Lumber Liquidators stock pummeled after '60 Minutes' probe

The stock tumbled Wednesday after the CEO warned of the "60 Minutes" report.

The report by CNN's Anderson Cooper revealed Chinese-manufactured laminate flooring sold by the company contains high levels of the cancer-causing chemical formaldehyde.

Lumber Liquidators (LL) plunged more than 20% in pre-market stock trading on Monday. At market open, trading of the stock was halted.

That's after the stock lost more than a quarter of its value -- 26% -- last Wednesday after the CEO warned investors of an upcoming report on the show that would portray the company "in an unfavorable light."

Lumber Liquidators has 352 stores in the U.S. and Canada.

The '60 Minutes' report cited lab tests performed for an environmental and consumer protection nonprofit that found some samples of laminate flooring contained very high levels of the chemical.

Some pieces had six to seven times the level of formaldehyde allowed under California law, according to environmental attorney Richard Drury, who was interviewed by '60 Minutes.' Others had 20 times the limit.

A doctor told CBS long-term exposure to chemicals at those levels "would increase the risk for chronic respiratory irritation, change in a person's lung function, increased risk of asthma" and be especially dangerous for children.

The suspect flooring is in "hundreds of thousands" of homes nationwide, according to Drury.

Lumber Liquidators' products have long been viewed skeptically by environmentalists. It has been accused of illegally sourcing wood, and those accusations may be behind a 2013 raid on its headquarters.

A spokeswoman for Lumber Liquidators did not immediately return a call Monday morning.

CNNMoney (New York) March 2, 2015: 9:54 AM ET

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Boom! Nasdaq finally tops 5,000 again

The Nasdaq is now just 2.6% from its all-time high from its Dot-com peak that it hit almost exactly 15 years ago.

Stock markets around the world have been crushing records lately. The Nasdaq, home to Apple (AAPL, Tech30), Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30), Google (GOOGL, Tech30), Intel (INTC, Tech30) and many other prominent tech stocks, is actually the last major index to come close to its all-time highs.

The Dow and S&P 500 have been routinely hitting new records for the past year.

A lot of people have concerns that this might be a warning sign that stocks are back at lofty levels again, but much is different now versus the Dot-com era, including the fact that many of the companies leading the charge are well established and have a lot of cash on hand.

Related: Why this tech party isn't like 1999

History lesson: Tech stocks plummeted in 2000 as prices for technology companies, particularly relatively new Internet firms, got way too high in a relatively quick fashion. It was a classic bubble.

The plunge was breathtaking. By October 2002, the Nasdaq had fallen to around 1,1108 -- nearly 80% below its all-time high of about 5,132.

But tech stocks have come roaring back since the broader market bottomed nearly six years ago during the Great Recession.

The mobile and social media revolutions have helped lead the way as Apple, Google and Facebook (FB, Tech30) have all emerged as some of the leading tech companies in the world.

CNNMoney (New York) March 2, 2015: 10:47 AM ET

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Everyone in Colorado may get a pot tax refund

The total could be about $59 million. That's how much the state expects to collect from taxes on the sale of recreational marijuana, which Colorado legalized last year. Some of that money was slated for schools, but it may go back into taxpayers' pockets instead.

The reason for the refund: Colorado is expected to collect more in total tax revenue than it thought it would this year. That's not permitted in a year the state rolls out a new tax, which this time was the 28% pot tax.

The pot tax itself didn't generate as much money as expected.

But the state is poised to take in $219 million more in total revenue than it thought it would during the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.

Related: I bought pot legally and it was weird

Here's what happened.

Whenever a new tax is implemented, a law in Colorado aimed at protecting taxpayers' rights goes into effect.

It requires the state to estimate its total annual tax collections, and that number effectively serves as a cap on the amount of taxes it can keep.

Colorado issued such an estimate when it introduced the pot tax, and now it looks all but certain that total state taxes will surpass that threshold.

"We would have to experience a pretty significant economic downturn between now and June not to be in excess [of the cap]," said Phyllis Resnick, an economist at Colorado State University.

Related: This bank could save the pot industry

That means a refund is likely in order. And under the law, the state will have to give back the money collected from the new tax -- the $59 million or so it expects to collect on pot sales.

CNNMoney (New York) March 2, 2015: 10:29 AM ET

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ISIS supporters threaten Twitter founder Jack Dorsey

A group claiming to have ties to ISIS has threatened Twitter employees and the company's founder, Jack Dorsey.

In a post on anonymous forum justpaste.it, the group drew an illustration of Dorsey in crosshairs. The Arabic message that follows contains several death threats.

"How would you protect your miserable employees Jack, when their necks become an official target to ISIS soldiers and supporters, what would you tell their families and their sons, and you are the one who involved them in this lost war," the group said in its post.

Twitter's terms of service forbid hate speech, threats and posts that promote terrorism. The social media site has actively tried to take down accounts tied to ISIS, particularly after Anonymous hacktivists took it upon themselves to block access to terrorist websites and social media profiles.

"You started this lost war; we told you from the beginning that it's not your war but you didn't understand and closed down our accounts -- we'll come back, but when our lone lions silence your breath, you won't come back," the post says.

Twitter (TWTR, Tech30) said it is working to confirm whether the threats are serious.

"Our security team is investigating the veracity of these threats with relevant law enforcement officials," a spokesman for Twitter said.

-- CNN's Yousuf Basil and Samuel Burke contributed to this report

Related: Meet the vigilante who hacks jihadists

Related: Hudreds of ISIS social media accounts shut down

CNNMoney (New York) March 2, 2015: 8:37 AM ET

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This tiny card will give your smartphone 200 GB of storage

SanDisk (SNDK) has unveiled the world's most spacious storage card for smartphones. The catchy-named "SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card, Premium Edition," comes with 200 gigabytes of storage. That's 72 GB more storage than the next-largest option on the market.

But before you get too excited, cramming all that capacity on a tiny microSD card the size of your fingernail isn't for everyone.

High-capacity storage is extremely expensive stuff. SanDisk said it will go on sale sometime in the spring -- and cost $400.

Also, many newer phones also don't come with expandable storage. The Apple (AAPL, Tech30) iPhone has never allowed customers to insert SD cards to grow its storage capacity, and Samsung (SSNLF) just eliminated that option from its new Galaxy S6 smartphone.

If you want all that storage in your phone but can't get it, don't despair. SanDisk also makes internal storage for smartphones, and you could one day see a 200 GB iPhone or Android phone hit store shelves.

Storage prices also tend to come down over time. Apple just increased the capacity of its two larger-capacity iPhones this past year, doubling customers' storage without raising the price of the iPhone.

As smartphones become our primary cameras, those huge photo and video files tend to eat up space pretty quickly. A growing number of cloud storage options, including Google+ (GOOGL, Tech30) Photos, Amazon (AMZN, Tech30) Cloud Drive, Apple iCloud and Dropbox are making photo backup much easier -- but you still have to erase the photos from your phone when your on-board storage space fills up.

SanDisk's 200 GB of extra storage would pretty much eliminate the need to methodically erase stuff from your phone.

The company also says that the SD card comes with an app that will allow super-fast transfer rates, allowing customers to move 1,200 photos per minute from a phone to a computer.

Related: Samsung unveils beautiful new Galaxy S6

Related: You can now get your hands on this super-rare Android phone

CNNMoney (New York) March 2, 2015: 9:02 AM ET

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Google+ is about to be broken up

Google+ is going to be broken up into Photos, Hangouts and Streams.

The search giant's tepidly embraced social network is going to reorganize around its two standout products -- photos and hangouts -- as well as a newly named social feed called "streams," Google's (GOOGL, Tech30) product chief Sundar Pichai said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona,

Pichai didn't give a timeline for when Google+ will be rebranded. A spokesman for Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google+ debuted in June 2011 as Google's answer to Facebook. The social network was advertised as a social network built from the ground up with privacy in mind, allowing people to share items with specific "Circles" of friends, family, coworkers and other groups. But it wasn't long before Facebook built a similar feature.

Google has stopped providing statistics about the number of Google+ users, but it had more than 300 million active users a year ago -- about a billion fewer users than Facebook has.

Despite its inability to unseat Facebook and its relative failure to capture the world's attention, Google+ is too big to kill (Google already shut down its other social network, Orkut, last year).

And Google+ did have a few successes. Google+ Hangouts and Photos have gotten widespread usage from Google users, even if they don't actively post to Google+.

Hangouts is Google's one-stop shop for communications, combining instant messaging, text messaging, Internet phone calls, video messaging and group chats. Particularly because of its presence on Android phones and Gmail, Hangouts successfully competes with Apple's (AAPL, Tech30) iMessage, Facebook (FB, Tech30) Messenger, WhatsApp and the like.

Google+ Photos has also become a success. The photo storage and sharing platform allows smartphone users to automatically back up their videos and photos to their Google Drive. Google+ Photos organizes photos in clever "highlights" chunks and even lets people search for photos based on their appearance alone -- "beach" or "snow" will show appropriate photos without the need to tag them.

For those who still want to post to Google+, the newsfeed-like service will live on as "Streams." Google says that it's hardly giving up on the various components of Google+, and the breakup will only serve to improve the product's focus.

"It's important to me that these changes are properly understood to be positive improvements to both our products and how they reach users," said the newly named Photos and Streams chief Bradley Horowitz in -- what else -- a Google+ post.

Related: Too much Facebook leads to envy and depression

Related: What does net neutrality mean for you?

CNNMoney (New York) March 2, 2015: 10:21 AM ET

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Michael Jordan joins billionaires' club

Jordan is one of the 290 newly-minted billionaires on Forbes' annual list of the world's richest people. He's certainly one of the most recognizable names on the list -- sorry, LeBron.

Jordan amassed his $1 billion fortune partly through his endorsement deal with Nike (NKE). The Jordan brand by Nike brought in an estimated $2.25 billion in 2013, which earned the 52 year-old athlete $90 million, according to Forbes.

But it was Jordan's ownership of the Charlotte Hornets basketball team that catapulted him into the billionaire's ranks this year. NBA teams soared in value after Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) CEO, paid $2 billion for the Los Angeles Clippers.

Related: Michael Jordan's home fails to sell at auction

All told, the world's 1,826 billionaires have a combined net worth of $7.05 trillion, up from $6.4 trillion in 2014.

Topping the list are the usual suspects: Microsoft's Bill Gates ($79.2 billion); cellphone magnate Carlos Slim ($77.1 billion) and value investor Warren Buffett ($72.7 billion). All three saw their net worth increase last year.

As in years past, Silicon Valley is the place to be for young billionaires.

Among the 46 billionaires under 40 years old were executives at Uber, Airbnb and Snapchat.

The youngest billionaire on the list is the 24-year-old Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel.

Elizabeth Holmes, at 31, is America's youngest self-made female billionaire and is among 197 women on the Forbes list. Holmes dropped out of Stanford at 19 to found Theranos, a company that's developing new blood testing technology.

Wal-Mart (WMT) heiress Christy Walton was the richest female on the list, with a net worth of $41.7 billion.

The United States was home to the most billionaires, thanks to the tech boom and a strong U.S. dollar. There 536 American billionaires, with 131 of them in California.

China has the second highest number of billionaires, followed by Germany and India.

Russia's economic woes have taken a toll on the nation's billionaires. The number of Russian billionaires on the list fell to 28, down from 111 in 2014.

Related: Where the billionaires are now

Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko, who made his billions in the candy business, also dropped off the list of billionaires this year.

Altogether, 138 people fell off the list, while 19 passed away.

Related: Top 20 colleges with most billionaire alumni

Related: Luxury getaways for (much) younger travelers

CNNMoney (New York) March 2, 2015: 10:31 AM ET

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Guinness returns to sponsor N.Y.'s St. Patrick's Day Parade

Guinness owner says inclusion of an LGBT group in this year's parade is reason to resume its sponsorship, though some gay rights groups are still protesting the parade's policies.

This year's parade will include Out@NBC-Universal, an LGBT affinity group for the television network which is airing the parade. Some other gay rights groups say that including that group doesn't go far enough.

"We welcome this cracking of the veneer of hate, but so far Irish LGBT groups are still not able to march in our community's parades. The fight continues," said a group known as Irish Queers when NBC announced the group would join the parade last September.

But Guinness owner Diageo (DEO) says it's enough for beer brand to return to sponsoring the March 17 parade.

"While there is still work to be done, we are pleased that the parade organizers have taken steps to allow the LGBT community to be represented," said Diageo in a statement. "The parade is an important way for Guinness to support the Irish community, and we look forward to celebrating with millions of New Yorkers."

A Diageo spokeswoman said the company had no comment about the fact that other groups are still protesting the parade's policies.

Related: Brands that love LGBT the most

Brewers Heineken U.S.A. and Sam Adams also withdrew their sponsorships for the parade last year. A spokesman for Heineken said it hasn't yet decided whether it will sponsor the parade. A spokesperson for Sam Adams (BOSTON BEER) was not available for comment early Monday. Parade organizers also did not respond to a request for comment.

CNNMoney (New York) March 2, 2015: 10:38 AM ET

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Costco teams with Citi and Visa

Costco shoppers will be able to use Visa cards for the first time on April 1.

Costco (COST) says it will start accepting Visa (V) rather than American Express (AXP) at its U.S. stores on April 1, 2016. Currently, the wholesale club retailer has accepted only debit cards and Amex for purchases in its stores or at its gas stations, although it also accepts Visa and MasterCard for online purchases.

Most retailers who accept Visa also accept MasterCard (MA), but Costco will be an exception to that rule. The only credit cards it will accept for store and gas station purchases will be Visa.

Details about the new card's benefits and terms will be made available to members soon. The Costco Amex card offered card holders 3% cash back for gas, 2% for restaurants and travel and 1% back for everything else, and there was no annual fee as long as the user was a Costco member.

The deal anticipates the purchase of the existing co-branded Costco Amex card portfolio by Citi.

Citi (C) is the world's largest issuer of consumer credit cards and has co-branded cards with other retailers, including Sears (SHLD), for which it has issued a Sears MasterCard (MA).

Note: An earlier version of this report incorrectly said the deal between Citi and Costco would take effect on April 1, 2015.

Related: Costco just killed my favorite credit card

CNNMoney (New York) March 2, 2015: 10:41 AM ET

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U.K. fights Russian oligarch over oil fields

It is the latest in a series of clashes over energy between Russia and the West. Relations have been hurt badly by Russia's involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

The U.K. government tried to prevent Germany's RWE (RWEOY) from selling its oil and gas subsidiary, Dea, to Fridman's LetterOne company. Dea owns stakes in nearly 200 oil and gas fields in 14 countries, including 13 fields in the North Sea.

Despite U.K. objections, the $5.7 billion sale was finalized on Monday. Now, the government says it will force Fridman to sell the North Sea assets to a third party.

Britain is worried the country's energy production could suffer if the West imposes more sanctions on Russia. Further restrictions could make it difficult for a Russian owner to operate or invest in the North Sea fields.

Fridman is one of Russia's richest men. He owns the majority of Alfa Bank, Russia's largest private lender, and has a stake in Russia's second biggest food retailer X5.

Having made a fortune on the sale of TNK-BP to state-controlled oil giant Rosneft, Fridman is looking to diversify his business and invest outside Russia.

Related: Putin's cronies lose $50 billion

Fridman's deal with RWE was first announced a year ago, just as the West imposed its first round of sanctions against Russia over Ukraine.

The U.K. objected to the deal, and asked the two sides to come up with a plan that would protect production in the North Sea.

In response, RWE said that it would buy back the U.K. fields if new sanctions were imposed against Fridman and his group within the next year. That was not enough to convince the government to change its mind.

Fridman called the British position "not rational," and threatened legal action against the U.K. if the government tries to force a sale.

Russia's energy companies have suffered several blows since the crisis started. Germany killed a big gas deal with Russia, and the EU has launched an antitrust investigation into Russia's energy giant Gazprom.

The planned purchase of Morgan Stanley (MS)'s oil trading business by Rosneft was blocked by the U.S. in December.

Related: Cheap oil is crushing North Sea industry

CNNMoney (London) March 2, 2015: 10:42 AM ET

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