Another bonus given to Walmart workers
Walmart Inc.’s hourly employees last week got another bonus with their paychecks for working through the covid-19 pandemic. The bonuses paid Thursday topped $390 million, the company said.
Assistant managers at Walmart and Sam’s Club stores received $400. Full-time workers at all U.S. stores, clubs, warehouses and offices, as well as truck drivers in Walmart’s private fleet, got $300. Part-time and temporary employees received $150.
The Bentonville-based retailer has paid more than $935 million in bonuses this year. Walmart paid $365 million on April 2, and it moved up the payout of first-quarter bonuses for store employees to April 30. These totaled $180 million.
As front-line workers, “they’re providing Americans with food, medicine and supplies they need, while going above and beyond the normal scope of their jobs,” Walmart U.S. Chief Executive Officer John Furner said in May.
Despite measures meant to protect the company’s 1.5 million U.S. employees from the virus, hundreds have contracted it and at least 22 had died as of May 20, according to the advocacy group United for Respect. Walmart has declined to provide exact figures.
Investment adviser
hit with suspension
A Bentonville investment adviser has lost registrations allowing him to engage in investment advising in Arkansas.
State Securities Commissioner Eric Munson has issued an order immediately suspending the registrations of Kuettel Capital LLC and its founder and majority owner, Adam Kuettel.
Four Kuettel Capital clients saw the value of their portfolios collectively fall 62% — from $4,263,000 to $1,605,937.82 — over a 14-month period ending in March, according to the June 20 order, which came after several clients sued the firm and its founder in Benton County Circuit Court.
Kuettel Capital advertised that it would provide customized investment advice tailored to each client’s circumstances and tolerance for risk and would avoid trading in risky penny stocks, and it held the founder out as a certified financial planner.
Instead, the order said, Kuettel changed the risk tolerances and goals on several clients to more aggressive strategies and riskier investments, gave all of them the same advice, traded in volatile penny stocks, had his financial planning certification suspended for most of 2017 and never took steps to have the certification reinstated.
Arkansas Index rises 5.90, ends at 378.33
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed Monday at 378.33, up 5.90.
Twelve index stocks rose.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.