6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 4:01PM EDT · Published Jul 26, 5:23AM EDT

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Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) missed earnings estimates for the second quarter and its shares fell as much as 24% after hours, which trimmed its market cap by $150 billion.

Mattel Inc. (NYSE: MAT) posted a loss for the quarter as the Toys “R” Us bankruptcy hurt sales. The company cut 2,200 workers.

The European Union and the United States said they may settle trade differences and might pull back tariffs. According to The Wall Street Journal:

President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker turned down the heat on a trade dispute between two of the world’s largest economic powers, suggesting Wednesday they would hold off on further tariffs while they talk through their differences.

Speaking in a joint news conference in the Rose Garden on Wednesday, the two leaders agreed to begin discussions on eliminating the tariffs and subsidies that hamper trade across the Atlantic, and to resolve the steel and aluminum tariffs the Trump administration had imposed this year as well as the retaliatory tariffs the European Union imposed in response.

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Trade issues with China have killed a buyout deal. According to The Wall Street Journal

Qualcomm Inc. plans to scrap its $44 billion purchase of Dutch chip maker NXP Semiconductors NV after failing to secure approval in China, making the deal one of the most prominent victims of spiraling U.S.-China trade tensions and derailing a central part of the U.S. chip giant’s strategy.

China was the last of nine markets that needed to approve the deal, which would have been among the biggest ever between technology companies. The acquisition was announced in October 2016 and extended in April as the chip makers sought approval from China’s competition regulators.

Steel tariffs undermined big car company earnings during the second quarter. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Detroit’s Big Three auto makers lowered their profit outlooks for 2018, and each said fallout from U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum is weighing on their bottom lines.

For months, automotive executives largely sidestepped questions about how the metals tariffs might affect them. The second-quarter results issued Wednesday by General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV made clear the elevated costs will linger through the year and into 2019, shadowing a relatively healthy backdrop for U.S. auto sales.

After a reverse split to raise its stock price, MoviePass’s parent company’s shares plunged. According to CNNMoney:

One day after the parent company of MoviePass announced a drastic effort to boost its stock price from 8 cents to $21, the price of the stock immediately tanked.

Shares of Helios and Matheson started plunging as soon as the market opened Wednesday. The price eventually closed at $10.60 per share, a drop of more than 50%.

The company on Tuesday said it would approve a 250-for-1 reverse stock split, an attempt to keep it from falling off the Nasdaq stock exchange.

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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.