CNBC.com’s MacKenzie Sigalos brings you the day’s top business news headlines. On today’s show, CNBC.com’s Todd Haselton explains what the upcoming seasons of smartphone releases might look like in an economy with 10.2% unemployment. Plus, CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa breaks down President Trump’s executive order banning business transactions with Chinese app WeChat and the potentially massive ramifications for corporate America.
Trump issues executive orders banning U.S. transactions with WeChat and TikTok in 45 days
President Donald Trump on Thursday issued executive orders banning U.S. transactions with Chinese tech firms Tencent and ByteDance.
Tencent owns Chinese messaging app WeChat, and ByteDance is the Beijing-based parent company of the widely popular short video-sharing app TikTok.
The ban will take effect in 45 days and may attract retaliation from Beijing.
While the scope of the ban remains unclear, the executive orders said that after 45 days, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross “shall identify the transactions” that will be subjected to the prohibition.
Google’s new $350 phone packs a killer camera
Google on Monday announced the Pixel 4a, a $350 Android phone that will be available on Aug. 30. It’s an affordable phone, at least compared with the $1,000-plus smartphones out there, but competes directly with Apple’s iPhone SE, which launched in April and starts at $399.
Google’s Android phones aren’t nearly as popular as Apple or Samsung’s Android phones in the U.S. But last year’s Pixel 3a helped it pick up some momentum. “With the launch of Pixel 3a in May, overall Pixel unit sales in Q2 grew more than two times year over year,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google parent Alphabet, said in July 2019 during Alphabet’s second-quarter 2019 earnings call, without saying how many were sold.
Payrolls increase by nearly 1.8 million, topping expectations despite coronavirus resurgence
Two months of record-setting payroll growth slowed in July but was still better than Wall Street estimates even as a rise in coronavirus cases put a damper on the struggling U.S. economy.
Nonfarm payrolls increased 1.763 million for the month, the Labor Department reported Friday. The unemployment rate fell to 10.2% from its previous 11.1%, also better than the estimates from economists surveyed by Dow Jones.
