Wall Street anticipates “higher for longer” interest rates, which is causing investors to sell off their holdings in the stock market. After losing over 1% on Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) dropped 0.6% on Thursday, while the S&P 500 (GSPC) dropped 1.1%. The Nasdaq Composite (IXIC) dropped 1.3%, the most of any index.
Former News Corporation and Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch has stepped down. Murdoch, who is 92 years old, will be given the honorary title of “chairman emeritus” from both companies. Lachlan Murdoch, one of his sons, will succeed him as News Corp. chairman and Fox Corp. chief executive officer.
On Thursday, networking giant Cisco announced its largest acquisition to date: a cash purchase of cybersecurity software vendor Splunk for nearly $28 billion.
The Biden administration is getting the COVIDtests.gov site back up and running.
Beginning on Monday, September 25th, the government will distribute up to four COVID-19 rapid tests to each family at no cost.
It was revealed on Thursday that private equity firm Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) had been successful in its $14 billion tender offer to acquire Toshiba.
On Thursday, The Information reported that Google executives had considered switching artificial intelligence processor suppliers as early as 2027, sending shares of Broadcom (AVGO.O) down by as much as 4.3%. Google, which is part of Alphabet (GOOGL.O), will develop the chips for its own tensor processing units.
Ankara’s central bank boosted its key interest rate to 30% on Thursday, a 500-basis point increase from 25%, as the country continues to confront double-digit inflation. As of 2 p.m. local time in Istanbul, the USDTRY exchange rate has decreased to 27.06 due to a 0.3% increase in the value of the dollar vs the Turkish lira.
Russia’s government declared on Thursday that the country would immediately suspend exporting gasoline and diesel to any country outside a circle of four ex-Soviet states in an effort to stabilize the local market. According to the paper, the ban does not apply to fuel shipped to Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, or Kyrgyzstan, which are all members of the Eurasian Economic Union, which is governed by Moscow.
Darden Restaurants, which owns Ruth’s Chris Steak House, reported quarterly earnings and revenue on Thursday that well exceeded expectations.
China’s exports of two rare minerals essential for manufacturing semiconductors plummeted to zero in August, a month after Beijing set curbs on sales outside, citing national security concerns. According to the Critical Raw Materials Alliance, China meets somewhere around 60% of the world’s demand for germanium and over 80% for gallium.
Amazon is investing its largest ever sum in U.S. hourly pay of $2 billion this holiday season, adding 250,000 new workers. This year, thanks to an investment of $1.3 billion, Amazon’s average hourly wage for customer fulfillment and transportation in the United States surpassed $20.50.
Germany, says Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing, will become Europe’s “sick man” if “structural issues” aren’t resolved soon. In his keynote address at the Handelsblatt Banking Summit 2023 on Wednesday, Sewing declared, “We are not the sick man of Europe.” However, it is also true that our economy is hampered by structural deficiencies that hinder it from reaching its full potential.
David Brooks, a journalist for the New York Times, tweeted about his anger over the high cost of food. Is $78 really the standard price for a burger and fries there? Even in the airport? The claim made by Brooks was quickly discredited thanks to social media sleuthing, which tracked the table, chair, sheet, and fry cut to the Smokehouse Restaurant in Newark’s Terminal A, where a burger and fries costs a more reasonable $17.
In an effort to stop the U.S. Department of Justice from prosecuting SpaceX for alleged hiring discrimination, Elon Musk’s company has filed a federal lawsuit in Texas.
Thursday Reporting, September 21 2023: Darden Restaurants (DRI), Flux Power Holdings (FLUX), Scholastic (SCHL)
Friday Reporting, September 22 2023: Dynatronics (DYNT), Netsol Technologies (NTWK)
Stocks to watch with positive momentum this week and Buy Rating:
Sundial (SNDL), Tesla (TSLA), Groupon (GRPN), Chase Bank (JPM), Microsoft (MSFT), GOOGL, eBay, Apple (AAPL), Pay Pal (PYPL), UBS, Walmart (WMT), Amazon (AMZN), Facebook (META), FED EX (FDX), UPS (UPS)
Daily Shocker Recap of Today Business News September 20, 2023