Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks at an Apple event on the campus of Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., on Sept. 7, 2022. Apple Music is about to reach a huge numerical milestone — offering an eye-popping 100 million songs available on the streaming service. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
Here is a rundown of Cheddar News' top market stories of the day.
BIG BANKS REPORT EARNINGS
Three of the biggest U.S. banks reported earnings before the bell on Friday, marking the unofficial start to the earnings season. Both Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase's earnings beat Wall Street estimates, though the latter said it was putting aside extra funds in case of a recession. Wells Fargo, meanwhile, took a massive hit from a $3.7 billion settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for illegally assessing fees on borrowers, but nonetheless beat the Street's admittedly low expectation.
TIM COOK'S PAY CUT
Apple CEO Tim Cook is getting a pay cut. According to an SEC filing, shareholders voted on a $49 million pay package for the coming year, compared to $99.4 million in 2022. The compensation committee was partially responding to pressure from institutional investors who have argued for reducing the executive's pay. Going forward, more of Cook's compensation will be tied to stocks. Shares of Apple are down around 23 percent from a year ago.
SEC CHARGES CRYPTO FIRMS
While it may seem like too little, too late for those who called for more aggressive federal regulation earlier, the Securities and Exchange Commission is charging prominent crypto firms Genesis Global Capital, LLC and Gemini Trust Company, LLC for selling unregistered securities. “Today’s charges build on previous actions to make clear to the marketplace and the investing public that crypto lending platforms and other intermediaries need to comply with our time-tested securities laws," said SEC Chair Gary Gensler in a press release. "Doing so best protects investors. It promotes trust in markets. It’s not optional. It’s the law.”
CRYPTO LAYOFFS
In other crypto news, Crypto.com announced that it's cutting 20 percent of its workforce. "The reductions we made last July positioned us to weather the macro economic downturn, but it did not account for the recent collapse of FTX, which significantly damaged trust in the industry," CEO Kris Marszalek said in a blog post.
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.
