A day after whistleblower Frances Haugen went public with many of the allegations she’s been lobbing at Facebook (so far only through the Wall Street Journal’s recent expose series), Zuck & Co. found themselves mired in one...more
10/5/2021
/ Facebook ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Financial Markets ,
Hulu ,
Initial Public Offering (IPO) ,
Instagram ,
NHTSA ,
Tesla ,
Volvo ,
WhatsApp ,
Whistleblowers
And like that [poof], Ozy Media is no more, shutting down on Friday after an incredible 5-day period in which reporting from Ben Smith “raised questions about the company and its leadership team” after a phone call in which a...more
10/4/2021
/ Apple ,
Facebook ,
Financial Markets ,
Goldman Sachs ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Social Media ,
Takeover Bids ,
Tesla ,
United Airlines ,
Vaccinations ,
Whistleblowers ,
YouTube
Zoom and Five9 are walking away from their proposed $15 billion deal for lack of Five9 shareholder support. Zoom’s acquisition “had drawn national security scrutiny” over funding links to China...more
Congressional leaders have reportedly reached a last-minute short-term deal to “avert a government shutdown” before today’s midnight deadline. Plenty of issues—including the need to raise the debt ceiling and the status of...more
9/30/2021
/ Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Critical Infrastructure Sectors ,
Financial Markets ,
Goldman Sachs ,
Infrastructure Financing ,
Insider Trading ,
NLRB ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Student Athletes ,
Supply Chain ,
United Airlines ,
Vaccinations ,
Wal-Mart ,
YouTube
Markets continued what’s been a dismal end of September with their worst performance in months on Tuesday, with the three major indices averaging a 2% drop as Treasury bond yields rose over concerns about Fed tapering and the...more
Major Fed news to start the week, as we’ve learned that Dallas Fed President Robert S. Kaplan and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren are stepping down (both earlier than planned) in the wake of a dust-up over each “trading...more
Friday’s sudden end to the years-long Meng Wanzhou drama (she, the Huawei scion and exec who had been under house arrest in Canada and the subject of possible extradition to the U.S. who was released and returned to China)...more
An already challenging week for cryptos just got much worse, now that China’s central bank has declared “all cryptocurrency-related transactions . . . illegal, reinforcing the country’s tough stance against digital rivals to...more
The Federal Reserve wrapped its September Open Market Committee meetings on Wednesday with the anticipated news that it would soon start to slowly taper its asset purchasing and is prepared to raise interest rates as early as...more
Justice Department officials have filed a federal antitrust action against American Airlines and JetBlue, asserting that the “growing alliance between the two carriers had created a ‘de facto merger’ in the New York and...more
9/22/2021
/ American Airlines ,
China ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Facebook ,
Financial Markets ,
Google ,
National Security ,
Real Estate Market ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Social Media ,
Vaccinations ,
Zoom®
Wall Street used the Chinese corporate debt crisis (and property development company Evergrande’s potential coming default in particular) as its reason for a big dive on Monday, with the Dow down 800 point at one point and...more
Fascinating new wrinkle on the corporate debt crisis washing over China in recent years, with reports that “troubled Chinese property giant Evergrande” sought to “strong-arm” its own employees earlier this year to lend the...more
9/20/2021
/ Apple ,
China ,
Corporate Taxes ,
Financial Markets ,
Internet Streaming ,
NTSB ,
Tax Reform ,
Tesla ,
Theranos ,
TikTok ,
Whistleblowers
President Biden sat down with a range of executives from Microsoft to Columbia Sportswear to discuss the administration’s recently announced vaccine mandates...more
9/16/2021
/ Biden Administration ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Financial Markets ,
Ford Motor ,
Mergers ,
Microsoft ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Fraud ,
Tesla ,
Vaccinations ,
Whistleblower Awards
In welcome news for the Fed and anxious economists who have so-far stuck to their “transitory” inflation guns, Tuesday’s Department of Labor CPI release showed that “price increases for key products—like cars—were beginning...more
9/15/2021
/ Amazon ,
Apple ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Facebook ,
Financial Markets ,
FinTech ,
Instagram ,
Price Inflation ,
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) ,
Startups ,
Tax Haven ,
Uber ,
Whistleblowers
The team behind cryptocurrency Litecoin is scrambling after an employee “retweeted what turned out to be an untrue announcement about a partnership with Walmart Inc,” a move that briefly sent Litecoin and other cryptos...more
9/14/2021
/ Apple ,
CFTC ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Facebook ,
Financial Markets ,
Paramount Pictures ,
Pinterest ,
Pump and Dump ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Spyware ,
Viacom ,
Wal-Mart
On Friday, N.D. Cal. Federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez issued an order in the high-profile Epic Games v. Apple App Store tilt, finding that Apple “violated California’s laws against unfair competition by barring app developers...more
9/14/2021
/ Amazon ,
App Developers ,
Apple ,
Bank of America ,
Car Dealerships ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Electric Vehicles ,
Financial Markets ,
Hertz ,
Mergers ,
Semiconductors ,
Unfair Competition
We thought that more regulatory action was in the offing for Wells Fargo, and the OCC definitely delivered, hitting Wells on Thursday with an additional $250 million fine for “unsatisfactory remedial progress” in addressing...more
9/10/2021
/ Amazon ,
Biden Administration ,
China ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Federal Reserve ,
Financial Markets ,
Fines ,
Ford Motor ,
OCC ,
OSHA ,
Ponzi Scheme ,
Wells Fargo
Coinbase, the “largest cryptocurrency exchange” in the U.S., revealed on Wednesday that SEC officials are threatening to sue it “over a proposed financial product that would let customers earn interest on digital asset...more
9/10/2021
/ Bitcoin ,
Bonds ,
Coinbase ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Cryptocurrency ,
El Salvador ,
Federal Reserve ,
Financial Markets ,
Fraud ,
Mergers ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Ford Motors has hired a new senior exec in an effort to further the company’s push into e-vehicles. Doug Field formerly ran Apple’s “secretive car project,” and his “departure could be a blow to Apple’s auto ambitions, which...more
9/8/2021
/ Automotive Industry ,
Bitcoin ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
El Salvador ,
Electric Vehicles ,
Financial Markets ,
Ford Motor ,
PayPal ,
Price Inflation ,
Startups ,
T-Mobile ,
Toyota ,
Unemployment Benefits
Welcome to B-Day, the beginning of the grand cryptocurrency experiment for El Salvador, which “became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender on Tuesday.” Predictably, “the launch got off to a bumpy...more
A New York federal bankruptcy judge provisionally approved an opioid settlement plan on Wednesday that will dissolve Purdue Pharma and require members of the Sackler family (which owns Purdue) to “turn over billions of their...more
9/2/2021
/ Amazon ,
Apple ,
Biden Administration ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Electric Vehicles ,
Facebook ,
Financial Markets ,
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ,
Monopolization ,
NHTSA ,
Opioid ,
Payday Loans ,
Purdue Pharma ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Tariffs ,
Tesla
Dispatch #1 from the Elizabeth Holmes Theranos criminal fraud trial, which opened yesterday with jury selection and saw the excusing of 9 of the initial batch of about 50 potential jurors for lack of vaccination...more
9/1/2021
/ Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Facebook ,
Financial Markets ,
Fraud ,
Google ,
Initial Public Offering (IPO) ,
Jury Selection ,
OCC ,
Oil & Gas ,
Private Equity ,
Surface Transportation Board ,
UK Brexit ,
Wells Fargo
Forget Big Brother and meet Big Parent, as Beijing released new strict limits “on how long minors can play online video games” on Monday. The rules, which bar kids and teens from online gaming on school days and limit them to...more
8/31/2021
/ China ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Markets ,
Jury Selection ,
NLRB ,
Online Gaming ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Starbucks ,
Unions ,
Video Games ,
Zoom®
As we anticipated, Fed Chair Powell—appearing virtually at the annual Jackson Hole gathering of Fed officials and watchers—signaled the possibility of central bank bond-purchase tapering as early as this year. More notable,...more
Apple reached a settlement this week with a group of app developers that will allow them to “urge customers to pay them outside their iPhone apps”—a move that enables them to “avoid paying Apple a commission on their sales”...more