Hillary Clinton has launched a political group as part of her effort to back activism for progressive causes and against President Donald Trump. The former secretary of state — who lost to Trump in November — announced Monday the formation of Onward Together, which will help to fund activist groups. Activists have used the term “the resistance” for civic engagement opposing Trump’s agenda. Earlier this month, Clinton said she would focus on civic engagement after losing her bid for the White Hou

After lashing out at the media last week, Sears Holdings CEO Eddie Lampert is speaking out again, this time saying he is “taking a stand” to protect his company as its vendors have a change of heart. “There have been examples of parties we do business with trying to take advantage of negative rumors about Sears to make themselves a better deal — a deal that is unilaterally in their interest,” Lampert wrote in a blog post Monday. This, as the embattled department store chain has been working with

On Friday, President Donald Trump tweeted that Comey — whom he fired last week — “better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations.” Trump fired Comey as the FBI was investigating possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia. Trump last week told NBC News that he decided to fire Comey while considering “this Russia thing.” On Monday, press secretary Sean Spicer dodged several questions about any possible tapes for a second consecutive briefing. “I think I made it clear last wee

He said it is possible they could cut another 300,000 to 500,000 barrels per day, and Saudi Arabia would have to contribute the lion’s share. OPEC, Russia and other oil producers first agreed to a six-month production cut in December. Earlier Monday, Saudi Arabia energy minister Khalid al-Falih and Russia energy minister Alexander Novak said they would like to extend the current agreement by 9 months and that they would discuss it with other producers. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re working

The study’s findings are based on Australia’s experience from the shift of its rail car production to China. The remaining producer, Bradken , has largely exited the Australian market,” the Oxford Economics study said. The analysis found that most of Australia’s railcar manufacturing is now controlled by CRRC, a Chinese state enterprise and member of the US-China Chamber of Commerce. Some members of Congress are already concerned about the Chinese threat to U.S. freight manufacturing and jobs. C

The Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump divulged highly classified information during his meeting with Russian officials last week. Officials told the Post that the information was incredibly sensitive and that its exposure endangers the relationship with an ally, which had not approved sharing the information with Russia. This ally, officials told the Post, “has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State.” Officials told the Post that Trump’s disclosure could obstruct in

While Federal Reserve officials have said they plan to begin a process to normalize their balance sheet, the end result is likely to be a balance sheet that is anything but normal. Some Fed officials have made no secret of their intentions to announce a plan later this year to reduce the balance sheet. A bigger Fed balance sheet on a more permanent basis is potentially good news for long-term interest rates. The biggest reason why there’s no going back to the old balance sheet is currency. So a

U.S. government debt prices fell on Monday after Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed on the need to freeze oil output. Oil prices jumped after the Saudi Arabian and Russian energy ministers said in a joint statement that an OPEC-led crude production cut would be extended from the middle of this year until March 2018. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih and his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak met on Monday in China’s capital Beijing and jointly said that a deal to cut crude supplies in order to

The PureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF (HACK) rose more than 3 percent, putting it on track for its best day of the year. The Dow also received a boost from Johnson & Johnson, which rose 2.71 percent after JPMorgan upgraded the stock. “While our models are not always right, they are right more times than they are wrong and hereto we are tilting portfolios accordingly.” In economic news, the National Association of Home Builders survey showed sentiment among home builders came in at 70 for May. Mea

Snap has hired one of Facebook’s machine learning stars. The move comes as Snap staffs up its research and development division while it deals with Facebook copying some of its features. Last month Hussein Mehanna joined Snap as a director of engineering. At Facebook he had been engineering director of the core machine learning group inside Facebook’s applied machine learning organization, which in turn works with the company’s highly regarded artificial intelligence research group.

Japanese gaming giant Nintendo plans to release a smartphone game based on the video game franchise “The Legend of Zelda”, the Wall Street Journal reported. This would mark Nintendo’s latest foray into mobile gaming, after “Super Mario Run” and “Fire Emblem Heroes”. “The Legend of Zelda” game is expected after the release of a smartphone version Nintendo’s “Animal Crossing” franchise, which is likely to come out in the second half of 2017, the Journal reported on Monday. According to the Journal

Google announced on Monday that new cars from Audi and Volvo will have a version of its Android operating system built in, allowing drivers to use their voice to control things like the cabin temperature and opening the sunroof, even if they don’t have an Android phone. This is a big step from Android Auto, Google’s software that allows users with Android phones to control some functions, like playing music. Volvo’s new cars will launch with Android within two years, the company said. Volvo curr

The injunction on Levandowski’s work is part of an order that was revealed on Thursday in sealed documents. But an Uber engineer recently testified that Levandowski communicates with the new self-driving boss on a day-to-day basis. Indeed, although Alphabet is an Uber investor, Waymo poses challenges to Uber on several fronts. Waymo has also teamed up with Uber-rival Lyft to bolster self-driving car technology. “We are pleased with the court’s ruling that Uber can continue building and utilizing

A daily morning look at the financial stories you need to know to start the day. STOCKS/ECONOMY-Stock futures are higher on a big boost in oil prices. OIL/ENERGY-U.S. crude prices are up almost 3 percent to the $49 a barrel level as the Russian oil minister has announced his country will join Saudi Arabia in extending production cuts through March of 2018. CYBER ATTACK-Thousands more ransomware cyber attacks have hit Asian victims this morning after the “WannaCry” virus hit 200,000 people and ma

What were you thinking when you heard about this ransomware attack last week? General Keith Alexander: Here’s what I thought first: this has been largely touted as the year of ransomware, so we shouldn’t be surprised to see an increase in these ransomware attacks. And it’s interesting because when you look on the map, Russia is getting hit the worst from this ransomware attack. If this attack was launched out of a stolen NSA trove of leaked tools, as some have reported, then how should we be thi

Heading into Amazon’s IPO twenty years ago, Jeff Bezos had some convincing to do. Bezos wanted to go even higher so the company could raise more cash to invest in customer service and marketing. Doerr, who was an Amazon board member until 2010, recalls how Bezos had to push his lead underwriter Frank Quattrone to keep upping the price. “I remember Jeff asking Quattrone — `Frank, what would happen if instead of $16 it was $17?'” Bezos said to Quattrone, “Can you guarantee for me that it will fai

Tech giants Alphabet and Amazon are neck and neck in the race to $1,000 a share, with both stocks opening Monday trading between $955 and $960. But chart-minded trader Todd Gordon believes that Alphabet is likely to hit quadruple digits first. Dividing the share price of Alphabet by the share price of Amazon yields an upward-moving line, “indicating the outperformance of Google relative to Amazon,” he explained Monday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.” “It seems to be that Google is ready to break this

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates just gave his best advice to 2017’s college graduates, and offered them a special graduation gift. Gates took to Twitter on Monday morning, saying if he were just beginning his career today, he would pursue something in artificial intelligence, energy or biosciences, all of which are “promising fields.” He added that his biggest regret when he left school was that he didn’t know enough about “the world’s worst inequities,” something that has now taken him decades

But Update 2016-01 could significantly affect — and distort — the way companies like Alphabet, Intel, IBM and Salesforce.com, which make a lot of small investments in other companies, report their earnings. While investors were fully informed when an investment lost value, there was less transparency for them when an investment increased in value. Or take Google’s 2014 investment in Cloudera, a chip manufacturer, at a $1.8 billion valuation. Then, Intel invested at a $4.1 billion valuation — big

Seth Klarman, the value investing giant who draws comparisons to Warren Buffett, bought large stakes in two Apple suppliers during the first quarter, according to an SEC filing Friday after the market close. Klarman’s hedge fund, Baupost, acquired 5.2 million shares of Qualcomm worth $299 million and 7.2 million shares of Qorvo worth $493 million, according to the March quarter 13F filing. But where some investors see trouble, value investors like Klarman see a bargain. The hedge fund manager is