Interest in Apple Inc.’s newest products, including the HomePod smart speaker, appears to be picking up, which could help the company gain a competitive advantage over Amazon Inc. in the sector. According to a Raymond James survey of 500 consumers in June, about 14% of iPhone owners intend to buy…

The Last Word Take it Easy on the Boss; There’s a World to Save Consider that it’s your bosses, not you, who provide half the country with their health care insurance. July 7, 2017 by HR, I bet you’ve grown weary of people telling you how to do your job. I’m not talking about your corporate…

Before young American men get back to work, they should switch off the video console. Younger men’s working hours have declined more than those of older men over the last 15 years, according to a working paper by researchers at Princeton University, the University of Chicago and the University of…

Benefits With Benefits, It’s Good to Get Back to the Basics It’s easy to overlook the what and why of your benefits offerings. Here are 7 best practices to re-establish your comprehensive plan. July 6, 2017 When faced with increasing employee health care cost, budgetary pressures and pending renewal…

New York Markets After Hours Market Snapshot Winners and Losers Home Industries Internet/Online Services The Wall Street Journal Get email alerts The Wall Street Journal By Published: July 6, 2017 5:01 p.m. ET Share Music-streaming platform consolidates in bid for profitability Getty Images Alex…

E-commerce has already changed your local mall. Now it’s changing your wallet. As more consumers do their shopping online, they’ve said goodbye to popular brick-and-mortar stores . Now, experts say they should start saying goodbye to the credit cards that go with them. Online shopping has led to…

Workforce Smart Lockers Open Options for Workplace Wellness and Safety Innovative vending machines put everything from bike parts to fire extinguishers at employees’ fingertips. July 5, 2017 by Hull & Knarr’s workout room provides a bright atmosphere to go along with its work culture. Photo courtesy…

She went in style. Or did she? Lucinda Chambers, former fashion director of British Vogue and a 25-year veteran of that magazine, was fired from her post after the new editor-in-chief Edward Enninful took over. She told the fashion blog Vestoj : “A month and a half ago I was fired from Vogue. It…

American homeowners can take pride in these prices. At the nadir of the housing market in 2012, homebuyers had to pay an average premium of almost 29%, or $209 per square foot, to live in communities with a higher share of gay, lesbian and bisexual residents. This year, homebuyers will need to pay a…

No, Amazon and Apple stock are not crashing. But incorrect stock data on the popular Google Finance and Yahoo Finance sites appeared to be freaking out some investors Monday evening. As of 8 p.m. Eastern, Google Finance said Amazon.com Inc. shares were down more than 87%, to $123.47. On Yahoo…

U.S. tech stocks may have posted their worst performance in seven months in June, but they are still among the top dogs when it comes to brand power. The latest ranking from WPP’s Kantar Millward Brown shows that the elites of the most valuable brands in the world are mostly tech companies, and…

Twitter screenshot President Donald Trump on Sunday tweeted a doctored video of him body slamming a man with the CNN logo as his head. President Donald Trump continued his weeklong Twitter tirade against the media Sunday, tweeting a doctored pro wrestling video showing Trump body slamming an…

Benefits Contracting a Cure for Prescription Drug Costs As specialty drugs siphon employers’ benefit spend, prices of more common drugs are also climbing. Can PBMs be part of the cost cure or another pain point? July 1, 2017 by Specialty drug prices were continually creeping up for the American…

WASHINGTON—A longtime Republican activist who led an operation hoping to obtain Hillary Clinton emails from hackers listed senior members of the Trump campaign, including some who now serve as top aides in the White House, in a recruitment document for his effort. The activist, Peter W. Smith, named…

Getty Images Things could get interesting in the stock market next week. It may be a holiday-shortened week in the stock market, but investors can expect plenty of fireworks to keep them on edge. From economic data to the tech sector’s meltdown and even President Donald Trump’s fusillade of tweets,…

Many Americans have a love-hate relationship with their iPhone. Ten years ago , when late Apple AAPL, -2.00% co-founder Steve Jobs announced the release of the first generation iPhone, he said it was like having “your life in your pocket,” but in the decade since, the smartphone has truly taken on a…

Shares of Blue Apron Holdings Inc. opened at $10 Thursday, in line with the company’s issue price, as the stock made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange in a price-sensitive market. The opening price puts Blue Apron’s APRN, +3.55% public market capitalization at $1.9 billion, below its private…

The Practical Employer One State Looks to put Enforcement Muscle Behind Workplace Concealed Carry Law Instead of complaining about it and threatening non-compliance, now is the time to invest in implementing an Active Shooter/Emergency Action Plan. June 29, 2017 by It’s been six months since Ohio…

Investors have lost their appetite for the initial public offering of meal-kit delivery company Blue Apron, fearing the emergence of Amazon.com as a competitor with its acquisition of Whole Foods. Late Wednesday, New York-based Blue Apron Holdings APRN, +0.00% priced its shares ahead of its initial…

The Practical Employer More on Why Holding Lawyers Liable for Retaliation to a Client’s Employee is a Bad Ruling As the 9th Circuit's Arias v. Raimondo ruling showed, it’s dangerous for courts to hold an employer’s lawyer liable for retaliation against the employees of the lawyer’s client. June 28,…

Copy editors at the New York Times Co. can no longer keep quiet about their growing frustrations regarding the direction of the paper. In a letter sent to Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Managing Editor Joseph Kahn from the Times copy desk, the editors said they felt betrayed and disrespected in…

The richest people on the planet just added new members to their exclusive club. The world’s ultra-high net worth population — individuals with $30 million or more in assets — grew by 3.5% to 226,450 individuals in 2016 after a sharp fall a year earlier, according to new data by global wealth…

The Practical Employer 9th Circuit’s Arias v. Raimondo Ruling May Be the Year’s Worst Employment Law Decision Add the 9th Circuit to my California tourist stops in July, because this decision is flat-out bonkers. June 27, 2017 by I’ll be vacationing in California with my family the first two weeks…

As it prepares to go public, Blue Apron Holdings needs its customers to eat more. Blue Apron APRN, +0.00% has been increasing its marketing efforts , in hopes of bringing in and holding on to more customers, but those costs have been weighing on the company’s margins, delaying potential…

Sprint Corp. has entered into exclusive talks with Charter Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp. as the cable companies explore a deal that could bolster their plans to offer wireless service, according to people familiar with the matter. Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son and the cable firms have…

Costco Wholesale Corp. investors enjoyed a nice bounce Monday, after Raymond James suggested the rapid selloff in the wake of Amazon.com Inc.’s deal to buy Whole Foods Market Inc. created the best buying opportunity in no less than three years. The stock COST, +1.99% surged 2.1% in afternoon trade,…

Same-sex couples have been on a wedding bonanza. As of June 2017, over 1 million LGBT people in the U.S. are married to someone of the same sex, meaning there have been 547,000 same-sex marriages in the U.S. to date, up from around 491,000 a year ago, according to the Williams Institute for Sexual…

The Jeff Bezos empire is massive. It encompasses not just e-commerce, but also news organizations, robotics companies and coupon sites. Oh, and ever heard of Google, Airbnb or Uber? Jeff Bezos is an investor in those companies, too. Bezos is the third-richest person in the world, trailing only Bill…

Getty Images Bed Bath & Beyond says it’s fleet of about 1,500 stores is an asset for a variety of reasons Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. talked up the value of its more than 1,500 stores as an avenue for cutting advertising costs, but SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analysts think the lack of marketing spend…

How much are the wealthiest people in each state making? More than ever, a new report from Forbes found . Most of the people on the list were on it last year — and collectively, they’re worth $682 billion more than last year. Overall, the net worth of each person averages $14.4 billion in the 2017…

Benefits Just Another Day at the Office for Pets at Work There’s even a holiday recognizing the benefits of a pet at work — though some contend it may be something to sneeze at. June 22, 2017 by As soon as Norman enters the offices of Pandera Labs in downtown Chicago, he runs around and says hello…

In interviews with dozens of money managers, a consistent theme has been that during this bull market is it has been very difficult for any active strategy to beat a broad index. The bull market, which began in March 2009, has been driven in great part by the unprecedented period of low interest…

Working Well To Encourage Health, You Just Need a Little Nudge Let's recap some benefits takeaways from Day 2 of SHRM’s annual conference, where people from MetLife, Google and more shared their ideas. June 20, 2017 by Another day at the Society for Human Resource Management’s 2017 conference in New…

U.S. stocks were set for a slightly higher open on Tuesday, with the S&P and Dow on track to push further into record territory as technology shares continued to rebound from a recent selloff. A raft of Federal Reserve speakers were also being closely watched by investors for any hints of future…

Editor's Notebook SHRM17: It’s All About #Cindy, Funerals and Shoes Weather.com is everyone's best friend at this year's SHRM conference as New Orleans girds for Tropical Storm #Cindy. June 20, 2017 by SHRM attendees are bracing for Tropical Storm Cindy. Walking through New Orleans’ Ernest N. Morial…

John Mackey, the chief executive of Whole Foods Market Inc., sounded positively smitten Friday at a town hall meeting in which he told employees about the company’s pending acquisition by Amazon.com Inc. “It was actually mutual friends set us up on a blind date,” Mackey said, according to a…

Getty Images Amazon will offer Prime memberships that are suited to customer lifestyles, one expert said. Now that Amazon.com Inc. has announced it’s acquiring Whole Foods Market Inc., will there be a new Prime membership program, like Prime + Organic? Christian Magoon, CEO of Amplify ETF, thinks…

Workforce Benefits Are a Large, Important Part of Total Compensation On this first day of SHRM’s annual conference, the association released its annual benefits survey which comments on trends in the employee benefits space. June 19, 2017 by The view of New Orleans from the SHRM conference. The 2017…

Amazon.com Inc.’s plan to purchase of Whole Foods Market Inc. was met with investor giddiness on Friday. But often this early rush of excitement yields over time to a different kind of story: the one where the acquisition that looked good on paper just didn’t work out in the real world. Amazon AMZN,…

As Amazon.com Inc. gears up for a much bigger brick-and-mortar retail presence with its $13.7 billion deal for Whole Foods Market Inc. , it comes armed to fight the monster it created: online price comparisons. The practice of using a smartphone to check for better prices, mostly on Amazon AMZN,…