“The evidence on climate risk is compelling investors to reassess core assumptions about modern finance.” The announcement, which comes as BlackRock grapples with growing global protests against its investing practices, received mixed reactions from climate activists. While the plan could transform how companies respond to the climate crisis, it’s unclear the extent to which BlackRock will pursue the approach and pressure companies to become more sustainable. Many climate activists argue that Bl

“Dov Charney was way ahead of his time from the point of view of what he was doing right,” said Jan Rogers Kniffen, CEO of J. Rogers Kniffen WWE. Allegations of sexual harassment surfaced around Charney, and people started to wonder if American Apparel’s overtly sexualized image went too far. In 2014, the board of American Apparel ousted Charney. American Apparel went into bankruptcy court in 2015, and then again in 2016. How did American Apparel go from fast-growing retailer to bankruptcy court

Wall Street firms just posted the biggest surge to bond-trading revenue in years, helping several banks break records for annual profit — but don’t expect the party to last. Morgan Stanley said earlier Thursday that its fixed income division – a chronic underperformer a few years ago – posted a 126% surge in fourth-quarter revenue to $1.27 billion. At J.P. Morgan Chase, bond trading revenue rose 86% to $3.4 billion, exceeding estimates by $800 million. In late 2018, spikes in volatility across a

The big banks have wrapped up their earnings, and Wall Street looks ahead to the regional banks reporting in coming days. The KRE regional banking ETF has bounced nearly 20% off an August low, though it has begun to ease back. The KRE ETF was trading at $57.27 midday Thursday. Tengler instead gets financials exposure through the big banks, including J.P. Morgan, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Disclosure: Laffer Tengler Investments holds J.P. Morgan, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley and Go

Robert Downey Jr. attends the world premiere of “Dolittle” at Regency Village Theatre on January 11, 2020 in Westwood, California. Dr. John Dolittle (Robert Downey Jr., right) can talk to animals, including Chee-Chee the gorilla (voice of Rami Malek). “Dolittle” is one of several films based on the stories of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting. “Less well known is the adage: ‘You can’t publish a movie review that is entirely blank.’ “Just when I thought ‘Dolittle’ couldn’t get any less funny or idi

With that, more consumers turned to stores to pick up their last-minute online purchases instead of waiting on packages to arrive in the mail. Overall, Target’s holiday sales underwhelmed. Overall online sales this holiday season were up 14.6%, slightly better than expected, according to the National Retail Federation. Meanwhile, for consumers, buying online and picking up in stores can be viewed as a sustainable choice, as more people are thinking green when they shop. “Because we know that if

The credit union was a victim of “synthetic identity fraud.” To fool lenders, fraudsters pick a random social security number, or buy one on the dark web. “Synthetic identities and real identities behave very differently,” he said. “Criminals take a Social Security number here, and a name there, and bring them together to form a new Frankenstein person,” Conroy said. In 2011, the Social Security Administration decided to start randomizing the issuance of Social Security numbers, which Conroy sai

Brendan McDermid | ReutersWhat investors are willing to pay for stocks relative to their long-term earnings growth expectations is at an all-time high, according to Bank of America. The price-earnings to growth ratio, commonly called the PEG ratio, sits at 1.8, its highest level since the firm started tracking in 1986. The general rule of thumb is a PEG ratio over one means a stock or a market is overvalued. PEG is a stock’s price-to-earnings ratio divided by the expected long-term growth rate i

The Senate passed a new North American trade deal Thursday, sending one of President Donald Trump’s top priorities to his desk for ratification. USMCA will head to the president more than 14 months after the North American nations agreed to the deal. The Senate’s passage of USMCA came a day after Trump signed a partial trade deal with China. USMCA makes several tweaks to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which took effect in 1994. Trump and Democrats alike argued that the earlier deal, wh

The company set the lofty incentive goal in 2017 as it experienced high capital investment costs, according to the Journal. Executives hoped to secure $1 billion worth of incentives to pursue real estate projects, on top of the inducements it expected to receive for its second headquarters, called HQ2. Amazon ultimately abandoned the plan after it was unable to secure $1 billion in incentives and decided it wasn’t the right course of action, the Journal said. It’s unclear what kinds of incentive

Presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg’s campaign spending on Google ads has surged past President Donald Trump’s and is right on his heels when it comes to Facebook ads. Bloomberg’s ad on leadership has over 20 million views and has made 10 million impressions, according to Google’s transparency report. Meanwhile, it appears Bloomberg is trying to put pressure on Trump when it comes to a Facebook ad blitz. Acronym shows that Bloomberg’s Facebook ads are targeting voters in California, Pennsylvan

Major trade groups representing marketers and advertising agencies are criticizing Google’s announcement this week that it will end third-party cookie support in its Chrome browser within two years. Cookies are small pieces of code that websites deliver to a visitor’s browser and that stick around as the person visits other sites. They can be used to track users across multiple sites and can be used to target ads and see how they perform. Google said it will effectively kill off third-party cook

Apple is right to refuse Justice Department requests to unlock iPhones belonging to the suspect in a December Navy base shooting, Roger McNamee told CNBC on Thursday. “If they create a backdoor for law enforcement, they’re effectively creating a backdoor for everyone,” including criminals, the online privacy activist said on “Squawk Alley.” Apple responded by saying it had provided gigabytes of information to the authorities in connection to the Florida case. But it said it would stand its groun

They don’t care about the impact on children, they don’t care about truth, they don’t care about where this is all coming from, and they have said, even if they know it’s not true, they will print it,” Pelosi said in what appeared to be a reference to the company’s policy not to remove or fact-check political ads . House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., slammed Facebook during her weekly press briefing Thursday, accusing the company of only caring about profits and saying executives “schmooze” th

Michael Brochstein | Barcroft Media | ReutersPresident Donald Trump and the nation’s top law enforcement official are facing off against Apple, the most valuable American company. Barr and other law enforcement officials call it the “going dark” problem and argue that all data should be accessible with a warrant. “Backdoors can also be exploited by those who threaten our national security and the data security of our customers. But it found a third-party vendor in 2016 to unlock the San Bernardi

Nevada-based Aerion expects to begin flying its AS2 supersonic jet by 2024, the company’s CEO Tom Vice said on Thursday, speaking at a UBS conference in New York City. In addition to flying nearly twice as fast as a commercial aircraft, Aerion developed a patented technology it calls “boomless cruise.” Aerion has multiple partnerships with global aerospace companies, including Boeing, and wants to target the private business jet market. Vice expects that backlog to grow to $3.5 billion by the en

Senate swears in Chief Justice Roberts for impeachment trialThe Senate swears in Chief Justice Roberts to preside over the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump.

The Labor Department is changing the way it will release economic reports to the public, in an effort to tighten security it says gave Wall Street traders an unfair advantage. In an announcement Thursday, the department said it no longer will allow computers in the lockups it hosts for credentialed press. Media members have access ahead of time to reports, in particular the monthly nonfarm payrolls count, in a room with no outside access. The department previously had prohibited outside devices

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading. Morgan Stanley — Morgan Stanley shares jumped more than 7% after the bank posted quarterly profit numbers that easily beat expectations. Tesla — Stock of the electric car maker dropped more than 3% after an analyst at Morgan Stanley downgraded it to underweight from equal weight. Alcoa — Alcoa sank more than 9% in midday trading Thursday after the aluminum maker reported that fourth-quarter sales fell 27% in 2019 from the same time in 2

Microsoft plans to cut its carbon emissions by more than half by 2030 across its supply chain. He added that Microsoft will also expand an internal fee that it has charged to its business groups to account for their carbon emissions. That money is used, then, for us to invest in our work to reduce our carbon emissions, he said. Microsoft plans to become net zero carbon a decade earlier than Amazon, although this is in part because its emissions are roughly a third less. Microsoft expects to rele