6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:34PM EDT · Published Jun 18, 5:00AM EDT

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6 Most Important Things in Business Today — © Thinkstock

China may put tariffs on U.S. crude. According to Reuters:

China’s threat to impose duties on U.S. oil imports will hit a business that has soared in the last two years, and which is now worth almost $1 billion per month.

In an escalating spat over the United States’ trade deficit with most of its major trading partners, including China, U.S. President Donald Trump said last week he was pushing ahead with hefty tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports, starting on July 6.

China said Friday it would retaliate by slapping duties on several American commodities, including oil.

“Incredibles 2” broke a box office record. According to Box Office Mojo:

With an estimated $180 million, Disney and Pixar’s Incredibles 2 topped the previous opening weekend for an animated film set two years ago by Finding Dory with $135 million. On top of that, the film’s opening weekend is the eighth largest all-time, topping the $179.1 million opening for 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, which went on to gross over $400 million at the domestic box office.

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The sale of the Los Angeles Times and several smaller newspapers by Tronc Inc. (NASDAQ: TRNC) to Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong closed after months of worry.

Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google will invest in a large Chinese online company. According to CNBC:

Tech giant Google said Monday it will invest more than half a billion dollars in China’s second-largest e-commerce player, JD.com.

As part of a strategic partnership, Google will put $550 million in cash into JD.com, the companies said in a statement. In return, Google will receive more than 27 million newly issued JD.com Class A ordinary shares at an issue price of $20.29 per share.

The dispute between two beer companies will go to court. According to CNBC:

MillerCoors and Pabst Brewing are headed to court over a half-a-billion dollar lawsuit Pabst lodged against the Keystone beer maker.

The center of the dispute is a decades-old agreement under which MillerCoors brews all of Pabst’s legacy beers, including Pabst Blue Ribbon. The agreement is set to expire in 2020, but it has two options to renew. MillerCoors, facing declining volume in the U.S., has said it may not have the capacity to continue that relationship.

Workers at the Jeff Bezos–owned Washington Post may go on strike. According to the Daily Mail:

More than 400 employees of The Washington Post have signed on to a public letter to owner Jeff Bezos asking him to remedy working conditions at the newspaper, after more than a year of unsuccessful negotiation with upper management.

‘All we are asking for is fairness for each and every employee who contributed to this company’s success: fair wages; fair benefits for retirement, family leave and health care; and a fair amount of job security,’ the petition read.

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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.