congress would make a fresh attempt to help Black Americans and other minorities who have been especially affected by the pandemic.

According to summaries of the bill prepared by Democrats in the House of Representatives, $12 billion out of the $900 billion aid package will be set aside for Community Development Financial Institutions, known as C.D.F.I.s, which make loans and grants to people and communities frequently unable to get traditional banks to do business with them.

The new aid package would give $3 billion to the Treasury for the C.D.F.I. Fund, a pool of money that C.D.F.I.s can draw from to make loans. Another $9 billion would be set aside for the Treasury to make more targeted investments in C.D.F.I.s and Minority Development Institutions, which also help distribute loans and grants in communities neglected by traditional banks.

These changes should help the kinds of minority-owned businesses that struggled to get help under earlier relief efforts. The Paycheck Protection Program, for example, relied heavily on the banking system to hand out forgivable loans to small businesses. But that put many Black business owners at an immediate disadvantage because they lacked lending relationships with traditional banks.

Research by social scientists in Utah and New Jersey has shown that Black business owners had a harder time getting Paycheck Protection Program aid compared with white business owners, and a survey by community advocates revealed that many minority-owned businesses did not get the help they asked for.

C.D.F.I.s, which are often nonprofits, became the go-to lenders for these business owners as they tried stay afloat during pandemic-induced lockdowns. But the Treasury Department was slow to allow many C.D.F.I.s to participate in the Paycheck Protection Program, and Congress set aside only a tiny portion of the initial aid package specifically for them. Only later, with $10 billion apportioned to C.D.F.I.s in late May, as well as grants from big banks like Goldman Sachs, did many C.D.F.I.s have the capacity needed to help minority communities.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the Capitol on Monday. After months of gridlock and debate, the House and Senate are expected to approve the spending measures on Monday.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

After congressional leaders struck a long-sought agreement on a $900 billion pandemic relief package, lawmakers in both chambers on Monday will race to finalize legislative text and send the measure to President Trump’s desk before government funding lapses.

An agreement in principle was reached late Sunday afternoon, hours before a midnight deadline to avoid a government shutdown. With additional time needed to transform their agreement into legislative text, both chambers had to approve a one-day stopgap spending bill, giving them an additional 24 hours to finalize the deal.

Lawmakers will have just a few hours to review the $2.3 trillion in relief legislation and a catchall omnibus to keep the government funded for the remainder of the fiscal year. But the process of compiling the behemoth package was already running into issues, according to aides familiar with the process, with a corrupt computer file in the education portion of the package delaying attempts to merge and upload the pieces of legislation.

But after months of gridlock and debate, both chambers are expected to approve the spending measures on Monday and send them to the president for his approval.

While the deal needs Mr. Trump’s signature, it bears, in part, the imprint of the man who is about to succeed him. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. was not directly involved in the talks but Democratic aides said they have been in close contact with Mr. Biden’s team — and while the former Delaware senator suggested the package was not nearly enough to address the crisis, he promoted the pact as the sort of bipartisan deal that could become routine on his watch.

“I am optimistic that we can meet this moment, together,” he said in a statement released late Sunday. “My message to everyone out there struggling right now: Help is on the way.”

The magnitude of the challenge facing Mr. Biden was revealed in those two sentences.

He is eager to rush billions more in aid to localities and those hit hardest by the pandemic — aligning him with party progressives — but he also needs to gain leverage over Senate Republicans in future negotiations by convincing some Trump supporters he is willing to work with them.

The $900 billion agreement is set to provide $600 stimulus payments to millions of American adults earning up to $75,000. It would revive lapsed supplemental federal unemployment benefits at $300 a week for 11 weeks — setting both at half the amount provided by the first pandemic relief package in March.

The final proposal will also include $69 billion for the distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine and more than $22 billion for states to conduct testing, tracing and coronavirus mitigation programs.

The agreement is also expected to:

  • Continue and expand benefits for gig workers and freelancers, and extend federal payments for people whose regular benefits have expired.

  • Provide more than $284 billion for businesses and revive the Paycheck Protection Program, a popular federal loan program for small businesses that lapsed over the summer.

  • Expand eligibility under that program for nonprofit organizations, local newspapers and radio and TV broadcasters and allocate $15 billion for performance venues, independent movie theaters and other cultural institutions devastated by the restrictions imposed to stop the spread of the virus.

  • Provide $82 billion for colleges and schools, $13 billion in increased nutrition assistance, $7 billion for broadband access and $25 billion in rental assistance.

  • Extend an eviction moratorium set to expire at the end of the year.

  • Ban surprise medical bills that come when patients unexpectedly receive care from an out-of-network health provider. Instead of sending those charges to patients, hospitals and doctors will now need to work with health insurers to settle the bills.

Alan Bergman, left, is now chairman of the movie division, while Alan Horn will be chief creative officer.Credit…Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

Disney on Monday cleared up a lingering question at its movie division: Alan Bergman, 54, was named chairman, succeeding Alan F. Horn, 77, a venerable figure in Hollywood who has led Walt Disney Studios since 2012. Mr. Horn will continue to serve as chief creative officer.

“It has been an honor to lead the Walt Disney Studios over the past eight-plus years,” Mr. Horn said in a statement. “The time feels right to shift my focus solely to our enormous creative slate.” This month, Disney said the movie division would dramatically increase its output to supply Disney+, the company’s year-old streaming service, which has soared in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Bergman joined Walt Disney Studios in 1996 and rose through the business affairs ranks, overseeing finance, technology, legal affairs and human resources. Most recently he served as co-chairman of the division, which includes Pixar, 20th Century Studios, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Blue Sky Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Walt Disney Animation, Disney live-action movies and Disney’s live stage shows. The heads of those units will report jointly to Mr. Bergman and Mr. Horn, Disney said. Mr. Bergman and Mr. Horn will report to Bob Chapek, Disney’s chief executive.

“With this new structure, we are ensuring a vital continuity of leadership,” Mr. Chapek said in a statement.

A spokesman declined to say how long Mr. Horn would serve in his role. The structure is reminiscent of how Disney recently handled succession at its highest level, announcing in February that Robert A. Iger would step down as chief executive to become executive chairman and focus on the company’s creative endeavors. Mr. Iger said he would exit entirely in late 2021, when his contract expires.

Under Mr. Horn’s leadership, Disney became Hollywood’s dominant movie company, by far. Last year, Disney controlled roughly 40 percent of the domestic box office, and six of its releases took in more than $1 billion worldwide. Mr. Horn was formerly the top film executive at Warner Bros., where he oversaw the eight-film “Harry Potter” series and Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy. Before that, he co-founded Castle Rock Entertainment, where movies included “When Harry Met Sally” and “A Few Good Men.”

Catch up

  • European regulators gave the green light to a merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA, the maker of Peugeot, Citroën and Opel cars, paving the way for shareholders of the two companies to vote on the deal at a special meeting on Jan. 4. The European Commission said the transaction can go ahead, but with conditions. To preserve competition in the market for commercial vehicles, PSA must continue to allow Toyota to build vans and light trucks at its factories in Europe, and PSA and FCA must share specialized tools so that outside firms can do repairs.

  • The Federal Reserve said on Friday that the financial system’s biggest banks had the wherewithal to withstand a severe economic shock from the pandemic, and that they would be able to return more money to shareholders early next year as long as they showed that they were profitable. In June, the Fed put temporary caps on shareholder payouts by the nation’s biggest banks. Minutes after the regulator’s announcement on Friday, JPMorgan Chase said it would buy back $30 billion of its shares during the first three months of 2021.

  • In a novel case, federal prosecutors on Friday brought criminal charges against an executive at Zoom, the videoconferencing company, accusing him of engaging in a conspiracy to disrupt and censor video meetings commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre. He is accused of working with others to log into the video meetings under aliases using profile pictures that related to terrorism or child pornography. Afterward, Mr. Jin would report the meetings for violating terms of service, prosecutors said.

Categories
Business

Unemployment Claims Present Toll of Rising Covid Instances: Reside Updates

Vacant retail shops in Columbus, Ohio. The rate of jobless claims has been rising as coronavirus cases remain high across the country.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

Rising Covid-19 cases are taking a steep toll on economic activity, battering the labor market even as new vaccines offer a ray of hope for next year.

The number of Americans filing initial claims for unemployment insurance remained high last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. After dropping earlier in the fall, claims have moved higher, and they remain at levels that dwarf the pace of past recessions.

There were 935,000 new claims for state benefits, compared with 956,000 the previous week, while 455,000 filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federally funded program for part-time workers, the self-employed and others ordinarily ineligible for jobless benefits.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of new state claims was 885,000, an increase of 23,000 from the previous week.

Consumer caution, coupled with new restrictions on business activity like indoor dining, has pummeled the hospitality industry, lodging, airlines and other service businesses. The debut of a coronavirus vaccine this week offers the prospect of relief, but until mass inoculations begin next year, the economy will remain under pressure.

“Businesses are closing, and as a result, we are seeing job losses mount — and that’s exactly what we were fearful of going into the winter,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. “It’s going to be a challenging few months, no doubt.”

At the end of November, more than 20 million workers were collecting unemployment benefits under state or federal programs, Labor Department data indicates.

With the weakening economy as the backdrop, Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress continued talks on Wednesday on another pandemic relief bill, something that economists have warned is overdue. Without action, two key programs for unemployed workers will expire this month, cutting off benefits to millions.

“We are not moving in the right direction,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “With the looming expiration of benefits, it’s even more worrisome.”

Data released on Wednesday showed a 1.1 percent drop in retail sales in November, a disappointing start to the crucial holiday season. Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services, expects economic growth to be weak for the next few months before picking up later in 2021.

“Until we get a lot of people vaccinated, the economy will face a difficult test,” he said. “I don’t know if we will see an outright contraction or the loss of jobs, but the pace of improvement will slow markedly.”

Christian Smalls leads a workers strike at the Amazon fulfillment center on Staten Island in May.Credit…Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times

The National Labor Relations Board said on Thursday that it had found merit in a complaint that Amazon wrongfully fired a warehouse worker in retaliation for organizing colleagues concerned about pandemic safety conditions.

Kevin Petroccione, a congressional liaison for the National Labor Relations Board, said if Amazon did not settle, the board would file a formal complaint against the company.

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment. The finding was earlier reported by Vice.

The charge of unfair labor practices was brought by Gerald Bryson, who worked at Amazon’s warehouse in Staten Island, N.Y. Mr. Bryson had joined with other workers, including one named Christian Smalls, in a protest over safety concerns in late March after the pandemic struck. Amazon immediately fired Mr. Smalls. About a week later, Mr. Bryson protested again in the parking lot of the building.

Amazon fired Mr. Bryson about two weeks later, saying he had violated the company’s vulgar language policy during a confrontation with another worker in the second protest, according to Frank Kearl, Mr. Bryson’s lawyer.

In June, Mr. Bryson filed a case with the National Labor Relations Board, effectively saying that Amazon selectively enforced its vulgar language policy as an excuse to retaliate against Mr. Bryson for his organizing. Mr. Kearl said the agency told him of the finding late last month.

If Amazon does not reach a settlement, which could include back pay or reinstating Mr. Bryson’s job, the agency plans to file a complaint to be heard by an administrative law judge. It filed a similar retaliation complaint against Amazon in a case of a worker in Pennsylvania who protested conditions during the pandemic. That case is pending.

Do you work in an Amazon warehouse and have a labor issue? We want to hear from you. Contact the reporter of this article at karen.weise@nytimes.com.

Nearly a year after the coronavirus outbreak, the full impact of the pandemic on the U.S. economy remains unclear. Some of the most obvious indicators are in conflict: As some companies report enormous profits, the number of unemployed Americans is nearly 10 million more than it was in February, and hundreds of thousands are expected to have filed new unemployment claims last week.

The Times interviewed a rage of economists and experts who suggested looking at eight measures to understand the state of the economy that President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will face on Jan. 20.

  • Wages: That wages and salaries have bounced back quickly is a sign that things are on track for a rapid recovery. During the last recession — which Mr. Biden and then-President Barack Obama inherited in 2009 — drops of wages and salaries took years to recover.

  • Unemployment for Black men: The current crisis has had a particularly negative, persistent impact on employment for Black men, who face an unemployment rate of 11.3 percent, five percentage points higher than the unemployment rate for white men.

  • Long-term unemployment: The number of Americans who are still in the labor force but have been unemployed for more than six months has been increasing since April. A sociologist with a left-leaning think tank said the rise in long-term unemployment, coupled with the fact that millions of workers have left the labor market altogether since February, indicated “a very serious problem in connecting people who are able to produce needed goods and services with the opportunity to do so.”

  • Housing costs: Home prices and rents have risen during the pandemic. But while the rising costs have strained low-income renters, the rise in housing prices typically signals strong economic growth.

  • New businesses: Even as countless businesses have been forced to close over the course of the pandemic, the increase in business applications over the last year is a sign that the economy may be adapting rather than totally seizing.

  • Spending on goods: Though the pandemic has altered Americans’ day-to-day lives, it hasn’t halted their spending as much as some feared it would. Consumption has shifted toward goods over services — buying alcohol from stores instead of from bars, for example — bucking a generational trend toward a service economy.

  • Food scarcity — More families across the country are unable to meet their basic needs for housing and food security, according to a Census Bureau survey.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the Capitol. After months of stalemate, congressional leaders were on the verge of cementing a stimulus deal.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Top Democrats and Republicans in Congress haggled on Thursday over the remaining hurdles to an emerging $900 billion stimulus deal, with Democrats making a last-ditch effort to use the package to deliver more emergency aid to states struggling amid the pandemic.

With Congress running out of time to deliver another round of relief to Americans and stave off a government shutdown on Friday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi reported more momentum toward a compromise that could be ready as early as today.

“We made some progress this morning,” Ms. Pelosi, of California, told reporters at the Capitol. Asked if a final agreement would be announced within the day, she said: “We’ll let you know.”

The plan under discussion would provide a dose of badly needed relief after months of stalled negotiations and amid a national public health crisis that has killed more than 307,000 people.

That includes a new round of stimulus payments, probably $600, to American adults; a temporary infusion of enhanced federal jobless aid of around $300 per week; and rental and food assistance. It would also revive a loan program for struggling small businesses and provide funding for schools, hospitals and the distribution of the vaccine.

With plans to merge a final agreement with a sweeping omnibus government funding package, Congress may have to approve another stopgap spending measure to avert a government shutdown on Friday while negotiators put the finishing touches on the stimulus deal. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, warned Republicans on Wednesday that they should prepare to remain in Washington through the weekend.

“I hope it wouldn’t be more than 24 or 48 hours,” Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, said of a possible stopgap bill, adding, “I really think this is coming to a close.”

Ms. Pelosi, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, spoke late Wednesday evening to continue ironing out differences over the measure, a spokesman for Ms. Pelosi said, and they planned to continue talks on Thursday.

In order to reach an agreement, Republicans appear to have dropped their demand for a sweeping coronavirus liability shield for businesses in exchange for Democrats agreeing to exclude a direct funding stream for state and local governments that are facing fiscal crises, according to two officials familiar with the discussions.

But Democrats were pushing to provide billions of dollars for governors to use for health-related expenses during the pandemic — including vaccine distribution — and extend emergency federal assistance for states and local governments through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Republicans who have fiercely opposed sending more aid to states and cities were resisting the moves, concerned about leaving FEMA with enough money for future natural disasters and about the lack of restrictions on how the funds are spent.

Some Republicans — in particular Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania — were pushing to curtail the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending authority, which Democrats argue would hamper the Biden administration’s ability to continue supporting the country’s economic recovery. After the Federal Reserve used such authority earlier this year after the enactment of the $2.2 trillion stimulus law, Mr. Mnuchin clawed back the remaining funds in part to offset the cost of another stimulus bill.

There is also a push to include billions of dollars in relief for theaters and venues, something that lawmakers in both parties support.

Zach Montague contributed reporting.

By: Ella Koeze·Source: Refinitiv

  • A generally upbeat mood prevailed in global stock markets on Thursday, as lawmakers from both parties in Washington signaled they were close to reaching a deal on an economic aid package, an extraordinary shift in tone from both Republicans and Democrats, and more people received a coronavirus vaccine.

  • Investors are also looking toward an economic recovery sometime next year with one coronavirus vaccine already approved in several countries, and a second close to receiving emergency approval.

  • Still, the pandemic is far from over and continuing to take a staggering human and economic toll. Claims for state unemployment insurance illustrated this on Thursday, with 935,000 filing new claims last week, the Labor Department said.

  • The market gains on Thursday were relatively small: the S&P 500 rose about half a percent in early trading. The Stoxx Europe 600 gained 0.5 percent, while the FTSE in Britain was flat. Most Asian indexes closed the day with gains.

  • In Washington, talks continued on a $900 billion stimulus plan that would provide a new round of direct payments to millions of Americans as well as additional unemployment benefits, food assistance and rental aid. Republicans and Democrats alike signaled that they were ready to coalesce around the main elements, though a final agreement hasn’t been reached.

  • The Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, on Wednesday made a point of saying the central bank was in no mood to begin scaling back its efforts to bolster the economy. He said the Fed’s policy decisions were intended to show that policymakers would “deliver powerful support to the economy until the recovery is complete.” He said the economy would face near-term challenges, but would likely bounce back quickly once vaccines were widely available, perhaps by midyear.

Baiju Bhatt and Vladimir Tenev, Robinhood’s co-founders, in 2018. Millions of investors have turned to the app in recent years.Credit…Reuters

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday said that Robinhood, the stock trading app, had misled its customers about how it was paid by Wall Street firms for passing along customer trades, the latest enforcement action against the popular platform.

Robinhood agreed to pay a $65 million fine to settle the charges, the latest blow to the company whose popularity has surged since its founding, offering commission-free trading and an easy-to-use app. Critics have said that the company relied on practices that hurt its rapidly growing base of customers, who tend to be younger and less experienced.

The charges announced on Thursday apply to Robinhood’s disclosures from 2015 to late 2018, the regulator said.

The S.E.C. had charged Robinhood with “repeated misstatements that failed to disclose the firm’s receipt of payments from trading firms for routing customer orders to them, and with failing to satisfy its duty to seek the best reasonably available terms to execute customer orders,” it said in a statement.

“Robinhood provided misleading information to customers about the true costs of choosing to trade with the firm,” Stephanie Avakian, director of the S.E.C.’s enforcement division, said in a statement. “Brokerage firms cannot mislead customers about order execution quality.”

As part of the settlement, Robinhood did not admit or deny the allegations. But Dan Gallagher, its chief legal officer, said that the company was committed to helping meet its customers’ needs. “The settlement relates to historical practices that do not reflect Robinhood today,” he said in a statement.

Millions of investors have turned to Robinhood in recent years, lured by the simple fact that the site allows investors to trade without paying commissions. Much of the retail brokerage industry has since followed suit, resulting in a surge of retail trading activity this year.

Because they do not charge commissions, brokerage firms like Robinhood make money by charging high-speed trading firms for the right to execute their clients’ orders, a practice called payment for order flow. The trading firms are willing to pay Robinhood because they can eke out incremental gains on individual trades, which because of their speed and scale add up to large amounts of money.

But that also means that the high-speed trading firms determine the price one of Robinhood’s clients would pay for shares, or what they might receive for selling stock.

The S.E.C. said that for several years, the company had failed to be transparent with customers about its use of payment for order flow. It also said that the brokerage firm had violated a duty to get customers the best possible prices for their orders, tying that failure to the high payment rates it received from trading firms in exchange for customers’ trades.

In its order summarizing the settlement, the S.E.C. said that although the company was publicly declaring that its customers were getting trading terms as good as or better than what rivals offered, internal reviews showed that was far from the case.

The federal charges come a day after regulators in Massachusetts accused Robinhood of aggressively courting and manipulating inexperienced investors and then failing to protect them. In a complaint, the Massachusetts secretary of the commonwealth, William F. Galvin, said that Robinhood focused on signing up young traders with perks like free shares, and then used “gamification” marketing techniques to persuade them to trade often.

Matt Phillips and Gregory Schmidt contributed reporting.

Google received a kernel of good news on Thursday when European Union authorities approved its acquisition of the fitness-tracking company Fitbit after a lengthy review to determine whether the $2.1 billion takeover violated antitrust laws.

European regulators had been under pressure to block the deal, first announced last year, but allowed it to move forward after Google agreed not use the health and fitness data collected from Fitbit’s wearable devices and services to target ads at internet users. Google also agreed to continue providing its free Android software to competing makers of fitness and health devices.

The announcement comes as Google faces two antitrust lawsuits in the United States. On Wednesday, 10 state attorneys general accused the Silicon Valley giant of abusing its power in digital advertising. In October, the Justice Department accused the company of using illegal tactics to maintain dominance for its search engine.

The European Commission, the E.U.’s executive body, has brought three antitrust cases against Google in recent years. The company is appealing the fines.

The central bank left its benchmark interest rate at 0.1 percent and did not increase its purchases of government bonds. Credit…Andrew Testa for The New York Times

The Bank of England, which has been battling not only a pandemic but the threat of a disruptive exit from the European Union, made no changes to its monetary policy Thursday amid signs that both threats could be receding.

The central bank left its benchmark interest rate at 0.1 percent and did not increase its purchases of government bonds. In November, at its last meeting, the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee expanded the bond purchases, a way of holding down market interest rates, by £150 billion. The bank said Thursday it would continue to aim for total asset purchases of £895 billion, or $1.2 trillion.

The bank also extended by six months a program that allows commercial banks to borrow money at or close to the benchmark interest rate, if they funnel the money to small and midsize businesses.

Successful development of vaccines against the coronavirus are “likely to reduce the downside risks to the economic outlook from Covid,” the Monetary Policy Committee said in a statement. But the committee also said growth would be “a little weaker” than policymakers expected in November because of sharper lockdowns.

Negotiators for Britain and the European Union continued to meet in Brussels on Thursday, and there were indications they had narrowed their differences, potentially averting a no-deal Brexit that would be bad for both economies, but especially Britain’s.

In one example of the potential damage, the German automaker BMW warned that it would have to significantly raise prices for cars sold in Britain if there were no deal. Nicolas Peter, the company’s chief financial officer, told German media on Wednesday that BMW would also have to raise the price of British-made Minis sold in Europe because of import and export tariffs.

  • Unilever, a major advertiser, said it would resume spending in January on U.S. ads on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter but would continue to monitor the social media platforms for hate speech, misinformation and postelection “polarization.” The company stepped away in June but said on Thursday that it was “encouraged by the platforms’ new commitments and reporting to monitor progress.”

  • Ten state attorneys general on Wednesday accused Google of illegally abusing its monopoly over the technology that delivers ads online. The state prosecutors said that Google overcharged publishers for the ads it showed across the web and edged out rivals who tried to challenge the company’s dominance. They also said that Google had reached an agreement with Facebook to limit the social network’s own efforts to compete with Google for ad dollars. Google said the suit was “baseless” and that it would fight the case.

  • Tyson Foods has fired seven workers accused of being involved in a betting pool over how many employees would get the coronavirus, the company said Wednesday. The son of a meatpacking worker who died in April filed a suit claiming that the manager of the Waterloo, Iowa, pork plant organized a “cash buy-in, winner take all” betting pool. In all, about 1,000 workers at the plant — about a third of the work force — tested positive for the virus. Tyson had hired the law firm Covington & Burling to conduct an independent investigation of the matter, led by Eric H. Holder Jr., the former U.S. attorney general.

The Pandemic’s Toll

Credit…Audra Melton for The New York TimesCredit…Audra Melton for The New York Times

There remains widespread confusion about a key element of the plan to protect some of the most vulnerable Americans against the coronavirus, report Rebecca Robbins and Jessica Silver-Greenberg for The New York Times: how nursing homes will get consent to vaccinate residents who aren’t able to make their own medical decisions.

Some states are starting vaccinations in their nursing homes this week, but a broader nationwide effort will start in earnest on Monday as CVS and Walgreens employees begin to arrive at tens of thousands of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities to vaccinate staff and residents.

A CVS executive said such residents’ legal representatives will be able to provide consent to nursing homes electronically or over the phone, but officials at multiple large nursing home chains said they were not aware of that.

If residents or their representatives have not given consent before CVS or Walgreens employees show up, it is not clear whether or when they will have another chance to be inoculated.

There is no federal requirement for people to give consent before getting vaccinated, but it is standard practice and is often needed for billing purposes. States have different requirements about how medical consent can be given and what information needs to be provided to the person who is consenting. Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is that residents or their representatives should receive a fact sheet about the coronavirus vaccine and then consent to receiving it.

Executives from CVS and Walgreens said in interviews that they had been planning the vaccination campaign for months and were confident it would work. “If there are concerns or challenges, we certainly are open to work with facilities to try to minimize any disruption that they may have,” said Rick Gates, a Walgreens executive leading the company’s planning.

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Financial Stimulus Deal Takes Form in Congress: Stay Market Updates

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the U.S. Capitol in Washington Tuesday. “We committed to continuing these urgent discussions until there’s an agreement,” he said Wednesday morning. 

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Congressional leaders on Wednesday closed in on an agreement on a coronavirus relief measure that could infuse the economy with as much as $900 billion, as they raced to complete both a pandemic aid package and a catchall federal spending measure before government funding lapses on Friday.

The top two Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill appeared to be coalescing around a plan that would include both another round of direct stimulus payments to Americans and additional unemployment benefits, according to people familiar with the emerging compromise who described it on condition of anonymity.

While the details were not yet final, the plan was also expected to provide billions of dollars for vaccine distribution, schools and small businesses, but omit coronavirus liability protections long sought by Republicans and a dedicated funding stream for state and local governments insisted upon by Democrats — the two most contentious sticking points.

The contours of the deal, reported earlier by Politico, became clear after a flurry of late-night negotiations among the four leaders and their staff on Capitol Hill. With Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, joining by phone, the four met twice on Tuesday in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office suite in the Capitol to work out the details.

“We committed to continuing these urgent discussions until there’s an agreement,” Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, said Wednesday morning in a speech on the Senate floor.

It was unclear how large the direct payments would be, though the $2.2 trillion stimulus law enacted in March provided $1,200 per adult, and progressives and some conservative Republicans have recently called for the same amount or more to be included in the new round of aid.

Negotiators were also still haggling over an expansion and extension of unemployment benefits and how long they would last. They were also discussing reinstituting supplemental jobless payments — which were at $600 per week when they lapsed over the summer, but would likely be revived at a smaller amount. Although Democrats appeared to have dropped their demand for a major new infusion of aid for state and local governments, some officials familiar with the discussions said privately that there were other avenues to provide some of those funds in the final package.

An agreement on both the relief measure and must-pass legislation including the dozen spending bills needed to keep the government funded beyond Friday could emerge later on Wednesday.

Shoppers at Gateway Mall in Lincoln, Neb., on Black Friday. Retail sales fell 1.1 percent in November, the Commerce Department reported.Credit…Walker Pickering for The New York Times

For the first time since spring, U.S. retail sales have declined, raising questions about the strength of consumer spending and how retailers are faring in the all-important holiday shopping season.

Retail sales fell 1.1 percent in November as spending on categories like automobiles, electronic stores, clothing and restaurants and bars softened, according to a report from the Commerce Department on Wednesday.

Economists had expected a smaller decline amid robust holiday sales, driven by online spending. But the Commerce Department also revised its tally for October to a 0.1 percent decline, from an increase of 0.3 percent reported earlier.

The U.S. economy has slowed in recent months amid a surge in coronavirus cases and a steady increase in the ranks of the unemployed. Even as businesses have come under fresh pressure, lawmakers have yet to reach an agreement on a new stimulus package.

The uncertainty around holiday spending has been exacerbated as retailers pushed annual sales events into October, in a bid to jump-start the season and prevent crowded stores and shipping delays in November. Many major chains reported sales gains in October, but they were not certain about how it would affect spending in November and December.

Black Friday, which has traditionally signaled the start of the holiday shopping season, was also largely a bust for many retailers amid the rise in cases. Some companies reported that in-person traffic that day declined by as much as 50 percent from last year, as shoppers concerned about the virus stayed away from the stores.

With the new concerns around shopping in person, retailers have been racing to accommodate a surge in shipping demand, grappling with new surcharges and delays with major carriers including UPS and FedEx.

By: Ella Koeze·Source: Refinitiv

  • A surprisingly dour report on retail sales took some of the enthusiasm out of the stock markets on Wednesday.

  • Shares in Europe and the United States had been heading for a second day of solid gains before the Commerce Department said that retail sales fell 1.1 percent in November, a far sharper decline than economists had expected and fresh evidence of the resurgent coronavirus’s impact on the world’s largest economy.

  • Instead, the S&P 500 started the day with a small decline, and shares in Europe were also off their highs of the day. The Stoxx Europe 600 index and the FTSE 100 in Britain were both about half a percent higher.

  • Before the retail sales report, markets had been bolstered by signs of progress toward an economic stimulus package in Washington, and after the latest Purchasing Managers Index report offered a positive outlook on the European economy. The manufacturing index reached 56.6 points, up from 55.3 in November, and the composite output index hit 49.8 points, from 45.3 last month.

  • “The data hint at the economy close to stabilizing after having plunged back into a severe decline in November amid renewed Covid-19 lockdown measures,” said Chris Williamson, the chief business economist at IHS Markit, which compiles the reports.

  • Further insight on the state of the U.S. economy will come later on Wednesday when the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, speaks to reporters after the end of the central bank’s final scheduled meeting of the year. The Fed has been offering reassurance that it will continue supporting the economy, but some policymakers are divided over how much needs to be done now.

  • U.S. lawmakers held talks late Tuesday seeking an agreement on a pandemic stimulus bill ahead of a Friday deadline. Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, said afterward that “we’re making significant progress,” and Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered a similar appraisal. On the table is a package of funding to support unemployed workers and troubled businesses, as well as an omnibus spending bill to keep government money flowing.

The European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. Banks can begin paying dividends again, the central bank said, but with strict limits.Credit…Daniel Roland/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The European Central Bank said Tuesday that it would allow banks to resume limited payouts to shareholders, an indication that regulators are slightly less worried that the pandemic will set off a financial meltdown.

Since March, the central bank has been pressuring commercial banks to stockpile cash to deal with possible losses stemming from the devastating impact on the eurozone economy caused by the pandemic.

Banks can begin paying dividends again after consulting with regulators, the European Central Bank said in a statement on Tuesday, but it set strict limits on how much they can pay out as a percentage of profit and capital. The limits will remain in effect until at least the end of September 2021.

Still, the end of the dividend moratorium, which was technically a recommendation, is a sign that the banking system and the eurozone economy are inching toward normalcy.

“In revising its recommendation, the E.C.B. acknowledges the reduced uncertainty in macroeconomic projections,” the central bank said. An analysis earlier this year “confirmed the resilience of the European banking sector,” it said.

The economic crisis has forced most banks to set aside large sums to cover losses from borrowers who lost their jobs and businesses that suffered severe declines in sales. But there have been no major bank failures as a result of the pandemic, in part because regulators have forced lenders to stockpile capital in recent years and take less risk.

The central bank said that lenders should discuss dividend payments with regulators beforehand, and it cautioned banks to exercise “extreme moderation” in bonuses and other payouts to executives.

The European Central Bank is responsible for supervising banks in the eurozone that are considered big enough or important enough to set off a financial crisis. The bank said Tuesday that national regulators should apply the same standards to the smaller banks under their purview.

Philadelphia is a case study in the simple-but-not-easy task of helping tenants with the rent. Like most places, it isn’t close to satisfying the need.Credit…Hannah Yoon for The New York Times

Almost from the moment the pandemic spread across the United States, advocacy groups have warned that the economic fallout could cause mass displacement of low-income tenants.

In response, more than 400 state and local governments have used money from the federal CARES Act to set up funds to cover at least $4.3 billion in rental assistance — money that has helped tenants pay their bills and landlords stay current on their mortgages, according to a database set up by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a policy group.

But many jurisdictions are reporting trouble spending it, and with barely two weeks left in the year, they are on pace to have more than $300 million left over, according to the coalition’s database. In a pattern that predated the pandemic, the programs have been complicated by bureaucratic hurdles, competing budget demands and a reluctance among landlords to take part, reports Conor Dougherty for The New York Times.

Philadelphia is a case study in the simple-but-not-easy task of helping tenants with the rent. Social programs are often a partnership in which cities provide funding and lay out rules but delegate the execution to quasi-governmental nonprofit organizations like the one Gregory Heller works at.

Like most places, Philadelphia is not close to satisfying the need for help. But through rounds of rejiggering and three phases of funding — each with its own maze of rules and requirements — Mr. Heller’s group built a team to distribute aid, whittled down the processes that delayed it and concluded that the best way to help was the most straightforward: Give the money directly to renters.

“There’s a societal belief that poor people can’t spend money the right way, and I think it’s important to start questioning that assumption,” Mr. Heller said.

The companies drawing Wall Street’s attention are notable for how niche their products and services are.Credit…Hannah Yoon for The New York Times

Until recently, the temperature-controlled storage and shipping of pharmaceutical products, known as the “cold chain,” was a relatively sleepy corner of the health care industry.

But the virus, and the temperature-sensitive vaccines that are poised to combat it, have brought new attention to the cold-chain delivery systems in the United States and beyond, Kate Kelly reports for The New York Times. Wall Street, which likes nothing better than a hot trade with the potential for big profits, is rushing to grab a piece of the action.

The companies getting attention from Wall Street are notable for how niche their operations are. Many use an elaborate network of freezers and specialized trucks and aircraft to move temperature-sensitive materials — such as blood, stem cells and tissue — around the world without compromising their efficacy. It’s a delicate process, because a product can go from vital to useless within minutes of being removed from cold storage.

Potential investors are constantly calling Stirling Ultracold, whose freezer equipment is powering UPS’s “freezer farms” in Louisville, Ky., and the Netherlands, where vaccines will be stored. “There’s not a day that goes by” that an inquiry doesn’t come in,” said Dusty Tenney, Stirling’s chief executive, who is running his Athens, Ohio, production lines around the clock.

Demand for Stirling’s freezer engines — the core component of their upright, under-the-counter and portable freezers — has soared, and the estimated waiting time for new orders is six to eight weeks, the company said. On Dec. 8, after multiple prospective investors studied the company’s financial metrics in a due diligence process, Stirling received a capital injection of an undisclosed amount that it planned to use to buy new equipment and expand production.

In October, Blackstone, the private equity giant, invested $275 million in Cryoport, a Nashville company that specializes in shipping sensitive medical materials at freezing temperatures. Investors have also been bullish on Ember, the beverage-heating company that has developed a refrigerated medical shipping box with built-in GPS and already counts two Jonas Brothers and the Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant as shareholders.

Credit…WhistlePig

Moët Hennessy, the premium spirits arm of French luxury giant LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, is taking a stake in WhistlePig, in a bet that it can make typically American rye whiskey a global hit, the DealBook newsletter reports.

It’s the second American whiskey brand that Moët Hennessy, has invested in after Washington’s Woodinville in 2017. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

WhistlePig brews its Whiskey in Vermont oak, and its 15-year aged whiskey sells for more than $200 a bottle. The company was founded by Wilco Faessen, now a senior banker at Evercore, and Raj Bhakta, an entrepreneur and onetime “Apprentice” contestant.

Mr. Bhakta sold his shares in the company when Byron Trott’s investment firm, BDT Capital, took a minority stake last year. BDT will keep its stake following the deal, in which no investors cashed out. The deal with Moët Hennessy does not include a path to an outright sale, Mr. Faessen said.

Mr. Faessen said that formal talks about a partnership began in January, and the pandemic that did not alter the deal, besides lengthening the time it took to work through the details. Sales for both WhistlePig and Moët Hennessy came under pressure as bars and restaurants shut, but the companies also noticed a shift to premium liquor during lockdowns.

“It’s just easier to treat yourself when you’re stuck at home and sick of doing Zoom meetings,” said Jeff Kozak, WhistlePig’s chief executive, who noted that sales were up this year.

Rye whiskey is consumed mostly in the United States, but Moët Hennessy thinks it can entice drinkers elsewhere. Connoisseurs who want to “expand their repertoire in the category of high-end whiskies” have recently turned to Japanese brands, said Philippe Schaus, the Moët Hennessy chief executive, “and we don’t see why we will not succeed to bring them to high-end American whiskeys.”

  • Domino’s Pizza said this week that it would pay a bonus of up to $1,200 apiece to more than 11,500 hourly workers in December. The bonuses will total more than $9.6 million, the pizza chain said. Earlier this year, Domino’s paid a bonus to frontline workers at its corporate stores and supply chain centers. “We have the honor and privilege of being open and operating throughout the U.S. during this crisis, and we recognize that we could not be doing it without the hard work and dedication of our team members,” Ritch Allison, the company’s chief executive, said in a statement.

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Business

Stay Market Updates: Shares Rise as Brexit Talks Are Prolonged

Darren Woods, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, which said it would reduce emissions by 15 to 20 percent by 2025 compared with 2016 levels.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

Exxon Mobil announced on Monday that it would reduce methane and other greenhouse gas emissions from its exploration and production operations over the next four years.

The company said it would reduce emissions by 15 to 20 percent by 2025 compared with 2016 levels.

More significantly, the company said it would eliminate “routine” flaring by 2030 in an effort to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions generated when companies burn unwanted natural gas that is released during oil production.

The company stopped well short of the kind of targets set by BP and other European oil companies that have pledged to reduce emissions by much more and have said they would gradually move away from oil and gas as they invest more in renewable energy.

“We respect and support society’s ambition to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, and continue to advocate for policies that promote cost-effective, market-based solutions to address the risks of climate change,” Exxon’s chief executive, Darren Woods, said in a statement.

Exxon said that “meaningful decreases” in emissions of greenhouse gasses “will require changes in society’s energy choices coupled with the development and deployment of affordable lower-emission technologies.”

Rory Gamble, the president of the United Automobile Workers union, which agreed on changes meant to root out corruption at the union.Credit…Rebecca Cook/Reuters

The Justice Department and the United Automobile Workers union have reached a tentative agreement on changes meant to root out corruption at the union without putting it under government control.

The United States attorney for the eastern district of Michigan, Matthew J. Schneider, and the president of the union, Rory Gamble, are scheduled to announce details of the agreement Monday afternoon.

Mr. Schneider has been investigating corruption at the U.A.W. for several years and has secured guilty pleas by more than a dozen people, including two former union presidents.

Gary Jones, who became U.A.W. president in 2018 and resigned while under investigation a year later, in June plead guilty to tax fraud and improperly using union funds. He was accused of using more than $1 million in union funds for luxury travel and personal purchases.

Dennis Williams, who served as president from 2014 to 2018, pleaded guilty in September to conspiring with other union officials to embezzle union funds. He and Mr. Jones are awaiting sentencing.

Others who have pleaded guilty include three former executives of Fiat Chrysler and a senior union official, Joe Ashton, who once held a seat on the board of General Motors. In November, Mr. Ashton was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Rihanna at a show for the Savage x Fenty collection in 2018.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York Times

Savage x Fenty, the lingerie company that the pop singer Rihanna helped found, has hired Goldman Sachs to raise $100 million in financing, sources with direct knowledge of the deal told the DealBook newsletter.

The company wants the money for new initiatives that may include new lines like athletic wear and expanding in Europe.

The high-flying lingerie brand generates about $150 million in revenue, but is not yet profitable, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information was confidential.

The valuation it is seeking in the funding round could not be determined, A representative for Goldman Sachs declined to comment, while Savage x Fenty did not respond to requests for comment.

Rihanna’s business ventures have challenged the traditional playbook of fashion and beauty brands, taking an inclusive approach in an industry for which exclusivity is the norm. Her Fenty Beauty line, which she produces with a subsidiary of LVMH, introduced with 40 shades of foundation for a wide range of skin tones. The makeup brand packed the shelves of LVMH-backed Sephora, and paved the way for a Rihanna fashion line with the French luxury empire.

Rihanna started Savage x Fenty in 2018, aiming it at a broad range of body types. It is partly owned by Techstyle Fashion Group, the venture-backed company behind the actress Kate Hudson’s athleisure line Fabletics. Rihanna frequently promotes the brand on Instagram, where she has 87.5 million followers. Earlier this year, Savage x Fenty was accused of deceptive marketing, which it denies.

Savage x Fenty’s launch came as Victoria’s Secret stumbled. The brand that once dominated the lingerie industry had begun to turn off its customers with garments that emphasized sex appeal over comfort. Last year, Victoria’s Secret canceled its fashion show amid dwindling viewership. In what seemed a direct shot at its rival, Savage x Fenty held a body-positive extravaganza at the Barclays Center last year, returning again this year with “a forceful display of inclusivity” that streamed on Amazon.

Britain’s most modern operating power plant, known as Sizewell B, near Sizewell, a fishing village about 100 miles northeast of London. Credit…Dylan Martinez/Reuters

The British government said on Monday that it would enter formal negotiations with EDF, the French utility, to build a new nuclear power station on the east coast of England.

The plant, known as Sizewell C, would have an estimated price tag is 20 billion pounds, or about $27 billion. Negotiations with EDF, which owns most of the British nuclear power system, would cover financing and other arrangements.

In moving ahead with talks, the government is acknowledging that although Britain is investing heavily in clean energy sources like offshore wind, there may also be a need to construct new nuclear power plants to provide stable sources of power to achieve its ambitious climate goals of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, which is likely to require electrifying large parts of the economy.

Nuclear attracts criticism as expensive compared to renewables and for the risk of accidents and long-term toxic waste problems, but it has the advantage of providing very large and steady amounts of low carbon power that would be available when the wind stops. The Sizewell C plant could supply power for six million homes.

Finding a workable financing solution will be crucial. The government said it would “explore a range of financing options” for the plant, including a proposal that might have consumers pay costs of the plant in advance of its operation through charges on their bills, as well as the use of public money to finance construction. A plan by Hitachi, the Japanese company, to build a nuclear installation in Wales collapsed in 2019, in part over financing issues.

The plant would be near Britain’s most modern operating power plant, known as Sizewell B, in the vicinity of Sizewell, a fishing village about 100 miles northeast of London. It is likely to draw protests from local environmentalists who worry that the plant will threaten important wildlife habitat.

The plant would be similar to another installation that EDF and a Chinese partner are building at Hinkley Point in southwest England. The hope is that experience gained at Hinkley Point will translate into lower costs for Sizewell.

Senator Angus King wrote to the heads of several streaming services on Monday, asking them to consider lifting subscription fees.Credit…Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

What if Netflix and the other major streaming services were available free during the holiday season? Wouldn’t that keep people home in the coming weeks, reducing the further spread of the coronavirus?

Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, made that proposal in a letter on Monday to the heads of Netflix, Amazon, Disney, WarnerMedia and Apple.

“Americans are faced with even further social isolation — and increased free time — during the holidays,” Mr. King wrote in the letter. “This is a risk; it could also be an opportunity for creative, socially responsible thinking.”

The streaming services did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In the past week, there has been an average of more than 200,000 new coronavirus cases a day in the United States, up nearly 30 percent from the average two weeks ago. And while the first health workers may start receiving shots of a new vaccine on Monday, the country faces a devastating winter if people become less vigilant, health officials say.

In an interview, Mr. King said that many people had “pandemic fatigue,” and his proposal was intended to encourage a safe activity, especially for those who don’t have the means to subscribe to streaming services.

“It’s a way to basically lift people’s spirits a bit and mitigate the heartbreak of not being able to be with family and friends at an important holiday,” he said.

Peter Vlitas, a travel industry executive, used the CommonPass app on a United Airlines flight to Newark from London in October.Credit…The Commons Project Foundation

In the coming weeks, major airlines including United, JetBlue and Lufthansa plan to introduce a health passport app, called CommonPass, that aims to verify passengers’ coronavirus test results — and perhaps soon, vaccinations.

CommonPass notifies users of local travel rules — like having to provide proof of a negative virus test — and then aims to check that they have met them. The app will then issue confirmation codes, enabling passengers to board certain international flights, Natasha Singer reports in The New York Times.

“This is likely to be a new normal need that we’re going to have to deal with to control and contain this pandemic,” said Dr. Brad Perkins, the chief medical officer at the Commons Project Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Geneva that developed CommonPass.

Electronic vaccination credentials could have a profound effect on efforts to control the virus and restore the economy. They could prompt more employers and college campuses to reopen. And developers say they may also give some consumers peace of mind by creating an easy way for movie theaters, cruise ships and sports arenas to admit only those with documented virus vaccinations.

But the digital passes also raise the specter of a society split into health pass haves and have-nots, particularly if venues begin requiring the apps as entry tickets. The apps could make it difficult for people with limited access to vaccines or online verification tools to enter workplaces or visit popular destinations. Civil liberties experts also warn that the technology could create an invasive system of social control, akin to the heightened surveillance that China adopted during the pandemic — only instead of federal or state governments, private actors like employers and restaurants would determine who can and cannot access services.

In October, United tested CommonPass on a flight to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey from Heathrow Airport in London. United and four other airlines plan to start using it soon on some international flights.

Internet users worldwide received a jarring reminder on Monday about just how reliant they were on Google, when the Silicon Valley giant suffered a major outage for about an hour, sending many of its most popular services offline.

At a time when more people than ever are working from home because of the pandemic, Google services including Calendar, Gmail, Hangouts, Maps, Meet and YouTube all crashed, halting productivity and sending angry users to Twitter to vent about the loss of services. Students struggled to sign into virtual classrooms.

As users scrambled to figure out what was going on, Google disclosed the outages on a status dashboard that shares information about its various services. Downdetector, a website for tracking internet outages, also showed that Google was offline. Google’s search engine continued to work for some people.

But about an hour after the outages began, the services started working again.

Google initially provided limited information about what occurred, and it was not immediately clear how many users were affected by the outage. Several of Google’s products have more than a billion global users, including Android, Chrome, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Play, Search and YouTube.

Later, the company attributed the problem to an “authentication system outage” that lasted for approximately 45 minutes starting at 7:32 a.m. Eastern time.

“All services are now restored,” Google said in a statement. “We apologize to everyone affected, and we will conduct a thorough follow up review to ensure this problem cannot recur in the future.”

Today, at 3.47AM PT Google experienced an authentication system outage for approximately 45 minutes due to an internal storage quota issue. This was resolved at 4:32AM PT, and all services are now restored.

— Google Cloud (@googlecloud) December 14, 2020

Product outages were once fairly common for growing internet companies. But as Google, Facebook and others have become larger, building complex networks of interconnected data centers around the world, the incidents have become less common. Google has privately financed undersea cables to move data between continents and improve performance in the event problems occur in a certain location.

The reliability of the systems have become increasingly important as people and businesses depend on the services, whether to search for information online, find directions, send email or get access to private documents stored on Google’s servers. Some users reported their appliances not working because they were linked to Google’s line of home products.

During lockdowns, schools have leaned on Google services to teach students forced to stay home. “At least we have an excuse for not doing our homework,” one person wrote on Twitter.

The incident is likely to provide fodder for those who say the biggest technology companies have grown too powerful and deserve more oversight. In the United States, Google and Facebook are facing antitrust lawsuits. In the European Union, new regulations will be introduced on Tuesday to limit the industry’s power.

William Dixon, a cybersecurity expert at the World Economic Forum, said the outage highlighted the fragility of the world’s digital networks.

“What you have is an increasingly smaller number of technology providers that are systemically important,” said Mr. Dixon, who used to work on cybersecurity issues for the British government. “If there is one issue, then the cascades of that are quite significant.”

Michel Barnier, the European Union’s chief negotiator on Brexit, speaking to reporters Monday morning in Brussels. Talks with Britain on a trade deal are continuing. Credit…Francois Walschaerts/Reuters

  • Stocks rose on Monday, rebounding from last week’s slump as negotiators trying to secure a Brexit trade deal and U.S. fiscal stimulus package were given a little more time to reach an agreement.

  • The S&P 500 rose about 0.6 percent in early trading, while the Stoxx Europe 600 gained 0.8 percent and the FTSE 100 in Britain was flat. In Asia, the Nikkei 225 closed 0.3 percent higher and the Shanghai composite index rose 0.7 percent.

  • The British pound strengthened against other major currencies, rising 1.1 percent against the euro and 1.4 percent against the U.S. dollar after Britain and the European Union decided on Sunday to extend talks on a trade deal. Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum over four years ago and formally did so on Jan. 31, entering a transition period that will end in 17 days’ time.

  • Last week, the pound suffered its steepest drop in three months after signs that Britain would not reach an agreement with its largest trading partner before the end of the year, which would lead to higher tariffs as well as trade and economic disruption.

  • In the United States, Congress has given itself another week to come to an agreement on package of measures to provide some relief to unemployed Americans and hard-hit businesses. A bipartisan group of lawmakers who have been working for a month on a $908 billion proposal met through the weekend. They plan to introduce a final product on Monday.

As the European Union has become the global leader in tech regulation, Google and other American tech giants have increasingly focused on Brussels in hopes of choking off even stiffer rules before they spread.

In Europe, the tech companies are spending more than ever, hiring former government officials, well-connected law firms and consulting firms, Adam Satariano and Matina Stevis-Gridneff reported in The New York Times. They funded dozens of think tanks and trade associations, endowed academic positions at top universities across the continent and helped publish industry-friendly research by other firms.

American lawmakers and regulators, too, have become much more aggressive in curbing the power of the technology industry’s biggest companies. Last week, federal and state officials accused Facebook of illegally crushing competition. In October, the Justice Department accused Google of illegally protecting its monopoly over search.

In the first half of 2020, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft declared spending a combined 19 million euros, or about $23 million, equal to what they had declared for all of 2019 and up from €6.8 million in 2014, according to Transparency International, a group that monitors E.U. lobbying.

“The budgets are really unrivaled — we’ve never seen this kind of money being spent by companies directly,” said Margarida Silva, a researcher at Corporate Europe Observatory, a group that tracks lobbying in Brussels. The totals are probably much higher, she noted, because disclosure rules do not capture all the spending on law firms, academic partnerships and activities in individual countries.

The spending is less than in the United States, but the growing influence industry is alarming European Union officials who believe that Big Tech is contributing to a Washingtonization of Brussels, giving money and connections an upper hand over the public interest.

Janet Yellen, Mr. Biden’s pick for Treasury secretary, has long argued for emissions reduction as an economic imperative.Credit…Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Even as President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. confronts the immediate task of accelerating the pandemic recovery, he has placed the longer-running climate challenge at the center of his administration’s economic priorities.

The pandemic recovery, too, will have climate-minded undertones, The New York Times’s Jim Tankersley and Lisa Friedman report.

Three of Mr. Biden’s picks for top roles — Janet L. Yellen as Treasury secretary, Brian Deese for National Economic Council director, and Neera Tanden, the nominee to head the White House Office of Management and Budget — are preparing to weave efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate clean energy production into the economic stimulus legislation that his team is planning. Climate change is also expected to play a heavy role in a broader infrastructure initiative that could be one of Mr. Biden’s best hopes for a major bipartisan bill in his first year in office.

The climate battle is also likely to influence his economic approach more broadly, with his team preparing to use the government’s vast regulatory powers to reduce emissions via wind and solar energy, electric cars and other initiatives — an approach that Mr. Biden’s team insists will create jobs.

Those close to Mr. Biden said he was purposefully putting what scientists believe is the world’s largest looming crisis at the heart of the agencies most responsible for promoting the country’s economic security.

“Historically we have looked at climate change as an environmental issue,” said Christy Goldfuss, a former head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality under President Barack Obama. What Mr. Biden has done, she said, “is center climate policy in his economic team.”

People lined to find assistance with their unemployment claims in Frankfort, Ky.Credit…Bryan Woolston/Reuters

The federal program that covers gig workers, part-time hires, seasonal workers and others who do not qualify for traditional unemployment benefits has kept millions of Americans afloat.

Established by Congress in March as part of the CARES Act, the program, known as Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, has provided over $70 billion in relief.

But in carrying out the hastily conceived program, states have overpaid hundreds of thousands of workers — often because of administrative errors. Now states are asking for that money back, Gillian Friedman reports in The New York Times.

The notices come out of the blue, with instructions to repay thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. Those being billed, already living on the edge, are told that their benefits will be reduced to compensate for the errors — or that the state may even put a lien on their home, come after future wages or withhold tax refunds.

Many who collected payments are still out of a job, and may have little prospect of getting one. Most had no idea that they were being overpaid.

“When somebody gets a bill like this, it completely terrifies them,” said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst for the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit workers’ rights group. Sometimes the letters themselves are in error — citing overpayments when benefits were correctly paid — but either way, she said, the stress “is going to cost people’s lives.”

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British Pound Tumbles as Prospects Dim in Brexit Talks: Dwell Enterprise Updates

Lastwagen nähern sich Dover, England, um am Freitag nach Frankreich zu fahren. Es ist immer noch ungewiss, ob Großbritannien und die Europäische Union bis zum 1. Januar ein Handelsabkommen erzielen können.

Folgendes müssen Sie wissen:

Anerkennung…Frank Augstein / Associated Press

Als sich Großbritannien einer weiteren neuen Frist nähert, um am Sonntag ein Handelsabkommen mit der Europäischen Union abzuschließen, schließt das Pfund seine schlechteste Woche seit drei Monaten ab. Gegenüber dem Euro ging es am Donnerstag deutlich tiefer und am Freitag weiter zurück, als die Händler mit der Aussicht zu kämpfen hatten, dass die britischen Handelsgespräche mit der Europäischen Union wirklich scheitern könnten.

„Die Märkte neigen dazu zu denken, solange sie reden, gibt es Hoffnung. Da war ich sehr vorsichtig “, sagte Jane Foley, Strategin bei der Rabobank. „Es gibt vielleicht keinen Deal, aber es wird Störungen geben, selbst wenn es einen Deal gibt. Und es wird politische Auseinandersetzungen geben. “

All das ist schlecht für die Währung.

In knapp drei Wochen endet die Brexit-Übergangsfrist, und wenn keine Einigung erzielt wird, wird Großbritannien gezwungen sein, Geschäfte mit seinem größten Handelspartner zu Bedingungen der Welthandelsorganisation zu tätigen, was bedeutet, dass Zölle auf Waren eingeführt werden und es weniger gibt Chance auf zukünftige Zusammenarbeit zwischen Dienstleistungsunternehmen. Bisher haben drei Themen – Fischereirechte, Wettbewerbsregeln für Unternehmen und die Durchsetzung eines Abkommens – die Gespräche zum Stillstand gebracht.

Premierminister Boris Johnson ging am Mittwochabend nach Brüssel, um zu speisen mit der Präsidentin der Europäischen Kommission, Ursula von der Leyen, um zu versuchen, die Sackgasse zu durchbrechen. Als das Fischdinner vorbei war, gab es Berichte, dass die Aussichten für einen Deal noch düsterer waren. Für Sonntag wurde eine neue Frist festgelegt.

Am Donnerstag legte die Europäische Kommission dann ihre Pläne vor, was sie tun würde, wenn es keine Einigung gäbe. Und Herr Johnson sagte, eine Vereinbarung sei “noch gar nicht da” und es bestehe die “starke Möglichkeit”, keine Einigung zu erzielen.

Der anhaltende Optimismus der Finanzmärkte wurde schon oft getestet. Unzählige Brexit-Fristen sind gekommen und gegangen. Diesmal besteht jedoch ernsthafte Besorgnis darüber, wie eine Einigung, falls eine Einigung erzielt wird, vor dem 1. Januar in das Gesetz ratifiziert werden könnte. Das britische Parlament bereitet Pläne für eine Arbeit bis Weihnachten vor, aber die Europäische Union wird es schwerer haben, 27 zu sammeln Nationen während der Ferienzeit.

Diese Woche war die schlimmste für das Pfund seit Anfang September, als Händler erschreckt wurden, dass Boris Johnson ein Handelsabkommen vereiteln würde, indem er ein neues Gesetz einführte, das mit dem EU-Rückzugsabkommen kollidierte und gegen internationales Recht verstieß.

Noch vor dem Ende der Übergangszeit erhielt Großbritannien einen Einblick in die Art der Störung, die auftritt, wenn der Handel nicht reibungslos läuft, als Honda diese Woche sein Montagewerk in England stilllegte, weil Teile während des Transports feststeckten.

Die wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen weiterer Handelsstörungen im neuen Jahr nach Beginn der Zollkontrollen werden die britische Wirtschaft belasten Versuch, eine Erholung während einer zweiten Welle der Pandemie herauszukratzen. Daten vom Donnerstag zeigten, dass das Bruttoinlandsprodukt im Oktober um 0,4 Prozent stieg, eine Verlangsamung, bevor England im November eine monatelange Sperrung durchführte.

Die Berater von Mitch McConnell, dem Mehrheitsführer des Senats, sagten, ein parteiübergreifendes Pandemie-Hilfspaket habe bei vielen republikanischen Gesetzgebern keine Unterstützung gefunden. Anerkennung…Anna Moneymaker für die New York Times

  • Die Aktien fielen am Freitag weltweit und Futures deuteten darauf hin, dass der S & P 500-Index um 1 Prozent niedriger öffnen würde, da sich die Anleger von riskanten Vermögenswerten fernhielten, obwohl bekannt wurde, dass die USA den Pfizer-BioNTech-Impfstoff wahrscheinlich innerhalb weniger Tage genehmigen würden. Stattdessen stehen Händler vor der Aussicht auf einen Brexit ohne Deal und monatelange wirtschaftliche Schwierigkeiten, da die Länder immer noch Schwierigkeiten haben, das Virus einzudämmen.

  • Der Stoxx Europe 600 Index fiel um 1,3 Prozent. Der FTSE 100-Index in Großbritannien fiel um 1,1 Prozent, der CAC in Frankreich um 1,3 Prozent und der DAX in Deutschland um 2 Prozent. In Asien schloss der Shanghai Composite Index um 0,8 Prozent und der Nikkei 225 in Japan um 0,4 Prozent.

  • Der S & P 500 Index ist auf dem richtigen Weg, um zwei Wochen lang Gewinne zu erzielen. Als die Märkte am Donnerstag schlossen, war der US-Referenzindex diese Woche bisher um 0,8 Prozent gefallen.

  • Die Ölpreise fielen am Freitag ebenfalls und zogen sich von einer Rallye am Vortag zurück, als die Preise auf den höchsten Stand seit März stiegen. Die Futures von West Texas Intermediate, der US-Benchmark, gingen um 0,5 Prozent auf 46,57 USD pro Barrel zurück.

  • Stattdessen kauften Händler traditionell sichere Vermögenswerte wie Staatsanleihen. Die Rendite 10-jähriger US-Staatsanleihen fiel diese Woche um 8 Basispunkte oder 0,08 Prozentpunkte, am stärksten seit Juni. Die Renditen bewegen sich umgekehrt zu den Preisen.

  • Der britische Premierminister Boris Johnson und die Präsidentin der Europäischen Kommission, Ursula von der Leyen, sagten beide, es sei wahrscheinlicher, dass Großbritannien und die Europäische Union bis Ende des Jahres keine Einigung über den Freihandel erzielen würden. Die Gespräche werden voraussichtlich über das Wochenende fortgesetzt.

  • In den Vereinigten Staaten wurden die Hoffnungen auf eine Einigung über neue fiskalische Anreize vor den Kongresspausen verringert. Am Donnerstag gaben Berater des republikanischen Mehrheitsführers Senator Mitch McConnell an, dass viele Republikaner einem überparteilichen Paket, das sich herausgebildet hatte, nicht zustimmen würden. Am selben Tag zeigten Daten, dass letzte Woche mehr als 947.000 Menschen Arbeitslosengeld beantragt haben, ein Sprung gegenüber der Vorwoche.

Da die wirtschaftliche Erholung ins Stocken gerät und die Bundeshilfe in Washington ins Stocken gerät, versuchen die Regierungen der Bundesstaaten, kleinen Unternehmen zu helfen, den Pandemiewinter zu überstehen.

Der Gesetzgeber von Colorado hat letzte Woche eine Sondersitzung abgehalten, um ein wirtschaftliches Hilfspaket zu verabschieden. Ohio bietet eine neue Runde von Zuschüssen für Restaurants, Bars und andere von der Pandemie betroffene Unternehmen an. Und in Kalifornien wird ein neuer Fonds staatliche Gelder verwenden, um private Kredite in Höhe von Hunderten von Millionen Dollar zu stoppen. Andere Staaten, angeführt von Republikanern und Demokraten, haben ähnliche Maßnahmen angekündigt oder erwägen diese.

Die Bemühungen kommen, da sich viele Unternehmen in einer zunehmend schwierigen Situation befinden, berichtet Ben Casselman von der New York Times.

Eine Umfrage der National Federation of Independent Business am Dienstag ergab, dass der Optimismus sinkt und die Unsicherheit steigt, da der landesweite Anstieg der Coronavirus-Fälle die Regierungen dazu veranlasst, Beschränkungen wieder einzuführen, und die Verbraucher, ihre Ausgaben zu reduzieren. Separate Daten des Census Bureau zeigen, dass immer mehr kleine Unternehmen Arbeitsplätze abbauen, und andere Umfragen haben ergeben, dass eine große Anzahl von Unternehmen vom Scheitern bedroht ist.

In diesem Fall könnte dies sowohl für die Volkswirtschaften als auch für die Staatshaushalte eine Katastrophe sein. Lokale Unternehmen sind wichtige Steuereinnahmequellen – sowohl direkt als auch über ihre Mitarbeiter – und wichtige Triebkräfte für die Wirtschaftstätigkeit. Wenn sie in großer Zahl scheitern, wird dies die wirtschaftliche Erholung verlangsamen, sobald die Pandemie vorbei ist.

  • Lululemon meldete am Donnerstag für das dritte Quartal einen Umsatz von 1,1 Milliarden US-Dollar, ein Plus von 22 Prozent gegenüber dem Vorjahr, da Käufer Leggings und andere Trainingsgeräte kauften, um bei der Arbeit von zu Hause aus bequem und in Form zu bleiben. In Nordamerika stieg der Nettoumsatz um 19 Prozent. Der direkte Umsatz mit Verbrauchern – einschließlich Online-Verkäufen – stieg um 94 Prozent.

  • Walmart bereitet mehr als 5.000 seiner Geschäfte darauf vor, Impfstoffdosen zu erhalten, damit sie bereit sind, die Aufnahmen zu verteilen, sobald sie die behördliche Genehmigung erhalten und verfügbar sind. Der Einzelhändler sagte in einer Erklärung am Donnerstag, dass er sicherstellen würde, dass genügend Gefrierschränke und Trockeneis vorhanden sind, um den Impfstoff zu lagern, und sich darauf vorbereite, den Impfstoff über seine Walmart- und Sam’s Club-Geschäfte sowie in Langzeitpflegeeinrichtungen wie Pflegeheimen zu verteilen. Das Unternehmen wird sich bei der Ausrichtung seiner Vertriebsanstrengungen auf die Regierungen der Bundesstaaten verlassen.

Die New Yorker Generalstaatsanwältin Letitia James hat am Mittwoch die Klagen gegen Facebook angekündigt. Einige Rechtsexperten sagten, die Fälle seien weit entfernt von einem Slam Dunk.Anerkennung…über die Generalstaatsanwaltschaft von New York

Die US-Regierung und mehr als 40 Staaten verklagten Facebook am Mittwoch wegen illegaler Vernichtung von Wettbewerbern und forderten das Unternehmen auf, die Akquisitionen von Instagram und WhatsApp rückgängig zu machen.

Hier sind fünf wichtige Fragen zum Fall beantwortet:

Es gibt einen rechtlichen Grund, warum Instagram und WhatsApp im Mittelpunkt der staatlichen und bundesstaatlichen Klagen stehen. Der Versuch, den Wettbewerb durch den Kauf von Konkurrenten zu verringern, verstößt ausdrücklich gegen die amerikanischen Kartellgesetze. Genau das sagen Regierungsanwälte, Facebook habe es getan und werde es auch weiterhin tun.

Das Schwierige ist jedoch, dass die Regierung Facebook in den Jahren 2012 und 2014 die Erlaubnis zum Kauf von Instagram und WhatsApp erteilt hat. Facebook argumentiert, dass es für Regierungsbeamte unfair ist, jetzt eine Überarbeitung zu versuchen, und dass Facebook Instagram und WhatsApp besser gemacht hat als Sie hätten alleine sein können.

Die Beilegung solcher Klagen kann Jahre dauern. Ihre Erfahrung mit Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp oder Messenger wird morgen nicht plötzlich anders sein.

Die unmittelbareren Auswirkungen dieses Rechtsstreits könnten subtile Änderungen an diesen sozialen Apps sein, da Facebook ein Auge auf seine Gerichtsverfahren hat.

Facebook arbeitet bereits daran, dass Messaging-Funktionen in mehreren Apps hinter den Kulissen nahtloser miteinander verschmelzen, was eine Trennung erschweren könnte. Es ist auch möglich, dass Facebook Neuerwerbungen zurückhält oder Funktionen in der Entwicklung ändert, um die rechtlichen Argumente des Unternehmens nicht zu verletzen.

In einem Interview im vergangenen Jahr sagte Bill Gates, dass das Windows seines Unternehmens – und nicht Googles Android – das beliebteste Smartphone-System der Welt gewesen sein könnte, wenn Microsoft nicht von den 1998 eingeleiteten Kartellverfahren der Regierung „abgelenkt“ worden wäre. Gates spiegelte eine gemeinsame Ansicht der Unternehmensleiter der Zeit wider, dass die Klagen Microsoft vorsichtiger machten und das Unternehmen infolgedessen die Chance verpasste, neue Wege zu gehen.

Es ist möglich, dass Facebook sein Verhalten ändert, weil es durch Gerichtsverfahren festgefahren ist oder sich Sorgen macht, wie Mobber auszusehen.

Die Regierung verklagt Facebook nach Jahren, in denen sie ihre Macht nicht eingeschränkt hat und weil es jetzt einen politischen Willen dazu gibt.

Die Federal Trade Commission ist dieselbe Regierungsbehörde, die im vergangenen Jahr angeprangert wurde, weil sie eine überschaubare Geldbuße von Facebook abgezogen hatte und Änderungen der Datenschutzrichtlinien im Unternehmen mit ungewissen Vorteilen für diejenigen von uns forderte, die die Apps des Unternehmens nutzen. Dieselbe Agentur genehmigte die Akquisitionen von Instagram und WhatsApp.

Was sich jetzt ändert, ist, dass gewählte Beamte und andere Regierungsmitglieder in ihrer Frustration über Amerikas Tech-Supermächte vereint sind und eher bereit sind, umfassende Änderungen zu fordern.

Menschen, die diese Unternehmen, das Internet und die amerikanische Wirtschaft verändern wollen, sehen Kartellklagen manchmal als allgemeine Lösung an. Aber Kartellfälle werden, selbst wenn sie erfolgreich sind, nicht unbedingt all die verschiedenen und manchmal inkonsistenten Beschwerden behandeln, die viele Menschen haben.

Egal, was mit dem Facebook-Fall passiert, es gibt kein Zurück zu unbeschwerteren Zeiten für die Technologiegiganten. In Hauptstädten der Welt, in Gerichtssälen und in der Öffentlichkeit kämpfen wir mit dem, was es für eine Handvoll reicher Technologieunternehmen bedeutet, unser Leben, unsere Wahlen, unsere Wirtschaft und unseren Geist zu beeinflussen.