6 Most Important Things in Business Today

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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6 Most Important Things in Business Today

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Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) shut off a number of accounts. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Facebook Inc. has taken down hundreds of U.S. pages and accounts that were spreading false or misleading political content ahead of the midterm elections, in one of the social network’s most aggressive efforts to stop misinformation spread primarily by Americans.

The social network giant, which took down 559 pages and 251 accounts, said Thursday the accounts “have consistently broken our rules against spam and coordinated inauthentic behavior,” such as making their content appear more popular on the network than it actually was. Virtually all of the pages were from the U.S., the company said.

Many owners of debt in Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD) would rather close all stores and sell assets than keep the company running. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Some of Sears Holdings Corp.’s biggest lenders were pushing for it to liquidate rather than use bankruptcy protection to try to save an American legend whose stores and catalogs dominated retailing for generations, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Sears is in talks with a group of banks, including Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co., over emergency financing as the company prepares for a bankruptcy filing, the people said.

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Major car companies that operate in China are facing a nationwide drop in sales. According to the Financial Times:

Global carmakers rattled by stalling China market. Annual sales in the country are forecast to fall for first time since 1990.

World oil production hit a record level. According to Bloomberg:

The world is pumping out more oil and other petroleum liquids than ever before.

Global supply rose to 100.3 million barrels a day in the third quarter, the International Energy Agency said Friday in its monthly oil market report. Output, which includes crude oil, natural gas liquids, biofuels and refinery processing gains, was 2.3 million barrels above the same period last year and 1.3 million barrels a day higher than the second quarter.

World oil and liquids supply surpassed 100 million barrels a day for the first time

A trade war could chop China’s growth rate. According to CNBC:

At its worst, the ongoing trade tensions could knock 1.6 percentage points off China’s economic growth over the first two years, according to an analysis by the International Monetary Fund.

The assessment took into account all current and proposed tariffs on Chinese goods that enter the U.S., as well as knock-on effects the trade tensions have on investor confidence and financial markets. But much of that impact is expected to be offset by the Chinese government’s policies to stimulate the economy, noted Changyong Rhee, director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department.

Dow futures are up sharply ahead of today’s open. According to CNBC:

U.S. stock futures traded higher on Thursday night, pointing to a rebound for Wall Street after back-to-back sell-offs.

As of 3:24 a.m. ET, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 297 points, indicating a gain of 424.17 points at Friday’s open. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures also pointed to solid gains to start off Friday’s session.

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
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.

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