Americans now owe $1.08 trillion on their credit cards, according to a new report on household debt from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Credit card balances spiked by $154 billion year over year, notching the largest increase since 1999, the New York Fed found.

“Credit card balances experienced a large jump in the third quarter, consistent with strong consumer spending and real GDP growth,” said Donghoon Lee, the New York Fed’s economic research advisor.

Credit card delinquency rates also rose across the board, according to the New York Fed, but especially among millennials, or borrowers between the ages of 30 and 39, who are burdened by high levels of student loan debt.

With most people feeling strained by higher prices — particularly for food, gas and housing — more cardholders are carrying debt from month to month or falling behind on payments, and a greater percentage of balances are going more than 180 days delinquent, according to a separate report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Nearly one-tenth of credit card users find themselves in “persistent debt” where they are charged more in interest and fees each year than they pay toward the principal — a pattern that is increasingly difficult to break, the consumer watchdog said.

“It’s a big deal,” said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate. “Your credit card is probably your highest cost debt by a wide margin.”

Credit card rates top 20%

Credit card rates were already high but have recently spiked along with the Federal Reserve’s string of 11 rate hikes, including four in 2023.

Since most credit cards have a variable rate, there’s a direct connection to the Fed’s benchmark. As the federal funds rate rose, the prime rate did, as well, and credit card rates followed suit.

The average annual percentage rate is now more than 20% — also an all-time high.

Why credit card debt keeps rising

Despite the steep cost, consumers often turn to credit cards, in part because they are more accessible than other types of loans, according to Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree. But that comes at the expense of other long-term financial goals, he added.

“That’s money that doesn’t go to a college fund or down payment on a home purchase or Roth IRA,” he said.

Up until recently, most Americans benefited from a few government-supplied safety nets, most notably the large injection of stimulus money, which left many households sitting on a stockpile of cash that enabled some cardholders to keep their credit card balances in check.

But that cash reserve is largely gone after consumers gradually spent down their excess savings from the Covid-19 pandemic years.

Now, “consumers are maintaining and supporting their lifestyles using credit card debt,” said Howard Dvorkin, a certified public accountant and the chairman of Debt.com.

“It has been a struggle,” said Adriana Cubillo, 25, of Modesto, California. “My rent is going up, so even though all my bills are paid, sometimes I’m living paycheck to paycheck.”

Still, consumer credit scores have remained high, helped by a strong labor market and cooling inflation, along with the removal of certain medical collections data from consumer credit files, recent reports show.

What to do if you’re in credit card debt

If you’re carrying a balance, try calling your card issuer to ask for a lower rate, consolidate and pay off high-interest credit cards with a lower interest home equity loan or personal loan or switch to an interest-free balance transfer credit card, Schulz advised.

To optimize the benefits of their credit card, consumers should regularly compare credit card offers, pay as much of their balance as they can as soon as they can and avoid paying their bill late, said Mike Townsend, a spokesperson for the American Bankers Association.

“Any credit card holder who finds themselves in financial stress should always contact their card issuer to make them aware of their situation,” Townsend said. “They may be eligible for some relief or assistance depending on their individual circumstances.”

Office-sharing company WeWork filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New Jersey federal court Monday, saying that it had entered into agreements with the vast majority of its secured note holders and that it intended to trim “non-operational” leases.

The bankruptcy filing is limited to WeWork’s locations in the U.S. and Canada, the company said in a news release. The company reported liabilities ranging from $10 billion to $50 billion, according to a bankruptcy filing.

“I am deeply grateful for the support of our financial stakeholders as we work together to strengthen our capital structure and expedite this process through the Restructuring Support Agreement,” WeWork CEO David Tolley said in a press release. “We remain committed to investing in our products, services, and world-class team of employees to support our community.

WeWork has suffered one of the most spectacular corporate collapses in recent U.S. history over the past few years. Valued in 2019 at $47 billion in a round led by Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank, the company tried and failed to go public five years ago.

The pandemic caused further pain as many companies abruptly ended their leases, and the economic slump that followed led even more clients to close their doors.

It disclosed in an August regulatory filing that bankruptcy could be a concern.

WeWork debuted through a special purpose acquisition company in 2021 but has since lost about 98% of its value. The company in mid-August announced a 1-for-40 reverse stock split to get its shares trading back above $1, a requirement for keeping its New York Stock Exchange listing.

WeWork shares had fallen to a low of about 10 cents and were trading at about 83 cents before the stock was halted Monday.

Former CEO and co-founder Adam Neumann said that the filing was “disappointing.”

“It has been challenging for me to watch from the sidelines since 2019 as WeWork has failed to take advantage of a product that is more relevant today than ever before,” Neumann said in a statement to CNBC. “I believe that, with the right strategy and team, a reorganization will enable WeWork to emerge successfully.”

As recently as September, the company said it had been actively renegotiating leases and that it was “here to stay.” The company had close to $16 billion in long-term lease obligations, according to securities filings.

The company leases millions of square feet of office space in 777 locations around the world, according to its regulatory filings.

WeWork has engaged Kirkland & Ellis and Cole Schotz as legal advisors. PJT Partners will serve as its investment bank, with support from C Street Advisory Group and Alvarez & Marsal.

Former cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried faces the prospect of a long prison sentence, but that’s not the end of the FTX legal saga.

The FTX co-founder and ex-CEO was convicted of all seven fraud and money laundering charges against him on Thursday. He faces as much as 110 years in prison if Judge Lewis Kaplan gives him maximum sentences and consecutive terms.

Bankman-Fried is scheduled to learn his sentence on March 28, 2024. His lawyers have suggested they will appeal the guilty verdicts against him at that time.

He still faces another trial over other allegations including that he bribed Chinese officials. That trial is also scheduled to start in March.

What about Bankman-Fried’s former colleagues?

He’s not the only one waiting to learn his fate. Former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Gary Wang and former engineering chief Nishad Singh all pleaded guilty to a series of criminal charges and cooperated with the government’s prosecution of Bankman-Fried. The three testified against him in the hope they would receive lighter sentences.

They’re likely to be sentenced after Bankman-Fried is.

Chris LaVigne, the global co-chair of the digital asset group at international law firm Withers Worldwide, said it’s likely that all three will go to prison, as well.

‘Given what they’ve admitted to, it isn’t likely that they are going to end up with a non-incarceratory sentence,’ LaVigne, who is not involved in the case, told NBC News. Still, he said, their cooperation means the government will recommend that they receive a shorter sentence than what they would have received if they had been convicted after a trial.

In determining the sentences that Wang, Ellison and Singh receive, Kaplan will consider factors including whether they intended to commit crimes, how helpful the government found their cooperation, whether they seem remorseful, and their potential for rehabilitation.

What about FTX’s users?

Bankman-Fried was found responsible for taking some $8 billion from FTX’s users without their consent and giving it to Alameda Research. The money was given to Alameda’s lenders and was also used to pay for FTX corporate sponsorships, its Super Bowl ad and for enormous loans to corporate insiders, among other things.

LaVigne, who is also the head of Withers’ U.S. litigation team, said there are essentially two paths to returning funds to people who lost money to FTX, and to FTX’s and Alameda’s creditors.

The first involves the U.S. government. As part of their guilty pleas, Wang, Ellison and Singh all agreed to forfeit proceeds from their time at FTX and Alameda. For example, Singh agreed to forfeit a multimillion-dollar home he’d bought in Washington state and an investment in the AI company Anthropic PBC that was then worth $40 million.

LaVigne said the government will probably set up a fund for FTX victims, get money the insiders received from FTX, auction off any ill-gotten assets, and return the proceeds to people who apply successfully to the victims fund.

‘If there’s billions in investments from a criminal and proceeds or money elsewhere, the government is going to get it,’ he said.

Meanwhile, U.S. Trustee Andrew Vara will try to recoup money for victims through the bankruptcy process.

‘That trustee and that estate is building a huge war chest to try to compensate creditors, which include customers of FTX,’ LaVigne said.

Both of those processes can take a very long time to play out. The failure of FTX has often been compared to the infamous Ponzi scheme run by Bernie Madoff, which was exposed in December 2008. Trustee Irving Picard returned some $13 billion to victims over the course of a decade, while the U.S. government said it returned $4 billion to the Madoff Victim Fund. It announced the most recent payment to that fund in September 2022.

‘These things go on for a long time and they find money wherever they can,’ LaVigne said.

The government can also pursue any company or person it believes was complicit in the scheme. In the Madoff case, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay more than $2 billion in fines and penalties to settle allegations that it turned a blind eye to Madoff’s actions for more than a decade.

When Tyson Foods announced in August that it was closing its 1,500-worker chicken plant in Noel, Missouri, residents knew the rural town would be hit hard. Some started leaving soon after the company — which employed more than a quarter of the surrounding county — broke the news.

The site shut down late last month, one of three October closures in a broader shake-up that the meat giant said reflected its “commitment to bold action and operational excellence.”

But Jimi Lasiter stayed put.

After 11 years at the plant, she was holding out for her $1,000 severance check and assessing the exodus’ impact on her community. By the end of September, she said around half a dozen colleagues had already left their tight-knit team of about 20; those who remained were packing office supplies and furniture rather than cuts of meat. She didn’t want to create more work for them by leaving early, and she wasn’t in a rush.

“If I’m gonna go someplace else, especially if I’m gonna get anything that pays more than $10 or $12 an hour, I’m gonna have to drive 45 minutes,” Lasiter said at the time.

By Friday, though, she said she still hadn’t received her severance, complicating her plans to file for unemployment benefits and take some time to weigh her options. Tyson didn’t immediately comment on its compensation of former Noel employees.

Like Lasiter, many workers are weighing their moves in a slowing national labor market. While hiring growth remains strong, people in rural areas without ample employment opportunities nearby are facing challenges that policymakers from the municipal to the federal levels say they’re pushing to address.

Data released Friday showed the economy added 150,000 jobs in October, down from 297,000 in September. Unemployment, while still at historic lows, ticked up to 3.9%. Last week President Joe Biden embarked on a tour of rural communities to highlight more than $5 billion in agricultural and small-town infrastructure investments aimed at spurring growth in places like Noel.

Tyson and Noel officials have hosted job fairs for laid-off workers, and the company said more than 300 employees are relocating from closing facilities to its other sites.

Even as it’s on pace to shut six plants this year and the next, triggering more than 4,600 job cuts, Tyson is developing two new ones in Danville, Virginia, and Bowling Green, Kentucky, set to employ 850 people altogether.

“My first thought was: How can I stay with the company?” said Corina Chinchilla, 32, who worked for 13 years at the Noel plant, ultimately becoming a production supervisor for packaging chicken breasts and tenders.

She “applied right away” for a lateral move to Tyson’s plant in Monett, Missouri, about 60 miles northeast of Noel but a similar 35-minute drive from her home in Neosho. All three towns, situated in the western Ozark Mountains, belong to a region where average annual income is $39,600 and 20% of jobs are in manufacturing.

“I’ve talked to people that didn’t relocate, and they’re like, ‘Let me know if something comes up there,’” Chinchilla said.

Tyson confirmed that David Handy, a pallet jack operator at the Noel plant who spoke with NBC News in August about the closure, was among the 16% of the facility’s workforce who took internal transfers. Handy didn’t respond to recent requests for comment.

Tyson closed its facility in North Little Rock, Ark., last month.Danny Johnston / AP file

Other Tyson workers, like Ryan Coulter, 27, declined to move.

After working at the North Little Rock, Arkansas, plant that closed in early October, in roles that included assessing meat inventories, Coulter ruled out commuting to the nearest active Tyson complex.

While the average price of a gallon of gas in Arkansas, at $3.03, is about 22 cents cheaper than it was a year ago, he’d be driving much farther.

“I’d end up spending half my check getting there,” he said. “That’s stressful. I ain’t gonna set myself up for failure.”

Instead, Coulter said, he took a job at a nearby Value Foods grocery store. He declined to say how the pay compares.

While big employers like Amazon and Costco have expanded in the Little Rock metro area, attracting young professionals and a range of new jobs, Noel’s economic future looks more uncertain.

Mayor Terry Lance said he was working with the Harry S. Truman Coordinating Council, an economic development group in southwest Missouri, to find ways to move Noel beyond its longtime identity as a largely single-employer town.

In the weeks after the plant closure was announced, he said he’d talked with a pontoon boat manufacturer about taking it over, but that that company would employ no more than 350 workers at full capacity. Since then, Lance said a Texas firm that converts wastewater sludge to feedstock had signed a letter of intent to buy the complex, but he was “not convinced they can do that without a lot of odors” and wanted to avoid a “nightmare.”

Lance said other ideas included opening an “industrial training facility” at the plant and pivoting Noel toward tourism, drawing on local attractions like the Elk River — Noel calls itself the “canoeing capital of the Ozarks” — and the Bluff Dwellers Cave just outside town.

He said he expects “two years of really, really lean times” but was confident the community would persevere. “I want to urge all of our business owners to hold on, because I really do think we’ll come back on the other side of it better,” he said.

Some of the town’s character that Lance sees as an asset may already be waning.

“Everyone has their own unique art, craft, food and music, and that’s what tourists like,” he said of the robust immigrant communities drawn to Noel during its decades as a poultry hub. But as the Missouri Independent reported last week, many residents from Somalia and elsewhere who are in the United States under refugee programs have been quick to head out in search of new jobs, concerned about their employment prospects.

State and federal officials, wary of economic fallout in the region, have pressed Tyson to sell some of the sites it’s vacating.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey have both warned publicly that failing to seek new operators for the Noel plant and the one in Dexter that closed last month could violate antitrust laws. In September, Hawley said Tyson CEO Donnie King had reassured him that the company was willing to sell “to any interested party — including a competitor.”

Tyson, which declined to comment on the future of its shuttered plants, has said it was “supporting impacted team members and growers” and was “open to receiving all offers.”

The U.S. economy saw job creation decelerate in October, confirming persistent expectations for a slowdown and possibly taking some heat off the Federal Reserve in its fight against inflation.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 150,000 for the month, the Labor Department reported Friday, against the Dow Jones consensus forecast for an increase of 170,000.

The unemployment rate rose to 3.9%, against expectations that it would hold steady at 3.8%. Employment as measured in the household survey, which is used to compute the unemployment rate, showed a decline of 348,000 workers, while the rolls of the unemployed rose by 146,000.

A more encompassing jobless rate that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time positions for economic reasons rose to 7.2%, an increase of 0.2 percentage point.

Average hourly earnings, a key measure for inflation, increased 0.2% for the month, less than the 0.3% forecast, while the 4.1% year over year again was 0.1 percentage point above expectations.

Markets reacted positively to the report, with futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average adding 100 points.

Matthew Perry, the beloved actor best known for his role as sarcastic, wise-cracking Chandler Bing on the sitcom “Friends,” died Saturday at age 54.

He left behind a legion of fans and a sizable estate.

A significant portion of the actor’s wealth came from his most iconic role. That income reportedly amounts to $20 million a year, from syndication and streaming revenue.

A spokesperson for Warner Bros., which owns the show’s distribution rights, declined to verify or comment on the residual payments. CNBC was unable to reach Perry’s representatives for comment.

What may happen to Perry’s ‘Friends’ residuals

When an actor passes away, residual payments are considered the actor’s personal property. Now, this residual cash flow stream is presumably owned by his estate.

There could be three possibilities for the inheritance of Perry’s “Friends” residuals based on laws in California, where he resided, said Charlie Douglas, a certified financial planner and president of HH Legacy Investments in Atlanta.

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists has contracts in which its members can list beneficiaries for residual payments upon death. As one option, Perry could have named an individual or individuals here. (It’s a similar exercise to naming a beneficiary for common types of accounts like 401(k) or individual retirement accounts.)

As a second option, Perry may have named a trust — and not an individual — as the beneficiary of his residual payments, Douglas said. The residuals would flow to the trust and the trust would, in turn, have stipulations as to who received them.

Unlike wills, which are a matter of public record in probate, trusts are private — in which case the public may never know who inherits Perry’s “Friends” income.

However, there’s a third option: that Perry didn’t name any beneficiary. In this case, state law would determine his estate plan.

“It’s quite possible that, not having a spouse or children, he didn’t [write in] anything,” Douglas said.

All states have a framework that dictates how your cash and belongings ought to be distributed when you die. These are known as intestacy laws, and they vary from state to state.

In most states, this is the typical hierarchy for inheritance, in order of who stands to receive assets: first the spouse, then children, grandchildren, parents and, finally, siblings, Douglas said.

Perry never married or had children. He is survived by his parents (who divorced when Perry was less than a year old and have both since remarried) and five half-siblings.

In California, his parents will be the likely takers of Perry’s royalties from acting roles, as well as other parts of his estate including his 2022 memoir, according to Tasha Dickinson, trusts and estates partner at Day Pitney.

If this were the case, his parents could elect to make a “qualified disclaimer” giving up their rights to the residuals, in which case the money would pass to the half-siblings, Douglas said.

“It’s not unheard of at all that wealthy parents make disclaimers,” he said. For example, Perry’s stepfather is Keith Morrison, an award-winning broadcast journalist and longtime correspondent for NBC’s “Dateline.”

Otherwise, Perry’s assets will be divided up based on the probate court system.

“Probate is especially undesirable in California because it’s expensive, time-consuming and an invasion of privacy [since] all court matters are public record,” said David Oh, head of tax and estate planning at Arta Finance.

For celebrities like Perry, especially, “not having an estate plan creates confusion, attracts unwanted media attention and can cause family disputes,” he added.

Charity may have figured into Perry’s estate

Perry may have also opted to leave his estate outside his family.

He had close relationships personally and professionally and supported several philanthropic interests, “and it wouldn’t be surprising to see some of his wealth go towards them,” Oh said.

The actor, who publicly struggled with addiction for years, once opened a sober living facility at his Malibu mansion and was working to create a foundation for addiction issues.

On Nov. 3, the Matthew Perry Foundation was established in his name as a donor-advised fund. The charity is sponsored and maintained by National Philanthropic Trust.

“When I die, I know people will talk about ‘Friends,’ ‘Friends,’ ‘Friends,‘” Perry said during an interview in 2022. “And I’m glad of that, happy I’ve done some solid work as an actor … But when I die, as far as my so-called accomplishments go, it would be nice if ‘Friends’ were listed far behind the things I did to try to help other people. I know it won’t happen, but it would be nice.”

Charitably inclined people can also use their donations to avoid or reduce estate taxes. Charitable contributions aren’t subject to estate taxes, Douglas said.

For 2023, individuals can leave up to $12.92 million to heirs without triggering a federal estate-tax bill. Beyond that, the federal estate tax rate is 40%, and although California has no estate tax or inheritance tax, that can still mean a big bill for someone like Perry, according to Oh of Arta Finance. 

Sometimes, charitably minded people will donate any assets above the estate-tax threshold to charity and leave the remainder to heirs, thereby avoiding estate taxes altogether, Douglas said.

Often, such high-net worth taxpayers work with advisors on these types of strategies.

“Estate planning is not fun — not many people enjoy confronting their mortality — but the more money and assets, whether they be real or intellectual property or copyrights or royalties one has, the more important it is to have all the proverbial ducks in row,” said David Johnston, a certified financial planner and managing partner of Amwell Ridge Wealth Management.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of NBC’s “Dateline” and CNBC.

Weaker-than-expected job growth in October and a slight uptick in unemployment show the red-hot job market is finally cooling. That’s a good thing.

The Federal Reserve has been trying to get the worst inflation in years under control by raising interest rates. A slowing job market may be evidence that its strategy is working.

“With less heat seen in the job market, this report should go over well at the Federal Reserve,” Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, said in a note Friday. For the second time in a row, the Fed left rates untouched at a 23-year high after its latest meeting Wednesday, while keeping alive the possibility of further hikes if inflation resurges.

“Fed officials looking for more tempered economic data sure found it in this month’s jobs numbers,” agreed Jesse Wheeler, senior economist at Morning Consult. “The rate hiking cycle may have come to an end,” he predicted in a note after the jobs data came out.

People wait in line during a career fair Thursday in Los Angeles.Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images

Some policymakers have worried the Fed has been too aggressive and will tip the economy into recession. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and other progressives have accused Fed Chairman Jerome Powell of sacrificing millions of American jobs to combat inflation, which clocked in at an annual rate of 3.7% in September. That’s much lower than the 9.1% peak hit in June 2022 but still well above the Fed’s 2% target. The Goldilocks scenario is if the job market can remain solid but cool slightly — and gradually — while inflation continues to trend lower.

One month does not make a trend, of course. The labor market’s sturdy performance has surprised most economists over the past year. While October’s 150,000 net job gains came in lower than expected — nearly half of September’s revised level — hiring growth is still strong.

Compared with the 258,000 monthly average over the past 12 months, last month’s job gains look rather low. But if not for the United Auto Workers strikes, October’s hiring levels would be on par with the 179,000 jobs added each month on average during the pre-pandemic year of 2019. Many striking autoworkers are already back on the job and will be reflected in next month’s data. (All but around 2,000 of the 35,000 jobs lost across the manufacturing sector last month came from the auto industry.)

Overall, many economists say the labor market remains resilient, posting 34 consecutive months of job growth and a jobless rate below 4% for the last two years.

And while millions of households are still struggling with basic expenses ranging from housing to groceries in a year when most pandemic-era lifelines have expired, many workers’ paychecks are still growing faster than inflation is eating them up. Average hourly earnings have eased, but year-over-year wages are up 4.1%, compared with a 3.7% annual increase in consumer prices.

So far, that has made many consumers comfortable continuing to spend, even if they pull back in some areas or get more vigilant about hunting for deals.

“The good news here for workers is that in the horserace against inflation, wages are ahead by a nose,” Hamrick wrote.

And this is one race where slow and steady wins.

Starbucks on Thursday presented the latest stage in its plan to drive growth for the company, which involves accelerating its global footprint and saving $3 billion in costs over the next three years.

The company said it plans to expand to 35,000 locations outside of North America by 2030. Starbucks currently has roughly 20,200 international cafes, as of Oct. 1. In total, the coffee giant aims to reach 55,000 locations globally by 2030, up from its current count of more than 38,000.

“Three out of every four new stores over the near term is expected to be opened outside of the U.S. as our store portfolio becomes increasingly global,” Michael Conway, president of Starbucks’ international and channel development divisions, said during a company presentation.

Starbucks also announced a $3 billion cost-saving plan. Executives said $1 billion of those savings will come from making its stores more efficient. The rest will come from savings on the cost of goods sold.

The final piece of what Starbucks called its “Triple Shot Reinvention Strategy,” announced Thursday, calls for wage increases for baristas, doubling their hourly income over fiscal 2020 earnings by the end of fiscal 2025. That jump will come from both increased hours and higher pay. Starbucks said it would share more details next week.

The announcement comes after more than 350 Starbucks locations have unionized under Workers United, according to National Labor Relations Board data. Starbucks and the union have not yet reached a collective bargaining agreement at any of those locations, and both the union and the NLRB have accused Starbucks of breaking federal labor law, including illegally withholding wage hikes at union stores. The company denies all allegations of union busting.

Momentum brewing

Earlier Thursday, the company reported its fiscal fourth-quarter results. Starbucks beat Wall Street’s estimates for both its quarterly earnings and revenue, sending shares up 9.5%. The stock move reversed shares’ losses earlier this year, giving the company a market cap of $115 billion, as of Thursday’s close.

During the company’s conference call, CEO Laxman Narasimhan said the company’s “reinvention” plan unveiled last September is moving ahead of schedule, driving both sales and efficiency for Starbucks. For example, the chain’s new single-cup drip coffee brewer is now installed in more than 600 locations.

More broadly, that plan takes aim at many of the issues plaguing Starbucks and baristas in recent years. Drink orders have grown more complicated and time-intensive as cold beverages become more popular and Starbucks pushes pricey add-ons such as cold foam. Customers have also shifted to ordering their drinks through the company’s mobile app and drive-thru lanes and expect their orders to arrive more quickly. Under that pressure, baristas have struggled to maintain speedy service and quality customer experience.

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz unveiled the reinvention plan to simplify operations and improve both quality and speed of service more than a year ago. The strategy involves new coffee-making equipment and store formats plus more automation.

Schultz, then back at the company for a third stint in the top job, said Starbucks had made “self-induced mistakes” and lost its way. He stepped down from the role in March, handing the reins over to Narasimhan, a newcomer to the company who pledged to enact the plan.

At its investor day last September, Starbucks projected earnings per share growth of 15% to 20% annually over the next three years and annual same-store sales growth of 7% to 9%. The company’s same-store sales outlook of 5% to 7% for fiscal 2024 falls short of that range, but the rest of its forecast for the next fiscal year meets those targets.

Sam Bankman-Fried, once hailed as a genius in cryptocurrency, was found guilty Thursday of all fraud counts against him, a year after his exchange, FTX, imploded and practically wiped out thousands of customers.

The verdict was reached around 7:40 p.m. ET, about four hours after the federal jury in Manhattan began deliberations.

Bankman-Fried, a co-founder of the digital currency exchange FTX, was charged with seven counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering that swindled customers of FTX and lenders to its affiliated hedge fund, Alameda Research.

Bankman-Fried “perpetrated one of the biggest financial frauds in American history,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said after the verdict.

“The cryptocurrency industry might be new; the players like Bankman-Fried might be new,” Williams said. “But this kind of fraud, this kind of corruption, is as old as time.”

Bankman-Fried faces up to 110 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for March 28.

FTX and Alameda quickly collapsed in November 2022 after some of their financial liabilities were exposed. The fact that Alameda had taken billions of dollars from FTX’s customers, and that much of Alameda’s balance sheet comprised digital currency assets the firm itself had created, was central to the case against Bankman-Fried.

Unnerved by disclosures about the firm’s financial position, many of FTX’s customers tried to get their money back. That set off the equivalent of a bank run.

The value of Alameda’s investments crashed, and FTX couldn’t return much of clients’ money because it had been given to Alameda. Some went to the fund’s lenders, and billions were spent on sponsorships, commercials and loans to top executives. That, too, was a major part of the case against Bankman-Fried.

Many of FTX and Alameda’s leaders were also charged after the firms went under. Former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Gary Wang and FTX head of engineering Nishad Singh all pleaded guilty. They agreed to cooperate with the prosecution and testify against Bankman-Fried in exchange for lighter sentences.

While Bankman-Fried testified in his own defense, it didn’t appear to have the same weight as the insider testimony against him. The prosecution, in its closing argument, said Bankman-Fried had answered “I can’t recall” 140 times while he was being cross-examined.

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers contended that he did not intend to defraud anyone and that the government was looking for someone to blame after the failures of FTX and Alameda.

Bankman-Fried was asked to rise and face the jury as the verdicts were read Thursday, and he did so. He showed little emotion as each verdict was read.

His father slumped in his seat, hunched over as each guilty verdict came in. His mother was visibly emotional.

Mark S. Cohen, Bankman-Fried’s counsel, said in an emailed statement Thursday that Bankman-Fried’s legal team respects the jury’s decision but that they are disappointed.

“Mr. Bankman–Fried maintains his innocence and will continue to vigorously fight the charges against him,” he said.

Forbes had once estimated that Bankman-Fried’s stakes in Alameda and FTX were worth $26 billion. He was 29 at the time. But after the bankruptcies, that was gone. Criminal charges followed weeks later.

He also faces another trial on charges of bribing foreign officials and other counts. That trial is scheduled to begin in March, and he has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

On Thursday, Bankman-Fried was found guilty of two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, two counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, one count of conspiracy to commit commodities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

Williams, the prosecutor, said Bankman-Fried’s conviction should send a message to others.

“It’s a warning, this case, to every single fraudster out there who thinks that they’re untouchable or that their crimes are too complex for us to catch or that they’re too powerful for us to prosecute or that they could try to talk their way out of it when they get caught,” he said. “Those folks should think again.”

Amazon used a secret algorithm that essentially helped the company raise prices on other online sites and “destroyed” some internal communications as the Federal Trade Commission was investigating the company, according to a newly unredacted portions of the agency’s antitrust lawsuit against the e-commerce giant.

The new excerpts, unveiled Thursday, alleged company executives intentionally deleted communication by using a feature on the popular app Signal that makes messages disappear. By doing this, the FTC said Amazon “destroyed more than two years” worth of communications from June 2019 to “at least early 2022” despite instructions it gave Amazon not to do so.

In a prepared statement Amazon spokesperson Tim Doyle called the FTC’s claim “baseless and irresponsible.”

“Amazon voluntarily disclosed employee Signal use to the FTC, painstakingly collected Signal conversations from its employees’ phones, and allowed agency staff to inspect those conversations even when they had nothing to do with the FTC’s investigation,” Doyle said.

The FTC and 17 states sued Amazon in September alleging the company was abusing its position in the marketplace to inflate prices on and off its platform, overcharge sellers and stifle competition. Amazon is accused of violating federal and state antitrust laws, but the company has responded with a full-throated defense of its business practices.

The antitrust case is the most aggressive move the government has taken to tame the market power of Amazon and comes as the FTC has been taking big swings against tech companies.

The unredacted excerpts of the lawsuit disclosed on Thursday also provided more details on a talked-about algorithm, which was previously reported by The Wall Street Journal and former Vox reporter Jason Del Ray.

The FTC’s excerpts say the tool — codenamed “Project Nessie” — has been used by Amazon to pinpoint products that will allow it to rake in more cash.

The company used it to predict where it can raise prices and have other shopping sites follow suit. Amazon activated the algorithm to raise prices on some products, and when other sites followed its lead, it kept the elevated prices in place, the agency said. The use of Nessie has generated more than $1 billion in excess profits for Amazon, according to the FTC.

“Aware of the public fallout it risks, Amazon has turned Project Nessie off during periods of heightened outside scrutiny and then back on when it thinks that no one is watching,” the complaint said.

The agency said Amazon deployed Project Nessie in 2014 and has turned it on and off at least eight times between 2015 and 2019. In 2018 alone, Amazon used the algorithm to set prices for items that were viewed more than 400 million times by shoppers, according to the complaint.

Regulators said though Amazon claims the algorithm is “currently paused,” the company has thought about running experiments in 2020 and 2021 to improve the effectiveness of Project Nessie. Doyle, the Amazon spokesperson, called Nessie an “old” pricing algorithm that’s being “grossly” mischaracterized by the agency.

“Nessie was used to try to stop our price matching from resulting in unusual outcomes where prices became so low that they were unsustainable,” he said. “The project ran for a few years on a subset of products, but didn’t work as intended, so we scrapped it several years ago.”

The unredacted portions of the lawsuit also shed more light on Amazon’s advertising business. The agency claimed then-CEO Jeff Bezos instructed executives to accept more junk ads — internally called “defects” — because the company could earn more money through increased advertising despite their presence being a headache for consumers.