A New Milestone for U.S. Debt: $40 Trillion

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Alex Ossola (0:34)

Shares of Moderna more than double after a successful trial of an experimental new cancer vaccine. Plus, the FTC is putting retailers on notice for using consumers' personal data to set prices.

Dave Michaels (0:45)

They have a consumer profile just of you. They know what you like, they know what you've paid, they know what you browsed, and then they tailor that price to you specifically.

Alex Ossola (0:56)

And the US debt load has passed $40 trillion.

It's Wednesday, August 19th. I'm Alex Ossola for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM Edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

In a big development for cancer treatment, Moderna and Merck said today that an experimental vaccine prevented melanoma from coming back or spreading. The results of that study paved the way for a potential new treatment for the thousands of people who are diagnosed with the deadly skin cancer each year. It was also the first successful late stage trial for a personalized mRNA cancer therapy. That validates decades of research into custom treatments that are engineered specifically for an individual's tumor mutations. Moderna CEO Stephane Boncel today told CNBC about the science behind the cancer vaccine.

Stephane Boncel (1:50)

It's totally individualized. It's using sequencing technology at the molecular level because we know today cancer is a disease of DNA. That's why it's so powerful.

Alex Ossola (2:00)

Moderna hopes to have the drug on the market next year. Its shares more than doubled while Merck stock hit a record high.

Personalized pricing is when retailers use consumers' personal shopping data to see how willing they'd be to pay higher prices. Now the Federal Trade Commission is putting companies on notice. Today, the agency said that companies have to disclose when they're using personalized pricing and may face lawsuits if they don't. Dave Michaels, who covers corporate law enforcement for the journal, says personalized pricing is super targeted.

Dave Michaels (2:32)

Companies gather up all this information about you. They have a consumer profile just of you. They know what you like. They know what you've paid. They know what you browsed. And then they tailor that price to you specifically.

And the concern is that the technology will be used to raise prices. We don't know how many retailers use this kind of technology, but the Federal Trade Commission said last year that it is widespread and that companies are doing this. So Instacart, for instance, allowed its retail partners to use its software to vary prices to different people who put the same items in their shopping carts in different cities.

And this was discovered by some outside researchers, and it sparked a real outcry. And Instacart pulled back after how much concern this experiment caused.

Alex Ossola (3:28)

Dave says it's not totally clear yet how that disclosure will look to people when they're shopping online.

Dave Michaels (3:34)

The FTC says that the businesses need to provide clear, conspicuous disclosure of when they are doing this. So we'll see what that looks like when it shows up on a phone screen or a browsing session of somebody.

But you could at least imagine at this point that it shouldn't be in like the superfine print at the bottom of a web page. But we expect them to sue companies if the companies violate the policy statement in a really clear way.

Alex Ossola (4:03)

In other retail news, Target reported strong second quarter earnings and raised its outlook for the year. The company said its same store sales for the second quarter, a key retail metric, rose 3.8 percent. The company says the results show that its recent turnaround efforts are going over well with shoppers. It's been redoing its stores and its cut prices on more than 10,000 items over the past year. Target says it's planning even more price cuts. Shares closed up more than 4 percent today.

Coming up, government action in the bond market sends bond yields diving. That and more after the break.

SPEAKER_5 (4:42)

Clarity is a competitive advantage, especially when it comes to the economy. That's because anybody can know what's happening, but understanding why it matters is crucial.

Hi, I'm Kai Rizdal, the host of Marketplace. We provide the context you need to understand how the economy influences our everyday lives, from our local communities to the global conversation. You'll be smarter every time you listen. In these days, that's priceless. Listen to Marketplace on your favorite podcast app.