Media

6 Most Important Things in Business Today

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: July 17, 2017 4:52 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 10:05 am

Corporate raider Nelson Peltz’s Trian will launch a battle to get a seat on the board of Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), which has failed to grow in recent years. Its shares are up only 1% in the last year.

Dow Jones may have exposed some of its customer data online, including information about Wall Street Journal subscribers, according to The Wall Street Journal.

China’s GDP grew faster than expected in the second quarter. It expanded 6.9% year over year based on industrial production and property values.

The U.S. labor market continues to tighten. According to the National Association for Business Economics:

 “The results of the most recent NABE Business Conditions Survey show more widespread increases in sales, profit margins, hiring, and capital spending in the second quarter of 2017 than in the first quarter of the year. Materials cost pressures appear to be easing, but more firms are facing higher labor costs and difficulty in hiring, especially skilled labor. Expectations for economic growth have moderated since the previous survey, but 60% of respondents still expect real GDP growth above 2% in the coming four quarters.”

IBM (NYSE: IBM) released a new series of computer products. According to CNBC:

IBM has launched a new mainframe system capable of running more than 12 billion encrypted transactions per day, in a bid to wade further into the financial cybersecurity market.

The mainframe, called IBM Z, seeks to address cyberattacks which have compromised financial data. It also aims to help firms automate financial regulatory compliance, in line with confidentiality and data protection laws.

“War for the Planet of the Apes” took box office honors this last weekend. According to Box Office Mojo:

Fox’s War for the Planet of the Apes delivered a #1 finish this weekend, opening a bit higher than the studio’s conservative expectations, though well below Mojo’s aggressive, pre-weekend forecast as did Broad Green’s PG-13 horror, Wish Upon, which fell short of $6 million over its first three days in release.

Playing more like Rise of the Planet of the Apes than Dawn, Fox’s War for the Planet of the Apes delivered an estimated $56.5 million this weekend from 4,022 theaters. That’s a little over a million more than Rise opened with back in 2011 and well below the $72.6 million Dawn delivered in its 2014 opening. Fortunately, War is carrying a budget $20 million lighter than Dawn, but the $150 million production still cost over $50 million more than Rise’s $93 million price tag.