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    Netflix will air SAG Awards in another step into live broadcasting

    Netflix will livestream this year’s SAG Awards on its YouTube channel on Feb. 26.
    The streaming giant plans to air the awards show on its actual platform in 2024.
    Netflix has been developing its own livestreaming technology, which it plans to launch in March with a new Chris Rock stand-up special.

    Aaronp | Bauer-Griffin | GC Images | Getty Images

    Netflix will exclusively air this year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards show in its first partnership with an awards show and its next step into live broadcasting.
    The SAG Awards, which will take place Feb. 26, will air live on Netflix’s YouTube channel, but not the streamer’s own platform. Netflix aims to broadcast the awards show on its actual service in 2024, according to a company spokesperson.

    The streaming giant plans to roll out its own livestreaming technology with a Chris Rock stand-up comedy special March 4, the company announced in December. It has been developing its own livestream service since May, as reported by Deadline.
    “As we begin to explore live streaming on Netflix, we look forward to partnering with SAG-AFTRA to elevate and expand this special ceremony as a global live event in 2024 and the years to come,” said Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s head of global television, in a statement Wednesday.
    Netflix’s venture into live broadcasting comes alongside a variety of new experiments as the company faces a stall in subscriptions. It reported last April that subscriber numbers had declined for the first time in a decade, which it attributed in part to subscribers sharing their passwords with nonpaying users, as well as macroeconomic factors such as inflation.
    To address the plateau, Netflix in November rolled out a new ad-supported streaming tier as a cheaper option for subscribers, despite previous resistance to advertising on the platform. Co-CEO Reed Hastings has also said the company would consider adding live sports after the success of its Formula One “Drive to Survive” documentary series.
    Since 2007, the SAG Awards has aired on both TNT and TBS, channels owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. TNT has aired the event since 1998. Warner Bros. Discovery parted ways with the SAG Awards in May as the newly merged company restructured.
    As awards shows struggle to boost ratings on traditional television broadcasts, other streaming platforms have been eyeing the possibility of scooping them up. Amazon Prime streamed the Country Music Awards for the first time in 2022 and plans to do so again this year.

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    The energy crisis and Europe’s astonishing luck

    Visitors to warsaw at this time of year do not tend to bask in temperatures approaching 20°C. Bilbao is usually frosty, not tropical, in January. But this winter is a strange one. Temperature records are being broken across Europe and energy prices are plummeting: the price of natural gas at the continent’s main hub has fallen to levels last seen before the war in Ukraine.A warm autumn postponed the heating season, allowing gas-storage facilities to be filled to the brim. The present warmth has enabled them to be topped up again (see chart)—a startling turn in the middle of winter. All told, Europe has sucked out half as much gas from storage facilities as at this point in the past two winters. And forecasts suggest a mild end to winter. The good weather is not the only reason for cheer. Gas supply is growing as new liquefied-natural-gas terminals begin work. A wet autumn and windy winter have helped propel hydro and wind generators. French nuclear plants, turned off for maintenance, are slowly returning to the grid. “The stressors that caused the energy crisis of 2022 are all relaxing at the same time,” notes Lion Hirth of the Hertie School in Berlin. Power prices in Europe have fallen back to levels last seen before the summer. This is providing the continent with an economic boost. Indicators of sentiment have risen for two months in a row. Defying gloomy predictions, German industrial production continues to hold up. Unemployment remains at rock bottom across Europe, and firms plan to hire more, rather than make job cuts. Forecasters are lifting their growth projections. Goldman Sachs, a bank, no longer sees the euro zone slipping into recession in 2023. In a flashback to medieval times, a change in weather is changing Europe’s economic fortunes. Yet it is still too soon to announce an end to the energy crisis. For a start, prices remain well above normal. Overall power prices are roughly twice what they were in mid-2021. The same gas that costs around €75 ($81) per megawatt-hour today sold for €10 before covid-19. Further drops are unlikely. Gas demand from industry will probably pick up; gas-fired power stations may start to replace coal-fired ones.And even with bursting storage facilities, Europe is still short of what the International Energy Agency, an official forecaster, reckons the continent will need for a bad winter next year. Asian demand for gas is increasing, and will rise further still as China’s economy returns to normality. As Timera Energy, a consultancy, notes, the gas market is still operating on the edge of supply capacity, meaning sharp price movements remain possible.Europe would do well to bank its luck. Leaders could use the chance to rethink the myriad support schemes they introduced over the summer, many of which are are costly, inefficient and untargeted. They would be wise to focus money on the vulnerable, and to tie it to green investments. After all, it is weirdly hot weather that has given Europe its current reprieve. The fight against climate change will only become more acute as the energy crisis fades. ■ More

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    Rocket builder ABL’s inaugural launch fails shortly after liftoff, damages launch pad

    The first mission by ABL Space got off the ground, but its RS1 rocket suffered an issue that caused it to fail shortly after lifting off.
    ABL President Dan Piemont told CNBC that the rocket damaged the launch pad.
    “We hoped to fly a bit farther today, but … [the] Flight 2 vehicle is fully assembled and we’re excited to make the necessary pad repairs and get back to it,” Piemont said.

    The company’s RS1 rocket lifts off on its inaugural launch attempt from Kodiak, Alaska on Jan. 10, 2023.

    The first mission by ABL Space got off the ground on Tuesday, but the company’s RS1 rocket suffered an issue early in the flight that caused it to fail shortly after lifting off.
    ABL President Dan Piemont told CNBC that the RS1 rocket stayed within the predefined “acceptable flight corridor” during the short launch, but after the rocket’s engines shut down the vehicle “impacted directly on the launch pad,” causing damage.

    The cause wasn’t immediately clear, and the company will be joined by the Federal Aviation Administration and Alaska Aerospace, which operates the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska, in investigating the mishap and assessing the damage.

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    “We hoped to fly a bit farther today, but we prepared for and accepted the risk of any outcome including a failure on the pad. The Flight 2 vehicle is fully assembled and we’re excited to make the necessary pad repairs and get back to it,” Piemont wrote in a response to CNBC on Wednesday.
    ABL’s RS1 rocket stands about 90 feet tall, and is designed to launch as much as 1,350 kilograms (or nearly 1.5 tons) of payload to low Earth orbit — at a cost of $12 million per launch. That puts RS1 in the middle of the commercial launch market, between Rocket Lab’s smaller Electron and SpaceX’s heavy class Falcon 9.
    The company has raised $420 million to date, with a $2.4 billion valuation as of its most recent fundraising in October 2021, from investors including T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, and Lockheed Martin Ventures. Its goal has been to reach orbit with RS1 spending less than $100 million.
    ABL’s failure to reach orbit is a further example of the high risk in the development and early flights of an orbital rocket, which has been particularly challenging for companies targeting the small- and medium-weight classes of the market.

    On Monday, Virgin Orbit’s sixth mission also suffered a mid-flight anomaly, and Astra has been grounded since its most recent flight last year ended in failure and it pivoted to developing a new rocket.
    Firefly Aerospace reached orbit for the first time on its second flight attempt in October, and even Rocket Lab — the current leader in the small launch category after a flawless 2022 — has had its shares of launch failures over the past few years.

    The company’s RS1 rocket stands in preparation for launch from Kodiak, Alaska.

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    Did Trump donate his presidential salary in 2020? Tax returns don’t tell full story

    The House Ways and Means Committee publicly released former President Donald Trump’s 2015 to 2020 tax returns on Dec. 30.
    Some reports suggested the Trump tax returns show he broke a promise to donate his $400,000 salary in 2020.
    However, accountants say it’s unclear whether this happened or not.

    Former President Donald Trump arrives at his Mar-a-Lago home on Dec. 31, 2022.
    Joe Raedle | Getty Images

    When former President Donald Trump’s tax returns were issued publicly Dec. 30, some news reports suggested he didn’t donate his salary in 2020 — thereby breaking a campaign pledge — because the tax returns showed $0 of charitable gifts.
    However, it’s unclear from the available data if he did or didn’t break his promise, due to how certain information is reported on tax returns, accountants said.

    Here’s why: Trump reported a negative adjusted gross income in 2020, his last year in office. He didn’t pay federal income tax because he didn’t have any taxable income.
    Trump’s -$4.8 million adjusted gross income in 2020 largely stemmed from $15.7 million in reported business losses that year from income sources like certain real estate, partnerships and S corporations, according to the tax returns. The House Ways and Means Committee released six years of Trump’s returns — 2015 to 2020 — after a lengthy fight to make them public.
    More from Personal Finance:How Trump may have sidestepped $10,000 cap on SALT deductions12 million people got IRS refund for a tax break on 2020 jobless payTrump’s tax returns show no Social Security benefit income
    Taxpayers who itemize their tax deductions (instead of claiming a standard deduction) generally get a tax break for their charitable contributions. But that’s not the case if you report negative income and don’t pay income tax; you can’t get a tax deduction if there’s no income from which to deduct.
    However, taxpayers can “carry forward” that unused tax break to future years — effectively using past charitable donations to reduce their tax bill later.

    Trump may have done this in 2020 — though, again, it’s unclear. This “carry forward” tax maneuver is generally reported on a statement that’s separate from the Schedule A form that outlines annual itemized deductions, accountants said.
    And that statement — typically a supporting document that’s attached to the tax return — wasn’t among the publicly released tax forms, said Hal Terr, a Princeton, New Jersey-based certified financial planner and tax partner at accounting firm Withum, Smith and Brown.

    Without that form, it’s unclear whether Trump reported a charitable deduction in 2020 and plans to use the associated tax benefit in future years.
    “By looking at the return, you can’t say whether he did or didn’t without looking at the carryforward schedule,” Terr said.
    A Trump spokesperson didn’t return a request for comment on this story. Trump had donated his $400,000 annual salary while in office in prior years.

    IRS generally limits tax deductions for charitable gifts

    The IRS generally limits the value of tax deductions for charitable donations, depending on the type and value of the gift and what kind of qualifying organization you give it to. Taxpayers can typically deduct the value of gifts totaling up to 60% of their AGI when they donate cash to a public charity, for example. The limit is 30% for noncash assets, like stocks, held for more than a year.
    Taxpayers can tap any unused tax benefit for up to five years.

    How these carryforwards show up on tax returns may differ somewhat depending on the tax preparer and tax return software, accountants said.
    For example, in 2017, Trump also reported a negative adjusted gross income, of -$12.9 million. That year, his Schedule A notes $1.86 million of charitable gifts made by cash or check. He couldn’t deduct these gifts due to his negative income, but the tax return references “STMT 16” — an apparent reference to an attached statement outlining a carryover of those donations.  
    There isn’t a similar reference to a tax statement on Trump’s 2020 return — but that doesn’t mean the carryover didn’t occur.
    “I think the difference is there are two different tax providers [and] how they prepare the return,” Terr said.

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    FAA halts all U.S. departures to fix system outage

    The Federal Aviation Administration suffered an outage of the system that sends messages to pilots.
    The FAA ordered airlines to pause domestic departures.
    “There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes,” the White House said.

    Shannon Stapleton | Reuters

    Thousands of U.S. flights were delayed Wednesday morning after the Federal Aviation Administration suffered an outage of the system that sends messages to pilots.
    The FAA said on its website that domestic departures would be paused until 9:30 a.m. ET. The agency said it was working to restore the Notice to Air Missions System. All flights currently in the air were safe to land, the agency said.

    More than 3,500 U.S. flights were delayed on Wednesday as of 8:20 a.m., according to FlightAware. Once the ground stop is lifted, residual delays could last hours from the backup.
    “This technology issue is causing significant operational delays across the National Airspace System,” said Airlines for America, an industry group that represents major U.S. carriers, including Delta, American, United, Southwest and others.
    The White House said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had briefed President Joe Biden on the outage. “There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a tweet.
    The incident comes just weeks after bad weather during the busy holiday travel period prompted mass flight disruptions across the U.S. and days later, more than 15,000 Southwest Airlines flight cancellations after the carrier buckled from all the schedule changes.
    Southwest is preparing to cancel flights on Wednesday to avoid further disruption, Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, told CNBC.

    Shares of Southwest were about 1% lower in premarket trading Wednesday. Shares of other major airlines were little changed.
    This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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    Stocks making the biggest moves premarket: CarMax, Salesforce, Coinbase and more

    Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Check out the companies making headlines in premarket trading.
    CarMax — Shares of the used car seller slid 4.8% after JPMorgan downgraded them to underweight, saying investors aren’t fully pricing in the risks surrounding the company and hope for a recovery looks “premature.” CarMax fell 53% in 2022 but has risen 18% since its disappointing quarterly results in December.

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    Salesforce — The software giant fell about 3% after Bernstein downgraded the shares to underperform from market perform, saying they’re falling into a “growth purgatory” and could have difficulty climbing out of it. That comes a week after the company announced its plan to reduce staff. Shares could fall another 20%, according to Bernstein.
    Coinbase — Shares of the crypto services provider fell about 3% following a downgrade from Bank of America, which said consensus estimates on Coinbase are “way too high” given the current crypto outlook. That came a day after the company announced a second round of layoffs comprising about 950 jobs, of a fifth of the company. Coinbase shares dropped 86% in 2022 as macro conditions and scandal dragged down the crypto market.
    Tesla — Tesla shares rose 2% after the EV maker registered with the state of Texas to expand its electric vehicle factory in Austin this year. Separately, Goldman Sachs also named the stock a top pick for 2023.
    Levi Strauss & Co — Shares of the clothing company slipped 2.2% after Citi downgraded the stock to neutral from buy. The firm cited weaker denim trends that could pressure the company in the near to medium term.
    Warner Bros Discovery — Guggenheim upgraded the media company to buy from neutral Wednesday, citing an attractive risk/reward and narrative for the first half of the year. Warner Bros. Discovery rose 1.75% in the premarket, following an 8% gain Tuesday.

    Toll Brothers — Shares of the homebuilder rose nearly 2% after Bank of America upgraded Toll Brothers to buy from neutral, noting: “TOL will face incremental headwinds from incentives and mix shift through the year, but this will be offset by tailwinds lower input costs, especially lumber.”
    Wells Fargo — Wells Fargo is shrinking its footprint in the mortgage market as the bank manages regulatory pressure and the impact of higher rates on housing. The company was once the biggest mortgage lender in the country. It will now limit home loans to existing customers and borrowers from minority communities. Shares were higher by less than 1% premarket.
    Southwest Airlines — Susquehanna downgraded the airline to neutral from positive, citing the operational meltdown during the recent winter storm. Southwest lost 1.55% in the premarket.
    Walt Disney — Disney revised its pricing policies at its domestic theme parks, making a number of modifications to its reservation and ticketing system, as well as its annual pass membership perks, to make it easier for loyal customers to attend. Shares were higher by less than 1% premarket.
     — CNBC’s Samantha Subin, Michelle Fox, Jesse Pound and Alex Harring contributed reporting

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    Mortgage refinance demand surges, as homeowners take advantage of lower interest rates

    The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) decreased last week to 6.42% from 6.58%.
    The drop in rates sparked a 5% increase in applications to refinance a home loan.

    A sign advertising home loan rates for purchase or refinancing at a Bank of America in New York.
    Scott Mlyn | CNBC

    After rising at the end of the year, mortgage rates dropped sharply last week. That drove demand from current homeowners hoping to save on their monthly payments, but it did little to excite potential homebuyers.
    As a result, total mortgage application volume rose just 1.2% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index.

    The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) decreased last week to 6.42% from 6.58%, with points remaining at 0.73 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20% down payment. One year ago, that rate was 3.52%.
    “Mortgage rates declined last week as markets reacted to data showing a weakening economy and slowing wage growth. All loan types in the survey saw a decline in rates,” said Joel Kan, an MBA economist.
    The drop in rates sparked a 5% increase in applications to refinance a home loan. Volume, however, was still 86% lower than the same week one year ago. Even with rates lower than their previous high of over 7% last fall, at the current rate just 270,000 borrowers could benefit from a refinance, according to Black Knight, a mortgage technology and analytics firm. A year ago, with the rate half what it is now, roughly 7 million borrowers could benefit.
    Mortgage applications to purchase a home fell 1% for the week and were 44% lower than the same week one year ago. That was the lowest reading since 2014. Buyers today are not only contending with higher interest rates but falling supply. They are also seeing prices come down and may be waiting to see how low they go.
    So far this week mortgage rates have moved in a narrow range. The market is eyeing the next release of the monthly consumer price index set for Thursday. If it shows inflation to be cooling even more, mortgage rates could drop further.

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    Prince Harry memoir breaks UK sales records and tops Amazon bestseller lists

    Transworld Penguin Random House said 400,000 copies sold on the first day it was officially released, after copies of the book were mistakenly up for sale in Spain on Jan. 5.
    The book contains intimate details about the Duke of Sussex’s personal life, as well as revelations about the wider royal family, including King Charles III.

    Prince Harry’s memoir “Spare” became the fastest selling non-fiction book ever in the U.K. on its release day, its publisher said Tuesday.
    Chris Jackson / Staff / Getty Images

    LONDON — Prince Harry’s memoir “Spare” has become the fastest selling non-fiction book ever in the U.K., according to its publisher.
    After the book’s official release Tuesday, 400,000 copies have been sold so far across hardback, e-book and audio formats, Transworld Penguin Random House said, citing British sales figures.

    “We always knew this book would fly but it is exceeding even our most bullish expectations,” the publishing house’s Managing Director Larry Finlay said in a statement.
    “As far as we know, the only books to have sold more in their first day are those starring the other Harry (Potter),” Finlay added.
    The biography includes details about the prince’s personal struggles, such as losing his mother, Princess Diana, aged 12, as well as frictions with fellow royals, including his father, King Charles III, stepmother Camilla and older brother Prince William.
    “Spare” is available in 16 languages, and ranks as the best-seller on Amazon websites across the world, including in the U.K., U.S., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Australia and Saudi Arabia at the time of writing.
    Copies of the intimate memoir were mistakenly released in Spain five days before the official publication, prompting much of its contents to make headlines across the world.

    Harry also gave several interviews ahead of the book launch, doubling down on claims that some royals leaked damaging stories to the tabloid press about him and his wife Meghan in order to protect their own reputations.
    The royal family has not commented on the book or any of the interviews given by Prince Harry.

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