Market Watch

North Country Chamber banner The North Country Chamber of Commerce has issued its annual Business Confidence Index. While it remains positive, it has diminished. The regional chamber surveys its members to assess expectations for the coming year. Last year 71 percent expected increased business and 19 percent expected steady business over the previous year, leading to a 90 percent confidence index. This year those expectations have dropped to 51 percent expecting growth and 29 percent anticipating no change, a confidence index drop to 80 percent. Chamber President Garry Douglas attributes the change to rising costs, staffing shortages and expectations of a national recession or slowdown.

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Munich Re Specialty Insurance (MRSI) has announced the launch of Reflex, a customized cyber risk management program. Reflex is a white-glove program overseen by a team of Munich Re program specialists. Insureds will receive guided access to services tailored to their changing needs. Program services are provided by a team of industry experts from the privacy, network security and cyber training and awareness sectors. Industry professionals will work directly with insureds to deliver risk management initiatives aimed at building strong cyber culture and mitigating cyber exposure. Services include employee training and education, phishing simulations, real-time intervention, incident-response tabletop exercises, and advisory services with privacy attorneys and technical experts. “The need for security at all levels of an organization is paramount,” said Steve Pacheo, head of US cyber and tech errors and omissions at MRSI. “Working closely with our cyber clients and our industry-leading partner companies, we have developed this comprehensive risk management program. Reflex is a significant enhancement to our cyber product.” A 2022 Stanford study found that 90% of cyber attacks are caused by human error, and 90% of ransomware attacks originate from phishing emails. An IBM Security report from last year found that companies that tested their […]

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FOX Business Flash top headlines for February 3 Check out what’s clicking on FoxBusiness.com People said we couldn’t do it. People said we shouldn’t do it. I said do it anyway. But when you say that you want to make a product in America these days, people look at you like you’ve lost your mind. Designers, marketers, parts buyers, suppliers, financiers: everyone asks why you don’t just make it abroad – it’s like a default. But it makes no sense to me. A few years ago, I realized that outdoorsmen have awesome knives, tools, boots, rifles, saddles and trucks, but no good work surface. Every man has been yelled at by his wife for turning her cooler upside down and gutting a fish on it. So, I founded Pecos Outdoor to build a rugged, high-quality table. And every time someone told me we had to make them abroad, it just made me want to make them in America more. So that’s what we do. Admittedly, the made-in-America movement has had an up-and-down history, with accusations of red-white-and-blue washing and limited success in weening consumers off cheap foreign goods. But things may be changing. Pandemic shortages, supply-chain failures and foreign […]

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MIAMI, Feb. 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — On March 22 nd and 23 rd , the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Tourism, along with ProColombia, the agency in charge of promoting Colombian exports internationally, will host the most crucial business meeting in the country in the city of Barranquilla. Around two thousand Colombian providers are expected to meet with one thousand buyers from 60 different countries, the delegation of the United States being the largest one. Continue Reading Photo Credit: ProColombia. "This international trade promotion activity aims to generate business meetings to bring the Colombian supply of non-mining energy products and services closer to the international demand. Having this event of such magnitude for the first time in Barranquilla is meaningful. This city has one of the busiest ports in our country, and the Caribbean region has a diversified exportable offer," said Carmen Caballero, president of ProColombia. It is worth mentioning that, according to the National Statistics Department (DANE), Colombia’s non-mining exports reached US$21.6 billion between January and December 2022, representing an increase of 19% compared to the same period in 2021. The United States, Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and the Netherlands were the largest buyers of high-quality Colombian products […]

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The HBS African American Student Union (AASU) strives to be an extended family for its members from the moment they decide to attend HBS, through the transition to second year, and beyond graduation. Here we profile two AASU members who attended Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) about their experiences before and during the MBA program. Kristen Shipley (MBA 2024) Where is your hometown and which HBCU did you attend? My hometown is Baltimore, Maryland and I attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCAT). What was your pre-MBA industry and role? Before HBS, I worked in tech as a Product Marketing Manager on the YouTube Ads Marketing and Google for Startup teams. I also interned as a summer Investment Analyst at Obvious Ventures, an early-stage venture firm, where I focused on consumer brands and women’s health/FemTech. I also have experience working in the House of Representatives as a congressional intern. Why did you choose to attend an HBCU? After going on an HBCU college tour, I fell in love with North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. The people I met made me feel like I was part of the Aggie family. Inspired by the courage of […]

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Starting their culinary journey as a local food truck, owner Nicole Gates and chef Karim Bryant are the dynamic duo that created this little but mighty spot in Overtown, serving up incredible soul-food dishes that do not disappoint. We sat down with Nicole to talk about what makes Lil Greenhouse Grill so unique. How did Lil Greenhouse Grill first come to be? Lil Greenhouse Grill was birthed out of a need for a dine-in family-style restaurant that served dinner and provided entertainment to a community that had to travel to other places to have dinner with family. Any significance to the “Lil” in the name? Absolutely. It’s because we are a bit smaller than “Little!” “Lil” is slang for “little” but carries a BIG personality! That’s who we are…small in size but huge in quality and customer service. There’s no doubt about that! Also big is the taste category! What type of food are you serving? American soul-inspired cuisine. It’s classic African-American soul-food featuring vegetarian and healthy prepared options. Is there a fan-favorite dish that you create? Sure is! We have many, but our best-selling item is the BBQ ribs, smoked in-house with applewood and hickory! The sauce is […]

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Amy Senter explains how her clothing store, Jake’s on Main, maintains its status as a top-performing Life is Good store during a business round table on Jan. 30 at OPO Startups in St. Charles. Business leaders across the St. Louis area have big goals to reshape the region’s economy by 2030 , and some of the core changes prescribed by the 2030 jobs plan are already taking shape . Tucked away in the plan is a less flashy but equally important goal of reviving neighborhood business districts throughout the metro area. “This region must grow through small businesses and main streets, not only our work and efforts around attracting and developing larger businesses,” said Greater St. Louis Inc. CEO Jason Hall. To that point, Hall’s organization recently hosted a roundtable discussion with local business owners from St. Charles’ historic downtown, which he said is one of the region’s most successful main streets. The goal is to apply what’s working there across similar districts that dot the St. Louis region, he said. “What’s the formula, what’s the right mix, and you do see that,” Hall said. “You’ve got residential, embedded with small businesses. And even within the small businesses, it’s […]

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Mercedes-Benz halted the sale and assembly of vehicles in Russia after Moscow invaded Ukraine. Nearly a year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, more than 1,000 Western companies have left Russia including big oil , technology and pharmaceutical companies, under pressure from investors, consumers and politicians to pull up stakes as the war grinds on, according to data collected by the Yale School of Management. Despite the mass exodus out of Russia, around 200 foreign companies continue to operate there, Yale researchers say, in part because the Russian government has made it so difficult for them to leave by requiring lengthy approvals but also because Western sanctions preventing lawyers and investment bankers from advising on deals makes it hard to sell big assets. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union, German industry in particular poured into Russia and the former Soviet satellite states. Now, they are finding it difficult to extricate themselves. After Moscow invaded Ukraine, Mercedes halted the sale and assembly of vehicles in Russia and vowed to divest its assets, but the disposal has been held up by the bureaucratic requirements and restrictions placed on foreign companies seeking to leave […]

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Maitland-based Abbott Communications Group has been acquired by Clifton, New Jersey-based Sandy Alexander Inc., a commercial graphic communications firm and Snow Peak Capital portfolio company. Financial terms of the deal, which was announced Feb. 6, were not disclosed. Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth acted as legal adviser to Snow Peak Capital. New Direction Partners and WhiteBird, PLLC served as financial and legal advisers, respectively, to Abbott Communications Group. Debt financing for the transaction was provided by PNC Bank and M&T Bank. Founded in 1977, Abbott Communications Group’s print shop at 110 Atlantic Drive in Maitland provides printing, mailing and print management solutions to customers in the entertainment, hospitality and advertising markets. This is the first strategic add-on acquisition for Sandy Alexander since Broomfield, Colo.-based private equity firm Snow Peak Capital, which invests in middle-market businesses, acquired it in April 2022. Sandy Alexander Inc. offers commercial printing, wide-format printing, direct mail, visual experience, kitting and fulfillment to Fortune 500 companies and other enterprises. "It was important for [Abbott Communications Group] to find a partner that can help the company grow while preserving the legacy of our family business, and we certainly found that in Sandy Alexander," said Abbott Communications Group […]

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Authorities last summer seized more than $800,000 from the Houston bank account controlled by people accused of using online scams to defraud a construction management company, according to U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani . A civil complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in late January alleges that the one or more unidentified perpetrators used phishing attacks or malware to gain access to the company email servers and accounts of the construction company in order to collect payments they owed to an engineering company the company was working with on a railway expansion project in California.

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