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- A + A BENGALURU (Oct 22): Beyond Meat Inc on Friday cut its third-quarter revenue forecast, blaming a host of factors including a drop in demand from grocery stores and a labour shortage that led to delays in restocking shelves, sending its shares down 15%. The company, which gets the bulk of its revenue from retailing, has suffered from a weakening trend of people stockpiling faux meat burgers and sausages at home as they started dining out. It also said new orders from a distributor servicing one of the company's large customers did not materialise, while severe weather caused damage to inventory stored at one of its facilities. Beyond Meat's forecast cut comes a few months after the company said its restaurant customers were placing more conservative orders due to uncertainty over to the Delta variant of the coronavirus. The red-hot faux meat start-up is also facing other challenges including growing competition from Impossible Foods and others, and surging …

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- A + A BENGALURU (Oct 22): Shares of Snap Inc plunged on Friday, dragging down other ad-dependent tech firms, after the photo messaging app owner warned of a prolonged hit from Apple Inc's privacy changes on iOS devices. Snap shares were down nearly 20% at US$60.8 before the bell, on track to open at a near three-month low. Shares of Facebook, Google parent Alphabet Inc and Twitter were down between 2% and 4%. Apple's privacy updates, which were rolled out in June and July, prevent advertisers from tracking iPhone users without their consent. As a result, advertisers ended up spending much less than expected as the tweaks make it difficult to measure and manage their ad campaigns. More than 10 analysts who cover Snap's stock cut their price target by at least US$4 and as high as US$25, with many warning the impact of Apple's move would linger till next year as Snap rolls out tools of its own to attract advertisers. "Apple iOS ad changes played out worse than …

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Workspace sharing company WeWork ( WE ) made its long-awaited public listing on Thursday, Oct. 21, climbing 13.49% on its first day of trading to close at $11.78. Instead of going public through a traditional initial public offering (IPO), the New York City-based company completed a $9 billion merger with blank check firm BowX Acquisition Corp. ( BOWX ), a listed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Key Takeaways WeWork went public by completing a merger with SPAC company BowX. SPACs comprise a group of large investors that help a company speed up its public listing and allow profits to be generated relatively quickly. The merger gives WeWork an equity value of $9 billion, substantially less than the $47 billion at which SoftBank valued the company before an ill-fated 2019 IPO attempt. WeWork expects to bring in second-half 2021 revenues of $1.5 billion, up from the $1.2 billion it generated in the first half. SPACs comprise a group of large …

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COVID-19 has exposed some of the major flaws of the U.S. healthcare system but also brought some unexpected benefits and useful lessons on how to improve the level of care Americans receive. That's the view of a panel of health experts that took part in Investopedia's " Your Money Your Health " virtual conference. The third and fourth panels of the event, which focused on the future of care from the patient perspective and healthcare access, offered both hope and concerns on the future state of a U.S. healthcare system often characterized as inefficient, unaffordable, unsustainable, and discriminating. Key Takeaways Panelists at Investopedia's "Your Money Your Health" virtual conference discussed the impact of the pandemic on the U.S. healthcare system. While COVID-19 exposed healthcare inefficiencies, it also provided useful lessons, such as demonstrating the viability of telemedicine. The supply chain constraints affecting numerous sectors are leading to shortages for …

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ChexSystems is a consumer credit reporting agency that tracks activity related to closed checking, savings, and other deposit accounts at banks and credit unions . If you’ve ever had issues with a deposit account, such as a bounced or returned check , it’s possible that you might have a ChexSystems profile. While your ChexSystems history doesn’t directly affect your FICO credit scores , it can have an impact on your ability to open new bank accounts. Key Takeaways ChexSystems is a consumer credit reporting agency that collects information on closed deposit accounts at banks and credit unions. The type of activity that ChexSystems tracks is related to issues with deposit accounts, such as bounced checks. Having a ChexSystems record could make it difficult to get approved for new bank accounts. Prepaid debit cards and second chance checking accounts are alternatives to consider when you’re unable to qualify for a standard bank account. What Is ChexSystems? …

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- A + A BEIJING (Oct 22): Tencent's WeChat has fixed a glitch that allowed some of its content to be searchable by external search engines, the owner of China's most popular messaging app said on Friday, raising questions over regulators' latest attempt to crackdown on the internet sector. Some of WeChat's content, including articles on its public accounts page, was briefly searchable in the last few days on Alphabet-owned Google and Microsoft's Bing, but not on China's dominant search engine Baidu, Reuters checks showed. The change had prompted speculation that Tencent was heeding a call by Chinese authorities for its tech giants to tear down "walled gardens" in the country's cyberspace which has come amid a wide ranging crackdown on the sector. "Due to recent technological upgrades, the official accounts' robots protocol had loopholes, which caused the external crawlers to scrape part of the official accounts' content," Tencent said in a statement in Chinese. …

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- A + A TOKYO (Oct 22): Shareholders in Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho Ltd (TSK) approved a "poison pill" measure on Friday aimed at blocking a takeover attempt by its top investor, setting up a court battle that will have sweeping implications for hostile bids in Japan. TKS, a little-known company that is the country's largest maker of newspaper printing presses, said a majority of its shareholders approved a measure that would dilute Asian Development Capital's (ADC) 40% stake. ADC was excluded from the vote and has already sought an injunction to nullify it. Had investors voted on Friday against the poison pill, it would have handed ADC a victory. Now, focus will turn to the injunction and the Tokyo District Court ruling expected next week that will be the first to examine an attempt to exclude an investor from a shareholder vote on a poison pill. A victory for TKS would potentially make it easier for other Japanese companies to use poison pills. TKS has said ADC …

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- A + A SAN FRANCISCO/BENGALURU (Oct 22): Tesla Inc wants to shift to a less expensive battery for its electric vehicles but first needs to figure out how to overcome political tensions to get a Chinese partner to build the iron-based batteries near its US factories. The world's two biggest economies have yet to resolve disputes over tariffs, intellectual property rights and Chinese incursions into Taiwan's air defense identification zone. And China's sweeping regulatory crackdown, aimed largely at the technology sector, could pose yet another hurdle. China adopted the technology early and makes 95% of the world's Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries, but key patents expire soon and Tesla said it plans to adopt LFP batteries in its fleet of standard-range vehicles globally and move battery production closer to its factories. "Our goal is to localize all key parts of the vehicles on the continent," Drew Baglino, senior vice president of powertrain and energy …

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Dr Anthony Fauci - A + A WASHINGTON (Oct 22): Americans can choose a Covid-19 booster shot that is different from their original inoculation but the recommendation is to stick with the vaccine they got first if it is available, White House chief medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci said on Friday. "It's generally recommended that you get the booster that is the original regimen that you got in the first place," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with CNN. "But for one reason or other — and there may be different circumstances with people, availability or just different personal choices — you can, as we say, mix and match," Fauci said in an interview with CNN. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday recommended the Covid-19 vaccine boosters for recipients of the Moderna Inc and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) shots, and said Americans could choose a different shot from their …

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- A + A KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 22): Gamuda Bhd has proposed to establish an employees' share option scheme (ESOS) with the number of shares to be issued equivalent to 10% of its issued share capital. In a bourse filing, Gamuda said all its executive directors namely Datuk Lin Yun Ling (group managing director), Datuk Ha Tiing Tai (deputy group managing director), Mohammed Rashdan Mohd Yusof  (deputy group managing directors) and Justin Chin Jing Ho (managing director) are deemed interested in the proposed ESOS scheme. Based on the illustration given by the company, its enlarged share capital will increase to 2.76 billion shares, assuming the proposed ESOS scheme is fully satisfied through the issuance of new shares, compared with its issued share capital of 2.51 billion shares as at Sept 30, 2021. “For illustrative purposes only, the Ringgit Malaysia value of the shares issued pursuant to the proposed scheme is based on an assumed exercise price of RM3.05, being the …

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