Author: Daniel snow

It’s been a tense and dynamic week for the world at large. The market action on Wall Street over the past four sessions was been anything but that. For the week, the S & P 500 lost 0.15%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq ticked up 0.21%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was basically flat, up a mere 0.02%. Beneath the surface, though, there was plenty of news for investors to digest. Here’s a closer look at the biggest market themes during the holiday-shortened trading week. 1. Geopolitics: The major news story was — and still is — the intensifying war between…

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Returns on Amazon are free and easy for shoppers, but they’re risky and expensive for the small businesses that sell a majority of the goods on the world’s biggest e-commerce site. Returns have driven some sellers to exit the popular Fulfillment by Amazon program, while others told CNBC they’d like to leave the platform altogether.At the heart of the problem is a big rise in returns fraud, which has led to customers mistakenly receiving used products when they ordered something new. In two particularly egregious examples involving baby products described to CNBC, Amazon sent customers used diapers and a chiller…

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Most people in the early stages of a new romance look for evidence that confirms their compatibility. Not my husband and me.Despite having chemistry, we started with the hypothesis that we weren’t a good match. We would discover a deal-breaker down the road — something big like how much money we wanted to give our aging parents or something small like what temperature room we like to sleep in — that would lead to our demise.At the time, we were both tenured professors in the same academic department at the same university. If things went bust, it would be very…

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People pass a Victoria’s Secret store in Manhattan, New York City, on June 5, 2024.Spencer Platt | Getty ImagesCompany: Victoria’s Secret & Co (VSCO)Business: Victoria’s Secret & Co. is a specialty retailer of women’s apparel and beauty products marketed under the Victoria’s Secret, Pink and Adore Me brand names. Victoria’s Secret brand offers intimate apparel, casual sleepwear, swim, lounge and sport, as well as fragrances and body care. Pink is a lifestyle brand for young women providing variety of collections and heritage pieces, including intimate apparel, loungewear, activewear, accessories, beauty and more. Adore Me is a direct-to-consumer lingerie and apparel…

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Senior Israeli officials said this week that their military campaign against Iran could trigger the fall of the regime, an event that would have enormous implications for the global oil market.The oil market has reacted with remarkable restraint as Israel has bombed the third-largest crude producer in OPEC for eight straight days, with no clear sign the conflict will end anytime soon.Oil prices are up about 10% since Israel launched its attack on Iran a week ago, but with oil supplies so far undisturbed, both U.S. crude oil and the global benchmark Brent remain below $80 per barrel.Rising risk Still,…

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