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An employee carries a TV next to a customer’s car at the Best Buy store in Orlando, Florida.

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See the companies leading titles in the lunch trade.

Best buy – Retail stocks jumped 8% after the company announced a 26% increase in its quarterly dividend. This move comes despite Best Buy reporting adjusted profits that are exactly in line with Refinitiv’s consensus assessment.

Kroger – The grocery chain said its shares jumped 11.1% after exceeding Wall Street’s earnings expectations. The company reported adjusted fourth-quarter earnings of 91 cents a share on revenue of $ 33.05 billion. Analysts were looking for a profit of 74 cents per share on revenue of $ 32.86 billion, according to Refinitiv.

BJ’s Wholesale – Shares fell 13.3% after the wholesaler missed Wall Street’s expectations for quarterly earnings. BJ’s reported revenue of $ 4.36 billion, compared to analysts’ expected $ 4.4 billion, according to StreetAccount.

Large lots – Shares fell 2.4% in lunch trading after a report of bad profits. The company reported earnings of $ 1.75 per share compared to Refinitiv’s consensus estimate of $ 1.89 per share.

Burlington – Shares fell 10.9% in lunch trading after a lack of consensus estimates in the holiday income statement. Burlington reported a quarterly adjusted earnings of $ 2.53 per share on revenue of $ 2.6 billion, which is less than Refinitiv’s consensus estimates of $ 3.25 per share on $ 2.78 billion in sales.

Snowflake – Shares fell 17.2% at noon after the software company reported gains showing the slowest sales growth since at least 2019. Revenue for the fourth quarter was above analysts’ forecasts and rose 101% year-over-year. The company reported an adjusted loss of 43 cents per share.

Box Inc. – Shares rose 3.2% at noon after the company reported better-than-expected results for the fourth quarter. The company earned 24 cents a share, excluding revenue of $ 233 million. Analysts had expected earnings of 23 cents per share on $ 229 million in revenue.

American Eagle Outfitters – Shares fell 10.3% after the retailer reported quarterly results. American Eagle has warned that higher transportation costs will affect profits in the first half of 2022.

Intel – Shares fell 1.7% after Morgan Stanley downgraded the stock rating from equal weight to less. “Reducing the value of stocks … will allow us to focus on more effective situations that offer relatively more attractive risks and rewards in the future,” said Ethan Puritz of Morgan Stanley.

Southwest – Shares rose 1.2% after Evercore ISI improved the airline’s shares to outperform built-in. “Greater relative financial strength + margin-focused planning is driving us to raise our rating in the Southwest,” the company said.

Citigroup – The bank’s shares fell 3.7% after falling by two companies. Analysts were unhappy with Citi’s medium-term return on tangible total equity, a key indicator for the industry.

– Samantha Subin and Sarah Min of CNBC contributed to the report.

The company’s logo is visible on a Rivian R1T pickup truck maintained by Amazon, an electric vehicle manufacturer (EV), as it was parked off the Nasdaq Market site during the Times Square IPO in New York, USA, November 10, 2021. REUTERS / Brendan McDermid /

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March 3 – Rivian Automotive Inc (RIVN.O) canceled price increases for electric vehicles booked before March 1 after facing a backlash from customers after a 20% price increase.

Pre-orders from March 1 will not be subject to the new prices and customers who have canceled orders can refund them with the original price, CEO RJ Scaringe said in a letter to customers on Thursday.

On March 1, the Amazon-backed company increased the base price of the Rivian R1T electric pickup to about $ 79,500 from $ 67,500, while the R1S SUV went up to $ 84,500 from $ 70,000. Read more

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Rising prices have prompted some customers to cancel orders and express disappointment, accusing the company of “betraying” its early supporters, according to social media posts.

“It was wrong and we broke your trust in Rivian,” Scaringe wrote.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes since I started Rivian more than 12 years ago, but this one was the most painful.”

Shares of Rivian, which fell more than 13% on Wednesday, extended losses on Thursday, down 4%.

Scaringe reiterated that the rise in prices was caused by inflationary pressures and higher component costs.

Average prices for new vehicles in the United States have risen by more than 30% since 2018, when they began receiving pre-orders for RIT, he said.

Holders of reservations at Rivian welcomed the move.

“I’m back with Rivian. Super sincere apology from RJ and they’re doing well,” said Zach Jump-Start Marino, who canceled his pre-order after the price increase.

“100% trust and confidence have been restored. This is the right move,” tweeted Zach Nelson, who made a reservation for R1T in 2018.

The new prices will remain in force for orders placed after the announcement.

“We believe the damage has been done and instead many customers will be buying electric cars from competitors,” said Gareth Nelson, an analyst at CFRA Research.

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Report by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco; Edited by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Shinjini Ganguli, Devika Syamnath and Cynthia Osterman

Our standards: ‘ principles of trust.

He would bristle at the term, but you can describe Dylan Schultz as a crypto brother. He manages Lavender.Five, a cryptocurrency validation service that certifies blockchain transactions (imagine a deregulated branch of the Securities and Exchange Commission).

On February 25, he issued a appeal to his 1,700 Twitter followers: “We will compare any donation made to a charity in support of Ukraine to a total of $ 1,000.” The next day, Schultz publishes the fruits of its initiative; 0.028 bitcoin, equivalent to a total donation of about $ 1,100, sent to a crypto wallet run by a Ukrainian military NGO called Come Back Alive. He is a small part of a chorus of countless other cryptocurrency holders around the world who are vying to support Ukrainians in the face of invading power. Reports say more than $ 30 million in cryptocurrency has been sent to the country since the start of the war. So charity has finally become decentralized?

“I decided early on that Lavender.Five would use its platform to make a positive difference, no matter how small,” Schultz said. “Crypto is inherent in the whole world. Intermediaries are often needed to donate traditional currency. You cannot donate USD directly, you must first convert them in some way or find an intermediary. … Cryptocurrency solves this by simplifying the process. If you have the address of the charity, you can simply enter the address, enter the amount to donate and click “Submit”.

Ukraine, like many former Soviet states, is battling corruption and a severe shortage of international funding since independence in 1991. So perhaps that’s why the Ukrainian government has taken the unusual step of publishing cryptocurrency portfolios for global funding through bitcoin and Ethereum. – The two most popular digital tokens – from official accounts. “Stand with the people of Ukraine, now accepting donations of cryptocurrency,” he wrote Mikhail Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, on February 26. Non-profit organizations and local businesses in the besieged country responded to the government’s request. Kyiv Independent, an English-language newspaper in the capital, accepts patronage through bitcoin.

Come Back Alive, the NGO Schultz contributed to, was previously active in Patreon – processing donations in traditional currency – before being suspended from the platform because it violated an existing moratorium on military fundraising. Naturally, the company found a second life thanks to a “crypto team” called UkraineDAO, which collects decentralized aid for various Ukrainian organizations. As the state gradually gets involved in a brutal city war, it may make sense for residents to petition for untraceable currency – especially since donations can be anonymous and therefore avoid any retaliation from the Russian state.

“Blockchain allows us to scale our efforts in a way that was not possible for us before,” said Nadia Tolokonnikova, a DAO spokeswoman in Ukraine, in an interview with The New York Times. “The old ways of raising money are sometimes really slow and just cumbersome.”

For the most ardent supporters of cryptocurrency, the crisis in Ukraine is an ideal encapsulation of the reasons why they believe that global economic hegemony must be broken. The Ukrainian people need help, and they argue that Bitcoin’s ability to avoid bureaucratic bureaucracy is the best way to provide immediate services to vulnerable populations. “It’s just the cheapest, fastest and safest way to make financial transactions,” said Artemis, who declined to give his real name but said he was from Canada and donated $ 280 in Bitcoins to Come Back Alive. “They can safely store it without fear of invading forces stealing it or the banking system collapsing due to war.

However, donors still need to take due care to avoid potential fraud, especially in a chaotic war zone. No one should trust a homeless crypto wallet floating through social media without confirming the details. Especially when there are organizations like The Giving Block, a charitable curator who paves the way for blockchain to non-profit organizations, which requires a verification process to be presented on the platform. Even in the wild west of cryptocurrency, patrons may know that their alms are going to the right place – although not all Ukrainian groups that currently accept cryptocurrencies have opened up to this kind of transparency.

There is also much evidence that the crypto-revolution could threaten the Ukrainian title. Foreign policy experts warn that Russia’s economy could become increasingly dependent on the blockchain as crippling sanctions wreak havoc on Moscow. The roll costs less than a cent after a 30% drop after the United States and Europe cut off Russian banks from Swift. Crypto is much more resilient to criminal financial assault, and this provides an escape route for a country that is completely isolated from civilian banking.

“It simply came to our notice then. We know that Russia is already developing its own digital currency, the digital ruble, which it will use for global trade. Sanctions aimed at hurting Putin will only harm the Russian people. “What is certain is that Putin has already thought about this before the conflict with Ukraine and has a plan that probably includes crypto,” said Mark Boza, global brand and business manager at HOKK Finance.

Military efforts on both sides can be funded in the ink black of the blockchain. Crypto is often both a force for good and a force for evil, but the stakes of this dichotomy have never been so high. For his part, Schultz intends to continue to support Ukrainians with his symbols. “Ukraine did not want that and is fighting the battle alone,” she said. “I wanted to help as much as I could, reaching as far as I could.

Schork Group CEO Stephen Schork initially predicted that Brent oil would reach $ 116 a barrel this month, noting that it took only a few days to reach that value.

San Francisco became the first city in the United States to reach an average of $ 5 a gallon, according to an industry expert, as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine points to oil prices that exceeded $ 113 in trade on Thursday.

“It was pretty ugly because gas prices are rising nationally, but nowhere has the pain been more significant than in California, where prices have crossed the 5-gallon mark,” Patrick De Haan, head of oil analysis for GasBuddy, told FOX Business on Thursday.

OIL PRICES JUMP TO $ 110 a barrel, despite deliveries

Currently, the state average for a gallon of regular gasoline in California is $ 4,940, according to AAA. That’s a significant jump from the national average of about $ 3,728, according to AAA.

RUSSIA INVASES UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES

De Haan said prices “will continue to move north” and could even reach $ 5.35 a gallon by the end of March.

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For several weeks, there have been widespread fears that sanctions against Russia will threaten the global oil market, which is already facing limited supplies, and will ultimately lead to higher gas prices for American motorists.

This week, the United States and other major governments agreed to release 60 million barrels of crude oil from reserves to stabilize supplies, but failed to allay concerns about Russia’s attack on Ukraine as oil prices continued to rise.

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The loss of 10 million barrels per day from oil production “cannot be offset by scarce oil spills,” De Haan said, citing 60 million barrels of crude oil from reserves.

“It will probably take more than 100-200 million barrels to have a big effect,” he added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ikea, the world’s largest furniture company, has 17 stores in Russia. The company said the conflict had a “huge human impact” and “leads to serious disruptions in the supply chain and trading conditions”. As a result, it decided to suspend all production and trade operations in Russia, as well as all trade with the country and its ally Belarus. Dozens of Western companies have left or suspended operations in Russia in response to the invasion, sanctions and disruptions.

Ikea said 15,000 workers would be directly affected by the shutdown in the region. But the company will continue to pay them, at least for a while.

“The ambitions of the company groups are long-term and we have provided employment and income stability for the near future and provide support to them and their families in the region,” the company said in a statement.

Ikea also announced an “immediate donation of 20 million euros ($ 22 million) in humanitarian aid to those forcibly displaced by the conflict in Ukraine,” in response to an urgent call from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

The parent company Ingka Group is one of the largest mall operators in Russia. He said his Mega malls would continue to operate to deliver food, clothing and goods to the Russians.

H&M

Clothing company H&M Group (HNNMY), which has 168 stores in Russia, said late Wednesday that it had also decided to temporarily close the store in Russia.

“H&M Group takes care of all colleagues and joins all those in the world who call for peace,” said a statement from the Swedish fashion retailer. “The clothes and other necessities were donated by the company.”

Ikea and H&M are joining a growing number of international companies, including Apple (AAPL), Disney (DIS) and Ford (F), which are canceling operations in Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine.

– Chris Liakos of CNN contributed to this report.

March 3 – Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc. (TSLA.O), said on Thursday that he was inviting the United Auto Workers (UAW) union to hold a vote at the California carmaker’s factory.

The announcement came when the billionaire entrepreneur criticized the Biden administration and Democrats for proposing an additional tax incentive of $ 4,500 for electric vehicles made in US-made unions. Tesla and foreign carmakers have no unions in their US plants. Read more

Organizing a Tesla plant would be a great victory for the UAW, which has largely failed to win the support of workers in foreign car assembly plants or starter electric vehicles, many of which are in the southern United States. Tesla also has a plant in Austin, Texas.

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In his tweet on Thursday, Musk said the real challenge is negative unemployment in the Gulf region, and if people do not compensate well, they will be forced to leave because they have many offers.

“I would now like to invite the UAW to hold a union vote when it is convenient for them. Tesla will do nothing to stop them, “he said.

The UAW had no immediate comment on Musk’s tweet, but analysts said his actions over the past year were inconsistent with rhetoric.

Under federal law, at least 30 percent of factory or company workers must sign a petition indicating that they want to join a union in order to hold elections. Usually, unions like the UAW will not seek elections unless they feel they have the support they need to win the support they need from the majority.

Musk also faced the wrath of the U.S. National Labor Council, which ruled last year that the company had violated U.S. labor laws and ordered Tesla to delete his 2018 tweet, which said employees would they lose their stock options if they form a union. Read more

Tesla subsequently appealed the NLRB’s decision to the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals, and the case is still pending.

The NLRB also ordered Tesla to propose the reinstatement of a former employee, as well as repeal the 2017 rules that banned the distribution of trade union literature in his parking lot during non-business hours and the rules that prohibit the distribution of union stickers, leaflets and brochures without prior permission.

Tesla has also been affected by a series of cases of racial discrimination and sexual harassment by current and former workers. The California Civil Rights Agency has also filed a lawsuit accusing Tesla of failing to deal with widespread racist behavior at its Fremont assembly plant for years.

Tesla has said it does not tolerate discrimination and has taken steps to address workers’ complaints.

US President Joe Biden has often praised the electric vehicle (EV) efforts made by automakers at Detroit General Motors Co. (GM.N) and Ford Motor Co. (FN), including during his speech on the state of the Union in Tuesday, although they sell less EV than Tesla.

Last month, Biden, whom Musk likened to a “wet sock puppet” earlier this year, acknowledged Tesla’s leadership in electric cars after Musk repeatedly complained that he had been ignored. Last fall, Musk said Biden’s electric car policy seemed to be controlled by unions. Read more

Last November, 10 environmental and advocacy groups, including Sierra Club, Greenpeace and the League of Conservation Voters, called on startup electric car maker Rivian Automotive (RIVN.O) to work with working groups to ensure a clean future and high-paying jobs. and allow a union voting process in their factories. Read more

Workers at Rivian’s Normal, Illinois, plant are not unions. Rivian had previously declined to comment on the topic and could not be found immediately Thursday after Musk’s tweet.

Officials from the startup for electric vehicles Lucid Group Inc (LCID.O), which has a plant in Arizona, also could not be found for comment on Thursday.

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Report by Ben Kleiman in Detroit, Bhargav Acarya in Bengaluru and Hyunju Jin in San Francisco; Edited by Subhranshu Sahu and Nick Zieminski

Our standards: ‘ principles of trust.

On Twitter late Wednesday night, Musk said Tesla could only hire and retain workers in the current, very tight labor market, paying and treating them well, and not worrying about the company’s unions vote.

“I would now like to invite the UAW to hold a union vote when it is convenient for them. “Tesla will do nothing to stop them.” tweet.When a rock legend Gene Simmons In response to Biden’s tweet, which suggested that the president did not mention Tesla because it was not a union and was based in Texas, a state with a “right to work”, Musk said that the company had not closed its plant. in California and is actually considering expanding it. He then proposed that the union hold a vote. Musk followed later tweeting that the compensation of workers in the Tesla plant is the highest in the automotive industry. Most Tesla employees receive stock options, which can be very lucrative given the stock’s performance in recent years. Musk threatened that workers could lose that benefit if they voted for a union, a position that a California labor judge ruled was illegal against employees’ right to freely choose whether to organize or not. Workers on stock options that have already been accumulated cannot be withdrawn if they later vote in favor of unionization.

Workforce worldwide

The company’s dossier shows that Tesla has nearly 100,000 employees worldwide at the end of last year, but does not show the division between its plants in California, Texas, Nevada, West New York, Shanghai and a new plant to open outside Berlin. . .

The UAW has no immediate comment on Musk’s proposal to hold a vote. She has been trying to put the California plant into operation since it began production a decade ago.

The UAW and the National Labor Council, the government agency that monitors union voting, have repeatedly cited Tesla and Musk of illegal or improper anti-union activities, including allegations that the company is firing employees who support and promote the union.

Usually, union voting takes place when at least one third of the employees in a company or a specific workplace sign cards with a request to be presented. And unions do not usually submit cards to demand elections unless they have significantly more support than that, most often from the vast majority of workers.

In some cases, a company will agree to recognize a union without a vote, usually as part of an agreement with a union that already represents its employees in other facilities. The employer may also agree to vote without the union filing cards, but it is unclear whether Musk did so in this case, as offering elections on Twitter is not an official filing with the NLRB.

When organizing polls, employers almost always lobby workers to vote against, arguing that it will be worse for them under the leadership of the union. Even when employers remain neutral, as was the case with the UAW vote at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee eight years ago, outside groups opposing unions can lobby workers to vote against and win the organizing effort.

It is also unclear whether Musk is proposing to remain neutral if the vote is actually scheduled, and whether such a vote will only take place at Tesla’s plants in relatively pro-Union California or Nevada, or involve employees at the newly opened facility outside Austin, Texas.

Great impetus for union efforts

Organizing a high-profile company like Tesla would be one of the biggest victories of the labor movement in the United States in decades, said Alexander Colvin, a professor at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

“That would be a decisive success,” Colvin said. “That would be up there with the successful organization of Amazon (AMZN).”

Trade union membership across the country fell to just 10.3 percent of all workers and only 6 percent of private sector workers, down 16.8 percent in 1983 when the Ministry of Labor began tracking data. Organizing campaigns is crucial for unions to regain some of their lost power.

But lately, unions are more likely to lose high-level votes, such as recently at Amazon’s Alabama warehouse. These elections are resumed right now after a finding of misconduct by the leadership during the initial vote. A small, independent union, Starbucks Workers United, has had some success in setting up separate coffee chain stores, winning votes in two locations in Buffalo and one in Mesa, Arizona. But these are just three of the 9,000 American stores owned by Starbucks.

Marlboro cigarette pack.

Daniel Acker Bloomberg | Getty Images

Rising gas station prices are likely to hurt demand for cigarettes, as smokers have less money to spend on impulse purchases while refueling, according to a new Barclays report.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has boosted oil prices in recent days as the United States and other Western countries have imposed sanctions on Russia, although so far only Canada has banned crude oil exports from the country.

Earlier on Thursday, US oil, West Texas Intermediate oil futures, were trading at prices last seen during the financial crisis in September 2008, while Brent crude oil peaked in May 2012.

In addition to its huge energy exports, Russia is also the world’s largest exporter of fertilizers and cereals. Experts believe that the prices of a wide range of products may rise, but cigarette manufacturers such as Altria and British American Tobacco are likely to be among the companies that are seeing declining demand due to higher oil prices.

Barclays analyst Gaurav Jain estimates that a 1% increase in oil prices will lead to a 0.1% drop in US cigarette volume. Jain compares the current jump in oil prices with their sharp decline in 2014-2016. In 2015, the volume of cigarettes in the United States was approximately equal, after shrinking in 2014.

“The trend seems to suggest that as consumers save more money at the gas station and go to the attached store, they buy more cigarettes (impulse purchase item). Now that oil prices are rising, the opposite could happen,” he wrote. note to customers on thursday.

Cigarette smokers have already come to terms with higher prices as tobacco companies seek to protect their profit margins from inflation. Yet, while CEOs of packaged consumer goods companies say they have not seen consumers choose cheaper alternatives or skip a purchase altogether, categories that favor lower-income consumers, such as tobacco and beer and energy drinks are already seeing consumers trade down, RBC That’s what capital markets analyst Nick Modi said.

For fiscal 2022, Jain from Barclays predicts that the volume of cigarettes in the United States will fall by 5%, but prices will rise by 7%. Looking for cheaper alternatives, some consumers are likely to turn to other tobacco substitutes to satisfy their nicotine cravings, such as e-cigarettes or modern oral nicotine bags.