6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 4:02PM EDT · Published Mar 13, 4:56AM EDT

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6 Most Important Things in Business Today — © Thinkstock

President Trump killed a potential deal for Broadcom Ltd. (NASDAQ: AVGO) to buy Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM). 24/7 Wall St. has the details.

Saudi Aramco faces an uphill battle as it tries to go public. According to Reuters:

Saudi Arabia is increasingly looking to just float oil giant Saudi Aramco locally as plans for an initial public offering (IPO) on an international exchange such as London or New York hang in the balance, sources close to the process said.

The kingdom is counting on being awarded emerging market status by index complier MSCI in June to help Saudi Aramco attract Western funds, in addition to cornerstone investors from China, Japan and South Korea, the sources said.

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Top executives at General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) did not get bonuses last year. According to The Wall Street Journal:

General Electric Co. didn’t pay a cash bonus last year to its top executives at corporate headquarters, which it said was the first time in the company’s 125-year history.

The Boston-based company said in a regulatory filing Monday that its board withheld the 2017 bonuses and canceled some 2015 equity awards that executives would have partly received. It cited the conglomerate’s struggles last year, which forced GE to slash its dividend, cut thousands of jobs and overhaul its leadership.

The CEO of Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) made many times what an average employee at the financial firm did in 2017. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Bank of America Corp. on Monday became the first big U.S. bank to unveil how much more its CEO makes than its typical employee.

The lender said in its annual proxy filing that in 2017 Chief Executive Brian Moynihan earned 250 times as much as the median bank employee. The disclosure is one that other big banks and companies are planning to make for the first time.

Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) market cap moved above $900 billion. According to CNBC:

Apple closed at an all-time high Monday, briefly surpassing an intraday market cap of $925 billion for the first time.

Shares closed at $181.40 — less than a percent up — but climbed above $182 in midday trading, briefly pushing the tech giant to a market cap of $925.4 billion, before closing at $922 billion.

The U.S. deficit hit a multiyear high. According to CNNMoney:

New Treasury Department numbers show that the US government racked up a $215 billion deficit in February — the largest monthly deficit in six years. It was also $23 billion higher than the deficit for the same month last year.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.