6 Most Important Things in Business Today

July 2, 2018 by Douglas A. McIntyre

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) management said the company had hit its goal of making 5,000 Model 3 vehicles in one week, Reuters reported.

A U.S. investor continues to press Nestle for changes:

U.S. activist investor Daniel Loeb on Sunday ratcheted up pressure on Nestlé SA management to raise its financial returns and sell its stake in L’Oréal SA, criticizing Nestlé for what Mr. Loeb sees as a lackluster effort to revamp the packaged-food giant’s strategy.

Mr. Loeb’s criticisms, contained in a letter to Nestlé’s top management and a 34-page report, suggest that a raft of changes initiated by Nestlé in the past year—including a large share buyback, a marketing deal with Starbucks Corp. and investments in rapidly growing companies like Blue Bottle Coffee—have failed to satisfy the investor.


Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) is using more robots to do human tasks. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Target Corp. plans to add automatic cash-counting machines to its nearly 2,000 stores starting this summer, following other retailers who are automating more store jobs as labor costs rise.

The gray machines known as cash recyclers count bills and coins quickly, but they also allow stores to digitally bank their cash and predict how much money is needed for each cashier’s shift. Target will start adding the machines to 500 stores this August, then roll them out to all U.S. stores, a Target spokeswoman said.

The latest installment of the Jurassic film series had another strong weekend at the box office. According to Box Office Mojo:

At number one for a second weekend in a row is Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which dropped an expected 59.5%, pulling in an estimated $60 million. The film’s domestic cume is now just shy of $265 million after ten days of release. Internationally, Fallen Kingdom took in an estimated $56.1 million from 68 markets for an overseas total that currently totals $667.6 million for a worldwide cume that stands at $932.4 million, well on its way to topping $1 billion worldwide over the coming week. The film’s final international market is Japan where it will be released on July 13.

Canada is set to strike back against U.S. tariffs. According to CNBC:

U.S. farmers and food producers are in the cross-hairs of a global trade conflict that shows no signs of abating anytime soon — and things are about to escalate in a big way on Sunday.

New tariffs will be imposed by Canada on beef, and more retaliation will come this week when China and Mexico take aim at pork. China’s also planning a 25 percent tariff on soybeans on July 6 in addition to hikes on pork duties, and Mexico’s 20 percent levy on “the other white meat” is set to begin July 5.

U.S. corporate debt has hit a record. According to CNNMoney:

US companies, encouraged by a decade of unbelievably low borrowing costs, are sitting on $6.3 trillion of debt, according to S&P Global Ratings. That sum, which excludes banks, is more than before the Great Recession — or any other time in history.

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