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U.S. equities kicked off the week on a high note, opening sharply higher on Monday after the FBI again cleared Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over her use of a private server. The Dow Jones industrial average quickly rose more than 250 points. "In terms of the market and its possible response on Wednesday, today's reaction to the FBI news is obvious evidence that market participants have wrapped up the world in a nice and easy box," said Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group. "Hillary wins, good for stocks. Trump wins, bad for stocks. But, anyone who thinks...

Taco Bell, the Yum Brands Inc. YUM, -0.02% Mexican fast-food chain, said Friday that it plans to add 100,000 new jobs in the U.S. by 2022 and grow to 9,000 locations nationwide.

The government, delivering the last major snapshot of the economy before Election Day, reported on Friday that employers added 161,000 workers in October, a performance that suggests a healthy outlook for the months ahead. The official unemployment rate dropped to 4.9 percent. Average hourly earnings rose 2.8 percent year over year, a strong showing. For the presidential campaign, the latest employment report serves as a Rorschach test allowing each side to offer its own distinctive narrative of the economy’s performance and prospects. “Both sides will be able to take something in that report, to assess blame or take credit for,”...

[The] US car industry history...suddenly appears to be bombarded with a barrage of bad news: starting with Ford's disastrous August sales when the company admitted "sales have reached a plateau"...one would almost think that a respite from the bad news was in order. One would be wrong. As a result of slowing demand and declining US auto sales coupled with growing inventory, Ford Motor is halting one of two plants that builds its top-selling F-150 pickup as it idles four factories this month amid slowing U.S. auto sales. Ford is shutting its Louisville, Kentucky, factory building the Escape and Lincoln...

Imagine you are an editorial writer of the New York Times (a stretch to be sure, but stay with us). Your biggest problem in the Age of Obama has to be that despite all the Democrats’ claims to have steered us into a recovery, jobs are lacking. Supposedly the unemployment rate has been brought down to 5%. But that’s because the job participation rate is at its lowest point in decades as millions of Americans are still too discouraged to look for work. How do you work around this pesky problem? Dang, if the Times hasn’t come up with its...

DEPRESSING POLL OF THE DAY — The latest Marketplace-Edison Research survey shows economic anxiety is up to 36 from 30 a year ago (the scale runs 0-100). But that’s not the depressing part of the poll’s findings. It’s this: 25 percent of Americans “completely distrust the economic data reported by the federal government, including statistics like the unemployment rate, the number of jobs added, and the amount of consumer spending.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, that number soars to 48 percent of Donald Trump supporters compared to just 5 percent of Hillary Clinton supporters. Trump’s constant railing about phony economic numbers as well...

The "quiet catastrophe" is particularly dismaying because it is so quiet, without social turmoil or even debate. It is this: After 88 consecutive months of the economic expansion that began in June 2009, a smaller percentage of American males in the prime working years (ages 25 to 54) are working than were working near the end of the Great Depression in 1940, when the unemployment rate was above 14%. If the labor force participation rate were as high today as it was as recently as 2000, nearly 10 million more Americans would have jobs. The work rate for adult men...

Major automakers posted lower September U.S. sales on Monday despite big consumer discounts, as pickup truck volumes fell for both General Motors and Ford. With the top six U.S. market leaders reporting, deliveries fell 0.6 percent from a year earlier. But sales were still strong at 17.8 million vehicles on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, Bill Fay, head of the Toyota brand in the U.S. market, told reporters on a conference call. GM, the top-seller in the United States, posted a 0.6 percent decline. Ford reported an 8 percent drop, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles was down 1 percent. Shares of...

On October 3, Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp., which owns Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes, filed for bankruptcy. The company, owned by private-equity firm Sun Capital Partners, said it will close 20 to 30 of its 124 locations and put itself up for sale. On September 30, Restaurants Acquisitions, the operator of Black-eyed Pea and Dixie House restaurant chains, converted its Chapter 11 filing to Chapter 7 liquidation. The bankruptcy court order noted the company had shuttered its restaurants and management had resigned. On September 29, Cosi Inc., a fast-casual chain with 1,100 employees filed for bankruptcy. It closed 29 of its...

Last week, while touting the new Census report on income and poverty in America, Barack Obama took credit for $2 a gallon gasoline, and immodestly shouted to his crowd of supporters: "Thank you, Obama." I don't want to sound ungrateful, but given that for eight years your administration has done everything to decapitate the oil and gas industry that gave us low gas prices, sorry: No thanks are in order, Mr. President. Even more amazing was Obama's victory lap on the income numbers. Yes, incomes for middle-class families rose by an impressive 5 percent in 2015. And poverty fell. Thank...

While touting the new Census report on income and poverty in America, Barack Obama took credit for $2 a gallon gasoline, and immodestly shouted to his crowd of supporters: “Thank you, Obama.” I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but given that for eight years your administration has done everything to decapitate the oil and gas industry that gave us low gas prices, sorry, no thanks are in order Mr. President. Even more amazing was Mr. Obama’s victory lap on the income numbers. Yes, incomes for middle class families rose by an impressive 5 percent in 2015. And poverty fell. Thank...

Moody's analysts say Sears and Kmart don't have enough money — or access to money — to stay in business. In a note published Wednesday, the analysts downgraded Sears' liquidity rating, saying the company is bleeding cash and will have to continue to rely on outside funding or the sale of assets, such as real estate, to sustain operations. "We recognize the risks associated with relying on these sources and continued shareholder support to finance its negative operating cash flow which is estimated by Moody's to be approximately $1.5 billion this year," the analysts wrote. Kmart in particular is...

Millions of American teenagers are at risk of running out of food or don't have access to affordable, healthy food. Some of them are so desperate, they're selling their bodies and committing crimes to go to jail to ensure regular meals, according to an Urban Institute study. Breaking down the numbers The study found at least 6.8 million people were "food insecure," meaning they didn't have reliable access to affordable, healthy food. Another 4 million were in "marginally food secure" households, where the "threat of running out of food is real." All of the 10 communities surveyed in focus groups...

Cisco Systems Inc is laying off about 14,000 employees, representing nearly 20 percent of the network equipment maker's global workforce, technology news site CRN reported, citing sources close to the company. San Jose, California-based Cisco is expected to announce the cuts within the next few weeks, the report said, as the company transition from its hardware roots into a software-centric organization. Apart from Cisco, two other big software companies, Microsoft Corp and HP Inc, have also announced job cuts this year.Microsoft said in July that it would lay off about 2,850 jobs over the next 12 months, taking its total...

Millennials are not some vast unsolvable mystery. According to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau (PDF), they earn $2,000 less than their parents did at a comparable age, they are more likely to live in poverty, and they are more likely to live at home. But Baby Boomers and Gen Xers still seem to find it hard to believe that basic economic math can explain much of the younger generation’s behavior. After several news outlets, including The Daily Beast, reported that rates of millennial sexual inactivity in early adulthood are surprisingly high, armchair social theorists came out in force...

Logan's Roadhouse restaurant chain has filed for bankruptcy. The filing was made Monday with U.S. bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Delaware. The plan, according to the company is "designed to restructure the company's balance sheet" while providing it with the "capital needed to turnaround operations." The Nashville, Tennessee-based steakhouse chain best known for its western flair and peanuts on the floor will close 18 restaurants as part of its restructuring. The chain operates 250 locations nationwide, including 23 in Alabama....

Macy’s says it plans to close about 100 stores next year as the department store operator aims to become more nimble in a competitive market. That represents close to 14 percent of its store base. […] The nation’s largest department store chain says that it earned $11 million, or 3¢ per share, in the quarter ended July 30. That compares with $217 million, or 64¢ per share, in the year-ago period. …

The left argues that wealth inequality will doom and economy because ‘no one will be able to afford anything’. But the empirical evidence refutes this. Consumer spending is at record highs and keeps rising. Stocks that are dependent on consumer spending keep making new highs. Amazon.com, Johnson and Johnson, Disney, Nike, Facebook, Google, and the consumer staples and consumer discretionary ETFs are are record highs.

At Foursquare, our data scientists are often called upon to analyze real world trends; we use Big Data to determine how commercial fortunes are rising or falling. This year, politics and business are intersecting, as one of the presidential candidates, Donald Trump, has extensive properties including casinos, hotels, and golf courses. Has his campaign been good for Trump-branded business? We have experience tackling these types of questions with a high degree of accuracy. Based on our foot traffic intelligence covering over 50 million users a month, we predicted Apple iPhone 6s sales, a hit Q4 for McDonald’s all-day breakfast, and...

It looks like July was another off month for Class 8 truck orders as industry analysts are predicting some of the lowest numbers since 2010, according to preliminary numbers from ACT Research and FTR. FTR is predicting Class 8 truck orders will come in at around 10,400 units while ACT Research is projecting 10,500 units for the month. Both forecasts are well below July 2015 orders and mark one of the weakest months since 2010. Compared to June, orders were down 19%, which FTR attributed to higher than normal order cancellations in the month. “Usually there are a low number...