Author: News Room

The 6% commission, a standard in home purchase transactions, is no more. In a sweeping move expected to dramatically reduce the cost of buying and selling a home, the National Association of Realtors announced Friday a settlement with groups of homesellers, agreeing to end landmark antitrust lawsuits by paying $418 million in damages and eliminating rules on commissions. The NAR, which represents more than 1 million Realtors, also agreed to put in place a set of new rules. One prohibits agents’ compensation from being included on listings placed on local centralized listing portals known as multiple listing services, which critics say led…

Walmart is selling Macs directly for the first time, starting at $700 for a MacBook Air.Walmart has sold a bevy of Apple products before but never Macs.The MacBook Air with an M1 chip is arriving after Apple revamped its laptop lineup. For the first time, Walmart is selling Apple laptops directly, with the MacBook Air (with an M1 chip) available at a cool $700.The computers are now available online and will soon arrive on shelves at select stores, Walmart said in a press release. “We’re working hard to bring premium brands to our physical and virtual shelves,” Walmart’s executive vice…

“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” called out Elon Musk over his drama with Don Lemon.In a parody video, Musk has a conversation with himself asking softball questions.Musk canceled X’s partnership with Lemon after being asked about ketamine use, Trump, and moderating X. Stephen Colbert mocked Elon Musk reportedly bristling at the interview questions that Don Lemon said led to the end of his partnership deal with X.The late-night host posted a video about “the Elon interview of Elon” that includes a parody clip of Musk interviewing himself. The video points out that Musk is a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist”…

Just before midnight on May 4, 2023, police were called to an Amazon warehouse in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to investigate a reported theft. They were met by a loss prevention employee, who directed them to a warehouse worker named Noah Page, the suspected culprit, according to a police report of the incident that was obtained by CNBC.When confronted by police, according to the report, Page admitted that he’d marked a customer’s order in Amazon’s internal system as returned even though the products were never actually sent back to the company. Page received $3,500 for his part in the scheme, the report said.Page…

AUD/USD cycles just north of 0.6550. Little Aussie data to chew on leaves AUD/USD in the lurch. Next week: double-header showings from RBA and Fed. The AUD/USD is churning just above 0.6550 as markets prepare for next week’s double feature from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the US Federal Reserve (Fed). Both central banks are broadly expected to hold interest rates steady as investors focus on when rate cuts will come. According to the CME’s FedWatch Tool, money markets were recently thrown a curve ball, and bets of a June rate cut from the Fed have eased to…

HSBC is “very positive” about the mid- to long-term outlook for the Chinese economy despite current headwinds, the British bank’s chief financial officer told CNBC.Growth in China has been weighed down over the past year by a slump in the country’s traditional economic pillars of real estate, infrastructure and exports. This prompted Beijing to ramp up its efforts to bolster manufacturing and domestic tech in a bid to modernize its economy and remain globally competitive.Speaking to CNBC’s Karen Tso on Wednesday, HSBC CFO Georges Elhedery said the lender — which is headquartered in London but does a lot of its…

After Bitcoin (BTC) attained an all-time high of above $73,000, the market has been on edge regarding the next step for the maiden crypto. Indeed, a section of the market anticipates that Bitcoin might be experiencing a pre-halving retracement after falling from the record high to around $65,000 within hours. Amid the anticipation, crypto trading expert Trading Shot has observed that based on technical indicators, Bitcoin is likely to see another all-time high by the end of March. In a TradingView post on March 15, the analyst pointed out that the drop to $65,000 saw Bitcoin breaking below the four-hour…

Texas has pushed a number of efforts – from legislation to legal challenges – in its feud with federal authorities over how to tackle the migrant crisis at the US-Mexico border. For nearly two years, the Lone Star State has also sent asylum seekers to so-called sanctuary cities across the country, such as New York City, Chicago, Washington, DC, and Denver. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has argued the move is to demonstrate and shift the burden that the Biden administration’s border policies continue to place on the state but the program has proved a financial burden for Texas. CNN reported…

Topline A judge in former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York delayed the start of the trial by 30 days Friday, after thousands of pages of new documents were presented, pushing the trial’s start to at least mid-April, just seven months ahead of the presidential elections. Key Facts Trump asked Judge Juan Merchan to adjourn the trial scheduled for March 25, arguing the court should pause the trial for 90 days, until after the Supreme Court rules on his motion to dismiss his separate federal criminal case for trying to overturn the 2020 election. The Supreme Court…

Week in Review Asian equities were mixed for the week as China outperformed and the Hang Seng Tech Index rallied +5% and is close to being positive year-to-date. The “Two Sessions” important policy meetings concluded this week with multiple supportive indications, including potential incentives for trade-ins of appliances and vehicles, which could help improve consumer confidence. Sports apparel maker Li Ning announced plans to go private, which boosted its stock this week. The US House passed a bill to potentially force a sale of TikTok’s US operations, though multiple lawmakers expressed hesitation over the bill and how fast it was…