Fashion mogul Levi Strauss filed for an initial public offering Tuesday, re-emerging as a public company since 1985, CNBC reports.
Details: In the San Francisco-based company's SEC filing, Levi plans to raise $100 million through the IPO. However, previous reports said the company could raise between $600 million and $800 million at a valuation of around $5 billion.
Nearly half of fund managers surveyed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch expect global GDP to fall in 2019 and 55% say they're bearish on both the world's growth and inflation outlook next year.
Why it matters: That's causing many to increase their cash positions, cut back on allocation to stocks and strangely to increase their holdings of emerging market assets.
After predicting eye-popping 11% first quarter profit growth for S&P 500 companies last year, analysts have massively scaled back expectations to the tune of roughly $16 billion in profits. They are now predicting the first year-over-year decline in 3 years.
Why it matters: Those lofty expectations had been set as recently as March and have come down drastically since, with some now predicting an "earnings recession" — negative earnings growth in the first two quarters of the year.
On the 1st anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., 200 student journalists from across the country assembled to document and write profiles on the 1,200 Americans under the age of 18 killed in shootings in the last year.
"The reporting you will read in 'Since Parkland' is journalism in one of its purest forms — revealing the human stories behind the statistics — carried out on an exhaustive scale."
— The project's website
The newly launched multimedia initiative, titledSince Parkland, partnered with organizations that include The Trace, the Gun Violence Archive, Miami Herald, McClatchy, NowThis and Global Student Square. The victims whose stories are told were killed during school shootings, armed domestic violence, drug homicides, unintentional discharges, and stray bullets.
A new Prudential survey of more than 350 federal employees and contractors who went unpaid during the 35-day government shutdown found that many cash-strapped workers were forced to take out loans, use up some or all of their emergency savings, and cut back on medical expenses.
Employees at BuzzFeed News announced Tuesday they have voted to unionize with the NewsGuild of New York, claiming in a statement that they have "legitimate grievances about unfair pay disparities, mismanaged pivots and layoffs, weak benefits, skyrocketing health insurance costs, diversity and more."
Why it matters: Thiscomes weeks after the company laid off more than 220 employees, or roughly 15% of its workforce, including jobs within its news division. It is a huge blow to BuzzFeed's leadership, which has in the past suggested that it could be a better advocate for employees than a union could be.
As the Trump administration’s March 1 deadline for a trade deal with China approaches, with another Xi–Trump summit to follow, it seems almost impossible that a comprehensive agreement will be reached in time. The likely outcome is a punt that defers tariff increases in exchange for ongoing Chinese purchases of U.S. soy and energy.
Reddit announced Monday that it has raised $300 million at a $3 billion valuation, up from a $1.8 billion valuation in 2017, when the company took in a $200 million investment.
Since President Trump took office, attacks on the media have been his go-to strategy at rallies, on Twitter and elsewhere.
Driving the news: A BBC cameraman was shoved on the media platform by a Trump supporter who then hurled explicit insults at the press during Trump's rally in El Paso, Texas, on Monday. The BBC's Washington correspondent called the incident "an incredibly violent attack," highlighting the fact that Trump's anti-media rhetoric is "a constant feature of these rallies."
The one thing that could change the low-pay, low-inflation dynamic, AFL-CIO's chief economist Bill Spriggs argues, is government intervention.
What he's saying: "Firms have decided, 'Why do I need to give you more than a 1 or 2% raise? The prices are running 1–2% higher, what's your problem?' The other problem we have is low inflationary expectations make it very hard to re-inflate the economy — you just can’t get out of the rut."
Wages are rising, employees are unionizing on social media and going on strike, and businesses are starting to worry about labor costs. But there's little reason for shareholders to fret and little reason for employees to be excited because the big picture hasn't changed.
What's happening: U.S. inflation figures due this week will likely show that wages continue to stagnate and inflation is holding in the 1.5%–2.5% range it has been in for most of the past 10 years.
Ron Skeans, a BBC cameraman, was shoved on the media platform by a Trump supporter who then hurled explicit insults at the press at President Trump's rally in El Paso, Texas on Monday, the BBC reports.
Driving the news: Per Bloomberg, BBC Washington correspondent Gary O'Donoghue told BBC Radio 4's "Today" that it was "an incredibly violent attack," adding that Trump's anti-media rhetoric is "a constant feature of these rallies." In a statement, the BBC said that Trump "could see the incident and checked with us that all was okay. It is clearly unacceptable for any of our staff to be attacked for doing their job."
