Raphael Stevens

JetBlue Airways is adding seasonal flights to Barcelona and Milan from Boston next spring.
The new flights show how JetBlue is pushing its Airbus 321 narrow-body planes deeper into Europe.
The New York carrier is vying with larger rivals for high-spending travelers to return to profitability.

A JetBlue Airways Airbus A321 airplane departs from Los Angeles International Airport en route to New York on Oct. 17, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
Kevin Carter | Getty Images

JetBlue Airways is pushing its fleet of single-aisle planes deeper into Europe next year with seasonal daily flights to Milan, Italy, and Barcelona, Spain, from Boston, its latest bid to win over higher-spending vacationers.
Daily service from Boston to Barcelona is set to debut on April 16, and the daily Milan flight from Boston is scheduled to begin May 11, the airline said Wednesday.

U.S. airlines — from JetBlue’s new earn-and-burn miles partner United Airlines to smaller carriers like Alaska Airlines — have been adding international destinations that command higher fares and often have more premium seats on board than shorter domestic flights to help drive profits.
JetBlue has been reworking its network to cut unprofitable routes and add others, especially new destinations served by planes with its profitable Mint business class, as it seeks to stem more than five years of losses. Demand from airlines for more spacious, premium seats has been so high in recent years it has contributed to bottlenecks of new airplane deliveries.

The New York-based airline last month said its first lounge at John F. Kennedy International Airport, which it plans to open this year, will be accessible for trans-Atlantic Mint customers, among travelers.
JetBlue’s first trans-Atlantic flight debuted in 2021 with a nonstop route to London, and it has since added service from both New York and Boston to Paris; Amsterdam; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Dublin.
The new flights go on sale Thursday.

JetBlue’s additions show how airlines are flying newer Airbus narrow-body planes farther.
It will use its A321LR, or long-range, Airbus jets for the Barcelona and Milan flights. The Milan flight will be the longest in JetBlue’s network, at about nine hours westbound and about seven hours and 45 eastbound, a spokesman said, though times can vary based on weather conditions and other factors.
Those planes carry fewer travelers than large twin-aisle jets like Boeing 777s but are cheaper to operate since they require less fuel, among other things. American Airlines plans to debut its Airbus A321XLR, an ultra-long-range version of its popular 321 plane, in December and eventually fly it to Edinburgh from both New York and its Philadelphia hub next March.

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TJX Cos., the discounter behind T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and Home Goods, beat Wall Street’s expectations on the top and bottom lines and raised its guidance.
The off-price chain’s sales rose 7% during the quarter and CEO Ernie Herrman said the holiday shopping season is off to a “strong start.”
TJX has been benefiting from wealthier shoppers trading down.

The T.J. Maxx logo is displayed at a T.J. Maxx store on August 20, 2025 in Pasadena, California.
Mario Tama | Getty Images

The CEO of TJX Cos. said Wednesday the holiday shopping season is off to a “strong start” as the discounter behind T.J. Maxx, Home Goods and Marshalls issued fiscal third-quarter results that beat expectations on the top and bottom lines.
“The availability of merchandise continues to be outstanding, and we are excited about the deals we are seeing in the marketplace,” CEO Ernie Herrman said in a news release. He said TJX’s brands are “strongly positioned as gifting destinations for value-conscious shoppers this holiday season.”

Still, the retailer’s holiday guidance fell short of Wall Street’s expectations. Assuming current tariff levels stay in effect, the company is expecting comparable sales to rise between 2% and 3% in its current quarter, shy of expectations of 3.1% growth, according to StreetAccount. TJX is expecting earnings per share to be between $1.33 and $1.36, which is also just below expectations of $1.37, according to LSEG.
Shares of the company rose less than 1% in afternoon trading.
Here’s how TJX performed during the quarter compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: $1.28 vs. $1.22 expected
Revenue: $15.12 billion vs. $14.85 billion expected

The company’s reported net income for the three-month period that ended Nov. 1 was $1.44 billion, or $1.28 per share, compared with $1.30 billion, or $1.14 per share, a year earlier.
Sales rose to $15.12 billion, up 7% from $14.06 billion a year earlier.

During the third quarter, comparable sales rose 5%, far ahead of expectations of 3.7% growth, according to StreetAccount.
TJX raised its guidance after the better-than-expected third-quarter results. While guidance for its current quarter was weaker than Wall Street anticipated, its full-year outlook came in stronger.
For fiscal 2026, TJX is now expecting comparable sales to rise 4%, better than the 3.4% growth analysts were expecting, according to StreetAccount. It’s expecting earnings per share to be between $4.63 and $4.66, better than the $4.61 analysts were expecting, according to LSEG.
The off-price retailer has been growing faster than expected in recent years thanks to value-hunting consumers who are still willing to shop for new clothes, but looking for an impressive discount. While uncertain economic times are a challenge for most companies, they tend to help off-price retailers because of a trade down effect from wealthier shoppers.
Even higher tariffs have been seen as a positive for TJX because if they force price increases elsewhere, it’s more reason to shop at an off-price store, the company said previously. More

There were an estimated 36.8% more home sellers than buyers in October.
Real estate firms cite housing affordability as the biggest challenge to their business.
Home prices in September were 1.2% higher year over year.

A home is shown for sale in The Heights in Houston, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025.
Kirk Sides | Houston Chronicle | Getty Images

This is the strongest buyer’s market in housing in more than a decade.
That’s the headline on a new report from Redfin, a real estate brokerage owned by Rocket Cos. The report points to specific data on the supply of homes for sale and the number of buyers actively looking.

There were an estimated 36.8% more sellers than buyers in October, according to Redfin, the largest gap in records dating back to 2013. Redfin defines a buyer’s market as one with at least 10% more sellers than buyers. Economists at the brokerage estimate that the last time there was a stronger buyer’s market was in the years following the 2008 financial crisis, when home prices plummeted across the nation.
“Of course, it’s only a buyer’s market for those who can afford to buy—many Americans have been priced out of the housing market as affordability has eroded,” Redfin researchers noted.
And that’s the crux of the problem. Is it really a buyer’s market, if so many buyers are still priced out and therefore not even looking?
Real estate firms cite housing affordability as the biggest challenge to their business, according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors. It far outweighs other challenges, including industry costs.
“Real estate firms are on the frontlines of the industry and are seeing firsthand how housing affordability and local economic conditions are impacting their clients,” said Jessica Lautz, NAR deputy chief economist.

Home prices continue to weaken but, nationally at least, were still 1.2% higher in September from the year before, according to Cotality. Prices are roughly 50% higher nationally than they were just five years ago, pre-pandemic.
“Much like the K-shaped trend seen in overall consumer spending—driven largely by higher income groups—lower-income potential homebuyers are facing challenges due to an uncertain job market, sluggish wage growth, and worsening financial conditions. This is leading to weaker demand for homes and downward pressure on prices,” said Selma Hepp, Cotality’s chief economist. 

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Mortgage rates have come off their recent highs, but are still roughly twice what they were in the first years of the pandemic, when it fast became a seller’s market.
Cost remains the primary obstacle to homebuying, with about 75 of the top 100 housing markets still considered overvalued, according to Cotality.
In Washington, D.C., which was hardest hit by the recent government shutdown, potential buyers — largely those who were unaffected by the shutdown — are discovering it is easier to get good deals.
“They are figuring out they have leverage and are finding they can seek price concessions and repairs,” said Paul Legere, a buyer’s agent with the Joel Nelson Group of Keller Williams, adding it “feels like it might be a short moment in time.”
The shutdown may be over, but consumer sentiment is not pointing to a surge in homebuying. In its November sentiment survey, that National Association of Home Builders reported a drop in builder sales expectations over the next six months.
“We continue to see demand-side weakness as a softening labor market and stretched consumer finances are contributing to a difficult sales environment,” said NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz.  More

Walmart is in talks to acquire R&A Data, a tech startup founded by two Israeli scientists that monitors online marketplaces for scams, counterfeits and other compliance issues.
The potential acquisition would come as John Furner prepares to take the helm as Walmart’s new CEO and the company expands its third-party marketplace.
Two months ago, CNBC published an investigation into Walmart’s online marketplace that uncovered new details about the risks it took to scale the platform and take market share from Amazon.

Walmart is in talks to buy a startup called R&A Data, a company founded by two Israeli scientists that works to reduce scams and counterfeits on online marketplaces, according to people familiar with the matter and records reviewed by CNBC. 
The potential acquisition would come at a key time for the largest U.S. retailer as incoming CEO John Furner prepares to take the helm early next year. Walmart’s third-party marketplace has become a central part of the company’s strategy to increase profits faster than sales, and has helped it expand its e-commerce business, which grew 25% in the U.S. in its most recently reported quarter.

The company has said it added hundreds of millions of product listings to the platform in recent years, growth that experts say increases the need for tools to detect issues with items.
R&A Data has been working with Walmart as a third-party vendor since at least 2024, helping the company screen listings on its online marketplace for compliance issues, such as counterfeiting, according to the people and records. After working with the tech startup, Walmart decided to acquire it, CNBC learned.
Additional details about the possible deal weren’t immediately clear. Walmart, which is due to report fiscal third-quarter earnings on Thursday, didn’t return multiple requests for comment from CNBC. R&A Data declined to comment.
The news comes two months after CNBC published an investigation into Walmart’s online marketplace that found the company made its seller and product vetting controls more lax over time as it looked to grow the platform and take market share from Amazon. Third-party online sales have become a critical growth engine for Walmart, as the retailer moves to offer a wider variety of items to a larger base of shoppers.

During its investigation, CNBC found at least 43 third-party sellers that had used the identity of another business to set up their account. CNBC authenticated 20 beauty products and supplements offered by the sellers who had used the identity of a different business, and all of those products were determined to be counterfeit, according to brands that make the products or outside lab testing.

After CNBC shared the results of its investigation, Walmart said “trust and safety are non-negotiable for us.” 
“Counterfeiters are bad actors who target retail marketplaces across the world, and we are aggressive in our efforts to prevent and combat their deceptive behavior,” Walmart said at the time. “We enforce a zero-tolerance policy for prohibited or noncompliant products and continue to invest in new tools and technologies to help ensure only trusted, legitimate items reach our customers.”

How retailers prevent fakes — and where R&A fits

To combat counterfeits and other scams, marketplaces generally need a two-pronged approach, experts previously told CNBC. They said platforms need to have firm onboarding and vetting protocols to ensure bad actors aren’t joining to begin with, and ongoing monitoring of listings to prevent the sale of dangerous, fake or illegal products. 
A Walmart acquisition of R&A could help it monitor the hundreds of millions of product listings it hosts on its platform to ensure they’re compliant with its rules, according to the people familiar with the matter.
Founded in 2022 by entrepreneurs Noam Rabinovich and Raz Abramov, both former members of the Israel Defense Forces’ intelligence unit, R&A Data uses artificial intelligence to monitor listings for compliance, according to the people, the founders’ LinkedIn profiles, interviews they’ve given in the past and R&A’s website. 
There’s little public information about R&A Data but its website, which was taken down some time in the last two months, described the company as “your partner in portfolio safety.” 
“Scan millions of listings and products at lightning speeds, with incredible accuracy; our AI-powered platform delivers reliable, dependable protection, at scale,” the website said, according to an archive of the page captured on Sept. 5. 
People interested in the software could submit their contact details for further information, but the website said registration for early access was “full” and it was “not accepting any further sign-ups.” 
“If you would like to be considered for 2025 access please submit your details,” the website said. 
Rabinovich and Abramov previously founded another company, EverC, which helps online platforms and other firms detect and remove risky merchants, money laundering schemes, fake, illegal and dangerous products, and other compliance challenges, according to its LinkedIn page. Rabinovich left the company in October 2022, while Abramov departed in February 2023, according to their LinkedIn pages.
— Additional reporting by CNBC’s Paige Tortorelli. More

Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” sold at Sotheby’s for $236.4 million.
The portrait is the most expensive work ever sold at auction at Sotheby’s, blowing past its original estimate.
Art experts and auction houses say the market is being boosted by a renewed sense of optimism among collectors and by several top collections coming to market.

People talk near the Leonard A. Lauder Collection (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer) during a preview of the auction house Sotheby’s new headquarters in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 7, 2025.
Eduarod Munoz | Reuters

Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” sold at Sotheby’s Tuesday night for $236.4 million, making it the second-most expensive painting ever sold at auction — breathing new life into the high-end art market after three years of declines.
The portrait is the most expensive work ever sold at auction at Sotheby’s, blowing past its original estimate of more than $150 million.

While the name of the buyer is unknown, the sale came after 20 minutes of spirited bids between at least six interested parties, according to Sotheby’s. It was sold to an anonymous buyer on the phone with Sotheby’s Vice Chairman and Head of Impressionist and Modern Art Julian Dawes.
“Our evening sales were a resounding success and send a strong signal for the art market,” said Sotheby’s CEO Charles Stewart.
He said the sale results, combined with the large crowds who came to view the works at Sotheby’s new headquarters at the Breuer building in Manhattan, are a sign of a vibrant market.

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The Klimt sales comes during the most important sales week of the year for the art market.
Total sales are expected to exceed $1.4 billion and possibly top $2 billion, which would more than double last year’s total.

Art experts and auction houses say the market is being boosted by a renewed sense of optimism among collectors and by several top collections coming to market, including rare masterpieces by blue-chip artists.
This week’s auctions included an eye-catching piece by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, who gained notoriety for his $6.2 million “Comedian” sculpture of a banana duct taped to a wall. His piece at auction this week, “America,” is a fully functioning, 220-pound solid gold toilet. It sold for $12.1 million, Sotheby’s said, above its starting bid of $10 million, but below what many expected.
The Klimt was part of the collection of Leonard Lauder, the Estee Lauder heir and longtime art collector, that is expected to total over $400 million. Along with the Lederer portrait, the collection included two Klimt landscapes, which sold for $86 million and $68 million.
Sales at Christie’s have topped $747 million so far this week. On Monday, it auctioned a Mark Rothko painting that was part of the Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis collection for $62.2 million. A Picasso that was also part of the collection sold for $45.5 million.
The sales will continue this week with lower-priced day sales and a big evening sale at Phillips. More