The Week's Top Stories is a guided tour through the biggest market stories of the week, from winning stocks to brutal dips to the facts and forecasts generating buzz on Wall Street.
RECESSION OUTLOOK
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) started the week off on a downbeat with a prediction that global growth will stick to around 3 percent, which would make the weakest medium term growth projection since 1990. It would also come in well below the 3.8 percent average of the past few decades. “With rising geopolitical tensions and still-high inflation, a robust recovery remains elusive,” said IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.
CINEWORLD CRASHES
Regal parent company Cineworld saw its stock plunge 36 percent earlier this week following the announcement of a reorganization plan that would not benefit shareholders. The movie theater chain previously said shareholders would take the hit from the bankruptcy process, but its latest announcement snuffed out any remaining hopes of being made whole through some kind of sales process. “The proposed restructuring does not provide for any recovery for holders of Cineworld’s existing equity interests,” Cineworld said in a statement.
WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY DROPS
Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery fell nearly 9 percent this week after the entertainment giant announced that it was renaming its streaming service from HBO Max to simply "Max." The new super-streamer will reshuffle the company's offerings under a single umbrella, bringing together programming from Warner Brothers, HBO, Discovery, Food Network, and HGTV. In addition to some misgivings about the rebranding, investors remain skeptical about the prospects for the conglomerate, which formed out of a merger completed in 2021.
BITCOIN RALLIES
Bitcoin is regaining some of its losses from the past year, as much of the crypto economy collapsed due to a combination of fraud, financial mismanagement, and regulatory pressure. The world's biggest cryptocurrency went above $30,000 for the first time in 10 months, a threshold it last crossed in June 2022. Short sellers have lost millions in the run up.
About 780,000 pressure washers sold at retailers like Home Depot are being recalled across the U.S. and Canada, due to a projectile hazard that has resulted in fractures and other injuries among some consumers.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
Ford is recalling more than 355,000 of its pickup trucks across the U.S. because of an instrument panel display failure that’s resulted in critical information, like warning lights and vehicle speed, not showing up on the dashboard.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
