6 Most Important Things in Business Today: OPEC Output Cut

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 3:04PM EST · Published Nov 12, 4:46AM EST

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6 Most Important Things in Business Today: OPEC Output Cut — © Michael Loccisano / Getty Images

Democrats in Congress will examine Trump’s pressure on Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T). According to Reuters:

When Democrats take control of the U.S. House they plan to investigate the Trump administration’s attempt to block AT&T Inc from acquiring Time Warner, and whether officials sought to punish Amazon.com Inc by prodding the U.S. Post Office to hike shipping prices for the world’s largest e-commerce company, a senior Democrat and a congressional aide said on Sunday.

OPEC may cut output. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Plummeting oil prices and signs of a coming global oversupply are bringing producers closer to a pact to cut output.

Saudi representatives said Sunday that the kingdom would slash its exports unilaterally next month, as a broader OPEC alliance debated—but didn’t agree to—a collective production cut.

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Japan’s Softbank may have an initial public offering of its wireless business. According to The Wall Street Journal:

SoftBank Group Corp. said it would seek to raise more than $20 billion with the initial public offering of its Japanese mobile unit, as it hunts for funds to fuel its nearly $100 billion investment machine.

On Monday, SoftBank Group said it received approval from the Tokyo Stock Exchange to float the mobile unit on Dec. 19 and planned to sell as much as 36% of the unit. The listing could raise as much as ¥2.6 trillion ($23 billion) in case of high demand.

SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) made a major acquisition. According to The Wall Street Journal:

SAP the German business-software vendor, agreed Sunday to buy Qualtrics International Inc. for $8 billion, taking the market-analytics startup off the market just days before it planned to sell shares to the public.

SAP is counting on the deal to bolster it in the customer-relationship management software business, or CRM, where Salesforce.com Inc. has the lead. The company intends to weave in the analytics capabilities of Qualtrics—which offers surveys that companies can use to gauge customer feedback—to help future product design as well as marketing efforts, SAP Chief Executive Bill McDermott said in an interview.

Dr. Seuss’s “The Grinch” was number one at the box office last weekend. According to Box Office Mojo:

With an estimated $66 million, Universal and Illumination’s Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch topped the weekend box office. The performance currently ranks as the third largest opening weekend for an animated title in November behind The Incredibles ($70.4m) and Frozen ($67.39m). The film should play well over the coming weeks and throughout the holidays as it is the only predominantly Christmas-themed wide release on the docket. While reviews for the film trended more mixed-to-negative, audiences gave the film an “A-” CinemaScore to go along with what currently stands at a 71% audience score on RottenTomatoes. The Grinch played to a crowd that was 53% female.

Harley-Davidson Inc. (NYSE: HOG) will make electric motorcycles. According to CNBC:

Legendary but struggling American motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson is taking a big step toward its ambitious goal of getting millions of people excited about riding motorcycles again.

The company gave Europeans their first look at its LiveWire electric motorcycle at the influential EICMA motorcycle show in Milan, Italy on Tuesday. The move is part of a drive to become a world leader in electric and hybrid motorcycles, and to attract a new kind of customer to the storied American brand.

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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.