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Wall Street pointed toward a third consecutive day of records before the opening bell Thursday ahead of new U.S. data releases on the labor market and inflation.Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.3% while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq each ticked 0.2% higher.Market movement will hinge on government reports about inflation and unemployment benefits, two areas that the Federal Reserve attempts to manage as part of its dual mandate to control inflation and maintain a healthy labor market.Most economists believe the Fed will cut rates at its meeting next week after recent data revealed a labor market that’s been softening for longer than previously thought. While inflation also remains stubbornly above the U.S. central banks 2% target and is forecast to have risen again in August, Fed officials have increasingly expressed concern about a slowing U.S. job market.Recent government reports have also shown that hiring has slowed sharply in recent months and was lower than previously estimated last year, a sign that companies may be worried about future sales and are less interested in adding staff.Stocks have reached records in large part because Wall Street is expecting the economy to pull off a delicate balancing act: slowing enough to convince the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, but not so much that it causes a recession, all while inflation remains under control.Many things must go right for that to happen, and an encouraging signal came from a report Wednesday saying inflation at the U.S. wholesale level unexpectedly slowed in August.Traders were already convinced the Fed will deliver its first cut to interest rates of the year at its next meeting, but they need inflation data until then to be mild enough not to derail those expectations.In premarket trading Thursday, shares of residential home flipper Opendoor climbed 36% after the company named Kaz Nejatian, the COO of Shopify, as its CEO. Opendoor also announced that co-founders Keith Rabois and Eric Wu are returning to serve on the board of directors, with Rabois stepping into the chairman’s role.Shares of FedEx fell 1.3% while UPS slipped 2.1% after Bank of America downgraded both package delivery companies’ stock.In Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX rose 0.3%, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.5% and France’s CAC 40 climbed 0.9%.In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 added 1.2% to 44,372.50, with tech investment company SoftBank Group’s shares jumping 8.3% in a second straight day of gains.Data released Thursday showed Japan’s producer prices rose 2.7% year-on-year in August from a 2.5% rise the previous month, in line with market expectations. The higher cost of food, transport equipment and machinery contributed to the rise in prices.In Chinese markets, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slid 0.4% to 26,086.32 while the Shanghai Composite index rose 1.7% to 3,875.31.Shares of chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp added more than 6%, while Hua Hong Semiconductor rose 3.8%. Cambricon Technologies, often called China’s Nvidia, climbed 9%.South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.9% to 3,344.20 while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.3% to 8,805.00. India’s BSE Sensex added nearly 0.2% while Taiwan’s Taiex rose 0.1%, trimming earlier gains. Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Americans are marking 24 years since the September 11, 2001, attacks with solemn ceremonies, volunteer work, and other tributes honoring the victims.Many loved ones of the nearly 3,000 people killed will join dignitaries and politicians at commemorations Thursday in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.Others choose to mark the day at more intimate gatherings.James Lynch, who lost his father, Robert Lynch, during the World Trade Center attack, said he and his family will attend a ceremony near their hometown in New Jersey before spending the day at the beach.“It’s one of those things where any kind of grief, I don’t think it ever goes away,” Lynch said as he, his partner, and his mother joined thousands of volunteers preparing meals for the needy at a 9/11 charity event in Manhattan the day before the anniversary. “Finding the joy in that grief, I think, has been a huge part of my growth with this,” he said.The remembrances are being held during a time of increased political tensions. The 9/11 anniversary, often promoted as a day of national unity, comes a day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a college in Utah. The reading of names and moments of silence Kirk’s killing is expected to prompt additional security measures around the 9/11 anniversary ceremony at the World Trade Center site in New York, authorities said.At ground zero in lower Manhattan, the names of the attack victims will be read aloud by family and loved ones in a ceremony attended by Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Second Lady Usha Vance. Moments of silence will mark the exact times when hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center’s iconic twin towers, as well as when the skyscrapers fell.At the Pentagon in Virginia, the 184 service members and civilians were killed when hijackers steered a jetliner into the headquarters of the U.S. military will be honored. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will attend the service before heading to the Bronx for a baseball game between the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers Thursday evening.And in a rural field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, a similar ceremony marked by moments of silence, the reading of names and the laying of wreaths, will honor the victims of Flight 93, the hijacked plane that crashed after crew members and passengers tried to storm the cockpit. That service will be attended by Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins.Like Lynch, people across the country are also marking the 9/11 anniversary with service projects and charity works as part of a national day of service. Volunteers will be taking part in food and clothing drives, park and neighborhood cleanups, blood banks and other community events. Reverberations from attacks persist In all, the attacks by Al Qaeda militants killed 2,977 people, including many financial workers at the World Trade Center and firefighters and police officers who had rushed to the burning buildings trying to save lives.The attacks reverberated globally and altered the course of U.S. policy, both domestically and overseas. It led to the “Global War on Terrorism” and the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and related conflicts that killed hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians.While the hijackers died in the attacks, the U.S. government has struggled to conclude its long-running legal case against the man accused of masterminding the plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The former Al Qaeda leader was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and later taken to a U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but has never received a trial.The anniversary ceremony in New York was taking place at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, where two memorial pools ringed by waterfalls and parapets inscribed with the names of the dead mark the spots where the twin towers once stood.The Trump administration has been contemplating ways that the federal government might take control of the memorial plaza and its underground museum, which are now run by a public charity currently chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a frequent Trump critic. Trump has spoken of possibly making the site a national monument.In the years since the attacks, the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars providing health care and compensation to tens of thousands of people who were exposed to the toxic dust that billowed over parts of Manhattan when the twin towers collapsed. More than 140,000 people are still enrolled in monitoring programs intended to identify those with health conditions that could potentially be linked to hazardous materials in the soot.__Associated Press reporters Michael Hill in Albany, New York, and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this story. Follow Philip Marcelo Philip Marcelo, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Shares in meme stock darling Opendoor Technologies (Nasdaq: OPEN) are surging once again after the real estate sales platform announced a new CEO: Kaz Nejatian, the chief operating officer of Shopify. Heres what you need to know about Nejatian and how investors are reacting to the news. Whats happened? Yesterday, Opendoor named the chief operating officer of Shopify, Kaz Nejatian, as its new CEO. The appointment was news to many, but the fact that Opendoor was looking for a new chief executive was not. Thats because on August 15, Opendoor announced that its then-CEO, Carrie Wheeler, would be stepping down effective immediately. In her place, the companys chief technology and product officer, Shrisha Radhakrishna, stepped up as interim leader as the search for a new CEO commenced. At the time, Opendoor said, Wheeler had made the decision to step down from her role as CEO. However, as The Wall Street Journal notes, there has been pressure from retail investors to replace Wheeler, especially after the companys disappointing Q2 2025 results, which saw it purchase 63% fewer homes during the quarter than a year earlier. Opendoor makes the majority of its money by buying homes directly from homeowners, fixing them up, and then flipping them for a profit. But during its Q2 results, Opendoor also offered guidance that spooked investors. It said that during its current Q3, it expects revenue of $800 million to $875 million. That represents a 36% decline from the revenue it generated in the same quarter a year earlier. OPEN stock fell nearly 20% as a result of these announcementsseverely limiting the gains that it had made in July when it became a favorite among meme stock investors. In a press release announcing the search for a new CEO, Wheeler said she believed now is the right moment for a leadership transition, and Im confident the company is on a strong path forward. The company, in turn, stated that its new CEO search is well underway. As of yesterday, that search has ended. Who is Kaz Nejatian? Kaz Nejatian comes to Opendoor from Shopify, where he had held the role of the online shopping platforms chief operating officer since 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before becoming Shopifys COO in 2022, Nejatian was a VP of merchant services at the company and, prior to that, held the title of VP & GM of Shopify Money. Before Shopify, Nejatian worked at Facebook as a lead project manager for the companys payment platform and billing teams. Before his positions at Big Tech companies, Nejatian was the cofounder and CEO of Kash, a mobile payments technology company that catered to small businesses. Kash was founded in 2012 and acquired by one of the largest fintech companies in the U.S. in 2017, according to Opendoors press release. According to PitchBook, the acquiring firm was undisclosed. Announcing the appointment of Nejatian as the companys new CEO, Opendoors cofounder and chairman, Keith Rabois, said Nejatian is a decisive leader who has driven product innovation at scale, ruthlessly reduced general and administrative (G&A) expenses to drive profitability and deeply understands the potential for AI to radically reshape a companys entire operations. He is the right leader to unlock Opendoors unique data and assets as we build on Opendoors original mission, now enhanced as an AI-first company, he added. As for Nejatian, the new CEO said his position at Opendoor was a privilege. Few life events are as important as buying or selling a home, he added. With AI, we have the tools to make that experience radically simpler, faster, and more certain. Thats the future were building. How have Opendoor shares reacted? Shares in Opendoor have reacted very well to the appointment of Nejatian as CEO. As of the time of this writing, in premarket trading this morning, OPEN shares are currently trading up more than 35% to $7.92 per share. Yesterday, OPEN shares had closed down over 4% to $5.86 per share. The companys shares are now at their highest level since 2022. Year-to-date, OPEN shares have surged more than 266% as of yesterdays close. However, whether they can maintain their recent momentum in the long term will likely ultimately depend on the companys future fundamentals, rather than any transient meme stock hype.
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E-Commerce
Artificial intelligence may be booming, but there are some things people can still do better. That’s according to a new study from the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, which found that virtual salespeople in livestreams dont outperform humans in the same role. In fact, when interacting with consumers to promote products in real time, these AI-powered digital streamers barely do better than no streamers at all. (So much for AI coming for that job.) People assume that if businesses are using digital streamers, they must be doing well,” said Yanwen Wang, coauthor of the study. “But they arent, at least not in their current incarnation.” The study, published in Information Systems Research, looked at sales data from e-commerce site Tmall.com. It compared sales by humans and AI-powered digital streamers of 328 products (74 by humans, 72 by digital streamers, and 182 with no streamers). While the results were clear that sales were much higher when actual people were involved, the question of why remained. By testing AI streamers that looked and sounded different, study researchers found more realistic avatarswhich behaved more like humans, with more human-sounding voicesmade a real difference in what people bought. In fact, one key factor made the most difference: The avatar’s ability to answer questions in real time increased sales by 25%, for an 86% rise in revenue. (That’s not all: Surprisingly, adding a lottery to the livestreamwhere viewers could win prizeshelped increase sales by another 17%, boosting revenue 70%.) Only enhanced real-time Q&A interactions allowed the digital streamers to achieve sales performances on par with human streamers, Wang concluded, suggesting quicker, interactive engagement is a key driver of sales, and that the best approach to selling online may be a mix of human and AI elements.
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E-Commerce
Rocket Labs pivot from small launch darling to serious SpaceX competitor is about to be tested. The Long Beach, California-based company has already sent 12 of its light-lift Electron rockets into space in 2025, carrying payloads for commercial and government customers, with several more planned before the end of the year from its Virginia and New Zealand launch sites. But the next several months are pivotal, as Rocket Lab races to bring its next-generation, medium-lift Neutron rocket to the launchpad before years end. Its an ambitious timeline, CEO Peter Beck acknowledges, and the company will need to hit all its marks in the coming weeks to meet it. “When we put a vehicle on the pad, we do not expect it to fail,” Beck tells me in our wide-ranging conversation. “If you look at our launch vehicle, our spacecraft history, generally the stuff that we build works the first time.” But with the success of Neutron, Rocket Lab will be able stake its claim as a major player in space-defense infrastructure. Neutron can carry nearly 28,000 pounds, perfect for launching larger satellite constellations and national security missions. Already, Rocket Lab is building satellites for missile defense systems, broadband, and more. As he prepares for the first flight of Neutron, Beck talked with me about whats riding on this next-gen vehicle, how the companys long-term strategy hinges on making it work, and why launchpad explosions are not part of his development plan. In this Premium piece, you will learn: The massive cost savings Rocket Lab is achieving on Neutron compared with the competition How Beck bested more than 100 small launch companies to dominate that market What he’s doing to put Rocket Lab in position to be a “real provider” for the Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile defense project Why the major space companies of the future will be “a little bit blurry” in terms of their mission Weve seen mixed outcomes among your launch competitors this year, with some notable flameouts. How do you see the state of competition right now? I think everybody can declare that the small-launch race has been won, right? Electron has really hit a high cadence this year, and weve had a lot of customers all turning up on time, which is fantastic. I remember when we started the Electron [program], there were more than 100 small launch companies and billions of dollars flowed into small-launch. Astra consumed $400 million or so in their program [before going private last year and refocusing on engine building]. Virgin Orbit spent $1.2 billion on their program [before filing for Chapter 11]. ABL spent $300 million or $400 million, and so it goes. Firefly is sending payloads into the ocean. I think the medium-launch market is going to end up in a similar way. There are a few programs that are funded, and I think that will sort itself out and there will be a viable alternative to the [Space X] Falcon 9, which is much needed for some competition in that space. Its going to be really interesting as the heavy vehicles shake out. You saw a really great flight from [United Launch Alliances] Vulcan. Youve got [Blue Origins] New Glenn coming on. So it’s getting exciting. The next phase of Rocket Labs business depends on getting the medium-lift Neutron launched. Youre still holding out hope for a launch in 2025? Things are happening in parallel and theyll all sort of crescendo at the end. It’s a green light schedulethat means everything has to go. But right now, we can see a path until there’s no path. Were not waving the white flag. And at the end of the day, if it’s not at the end of the year, it won’t be that far away. A few months here or there in the grand context of a 20-year lifecycle of a product is just totally irrelevant. One of the things that I don’t think we’ve done a good job of is putting into context that this will be a four-year-plus, $350 million rocket development program. If you look at the last two rocket development programs: The one that just launched [ULAs Vulcan launch], that was a decade and $7 billion. And another one that just launched [SpaceXs Starship] was, like, 20 years and nobody knows how many billions of dollars. In space exploration, things go wrong all the time. If the first Neutron launch failsif it explodes as weve seen from competitor rocketsare you ready to try again quickly? Let’s talk about philosophy to start with. So, we don’t put anything on the pad unless we think it’s going to work. The threshold for Electron was 92%: I said to everybody that unless you are 92% sure that your system is going to be perfectly functional, don’t put it on the pad. Other companies have philosophies where theyll take big risks and are happy to fail and fail fast. I think you can do that if you have essentially infinite capital. Our development approach is not like that. When we put a vehicle on the pad, we do not expect it to fail. If you look at our launch vehicle, our spacecraft history, generally the stuff that we build works the first time. The expectation of Neutron is that we reach orbit on the first flight. I’m not setting an expectation that we clear the pad, or that we get a good stage burn or nominate so many seconds of flightthat’s all bullshit. The idea here is to get to orbit. The one area I would appreciate people giving us some slack on is the reentry and landing, because thats new and it took a company a very long time to master. But if the worst happens, we have enough capital reserves to fund the entire program three times over. So it would be disappointing. Someone would need to leave me alone for a couple of days. But it presents no existential threat to the company whatsoever. How quickly can you establish the kind or regular launch cadence you now have with Electron? At the moment, theres one Electron rolling off the line every 11 days. With the Neutron, we’ve been really consistent that our bill rate will be one, three, and five [for the first three years]. Although everybody wants it to be faster, that’s what it takes. You need that dwell time between those flights to make the upgrades and the learnings that you see and to build that into your manufacturing. With Electron, we put a factory in that was capable of producing one Electron every week, and we are at one every 11 days now. We haven’t bought or added any capital equipment. We followed the exact same approach with Neutron. At our Middle River, [Maryland] facility, we invested in a 90-ton, three-story building where we build all of the composite components for the vehicle. We have the Archimedes engine factory, in Virgin Orbit’s old factory building [in Long Beach, California]. So we’re able to really build that scale quickly. The one wrinkle here with Neutron is that its a reusable first stage. So the highest production rate we will ever have of stage ones at least is at the beginning of the program. And then stage ones get replaced once every 10 or 20 flights. Launch services are just one part of Rocket Labs business. Where do the others stand right now? On the space-system [spacecraft components] side, we continue to build out scale there with pending acquisitions of companies like Mynaric [a German manufacturer of laser communication equipment], which are a really key elment. And the third pillar is youve seen us for the first time move into payloads, which is squarely focused on national security. We think with the opportunities that are there right now, that is exactly the right place to be focused. Can you explain what you mean by payloads? The sensor. Basically, you only build a satellite to host the sensor. The sensor is doing the work, and you only launch a satellite because you need to put the sensor in orbit. So, everything revolves around the sensor, whether it’s an antenna for doing broadband or it’s a telescope for doing Earth observation, it is the reason that you build something and go to space. And thats the reason for acquiring Geost, which makes electro-optical and infrared sensor systems? The acquisition of Geost positions us to be a disruptive player in [defense] programs such as the Golden Dome. Its not quite the Manhattan Project, but not that far off, with massive spending. And the space domain piece of that is core. Our aspirations are slightly larger than just to be a part of it. We want to be a real provider. And the payload, or sensor, acquisition of Geost is a key element for that missile defense infrastructure that we now have under our belt. With the continuing uncertainty around the Ukraine conflict and U.S. involvement with NATO, have you had more demand from governments in Europe, too? With the world today, unfortunately, everybody is looking at their defense strategy. I’d say we are just getting our feet in Europe. Obviously, we’ve won some launch contracts for the European Space Agency on Electron, and our components business has sold into Europe for a long time. But once we close the acquisition of Mynaric, well have a German base. If you look at how weve expanded globally, Europe is the next big opportunity for us outside America. Have changes in government contracting under the Trump administration, and the DOGE cuts, impacted your business? Have you benefited from the Trump-Musk falling out? I have a policy not to comment on politics. Unlike my competitor, I’m just a humble rocket guy. But what I will say is that there is more desire than ever to have a really fulfilled competitive landscape within launch especially. And both commercial customers and government customers really, really want Neutron to come along and provide some competition in a market that has become a little bit less competitive over time. Do you think the space industry will look very different five years from now? If I have my way, it will. I think it’s going to become very clear, if its not already, that the really large space companies of the future are going to be a little bit blurry about how much of a space company they are and how much of something-else company they are. I mean, if we look at our friends over at SpaceX, are they a telecommunications company, or are they a space company? It has always been our ethos and our belief that if you have the ability to build the spacecraft and launch it and deploy it in orbit at a rate that’s faster than anybody else, then you have a distinct advantage. That’s been proven out with Starlink. The only way to be competitive with Starlink is to have your own ability to launch at will, at mass, at cadence, your own satellites. I think that will become true in a lot of domains in space. And so there’ll be a relatively small number of companies that have launch and manufacturing capabilities who will be the large players. Does that mean that many of your current competitors will not be around in five years? I dont know if they’re still around, or they morph, they adapt? Thats up to them. As the industry changes and adapts, you can have your Kodak moment or not, right?
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E-Commerce
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