3 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 1:55AM EST · Published Mar 30, 4:47AM EDT

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3 Most Important Things in Business Today — © courtesy of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) could buy health insurance company Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM). According to MarketWatch:

Walmart Inc. is in preliminary talks to buy insurer Humana Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, a deal that would mark a dramatic shift for the retail behemoth and would be the latest in a recent flurry of big deals in health-care services.

It isn’t clear what terms the companies may be discussing, and there is no guarantee they will strike a deal. If they do, the deal would be big: Humana currently has a market value of about $37 billion.

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) has recalled 123,000 cars. According to MarketWatch:

Tesla Inc. finished off its worth month in seven years with the news late Thursday that the electric-auto maker is recalling 123,000 Model S vehicles due to a potential flaw in a power steering component.

Investors continued to punish Tesla stock in after-hours trading, with the stock more than 3% in the red, giving back the day’s regular-session gains of 3.2%, when it closed at $257.50. Tesla stock is down 23% in the past month, as the S&P 500 index has fallen 4%. Markets are closed Friday in observance of Good Friday.

The recall of the Model S vehicles is due to a bolt that could corrode, an issue that occurs in cars built before April 2016, and in winter conditions where roads are frequently salted, the company said. Just 0.02% of the cars ever experience the problem, Tesla said.

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Under Armour Inc. (NYSE: UAA) has announced a huge data breach. According to Reuters:

Under Armour Inc said on Thursday that data from some 150 million MyFitnessPal diet and fitness app accounts was compromised in February, in one of the biggest hacks in history, sending shares of the athletic apparel maker down 3 percent in after-hours trade.

The stolen data includes account user names, email addresses and scrambled passwords for the popular MyFitnessPal mobile app and website, Under Armour said in a statement. Social Security numbers, driver license numbers and payment card data were not compromised, it said.

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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.