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.
MICROSOFT-ACTIVISION BLIZZARD WIN
Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard got an important go-ahead on Friday from British regulators. The agency signaled that a revised proposal did a god job of addressing how the massive gaming giants will be able to combine without running ramshod over its smaller competitors. It was one of the last hurdles the companies faced to closing the $69 billion deal. Microsoft stock ended the week down 3 percent and Activision was up 2 percent.
UAW STRIKE
Autoworkers marched on picket lines in 38 locations in 20 different states on Friday. The United Autoworkers union is taking a new tact in contract negotiations with wildcat walkouts, which allow many teamsters to stay on the job, but affected the auto companies' supply chains. Stellantis and GM were targeted with this week's job actions, although the UAW is still in fierce negotiations with Ford as well. The union is calling for 40 percent raises for members, which would align with the 40 percent raises the companies' CEOs have seen as of late. Stellantis ended the week up 2 percent, GM closed down more than 3 percent, and Ford wrapped up the week down a fraction of a percent.
FOX HANDOVER
Rupert Murdoch, who reshaped the face of cable news in America with Fox News, a conservative alternative to the options available, announced he is stepping down. The 92-year-old billionaire is handing the reins of Fox Corp. and News Corp. over to his son Lachlan. The handover wasn't necessarily a surprise, but the timing was. The elder Mudoch will stay on as chairman emeritus of both companies. Fox Corp. stock ended the week down more than a percent. News Corp. ended the week down 3 percent.
INTEREST RATE HOLDS
The Federal Reserve this week announced that it will hold a key interest rate steady for the time being. While inflation rates have come down significantly since its height of 9.1 percent, we are not yet at the 2 percent figure the Fed is aiming for. Fed Chair Jerome Powell signalled in his statements that Americans should brace themselves for another potential rate hike before we ring in 2024.
SPLUNKED
Tech giant Cisco is snapping up cybersecurity firm Splunk for a cool $28 billion. Cisco says it plans to use the acquisition as part of its plan to use artificial intelligence to improve security. Cisco's stock dropped on the news, ending the week down 4 percent. Investors were hotter on the Splunk side, with its stock ending the week up more than a whopping 2o percent.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
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.
