6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:54PM EDT · Published Oct 5, 5:02AM EDT

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6 Most Important Things in Business Today — © Thinkstock

OPEC is trying to convince Russia to continue to participate in a program to raise oil prices.

Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google released a series of smartphones, speakers, earbuds and home consumer electronics in a challenge to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN).

The government of Puerto Rico is in deep financial trouble. According to Bloomberg:

Puerto Rico faces a government shutdown on Oct. 31, including halting its hurricane recovery, if Congress doesn’t provide billions in emergency funds, said Treasury Secretary Raul Maldonado.

The U.S. commonwealth’s bankrupt government is burning through the $1.6 billion it had on hand before Hurricane Maria ravaged the island, destroying decayed infrastructure and killing 34 people. With widespread damage to telecommunications systems and the electricity grid, Maldonado doesn’t expect to begin collecting sales tax for at least another month, he said Wednesday.

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Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) charged fees to homeowners that it should not have. According to CNNMoney:

Wells Fargo is in trouble once again — this time for fees charged to customers trying to nail down a mortgage.

The scandal-ridden bank said on Wednesday that some mortgage borrowers were inappropriately charged for missing a deadline to lock in promised interest rates, even though the delays were Wells Fargo’s fault.

Wells Fargo (WFC) said it will reach out to all 110,000 customers who were charged “mortgage rate lock extension fees” between September 2013 and this February. The bank promised to refund customers “who believe they shouldn’t have paid those fees.”

Hot IPO Roku Inc. (NASDAQ: ROKU) saw its shares sell off as skeptics worried its valuation is too high and short sellers moved aggressively into the stock.

Shares of SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. (NYSE: SEAS) rose on rumors it may be bought by U.K.-headquartered Merlin Entertainments.

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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.