CNBC.com’s MacKenzie Sigalos brings you the day’s top business news headlines. On today’s show, CNBC.com’s Maggie Fitzgerald explains where retail trading interest is headed after GameStop reports earnings. Plus, Amazon’s latest incentive for hourly workers is free college education.
GameStop staged a stunning intraday comeback from its post-earnings sell-off on Thursday as retail investors looked past the lack of clarity on turnaround plans and piled into the meme star.
Shares of the video game retailer closed the session 0.2% higher at $199.18 in heavy trading after losing as much as 10.5% at its session low of $178 apiece.
The initial drop came as GameStop failed to provide an outlook for the upcoming quarters and details on its e-commerce transformation, which disappointed Wall Street analysts. But signs emerged that small investors on Reddit’s chatroom WallStreetBets decided to buy the dip in the name, pushing the stock higher.
GME was the single most popular ticker mention on the forum, overtaking previous stars of the show Clover Health and SPY (the exchange-traded fund that tracks the S&P 500), according to alternative research provider Quiver Quantitative.
Amazon said Thursday it will offer to pay 100% of college tuition for its 750,000 U.S. hourly employees.
The e-commerce giant is following the lead of other large U.S. companies that are dangling perks such as education benefits or more pay to woo workers in a tight job market.
Starting in January, Amazon said, it will cover the cost of college tuition, fees and textbooks for hourly employees in its operations network after 90 days of employment. It will also begin covering high school diploma programs, GEDs and English as a second language certifications for employees. Operations workers include employees in Amazon’s sprawling network of warehouses and distribution centers.
The benefit will apply to hundreds of education institutions across the country, Amazon said. Amazon previously offered to pay for 95% of tuition, fees and textbooks for hourly associates through its career choice program.
A Los Angeles megamansion once expected to list for $500 million has gone into receivership after the owner defaulted on more than $165 million in loans and debt, according to court filings.
The 105,000-square-foot Bel Air estate, known as “The One,” was placed into receivership by the Los Angeles County Superior Court and is expected to be relisted at a lower price in the coming months, according to people familiar with the property.
The receivership marks a stunning reversal for “The One” and its flashy developer, Nile Niami, who often touted the property as his “life mission” and “the biggest, most expensive home in the urban world.”
Expected to hit the market in 2017 with a price tag of $500 million, “The One” has been dogged by repeated delays, funding problems and changing strategies. The home stretches like an ultra-modern palace over eight acres on a hilltop overlooking LA. It has nine bedrooms, multiple kitchens, a nightclub, four-lane bowling alley, salon, gym, 50-seat theater, a running track and an underground garage for 50 cars, with two auto turntables. Its seven water features include multiple pools, a Jacuzzi and a moat that surrounds the house. The master bedroom suite is 4,000 square feet. Every door in the house is electric, along with all the toilets. Niami had planned a “jellyfish room” and ice bar but both proved too costly.
