Business Highlights: Retailers prepare for Black Friday; world stocks mixed
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Retailers are ready to kick off Black Friday just as shoppers pull back on spending
NEW YORK (AP) — Retailers are kicking off the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season on Friday with a bevy of discounts and other enticements. But executives are growing concerned with a spending slowdown that could temper sales on the day after Thanksgiving as well as throughout the holidays. Shoppers, powered by a solid job market and steady wage growth, had demonstrated a resilience that confounded economists and ran counter to sour sentiments that Americans themselves have expressed in opinion polls. Such spending came despite higher prices in the grocery aisle and higher borrowing costs. But consumers are coming under more under pressure from dwindling savings, increased credit card debt and still stubborn inflation.
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Amazon and NFL hoping to establish a tradition with the first Black Friday game
It is not a stretch to say that the Black Friday game between the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets is Amazon’s Super Bowl. Not only does it get an additional game on Prime Video that it hopes to make into a yearly tradition, but it comes on the busiest shopping day of the year. Hans Schroeder, the executive vice president of NFL Media, said the league had been exploring the possibility of adding a game on Black Friday for a while. The Thanksgiving Day tripleheader has been among the most-watched games during the regular season for the past two years. Adding a Black Friday game gives the NFL another day to take over. Combine it with it airing on Amazon, and it was a match made in football and commerce heaven.
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Black Friday is almost here. What to know about the holiday sales event’s history and evolution
NEW YORK (AP) — If you didn’t already guess it from a barrage of sales ads in your inbox, the holiday shopping season is upon us. And Black Friday is right around the corner. While Black Friday may no longer look like the crowd-filled, in-person mayhem that it was just decades ago — in large part due to the rising dependence on online shopping that was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic — the holiday sales event is still slated to attract millions of consumers. The extension of Black Friday sales and growing strength of other shopping events (hello Cyber Monday) is also changing what holiday spending looks like today.
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To save the climate, the oil and gas sector must slash planet-warming operations, report says
The oil and gas sector, one of the major emitters of planet-warming gases, will need a rapid and substantial overhaul for the world to avoid even worse extremes fueled by human-caused climate change. That’s according to a report released Thursday. The International Energy Agency says the current investment of $800 billion a year for the oil and gas sector will need to be slashed in half and emissions need to fall by 60% to give the world a fighting chance to meet its climate goals. It also found that the sector’s investment into clean technologies like solar and wind only account for 1% of the global total.
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OxyContin maker’s settlement plan divides victims of opioid crisis. Now it’s up to the Supreme Court
WASHINGTON (AP) — The legality of an agreement by the maker of OxyContin to settle thousands of lawsuits over the harm done by opioids is going before the Supreme Court. Families that lost loved ones to overdoses are divided over Purdue Pharma’s plan to settle with governments. The settlement could provide billions of dollars to address an overdose epidemic and pay victims. But the settlement would protect from future lawsuits members of the Sackler family, which owns the Connecticut-based company. One Florida woman who lost her son to an opioid overdose says it’s a chance to move on. A Massachusetts mother says it’s an unfair protection for a wealthy family that profited from helping cause a crisis.
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Stock market today: World shares are mixed, with markets in Japan and US closed for holidays
BANGKOK (AP) — Shares are mixed in Europe and Asia after a modest advance on Wall Street that kept the market on track for a fourth straight weekly gain. Markets in Japan and the U.S. are closed Thursday for holidays. Oil prices fell about $1 a barrel after OPEC postponed until next week a meeting to discuss production cuts. Chinese property shares advanced as reports said the government was expanding support for the troubled real estate industry. On Wednesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.4%, the Dow added 0.5% and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.5%. Trading was muted ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday. U.S. markets will be open for half a day on Friday.
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Turkey’s central bank hikes interest rates again as it tries to tame eye-watering inflation
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s central bank has delivered another huge interest rate hike as it tries to curb double-digit inflation that has left households struggling to afford food and other basic goods. The bank on Thursday increased its policy rate by 5 percentage points to 40% to combat inflation that hit 61.36% last month. It’s the bank’s sixth interest rate hike in a row targeting inflation that hit an eye-watering 61.36% last month. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan previously backed an unorthodox policy of cutting interest rates to fight inflation. That runs counter to traditional economic thinking, and many blamed Erdogan’s unusual methods for a cost-of-living crisis. After his reelection, Erdogan appointed a new economic team that has been reversing the low-rate policy.