Supply & Demand

The US will run out of boba next week.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought record profits to Utica-based outdoor equipment retailer Weingartz Supply Co. Michiganders stuck at home during pandemic closures and work-from-home orders took up lawn care and landscaping projects. "In March (2020) when we closed down, sales were down 70 percent,…

Automakers and analysts have been optimistic in recent weeks that the worldwide shortage of microchips would work itself out in the second half of this year. But that upbeat prediction is changing. Many are now concluding that there is no easy path out of the mess because of the cost and…

Smith and director Antoine Fuqua are the first to pull a major film from Georgia in response to the state's restrictive voting law.

The industry has been confident that the strange problem would straighten itself before long. That now seems unlikely.

The post-pandemic beauty boom has arrived.

Could it be that walking around with little white plastic tubes sticking out of your ears has actually become cool?

When everything is a computer, you need a lot more chips.

Senior execs from almost 20 companies are heading to the White House today

With the one-year mark of the pandemic passed, Grand Rapids-based Meijer revealed shopping habits and lifestyle changes among shoppers.

Office suppliers and clothing retailers could see more store closures after the pandemic.

The South Korean electronics maker wasn't able to keep up with Apple, Samsung, and Chinese competitors

General Motors is idling more plants and extending shutdowns at other facilities in North America due to a continued shortage of semiconductor chips that are used to control myriad operations in vehicles, including the infotainment, power steering and brake systems. In an update Thursday, GM indica…

Recent setbacks raise doubt about how quickly businesses can respond to customers who seem intent on spending freely.

The U.S. economy is currently lapping the one-year anniversary of the darkest economic days of the pandemic.

In a wave fed by the COVID-19 pandemic, mixing soaring consumer demand for microchip-heavy goods with a vastly shrinking supply, a University of Michigan spin-out company finds itself well positioned to help alleviate some of the challenges. The ongoing microchip shortage, which has been simmering…

Rideshare apps are rushing to find more drivers as riders come back.

The pandemic turned restaurants into takeout specialists, boosting demand for the condiment; ‘Everyone out there is grabbing for ketchup’

By 2022 more than half of the U.S. population are expected to order groceries online.

Explore search interest for flights by time, location and popularity on Google Trends

Yield-chasing investors are snapping up single-family homes, competing with ordinary Americans and driving up prices.

Taiwan chipmaker outlines 3-year spending plan through 2023 to meet higher demand

The carrier is the last U.S. airline to end the policy, which it first put in place in April 2020.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied producers have agreed to gradually increase their output over the next three months. The move follows a sharp increase in oil prices, and a call from the United States to keep energy affordable.

Producers have raised prices for corrugated cardboard, adding to supply-chain woes as the economy reopens.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Virgin Galactic rolled out its newest spaceship Tuesday as the company looks to resume test flights in the coming months at its headquarters in the New Mexico desert....

Some experts think rising mortgage rates could cool the market.

Under new President Joe Biden, residential real estate is likely to see positive trends toward first-time home buyers' incentives, updated fair-housing policies and additional moratoriums on homeowner foreclosures due to the pandemic, all efforts that national trade associations and metro Detroit…

PORTAGE — Pfizer Inc. is expected to start building a new pharmaceutical production facility in West Michigan.The drugmaker will break ground Wednesday on the multistory, 420,000-square-foot building on Pfizer's global manufacturing campus in Portage, MLive.com reported.It is expected to…

Answer: 63% Questions:   Would you consider buying a house that you couldn’t see in person?  What do you think home buyers might miss if they rely strictly on online sources of information? Click here for the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom. Behind the numbers (NY Times):  Sixty-three percent of buyers who used Redfin in November and December went on to make an offer on a home they hadn’t seen in person, and monthly views of 3-D walk-throughs on the site are up more than 500 percent since February 2020. “In this market, because the homes are gone so quickly, if I had contacted the agent and set up a showing, by then they could have had five other offers,” Ms.