So far, there is no “office apocalypse.” Most tenants are just looking for short-term rent relief.

Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi, Alexis Christoforous, and Dan Howley discuss Google CEO Sundar Pichai's announcement that a limited number of Google employees will be returning to work in early July.

Financial services company Square (NYSE: SQ) announced on Monday that it would permanently allow many of its employees to work from home, even after the pandemic ends. The move comes just a week after a similar announcement was made by social media platform Twitter (NYSE: TWTR). "We want employees to be able to work where they feel most creative and productive," a spokesperson for the fintech said.

Many active investors buy stocks on the hope of scoring outsize returns by purchasing the next Apple or Tesla. They also might remember eras such as the dot-com bubble or the housing boom and assume that investing is a path to easy money.

Following an 11-year bull market, the past three months have been highly unnerving for investors. Since the broad-based S&P 500 hit an all-time closing high exactly three months ago, on Feb. 19, 2020, we've witnessed the highest volatility reading in the CBOE Volatility Index's history, and saw the S&P 500 decline 34% in just 33 calendar days. This was the fastest drop into bear market territory (as well as the quickest 30% decline) ever recorded.

Guru releases portfolio for the 1st quarter Continue reading...

In other words, this bear market is an opportunity to secure your financial freedom by putting your money to work in great businesses. Here are five top stocks that can help you in your quest for financial independence. One recipe for financial freedom is to load your portfolio with companies that offer game-changing potential.

Unlike most penny stocks, these three companies are leaders in their respective industries and could provide market-beating returns for a while.

During market downturns like the recent coronavirus market crash, it's tempting for investors to spend most of their efforts sifting through beaten-down stocks in search of bargains. This is the case for Square (NYSE: SQ) -- a point-of-sale and financial technology company whose revenue growth has soared in recent years. Here's a closer look at why this growth stock is worth its premium price.

The financial regulations require hedge funds and wealthy investors that exceeded the $100 million equity holdings threshold to file a report that shows their positions at the end of every quarter. Even though it isn't the intention, these filings to a certain extent level the playing field for ordinary investors. The latest round of 13F […]

In a world where everything is changing in a matter of weeks, talking about what could happen in the next 10-year stretch, when both the novel coronavirus and the economic lockdown meant to bring it to heel are still wreaking havoc, may seem premature. The ability to reach customers at home -- or wherever they happen to be -- is set to expand beyond the world of retail and entertainment, though.

In this episode of Industry Focus: Financials, host Jason Moser and Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel, CFP, take an in-depth look at the company and what investors need to know. Plus, hear Jason and Matt discuss why they're keeping an eye on Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU). To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center.

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. plans to hire more remote workers in areas where the company doesn’t have an office, and let some current employees work from home permanently if they’d like to.Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said the company plans to “aggressively open up remote hiring” starting immediately with the U.S., particularly for engineering talent. Based on internal employee surveys, he believes remote workers could make up as much as 50% of Facebook’s workforce in the next five to 10 years.“We and a lot of other folks were very worried that productivity was going to really fall off a cliff,” Zuckerberg said in an interview. “It just hasn’t. We are at least as productive as we were before, and some people report being even more productive.”The social network, which closed its Menlo Park, California, offices in early March due to the coronavirus outbreak, has already told employees that they can work from home through the end of the year. Zuckerberg shared the remote hiring plans with workers Thursday. Facebook had more than 48,000 global staff at the end of March.“The vast majority of people at the company are working remotely anyway, so constraining ourselves to only hiring people who live near an office that’s not open anyways isn’t really that efficient,” he added.Facebook is the latest, and largest, tech company to announce a full or partial move to more permanent remote work amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Twitter Inc. and Square Inc., both run by CEO Jack Dorsey, have announced that their employees can work from home permanently if they’d like. Canadian e-commerce company Shopify Inc. said this week it will allow its 5,000 staff to work from home indefinitely.It’s a trend that could drastically change Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area, which has for decades been the mecca for high-paying technology jobs. Many of the world’s most valuable companies, including Facebook, Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google are headquartered just south of San Francisco, which has made the surrounding area one of the wealthiest and most expensive in the world.Facebook employees who wish to work remotely, and are approved to do so, will be paid based on their new location, Zuckerberg added. That means employees who move to areas with a lower cost of living than the Bay Area would likely take a pay cut. Employees currently working remotely who want to extend their remote work plans beyond the end of this year will need to alert Facebook for tax and payroll reasons.“We’ll localize everybody’s comp on January 1,” he said. “They can do whatever they want through the rest of the year, but by the end of the year they should either come back to the Bay Area or they need to tell us where they are.”Zuckerberg said his decisions aren’t driven by employee demand, but there are a number of other benefits to remote hiring. This will extend the “talent pool” of people Facebook can hire, he said, and could help Facebook increase the diversity of its workforce, both racially and ethnically, but also ideologically.There is also a potential environmental benefit, Zuckerberg said, pointing out that pollution and emissions have dipped as people have stopped traveling. “I’d rather have our employees teleporting to work with VR or video chat than sitting in a commute and kind of poisoning the atmosphere,” he said.There could be product advantages, too. Facebook’s mission is to create products that help people feel closer even when they are physically apart, Zuckerberg said. This would give the company a chance to put its own products to the test and “eat our own dog food,” he added.There are still some unknowns. Zuckerberg believes a change like this could impact some of what he calls “the softer stuff,” like social connections, group brainstorming and creativity. Companies like Facebook and Google have changed work culture by offering employees never-ending perks, like free food, shuttles to work and even laundry. Those elements of work cultures will undoubtedly be affected.“We don’t know yet how much we are drafting off of culture, relationships, strategy and direction that have been developed up until this point. We’re kind of just gliding forward,” he said. “We don’t know how hard it’s going to be to evolve.”Zuckerberg said the Covid outbreak and current plan to increase remote workers won’t change the company’s real estate ambitions – at least not in the short term. Facebook has been expanding its sprawling headquarters for years, and has other plans to expand East across the San Francisco Bay to Fremont. Facebook has also embarked on a major push in New York, where it last year signed a lease for more than 1.5 million square feet of space in the Hudson Yards development. The company had planned to start moving employees into the space this year.When some employees do return to work following the July 4 holiday, Facebook plans to keep office capacity at just 25%, so will need as much room as possible. “If anything we just don’t have enough office space,” Zuckerberg said.The virus “is going to be with us for a while, so we really need to get good at this,” Zuckerberg added. “I just don’t think there’s going to be a single day where it’s like, ‘OK, Covid is done.’”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

"We want employees to be able to work where they feel most creative and productive," a Square spokesperson said in an emailed statement. Tech giants like Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google have allowed most of their employees to work remotely until the end of this year.

This trio of companies is helping millions build thriving businesses, even during the worst of times.

The COVID-19 outbreak is prompting more independent U.S. coffee shops to offer java delivery as consumers adjust to a new reality.

Shares of Square Inc. are off 2% in Thursday morning trading after UBS analyst Eric Wasserstrom downgraded the stock to sell from neutral while raising his price target to $63 from $54. He said that the downgrade reflects a "weak outlook" for Square's seller business and the limited visibility into its recovery trajectory. "More significantly, although we are increasing our price target to $63 to reflect a stronger outlook for Cash App, Square's current valuation exceeds this revised level, and, in our view, prices in an accelerated recovery in Seller volumes and revenues in most scenarios, an outcome we consider unlikely," Wasserstrom wrote. Square's stock has dropped 3.7% over the past three months as the S&P 500 has declined 10.9%

The guru joins Carl Icahn in projecting troubles ahead for office properties Continue reading...

The worldwide coronavirus crisis that have locked many citizens indoors is also rapidly diminished the allure of shiny trophy office towers.

Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) and Square Inc. (NYSE: SQ) Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey on Thursday said he was committing $5 million to Andrew Yang's non-profit organization Humanity Forward.The funding is part of the billion in Square shares Dorsey committed to novel coronavirus (COVID-19) relief efforts, girl child education, and universal basic income in April.UBI A Floor For People To Stand On, Dorsey Says Dorsey has been a long-term backer of the idea of a universal basic income, something that was central to Yang's Democratic presidential campaign for 2020.In an episode of Yang's podcast "Yang Speaks" published Thursday, Dorsey credited the former presidential candidate for bringing the idea to the mainstream.The Twitter CEO said that a lot of people across industries are going to lose jobs to automation powered by developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and, to him, the concept represents a "floor.""A floor that people can stand on, and have the knowledge and peace of mind that they could survive and eat and feed their children while they are learning how to transition into this new world," Dorsey told Yang.The billionaire also referred to the way federal coronavirus relief funds were distributed as a "tragedy." A lot more of the money should have gone directly to individuals, rather than corporates or banks, he said.Dorsey Plans To Donate All His Money Yang told Rolling Stone that Dorsey's funding would be used to immediately distribute cash grants of $250 each to about 20,000 individuals who have taken economic impact from the pandemic."Not only will Jack's donation directly impact tens of thousands of people in need during the current economic downturn, it will help Humanity Forward and our movement continue to make a case for universal basic income in the United States," Yang said in a statement to Rolling Stone.According to Dorsey, the $1 billion fund and his commitment to a universal basic income is part of his larger goal to ease people's pain through both personal means, or through his companies."I want to give out all my money in my lifetime. I want to see the impacts, selfishly, in my lifetime," Dorsey told Yang. "I want to make sure that we're helping people."The entrepreneur has been tracking his funding in a Google Sheets document, according to which he has dispersed $85 million so far, as earlier noted by CNBC.Price Action Twitter shares closed 0.3% higher at $32.34 on Thursday and traded further higher in after-hours at $32.50.Square closed nearly 0.7% lower at $81.49 in the regular session. The shares traded 0.6% higher in the after-hours session at $82.Image Credit: Screenshot of Andrew Yang's podcast.See more from Benzinga * US, China Relations Take Another Hit Over New Hong Kong National Security Bill * Netflix To Automatically Cancel Unused Subscriptions * KKR To Invest .5B In India's Jio Platforms, Joins Facebook, Three Other US Firms As Stakeholders(C) 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.