Gas Demand Plunges Amid Virus Lockdowns

With coronavirus lockdowns keeping Americans home, U.S. weekly gasoline demand showed the largest decline last week since September 2019.The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that for the week ended March 20, gasoline demand dropped by 859,000 barrels per day to just over 8.8 millio...

By Matthew Heller • March 27, 2020

Software Finance Chief Adamant Not to Be a ‘CF-NO’

When Mahesh Patel joined Druva as its CFO in 2014, the cloud-based data protection software company had a single product and $10 million in revenue. Today there are four product lines, and the company’s subscription offerings are generating annual recurring revenue of more than $100 million.Mahes...

By David McCann • March 25, 2020

Explore the Trendline➔

Tax policy shifts: What CFOs need to know to stay ahead

Discover how evolving tax policies are creating new opportunities and challenges for CFOs.

By CFO.com staff

European Firms Get Billions in Virus Protections

European governments have committed more than $1 trillion in state loans, credit guarantees, tax deferrals and other measures to shield businesses from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.In one of the boldest moves, France announced Monday that it will guarantee hundreds of billions worth of ...

By Matthew Heller • March 18, 2020

Fed Unveils Plan to Shore up Commercial Paper

The U.S. Federal Reserve moved on Tuesday to shore up the commercial paper market to ease funding pressures on companies amid the coronavirus outbreak.The Fed announced it will revive the Commercial Paper Funding Facility, a program first introduced during the financial crisis, to maintain the fl...

By Matthew Heller • March 17, 2020

Companies Brace for Impacts to Top & Bottom Lines

CFOs are expecting the COVID-19 pandemic to him them where it hurts most: their top and bottom lines.In a PricewaterhouseCoopers poll of 50 U.S. and Mexico finance leaders conducted March 9-11, more than half (58%) said they expect decreased revenue, profits, or both this year as a result of COVI...

By David McCann • March 16, 2020

Fed Repo Offers to Pump $1.5T Into Markets

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has stepped in to provide liquidity in the Treasury bill market, citing “highly unusual disruptions” due to the coronavirus crisis.The central bank began Thursday to increase its repurchase operations, offering $500 billion in three-month repos to be followed ...

By Matthew Heller • March 13, 2020

U.S. Producer Prices Fall 0.6% in February

U.S. wholesale inflation fell by the most in five years in February — and economists expect disinflationary pressures to continue as the coronavirus suppresses demand.The Labor Department reported Thursday that its producer price index for final demand dropped 0.6% last month, the biggest decline...

By Matthew Heller • March 12, 2020

Cyberattacks Could Cripple U.S. Financial System

In 1999, NASA lost its $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter due to a careless error: the engineers forgot to convert measurements from imperial to metric. This single point failure had cascading effects, with the probe ultimately disappearing altogether.In the 21st century, first-order, single-point...

By David McCann • March 11, 2020

Oil Prices Rebound on U.S. Stimulus Hopes

Crude oil prices rallied on Tuesday amid hopes the White House will stimulate the economy to soften the impact of the coronavirus and that Saudi Arabia and Russia will resolve their differences over oil production.One day after Brent crude plummeted 24%, the global benchmark rallied 8.3% to $37.2...

By Matthew Heller • March 10, 2020

Locally Grown CEOs Manage for the Longer Term

What confidence can shareholders have in top executives’ ability to manage for the long run — as leaders might do, for example, in sustaining a company’s investments in research and development even as they strive to meet earnings forecasts?A survey some years ago of 400 CFOs found that about 80%...

By David McCann • March 10, 2020

10-Year Treasury Hits Record Low on Virus Fears

Investors spooked by the coronavirus outbreak continued to flock to the safe haven of government debt on Friday, driving the yield on the 10-year Treasury note to record lows.After sinking to an all-time low of 0.6572% early in the day, the yield on 10-year debt bounced back to around 0.74%. The ...

By Matthew Heller • March 6, 2020

U.S. Productivity Grows at Revised 1.2% Rate in Q4

U.S. worker productivity rebounded at a slower rate than previously reported in the fourth quarter of 2019 while unit labor costs rose moderately, suggesting inflation will remain tame.The Labor Department reported Thursday that nonfarm productivity, which measures hourly output per worker, incre...

By Matthew Heller • March 5, 2020

Fed Cuts Interest Rates in Emergency Virus Move

The U.S. Federal Reserve did a monetary about-turn on Tuesday in response to the coronavirus outbreak, announcing an emergency cut in the benchmark interest rate to preempt a sharp downturn in the economy.As recently as late January, the Fed had signaled it had no plans to raise or lower borrowin...

By Matthew Heller • March 3, 2020

OECD Urges Immediate Action on Coronavirus

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development on Monday urged governments to act immediately to address the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak, predicting the disease could slash growth in half this year.In its latest interim economic assessment, the OECD said growth would sl...

By Matthew Heller • March 2, 2020

U.S. Consumer Spending Increases 0.2% in January

U.S. consumer spending slowed in January while inflation remained low, possibly setting the stage for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates amid concerns that the coronavirus outbreak could trigger a recession.The Commerce Department reported Friday that consumer spending, which accounts for ...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 28, 2020

Airlines Brace for Profit Hit From Coronavirus

The coronavirus outbreak is raising fears of a broad slowdown in travel that could bring the U.S. airline industry’s long run of profitability to an end.U.S. airlines in 2019 posted their 10th consecutive year of profitability but their shares have already taken a hit as investors worry about the...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 27, 2020

Sizing Up the U.K.’s Flatlining Productivity

Most of the world may think we’re long past the financial crisis of 2008. But new research suggests that in the United Kingdom, and perhaps elsewhere, the harm has been much more lasting — and still needs correcting.According to new data that only makes the timing of Brexit more worrisome, during...

By David McCann • Feb. 27, 2020

Salesforce to Buy Vlocity in Vertical CRM Move

After months of speculation about a possible deal, Salesforce has agreed to buy Vlocity for $1.33 billion as it seeks to build its industry-specific CRM software business.Vlocity’s solutions for industries including communications and media, energy and utilities, health, insurance, and financial ...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 26, 2020

Intuit Eyes Millennials With $7B Credit Karma Buy

Intuit is buying credit score app Credit Karma for about $7.1 billion in a move to expand its financial product offerings.The acquisition, the largest ever for Intuit, will give the maker of TurboTax and QuickBooks financial software access to one of the most popular financial applications for yo...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 25, 2020

Wexner Sells 55% of Victoria’s Secret for $525M

Leslie Wexner’s L Brands company is selling its controlling stake in Victoria’s Secret to private equity firm Sycamore Partners for $525 million, having failed to turn around what was once a lingerie behemoth.The turnaround effort had been led by Wexner, a retail legend whose decision to part way...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 20, 2020

Dell Sells RSA for $2B to Streamline Portfolio

Dell Technologies has agreed to sell RSA for $2.075 billion to a consortium of investors led by private equity firm Symphony Technology Group in another move to streamline its security offerings.The deal will bring the consortium five security products — RSA Archer, RSA NetWitness Platform, RSA S...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 19, 2020

Chinese Province Offers Coronavirus Coverage

China’s Hainan province has teamed up with a consortium of insurers to try to ease the disruption for businesses hit by the country’s coronavirus epidemic.According to the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the Hainan government will provide China’s first insurance policy against ...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 17, 2020

Nasdaq Offers Exclusive Home for Small Cap Issuers

Nasdaq is seeking to become the exclusive trading venue for the small cap companies that are listed on the exchange.Currently, small caps have “unlisted trading privileges” (UTP), which allow their shares to be traded on any of the 13 national securities exchanges even if they are not listed ther...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 6, 2020

EBay Shares Jump on Report of $30B ICE Offer

EBay shares got a bump on reports that the owner of the New York Stock Exchange had offered to buy the struggling online marketplace though some analysts questioned the rationale for a deal.Intercontinental Exchange said eBay had not “engaged in a meaningful way” and the companies were not in neg...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 5, 2020

Middle Market CFOs Pursue Aggressive 2020 Agendas

Many middle market companies, relatively unfazed by the specter of recession and ongoing international trade tensions, aren’t opting to playing it safe by socking away cash and scaling back expansion plans, a new survey shows.In a poll by BDO of 700 finance chiefs at U.S. companies with revenue b...

By David McCann • Feb. 4, 2020