Unbiased Reviews, News and Articles

Germany-based travel site GetYourGuide has debuted U.S. offerings and the ability to pay with dogecoin. GetYourGuide German travel booking site GetYourGuide marked its expansion into the U.S. market Tuesday with the announcement that it now accepts dogecoin for payment. The Berlin-based firm, which says it's booked 45 million-plus tours in 170 countries to date, is offering activity, attraction and tour bookings in major American destinations such as Hawaii; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Miami; New Orleans; New York; Orlando, Florida; and San Francisco. In addition to dogecoin, processed via BitPay, the site accepts major credit and debit cards, as well as PayPal and Google Pay. GetYourGuide co-founder and CEO Johannes Reck said in a statement that the firm is "beyond excited" to enter the U.S. market as the world exits pandemic lockdown and people can venture out on holiday again. More from Personal Finance: As travel resumes, here's why you might use a trave...

An Eli Lilly & Co. logo is seen on a box of insulin medication in this arranged photograph at a pharmacy in Princeton, Illinois. Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said he welcomes new competition from Walmart, even as the retailer undercuts the drugmaker's prices on fast-acting insulin. Walmart announced Tuesday that it will sell a lower-price version of the notoriously expensive diabetes drug, starting this week. "Any efforts to smash through that and deliver better value to patients, I'm for," Ricks said in an interview Tuesday on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." Walmart developed the less expensive version of analog insulin with Novo Nordisk. The fast-acting insulin will cost about $73 for a vial or about $86 for a package of prefilled insulin pens. It will be available exclusively at Walmart and Sam's Club for adults and children with a prescription. Insulin has become a focal point in lawmakers...

In this photo illustration Levi's 501 blue jeans by U.S. clothing manufacturer Levi Strauss are seen on March 8, 2018 in Berlin, Germany. Sean Gallup | Getty Images Apparel retailers including H&M and Levi Strauss are at risk of facing heightened supply chain disruptions, as regions of Southern Asia are bracing for intense lockdowns as Covid-19 cases spike, fueled by the more contagious delta variant, according to a new report. A new wave of Covid cases, especially along the Indian border, has prompted the government of Bangladesh to require its population of nearly 170 million people to remain at home for seven days, beginning this Thursday. The result will likely mean factories across the region will be forced to shut down, halting manufacturing. It marks Bangladesh's most severe lockdown to date, with people only allowed to leave their homes for emergencies. A new analysis from Panjiva, a business line of S&P Global Market Intelligence, points out that th...

Shaquille O'Neal Scott Mlyn | CNBC Shaquille O'Neal is firing back at Lebron James over his criticism of the NBA and its schedule this year. In an interview with CNBC, the former Los Angeles Lakers star and TNT broadcaster said he thinks players need to stop complaining about the busy playing schedule this season. "When you're living in a world where 40 million people have been laid off and I'm making $200 million, you won't get no complaining from me," O'Neal said. "I'd play back to back to back to back to back," he added. "I'm not knocking what anybody said, but me personally, I don't complain and make excuses, because real people are working their tail off and all we gotta do is train two hours a day and then play a game for two hours at night and make a lot of money ... So my thought process is a little different." O'Neal's comments come after James' criticism that the schedule was at fault f...

A diabetic draws insulin from vial. CNBC - Adam Isaak Walmart said Tuesday it will offer a less expensive version of insulin that could better fit into the budgets of millions of Americans who don't have health insurance or struggle to pay for the lifesaving diabetes drug. Starting this week, the retailer will sell an exclusive private-label version of analog insulin, ReliOn NovoLog, to adults and children who have a prescription. The drug will be available at its membership-based Sam's Club in mid-July. The insulin will cost about $73 for a vial or about $86 for a package of prefilled insulin pens. The insulin is the latest addition to Walmart's private brand of diabetes products, ReliOn. It already sells a low-price version of insulin for about $25 as part of the line, but that is an older formulation that some doctors and advocates say is not as effective at managing blood sugar swings as newer versions of insulin, called analogs. With the move, Walmart will br...

Etsy, the online crafts marketplace, is banking on Latin America to be a growth catalyst for the e-commerce company with the acquisition of the Brazilian online marketplace Elo7. Etsy shares jumped 7% Monday after it announced the $217 million deal to acquire Elo7, which Etsy CEO Josh Silverman called "the Etsy of Brazil." "This is all about growth potential over the medium and over the long term," he said in a "Mad Money" interview. "The opportunity for Brazil's e-commerce sector to grow faster than the U.S., we think, is very meaningful over time." The e-commerce market in Latin America has a penetration rate of less than 10%. The market could produce about $29 billion of revenue this year and is forecast to grow at a 26% clip annually, according to the market research firm Euromonitor. Similar to Etsy, Elo7 allows merchants to set up an online shop and sell items to buyers. The site, among the largest online marketplaces in Brazil, b...

Packages of Juul mint flavored e-cigarettes are displayed at San Rafael Smokeshop on November 07, 2019 in San Rafael, California. Juul, a leading e-cigarette company, announced that it is halting sales of their popular mint flavor e-cigarette after the release of two studies that showed a surge in teen use. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images Juul Labs has agreed to pay North Carolina $40 million and change its business practices in the state. Regulators and health officials have blamed the company for the surging popularity of e-cigarettes among teens in recent years. In 2019, federal data found that more than 1-in-4 high school students had used an e-cigarette in the past 30 days, up from 11.7% just two years prior. As of 2020, that number fell to 19.6% of high school students amid greater regulatory scrutiny and the coronavirus pandemic. "North Carolina is now the first state in the nation to hold Juul accountable for its instrumental role in creating...

Patrik Giardino | Stone | Getty Images It's no surprise that Americans are ready to start spending as the Covid pandemic eases. After being cooped up for a year, people are opening their wallets for anything from dining out to shopping for merchandise and vacations. But will your buying spree bring you joy? It depends, said researcher Elizabeth Dunn, PhD, chief science officer for financial technology firm Happy Money and author of "Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending." As her book suggests, Dunn conducts research on spending and happiness. Everyone's needs are different, so she first advises you identify what purchases are making you happy, and which ones are not. It's also a good time to look back on what you discovered you could live without during the pandemic. "So much of our spending is habitual," said Dunn, who is also a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia. "I run to the coff...

Singapore wants to become a leading e-commerce hub in Asia - but there may be challenges ahead. As the pandemic reshapes consumer behaviour worldwide, more and more people in the region are shopping online and Southeast Asia's digital economy saw significant growth. "E-commerce in Southeast Asia - it's surging. But what sets Singapore apart (is) its policies and its initiatives that help cultivate an environment for the digital industry and the digital economy to thrive," said Ben King, country director at Google Singapore. Still, the city-state faces a skills shortage for digital talent - and that's critical for its ambition to become a global e-commerce player, he told CNBC's Christine Tan. The problem that we're seeing is not necessarily jobs - it's skills. There's an urgent need to help the workforce build digital skills to take on these jobs. - Ben King, Country Director at Google Singapore. To address the issue, the governmen...

CNBC's Jim Cramer on Friday advised investors to wait for shares of Nike to cool down before buying after the stock rallied double digits on a quarterly report that beat expectations by a long shot. "While the stock's far from cheap, business is booming, so you've got my blessing to buy some Nike the next time it pulls back," the "Mad Money" host said. Nike, which last hit a record high in January, saw shares jump to new highs after many market players took the wrong side of the trade ahead of the report, said Cramer, himself among the doubters. The stock closed at a record $154.35 per share Friday, gaining more than 20 points on unusually high trading volume powered by the surprise numbers. "Mega-capitalization companies don't usually see their stocks spike more than 15% on great earnings unless a lot of people were very, very wrong — or of course very, very short — going into the quarter," Cramer said. Cramer's charitable trust,...

Boat maker Brunswick will have low inventory by the end of 2021 as it continues seeing strong revenue growth and consumer demand, Brunswick CEO David Foulkes told CNBC on Friday. While Foulkes said he expects Brunswick to meet its production forecast for 2021, he noted that the company is still recovering from pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions and labor shortages.  "We're producing as much as we can, but we will still be in a very low inventory situation by the time we get through this year," Foulkes said on CNBC's "Power Lunch." He said it will probably take more than two years to meet retail demand and backfill the industry pipeline at current production rates. "We ended last year with unusually low inventory levels, and we're obviously a very seasonal business so we're producing pretty constantly through the year, but we need inventory to meet the needs of the peak selling season, which is really now for the Northern markets,...

Honoree Hal Lawton accepts award on stage during the 2019 Fashion Scholarship Fund Awards Gala on January 10, 2019 in New York City. Cindy Ord | Getty Images Tractor Supply Company has increased some prices in the face of inflation and supply chain constraints, headwinds that the retailer's CEO said he believes are here for the foreseeable future. "We have had some moderate price increases across our business. To date our customers have not demonstrated any elasticity or concerns there," Tractor Supply CEO Hal Lawton said on Friday during an interview at the National Retail Federation's online conference. "It's our obligation to try to keep the prices as low as we can for them, even as we navigate this inflationary environment that we are in that I suspect is more structural than transient, despite some of the other rhetoric," Lawton said. The company is facing price increases across the board, including the costs of raw materials and the tr...

Pedestrians walk past the American multinational sport clothing brand, Nike store and its logo seen in Hong Kong. Nike shares surged more than 14% on Friday morning, hitting a record high, after the sneaker maker forecast full-year sales topping $50 billion as its North American business rebounds from the lows of the coronavirus pandemic. And in greater China sales appear to be improving, with Nike management saying the company is confident about its ability to regain trust with customers there, amid threats to boycott Western brands over their comments expressing concern about alleged forced labour in Xinjiang. "These are times when strong brands can get stronger, and each quarter this reality becomes even more clear," Nike Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe said during an earnings call Thursday evening. Nike's stock was trading $152.70 at 9:35 a.m. ET. The retailer, which has a market cap of more than $211 billion, last saw its stock hit an all-time high of $147...

The Amazon logo displayed on a smartphone and a PC screen London - Britain's competition regulator on Friday launched a formal probe into Amazon and Google over concerns they haven't done enough to tackle fake reviews. "We are investigating concerns that Amazon and Google have not been doing enough to prevent or remove fake reviews to protect customers and honest businesses," Andrea Coscelli, chief executive of the CMA, said in a statement. "It's important that these tech platforms take responsibility and we stand ready to take action if we find that they are not doing enough." Misleading consumer reviews have proven to be a big problem in e-commerce, and Amazon is a prime target for brands looking to hype up their products online with fake, favorable write-ups. Last month, the company called on social media firms to help it weed out dishonest reviews. The Competition and Markets Authority began an initial investigation into the issue of fake revie...

CNBC's Jim Cramer on Thursday advised Carvana shareholders to lock in gains after a big surge in the stock. "I still think Carvana's a great long-term story, and I'd never recommend shorting the stock. But if you've owned it for this terrific run, maybe ... take some off the table as used car sales are showing signs of slowing in price increases," he said on "Mad Money." "Carvana's [stock has] come roaring back lately, but this is the rare turbo-charged growth name that's actually somewhat hostage to the broader economy," he added. The comments come one day after Carvana, an online used car marketplace, was the target of conflicting analyst recommendations. In a note out Tuesday, investment bank Jefferies kept its buy rating and raised its price target on Carvana shares to $400 from $375. Jefferies cited a low supply of used cars across the industry and strong demand. Meanwhile, JPMorgan downgraded the stock to neutral from ov...

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson on Thursday denied reports that the coffee company is running low on key supplies, telling CNBC it has enough cups and coffee to serve customers. There is "no shortage of cups, no shortage of coffee," Johnson said in an interview with Jim Cramer set to air on "Mad Money." Johnson was responding to earlier reports — including one from The Wall Street Journal — that said some Starbucks stores were short on cups and coffee syrups, among other things, as traffic at Starbucks rebounds from last year's slowdown. The article cited information from some store workers and an unnamed spokeswoman who said select markets were being hampered by the shortages. To be sure, Johnson said Starbucks continues to face operational challenges elsewhere that are testing the resiliency of the company's supply chain. "We've had some shortages in the bakery case, that certainly is true," he said. "If there's one area we've ...

Nike on Thursday reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and sales that topped analysts' estimates, fueled by record revenue in its largest market, North America. It also offered a better-than-expected sales outlook for the upcoming year, driven by optimism around its women's category, apparel business and Jordan brand. Nike continues to benefit from consumers seeking out comfortable clothing to wear for workouts but also around the house. Even as people return to schools, offices and other social settings, many are still searching for relaxed options such as sneakers and stretchy pants. Nike also saw a boost to its wholesale business — something that was largely inactive a year earlier during the Covid pandemic, when shopping malls and department stores had to temporarily shut their doors and put orders for merchandise on pause. Some of Nike's key wholesale partners include Dick's Sporting Goods, Foot Locker and JD Sports. Nike shares jumped more than 12% in after...

Supply chain disruptions and inflated prices are not abating yet, National Association of Manufacturers CEO Jay Timmons told CNBC on Thursday. "We're seeing rising cost pressures" due to workforce shortages and demand exceeding supply, Timmons said on "Squawk on the Street." "What that's doing is it's causing bottlenecks in a lot of the supply chain for manufacturers who make the finished goods." Timmons, whose Washington-based group is the largest manufacturers trade association in the U.S., said he's hopeful that supply bottlenecks won't be seen in the future as the economy continues to ramp up from the depths of the Covid pandemic. However, he added that "it is a problem right now and manufacturers are trying their best to deal with it." The nation's manufacturing skills gap, which is expected to result in 2.1 million unfilled jobs by 2030, could cost the U.S. economy as much as $1 trillion, according to a new stu...

Rite Aid CEO Heyward Donigan told CNBC on Thursday she's "cautiously optimistic" the U.S. would avoid another round of strict Covid restrictions despite the presence of the delta variant. "We all hope that enough people get vaccinated that we don't have the variant become so significant that our markets shut down again," Donigan said on "Squawk Box." Even so, the chief executive said the drug store chain was being judicious with its financial projections due, in part, to how unpredictable the coronavirus pandemic's impact on business has been. Shares of Rite Aid sank roughly 14% on Thursday, sending the company's stock market value under $1 billion, as Wall Street digested mixed first-quarter results and weaker earnings guidance. Rite Aid's forecast for adjusted EBITDA — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — came in at $440 million and $480 million in fiscal year 2022, below estimates of $524 million, ac...

A customer arrives at a Darden Restaurants Inc. Olive Garden location in San Antonio, Texas, U.S., on Thursday, June 14, 2018. Callaghan O'Hare | Bloomberg | Getty Images Darden Restaurants isn't seeing many deals on real estate right now despite the high number of permanent restaurant closures from the pandemic. "There's tremendous speculation in the real estate market driving prices," CEO Gene Lee told analysts on Thursday during the company's quarterly earnings call. Lee did not elaborate on what the speculation means for Darden. However, restaurant chains that survived the downturn were expecting to snap up closed locations at a discount or receive more accommodations from landlords, like permission to build a drive-thru lane. Industry tracker Black Box Intelligence estimates that 12% of full-service restaurants in the U.S. that were open before the pandemic have closed. Private equity firms and other investors have swooped in, betting on com...