6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:47PM EDT · Published Jan 18, 4:58AM EST

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6 Most Important Things in Business Today — © Wikimedia Commons

China’s economy grew at 6.9% last year, exceeding many expectations.

Shari Redstone, the daughter of Sumner Redstone who controls CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS) and Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIAB), wants to merge the two companies, according to The Wall Street Journal.

After a modest rally, bitcoin’s value dropped again. According to Bloomberg:

The roller coaster January for cryptocurrency investors showed no signs of ending on Thursday as Bitcoin swung back to a loss in London trading just hours after staging a recovery above the $10,000 mark.

The largest digital currency was down 2.4 percent to $11,107 at 9:07 a.m. in London, Bloomberg composite pricing showed. Bitcoin held steady for much of the Asia trading day as investors took a breath following a frantic 24 hours in which it swung through a trading range of $2,600. Rivals ethereum and litecoin both fell more than 4 percent while Ripple was up 4.5 percent.

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The attacks about “fake news” on Facebook Inc. (NYSE: FB) have moved outside the United States. According to CNBC:

Rights and democracy advocates are calling attention to Facebook’s role in spreading misinformation again — this time in the Philippines.

The social media giant’s hosting of inaccurate stories that support strongman President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration has been newly spotlighted after Manila moved to shut down a local news site that had been the victim of a misinformation campaign.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) will pay a large number of its employees restricted stock units. According to CNBC:

Apple continued a blitz of investment announcements on Wednesday with a stock-based compensation award for some employees.

The iPhone maker will grant $2,500 in restricted stock units over the coming months. Restricted stock units are valued in company stock, but vest over time. Apple’s stock hit an all-time intraday high of $179.39 a share on Tuesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 26,000 for the first time ever. According to CNNMoney:

The stock market is on fire. The Dow just zoomed another 300 points and closed above 26,000 for the first time.

The latest rush to buy stocks left the average up almost 8,000 points since President Trump’s 2016 election.

The rally on Wednesday gave the Dow its best percentage gain since since November. And it showed that the upward trend remains intact despite a big reversal the day before. The Dow hit 26,000 on Tuesday morning before closing much lower.

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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.