Category Archives

Despite the booming economy… three long-running companies are getting left behind. Those companies are General Motors, General Mills, and General Electric. General Motors has lost $1.5B in market value since 2010. General Mills isn’t selling much of anything. And General Electric hasn’t had a smaller market cap since the Great Recession.

General Mills has been getting killed… by changes in American preferences for healthy breakfast alternatives. General Motors profit has been going nowhere since its IPO in 2010, and now the company is facing rising costs for steel and aluminum.

And as for GE… the company is having difficulty recovering from years of bad deals and a mountain of debt. The company has lost nearly $500B in market share over the last 18 years. It just goes to show that even the most iconic companies are fair game for disruption and hardship in the markets they once dominated. It’s time for a change or to suffer the consequences!

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Health insurance is expensive… but how expensive? Try $20,000 for family health insurance coverage in 2018 expensive. That figure marks a 55% increase since 2008 which outpaces workers wage growth by double. However, one thing to be grateful for is that your employer pays for most of it – spending $14,100 on average. But we workers still pay around $5,500, as well.

Employers are trying… to make things cheaper, but that usually involves higher deductibles. But really, people are going to be pissed either way. 85% of workers are already subject to deductibles so the increased deductible will likely be very unwelcomed.

Other ways employers are “trying” include… limiting networks to high-quality providers which could lower costs. Other companies are offering coverage for telemedicine visits with providers. However, employees are also not too fond of the idea – only 0.51% in those plans reported using a telemedicine visit. It looks like it’s back to the drawing board for our healthcare system…

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Coming this November… everyone at Amazon will be paid at least $15 per hour. The wage increase will benefit full-time, part-time, and even seasonal workers. Even Amazon subsidiaries, like Whole Foods, will see the same jump. Now, CEO Jeff Bezos is “encouraging our competitors and other large employers to join us.” Our guess is that won’t happen anytime soon.

On their high horse… over at Amazon because the company also stated, “We’ll leave it to Congress and professionals to decide what the right number is; but for us, that number is $15.” And for those other guys, the right number is a wimpy $7.25 or so. However, Amazon even won over the support of Bernie Sanders, which is not an easy thing for a giant corporation to do.

And it could be helpful… especially with the labor market being as tight as it is currently. Amazon has the money and presumably needs the workers – especially for the holiday season. It looks like Amazon will be on the seasonal worker wish list this year.

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Ryanair has hit turbulence… and the company just slashed its profit forecast for its fiscal year to between $1.39 billion and $1.27 billion. These figures fall about $174 million short of what the company had initially anticipated. The reason? Two things: employee strikes and flight cancellations. Both these factors have led to reduced bookings and lower fare prices.

Fuel costs haven’t helped… and shares dropped 10% and are down more than 22% on the year. However, the problem may not be with Ryanair, but rather the business model of low-cost airlines in general.

Here’s the problem… it includes labor disputes, decreasing profit margins, and rising customer dissatisfaction. These issues have continued to plague Ryanair and other low-cost airlines for quite some time. Even Ryanair rival, EasyJet, has reported similar problems and gave a meek profit outlook.

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And the winner is… Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of Fox, who made $49.2 million over the latest fiscal year. That multi-million dollar figure gives Murdoch an addition $20 million compared to last year.

Oh, and as for his children… both of them made about $50 million each (they’re adults now, okay?). It is probably worth noting the sudden influx of cash for the entire Murdoch family has come in the form of “stock awards.” And a government filing with the SEC makes it clear that these awards were related to Disney’s purchase of the company.

I know they’re rich… but it’s still well-deserved given that Fox’s stock price jumped 75% in the 2018 fiscal year. And the Murdoch’s didn’t sell everything – the “new” Fox will still retain Fox News, Fox Business Network, Fox Broadcasting, and the FS1 and FS2 cable networks.

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Sears is on the clearance rack… and the company is officially a “penny stock.” The company’s stock is now trading for under $1 and dropped to as low as .85 cents per share on Friday. Sears could also be delisted from the Nasdaq – but that’s a long process and won’t happen until 2019. The stock has had a brutal year, too, down 88%.

Today, Sears must… prove to lenders that they can pay $134 million worth of debt due on October 15. The company is running out of time and cash. Sears market value has also fallen below $100 million.

You may be too young to remember… Sears was once one of America’s largest retailers and employers. Many Americans bought mass-produced goods for the first time through a Sears catalog. However, by the early 2000s companies like Walmart began beating Sears in both price and selection. And it has been mostly downhill since.

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Tiger Woods first victory… in five years came on Sunday, but he was not the only winner. That’s right, NBC did pretty well itself by seeing a rating boost of 206% compared to last year. The final round of the tournament was the highest-rated telecast in the history of the FedEx Cup playoffs.

It was also… the highest-rated PGA Tour telecast so far in 2018. Oh, well, excluding the four major championships, which include The Masters, the US Open, the British Open, and PGA Championship. To quantify the ratings, NBC’s coverage earned a 5.2 overnight rating. According to Nielson, this means 5.2% of households in the US were watching Tiger Woods’ win.

Despite his lack of recent success… Tiger Woods remains one of the most popular and most watched golfers in the world. Woods’ received 580 minutes of exposure during tournaments by mid-March which is more than double the average of the next ten golfers. So don’t worry – we haven’t forgotten about you, Tiger.

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This app can handle everything… it’s called Meituan, and you can use it to make lunch reservations, buy movie tickets, book vacations, and call for car rides. Sounds good, right? If you haven’t heard about this app, it is because it is brought to you by Chinese tech company Meituan Dianping. However, with 300 million users plenty of people have already heard…

They killed it in the IPO… with shares of the company ending up 5% on the day. The IPO along with the one-day gains give the stock a market value of $50 billion. The company earned $4.2 billion from the IPO itself which was at the top of its target price.

People love their phones… and this app is capitalizing on that fact. The company was formed in 2015 when Meituan and Dianping merged – the two companies are China’s equivalent of Groupon and Yelp, respectively. The company’s biggest investors include Google and Tencent. Meituan Dianping will be using their windfall to improve tech, develop new offerings, and invest in the future. And with $4.2B they should be able to do just that…

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Giving discounts for exercise… and other healthy habits is what John Hancock is giving its life insurance customers. That’s right – all life insurance policies through the company will come with a free version of its wellness program called Vitality. With the program, customers can log their fitness and health data and get discounts at places like Amazon and can receive up to 15% off annual premiums.

You see the goal here… is to get people healthier and living longer so that they don’t have to pay up when you drop dead of a heart attack at 30. And while you’re still kickin’, the company gets loads of free data on you and can build better relationships with customers.

About 40% of people are doing it… and the other 60% couldn’t be bothered. However, the ones that are doing it check in on Vitality an average of 40 times per month. The new program aims to engage policyholders and attract younger ones who don’t think they need life insurance. We know you, in particular, are invincible – but maybe you should consider life insurance…you know, just for fun.

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Retailers have holiday plans of their own… and that is to hire as many workers as humanly possible. The Gap plans to hire 65,000 seasonal workers, Target will try to snag 120,000 workers, and Macy’s is looking for 80,000. And to deliver your Christmas presents, UPS will be hiring 100,000 workers and FedEx 55,000 workers.

That should be easy… NOT. Unemployment is already under 4%, and wages are climbing fast. Oh, and since most people already have jobs, this holiday season is poised to be HUGE because everyone has money to blow. It is estimated that retail sales will hit $720 billion this year, up 4% compared to last year.

Here’s the job outlook… 6.9 million jobs were open in July, and the number of unfilled retail positions were up by 100,000 compared to last year. Kohl’s started hiring for Christmas this past JUNE and JCPenney began in JULY. So those other companies looking to recruit an army of season workers better get on it and fast. We heard Gap is giving a generous 50% discount on full-priced Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy clothing – any takers?

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