Author: franperez66q@protonmail.com
Welcome to the Points Pro, where I answer your credit card and travel rewards questions each week. If you have a question you’d like answered, you can submit it here.This week, CNBC Select reader Kendall asks :Travel rewards sound great in theory, but there always seems to be a catch with blackout dates, transfer rules or inflated pricing. What are the best hidden-gem strategies for getting real value from points?(This question has been edited for clarity and brevity.)It’s understandable that Kendall’s frustrated when the promise of points doesn’t match the reality. Yes, there’s a lot you can do with that…
Digital Realty to buy Blackstone’s data center stake in deal valuing assets at $7.8 billion Source link
A short time back, we covered an announcement by Amazon that it would be hosting a useful quantum computer from its partner QuEra as soon as sometime in 2028. The system promised some eye-popping numbers compared to anything on the market today: over 10,000 individual qubits, each with an error rate low enough that the system could support hundreds of error-corrected logical qubits. But QuEra has to get there from its current hardware, which sits at 260 qubits that are relatively error-prone. Those details about how it was going to get there were left for last Wednesday, when QuEra announced…
Some analysts have questioned whether those recent productivity figures are reliable, in part, because some of the high growth spots are in residential areas, and that they could be explained in part by errors in the data, external.Nevertheless, many economists do think Greater Manchester has performed better than other UK city regions over the past 15 years – and they argue it’s justified to partially attribute this to the devolution of powers, particularly on transport, planning and housing.Devolution has helped to deliver this record on housing because the Greater Manchester mayoralty is empowered to set the city-region’s housing strategy, direct…
Comcast logo on the wall of a building at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, July 18, 2019.Roberto Machado Noa | Lightrocket | Getty ImagesAnalysts think Comcast is priming for deals. Comcast leadership says they’re wrong.The company announced Monday it plans to separate its two primary businesses — cable broadband and the media units of NBCUniversal and Sky. It’s the second major structural change for the decades-old company in recent months, and it’s raising questions of potential future deals for either half of the company. But on a call with investors to discuss the split, Comcast executives came ready with cold…
NBCUniversal to be split from Comcast in latest media shakeup Source link
Europe’s push to rein in Big Tech is ramping up, with the European Commission planning to announce new regulations for Google next month. The rules could see Google forced to play nicer with its EU competitors, but the company has some concerns. Google is framing this not as a manifestation of its anticompetitive bent, but as genuine concern for user privacy. Heather Adkins, Google’s VP of security engineering, told Wired that the EU’s proposals could lead to serious security and privacy issues. The potential changes come in two forms. First, regulators want Gemini dethroned as the sole integrated AI service…
“True to the motto of this city, I am going to do things differently,” Andy Burnham declared, a reference to the film 24 Hour Party People.His speech in Manchester did indeed show a rather different way of seeing and running the UK.The departing Greater Manchester mayor presented a diagnosis of what has caused economic malaise, rooted in his own experiences running the city and when he was previously in Cabinet.At its heart it is a critique of an unresponsive British state, adept at arguing with itself, rather than achieving real change and rebuilding the country.His solutions were ambitious, and mostly…
Samuel Boivin | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesMicron Technology’s monster post-earnings rally is almost gone.Shares of the maker of memory chips traded as low as $1,023.65 on Monday, down 18% from the 52-week high reached on Thursday. Monday’s session low is also nearly $25 below the stock’s closing level on Wednesday before Micron reported fiscal third-quarter revenues that blew past analyst expectations.The sharp about-face has spurred some dip-buying among options traders in Micron, but flows across the sector are sharply divided depending on the stock or ETF.Stock Chart IconStock chart iconMicron Technology shares in the past five trading sessionsIn Micron, call volume…
Contributions to Trump Accounts will not be subject to gift tax reporting under the safe harbor rules, according to guidance issued Monday by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service. As a result, parents, guardians, grandparents and others can contribute up to $5,000 a year in after-tax dollars to a Trump Account and they will not be required to file a gift tax return.”By granting this relief, the IRS has responded to concerns raised by taxpayers who planned to make contributions to a Trump account but worried such donations would trigger the gift tax reporting rules,”…