Many American households may get a boost to their holiday budgets thanks to an expected dip in heating costs. That's according to Jack Kleinhenz, chief economist for the National Retail Federation, who spoke to reporters Thursday morning.
Driving the news: Winter heating prices for U.S. homes are expected to remain relatively flat or decrease, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported early last month.
Data: S&P Global Market Intelligence; Chart: Axios Visuals
Clorox revenue plummeted to a nearly eight-year low in the last quarter after a devastating cyberattack, Nathan writes.
The horrific drop — sales fell 31% from the previous quarter — illustrate the steep consequences of cybersecurity breakdowns.
By the numbers: Clorox reported revenue of $1.39 billion in the period ended Sept. 30, marking its worst quarterly performance since the final quarter of the 2015 calendar year.
UAW president Shawn Fain has predicted that the union will organize multiple non-unionized automakers over the next several years — despite history showing that road fraught with potholes.
Why it matters: Fresh from winning record contracts at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, and with public support for unions recently at a six-decade high, this time might be different.
The CEO of the National Association of Realtors, Bob Goldberg, resigned on Thursday just two days after a $1.8 billion jury verdict against the powerful trade group.
Why it matters: The abrupt resignation is a sign of turmoil inside NAR, which has been rocked by the verdict in the case, which could severely diminish the group's stranglehold on the real estate industry.
New on streaming this weekend: the new season of a highly anticipated animated comic book series, a documentary about JFK's assassination and new seasons of popular reality shows.
Fed chair Jerome Powell believes the U.S. economy is capable of growing faster than usual right now, without inflationary pressure.
The big picture: That was the subtext — and, in some spots, explicit text — of his comments after Wednesday's decision. It is also fueling a surge in stock and bond markets over the last 24 hours.
As head of communications and marketing for Atomic — a Miami-based venture studio founded in 2012 — Hadley Wilkins is responsible for helping new companies build their brands and tell their stories.
🗣What she's saying: "We're building the next generation of important tech companies. Moderna, Uber, Opendoor and Hims & Hers were all incubated at venture studios — and we are here to support that kind of innovation," Wilkins told Axios.
Six Flags Entertainment and Cedar Fair on Thursday announced a merger that would establish one of the largest theme park operators in North America.
Why it matters: The companies are seeking to join forces at a time when the theme park industry is still struggling to recover from the economic fallout of the pandemic.
Toyota is recalling more than 1.85 million RAV4 sports utility vehicles because some of their batteries pose a fire risk.
Driving the news: The voluntary recall announced Wednesday is for certain RAV4 SUVs from model years between 2013 and 2018 with replacement 12-volt batteries that have smaller top dimensions, the automaker said.
The IPO window appears to have closed just as quickly as it reopened.
The big picture: All four major U.S. IPOs from September and early October are now trading below their offering prices, despite all operating in different industry sectors, thus chilling other companies that were considering 2023 offerings.
Long before the establishment of TC-to-VC, whereby TechCrunch reporters join venture capital firms, there was a robust pipeline of business journalists getting hired by hedge funds.
In most cases, these reformed wretches produced investment research. Maybe it was written better than what came from some of their new peers, but distribution was limited.
Driving the news: Now there's a new, VC-backed hedge fund called Hunterbrook that's promising to hire scores of former reporters, and publish all of their work. Even if that work doesn't result in new investments.
It took a Kansas City jury just three hours to find that the National Association of Realtors conspired with two of the nation's largest brokerages to keep commissions on home sales high — but it will take much longer for the verdict's ramifications to shake out.
Why it matters: U.S. homebuyers spend around $100 billion a year on broker fees — if the jury's verdict is upheld, that number will likely shrink and home prices could fall, too.
Las Vegas, El Paso and San Jose now lead the country in terms of post-pandemic downtown recovery among more than 50 major U.S. cities.
That's per researchers tracking how cities are emerging from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, and based on downtown visitors in March through mid-June 2023, as compared to the same period in 2019.
A lawsuit filed in D.C. on Wednesday alleges that some of the city's biggest property managers are colluding to artificially raise rents — and it's not just a D.C. phenomenon.
Why it matters: The lawsuit could illuminate one factor behind the surge in rental prices across the U.S. The lawsuit alleges that rather than competing on price, big landlords are effectively outsourcing pricing decisions to an algorithm that uses data from them and their top competitors. The result is higher rents across the board.
One of the United Auto Workers' biggest victories in its six-week strike against Detroit carmakers was protection for autoworkers affected by the historic shift to electric vehicles (EVs).
Why it matters: The tentative agreements struck with Ford, Stellantis and General Motors would ensure that people who build engines and transmissions today will still earn top union wages making EV batteries and components in the future.
IAC, one of the word's largest internet holding companies, has submitted comments to the U.S. Copyright Office warning that unless the government protects copyrighted material from being used by generative AI, "the creation and publication of high-quality original content will wither and die."
Why it matters: IAC — which is home to Dotdash Meredith, the largest digital and print publisher in the U.S. — argues that if generative AI firms aren't forced to pay publishers for copyrighted content their algorithms are trained on and their bots recycle, the internet will become "unrecognizable" and users won't trust it.
Sam Bankman-Fried's defense team presented its closing arguments in court Wednesday, telling the jury that things aren't really what they seem.
Driving the news: The prosecution, SBF's attorney Mark Cohen said, was setting up their client to be something like a villain in a Hollywood movie, rather than what he was: a bright startup founder whose cryptocurrency businesses spun out of his control.
The prosecution began closing arguments in the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried Wednesday by stating an unchallenged fact: roughly $10 billion of customer funds had gone missing from FTX.
Why it matters: Jurors could decide as soon as Thursday whether the fallen founder of the cryptocurrency exchange is criminally responsible for one of the "biggest financial frauds in American history," or was just asleep at the wheel during a series of unfortunate mistakes.
