Happy Super Bowl Sunday. Here are the best business stories to know for the week ahead. – Charlotte Cowles
What’s going on? (January 31 – February 6)
Bezos bends out
Twenty-seven years after founding Amazon, Jeff Bezos is handing over his job as CEO to one of his protégés, Andy Jassy, who heads the lucrative cloud computing division. Mr. Bezos will become Amazon’s executive chairman and participate in high-level decisions, but it’s still the end of an era for the country’s largest e-commerce retailer. He leaves on a fairly high note: Amazon’s latest quarterly sales for the first time amounted to more than $ 100 billion, and the value of the company ($ 1.7 billion), Mr. Bezos made one of the richest people in the world. But there are challenges ahead as lawmakers and antitrust regulators increasingly investigate whether it is illegally affecting them.
The beginning of the end
Well, here’s something surprising: Shares of GameStop – the company that buys online stocks that have rocked markets – have fallen to the ground again, declining to a small fraction of the value they had just a few days earlier. had. The same army of retail investors that spurred GameStop’s upswing and growth cycle also snatched shares of inferior companies such as AMC Entertainment and BlackBerry, whose prices collapsed last week. The rapid devaluation of so-called meme stocks, named after their popularity on social media, has left investors wondering who is to blame for their losses. However, as the market stabilized, he had the biggest rally in months.
To protect investors
Will the GameStop saga change how stock trading is regulated? Perhaps. The newly confirmed Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, held a meeting with top regulators on Thursday to discuss the growing prevalence of retail investments, meaning stock trading is made easy (and free) in programs like Robinhood and E-Trade. The advantage of these platforms is that it makes investing more accessible to ordinary people (read: not Wall Street). But if the last few weeks have taught us anything, the whims of these individual stock traders could also lead to volatility that harms investors of all stripes.
What’s next? (February 7-13)
Stimulus on the go
The Biden government and the Congress Democrats are asking ahead with their comprehensive bill on $ 1.9 billion coronavirus, and will consider the final details this week. To avoid potential blocs, the Senate Democrats implemented a budget framework with which the aid package could succeed with a simple majority and no Republican support. President Biden said he still hopes to find compromises with Republicans, which frustrate the scope and price tag of the bill. But he is not willing to waste time with their votes, or to move with cornerstone supplies such as aid to schools or $ 1400 direct payments to qualifying Americans. And in light of the gloomy report on January work, he says there is no moment to lose.
The business of elections
Technology firm Smartmatic has filed a $ 2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, three of its anchors, and attorneys Rudolph Giuliani and Sidney Powell. The company accuses the defendants of damaging its business and reputation by falsifying theories about its services as part of their discredited allegations of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. In its complaint, Smartmatic claims that Mr. Giuliani and Mrs. Powell, who represented former President Donald J. Trump, “created a story about Smartmatic” and that “Fox joined the conspiracy to defame and disrespect Smartmatic and its election technology and software.” ”
A strange year for advertising
The cost of Super Bowl ads remains the same as last year – about $ 5.6 million for a 30-second spot. This is the first time that the rate has not risen significantly in more than a decade, and it has taken CBS much longer than usual to sell all the slots. After all, this is a strange time for marketing, and advertisers face a dilemma: like the pandemic, and remind viewers of a nightmare they would like to escape for a few precious hours? Or ignore it, and run the risk of being deaf deaf? The ads will be dominated by pandemic-popular businesses, such as the delivery service app DoorDash, the Mexican chain Chipotle and the recently besieged investment platform Robinhood.