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How ‘dark patterns’ can trap consumers The FTC also sued Amazon last week for allegedly using “dark patterns” to trap people into recurring subscriptions for its Prime service without consent.   Dark patterns are a “manipulative” and unlawful design trick, examples of which include pre-checked boxes, hard-to-find-and-read disclosures and confusing cancellation policies, the FTC said. They pose “heightened risks” for consumers online, it added. “This is our second dark pattern lawsuit over the last week,” …

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading. Lucid Group — Lucid shares jumped 9% after the electric vehicle maker said it will provide powertrain and battery systems to British luxury automaker Aston Martin. WSFS Financial — The regional bank added 4.4% after D.A. Davidson upgraded the stock to buy from neutral, noting WSFS could benefit from a higher-for-longer interest rate environment. The gain helped the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE), which traded …

By Frank Holmes Imagine a new digital environment where our data is portable and democratized, challenging the current monopolies. Web3 promises to be such an environment, and to understand this shift, it’s helpful for investors to consider the evolution of the internet. The first phase, Web1, offered users unprecedented access to information and connectivity (think AOL, Yahoo! and Google). Then came Web2, which enhanced the experience by allowing personalized, user-generated content to be delivered through …

By Tradier Inc. A look at last week’s trading strategies employed by the Tradier investing community. Commentary by Todd Horowitz. Markets took a small break last week however the drivers are greed and complacency. A small sell-off was expected but the long-term uptrend continues. You must remember that markets are driven by fear and greed.  The economic data is lousy, volume is down and the VIX continues to make new lows. These are all signs …

Check out the companies making the biggest moves in premarket trading. Tesla — Shares dropped 1.9% after Goldman Sachs became the latest Wall Street bank to downgrade the electric-vehicle maker to neutral from buy. Goldman cited the difficult pricing environment for electric vehicles, as well as the stock’s recent run up, for the call. Moderna — The drugmaker gained 2.5% following an upgrade by UBS to buy from neutral. The bank said the stock’s current …

Within five years of moving to Europe, businessman Douglas Loewe “fell in love” with Barcelona, he said. He decided to buy a home there, spending about 500,000 euros ($545,000) to purchase an apartment in the city’s famous Eixample neighborhood in 1999, the senior operating partner at Macquarie said. But by 2017, Loewe felt the two-bedroom penthouse needed an overhaul. Within a year, he had transformed the “deteriorated” two-bedroom penthouse into a three-bedroom space that is …

Bitcoin has rallied sharply this month — but not for reasons you might think. The world’s largest digital currency has risen more than 12% since the beginning of June. On Wednesday, its price topped $30,000 to hit its highest level since April 14, according to Coin Metrics data. Market players have attributed the jump to the news that U.S. asset management giant BlackRock had filed for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund tracking the market price …

By John Mauldin I’ve often thought it would be fun to convene a therapy group of weather forecasters and economic forecasters. Both face the same frustration: Everybody wants a clear, simple answer they can’t possibly give, because they don’t know. Then they get blamed for being wrong anyway. In both weather and the economy, the best we can do is define a range of possible outcomes and try to assign probabilities. It’s not wet or …

Barack Obama is no stranger to bleak circumstances — maintaining a positive attitude despite them helps him stay in high spirits. Obama, 61, discussed the top tactic he uses to remain level-headed in an interview with comedian Hasan Minhaj published on Wednesday. Minhaj asked the former president, who he dubbed the “hope and change guy,” if he ever gets depressed amid current conditions like climate change, anti-abortion laws and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.  “I do try to …

A new ETF is making a big bet on real estate and other hard assets. CBRE’s Investment Management launched the IQ CBRE Real Assets ETF in May with the idea that it will deliver inflation protection in a rising interest rate environment. “The ETF market is lacking options in this space,” the ETF’s portfolio manager, Dan Foley, told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” on Thursday. “There’s a lot of opportunity here with secular changes in things like …