This happened for the first time for the conglomerate since 2009’s global recession. From being the most valuable company – worth  $400 billion - in the S&P 500 in 2004, GE is now struggling with cratering share prices amidst the company’s profit declines and massive debt.It even got eliminated from the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index earlier this year, after having been part of it for around 110 years. In an attempt to pay off its debts, GE is selling off several of its businesses including its railroad division, Thomas Edison's light-bulb unit, Baker Hughes and the MRI-machine making health-care unit. What’s more, GE Power is mired in troubles with its gas turbines failures and related plant shutdowns.

Coins skyrocketed in value, leading to increased media coverage; more media coverage meant greater public recognition of (and interest in) crypto and blockchain than ever before.2018 has seen the climate around cryptocurrency regain some semblance of normalcy – something that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin described in an interview with Bloomberg as a “ceiling” after the intense growth of the previous year. According to Buterin, the so-called ceiling exists because the promotional strategy of blockchain and cryptocurrency’s nascent days – using marketing as a way to drive adoption – is reaching a “dead end,” the byproduct of increased public awareness in the wake of 2017.

Now they have designs on integrating blockchain into other platforms and services as part of an ambitious data-mining effort – including Office 365 Outlook, SharePoint Online, Salesforce, Dynamics 365 CRM Online, SAP, and even Twitter, says Matt Kerner, the general manager of the cloud computing service. Microsoft believes that by allowing its customers to port their data from these platforms into the cloud, then onto the blockchain, they will be able to standardize massive amounts of data at scale, then mine it for insights – part of the evolution of Big Data, explained Kerner.“Blockchain empowers the next step [for collaboration] – enabling a single, authentic data set shared across counterparties,” Kerner told CoinDesk.

The brutal collapse of the country’s economy has led to rising crime and a scarcity of basic resources – including food and medicine – for its citizens. The South American nation holds the largest reserves of crude oil in the world and was once awash with cash, but severe income inequality, corruption, increased oil supply from elsewhere around the globe, and international sanctions have minted a political crisis of epic proportions for President Nicolás Maduro and his administration.Amid the crisis, the country’s currency (called the bolívar) has been devalued to the point that inflation is in the quintuple digits. Such hyperinflation has been a part of life for Venezuelans since 2014, leading its citizens to search for a viable means of exchange.

Verizon  Communications Inc. is offering voluntary separation buyout packages to reportedly many of its employees.On Tuesday, the telecommunication company said about the matter,  "It is a voluntary plan and offers employees three weeks' pay for every year of service".

Twitter wants to get serious about reining in dehumanizing language and abusive tweets. While its ban on “hateful conduct” might be able to curb attacks directed at religion, gender, sexual orientation or race of individuals,  there are apparently other categories that might not fall under the purview of the aforementioned rule but are nonetheless important to address with regards to protecting people's dignity.In a blog, Twitter wrote about "dehumanizing language" by referring to scholars like Susan Benesch who explain that dehumanization includes referring to people as things such as insects, despised animals, bacteria, and more. Twitter wants to implement stricter rules to delete or prohibit on its platform any language or threat that dehumanizes any individual.

Instagram founders are leaving their company. Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger founded the photo-sharing app back in 2010.Instagram’s success is evident in its user numbers running into tens of millions and a growth reportedly faster than Facebook itself. But now, Systrom, Instagram's CEO, and Krieger, its chief technology officer, have decided to take some “time off”  to explore their “curiosity and creativity again," according to Systrom’s post late Monday.

The biopharma company Amarin might be winning hearts (and saving them) with its formulation of fish oil, called Vascepa. Potentially mitigating skepticism surrounding the long-term benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, tests conducted by Amarin support Vascepa’s potential.The results could potentially hail Amarin’s Vascepa as a sought-after cardiovascular therapy for Americans, which makes one wonder if the stock price could follow. 

On Saturday, the U.S. cable television giant outbid 21st Century Fox at an auction to acquire European pay-TV broadcaster Sky Plc.At the end of three rounds of bidding, it was decided that Comcast will acquire Sky at  £17.28 ($22.65) per share, thereby valuing the latter at around £30.6 billion ($40.1 billion). Comcast shareholders/investors are reportedly concerned that the company might have paid too high a price (more than twice Fox's initial bid in December 2016) for the acquisition.

Handbag maker Michael Kors Holdings Ltd. might buy Gianni Versace SpA . A Bloomberg report said that Michael Kors might announce a deal to purchase Italian luxury fashion company Versace, valuing the latter at about $2 billion - according to people familiar with the matter who did not want to be named.Versace reportedly wants to put itself up for sale, and companies that have shown interest in recent months include Kors, Tiffany & Co., LVMH, PVH Corp. and Tapestry, according to a report on Sunday by Women’s Wear Daily. No official statement has been given out by either Michael Kors or Versace regarding the acquisition deal, and even people familiar with the matter said that no final agreement has been reached yet.  

Sears CEO has warned the company to take action before its mounting debt and constraints in cash get out of hand. The retail company has $134 million in debt payments due October 15, according to CEO Eddie Lampert, who controls most of the company's shares through his hedge fund." Sears has been hurting from $11.7 billion in losses since 2010, alongwith a 60% drop in sales during the same period.

Gold is set to have its biggest miner. Canada's Barrick Gold is buying rival Randgold, and the merged company will be more than $18 billion in market value.According to the two companies' statement on Monday, the new entity will control five of the world's top ten gold mines and have "the largest gold ‎reserves amongst senior gold peers". John Thornton, Barrick's executive chairman who will continue to hold the position in the new company, indicated that the focus will be on boosting returns versus the number of ounces produced.

Music lovers, get ready for what might be the world’s biggest audio entertainment company. Early Monday, it was announced that radio broadcasting company SiriusXM Holdings Inc. will be buying music streaming service Pandora Media Inc. in a $3.5 billion all-stock deal.Last year, SiriusXM had already bought 19% of Pandora's stock for $480 million. SiriusXM has 36 million subscribers in North America.

Tesla might be losing another top executive. A Bloomberg report said that Liam O’Connor, vice president of global supply management of the electric car company, has resigned - according to people who did not want to be named since the matter is not officially announced yet.This month, the chief accounting officer and heads of human resources handed in their resignation. Tesla is losing its senior executives amidst its CEO Elon Musk getting embroiled in controversies, lawsuits  and even investigations from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice regarding his August 7 tweet to take the firm private and then backing from it just a few weeks later.

Let’s look at some statistics: Microsoft is trading at all time high (114.26 at the market close on September 21, 2018). On September 19th the company has raised its quarterly dividend from $0.42/share to $0.46/share. Microsoft is up almost 33% YTD. The company stock is up 98% for the past two years. Microsoft is up 243% for the past 5 years. This is rather amazing statistics for the company that many people thought was stalled in its development just a few years ago. A few more facts: Microsoft revenue has accelerated for six quarters and reached 17.5% in the fiscal fourth quarter. A little bit more than 75% of the shares float is held by institutions. The market capitalization of the company is approximately $875 billions – it is the third largest publicly traded company in the world. If you invested $1,000 in Microsoft 30 years ago, it would have grown to $317,000 by now.

Fintech companies received some good news at the end of July, when the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) announced it would accept applications for special bank charters that, if approved, would allow fintech businesses to operate nationally. This was great news on the surface, but fintech’s regulatory climate has never been straightforward – news welcomed by the companies themselves was met with strong opposition from states and inter-state organizations. The OCC is responsible for ensuring the safety of the national banking system, for fostering competition by allowing banks to offer new products, and for efficiently overseeing banks without creating an undue regulatory burden, among other duties.By integrating best practices now – risk assessment, building systems in response to identified risks, and leveraging data in pursuit of both of these goals – fintech companies can ease the future conversations with regulators while setting thems

The system as currently constructed is seriously speed-deficient, only able to process around seven transactions per second; a traditional credit card company’s network like Visa’s, for example, can process tens of thousands of transactions in the same amount of time.Lack of speed has hindered the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies for payments, with most enthusiasts instead of focusing on their ability to store value. But if David Chaum, who built a privacy-centric digital currency with his company, DigiCash, in the mid-1990s, is to be believed, the days of molasses-slow processing may be over.

With fiat currency in each country significantly devalued by inflation, limited by capital controls, or both, citizens have been turning to cryptocurrencies as a dependable store of value and means of exchange. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts are, in turn, excited by the prospects for blanket adoption in those countries and elsewhere – a process called ‘hyperbitcoinization,’s which signifies the point where people exit fiat currency for bitcoin after extensive fiat devaluation.Others have tempered their enthusiasm, convinced that the relative isolation of these occurrences means adoption has little chance to spread outward. Venezuelans have turned to crypto in increasing numbers, driven by both extraordinary inflation and capital controls imposed by the government in 2003 that make it difficult to obtain US dollars.

Dubai’s flagship airline  Emirates might want to buy Abu Dhabi’s Etihad, according to a Bloomberg report, citing people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the matter is confidential.The report suggests that there might have been preliminary talks of Emirates’ considering an acquisition of the main airline business of Etihad.  Both the airlines first refused to comment and then denied that any such talks happened, as mentioned in the Bloomberg article.

Lithium is a metal used in batteries of electric cars. Tesla will ask its battery suppliers to purchase lithium from  Ganfeng Lithium Co., as mentioned in the China-based firm’s filing to the Shenzhen exchange on Friday.Ganfeng’s lithium compounds capacity may rise to 75,000 tons of carbonate equivalent at the end of this year, which would make it the industry’s second-largest, according to CRU Group research cited in its IPO prospectus.