6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:32PM EDT · Published Jul 16, 5:01AM EDT

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6 Most Important Things in Business Today — © The Boeing Co.

Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) posted a large number of new sales. According to Reuters:

Boeing Co said on Monday it won an order for 14 freight aircraft for a value of $4.7 billion, firing the opening salvo against rival Airbus SE in a contest for business on day one of the Farnborough Airshow.

Logistics group DHL placed the order for the 777 freighters and acquired purchase rights for seven more freighters, the U.S. planemaker said.

Box Office Mojo commented on the weekend:

Sony Animation’s Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation continued the franchise tradition of debuting atop the weekend box office and doing so with over $40 million over the three-day. The weekend also featured a strong expansion from Annapurna’s Sorry to Bother You, which landed in seventh position on the weekend chart, but unfortunately for Universal’s Skyscraper, the weekend’s other new wide release, it struggled over its opening weekend, failing to meet the studio’s expectations, delivering a third place finish.

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China’s gross domestic product growth has slowed. According to The Wall Street Journal:

China’s economic expansion slowed a notch in the second quarter, weighed down by a top-priority government debt cleanup even before growth takes an expected hit from the trade fight with the U.S.

The economy grew 6.7% in the three months ended June from a year earlier, down slightly from 6.8% in the January-March period, the statistics bureau reported Monday. The pace was in line with market expectations. For the first half of 2018, the economy grew 6.8% from a year earlier.

The U.S. military is about to make a massive order for fighter jets. According to The Wall Street Journal:

The Pentagon said Sunday that it had reached a multi-billion-dollar “handshake deal” with Lockheed Martin Corp. on buying the next batch of F-35 combat jets after months of wrangling over price and other terms.

A final deal would allow the world’s largest defense contractor by sales to book the bulk of the contract for 141 jets likely to be worth more than $12 billion in the third quarter.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) will get a new CEO. Bloomberg editors wrote:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is poised to take another step in the slow exit of Lloyd Blankfein, its longstanding chief executive officer.

The investment bank plans early this week to name company President David Solomon — whom Blankfein has publicly referred to as his successor — as its next CEO, the New York Times reported Sunday, citing people briefed on the plan.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) said facial recognition technology causes problems. Its president, Brad Smith wrote:

Facial recognition technology raises issues that go to the heart of fundamental human rights protections like privacy and freedom of expression. These issues heighten responsibility for tech companies that create these products. In our view, they also call for thoughtful government regulation and for the development of norms around acceptable uses. In a democratic republic, there is no substitute for decision making by our elected representatives regarding the issues that require the balancing of public safety with the essence of our democratic freedoms. Facial recognition will require the public and private sectors alike to step up – and to act.

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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.