*By Carlo Versano*
Stocks bounced back Friday with the Dow Industrials opening higher by 400 points and a strong showing from the FAANG stocks.
At the open, shares of Facebook ($FB), Amazon ($AMZN), Apple ($AAPL), Netflix ($NFLX), and Google parent Alphabet ($GOOGL) added $100 billion to the companies' collective market cap, erasing half the losses from the past two days.
The rally follows a bruising two-day sell-off on Wall Street. A bevy of factors has contributed to the worst week for stocks since February. Among them, worries over tightening monetary policy and the effects of a trade war with China starting to show themselves.
The White House dispatched top officials to quell concerns over the turmoil, even as the president extended his attack on Fed Chair Jerome Powell for what he called "loco" rate hikes.
Treasury Sec. Steve Mnuchin said on CNBC Friday that the markets were seeing a "natural correction" after riding so high since Trump's election. Economic adviser Larry Kudlow [told Cheddar](https://www.cheddar.com/videos/kudlow-tech-still-aint-bad-even-with-correction) tech stocks still "ain't bad" despite leading the markets downward.
Dan Ives, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Wedbush Securities dives deeper into a report by the International Data Corporation (IDC) that Apple has ended Samsung's 12-year reign as the world's largest smartphone seller.
Artificial intelligence is the biggest buzzword at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. Advances in generative AI stunned the world last year, and the elite crowd is angling to take advantage of its promise and minimize its risks.
Smartphones could get much smarter this year as the next wave of artificial intelligence seeps into the devices that accompany people almost everywhere they go.
In an annual assessment of global inequalities, Oxfam International said the first trillionaire could emerge within the next decade — as the anti-poverty organization pointed to the growing wealth gap that skyrocketed globally during the pandemic.
The Biden administration proposed a cost drop for overdrawing bank accounts, which it says could particularly relieve Americans living paycheck to paycheck.
Americans stepped up their spending in December more than expected, closing out the holiday season and the year on an upbeat tone. The Commerce Department said retail sales rose 0.6% in December compared with a November’s 0.3% increase.
