Here is a rundown of Cheddar News' top market stories of the day.
TECH LAYOFFS
Multiple outlets are reporting that Microsoft will begin a series of planned layoffs on Wednesday that could cut around 5 percent of its workforce, or 10,000 employees. CEO Satya Nadella warned the cuts were coming, and said the next couple of years were likely to be challenging, as the tech sector contracts after a decade plus of rapid growth. Amazon is also set to move ahead with plans to cut 6 percent of its 350,000 corporate employees.
ADOBE'S DATA DEBACLE
Adobe is facing backlash from customers who are concerned the software company is using personal images and video to train artificial intelligence models such as OpenAI’s Dall-E. Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky denied the accusations in an interview with Bloomberg, saying: "We have never, ever used anything in our storage to train a generative AI model."
UNITED AIRLINES EARNINGS
United Airlines' fourth quarter earnings beat Wall Street estimates on the heels of a rebound in travel demand. The company reported a 31 percent increase from the same period before the pandemic. The gains were made despite the airline flying 9 percent fewer trips and a litany of other challenges, from winter storms to labor shortages to supply chain disruptions.
UNIVERSITY BANS TIKTOK
The University of Texas at Austin is blocking access to TikTok on its Wi-Fi and wired networks. The move is a response to Gov. Greg Abbott's requirement that all state agencies delete the app from government-issued devices. The administration said it is also seeking to eliminate risks to information on the university's networks. University of Texas at Dallas and Texas A&M University System have since implemented similar restrictions.
Even as tech giant Google implements a vaccination mandate, charging its employees to declare their vaccine status within a time frame or risk dismissal, the federal government is tangled up in the court system trying to impose one of its own. Cindy Cohn, the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Harry Nelson, founder and managing partner of Nelson Hardiman LLP, joined Cheddar to debate the ethics, efficacy, and legality surrounding the issue. While Cohn noted that she thinks the federal mandate might be legally sound, her organization is also concerned with a separate question of privacy. "At EFF what we're most interested in is the digital surveillance that's going along with some of these attempts to try to track and confirm whether people are vaccinated or not," she said.
A new report from CNBC says Instagram recently reached a new milestone -- 2 billion monthly active users. It comes amid a year of controversy for the photo-sharing app and its parent company, Meta. SocialFlow CEO Jim Anderson joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
A report from KPMG International found that global mergers and acquisitions in 2021 reached $5.1 trillion in transactions. Carol Streicher, U.S. deal advisory and strategy service group leader for KPMG, joined Cheddar's "Closing Bell" to talk about the record-breaking year and next year's outlook, which KPMG says could be even more staggering. "We're not seeing any slow down in '22," she said, regarding survey results of 350 business leaders. "Things that were tailwinds for us in M&A activity this past year are going to continue to be tailwinds for us in 2022."
MotorTrend named the Rivian R1T as the 2022 truck of the year - a prestigious title given by the publication as a way for automakers to tout third-party validation. Rivian beat out traditional, legacy truck favorites like Ford and General Motors.
MotorTrend said the company earned high marks for safety, efficiency, value, advanced design, engineering excellence, and performance of intended function. MotorTend head of editorial Ed Loh joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Stocks closed higher Wednesday on the heels of the Federal Reserve's December meeting. Chairman Jerome Powell announced the central bank would leave interest rates low and unchanged for now, with the anticipation of three hikes next year. The Fed will also speed up the timeline of its asset tapering, beginning in January 2022. Dan Russo, Portfolio Manager and Director of Research at Potomac Fund Management joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss today's close, how investors reacted to the Fed's announcements, and more.
There is a new way for investors to bet on cannabis - the AdvisorShares Poseidon Dynamic Cannabis ETF targets about 20 of the biggest names in U.S. cannabis. It comes at a time when it's still difficult for investors to access the space. Cheddar News cannabis reporter Chloe Aiello spoke with co-founder and managing director for Poseidon Investment Management, Emily Paxhia.
Victor Li, an economics professor at the Villanova School of Business, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he discusses the latest Fed decision and the implications it has on the stock market.
Danvas is a new company that aims to bring NFTs and digital artwork into the real world through an interactive, museum-quality display. The company says its product is the first premium, luxury digital art canvas, which it hopes will accelerate the world's appreciation of digital artists and their work, and empower collectors to acquire more NFT art. Danvas also just announced its launch this week, with a $7 million seed round from some big-name backers. Danvas co-founder and CEO Jeanne Anderson joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
The California-based tech company specializing in enterprise cloud-based data analysis of connected internet of things (IoT) has gone public on the NYSE, and Samsara's CFO Dominic Phillips told Cheddar's Kristen Scholer that the timing was right for the public offering for the firm's next phase of growth. "We're going to continue to add to our go-to-market motion, we'll continue to build out our international presence, we'll continue to add more selling capacity specifically as we look to penetrate larger enterprise customers, and we'll look to continue to deploy money in R&D," he said.
