4 Most Important Things In Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:00PM EDT · Published Nov 23, 4:58AM EST

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

4 Most Important Things In Business Today — © Thinkstock

Oil hit a multimonth low. According to Reuters:

Oil prices plunged to their lowest since late 2017 on Friday in choppy trading, weighed down by an emerging crude supply overhang and a darkening economic outlook.

To counter bulging supply, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is expected to start withholding output after a meeting planned for Dec. 6.

The U.S. is trying to get other countries not to use a Chinese telecom company. According to The Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. government has initiated an extraordinary outreach campaign to foreign allies, trying to persuade wireless and internet providers in these countries to avoid telecommunications equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies Co., according to people familiar with the situation.

American officials have briefed their government counterparts and telecom executives in friendly countries where Huawei equipment is already in wide use, including Germany, Italy and Japan, about what they see as cybersecurity risks, these people said. The U.S. is also considering increasing financial aid for telecommunications development in countries that shun Chinese-made equipment, some of these people say.

FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) will add 1,000 electric trucks to its fleet. According to The Wall Street Journal:

FedEx Corp. is adding 1,000 electric delivery vans to its fleet, a move aimed at tamping down emissions in parcel delivery operations as regulators push to rein in pollution from commercial vehicles.

The company said Tuesday it is buying 100 of the vans from Chanje Energy Inc., a subsidiary of FDG Electric Vehicles Ltd. , which manufactures the vehicles in Hangzhou, China. FedEx will lease the other 900 vans from Ryder System Inc., which also will provide support services for all the vehicles, the companies said Tuesday.

The trade war between the U.S. and China could last two years. According to CNBC:

Trade tensions between the U.S. and China could go into “a temporary hiatus” in the coming months, but would remain unresolved until the presidential elections in 2020, according to Standard Chartered Private Bank.

That’s because Washington’s decision to resolve tensions with Beijing will likely be driven by politics, said Steve Brice, chief investment strategist at Standard Chartered Private Bank. U.S. President Donald Trump will be seeking a second term in the White House during the 2020 presidential elections.

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.