6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:40PM EDT · Published Apr 4, 5:15AM EDT

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6 Most Important Things in Business Today — © Wikimedia Commons

President Trump imposed tariffs on a wide number of Chinese goods. And then China reciprocated with a list of its own. According to Reuters:

China will impose additional tariffs of 25 percent on 106 U.S. goods including soybeans, autos, chemicals, some types of aircraft and corn products, among other agricultural goods, the finance ministry said on Wednesday.

The products targeted by the tariffs were worth $50 billion in 2017, according to a separate statement from the commerce ministry.

Extra tariffs will also be slapped on products such as whisky, cigars and tobacco, some types of beef, lubricants, and propane and other plastic products, the finance ministry said in its statement.

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The head of one of the world’s largest ad agencies is under investigation for improper behavior. According to The Wall Street Journal:

The board of advertising giant WPP PLC is looking into whether longtime Chief Executive Martin Sorrell misused company assets, according to people familiar with the matter.

In addition, the board is also looking into allegations of improper personal behavior by Mr. Sorrell, one of the people said.

CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS) has made a below-market bid for Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAB). According to The Wall Street Journal:

CBS Corp. has made an offer to acquire Viacom Inc., and the bid is contingent on its management team being at the helm of the merged entity, according to people familiar with the matter.

The all-stock offer is below Viacom’s current market valuation of $12.5 billion, the people said. A special committee of CBS board members tasked with handling negotiations presented the offer to a special committee of Viacom’s board in recent days.

In its offer, CBS proposed that Chief Executive Leslie Moonves and President Joe Ianniello would run the combined company for the foreseeable future, which could make Viacom CEO Bob Bakish an odd man out.

Some executives from large technology companies urged more gun control after a shooting at Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) YouTube offices. According to CNBC:

High-profile technology executives have called for increased gun control in the wake of the shooting at YouTube’s headquarters that left at least three people injured and the suspect shooter dead.

The attack at the Google-owned video service’s headquarters in San Bruno, California Tuesday was allegedly carried out by Nasim Najafi Aghdam, who killed herself after the shooting, according to law enforcement officials.

Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE: SPOT) shares rose their first day of the company’s IPO. According to CNBC:

Spotify pops in public debut to the stock market Spotify pops in public debut to the stock market

Spotify’s stock closed up 13 percent from its reference price on its first day of trading, but below the highs of the day.

Shares hit the public market at an opening price of $165.90 Tuesday, but ultimately fell more than 10 percent from the opening price to close at $149.01 — still higher than expected. The $149.01 closing price remained well above Monday night’s reference price of $132, even though it was under the day’s high of $169 apiece.

Trump’s tweets against Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) yesterday took the company’s stock down again. According to CNNMoney:

At 9:54 a.m., Amazon’s stock was up 1.4%. A minute later, President Trump tweeted his latest attack on Amazon, arguing that it should pay “many billions of dollars” more to the US Postal Service.

Eleven minutes later, Amazon’s stock had fallen into the red — and so had the Nasdaq.

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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.