Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 214,000 for the week ended Jan. 4, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The fourth straight weekly decline saw claims almost unwinding the jump seen in early December, which was blamed on a later-than-normal Thanksgiving Day. The four-week moving average of initial claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, fell 9,500 to 224,000 last week. Labor market

The strike resulted in no U.S. casualties and was met with the threat of “punishing economic sanctions” from President Donald Trump . “When you talk about any geopolitical event, it typically makes sense to not overreact to it,” Stone said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.” Stone’s target for the S&P this year is 3,675, the highest on Wall Street. He pointed to a surprising trend he noticed when reviewing how much markets tend to fall during election years: They don’t tend to decline more tha

The company said its same-store sales over a nine-week period that ended on Jan. 4 dropped 7.5%. The retailer said that its adjusted same-store sales — which exclude the impact of its exit from major appliance and furniture categories — were down 5.3%. The announcement follows one from rival Macy’s a day earlier, in which Macy’s said its holiday same-store sales dropped 0.6%. Kohl’s said earlier Thursday morning that its same-store sales during November and December were down 0.2%. The company i

The beds to be used by the athletes at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, made partially from recyclable cardboard, are displayed during a press preview in Tokyo, Japan January 9, 2020. The athletes competing in the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo will be sleeping on cardboard. These beds align with the Tokyo 2020 Games’ sustainability concept of, “Be better, together – For the planet and the people.” The Tokyo 2020 Games set five main sustainability themes to follow while preparing

President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce proposed rollbacks to the National Environmental Policy Act regulations in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, January 9, 2020. Many of the White House’s proposed changes to the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act have been supported by business groups that contend the law has delayed or blocked projects like laying out oil pipelines and building dams and mines, among other things. The plan, released by the Whit

Markets have seen wild swings in recent days as investors digest the latest news between the U.S. and Iran. But, is there opportunity to double down on volatility with the stocks most prone to outsized moves? “High beta is very interesting because you’re always going to see some moving and shaking. Ulta Beauty, which has fallen 25% in six months, could be a highly volatile stock worth a second look, according to O’Hara. The stock has risen 147% in the past 12 months, while the SMH semiconductor

The news sent Kohl’s shares tumbling as much 9% in premarket trading. The decline wasn’t as bad as many had feared, sending Macy’s shares higher on the news. This past holiday season was the first in which the partnership was live at all of Kohl’s stores nationwide. Bank of America analyst Lorraine Hutchinson echoed this sentiment in her downgrade of Kohl’s shares to neutral from buy. Kohl’s is expected to share more details regarding its holiday results when it reports quarterly earnings on Mar

The Deloitte CFO Signals Survey showed that while the corporate leaders see the economy as “good,” they anticipate that before the year is over, conditions will slow. “North America is clearly the place where companies are continuing to increase their investment focus,” said Sandy Cockrell, Deloitte Global CFO program leader. Deloitte surveyed 147 CFOs from U.S., Canada and Mexico, most from companies that have more than $3 billion in annual revenue. Trade, politics figure in outlookAmong the co

Bryan R Smith | ReutersU.S. stock futures were pointing to a new intraday high for the Dow Jones Industrial Average at Thursday’s open on Wall Street. The Stock Trader’s Almanac, which studied the market phenomenon going back to 1950, found that the first five days has a good track record of predicting the whole year. Tesla’s stock value tops the combined market caps of GM and FordElon Musk attends the groundbreaking ceremony of the Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai, east China, on January 7, 2019.

People burn a poster representing US President Donald Trump to protest against the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraq. A former CIA officer told CNBC on Thursday that it’s likely Iran will carry out small-scale cyberattacks to avoid U.S. retaliation. Additionally, several websites across the globe were hit with cyberattacks that defaced them with images and slogans supportive of Soleimani. Rather than attempt to hit highly secured agencies like the military or financial service

katleho SeisaThe new year is just over a week old, but it’s almost time to get cracking on those 2019 tax returns. Proactive taxpayers can start submitting last year’s tax returns to the IRS as early as Jan. 27. As always, you have until April 15 to file your 2019 tax return. The IRS predicts it will receive about 150 million individual income tax returns this season. Here’s one reason to get started early: Scammers who make off with your Social Security number may rush to file fraudulent return

Search engines like Seznam, from the Czech Republic, Russia’s Yandex and France’s Qwant will also appear in some markets. These options will be in effect from March 1 to June 30 and new auctions will occur quarterly, Google said. A minimum bid was set for each country and the three highest bidders for each market will appear during setup on Android phones in that country. In a blog post explaining the rules, Google called the auction, “a fair and objective method.” The auction drew criticism fro

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., arrives for a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus in the Capitol on Wednesday, December 4, 2019. If the speaker thinks withholding the articles will “help force a fair trial in the Senate,” Smith added, “then I wholeheartedly support that decision.” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Smith quickly reversed himself Thursday after saying Speaker Nancy Pelosi should send the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is pushing to delay a proposed disclosure of Secret Service spending on presidential travel until after the 2020 election, a spokesperson for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said Thursday. A Treasury Department spokesperson said in a statement that Mnuchin and Secret Service Director James Murray have been working over “the past several months” to return the Secret Service to the Treasury Department. “Conversations about the return of the Secret Service to the

Amazon’s Ring said it fired four employees for watching customer video feeds beyond what they were allowed to. Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, said in the company’s response to the lawmakers that there had been four complaints over the last four years about its employees’ access to Ring video data. Huseman said in Amazon’s response that teams in Ukraine can only access publicly available videos and videos from Ring employees, contractors and friends, only after receiving

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is slated to hold her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday morning, as some Democratic colleagues urge her to move articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate so the trial can begin. Pelosi has yet to deliver the impeachment articles to the Senate in an effort to force Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to ensure what she has called a fair process. But McConnell and other Republican leaders have indicated they will set the imp

Construction begins along the U.S. border with Mexico where the new border wall will replace old fencing on August 23, 2019 in Calexico, CA. A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s border wall project can proceed while using up to $3.6 billion earmarked for military construction projects while the Trump administration continues challenging a lower federal court’s injunction against diversion of the funds for that purpose. A final ruling on the legality of the use of

Independent Sen. Angus King told CNBC on Thursday that while the Trump administration made a good argument for killing Iran’s top general, the timing is still questionable. But King said he wonders what led the Trump administration to suddenly kill Soleimani, whom the U.S. had pursued for decades. “We would be having a very different discussion right now if the Iranian missiles had killed Americans,” King said. King told CNBC that he understood the argument Lee was making, saying that stopping d

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she will not rush to deliver two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate. That may be soon,” Pelosi told reporters, revealing no signs that she planned to end her 3-week-long effort to negotiate with the Republican-controlled chamber over the rules of Trump’s impeachment trial. Following the articles’ passage, Pelosi said she planned to hold them until McConnell assured her he would conduct what Democrats called ”

Joe Biden is on the verge of picking up a key fundraiser who was Sen. Kamala Harris’ national finance chairman when she was running for the White House. Henes would be the latest former Harris financier to come over to Biden as the former vice president looks to capture the Democratic nomination. Beyond previous Harris backers, Biden has captured many other wealthy fundraisers who were helping former primary candidates. Wall Street titan Mark Gallogly has decided to support Biden after assisting