Next up for Activision Blizzard, which we noted yesterday was in the midst of a 6-month process of shedding employees associated with a harassment scandal rocking its ranks: a new corporate owner. Microsoft announced its...more
Unilever kicked off the hostile takeover season on Monday by confirming that it remained interested buying out the joint venture of GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer—GSK Consumer Health—despite GSK’s rejection of three previous...more
Former top student loan servicing giant Navient has “reached a $1.85 billion deal with 39 states to settle claims that it had made predatory loans that saddled borrowers with crushing debts they were highly unlikely to...more
Consumer Price Index numbers out on Wednesday hit economists’ expectations, an increase of 7% as compared to a year earlier. Though the figure was expected, it was also the first time CPI rose that much since 1982, as strong...more
The latest from Fed Chair Powell’s first day of confirmation hearings, including the expected news that the central bank is prepared to raise interest rates to tame inflation, tying that goal to the Fed’s other mandate by...more
Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida is heading to the door earlier than planned in what appears to be continuing fallout from 2020 trades he made “as the central bank was poised to rescue financial markets.” Clarida corrected his...more
Jobs Report Friday! Here’s what we’re looking for in the numbers, including a possible rebound from November’s lower-than-expected figures. Note that the report also likely doesn’t account for the recent Omicron surge, which...more
1/7/2022
/ Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Privacy ,
Facebook ,
Financial Markets ,
Google ,
International Trade Commission (ITC) ,
Public Policy ,
Starbucks ,
Subscription Services ,
Supply Chain
The release of the Fed’s December meeting minutes (and its discussion of a quickened pace of rate hikes) was all it took to rattle markets, with the S&P 500 dropping nearly 2% on Wednesday—“its biggest drop in weeks.”...more
4.5 million Americans—a new record—voluntarily left their jobs in November, continuing a trend that marked much of 2021 thanks to “strong employer demand” that’s allowing some workers to “pursue better opportunities.” While...more
1/7/2022
/ AT&T ,
Bitcoin ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Economic Downturn ,
Financial Markets ,
FinTech ,
General Motors ,
Goldman Sachs ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Retail Market ,
Telecommunications ,
Toyota ,
Verizon ,
Wells Fargo
Back at it for ’22. Hope all had a good holiday season. After deadlocking on several claims on their 7th day of deliberations, jurors weighing the fate of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes ultimately found her guilty on 4...more
New York Federal Judge Colleen McMahon has “overturned the confirmation of Purdue Pharma’s Chapter 11 plan,” after determining that the bankruptcy court “did not have the legal right to release claims against the company’s...more
As we’ve been expecting thanks to some heavy foreshadowing from Chair Powell and others, the Federal Reserve wrapped its December Open Markets Committee meeting with the news that it would “cut back on [its] stimulus more...more
Despite an outwardly polite virtual meeting of FDIC board members this week, a controversy is roiling just beneath the surface, with several board members questioning whether FDIC Chair Jelena McWilliams—a holdover from the...more
A French appeals court cut a 2019 fine by more than half on Monday but still left Swiss bank UBS with a $2 billion penalty “for helping rich clients evade taxes” through what prosecutors called a “long-running scheme” that...more
Instacart President Carolyn Everson is heading out the door at the end of the year after just 4 months at the food-delivery company—the “second high-profile departure in recent months ahead of a possible public offering”...more
Workers at a Buffalo, NY-based Starbucks location have voted to unionize, the first ever union to form at one of Sbux’s “nearly 9,000 company-owned stores.” Though but one, the victory “represents a challenge to the labor...more
12/10/2021
/ American Airlines ,
Beatles ,
Boeing ,
Financial Markets ,
Gig Economy ,
Initial Public Offering (IPO) ,
Labor Shortage ,
NBC ,
Price Inflation ,
Robinhood Financial ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) ,
Starbucks ,
Unions
Competition regulators in Italy have fined Amazon $1.3 billion, accusing the company “of breaking antitrust laws by giving special perks to third-party merchants who use Amazon’s warehouse and delivery system.” The penalty,...more
12/9/2021
/ Amazon ,
Apple ,
Biden Administration ,
Big Tech ,
Competition ,
Electric Vehicles ,
Fast-Food Industry ,
Financial Markets ,
Green Energy ,
Instagram ,
Mobile Apps ,
Nuclear Power ,
Opioid ,
Public Nuisance ,
Social Media
Saule Omarova, the White House’s pick to helm the OCC, has withdrawing from consideration for the post, saying it was “no longer tenable” for her to seek the position following withering attacks from the banking industry and...more
12/8/2021
/ Amazon ,
Carbon Emissions ,
Citigroup ,
E-Commerce ,
Financial Markets ,
John Deere ,
Kellogg Company ,
Mergers ,
OCC ,
Tesla ,
Theranos ,
Unions ,
Whistleblowers
Samsung surprised the business world today by replacing the “heads of its three major business units and merg[ing] the company’s mobile and consumer electronics businesses into a single unit.” The moves mean the South Korean...more
12/8/2021
/ Bitcoin ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Markets ,
Mergers ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Samsung ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) ,
Tesla
Markets fell again on Friday after the November jobs report failed to hit predicted marks. Still, the news wasn’t all bad, as the numbers also showed that the country’s unemployment rate dropped and “the overall participation...more
Jobs Report Friday, again. Here’s what we’re looking for in the numbers and why economists are generally optimistic about these pre-Omicron figures - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch Count Thursday as a...more
The European Union has fined four banks nearly $400 million over their alleged roles in “a cartel in the foreign-exchange spot trading market.” Bankers at Barclays, RBS, HSBC, and Credit Suisse (along with UBS, which avoided...more
Fed Chair Powell used the Omicron variant’s emergence as impetus to more aggressively target the now-persistently stubborn inflation, telling the Senate Banking Committee during testimony on Tuesday that the central bank...more
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is stepping down, effectively immediately, from the site he co-founded in 2006. He was replaced by company CTO Parag Agrawal, “who has recently been working on technologies associated with...more
Uncertainty surrounding the emergence of the Omicron Variant in South Africa (and elsewhere since) drove markets to a dismal Black Friday performance, as hastily issued travel bans and fears of new lockdowns overwhelmed Wall...more
11/29/2021
/ Commercial Truck Drivers ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Cybersecurity ,
Electric Vehicles ,
Financial Markets ,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ,
Hertz ,
Nissan ,
Robinhood Financial ,
Supply Chain ,
Travel Ban