Hiring still going strong: 257,000 jobs added in January

The U.S. economy added 257,000 jobs in January, adding to the gains from last year, which was the best for job growth since 1999.

The official unemployment rate ticked up to 5.7%, a notch higher than December. Economists surveyed by CNNMoney predicted 229,000 jobs would be created in January and an unemployment rate of 5.5%. Don't worry too much about the higher unemployment rate. It's actually a positive, experts say.

"The labor market recovery is finally hitting its stride," says Gus Faucher, senior economist at PNC Bank.

More people are looking for work now as they see others get employment. Faucher believes the higher unemployment rate "is good news. That's a sign of confidence in the job market."

The optimism doesn't stop there. There were huge upward revisions to the job gains in November and December. The economy added about an extra 150,000 jobs in those two months combined, according to the Labor Department.

"American companies are on a hiring binge," says Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.

Related: See the jobs created since President Obama took office

Headwinds ahead: January's job news was a reprieve from the economy's rocky start to 2015. The S&P 500 (SPX)and Dow (DIA)fell 3% as the strong U.S. dollar is starting to hurt American businesses selling products overseas. There is growing concern that the dollar's pressure could hurt sales abroad so much that it could eventually cause layoffs in U.S. later this year.

Some of America's largest employers, like Microsoft and Procter & Gamble, signaled that the dollar may hurt their business this year. Unfortunately, the dollar is not the only concern for the job market.

Related: The 100 best jobs in America

Oil bust: One of the biggest worries is that the dramatic fall in oil prices in recent months will cost many American workers their jobs in the energy sector. Texas, the second-largest state economy, could be hard hit. A number of big oil companies have already announced thousands of layoffs.

The economy still added almost 200,000 oil and gas jobs in January, but that is down slightly from December's energy job gains.

The strong dollar and oil prices are rising red flags, but wages could take center stage in the debate about the economy's health this year, economists say.

Related: Making money as the Fed raises rates won't be easy

Wage gains: Perhaps the best news for many Americans is that wages grew a healthy 2.2% in January compared to a year ago. Last year wages barely rose. President Obama touted wage growth in his State of the Union address, but wages have not changed much for many Americans.

The Federal Reserve wants to see consistent wage growth before it raises its key interest rate -- a sign that the U.S. economy is healthy. It aims to see wage growth above at least 2%. In December, wages only grew 1.7% on the year.

Some of the wage gains could have come from several states increasing their minimum wages at the start of the year. Over 3 million workers got a raise from the wage hikes.

"It's a good [wage growth] number, but I think it reflects the minimum wage increases that were adopted across the country," says Sharon Lee Stark, a fixed income strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co.

Looking long-term, she added: "Conditions are indeed improving. The question is how much are we improving from where we came from? The economy took a pretty significant dive. We need numbers like this to pull us back."

CNNMoney (New York) February 6, 2015: 9:46 AM ET

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15-year-old steps down from startup because ... high school

But while her peers are chatting about boys and clothes, Mintz is texting the CEO she hired to run her growing business.

Mintz, 15, has been heading up her own nanny agency since August 2012. She hired Allison Johnson last July to oversee day-to-day business operations while she attends her freshman year of high school. She rents a room in an office building in Midtown Manhattan where Johnson, 26, works.

Mintz made the executive decision to hire help because she was putting in 40 hours of work a week at Nannies by Noa while juggling her 8th grade course load.

"While stepping down was necessary with the beginning of high school, of course it has been difficult to hand over lots of my work to someone else," Mintz emailed an entrepreneur in January, soliciting advice. "I would love to hear about your journey as an entrepreneur and how you balanced college while also being a committed businesswoman."

Related: Alfred -- the butler for the 99%

Mintz (right) hired Johnson in July 2014 to take over daily operations at Nannies by Noa.

Like any minor, Mintz has had to lean on her parents for some help. Her father -- who runs a private equity firm -- is the registered owner of her business. He's helped front money for legal fees but says he fully expects a "return on investment" as with any business venture.

But Nannies by Noa is all her brainchild. The idea came about as a result of a challenge, made in jest by her mother: Find a better babysitter for their family. (Mintz was critical of their own.)

She did just that -- and then she starting helping her mother's friends find nannies.

"I found it fun to get to know a family and their needs -- and find a babysitter who matched that," she said. It was the summer of 2012, before she entered 7th grade.

"I really had no expectations, but I figured I'd try," said Mintz, who lives on the Upper West Side with her parents and three younger siblings.

In the past year, her business has tripled: from 50 clients in 2013 to 190 clients today.

Related: Women build bigger businesses

She's designed a thorough review process: an application, resume, in-person interview with a trained nanny, reference and background check and a phone interview. (Initially, Mintz did these. Many weren't aware that a minor was behind the business.)

"It's definitely not something I hide," said Mintz, of her age. "But it's not something I blurt out on every call. People have said, 'You have a very young voice. How old are you?' I assure clients, 'I'm still an agency, I'm still a businesswoman.'"

At first, she charged $100 to $200. ("I needed to get trust before people wanted to commit to money," she said.)

Mintz created a website for Nannies by Noa by herself using Wix.com.

"I wasn't charging enough. Even clients would say, 'You realize you should be charging way, way more,'" added Mintz, whose clients are mostly looking for long-term help.

She's since revamped her business model: Nannies by Noa now takes a percentage of the overall rate. She declined to disclose financials, but said rates are on par with the industry, which is typically 15% of the nanny's first year gross salary (in New York this runs about $50,000, according to Mintz).

Mintz's parents say they aren't shocked by Noa's success. She had a predilection for startups at a young age (she would organize art classes for her siblings and coordinate party planning for birthdays). And they all watch "Shark Tank."

Related: Young women raise big bucks for startups

"I got her a subscription to Entrepreneur, but she also reads Seventeen," said her mother, Meredith Berkman. "I wanted her to go for it, as long as she's doing all of her schoolwork."

Mintz is the first to admit that schoolwork doesn't come easy.

"I'm not an A+ student. I have definitely struggled with school," said Mintz."[But] having this business, I realized that book smart isn't the same as entrepreneurial smart. I've tried to channel the business to give me more confidence in school."

She does get an A+ for business savvy. While Nannies by Noa is cash-flow positive, Mintz said she invests everything back into the business.

"I feel that there are always opportunities for growth and marketing, which comes at a price," she said. "Eventually I may take out a small salary, but not at this point."

While Mintz said she has other business ideas, she also wouldn't rule out other careers.

"First I need to finish high school, and then perhaps I'll launch another company. We will see," said Mintz.

CNNMoney (New York) February 6, 2015: 6:49 AM ET

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What crisis? Kalashnikov's business is booming

Kalashnikov is a leading supplier to Russia's military.

Russia's economy is nosediving due to low oil prices and Western sanctions, but the maker of assault rifles doubled its production last year and posted three billion rubles ($45 million) in revenue, up 28% compared with 2013, the company said.

"Despite the sanctions, Kalashnikov reported a net profit for the first time in seven years," Kalashnikov general director Alexei Krivoruchko said in a statement emailed to CNN.

The AK-47 maker was one of the first Russian companies to be slapped with trade sanctions over the country's incursion into Ukraine.

Kalashnikov attributed the growth to developing new customers, mainly in Asia and Africa, and a new marketing strategy adopted in 2014.

It launched a new brand aimed at civilian consumers, including clothing and accessories, as well as a new slogan: Protecting peace.

Related: AK-47s: Soon to be made in the USA

The Russian military and other Russian law enforcement agencies are among Kalashnikov's most important customers, and they're spending heavily on new weapons.

Defense and national security were the only departments to escape 10% budget cuts ordered by President Vladimir Putin.

Russian military spending is set to rise by 85% between 2012 and 2017.

The company made 120,000 weapons in 2014. It expects production to grow by as much as 25% in 2015.

Related: Kalashnikovs get new look to boost sales

CNNMoney (London) February 6, 2015: 8:17 AM ET

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Bitcoin fallacy led to Silk Road founder's conviction

The latest example? The guilty verdict in the trial of Ross Ulbricht, the kingpin behind the online drug bazaar Silk Road.

His attorney took a stunningly odd approach to his defense: Yes, Ulbricht ran the site. Yes, those millions of dollars in bitcoins are his. But he stopped running Silk Road a long time ago.

Here's why that logic didn't work: Federal prosecutors showed that millions of dollars in Bitcoin payments were traced from Silk Road back to Ulbricht's personal laptop -- until just before his arrest.

How was that possible? Here's a mini crash course in Bitcoin.

Related: What is Bitcoin

Bitcoin is all about electronic wallets that send digital cash directly to one another. All you need is a Bitcoin wallet address. You never need to know someone's real name. And at the center of it all is the engine that keeps the system alive: a public record of all transactions called "the blockchain."

It seems anonymous at first -- but only if you keep your wallet address secret. If that's connected to your name, the whole world knows every transaction you've ever made.

That's why Bitcoin's notoriety as the tech-savvy criminal's currency of choice is absolute lunacy. Bitcoins track everything. Some Bitcoin users have even taken to calling them "prosecution futures."

In Ulbricht's case, it all came down to what happened in a New York federal court on January 29.

That was the day jurors heard testimony from Ilhwan Yum, the FBI agent who examined the Silk Road website's computer servers in Iceland and Ulbricht's confiscated laptop. He cross-referenced Bitcoin wallet addresses found in each computer to the blockchain itself -- and voilà.

From September 2012 until August 2013, Ulbricht's personal laptop received 3,760 transactions from the Silk Road worth 700,254 bitcoins, the FBI agent said. That means Ulbricht had received the equivalent of $18 million over that time.

"I didn't do any complicated analysis," Yum said in court, noting that the publicly available blockchain records made it even easier to figure out than if a criminal had used a legitimate bank. At least that takes a subpoena.

The numbers also showed that 89% of the bitcoins that made it to Ulbricht's laptop came straight from the online black market. That didn't jibe with his defense attorney's story that they all came from his Bitcoin trading.

Ulbricht's lawyer, Joshua Dratel, protested that he was blindsided by this in-depth FBI analysis of Bitcoin wallets and transfers. But it was too late. He should have known, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest said. Outside security researchers, like Stanford's Nicholas Weaver, had already determined that a sizable portion of Ulbricht's Bitcoin stash came from Silk Road.

As computer scientist Sarah Meiklejohn warned last year, "Every Bitcoin is by nature a marked bill. All that's required is putting together some pieces."

That's why Ulbricht's trial is so curious. It's among the first times that truly electronic money played a major role in determining someone's role in a crime. The jury found Ulbricht guilty on all seven counts related to money laundering, hacking, trafficking forged identities and distributing narcotics.

And Ulbricht's defense -- saying he actually owned the bitcoins -- made it so easy that U.S. prosecutors told CNNMoney they were flabbergasted (before the verdict was even out).

Think of what federal prosecutor Timothy Howard told the judge in court last week.

"At the end of the day, it is all based on public records showing one-to-one connections between Bitcoin addresses. It is not anything very complicated," he said.

Now that should make criminals think twice.

Jose Pagliery is the author of Bitcoin - And the Future of Money (Triumph Books, Chicago).

Related: Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht found guilty

Related: FBI shuts down online drug market Silk Road

Related: Spent bitcoins? Expect a tax headache

CNNMoney (New York) February 5, 2015: 10:16 AM ET

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European stocks love QE. Can the rally last?

Two weeks ago, the European Central Bank president unveiled a massive bond-buying plan that will inject at least $1.3 trillion into the financial system. The stimulus is designed to power up the region's ailing economy. It begins next month.

Investors love the plan. Germany's DAX index has rallied 11% this year to trade at record highs. France's CAC is up 9.5% and Italy has risen 8.5%. It's a very different story in the U.S., where the S&P 500 (SPX), and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDU) have lost around 1% this year.

U.S. stocks are cooling from record highs fueled by repeated rounds of bond buying by the Federal Reserve, which wrapped up its 6-year effort to stimulate the economy in late 2014.

So is quantitative easing (QE) setting up European stocks for a similar binge?

Related: Making money as the Fed raises rates won't be easy

Experts say probably not.

Further gains are possible in some sectors in the eurozone's big four markets -- Germany, France, Italy and Spain -- said CMC market analyst Michael Hewson.

But QE won't fix fundamental problems in the European economy, nor power profit growth.

There are some positive signs. Low oil prices should help the region's recovery. The European Commission increased its growth forecasts for this year by a whisker on Thursday, citing cheaper oil and QE.

Still, there's plenty of downside. Despite the improving picture, Europe risks getting stuck in an environment of low growth and deflation - a powerful combination that could mean stagnation for years to come.

Related: Red alert! 12 central banks have cut rates this year

"There is a clear danger that the ECB's program proves to be too little, too late to prevent a Japanese-style prolonged period of weak growth and flat or falling prices in the eurozone," wrote Capital Economics' Jonathan Loynes.

Even with $60 billion pouring into the markets each month for the foreseeable future, some investors are determined to steer well clear of Europe.

UBS said many of its clients are unwilling to put money into a region where the currency is continuing to fall. They're also put off by a recent history of poor earnings at the region's biggest companies.

Consensus forecasts for European company profits have been marked down for the last four years, and profits have barely grown since 2010, UBS said.

And then there's the wild card: Greece.

With bills mounting and borrowing becoming increasingly difficult, Greek leaders are scrambling to strike a deal with Europe on how the country and its banks can remain solvent. A worsening situation in Greece - which might include its exit from the euro - could have a damaging effect on the broader region.

"We don't know how a Greece default would ripple through the European banking sector," Hewson said.

Related: Greek banks hit as Europe stands firm over bailout

CNNMoney (London) February 5, 2015: 10:01 AM ET

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Another large oil company cuts jobs

Weatherfield International (WFT), which runs drilling and other oil operations, said it is cutting 5,000 jobs.

Those include both oil field positions and support roles, and nearly all are in the Western Hemisphere.

Savings will amount to $350 million, the company said late Wednesday.

Geneva-based Weatherfield is just the latest oil firm to cut back as oil prices have tumbled 50% in the past year. In recent days, crude oil prices have popped back a little from a low of $47.36 a barrel to just over $49 Wednesday.

Halliburton (HAL) is cutting 1,000 jobs, Schlumberger (SLB) 9,000.

BP (BP) is slashing spending by $1 billion and Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) by $15 billion over three years and ConocoPhillips (COP) is also cutting back. Experts at Citi (C) warned prices haven't bottomed out yet.

Related: How the oil boom and collapse changed the face of small-town North Dakota

About 40%, or 21,000, U.S. job cuts in January were due to falling oil prices, according to the workforce analysts at Challenger, Gray and Christmas. Most were positions cut from within the energy industry, though the report warned the job cuts could ripple outwards.

"The economies throughout the northern United States that have been thriving as a result of the oil boom could experience a steep decline in employment across all sectors, including retail, construction, food service and entertainment," said CEO John Challenger.

Related: Oil boomtown: 'We could see 20,000 layoffs by June'

--CNN's Dave Alsup contributed to this report

CNNMoney (New York) February 5, 2015: 10:07 AM ET

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Fly business class to London for 50% less

La Compagnie will launch its New York to London service in April for around $2,200 return.

That's at least half the price of a business ticket with major carriers like American Airlines (AAL) and Air France (AFRAF). La Compagnie already flies from Newark to Paris.

The company says it's able to offer cheap flights by keeping costs down. The firm's headquarters are on the outskirts of Paris, saving on high inner city rents. It also keeps staff numbers low: there are just three cabin crew for each flight, which carry up to 74 passengers.

The airline operates Boeing (BA) 757-200s, a mid-size jetliner also used by Delta Airlines (DAL) and United Airlines. The planes are fitted with flatbeds and individual Samsung (SSNLF) Galaxy tablets to keep passengers entertained. It will run four flights a week to London initially, rising to six by June.

Despite the attractive fares, La Compagnie will have a tough time taking on the big players.

Related: U.S. airlines eager to fly to Cuba

Other upstarts have tried to grab a slice of the lucrative transatlantic business travel market before. Three all-business operators -- Eos Airlines, MAXjet and Sliverjet -- had all collapsed by 2008. A fourth, L'Avion was sold to British Airways.

Waning demand in the lead up to the financial crisis, as well as rising jet fuel prices, contributed to those failures, but analysts say the business model remains challenging.

Major airlines do bulk deals for corporate travel and La Compagnie will have a hard time competing, said Liberum analyst Gerald Khoo.

The key to success with corporate travelers is "network and frequency," he said. Time, rather than price, is often more important for them -- and British Airways alone has more transatlantic flights in one day than La Compagnie will offer per week.

"I think they will struggle," Khoo said, "The [major carriers] have an entrenched advantage of broader route networks and frequency. It's not insurmountable, but still very difficult."

Related: Why India has the cheapest flights on earth

CNNMoney (London) February 4, 2015: 9:56 AM ET

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