6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:26PM EDT · Published Oct 3, 4:53AM EDT

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Some of Facebook Inc.’s (NASDAQ: FB) Instagram users were unable to access their accounts briefly. According to Reuters:

Facebook Inc’s photo-sharing social network Instagram was not working on Wednesday for users across several cities, including London, San Francisco and Singapore.

Users took to Twitter to complain about the outage and tweeted messages along with the #instagramdown hashtag.

After declaring bankruptcy, some holders of Toys “R” Us debt may partially resurrect the company. According to The Wall Street Journal:

A group of hedge funds in line to take control of Toys “R” Us—the same group that pulled the plug on the retailer’s reorganization this year—intends to revive the business behind the Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us brand names.

The retailer said in court papers filed Monday that while it received qualified bids for assets—which include the brand names of Toys “R” Us, Babies “R” Us, registry lists, website domains, Geoffrey the Giraffe and other assets—it has opted to forgo a much-anticipated bankruptcy auction for its brand name and other intellectual-property assets.

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J.C. Penny Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) has a new CEO. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Troubled retailer J.C. Penney & Co. has appointed Jill Soltau as its next chief executive, succeeding Marvin Ellison, who left the firm in June for Lowe’s Cos.

The 51-year-old retail veteran, will join Penney on Oct. 15 from Joann Stores, where she had been the CEO and president since March 2015.

Meetings to end the trade war between the United States and China may restart. According to The Wall Street Journal:

White House economic adviser Lawrence Kudlow said Tuesday trade talks between the U.S. and China could resume when policy makers meet in Buenos Aires in December for the Group of 20 meeting.

Mr. Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, said at a securities industry conference in Washington that no formal plans have been made to resume talks, but said U.S. officials are ready to negotiate as long as the conversations are serious.

The head of the Chicago Federal Reserve said he expects the economy to prosper. According to CNBC:

Following Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell’s description of the U.S. economic outlook as “remarkably positive”, market watchers are fielding questions as to how long this rosy period might last.

The answer? Quite some time, in the words of Chicago Fed chief executive Charles Evans — but only if interest rates are hiked to above neutral, which Evans describes as just over 3 percent.

Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT) launched a new line of computers. According to CNNMoney:

Fall is the season for new gadgets. Apple recently announced its latest iPhones, Amazon showed off new smart speakers and even an Alexa-activated microwave, and Google is hosting its own product launch event next week.

But Tuesday is all about Microsoft, which unveiled a slew of devices ahead of the holiday shopping season. Its lineup includes a new version of its desktop computer, called the Surface Studio 2, and its first pair of smart headphones. It also announced the Surface Pro 6 and Surface Laptop 2.

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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.