Trading app Robinhood, which “popularized one-click trading and helped fuel last year’s meme stock frenzy,” announced this week that it’s firing 23% of its workforce. The move comes on the heels of the company laying off 340...more
Online home buying platform Opendoor Labs will pay $62 million to the FTC “to settle claims that it used misleading marketing practices to persuade people to sell their homes on the site.” According to the Commission, the...more
Groundwork effectively laid over the past few weeks, the Fed made good on expectations to again raise short-term interest rates on Wednesday, boosting them by 75bps as part of the central bank’s ongoing efforts to cool...more
The International Monetary Fund is out with a new warning that “the world could soon be on the brink of a global recession”—the result of the economies in the U.S., China, and Europe slowing “more sharply than anticipated” as...more
DOJ officials have sued poultry processors Cargill, Sanderson Farms, and Wayne Farms over an alleged 20-year “scheme to deceive workers and suppress wages.” The three defendants and “18 others listed in the lawsuit as unnamed...more
Amazon announced this week that it is acquiring One Medical, “a network of primary care clinics,” as part of its plans “to become a player in the health care industry.” The $3.9 billion deal still requires “approval from One...more
The European Central Bank is raising interest rates today for the first time in more than a decade “as it ramps up its fight against record high inflation across the countries that use the euro.” Like central bankers...more
Netflix’s bad (but not as bad as expected, thank you) year rolls on. The streaming giant announced this week that it lost 1 million subscribers in Q2, the “largest subscriber defection in company history, but . . . far short...more
As big bank earnings season rolls on, Goldman Sachs has emerged as an early winner. Even thought profits fell “nearly 50 percent from a year ago, to just under $3 billion,” analysts had been expecting far worse. That...more
Federal regulators have fined Bank of America $225 million “for mishandling prepaid debit card accounts used by a dozen states to distribute unemployment benefits during the pandemic.” Beyond the fine, the bank must also...more
New CPI figures showed U.S. inflation topping the already high expectations for June. Prices were up 9.1% from a year earlier, all but confirming another big rate hike from the Fed as it struggles to “wrestle under control”...more
The other shoe dropped for Elon on Tuesday, with Twitter suing the Tesla CEO in Chancery Court in Delaware to force him to “complete is $44 billion acquisition” of the social media company. That court will now “determine...more
Billionaires these days . . . . We’re away for a week, and Elon goes and blows everything to hell. After announcing that, actually, he would not be buying Twitter for the $44 billion he promised back in April, Musk presided...more
Those of us even glancing at the business section each morning shouldn’t be surprised at all, but let’s make it official: the first half of 2022 was the worst for investors in more than 50 years. Crytpo’s fallen off the...more
The flurry of recent bid-sweetening activity from Frontier and JetBlue has prompted Spirit Airlines to delay today’s planned shareholder vote on the Spirit/Frontier mashup. Spirit stakeholders will now vote on the deal on...more
Despite a very rough patch of late, Disney CEO Bob Chapek has won reappointment as top Big Mouse exec. Chapek “could remain at the helm of Disney until at least 2025” and has a lot to tackle, including a flagging stock price,...more
6/29/2022
/ Acquisitions ,
Anti-Fraud Provisions ,
China ,
Digital Currency ,
Disney ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Markets ,
Pinterest ,
Social Media ,
Stock Markets ,
Wal-Mart
Auditing giant Ernst & Young will pay $100 million to U.S. authorities as part of a deal to resolve claims that “some of its auditors had cheated on ethics exams—and that the firm had done nothing to stop the practice.” That...more
6/28/2022
/ CRISPR ,
Crypto Exchanges ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Electric Vehicles ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Markets ,
Germany ,
Oil & Gas ,
Russia ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Spirit Airlines ,
Volkswagen
Fed officials released the results of the latest round of big-bank stress tests conducted by the central bank, and it found “the largest banks in the United States are well capitalized and could weather a severe economic...more
In closely watched testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Fed Chair Powell acknowledged on Wednesday that the central bank faced a perilous situation in trying to “lower rapid inflation without tipping America into a...more
6/23/2022
/ Biden Administration ,
Financial Markets ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Forced Labor ,
Gas Prices ,
Price Inflation ,
Recessions ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) ,
Supply Chain ,
Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA)
Meta has reached a deal with federal authorities in which the Facebook parent will “adopt new online advertising practices” aimed at resolving allegations that its online ads “discriminated against users by race, gender and...more
As expected, traders’ initial exuberance at the Fed’s big rate hike was short-lived, and markets resumed their recent dismal performance on Thursday, as recession fears joined inflation concerns to make for a rough day on...more
Wednesday was Fed decision day, and the central bankers didn’t disappoint. Chair Powell and crew went BIG, opting for a 75 bps rate hike—the Fed’s largest single-day move since 1994—in an effort to convey the seriousness with...more
A fire at a liquid natural gas shipping facility in Texas last week has sent U.S. natural-gas prices freefalling after operator Freeport LNG revealed the disaster “would knock out the facility until late this year, greatly...more
Hardly the start to mid-June that we wanted, with markets around the world taking a beating on Monday. The Nasdaq was down more than 4.5%, the Dow nearly 2.8%, and the S&P 500 dipped into official bear market territory. Last...more
All the hits—and let’s be honest . . . mostly inflation and its staying power—from Treasury Secretary Yellen’s trip to the Hill on Tuesday, including admissions that her and Chair Powell’s frequent use of the term...more