Business – Todays Live Info

5 things to know before the stock market opens Wednesday

March 8, 2023/in Business /by todaysliveinfo

Here are the most important news items that investors need to start their trading day:

1. Powell brings the pain

Stocks sold off broadly and bond yields spiked Tuesday as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told senators that rates will likely end up higher than anticipated. The Dow dropped by about 575 points, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq declined 1.53% and 1.25%, respectively. Powell also warned that, if economic data continue to run hot, the Fed could return to quicker rate hikes after easing off the pedal during recent policy-setting meetings. There’s more to come, too. Powell is scheduled to speak again Wednesday, this time in front of the House Financial Services Committee. Follow live markets updates.

2. Biden targets TikTok

A Senate bill that would give the Biden administration the power to ban Chinese-owned social video app TikTok just got a big, if not surprising, boost. The White House on Tuesday endorsed the bipartisan legislation and urged lawmakers to pass it quickly. The bill, dubbed the RESTRICT Act, would allow the Commerce secretary to review certain deals, software updates and data transfers, and then refer them to the president if there is an “undue or unacceptable risk” to national security. Then, the president can take action. “This bill presents a systematic framework for addressing technology-based threats to the security and safety of Americans,” Jake Sullivan, national security advisor to President Joe Biden, said in a statement.

3. More headaches for Fox

Fox Corp

, the parent company of right-wing cable channels Fox News and Fox Business, ran into a double whammy Tuesday. First, host Tucker Carlson came under bipartisan criticism for airing a package of security video from the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot that suggested it was a peaceful event, and not what it actually was: a bloody attempted coup that has resulted in the indictments of hundreds of people. Then came the latest document dump from Dominion Voting’s $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox. Revelations included Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch suggesting that hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham “went too far” in embracing Donald Trump’s false election fraud claims, as well as host Maria Bartiromo saying that she wouldn’t let her team refer to Joe Biden as “president-elect.” The Dominion-Fox trial is set to begin in mid-April.

4. Buffett makes a bigger bet on oil

Warren Buffett can’t get enough of Occidental Petroleum

. Berkshire Hathaway

, the billionaire’s Nebraska-based conglomerate, snapped up about 5.8 million shares in the oil giant over the course of Friday, Monday and Tuesday, according to regulatory filings. The purchases brought Berkshire’s stake in Occidental to 200.2 million shares, or about $12.2 billion as of Tuesday’s close. Occidental was a big-time performer in 2022, an otherwise down year for the markets, its stock more than doubling in value. It’s now among Berkshire’s top 10 holdings, CNBC’s Yun Li reports.

5. Big twist in the Nord Stream story

Blockbuster reports from The New York Times and The Washington Post say U.S. intelligence officials believe a pro-Ukraine group may be behind an attack last year on the undersea Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that connect Russia and Europe. Officials believe the saboteurs could be a combination of Ukrainian and Russian nationals, the Times said. Officials do not believe Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or his top aides were involved, or that Ukrainian government officials ordered the action, according to the Times. Russia, whose unjustified invasion of Ukraine has gone on for more than a year, met the reports with a mix of outrage and frustration. “We are still not allowed in the investigation. Only a few days ago we received notes about this from the Danes and Swedes,” a Kremlin spokesman said.

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Fed Chair Powell in congressional hot seat as sticky inflation squeezes Americans

March 7, 2023/in Business /by todaysliveinfo

Powell is slated to appear before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday and before the House Financial Services Committee a day later as part of his semi-annual testimony on monetary policy.

“The committee is strongly committed to returning inflation to its 2% objective,” the Fed said in the report to Congress released on Friday. The nation’s central bank indicated that “ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate in order to attain a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive.”

Central bankers are in the midst of the most aggressive campaign since the 1980s to crush persistently high inflation. Although the consumer price index has slowly fallen from a high of 9.1% notched in June, it remains about three times higher than the pre-pandemic average.

Markets are closely watching Powell for clues over what comes next in the Fed’s inflation fight – including how much higher officials plan to raise rates and what they need to see before stopping the increases.

Officials voted in February to raise the benchmark interest rate a quarter percentage point to a range of 4.5% to 4.75% and signaled that a “couple more” increases are on the table this year. That followed a half-point increase at their December meeting and four consecutive 75-basis-point moves before that.

The Fed’s rate-setting committee meets later this month.

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Former top Credit Suisse shareholder sells full stake in bank

March 7, 2023/in Business /by todaysliveinfo

Harris Associates, one of Credit Suisse’s (CSGN.S) major shareholders, has sold its stake in the Swiss bank over the past few months, the deputy chairman and chief investment officer of the activist Chicago-based investor, David Herro, said on Sunday.

Herro did not give a reason for the stake sale, but earlier told the Financial Times that Harris had sold the stake after losing patience with Credit Suisse’s strategy to stem persistent losses and a client exodus.

Harris, which had remained loyal despite a string of scandals at Credit Suisse, disclosed a stake of about 10% in the bank last August but reduced it to 5% in January.

Harris had started to cut its exposure in October after Credit Suisse raised 4 billion Swiss francs ($4.3 billion) from investors and when Saudi National Bank supplanted it as the top investor, Herro told the Financial Times, which first reported the news that Harris had sold all its shares.

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Tesla slashes Model S and X US prices by up to $10,000

March 7, 2023/in Business /by todaysliveinfo

Tesla has cut the prices of its high-end Model S and Model X electric cars by $5,000 (5.2 percent) and $10,000 (9.1 percent) respectively, according to changes in its website seen by TechCrunch.

It’s the second time this year the company has chopped prices, so the Model X has dropped $21,000 from $120,990 at the beginning of the year to just $99,990 currently. The Model S, meanwhile, has fallen from $104,990 to $89,990 since January 1st — a steep $15,000 reduction.

Neither car qualifies for Federal Tax rebates set to expire later this month, as those only apply to SUVs priced below $80,000 and cars under $55,000. Still, they’re likely to push many fence-sitters over the edge. That tracks with what CEO Elon Musk said on Tesla Investor’s Day, that “the desire for people to own a Tesla is extremely high… [but] the limiting factor is their ability to pay for a Tesla.”

Most Model 3 and Y vehicles do qualify for the rebates, thanks to Tesla’s January price cuts on those EVs. (As a reminder, it’s a “nonrefundable” tax credit, so you’ll only benefit if you have a federal tax liability of at least $7,500.) After mid-March, however, the rules will change and many EVs that currently qualify may become ineligible.

Twitter hit with one of the biggest outages since Elon Musk took over

March 7, 2023/in Business /by todaysliveinfo

Twitter’s website was inaccessible for many users on Monday while others reported issues seeing photos and clicking through links in the app, marking one of the most wide-ranging service disruptions to date under new owner Elon Musk.

Some users who attempted to load Twitter.com or TweetDeck, a service that allows users to organize their Twitter feed into lists, were met with an error message: “your current API plan does not include access to this endpoint.” Other users were able to access the site (although it appeared to load slowly), but they were met with the same error message when clicking on links.

Outage tracker site DownDetector showed more than 8,000 Twitter outage reports around noon on Monday. For users who were able to access the platform, “Twitter API” was trending as people tweeted about the issues.

“Some parts of Twitter may not be working as expected right now,” the company said in a tweet. “We made an internal change that had some unintended consequences. We’re working on this now and will share an update when it’s fixed.”

In a separate tweet on Monday, Musk said: “This platform is so brittle (sigh). Will be fixed shortly.”

Within about an hour, the issues appeared to have largely resolved. “Things should now be working as normal,” the company tweeted around 1 pm ET.

Monday’s outage marked the second Twitter glitch in less than a week and the third in under a month. Last Wednesday, some Twitter users who opened up their “for you” timeline were greeted with a blank screen and a message saying, “welcome to your timeline,” encouraging them to follow other users to get tweets to show up even if they already followed various accounts. Other users were met with a “Welcome to Twitter!” message as if they had just joined the platform.

Three weeks ago, Twitter users encountered various issues with the platform, including the inability to tweet, send direct messages or follow new accounts.

Twitter has experienced a range of technical glitches since Musk took over the company and laid off more than half its staff late last year. Users have previously reported issues with the app’s two-factor authentication tool, seeing replies listed above a tweet rather than below it and seeing old tweets show up repeatedly in their feed or mentions.

Some former employees raised concerns that the mass layoffs under Musk could cause the platform to break in big or small ways, after workers with knowledge of Twitter’s key systems were ousted. But Musk has continued to cut staff in an effort to boost Twitter’s bottom line.

The latest service disruptions come after Twitter reportedly laid off another 10% of its staff late last month, including some engineers responsible for site reliability, according to a report from the New York Times.