Business

Turn on the television, search the web, talk to a co-worker, the message seems the same. Just in time for Christmas, we may be in a “Scrooge Market”. People are fearful right now, and the markets show it. With the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq selling off the highs of earlier this year, we are seeing investor anxiety at levels not seen in some time...

Are you tired of earning low or no interest on the money in your checking account? Are you looking for a checking account with high interest rates that will actually work for you? Look no further than Montgomery Bank’s eGold Checking Account, which rewards you with 3.01% APY on balances up through $15,000 when you satisfy the monthly qualifications and have a real estate or commercial loan with Montgomery Bank...

Carisa Stark, owner of Mary Jane Burgers and Brew in Perryville, Missouri, has two new ventures in the works that will continue to add to her brand's footprint in Southeast Missouri. Stark recently bought two vehicles that will be part of her Cape Girardeau presence, she announced Wednesday during a Codefi Meet the Member session in downtown Cape Girardeau...

Jeff Bezos boldly predicted five years ago drones would be carrying Amazon packages to people's doorsteps by now. Amazon customers are still waiting. And it's unclear when, if ever, this particular order by the company's founder and CEO will arrive...

When you're at the checkout line this holiday season, you could juggle your bags and dig into your purse or billfold for your credit or debit card. Or you could use that phone you're already clutching, or that new smartwatch strapped to your wrist. Many stores now accept mobile wallets, a technology that lets customers make payments via smartphone or watch...

DETROIT -- General Motors' planned shutdown of its Detroit-Hamtramck plant would leave only one auto assembly factory in the city known for "putting America on wheels," but the closure and job losses are not expected to stall-out Detroit's comeback since its 2014 bankruptcy exit...

By Maryann Reese, RN, DHA, MHA, FACHE President and Chief Executive Officer, Saint Francis Healthcare System What does a Leapfrog ‘A’ score mean to our community? An ‘A’ is hard to achieve and is only given out to the best hospitals in the nation for safety and quality. ...

Hojung Kim and Alex Tavares share their thoughts at Codefi’s November Meet the Member event A physical device that teaches children with vision impairments how to read independently. A meal-sharing app that connects people within a city, inviting them into each other’s homes and to each other’s tables...

Area Development Magazine, a national site selection publication, listed talent attraction and retention as the third most important factor in the site selection process for new businesses. Availability of skilled workers trailed only highway accessibility and labor costs as the most important factors in locating a new business facility. ...

Colby Williams is an entrepreneur, he says, not a small-business owner. Williams founded Parengo Coffee in 2013 in Sikeston, Missouri, and in the ensuing five years, he's built it up. Not only does he have a cafe at 114 E. Front St. in Sikeston, but he built a wholesale division that sources and sells beans, and everything else needed to run a coffee shop -- everything from napkins and cups to sweetener packets and syrups...

DETROIT -- For generations, the career path for smart kids around Detroit was to get an engineering or business degree and get hired by an automaker or parts supplier. If you worked hard and didn't screw up, you had a job for life with enough money to raise a family, take vacations and buy a weekend cottage in northern Michigan...

It may seem too early to start thinking about your tax return, but procrastination could cost you thousands of dollars. Here are a few simple maneuvers that could save you a bundle on your taxes -- if you make them by Dec. 31. Traditional 401(k)s can shield a decent chunk of your income from taxes. ...

WARSAW, Poland -- An airport worker drops by Warsaw's newest Ikea store during her lunch break to finish up plans for a home refurbishment. Around her, people drift in and out of the shop, placing small houseware items in big yellow bags as cafe tables fill up with people just stopping in for lunch...

RJ Home Sense will be adding a touch of scent and shabby-chic glamour to Town Plaza, starting today. The shop will specialize in hand-made candles and wax melts, co-owner Joseph Flood said. “It basically started in our garage as a hobby,” Flood said. “We enjoy candles like everybody else does, but we wanted something more natural, organic.”...

Make Your Money Work For You: Montgomery Cash Back Checking Account You know: you work hard for your money, and it’s important to keep your money working hard for you after you earn it. While checking accounts are usually not the most lucrative investment tool, they are a necessity for the money you use in your daily transactions, and it’s important to ensure you have one that is making the most of your money...

WASHINGTON -- Shoppers heading online to purchase holiday gifts will find they're being charged sales tax at some websites where they weren't before. The reason: the Supreme Court. A June ruling gave states the go-ahead to require more companies to collect sales tax on online purchases. Now, more than two dozen have moved to take advantage of the ruling, many ahead of the busy holiday shopping season...

Most people would be better off not having mortgages in retirement. Relatively few will get any tax benefit from this debt, and the payments can get more difficult to manage on fixed incomes. But retiring a mortgage before you retire isn't always possible. Financial planners recommend creating a Plan B to ensure you don't wind up house rich and cash poor...

NEW YORK -- As temperatures drop and winter looms, homeowners and property managers are sweeping chimneys, insulating pipes and swapping screens for storm windows. They're also going beyond traditional winterizing by installing smart thermostats and home energy monitors aiming to lower utility bills...

It’s a nationwide phenomenon, a hashtag and a great way to inject some dollars into the local economy. Small Business Saturday is on the calendar for this weekend, and local businesses are gearing up to welcome shoppers. Emily Vines with Old Town Cape said Cape Girardeau’s downtown area merchants and restaurant managers are anticipating a great event...

What are intrapreneurs, and how are they good for your organization? In the last several years, the term “intrapreneurs” has become more widely known. Intrapreneurs are employees within an organization who are not likely to start their own enterprise, but who apply the essential principles of entrepreneurship to their positions in the business...

This year, the Marquette Tech District's 1st50K competition had not one, but two winners: Homecooked, the "Airbnb of in-home dining," and T-Var EdTech, which designs and sells services teaching children classified as "non-readers" how to read. Startup companies vie for up to $50,000 in cash grants, and must relocate to Cape Girardeau for one year. ...

Demand for healthy, natural food is extending from humans to their pets. Petco announced last week it will stop selling dog and cat food and treats with artificial colors, flavors and preservatives, both online and at its nearly 1,500 stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico...

PORTLAND, Maine -- Valuable species of shellfish have become harder to find on the East Coast because of degraded habitat caused by a warming environment, according to a pair of scientists who sought to find out whether environmental factors or overfishing was the source of the decline...

Cyber criminals are becoming more sophisticated, and businesses need to be more savvy than ever to guard against becoming a victim, said FBI special agent Monique Comeau at a Better Business Bureau seminar Thursday in Cape Girardeau. Comeau, a veteran agent with 24 years of experience, made the transition from complex fraud investigations to cybersecurity a few years ago...

LONDON -- For kids growing up in today's cashless society, the piggy bank is going virtual. Father of two Roland Hall turned to a British startup's digital pocket money app because his children were still too young to get bank cards from traditional banks...

NEW YORK -- Many small and independent retailers who are holding Small Business Saturday shopping events Thanksgiving weekend are banding together with others, believing there's strength in numbers. Small Business Saturday, started in 2010 to encourage consumers to shop in their small local stores rather than national chains and what are called big box stores, has become an event in neighborhoods, towns, even cities as retailers recognize they can draw more customers as a cohesive group than by offering discounts and promotions on their own.. ...

Life insurance provides a financial safety net for families. Sounds simple, but decisions over whether and how much to buy can get complicated, and mistakes can be costly. Here are common mistakes financial planners see: Not everyone needs life insurance...

The Midwest is often referred to as “God’s Country,” and as those who live here can attest, it’s for good reasons. Whether it is the friendly people, beautiful scenery or pace of life, there is a higher power present in this area of the country. Midwesterners value family, friendship and hard work. ...

Did you know more than 11 percent of the private sector workforce in Cape Girardeau County is employed in the field of manufacturing? Almost 4,000 people work in more than 180 manufacturing facilities in our county. In 2017, the average weekly wage for these jobs was a little more than $1,000, accounting for more than 203 million dollars in payroll. That’s a lot of buying power and a significant piece of our local economy...

Spanish Street Mercantile at 34 N. Spanish St. in Cape Girardeau is welcoming the addition of an adjoining 1930s-era “farmacy,” specializing in made-from-scratch ice cream, homemade baked goods and sodas. Charles Bertrand has owned both locations for 15 years...

Cape Girardeau’s downtown has a hotel again for the first time in 47 years: the Marriott Courtyard hotel is open for business, said Jeff Maurer, co-developer of the project. The hotel has 91 guest rooms, a conference room, fitness center and laundry, Maurer said, and is actually made up of two structures joined by a third, a free-standing tower in between...

To step into Spirit Halloween in Town Plaza in Cape Girardeau is to step into the essence of autumn: spiderwebs, spooky figures, makeup and masks. And that's just what the company is going for, said store manager Katelyn Sanders. This Spirit location is on the small side, Sanders said, and next year, "If Cape wants us back, we'll be bigger."...

DETROIT -- U.S. auto companies such as General Motors, Tesla and Ford faltered this year in Consumer Reports' reliability rankings as readers reported more mechanical trouble with their vehicles. The magazine and website said all U.S.-based brands fell to the bottom half of 29 brands in the rankings. Lexus and Toyota were once again at the top...

BEIJING -- Shared trade friction with the U.S. appears to be drawing longtime Asian rivals China and Japan closer, with Chinese President Xi Jinping telling Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday the two countries are "sharing more common interests and concerns."...

Missouri’s minimum wage would grow to $12 an hour by 2023 if voters approve a measure on the November ballot. Proposition B would increase the minimum wage by 85 cents per hour each year for the next five years, starting Jan. 1. The minimum wage now stands at $7.85 an hour...

The holidays are for living the moments that will be memorialized in photographs, experiencing the stories we will tell to our children and grandchildren and creating traditions with family members that will be passed down for generations to come. With Christmas and Thanksgiving right around the corner, start planning now to help your guests feel welcome and wanting to stay in your home by creating a cozy ambiance. ...

Sherm Smith Jr., owner of Smith Auctions, LLC, is in the business of bringing people together. He does it through collecting, consigning and auctioning collector cars from across the Midwest, storing them in his warehouse in Dexter, Missouri. It’s intergenerational, he says, and stretches across cultural barriers...

Take the drive north on State Highway 72, pass acres of farmland and, eventually, Meadow Heights High School, and you’ll run into a business producing custom wood products and shipping around the globe. There’s no sign up on this early October day; the couple, Jon and Debbie Ortmann, have just moved to the new location in Patton, Missouri. It’s a 9,000-square-foot white and green barnhouse where they make custom wood products...

Jack Rickard cobbled together his first electric car in 2008. “Went 94 miles an hour on the first test drive and 110 miles on the first charge,” he recalls. “And that’s when I got pissed.” The successful test, he says, only made him wonder why on earth there weren’t more electric cars being produced. ...

What advice would you give to someone starting a business in Cape Girardeau? Start as small as possible to test the market. I was fortunate enough to start off by renting a small space in the Indie House on the first floor. As I grew, I expanded upstairs into bigger spaces, and now my business is comprised of four spaces upstairs. So don't be afraid to try new things, but don't go too big too fast...

It’s a rainy Friday night, and the newly opened Ebb & Flow in downtown Cape Girardeau is a cozy sanctuary from the wet and onset of autumn chill. In the front room, pairs of friends sit on the old, orange-cushioned church pews, deep in conversation in the low lights. ...

Entrepreneurs love the “how.” That is our favorite question: How could we get that idea done? Asking “How?” injects energy into an entrepreneur’s brain like nitrous oxide into the engine of a street racer. Our answer to “When?” tends to be “Now.” The process of working out “What?” and “Who?” can be rewarding, but they sometimes drain our juices as much as they fill them. Nothing gets us out of bed every morning like “How?”...

Ahead of the 2018 holiday shopping season, sales tax revenue in Cape Girardeau County is roughly flat, and holiday sales aren’t likely to affect that much, said a county official. Online sales keep ratcheting upward, while the local tax base treads water...

Mill Warehouse Building Supply is a new face of a company founded in Jackson in the 1960s: Kasten Building Supply LLC, owner Phil Leimer said. "We started the expansion about a year ago," he said. "We saw an opportunity to offer a good quality line of building materials to contractors and the general public."...

OMAHA, Neb. -- China's propaganda machine has taken aim at American soybean farmers as part of its high-stakes trade war with the Trump administration. The publication last month of a four-page advertising section in the Des Moines Register opened a new battle line in China's effort to break the administration's resolve. ...

When Takiia Anderson graduated from Boston College Law School in 1999, she was a single mom with a 2-year-old child, nearly $100,000 in student loans and a new job as a government attorney that paid $34,102 a year. She didn't like that math. "People are talking about 20 years to pay off a student loan, and my daughter is going to college in 16 years," recalled Anderson, now 47 and based in Atlanta. ...

Automakers are continually making changes in vehicles. These can be technological breakthroughs, such as the automatic emergency braking systems that are increasingly becoming standard on new cars. Some are mandated changes, such as a federal requirement all vehicles have backup cameras, which went into effect in May...

Ask Jeff Bohannon how the dry cleaning industry has changed in the 65 years since his father started Bohannon Cleaners at 1500 Main St. in Scott City, and he'll tell you clothing itself has changed, along with the industry. "There was a time when gentlemen wore suits to the sale barn," Bohannon said...

NEW YORK -- Shopping for Halloween costumes doesn't have to be scary. This year, shoppers can find more ways to save time and money. Discounters such as Walmart and Target are expanding their costume offerings and creating designated sections where customers can find more of their Halloween needs in one place. ...

Travelers sometimes want a cookie-cutter room in a downtown hotel, and they sometimes want a cozy Tuscan farmhouse to share with friends. Hotels have always been good at providing the first one. Now, they're trying to figure out how to provide the second -- and blunt the growth of competitors such as Airbnb. But they're having mixed success...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google will begin offering its pay-to-carpool service throughout the U.S., an effort to reduce the commute-time congestion its popular Waze navigation app is designed to avoid. The expansion announced Wednesday builds upon a carpooling system Waze began testing two years ago in northern California and Israel before gradually extending it into Brazil and parts of 12 other states...

On November 6, voters in the state of Missouri will be asked to consider Proposition D – a 2.5 cents per gallon motor fuel tax increase for four years beginning July 1, 2019. The bill will fund the Missouri State Highway Patrol, resulting in a freeing up of at least $288 million annually to the State Road Fund and $123 million annually to local governments for road construction and maintenance. ...

As the competition for workers remains fierce, employers are looking outside traditional labor pools. In the Cape – Jackson metro area, there are more open positions than available workers. We are urging employers to look at various non-traditional sources for help. A couple of these methods are gaining steam and having positive results in other areas of the state and country...

"How do you improve a toaster? You have five minutes -- go!" Teacher Pam Pensel watches as three groups of students bend their heads over whiteboards and murmur ideas back and forth. They're playing Disruptus, a game designed to teach students how to think differently about familiar items...

Are America's employers at risk of running out of skilled people to hire? The U.S. economy has become a seemingly perpetual job-generating machine, having steadily added workers for nearly eight years. Even with the unemployment rate now at 3.7 percent -- its lowest point since 1969 -- hiring hasn't stalled. So far this year, job growth has averaged a robust 208,000 a month, up from a pace of 182,000 for all of 2017...

While paying off $1,700 in credit card debt in 2014, Jamie Griffin cut up his card. To tackle the remaining $90,000 in student loans he and his wife carried, he read personal finance experts' tips and turned to cash and a spreadsheet to budget. Now that most of their debt is paid off, he's giving credit cards a cautious second chance...

Even though electric vehicles account for just a fraction of overall car sales, they are slowly gaining favor with buyers, particularly as second cars for daily commuting. While you're researching EVs, you'll deal with the usual considerations, including price, comfort, cargo space and handling. Edmunds' Best Electric Cars guide can streamline the research...

Kasten Masonry in Jackson has a long history and four locations — and is building another facility on its Jackson campus. Company CEO Craig Bohnsack said Kasten operated a block plant in Cape Girardeau, on Locust Street, near the Mississippi River, until Jan. 1, 2016, when a levee wall gave out and flooded the plant and much of the surrounding area...

Having access to top-notch healthcare is important, and thanks to the efforts of Pink Up™, a new 3-D mammography machine is extending care to those in Poplar Bluff and the surrounding area. Kneibert Clinic now offers the latest screening and diagnostic technology with this machine that allows radiologists to view the breast tissue more clearly and identify abnormalities more accurately...

The financial profession spends a substantial amount of time discussing the topic of retirement planning. However, I’ll be one of the first to admit that the profession focuses too myopically on the premise that retirement planning means money and investments, and that more of the two equals a happy retirement. ...

It takes a lot of work to make a dream into a reality. Just ask Crystal Shafer, who on Tuesday will open the doors on a passion project she’s turned into a business venture: Heartland Harvest Market and Antiques. It’s a crafts and antiques mall, but it’s also a venue for crafters to build their own space — some, literally...

The Local Media Association has created an award in honor of Jon K. Rust, publisher of the Southeast Missourian and co-president of Rust Communications, in recognition of his commitment to the Local Media Association and Foundation, according to a recent news release...

It started out a few years ago as a place families could come to pick some apples together, and Knowlan Family Farm, at 3243 Highway 34 near Burfordville, is becoming more and more a destination. That's intentional, said owner Bonnie Knowlan. Knowlan and her husband, Jack, own the farm, originally two pieces of family-owned land now brought together under one name, more than 100 acres planted in apple and peach and nectarine trees, blueberry bushes and a pumpkin patch -- that opened over the weekend. ...

NEW YORK -- What do you hate shopping for? Toothpaste? Sunscreen? The guys who founded Harry's shaving club want to know. The startup, which took on razor giants Gillette and Schick with its direct-to-consumer subscription model, has since expanded into traditional retail and launched a line of body-care products. Armed with $112 million in new financing to develop new brands, the company now is investigating what other sleepy products might be ripe for disruption...

DUBROVNIK, Croatia -- Marc van Bloemen has lived in the old town of Dubrovnik, a Croatian citadel widely praised as the jewel of the Adriatic, for decades, since he was a child. He says it used to be a privilege. Now it's a nightmare. Crowds of tourists clog the entrances to the ancient walled city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as huge cruise ships unload thousands more daily. ...

Running Bear Western is opening Monday in uptown Jackson. Running Bear is a store with an eye toward the authentic Western lifestyle. Owner Brian Blankenship said the store is similar to what someone might find in a mountain-town tourist destination...

Teams from 20 companies in Cape Girardeau clash on the recreational fields over games of disc golf, washers, miniature golf, softball, cornhole and many more in the annual Cape Corporate Games, sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Parks and Recreation Department, said event coordinator Chad Unterreiner...

Consumers can now freeze their credit for free under a new federal law. A credit freeze restricts access to your credit file, essentially halting anyone from opening any new credit in your name. The rules used to vary by state, but previously it could cost up to $10 to put a freeze in place. That fee often had to be paid again when someone wanted to unfreeze it for any legitimate uses...

NEW YORK -- The Washington Post. Time Magazine. The Atlantic. The Village Voice. The Los Angeles Times. All American media icons, all bought by billionaires in the past half decade. Some are thriving. One died. On the rest, the jury's still out. Still, for beleaguered news organizations, the prospect of a deep-pocketed savior -- even from the very same tech industry that has kneecapped the media's traditional business model -- is all but irresistible...

FORT WORTH, Texas -- American Airlines is threatening to prohibit customers from making changes to nonrefundable tickets if Congress makes good on a proposal to crack down on what critics call unreasonable airline fees. American CEO Doug Parker said his airline would be acting just like many other businesses when customers want to swap their ticket for a different flight or for another day...