Good evening,
Stocks were up Thursday after a very mixed up Wednesday at the NYSE. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 rose 0.2% each, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.3%. …Aluminum costs keep dropping, benefiting manufacturers. The low costs are the effect of new rules to get aluminum out of storage faster. …Greece submitted another round of proposals to eurozone officials Thursday night as deadline looms. Parliament will vote Friday on the proposed actions. …The U.S. is facing a deadline of its own with Iran. Secretary of State John Kerry says they’re more focused on getting the deal right than hitting the deadline for Congress. “We believe we are making real progress toward a comprehensive deal,” Kerry says.
We all got hacked. Or so it seems anyway. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management confirmed Thursday that 21.5 million people who have undergone background checks since 2000 had their personal information stolen. This is in addition to the 4.2 million federal workers that had their information stolen in a separate incident. China is the lead suspect behind the hacks. Reuters
But the NYSE wasn’t hacked. The stock exchange said Thursday that Wednesday’s three and a half hour outage was due to a botched technology upgrade. Customers started experiencing problems communicating with the NYSE computers after 7 am. Bloomberg
It’s coming down. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed a law Thursday to remove the Confederate flag from the Capitol. Haley said the June 17 slaying of black victims in South Carolina helped lead to her decision. Haley had supported keeping the flag on the state’s ground years before. NBC
Proctor & Gamble blows a lipsticked kiss goodbye to its beauty brands. In a $15 billion deal, P&G is spinning off 43 brands, including CoverGirl. Coty, owner of Rimmel and Calvin Klein perfume, will be taking the business, as well as Clairol hair care and Max Factor makeup. P&G’s exiting brands do a total of $5.9 billion in annual sales. USAToday
Tennis just got hot. Andy Murray will be taking on seven-time winner Roger Federer in the semi-final at Wimbledon Friday. The battle will be a repeat of the 2012 final that resulted in a Federer win. This is guaranteed to be one of the top matches of Wimbledon. BBC
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