6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:38PM EDT · Published Apr 27, 4:52AM EDT

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The U.S. Department of Labor is looking into the 401(k) business of Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC). According to The Wall Street Journal:

The Labor Department is examining whether Wells Fargo & Co. has been pushing participants in low-cost corporate 401(k) plans to roll their holdings into more expensive individual retirement accounts at the bank, according to a person familiar with the inquiry.

Labor Department investigators also are interested in whether Wells Fargo’s retirement-plan services unit pressed account holders to buy in-house funds, generating more revenue to the bank, the person said.

The strong financial results of both Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) were aided by cloud computing success, a sign of how critical the business has become to big tech companies.

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Quarterly results show Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) has problems. According to Bloomberg:

After another quarter of tepid sales growth, Starbucks Corp. Chief Financial Officer Scott Maw assured investors that the company is investing “strategically and with a ‘long game’ mentality.” Wall Street may not be so patient.

Starbucks grew just as much as analysts expected in the latest quarter, but investors sold off shares late Thursday. Still associated with its meteoric rise to ubiquity, the company is having trouble managing expectations now that it’s among the biggest restaurant chains in the world.

“The results aren’t what people have in mind necessarily with Starbucks being a ‘growth stock,”’ Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jennifer Bartashus said. “Results were OK, just not great.”

In a show of strength, Amazon increased the price of its Prime free delivery and streaming media membership. According to CNNMoney:

Amazon is raising the price of Amazon Prime from $99 to $119 per year.

The company announced the price hike for its membership program during a call with investors Thursday. The change will go into effect May 11, and it will apply to Prime renewals beginning June 16.

“We continue to increase the value of Prime,” Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said on the call, adding that the company has added “digital benefits,” like Prime Video.

The long rumors merger of Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) and T-Mobile US Inc. (NASDAQ: TMUS) took another step forward. According to Reuters:

U.S. wireless carriers T-Mobile US Inc and Sprint Corp have made progress in negotiating merger terms and are aiming to successfully complete deal talks as early as next week, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) said the number of tickets it is selling has dropped after a deadly engine explosion. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Southwest Airlines Co. said bookings have dropped since last week’s fatal accident on the largest domestic U.S. airline.

The carrier froze all advertising in the wake of the incident on a flight from New York to Dallas, a move executives said had cost the airline bookings into May and up to $100 million in lost revenue

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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.