The Week's Top Stories: Mad Markets, and Shutdown Showdown
*From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.*
* **Markets Whipsaw:**
The week between Christmas and New Year’s is usually a languorous time of slow news days, long lunches, and early clock-outs. Someone should have told that to the traders on Wall Street. The markets this week behaved much like a roller coaster ー continuing a slide after Christmas, then reversing course for the Dow’s largest point gain in history, then slipping and rallying again. Finally on Friday, the Dow traded in a more settled range, the first day it gained or lost less than a percentage point since Dec. 18. With one more trading day left in the year, the S&P is on track for its biggest annual percentage decline since the peak of the financial crisis in 2008.
* **Happy Holiday:**
The market volatility did not stop shoppers from going out (and online) in droves to finish off the holiday season on a strong note. All told, U.S. consumers spent a cool $850 billion this holiday with retail sales up more than 5 percent over a year ago ー the biggest increase in six years. E-commerce sales were up nearly 20 percent year-over-year, with department stores showing the only signs of weakness, due mostly to store closings. A shopping trend known as BOPIS (buy online, pick up in store) came into its own this year; those types of sales were up 46 percent, and 86 percent of retailers surveyed called the trend the future of the delivery model. [Read more](https://www.cheddar.com/videos/not-dead-yet-malls-show-signs-of-life-amid-strong-holiday-spending).
* **Shutdown Showdown:**
Meanwhile, Washington ended the year in a stalemate over funding for President Trump’s border wall. The federal government has been partially shut down for a week due to the budget impasse, which is affecting 800,000 federal workers. Trump has said he won’t reopen the government until he secures the $5 billion he has requested to build more of the wall and said he would consider closing the southern border if the funding doesn't materialize. Trump repeatedly told his supporters during his campaign that the wall would be paid for by Mexico, though that narrative has largely been replaced by a taxpayer-funded barrier that two-thirds of Americans don’t deem necessary. [Read more](https://www.cheddar.com/videos/congress-meets-and-adjourns-with-no-solution-to-shutdown).
* **Tesla:**
If you’re in the market for a new Tesla ($TSLA) but haven’t pulled the trigger, you might want to do so before Tuesday. That’s when the federal tax credit will be slashed in half, from $7,500 to $3,750. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the company will reimburse customers who bought new cars, but encountered delays that caused them to miss out on the subsidy. Meanwhile, as part of Musk’s settlement with the SEC ー remember that “funding secured” tweet? ー two new members were added to the electric carmaker’s board: Larry Ellison, the former CEO of Oracle ($ORCL), and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson of Walgreens ($WBA). In China, the company’s largest overseas market, Tesla has seen demand plummet due to tariffs, prompting it to cut prices for the third time in two months. Tesla is at work on a Shanghai factory that would cushion the blow from trade war tariffs on U.S.-produced vehicles. [Read more](https://www.cheddar.com/videos/tesla-appoints-new-board-members).
* **Tax Changes:**
With the first year of the new tax law almost in the books, it’s a good time for a primer on how the law will affect individual filers when tax season comes, which is always sooner than you think. Your 1040 will look different, for starters: the personal deduction has been eliminated, but standard deductions have roughly doubled for single filers, heads of household, and those with dependents. Filers will also no longer be able to deduct costs associated with job searches and working from home, which will negatively impact freelancers and anyone who spent more than 2 percent of their adjusted gross income on job-related expenses. The new law also makes it harder for people to deduct mortgage interest and property taxes. [Read more](https://www.cheddar.com/videos/the-tax-changes-that-are-about-to-sneak-up-on-you).
*-Carlo Versano*
Bed Bath & Beyond delivered disappointing fiscal third-quarter results for 2022. Shares initially dove more than 9% in premarket trading on the news but finished the day up nearly 8%. Bed Bath & Beyond has been a meme-stock target for online investors in the past -- so was meme-stock mania a factor in the recent stock movement for the company? Jaime Rogozinski, the founder of the subreddit WallStreetBets, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell for more, as his forum helped spark the meme stock phenomena. He also discussed some decentralized finance services and trends for the retail investor to watch for in 2022.
Digital medical care provider Pear Therapeutics rang the closing bell on the Nasdaq Friday and President and CEO Dr. Corey McCann, joined Cheddar to talk about how the company plans to grow the business of software-based therapeutics and how the first FDA authorized prescription digital therapeutics company will go about treating illnesses like insomnia and addiction. "These really are pieces of software. In many cases, they're apps and in the cases of our addiction products, these are based on something called cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT," he said. "These products change the patient's brain circuitry to help them be abstinent, to help them stay in treatment, and that's exactly what we see in randomized clinical trials and that's what we see in the real world." He also addressed the ongoing mental health crises brought on by the pandemic. **copy updated to remove IPO information as Pear Therapeutics went public in December**
Gamestop shares were up on The Wall Street Journal report that the video game retail company plans to enter the NFT and crypto space. Adam Hollander, the founder of Hungry Wolves NFT, joined Cheddar to break down how it could be a lifeline for the struggling meme stock darling. "They're not resigning themselves to becoming the next Blockbuster story, and so while people may not be buying as many video games in a retail environment anymore, NFTs, in particular, people are starting to expect more gaming utility on the backend — at least for a variety of projects — and I personally think its a very smart move for them to do this," Hollander told Cheddar.
On Saturday, New York will join neighboring New Jersey and Connecticut in authorizing mobile sports betting. Matt Kalish, president and co-founder of Draftkings North America, joined Cheddar to talk about the landmark change that is estimated to rake in $500 million in annual tax revenue on a potential billion-dollar market. Kalish also addressed the possibility that legalized sports betting in the Empire State could cannibalize his company's revenues in the bordering states. "It's pretty inconvenient, you know, to go across the border to make a bet. And people were doing it, but I think it really stifled a lot of the opportunity," he said. "So while there's some of that going on, I think really a tremendous amount, like a giant percent, of New York will be very incremental."
Ben Armstrong, founder of Bitboy Crypto, joins Cheddar News to discuss Bitcoin's downward trend and what's next for crypto after protests in Kazakhstan cause crypto miners to shut down.
Jake Carbone, senior data analyst at InfluenceMap joins Cheddar News to talk about a new report by The Guardian and InfluenceMap that reveals how companies are creating fossil fuel ads designed to look like Google search results.
Satoshi Island is looking to become the world's first blockchain-driven economy. James Law, the chief architect of the planned private community, joined Cheddar to discuss the vision for the potential crypto capital of the world and how it will be brought to life. For people looking to live on the island, Law said they will be able to purchase land and homes and even design their own dwellings both in real life and via the metaverse. "Satoshi Island has already been digitally scanned. We have an absolute digital twin already in our metaverse," he said. Citizenship applications are expected to be launched via NFTs, he told Cheddar.
Satellite launch service Virgin Orbit has gone public on the Nasdaq via a SPAC merger with NextGen Acquisitions with a valuation of about $3.2 billion. CEO Dan Hart joined Cheddar's "Between Bells" from in front of his LauncherOne rocket in New York City's Times Square to talk about what's next after the IPO, an upcoming "Above the Clouds" mission to deliver commercial and national security payloads, and the benefits of their rockets being launched from commercial 747 aircraft. "We can launch anywhere in the world," he said. "There are almost 80 space agencies across the world, for instance, and about 10 of them have space launch. We can give them a space flight capability overnight by taking a runway and turning it into a spaceport."
Tech and entertainment giant Sony appears to be getting serious about automaking. An electric concept SUV — the Vision S-02 — was unveiled at CES 2022 and is slated to be produced by a new subdivision, Sony Mobility. This comes after the company revealed the Vision S concept Sedan at CES 2020.
The highly transmissible omicron variant of COVID-19 has forced school districts nationwide to return to virtual instruction, but there remain concerns about the quality of education students are receiving online. Andy Bird, CEO of Pearson, an education publisher and assessment service provider, joined Cheddar's "Opening Bell" to talk about steps educators and parents can take to make the remote learning experience an easier one, noting that one of the biggest advantages teachers can have is flexibility. "You cannot take a rigid timetable that works in the analog world and replicate that in the digital world. You need to have flexibility. Asynchronous learning, I think, is a very important part," he told Cheddar.
