Bitcoin Futures Go Live at the CME, and Congress Calls for a Disney Hearing
A week after contracts on the cryptocurrency began trading at the CBOE, the much larger derivatives exchange, the CME, launches its own version. Interest in Bitcoin and other digital assets has risen exponentially this year, with prices approaching $20,000 over the weekend.
Plus days after Disney announced its $52 billion acquisition of Fox, Democratic leaders in Congress are calling for a hearing, raising antitrust concerns. The legislators saying a deal would concentrate too much box office power in one company.
And a judge made public a letter from a former Uber employee which accuses former executives of espionage and bribery. Stitch Fix is getting ready for its first earnings report since going public. We've also got earnings on tap from BlackBerry and Micron.
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.