Business
At Close of Business podcast February 18 2026
Berkshire bought 5.1 million shares of the New York Times during the December quarter, Warren Buffett’s last few months as chief executive.
It sold stock in Apple, marking the third-straight period it cut its stake in the iPhone maker.
Berkshire slashed its stake in Amazon by 77%.
It also unloaded shares of Bank of America.
Income surges 126% to nearly $80 million.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called for the state to increase taxes on corporations and the wealthy to help address city’s budget deficit Tuesday, warning that the alternative option will be for the city to raise property taxes.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is calling for the Empire State to hike taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals in order to address the Big Apple’s budget deficit, warning that the alternative would involve the city increasing property taxes and dipping into its reserves.
Mamdani has issued a preliminary fiscal year 2027 budget that involves a property tax hike, a prospect he has described as a “last resort.”
“Today, I’m releasing the City’s preliminary budget. After years of fiscal mismanagement, we’re staring at a $5.4 billion budget gap — and two paths. One: Albany can raise taxes on the ultra-wealthy and the most profitable corporations and address the fiscal imbalance between our city and state. The other, a last resort: balance the budget on the backs of working people using the only tools at the City’s disposal,” Mamdani noted in a Tuesday post on X.
FREE BUSES, REAL COSTS. INSIDE MAMDANI’S SOCIALIST DREAM TO SHAKEUP TRANSIT FOR NEW YORKERS
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani during a Bloomberg Television interview at City Hall in New York, on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
The city council needs to green-light city budgets, according to the New York Times.
“As the mayor of New York City, I have a legal obligation to balance the budget. I will meet that obligation,” he said during remarks on Tuesday.
The sun sets on the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building in New York City on July 28, 2025, as seen from Bayonne, N.J. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images / Getty Images)
“Faced with no other choice, the city would have to exercise the only revenue lever fully within our own control. We would have to raise property taxes. We would also be forced to raid our reserves,” he said.
“This would effectively be a tax on working and middle class New Yorkers, who have a median income of $122,000,” said Mamdani, a self-described Democratic socialist who ran on a platform that promised to tackle rent costs.
HOUSE GOP LEADER RIPS ‘SOCIALIST’ ZOHRAN MAMDANI AFTER 18 PEOPLE FREEZE TO DEATH IN NYC
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani during an announcement on junk fees in the Susan and John Hess Family Theater at The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
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Mamdani said the “preliminary budget takes the only path within our control,” but added that the city will only go that route if there is no other way to achieve a balanced budget.
Bank of Hawaii stock hits 52-week high at 80.25 USD
Speaking after the company’s record results, Woodburn, who has run BAE since 2017, said: “In a new era of defence spending, driven by escalating security challenges, we’re well-positioned to provide both the advanced conventional systems and disruptive technologies needed to protect the nations we serve now and into the future.”
Lagarde’s possible early departure leaves investors pondering replacements
I am an individual investor, working at a global technology company. I have an academic background in engineering and business economics and am currently pursuing a PhD in economics. I started investing while attending university in 2012 and have a focus in technology-based growth stocks, particularly in the fields of renewable energy, hydrogen, new mobility and space. As I aim to identify growth stocks for a diversified portfolio early on, the companies I invest in are usually small or micro caps which are not covered by a lot of analysts and SA contributors. I will thus share my thoughts from time to time with articles if I feel there are interesting yet under-evaluated investment ideas to contribute. My investment style is long only and I invest to hold for the long-term. In my analyses, I focus on fundamental topics such as technology, business model and valuation relative to the addressed market.
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“Challenging consumer environment” cited for guidance adjustment.
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary told CNBC that he believes “everything should be over-the-counter” unless a drug is unsafe, addictive or requires monitoring – doubling down on a push that some in the pharmaceutical industry have questioned.
In an interview on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., Makary said the FDA’s aims to make changes this year that allow more companies to make their prescription medicines available over-the-counter, or OTC. He noted that the agency is going through “the proper regulatory processes” to update OTC monographs – the rulebooks that determine which drugs can be sold without a prescription.
Makary said the FDA is looking at “basic, safe” prescription drugs like nausea medications and vaginal estrogen, which is used to treat menopausal symptoms like dryness and pain.
“In my opinion, everything should be over-the-counter and not requiring a prescription, unless it’s unsafe, unless you need laboratory test to monitor how it’s being received by your body, or if it could be used for some nefarious purpose or it’s addictive,” Makary told CNBC after the PhRMA Forum, a one-day event organized by the pharmaceutical industry’s largest lobbying group.
“If it doesn’t meet those criteria, why shouldn’t a drug be over the counter? So we should be asking, why not? Instead of, ‘Oh, you want to move over the counter, you got to go through a long, tedious process,’” he added.
Marty Makary, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to be U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner, testifies before a Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Senate Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 6, 2025.
Kent Nishimura | Reuters
The FDA has long considered making some prescription drugs available OTC to improve accessibility, reduce health-care costs and help patients stay on their medications. For example, patients wouldn’t have to take time off work to see a doctor for a prescription or could refill a drug without delay.
Congress boosted the effort through legislation in November that streamlines the regulatory process for prescription-to-OTC transitions, including full, conditional and partial “switch” pathways.
Makary framed the FDA’s latest push to expand OTC access as another way to lower drug costs, a key priority of the Trump administration. He argued that placing medications directly on store shelves would bypass insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, eliminating the rebate-driven system that often obscures a drug’s true price.
He also said selling drugs over the counter promotes transparency that “keeps prices in check.” In some cases, Makary said cash prices for OTC medicines are lower than patients’ copays for prescription drugs “when there’s a money game going on behind the pharmacy counter,” with employers and insurers sharing the cost.
Pharma questions OTC push
Some in the pharmaceutical industry have pushed back on that argument. Most OTC drugs are not covered by insurance, meaning their prices could eclipse those of generic prescription medicines and potentially make them less affordable for patients who rely on coverage.
In comments to the FDA earlier this month, the Association for Accessible Medicines argued that “the shift of many prescription drugs to nonprescription status could actually increase costs to patients, thereby decreasing patient access to treatments.” That organization represents manufacturers and distributors of generic prescription medicines.
The FDA also doesn’t have the authority to regulate drug prices. In its own comments this month, PhRMA said the agency must respect “the core principle that pricing considerations may not factor into FDA regulatory decision-making.”
PhRMA added that the FDA should not attempt to transition any prescription drugs to OTC without first consulting manufacturers. But the group emphasized that it supports the FDA’s effort to expand access to crucial medicines.
In its own comment this month, AstraZeneca said several previous attempts to transition cholesterol-cutting statins to OTC status have been “unsuccessful, with consumers consistently having difficulty making proper self-selection decisions.”
Meanwhile, Makary told CNBC on Wednesday that “we have to trust people to make their decisions. We’ve got to get away from this paternalistic mindset.”
The FDA removed the longtime director of the office of over-the-counter drugs, Theresa Michele, from her position in December, STAT news reported at the time.
Consumer sentiment and ultra-processed foods top the list.
Thirsk farmhouse and barns could be turned into luxury boutique
New York Times Stock Slips Despite Berkshire Hathaway Stake-Building
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