We discuss what Gary Cohn's resignation could mean for President Trump's tariff plan. On Tuesday evening, the White House announced that Trump's top economic adviser was leaving. Cohn is a globalist who had clashed with the president over his proposed tariff on aluminum and steel imports. This news, in addition to fears over a global trade war, caused the markets to drop sharply on Wednesday.
The planned sale of the Weinstein Co. has collapsed yet again, just days after terms were agreed to. An investor group, led by former Small Business Administration head Maria Contreras-Sweet, called off the deal late Tuesday after learning the company was in more debt than previously thought. As part of the deal, the investors would have assumed $225 million in debt from the Weinstein Co. After learning new information about the company's finances, Maria Contreras-Sweet said she was forced to pull the deal.
Cheddar CEO Jon Steinberg talks to Discovery's CEO David Zaslav about the company's acquisition of Scripps. The new company will be called Discovery, Inc. Through this deal Discovery, Inc. now reaches 20% of women watching prime time pay-TV. "People are consuming more content than they ever have," says Zaslav. "The real question is, aside from the traditional ecosystem, who is going to be dominant? Who is going to have a strong seat at the table when it comes to content that is consumed on all these other platforms?" Zaslav believes Discovery Inc. has an advantage over its competitors when it comes to attracting mobile audiences.
And we're also joined by Michael Kramer from Seeking Alpha to explore whether Amazon shares have peaked for this year. The stock recently topped $1,500 for the first time ever. Kramer says if the stock follows the same pattern from years past, it could have already peaked for the year. Moving on to Tesla, Kramer points out how the stock seems to be impervious to bad news. He says investors don't really seem to care that Tesla consistently misses on quarterly earnings. In this sense, Kramer says Tesla has an "Amazon-like quality" to it.
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.
