The Week's Top Stories is a guided tour through the biggest market stories of the week, from winning stocks to brutal dips to the facts and forecasts generating buzz on Wall Street.
CYBERATTACKS
The September cyberattack on MGM Resorts may have cost the company $100 million, but the company reportedly refused to pay the hackers. Caesars was also hit with an online attack, but reports at the time said the company paid the hackers $15 million. The stock was down for the week until Friday, when it announced the company had enough insurance to cover the damages.
Meanwhile, Clorox announced it was the target of a recent cybersecurity attack that caused widespread disruption to its systems. The result will be a 23-28 percent hit to net sales in Q1 of 2024. Clorox stock closed the week down 5 percent.
GOOGLE IN THE SPOTLIGHT
The ups and downs of Google's week: On the upside, the tech giant started presales of the new Pixel 8 line, which has gotten positive reviews. On the downside, the tech giant has been accused of being too giant, and the anti-trust case against it opened this week. The star witness against Google was Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who testified that Google's dominance in the world of search engines has stymied Bing from gaining market share. Google stock closed the week up almost 5 percent.
UNITED ORDERS
Boeing and Airbus received big orders from United Airlines this week. The airline will add 110 new aircraft to its fleet by 2031. The new order includes 50 Boeing 787-9s and 60 Airbus A321neos. This comes on top of 100 Boeing 787s it ordered last December and 270 other aircraft ordered in July 2021. "The new planes will hold more passengers than one aircraft that will be retired and it's all part of the company's plan to take full advantage of our growing flying opportunities both internationally and domestically," said CEO Scott Kirby. United Airlines stock closed the week down 1 percent and Boeing and Airbus closed down about 2 percent.
HP HAD A WEEK
HP shares jumped on Tuesday after Bank of America gave it a double upgrade, moving from an underperforming stock to a buy rating. Warren Buffett seemed to pay no mind, though. That day, he sold off shares in a move that was closely watched by investors who like to see what the Oracle of Omaha is doing. He now owns less than 10 percent of the company, so he will no longer need to report his investments as frequently. HP stock ended the week up 1 percent.
JOBS SAVE THE DAY
An unexpectedly strong jobs report pulled up the markets on Friday. The September stats show 336,000 jobs we added last month. It's the largest number we've seen since the beginning of 2023, but even the August number was stronger than expected - it was revised up to 266,000 jobs. The unemployment rate remains at 3.8 percent. Of course, a strong jobs market indicates a strong economy…and that is behind inflation. So the takeaway for the Federal Reserve may be that it's time to raise interest rates.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
