6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:35PM EDT · Published Jun 1, 5:18AM EDT

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6 Most Important Things in Business Today — © Thinkstock

Several countries hit back at Trump’s tariffs, including nations with which the United States has strong ties. According to Reuters:

Canada and Mexico retaliated on Thursday after Washington imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports while the European Union had its own reprisals ready to go, reviving investor fears of a global trade war.

Germany’s Economy Minister said early on Friday the EU might look to coordinate its response with Canada and Mexico.

The Federal Reserve stated that Deutsche Bank A.G.’s (NYSE: DB) troubles have substantially weakened it. According to The Wall Street Journal:

The Federal Reserve has designated Deutsche Bank AG’s sprawling U.S. business as being in a “troubled condition,” a rare censure for a major financial institution that has contributed to constraints on its operations, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Fed’s downgrade, which took place about a year ago, is secret and hadn’t previously been made public. The “troubled condition” status—one of the lowest designations employed by the Fed—has influenced the bank’s moves to reduce risk-taking in areas including trading and lending to customers.

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SoftBank and Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) self-driving unit Waymo have cut deals with U.S. car companies. According to The Wall Street Journal:

SoftBank said its $92 billion Vision Fund would invest $2.25 billion in General Motors Co.’s driverless-car unit, while Alphabet’s self-driving car subsidiary Waymo LLC said it would buy as many as 62,000 minivans from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV as part of a plan to dramatically increase the number of driverless cars it has on the road in coming years. The tech company didn’t disclose a purchase price.

S&P cut Deutsche Bank’s credit rating. According to S&P:

We consider that management is taking tough actions to cut the cost base and refocus the business in order to address the bank’s currently weak profitability. However, we see significant execution risks in the delivery of the updated strategy amid a continued unhelpful market backdrop, and we think that, relative to peers, Deutsche Bank will remain a negative outlier for some time. We are lowering to ‘BBB+’ from ‘A-‘ our long-term issuer credit rating on Deutsche Bank and its core operating subsidiaries.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) is exploring brain implant tech. According to CNBC:

Microsoft has researchers working to determine how brain implants can augment a person’s intelligence, one of the many ways the company is trying to make technology more accessible to people with various disabilities.

A Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s (NYSE: GS) employee was charged with insider trading. According to CNNMoney:

A Goldman Sachs vice president has been charged with insider trading.

Woojae Jung took advantage of confidential information to trade in the securities of 12 companies, including WebMD and SanDisk, between 2015 and 2017, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged.

He made more than $140,000 in profit, the SEC 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.