Business Highlights

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Virus surge makes US weak link in global economic recovery

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The world is rebounding from the coronavirus shutdowns. China is up and running and Europe is bouncing back. Businesses that sell to the U.S are wondering and hoping when the U.S. economy will get back into the game. The U.S. fumbled its response to the virus, meaning some states reopened too early. The resurgence of COVID-19 contagions means the U.S. risks becoming one of the risks keeping the world economy back. Experts say the global recovery will take months and years so it needs all the help it can get. When that might be coming from the U.S. is anyone’s guess.

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Rising star in Detroit departs suddenly for Silicon Valley

SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — The chief financial officer at General Motors, Dhivya Suryadevara, is leaving Detroit for Silicon Valley in a surprise departure for Jack Dorsey’s startup, Stripe. A rising star in the auto sector, Suryadevara became GM’s first female CFO in 2018 at the age of 39, and quickly became a trusted voice for Mary Barra, the first woman to head a major U.S. auto manufacturer. She makes the move at a critical time for both companies. GM is pushing hard into electric vehicles and cutting costs, while Stripe, based in San Francisco, grows incredibly fast. Since COVID-19 was first detected in the US, the mobile payment system says its processed $1 billion in sales from companies that began using the technology this year.

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US producer prices up 0.6% in July, biggest jump since 2018

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. wholesale prices shot up an unexpected 0.6% in July, biggest gain since October 2018 on a big increse in energy prices. The Labor Department said Tuesday that the jump last month in its producer price index — which measures inflation before it reaches consumers — followed a 0.2% drop in June. Wholesale energy prices shot up 5.3%. Excluding the volatile food and energy prices, producer prices rose 0.5%. Over the past year, producer prices are down 0.4%, and core prices are up 0.3%. The sharp recession caused by the coronavirus outbreak has constrained inflation.

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Late drop leaves S&P 500 lower, breaking a 7-day win streak

NEW YORK (AP) — A late slide in big technology companies left indexes broadly lower on Wall Street, erasing an early gain and breaking a seven-day winning streak for the S&P 500. The benchmark index, which fell 0.8% Tuesday, remains within striking distance of the all-time high it reached in February. Gains for banks and industrial companies were offset by drops in big-name tech stocks like Apple and Microsoft. Those stocks have far outpaced the rest of the market this year as investors bet they could still thrive in a stay-at-home economy. Treasury yields rose, a sign that pessimism about the economy is easing.

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Facebook: Pandemic hurt enforcement on suicide, child nudity

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The COVID-19 pandemic impacted Facebook’s ability to remove harmful and forbidden material from its platforms, the company said Tuesday. Sending its content moderators home in the early months of the pandemic led to the removal of less material related to suicide, self-injury, child nudity and sexual exploitation. During that time, Facebook relied more on technology, rather than humans, to find posts, photos and other content that violates its rules. The company said that it has since brought many reviewers back to working online from home and, “where it is safe,” a smaller number into offices.

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Bumpy road ahead: UK bracing for big spike in unemployment

LONDON (AP) — Official figures show that the number of people in employment in the U.K. fell by 220,000 in the three months after the country was put into lockdown as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. That quarterly decline, which took the total number of people in employment to 32.92 million, is the biggest since the deep recession in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis. So far, Britain has been partly spared the sharp rises in unemployment seen in the United States, for example, because of the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which pays the majority of the salaries of workers who have not been fired.

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Appeals court tosses antitrust ruling against Qualcomm

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal appeals court has overturned an antitrust ruling against Qualcomm, dismissing arguments that it unlawfully squeezed out cellphone chip rivals and charged excessive royalties to manufacturers such as Apple. The 3-judge panel unanimously sided with the San Diego chipmaker in tossing out a ruling on a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. It’s a victory for Qualcomm, since the earlier ruling could have undercut its business by threatening its ability to extract big royalties from phone makers. Qualcomm said in a statement Tuesday that the appeals court ruling validates its business model and patent licensing program.

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The S&P 500 fell 26.78 points, 0.8%, to 3,333.69. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 104.53 points, or 0.4%, to 27,686.91. The Nasdaq composite lost 185.53 points, or 1.7%, to 10,782.82. The Russell 2000 index of small company stocks gave up 9.57 points, or 0.6%, to 1,575.10.

The Associated Press