Business Beat for Thursday, October 30, 2014

Wal-Mart Stores is considering matching online prices from competitors such as Amazon.com, raising the stakes for the holiday shopping season.

That bowl of chocolates for ninjas and ghosts won’t cost you more this Halloween. Picking the perfect sweet for your Valentine could.

Starbucks Corp. on Thursday reported profit of $587.9 million in its fiscal fourth quarter, narrowly missing Wall Street expectations.

McDonald’s is cutting layers of management and re-organizing its U.S. operations to respond better to consumer tastes, the Wall Street Journal says.

Computer maker Lenovo Group has completed its $2.9 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google Inc.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose more than 200 points Thursday, thanks in large part to a big gain in Visa, the Dow’s highest-priced stock.

Groupon Inc.’s investments in becoming a full-blown e-commerce site are continuing to eat into profits, Bloomberg reports.

Citigroup slashed its 3rd-quarter earnings by $600 million, saying recent investigations by regulators have altered the results it reported earlier.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission plans to take action against Mondelez over wheat futures trading, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The public declaration, in an essay written for Bloomberg Businessweek, makes Cook the highest-profile business CEO to come out as gay.

Microsoft looks to challenge Apple and Google with its own system for consolidating health and fitness data from various gadgets and mobile apps.

Home goods retailer Williams-Sonoma Inc. was accused taking too long to report its window shades posed a strangulation hazard to children.

Baby-food maker Gerber is being accused by the government of claiming falsely that its Good Start Gentle formula can prevent or reduce allergies.

Wal-Mart’s Japan unit will close 30 stores and remodel about 50 stores to improve their fresh food and deli sections.

The Yankee Air Museum now owns a 144,000-square-foot slice of the former plant where Rose Will Monroe and other workers built B-24 bombers.

U.S. safety regulators are now playing hardball with Takata Corp. as they investigate a possibly deadly defect in some of the company’s air bags.

The U.S. economy was propelled by solid gains in business investment, export sales and the biggest jump in military spending in five years.

Samsung admitted erring in its smartphone strategy and vowed Thursday to overhaul its handset lineup after profit from those devices tumbled.

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