FedEx profits jump from online surge
FedEx reported a nearly $2 billion profit in its most recent quarter, after reporting a loss the year before, helped by a surge in online shopping and the growth of its business-to-business shipping services.
Package delivery companies like FedEx have been in high demand during the pandemic, as more people stayed home and shopped online. At the same time, FedEx has been delivering COVID-19 vaccines.
The Memphis-based company reported net income of $1.87 billion for the three months ending May 31, compared with a $334 million loss in the same period the year before.
Adjusted earnings came to $5.01 per share, missing Wall Street expectations by 3 cents, according to Zacks Investment Research.
FedEx said revenue rose 30% to $22.57 billion, beating expectations.
Shares of FedEx Corp., which have more than doubled in the last year, fell 4.34% to $290.50 in after-hours trading Thursday.
All big banks pass Fed "stress tests"
All 23 of the nation's biggest banks are healthy enough to withstand a sudden economic catastrophe, the Federal Reserve said Thursday, releasing the results from its latest "stress tests." It gives the banks the green light to resume paying out dividends to investors and buying back their stock.
This year's harshest test, known as the "severely adverse scenario," involved a hypothetical global recession lasting from late 2020 to September 2022, causing the U.S. economy to contract 4%. Unemployment would jump to 10.75%, and stock prices would fall 55%. Even under this scenario, all banks would have enough capital to continue to operate with room to spare.
U.S economy grows 6..4% in 1st quarter
The U.S. economy grew at a solid 6.4% rate in the first three months of this year, setting the stage for what economists are forecasting could be the strongest year for the economy in possibly seven decades.
The Commerce Department said Thursday that growth in the gross domestic product, the country's total output of goods and services, was unchanged from two previous estimates. The gain represented an acceleration from growth at a 4.3% rate in the fourth quarter.
Google delays end of its tracking tech
LONDON - Google is delaying by nearly two years the phase out of Chrome web browser technology that tracks users for ad purposes, saying that it needs more time to develop a replacement system.
The tech giant on Thursday moved its deadline to remove so-called third-party cookies to late 2023 rather than January 2022 as was initially planned.
Third-party cookies are snippets of code that log user info and are used by advertisers to more effectively target their campaigns, thereby helping fund free online content such as newspapers and blogs. However, they've also been a longstanding source of privacy concerns because they can be employed to track users across the internet.
Uber pays drivers for sick leave error
Uber has agreed to pay more than $3.4 million to 15,000 drivers after making mistakes related to Seattle's pioneering paid sick leave law covering gig workers.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Seattle City Council last year temporarily extended sick and safe leave protections to gig workers, who previously didn't qualify because many companies treat them as independent contractors.
The law allows the workers to accrue and take paid days off - based on their average daily compensation, including tips - to care for themselves or family members who get sick. The idea was to reduce the financial pressure on them to keep working, possibly spreading the virus, at a time when people were becoming more reliant on gig workers to perform tasks like grocery delivery.
It also allows them them to take paid time off for other reasons, such as to seek help in domestic violence cases or to care for children whose schools were closed because of the pandemic.
Seattle's Office of Labor Standards began investigating after drivers complained that they were not receiving the benefits from Uber as required.
The office said in a news release Thursday that Uber conducted several audits after the investigation began. The company discovered that technical glitches prevented some drivers from being able to access their paid-time-off accounts on the app; some had time-off requests inadvertently canceled; some had incorrect time-off balances in their accounts; and some had been required to wait until the day after their time-off request to take it.
- Compiled by Dave Flessner