Hello friends and Fortune readers.
It’s July, which means that earnings season is nigh. Over the next few weeks expect a lot of news about how companies fared in the second quarter of 2014. I think that a clever person could likely invent some sort of way to gamble on earnings, though I’m not sure of the legality of such an enterprise. In any event, here is what you need to know about business today.
1. The JOLTS survey will be announced for May.
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey data for May will be released at around 10 a.m. ET today. The survey follows a surprisingly good jobs report last week, so it should be interesting to see how the JOLTS data jibe with those numbers. At the end up April there were 4.5 million job openings, up from 4.2 million at the end of March. If that number goes up, it would obviously be good news for job seekers.
2. Samsung earnings drop.
The smartphone wars continue. Samsung is on track for its worst results in two years after low-cost Chinese competition took a big bite out of its core smartphones business in the second quarter.
3. Tesla has been sued in China
Elon Musk has a new problem to deal with. His electric car company Tesla is being sued over trademark infringement in China, Reuters reports. Musk desperately wants to make Tesla a global brand. In today’s climate, that means getting into China. Tesla vehicles began arriving in the country in April, triggering the lawsuit from businessman Zhan Baosheng, who had already registered a trademark for the name in China.
4. Could be beer man be an endangered species at ball parks?
Baseball fans in Minnesota are now able to fill their own beer cups, reports USA Today. That’s right, just like the soda machine at McDonalds. Baseball fans who want a brew can fill their own cup with whatever beer they want to their heart’s content (limit 1 48 oz. cup every 15 minutes.) I think we have an early entry for Fortune’s 2015 Greatest Things About America list …
5. Taylor Swift opines in the Journal.
She wears short skirts/I wear t-shirts/She’s cheer captain/And I write for the Wall Street Journal.
Taylor Swift, best known for writing songs about her exes, has switched from lyrics to prose to pen a column on the future of the music industry for the Journal as part of the paper’s 125th anniversary celebrations. Swift thinks the music business will be just fine, thank you, and that people still buy records from artists that really matter to them.
