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Rivers Casino Portsmouth hires new general manager

Antonio Perez Jr. has been named general manager of , the casino’s owner, Rush Street , has announced.

Perez brings to more than two decades of casino gaming and operations experience at six properties in five states. Most recently, he was general manager of California’s Rolling Hills Casino Resort, which features two hotel towers with 110 rooms, restaurants, entertainment venues and gaming facilities. He joined Rolling Hills as director of gaming in 2020.

“We’re excited to welcome Antonio to our growing family of destination ,” Tim Drehkoff, CEO of and Portsmouth, said in a news release dated Sept. 22. “His extensive background in team development, guest experience and operations — including management of two hotels — makes him an excellent choice to lead our Virginia property.”

Earlier in his career, Perez worked with Penn National Gaming, which changed its name to Penn Entertainment in 2022. The company operates 43 casinos and racetracks across 20 states, an online gaming and presence and sports media. He began his casino career working as a table games dealer and slots attendant in West Virginia. Perez has an MBA from West Virginia’s Shepherd University.

Perez replaces Roy Corby, who left the position earlier this summer to become president of Koi Development, a California-based gaming partnership between Global Gaming Solutions and the Koi Nation.

At his new job, Perez has been reminded that the gaming industry is a small world. “There are barely a dozen plus team members here that I’ve worked with at other casinos all throughout the country,” he said in a recent Casino Update interview.

In May, Rush Street, a Chicago-based casino developer, and Rivers Casino Portsmouth announced plans to build a $65 million hotel adjacent to the casino. To be called the Landing Hotel, the eight-story property will have 106 guest rooms, including 32 suites. S.B. Ballard Construction was announced as the hotel’s general contractor in July.

Construction began over the summer on the hotel, according to a spokesperson. A ceremonial groundbreaking will be held this month, she said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated.

 

30-year mortgage rate rises to 6.34% after recent lows

Summary

WASHINGTON (AP) — The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage ticked up for the second straight week following a string of declines that had brought down home borrowing costs to their lowest level in nearly a year.

The average long-term mortgage rate rose this week to 6.34% from 6.3% last week, mortgage buyer said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.12%.

are influenced by several factors, from the ‘s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

The 10-year yield was at 4.10% at midday Thursday, down from 4.19% the same time last week. Much of that decline has come in the past few days, driven by discouraging reports on the U.S. economy, particularly the job market.

In late July, mortgage rates started declining in the lead-up to the Federal Reserve’s widely anticipated decision last month to cut its main interest rate for the first time in a year amid growing concern over the .

However, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has since signaled a cautious approach to future interest rate cuts. That’s in sharp contrast with other members of the Fed’s rate-setting committee, particularly those who were appointed by President , who are pushing for faster cuts.

The housing market has been in a slump since 2022, when mortgage rates began climbing from historic lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes sank last year to their lowest level in nearly 30 years. So far this year, sales are running below where they were at this time in 2024.

The second straight bump in rates could signal a repeat of what happened last year after the Fed cut its benchmark rate for the first time in more than four years. Back then, mortgage rates fell for several weeks prior to the Fed’s September rate cut. In the following weeks however, mortgage rates began rising again, eventually reaching just above 7% in mid-January this year.

Like last year, the Fed’s rate cut doesn’t necessarily mean mortgage rates will keep declining, even as the central bank signals more cuts ahead.

Still, the late-summer decline in mortgage rates has already encouraged many homeowners who bought in recent years after rates climbed well above 6% to refinance to a lower rate.

Mortgage rates will have to sink below 6% to make an attractive option to a broader swath of homeowners, however. That’s because about 81% of U.S. homes have a mortgage with a rate of 6% or lower, according to Realtor.com.

Economists generally forecast the average rate on a 30-year mortgage to remain near the mid-6% range this year.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also inched up this week. The average rate rose to 5.55% from 5.49% the previous week. A year ago, it was 5.25%, Freddie Mac said.

With the US government dark, alternate sources show a sluggish September for jobs

Summary

  • Chicago Fed data shows 4.3% unemployment in September
  • Hiring slows while small businesses cut 48,000 jobs
  • Planned drop, but hiring plans hit 2009 low
  • Fed likely to cut rates again at October meeting

(Reuters) -Alternate data from public and private sources showed the likely remained stalled in September, with sluggish hiring but no change in an economists see as heavily influenced by a decline in the number of foreign-born workers.

With the release of numerous official economic indicators delayed by a , alternative data, such as a new “real-time” estimate of the unemployment rate issued on Thursday by the Bank of Chicago, is likely to attract more than the usual scrutiny.

The Chicago Fed report, which combines private and available public data, estimated the September jobless rate was 4.3%, the same as in August and evidence that a feared rapid rise in unemployment had not yet begun.

But details of the report, along with other data, pointed to ongoing sluggishness in the that is likely to keep Fed officials on track to cut the benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point at the October 28-29 meeting.

Official reports on the U.S. labor market, including September monthly jobs data that had been scheduled for release by the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, are for now suspended by the government shutdown that has put around 750,000 workers on furlough and halted many but the most critical federal government functions.

Also delayed so far are the weekly jobless claims report, August factory orders and construction spending data.

Depending on the length of the shutdown, the 15th since 1981, those and other delayed reports could still be available by the time the Fed meets in a little under four weeks.

But policymakers were already discussing at-hand, if imperfect, substitutes for the September jobs report, among the main sources of additional data policymakers would receive before their next meeting.

The Fed’s rate cut discussion now leans heavily on policymakers’ views of whether the labor market is holding up reasonably well, with the 4.3% jobless rate considered around full employment, or is at risk of a sharp rupture. The Fed last month cut its policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point to a range of 4% to 4.25% after job gains slowed sharply and the unemployment rate ticked up in August.

“The data dogs are howling because we are not getting our usual supply of information,” Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee told Marketplace Radio on Wednesday. “The best number is the BLS number, but if we don’t have that, we’re going to use the Chicago Fed number and other numbers.”

The Chicago Fed’s new data series, updated twice monthly, showed the hiring rate for unemployed workers dipping slightly and the rate of layoffs and other job separations up a bit.

That put “limited upward pressure” on the unemployment rate, the bank said.

LABOR MARKET IS STAGNATING

New data from technology firm Intuit, using a sample of roughly 400,000 small businesses from its QuickBooks platform, showed firms with from one to nine employees shed more than 48,000 jobs in September, a decline of around 0.37%. Firms of that size have seen a steady drop in employment since early 2024, with average monthly employment for the latest quarter down about 400,000 from a peak of 13.1 million.

U.S. employers meanwhile announced fewer layoffs in September, but hiring plans so far this year were the lowest since 2009, according to the latest report from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas that provided further signs of a labor market at a standstill as the demand and supply of workers fall because of tougher immigration policy and technological advances.

The firm said planned job cuts dropped 37% month-on-month to 54,064 in September. Employers have so far this year announced 946,426 job cuts, the highest year-to-date total since 2020.

Hiring plans so far this year have totaled 204,939, the lowest year-to-date since 2009 when the economy was just emerging from the Great Recession.

“Right now, we’re dealing with a stagnating labor market, cost increases and a transformative new technology,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president at Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “With rate cuts on the way, we may see some stabilizing in the fourth quarter, but other factors could keep employers planning layoffs or holding off hiring.”

Economists say lingering uncertainty from President ‘s trade policy, immigration raids and the rise of artificial intelligence, have combined to reduce demand and labor supply. Nonfarm payroll gains averaged only 29,000 jobs per month in the three months to August compared to 82,000 during the same period last year.

Challenger said the government accounted for the bulk of planned layoffs, with 299,755 job cuts announced so far this year, part of an unprecedented campaign by the White House to reduce the federal workforce. Trump threatened to fire more federal workers if there was a shutdown.

The surge in AI is costing jobs in the technology sector, with companies in the industry announcing 107,878 layoffs so far this year. Challenger said AI was also making it difficult to land positions, particularly for entry-level engineers.

Should the shutdown persist into next week, reports due later this month, including consumer price, retail sales, housing starts and producer inflation data for September, will probably not be published, impacting decision making by households, investors and policymakers.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Additional reporting by Howard Schneider and Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Jamie Freed and Andrea Ricci)

Virginians wagered $510M on sports in August

Virginians bet about $510.2 million on sports in August, winning about $447.3 million, according to Virginia Lottery data released Wednesday. That’s about 22% more than they wagered in August 2024.

About $506.3 million of August’s gross sports gaming revenues came from mobile operators, with the remaining roughly $3.9 million coming from casino retail activity. Virginia currently has three : the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino , and in . In August, the state’s casinos reported a total of $84.8 million in adjusted gaming revenues.

Casino development continues in the commonwealth. Construction on the $750 million Norfolk casino began in February. The Interim Gaming Hall is expected to open in November in Norfolk. In Petersburg, the $1.4 billion Live! Casino & Hotel Virginia held a groundbreaking in March. and have plans to begin building a $65 million hotel in Portsmouth this summer. S.B. Ballard Construction Co. was announced as the hotel’s general contractor in July.

The licensed operators included in August’s sports revenue reporting were:

  • Betfair Interactive US (FanDuel) in partnership with the Washington Commanders
  • Crown Virginia Gaming (Draft Kings)
  • BetMGM
  • Rivers Portsmouth Gaming (Rivers Casino Portsmouth)
  • Caesars Virginia
  • Bally’s Interactive
  • Penn Sports Interactive
  • Colonial Downs Group
  • HR Bristol
  • Hillside (Virginia)
  • DC Sports Facilities Entertainment
  • Betr VA
  • PlayLive Virginia
  • Sporttrade Virginia

Virginia places a 15% tax on  activity based on each permit holder’s adjusted gross revenue (total wagers minus total winnings and other authorized deductions). With 10 operators reporting net positive AGR for August, state taxes for the month totaled nearly $8.7 million.

Of that, 97.5% — about $8.46 million — will be deposited in the state’s general fund. The remaining approximately $216,955 will go to the Problem  Treatment and Support Fund Allocation, which the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services administers.

Berkshire Hathaway to pay $9.7 billion for OxyChem, potentially Buffett’s last big deal

Summary

  • to buy for $9.7 billion
  • Deal signals shift of leadership toward
  • Buffett’s last major deal was Alleghany in 2022
  • OxyChem will join Lubrizol but operate independently

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Berkshire Hathaway is buying ‘s chemical division for $9.7 billion in what may be the last big acquisition involving the consummate dealmaker, .

Buffett wasn’t mentioned anywhere in materials released by Berkshire Hathaway discussing the deal Thursday, potentially signaling a passing of the torch to Vice Chair Greg Abel, to whom Buffet will hand the CEO title in January.

Buffett will remain chairman at Berkshire and will still be involved in deciding how to spend the conglomerate’s colossal pile of more than $344 billion cash.

Berkshire’s cash reserves have been growing for years because Buffett has been unable to find any major at attractive prices since completing the $11.6 billion acquisition of Alleghany Insurance in 2022. Prices for big acquisitions have been driven higher in recent years by the entry of more hedge funds in the market.

OxyChem makes things like chlorine for water treatment, vinyl chloride for plastics and calcium chloride that’s used to treat icy roads along with an assortment of other chemicals. It will fit nicely within Berkshire alongside Lubrizol, which Buffett bought in 2011 for $9 billion.

“Berkshire is acquiring a robust portfolio of operating assets, supported by an accomplished team,” Abel said in a prepared statement. “We look forward to welcoming OxyChem as an operating subsidiary within Berkshire.”

OxyChem generated $213 million in pretax earnings for Occidental in the second quarter, though that is down from last year when it generated nearly $300 million for the company. This year, Occidental has been selling off some of its assets in the Permian Basin to generate $950 million to pay down debt. Since it completed the CrownRock acquisition in December 2023, Occidental has sold off roughly $4 billion worth of assets to help it pay down $7.5 billion in debt. This OxyChem deal will accelerate that.

Occidental expects to use $6.5 billion of proceeds from the Berkshire deal to lower debt and achieve the target of principal debt below $15 billion set following the announcement of its CrownRock acquisition.

Berkshire held more than 28% of Occidental’s stock and had warrants to buy another 83,911,942.38 shares in the major oil and gas producer for $59.586 per share before this deal. And Berkshire held about $8.5 billion worth of preferred Occidental shares that it picked up in 2019 when it helped finance the oil producer’s purchase of Anadarko that Occidental has been paying 8% dividends on every year.

Buffett had previously told Berkshire investors that he wouldn’t sell off the Occidental stake and he has been periodically buying more shares, but he also told shareholders in 2023 that he had no plans to buy all of Occidental.

Berkshire owns an eclectic assortment of dozens of companies, including Geico and several other insurers, BNSF railroad, a portfolio of major utilities and some well-known brands like Dairy Queen and See’s Candy. Buffett has built up the conglomerate over the past 60 years. In addition to owning companies outright, Berkshire holds stocks worth more than $250 billion, including large stakes in Apple, Coca-Cola, Bank of America and American Express.

The OxyChem deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.

Tesla reports surprise increase in car sales in the third quarter

Summary

  • Q3 sales increased 7% year-over-year
  • 497,099 vehicles sold, up from 462,890 in 2023
  • Surge tied to $7,500 expiring Sept. 30
  • Rebound follows two quarters of sales declines

NEW YORK (AP) — Months after left the Trump administration to the relief of Tesla investors worried about boycotts, the world’s richest man has announced some good news: Sales of Tesla cars are back.

Well, maybe.

The electric vehicle maker run by Musk reported Thursday that car sales jumped 7% in the three months through September after plunging for most of the year as turned off by his embrace of President and far-right politicians in Europe balked at buying his cars.

But the jump comes with a caveat: Tesla benefited from consumers taking advantage of a $7,500 tax credit before it expired on Sept. 30, a surge in buying that helped all EV makers.

In fact, many Tesla rivals saw sales rise more. Rivian Automotive reported a 32% increase.

Tesla stock rose sharply on the sales news, but closed the day down 4.5% to $439 amid skepticism the new number really signals a turnaround given all the anti-Musk backlash.

“I don’t think most people are any more enamored with Elon now than they were a few months ago,” said Telemetry Insight’s Sam Abuelsamid. “I expect this is more a blip for Tesla than the restart of growth.”

Even Tesla bull Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities was cautious, noting there are “still demand issues.”

Still, it was a blowout number with sales hitting 497,099 vehicles versus 462,890 in the same period last year. Analysts expected a small drop to 456,000.

Investors cheered Musk’s decision in April to leave Washington for Austin, Texas, where Tesla is headquartered. But he is still heavily involved in political and social wars, alienating potential car buyers.

On Wednesday, he posted on X that he was canceling his Netflix subscription because of critical comments made by the creator of a show on the streaming service, which appeared to spark a wave of cancellations in turn.

The sharp fall in Tesla stock Thursday was remarkable as investors have been surprisingly optimistic about the company in recent weeks despite terrible financial figures.

Investors drove the stock up 34% in September alone in a bet that Musk’s planned new cheaper version of his bestselling Model Y will recharge sales. Musk has also been successful in shifting investor attention away from cars to other aspects of the business — the rollout of its driverless robotaxi service planned for several cities and its Optimus robots for factory work and household chores.

Driving the stock higher has also been Musk’s apparent renewed focus on the company.

To hold his attention, Tesla’s board proposed last month a pay package that would allow Musk to earn $1 trillion if he meets certain financial goals over the next several years. The pay offer, unprecedented for U.S. companies known for outsized CEO compensation, drew criticism from Pope Leo in an interview lamenting widening income gaps.

If Musk meets the goals, he could set a record on top of his own record. He recently became the first person ever to hit $500 billion in net worth, at least according to rich list compiler Forbes magazine.

The 7% sales rise in the last quarter compares with a 13% dropped in the first three months of the year when Musk led Trump’s government cost-cutting efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency. In the following three months through June, sales plunged 13% again.

The anti-Musk backlash in Europe had been also been fierce. Sales plunged 40% in more than two dozen countries after he publicly supported far-right politicians there.

Musk said a British prime minister was an “evil tyrant” who belongs in prison and told Germans “things will get very, very much worse” in their country if they didn’t vote for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party. Protests broke out in several cities, including a hanging of the billionaire in effigy in Milan and posters in London likening him to a Nazi.

For her part, the Tesla head of the board of directors who approved Musk’s latest pay package recently told Bloomberg that she is not sure if Musk’s politics have had any impact on the company’s finances. Robyn Denholm has earned nearly $700 million in compensation for serving on the board since 2014, a package that itself has drawn criticism.

Tesla reports third-quarter earnings later this month. Profits for the previous quarter fell 16% as the company continued to lose market share to European EV makers and fast-growing Chinese rivals, such as BYD.

Musk’s new robotaxi service, which began with a test-run in Austin in June, has had some hitches with reports of the cabs stopping suddenly for no reason and even driving in the opposing lane in one instance. But Musk says the service will quickly roll out anyway with launches in several other cities by the end of next year.

Galax furniture maker adds hours, eyes hiring as tariffs spur demand

 

SUMMARY

  • says demand for its U.S.-made wooden adult bedroom is climbing
  • Company has added hours across multiple departments
  • has modestly raised prices due to on component parts, inflation

The tariffs reshaping the furniture import landscape might be causing headaches and head scratching across the industry, but they are also spurring new momentum for some domestic suppliers.

Vaughan-Bassett Furniture, a -based domestic maker of wooden adult bedroom furniture, says it is seeing demand climb strongly enough that it has added hours across multiple departments, Vaughan-Bassett President Doug Bassett told Furniture Today.

“We have added hours to match the increase in production,” Bassett said. “We’re getting close to needing to hire, but we’ve gone from a little less than full time to full time and in some departments overtime. And then the next step after that will be to add and add capacity if our business continues to track the way it’s tracking.”

For now, overtime has become the first step in meeting stronger order flow.

“We’ve got several departments working a little bit of overtime, and that’s appreciated,” Bassett said. “Back during COVID, we ran overtime for almost two years, every week for two years straight. So we’re right at the beginning of running overtime. That’s the first step. And, you know, first things first. Let us run some overtime, and then as business continues to improve we certainly have the option of adding people as needed.”

The boost in hours reflects a broader trend Bassett said he is hearing about across the domestic case goods segment.

“I’m hearing from other people … that all these American-made case good companies are experiencing good business,” he said. “So we are benefiting, even if not from every aspect of the tariffs like the increased prices and the uncertainty. It’s not true that this isn’t adding jobs or strengthening domestic resources. It is.”

Upholstery uncertainty

The latest round of tariffs focused on upholstered seating and related categories has created new questions about future demand trends for companies such as Vaughan-Bassett that primarily build solid wood products, but also offer upholstered beds.

“We do offer upholstered beds in about five different groups,” Bassett said. “About a third of our groups have an upholstered bed, and it’s usually one of three beds. It’s not a huge number, but it’s not an insignificant number either.”

The balance of Vaughan-Bassett’s line remains in solid wood, but the impact of tariffs on mixed assortments remains a question for some retailers. “We sell a lot more wood beds than upholstered beds,” Bassett said.

“But there are customers who do very well with upholstered beds and who consider them their primary beds. So I got people that don’t carry any of my upholstery. I’ve got other people where the upholstered bed is their primary product.”

Keeping a lid on prices with domestic footprint

While demand is strengthening, Bassett said some cost pressures are unavoidable even for a domestic supplier. The company has raised prices modestly in the past year, although it has sought to limit increases.

“With the groups we came out with last market, we have increased prices,” Bassett said. “Most of our older stuff, at either Vaughan-Bassett or Artisan & Post, we’ve gone up about 5%, and we had not had a price increase in over a year. The last price increase a year ago, over a year ago, was between 2% and 3%. So in 2024 and 2025 combined, we’re up about 7% overall.”

Bassett explained that the company does have to contend with pressures related to inputs like component parts.

“Some of those price increases are due to the tariffs on the components that you can’t get in the United States: drawer guides, hardware, screws, nails, things where there just are no American resources,” he said. “They’ve been hit with tariffs, and so we’ve been hit with higher prices.”

Inflationary pressures outside of trade policy are also part of the picture. “The other portion of it, and it’s probably close to half and half: Health care is going up, labor is going up, energy prices are going up,” Bassett said. “We live in an inflationary cycle here in the U.S. that’s affecting pretty much everything.”

For Vaughan-Bassett, the tariff-driven shift is underscoring the value of its domestic production footprint. The company has long emphasized its U.S.-made sourcing story and is doubling down on this approach as the current trade environment drives retailers to look more closely at domestic resources.

Fired Surface Transportation Board member sues Trump over his dismissal ahead of rail merger review

Summary

  • challenges his Aug. 28 dismissal from the STB
  • Lawsuit alleges firing was illegal and threatens board independence
  • Primus was the only member to oppose a major railroad merger
  • Dismissal occurred ahead of ‘s $85B deal

The Democratic member of the U.S. that President fired ahead of the group considering the largest rail merger ever filed a lawsuit challenging his dismissal as illegal.

Robert Primus, who had served on the board since 2001, said the White House never even gave him a reason for his Aug. 28 firing that threatens the independence of the five-member STB. His termination happened before the board got a chance to start reviewing Union Pacific’s proposed $85 billion acquisition of Norfolk Southern to create the first true transcontinental railroad.

“Our country’s supply chain demands that the board be independent and transparent. Congress mandated it 138 years ago,” Primus said. “Failure to do so will negatively affect the network: railroads, shippers, and rail labor alike, disrupting the supply chain and ultimately injecting instability into our nation’s economy. This is dangerous, and wrong, and cannot not be allowed to happen.”

The White House did not immediately respond to the lawsuit filed Tuesday, but the press office is running with a reduced staff in the midst of the ongoing . At the time of the firing, the only reason offered publicly was as statement saying “Robert Primus did not align with the President’s America First agenda.”

But Primus’ defenders led by Skye Perryman, who is the President and CEO of Democracy Forward, said this action ignores the way the STB was set up. Congress established that the only reasons someone should be fired from the STB was in cases of inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.

“President Trump continues to target members of independent boards, without cause, in violation of the law. Congress made clear when creating the Surface Transportation Board that the agency should be independent and above politics,” Perryman said.

Trump has fired a string of board members at various agencies that are supposed to be independent including the , the National Transportation Safety Board, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Primus said he always strove to be impartial and apolitical in his time on the board that was supposed to continue through the end of 2027. His firing broke a 2-2 tie between Republicans and Democrats on the board and cleared the way for Trump to appoint two more members.

Every rail worker union, the nonprofit Rail Passengers Association and Democratic members of Congress quickly condemned the firing when it happened. Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin said at the time Primus was fired that it looked like Trump was trying to stack the board so it will rubberstamp the Union Pacific merger.

Since then, Trump has said the merger sounds good to him after he met with Union Pacific’s CEO in the Oval Office last month.

Primus was the only board member to oppose Canadian Pacific’s acquisition of Kansas City Southern railroad when it was approved two years ago because he was concerned it would hurt competition, which remains a concern for him though he hasn’t taken a position on the UP-NS deal. He was named board chairman last year by former President Joe Biden and led the board until Trump, after his election, elevated Republican Board member Patrick Fuchs to chairman.

US stocks hit new highs despite government shutdown

Summary

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rose to more records on Wednesday, as still doesn’t care much about the shutdown of the U.S. government, but yields sank in the bond market following the latest discouraging signals on the economy.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.3% to top its prior all-time high, which was set last week. The Industrial Average added 43 points, or 0.1%, to its own record set the day before, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.4%.

The action was stronger in the bond market, where Treasury yields dropped after a report suggested hiring may have been much weaker across the country last month than economists expected.

Employers outside the government actually cut 32,000 more jobs than they added, according to the survey by ADP Research, with the Midwest taking particularly hard hits. What’s worse, the survey also revised down its numbers for employment in August, to a loss of 3,000 jobs from a previously reported gain of 54,000.

Usually, traders on Wall Street wait for a more comprehensive jobs report that comes from the U.S. government each month to suss out how the job market is doing. The U.S. government gets its data from a larger sample of employers than the ADP survey, which does not have a perfect track record predicting what the more comprehensive report will say each month.

But the next Labor Department report, scheduled for Friday, is likely to be delayed because of the shutdown of the U.S. government that began just after midnight.

“Whether this is an accurate statistic or not, in the markets believe that it signals something,” according to Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. “The signal from today’s headline will not be a good one.”

The hope on Wall Street has been that the job market will continue to slow by a very precise amount: enough to convince the to keep cutting , but not by so much that it brings a recession.

That’s a delicate balance to achieve, and every economic report from the U.S. government that gets delayed only increases the uncertainty about whether it’s possible. Stocks have already run to records on expectations for coming cuts to rates, so a lack of them could send the market lower.

To be sure, the stock market and economy have typically powered through past shutdowns, particularly if they are short in duration. But this shutdown could be different in a couple ways, including the threat that the White House may use it to push for large-scale firings of federal workers.

On Wall Street, Nike rose 6.4% after blowing past analysts’ expectations for profit in the latest quarter. The athletic giant reported strong growth for apparel sold in North America.

Lithium America’s stock that trades in the United States jumped 23.3% after the Canadian company said the U.S. government agreed to let it draw from a previously announced $2.26 billion loan. As part of the agreement, the U.S. Department of Energy will take an ownership stake in the Vancouver-based company.

Lithium Americas is developing a lithium project in Nevada with General Motors, and it follows Intel and other companies where the U.S. government has recently taken an ownership stake.

On the losing side of the market was Peloton Interactive, which dropped 3.7%. It got a cold reception to its unveiling of an AI and computer vision system, along with other equipment designed for cross training.

Corteva sank 9.1% after announcing a plan to split into two companies, each with its own stock. One will hold onto the company’s seed business, while the other will focus on crop protection.

Cal-Maine Foods fell 1.2% after the egg company’s profit and revenue for the latest quarter fell short of analysts’ expectations.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 22.74 points to 6,711.20. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 43.21 to 46,441.10, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 95.15 to 22,755.16.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe following a mixed finish in Asia.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 4.10% from 4.16% late Tuesday.

Yields fell as the weaker-than-expected payroll report from ADP firmed expectations for coming cuts to rates by the Fed. So did another report showing that U.S. manufacturing was weaker last month than economists expected.

Several manufacturers told the Institute for Supply Management’s surveyors that they’re still feeling pain because of .

“Steel tariffs are killing us,” one manufacturer said.

AOL officially ends dial up internet service after decades

Summary

  • ends its service as of Sept. 30
  • Dial-up introduced millions of households to the web
  • and wireless eclipsed dial-up in popularity
  • AOL confirms closure after evaluating its offerings

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s official: AOL’s dial-up internet has taken its last bow.

AOL previously confirmed it would be pulling the plug on Tuesday (Sept. 30) — writing in a brief update on its support site last month that it “routinely evaluates” its offerings and had decided to discontinue dial-up, as well as associated software “optimized for older operating systems,” from its plans.

Dial-up is now no longer advertised on AOL’s website. As of Wednesday, former company help pages like “connect to the internet with AOL Dialer” appeared unavailable — and nostalgic social media users took to the internet to say their final goodbyes.

AOL, formerly , introduced many households to the World Wide Web for the first time when its dial-up service launched decades ago, rising to prominence particularly in the 90s and early 2000s.

The creaky door to the internet was characterized by a once-ubiquitous series of beeps and buzzes heard over the phone line used to connect your computer online — along with frustrations of being kicked off the web if anyone else at home needed the landline for another call, and an endless bombardment of CDs mailed out by AOL to advertise free trials.

Eventually, broadband and wireless offerings emerged and rose to dominance, doing away with dial-up’s quirks for most accessing the internet today — but not everyone.

A handful of consumers have continued to rely on internet services connected over telephone lines. In the U.S., according to Census Bureau data, an estimated 163,401 households were using dial-up alone to get online in 2023, representing just over 0.13% of all homes with internet subscriptions nationwide.

While AOL was the largest dial-up internet provider for some time, it wasn’t the only one to emerge over the years. Some smaller internet providers continue to offer dial-up today. Regardless, the decline of dial-up has been a long time coming. And AOL shutting down its service arrives as other relics of the internet’s earlier days continue to disappear.

Microsoft retired video calling service Skype just earlier this year — as well as Internet Explorer back in 2022. And in 2017, AOL discontinued its Instant Messenger — a chat platform that was once lauded as the biggest trend in online communication since email when it was founded in 1997, but later struggled to ward off rivals.

AOL itself is far from the dominant internet player it was decades ago — when, beyond dial-up and IMs, the company also became known for its “You’ve got mail” catchphrase that greeted users who checked their inboxes, as famously displayed in the 1998 film starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan by the same name.

Before it was America Online, AOL was founded as Quantum Computer Services in 1985. It soon rebranded and hit the public market in 1991. Near the height of the dot-com boom, AOL’s market value reached nearly $164 billion in 2000. But tumultuous years followed, and that valuation plummeted as the once-tech pioneer bounced between multiple owners. After a disastrous merger with Time Warner Inc., Verizon acquired AOL — which later sold AOL, along with Yahoo, to a private equity firm.

AOL now operates under the larger Yahoo name. A spokesperson for Yahoo didn’t have any additional statements about the end of AOL’s dial-up when reached by The Associated Press on Wednesday — directing customers to its previous summer announcement.

At the time Verizon sold AOL in 2021, an anonymous source familiar with the transaction told CNBC that the number of AOL dial-up users was “in the low thousands” — down from 2.1 million when Verizon first moved to acquire AOL in 2015, and far below peak demand seen back in the 90s and early 2000s. But beyond dial-up, AOL continues to offer its free email services, as well as subscriptions that advertise identity protection and other tech support.