6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:41PM EDT · Published Mar 23, 5:03AM EDT

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6 Most Important Things in Business Today — © Wikimedia Commons (Alex Proimos)

Congress approved a $1.3 trillion spending bill. According to Reuters:

The U.S. Congress voted early on Friday to approve a $1.3-trillion government funding bill with large increases in military and non-defense spending, sending it to President Donald Trump, who was expected to sign it into law.

With Trump’s signature, the bill will avert a threatened government shutdown and keep federal agencies funded until Sept. 30, ending for now Washington’s constant budget squabbles and letting lawmakers focus on getting reelected in November.

Steven Wynn sold his entire holding in Wynn Resorts Ltd. (NASDAQ: WYNN) after sexual harassment charges forced him to step down as chief executive officer. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Steve Wynn sold his entire stake in Wynn Resorts on Wednesday and Thursday, the company said, the final step in a dramatic exit after female employees made allegations of sexual misconduct against the casino giant’s co-founder.

The sale of $2.1 billion worth of stock over two days followed a series of moves he and the company made in recent weeks to allow Mr. Wynn to untangle himself from the casino corporation amid a series of investigations by state gambling regulators.

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U.S. music revenue rose last year. According to The Wall Street Journal:

The music industry’s rebound continues as revenue in the U.S. rose significantly for two consecutive years for the first time since its 1999 peak, thanks almost entirely to the rise of streaming services.

Domestic retail revenue jumped 17% in 2017 to $8.7 billion, according to an annual report from the Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group for recorded-music companies. While that marks a return to the same level reached a decade ago, it is still 40% lower than the industry’s high-water mark, $14.6 billion, as physical and digital format sales continue their long decline.

China retaliated to Trump’s trade tariffs. According to CNBC:

China is taking a measured approach with its proposal to slap retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, according to experts.

Beijing on Friday said it may target 128 U.S. products with an import value of only $3 billion in response to President Donald Trump’s announcement of tariffs on up to $60 billion in Chinese imports.

U.S. goods exported to China in 2016 totaled $115.6 billion, according to official data. Given the size of the two countries’ trade, Beijing’s limited focus on just $3 billion of U.S. imports is “very cautious,” according to a former assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China Affairs.

Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD) debt was downgraded According to CNNMoney:

Sears had some of its debt downgraded to default status for the first time this week.

But the move that led to the downgrade wasn’t a missed loan payment. It was because it completed a refinancing of some of its debt that will save the company an estimated $60 million a year.

The financially struggling retailer announced Wednesday that it had exchanged nearly $500 million of its debt that had been due this year or next year for debt that will not be due as soon. It may also be able to repay some of the debt with stock at some point in the future.

As a result, credit rating agencies Fitch and Standard & Poor’s both downgraded the debt to default status. The debt had already been at the lowest level of junk bond status.

Some investors sued Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) after its data harvesting debacle. According to CNNMoney:

Investors are suing Facebook in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which sent the company’s value plunging almost $50 billion this week.

Facebook shareholder Fan Yuan filed the lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of an undisclosed number of investors who bought Facebook shares between February 3, 2017, and March 19, 2018.

The lawsuit said Facebook “made materially false and misleading statements” about the company’s policies, and claims Facebook did not disclose that it allowed third parties to access data on millions of people without their knowledge.

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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.