6 Most Important Business Stories Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 9:58AM EST · Published Jul 20, 5:28AM EDT

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6 Most Important Business Stories Today — © Thinkstock

The Congressional Budget Office said a repeal of Obamacare would increase the number of uninsured Americans by 32 million by 2026. It would also cut federal budget deficits by $473 billion over the same period.

T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) continued its march against the dominance of AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) in the wireless market. The company added 1.3 million subscribers in the second quarter and beat Wall St. earnings expectations. For several months, rumors have swirled that T-Mobile would merge with N0. 4 wireless provider Sprint (NYSE: S)

Facebook (NYSE: FB) will launch a new set of tools to help media companies get users to pay for content. According to The Wall Street Journal:

The social-media giant is building a feature that would allow users to subscribe to publishers directly from the mobile app, according to people familiar with the matter. The feature, long-requested by publishers, is expected to roll out by the end of 2017, three of the people said.

Many details remain up in the air, but discussions have centered around making the feature available only on stories published natively to Facebook through its Instant Articles product. Talks have also focused on how to structure the arrangement, with Facebook leaning toward a metered-payment model, which would allow users to read some articles for free each month before prompting them to pay, three of the people familiar with the matter said.

The New York Times reports that Citigroup (NYSE: C) will open new offices in Frankfurt as it considers what to do with Europe based staff post-Brexit. According to the paper, it wants to lower reliance on its London operations.

A new Bloomberg poll shows many Americans would support higher gas taxes if the money were used to fix roads. According to the news service:

Congress hasn’t raised the federal gas tax since 1993 when Bill Clinton was president, but a narrow majority of Americans would support an increase to help fix crumbling roads and bridges in their own states.

Fifty-five percent of Americans in a Bloomberg National Poll say they would back an increase. The concept has bipartisan support, with majorities of Republicans (51 percent) and Democrats (67 percent) backing the idea.

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) has shuttered its division charged with advancing wearable technology. According to CNBC:

Intel has axed the division that worked on health wearables, including fitness trackers, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The company has been slowly de-emphasizing its own line of wearables for the past several years, and has not mentioned wearables on its earnings calls since 2014.

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.