*By Michael Teich*
Amazon inked a new partnership with American Express, but don't expect the financial industry to be the next area the tech giant jumps into.
"The thing that people misunderstand is that tech companies don't want to manufacture financial products," said Lex Sokolin, Global Director of Fintech Strategy at Autonomous Research. "It's about making the ecosystem and the platform more powerful, and finance is just a feature inside of that."
American Express announced Tuesday it will launch a co-branded Amazon credit card for small businesses. The move accelerates Amazon's foray into financial products and strengthens its position as a lender. The goal, Sokolin said, is to enable small businesses to finance their activities, getting more products on Amazon's platform, and ultimately driving more commerce.
Plus, the opportunity costs of devoting itself to the financial industry are too high.
"Amazon has tremendous high-growth, super interesting, blue oceans to explore,” he said. "They could be investing in building a mortgage business, or they can build artificial intelligence business."
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/amazon-bolsters-financial-prowess-with-new-credit-card)
Kroger is eliminating some of its pandemic-era benefits for unvaccinated workers as the grocery chain looks to encourage more of its staff to get the COVID shots. Among the changes, unvaccinated employees will not receive emergency paid leave if they contract the virus.
Apple is on the verge of becoming the world's first-ever $3 trillion company as shares of the iPhone maker are inching closer to $182.86. Joel Hawthorne, head trader and CEO of The Morning Snapshot, joined Cheddar to discuss Apple's success and how the tech giant will continue to innovate. "One thing that we have to keep in mind is this stock somewhat moves like its own ETF," he said, describing the company as almost a "safe bet" for long-term investors.
Spoiler alert: And Just Like That... Peloton fired back. Over the weekend, the fitness giant posted a video featuring a character from the new 'Sex and the City' reboot, 'And Just Like That,' who had supposedly died following the use of a Peloton bike. Following the show's premiere last week, Peloton actually saw a drop in shares as a result of the character death. Mark Lehmann, CEO at JMP Securities, discusses why the character death may not have been such a marketing nightmare for Peloton after all.
Gabe Pincus, president of the investment advisor GA Pincus Funds, joined Wake Up With Cheddar to break down what's happening with meme stocks, as retail trader favorites AMC, GameStop, and Bed Bath & Beyond all moved sharply lower on Monday. He noted that even with the drop there is still room for the meme stocks to tumble even more. "They're still up 500 percent, 800 percent, 900 percent from their all-time lows, so there's plenty more room for them to go down," said Pincus.
Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas is slated to be the home of Super Bowl LVIII in 2024. The stadium was completed in July 2020 for a price tag of $1.8 billion.
Cheddar is looking back at the 12 biggest buzzwords of the year leading up to Christmas. Today's word of the day, 'Yolo Trade.' Yolo Trade: (noun) derived from the acronym 'You Only Live Once.' Describes a trade where someone goes all in on a stock.
