Friday, October 15, 2021
S&P 500 Sees Biggest Weekly Rise Since July as Stocks Rally on Earnings. Stocks ended higher Friday, booking solid weekly gains for major indexes as investors cheered a strong start to earnings season and data showing stronger-than-expected September retail sales. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 382 points, or 1.1%, to close near 35,295, ending above the 35,000 threshold for the first time since Sept. 8. The Dow rose 1.1% for the week. The S&P 500 gained around 33 points, or 0.8%, on Friday to finish at 4471, leaving the large-cap benchmark with a 1.8% weekly rise, its largest since July 23. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ended at 14,897, up 74 points, or 0.5%. The Nasdaq rallied 2.2% for the week, its biggest such rise since August.
The Workers Won’t Be Coming Back, Covid or Not. Here Are Theories on Where They Went.
What is wrong with America’s labor market? Americans are quitting their jobs at a record pace while millions who left the workforce during the pandemic have yet to return. Many economists say Covid is the culprit, but there may be more going on than meets the eye.
To attribute slow hiring mainly to the pandemic presumes the labor shortage is temporary. But travel trends examined by Barron’s suggest the acute lack of workers owes to more than Covid infection rates, a revelation that raises questions about why workers are staying home and whether they will come back to the traditional labor market.
Policy makers, economists, and frustrated employers were all but sure the labor shortage would ease in September. That isn’t what happened, and it wasn’t even close.
The FDA Is About to Make Some Major Drug Decisions. What to Know.
The Food and Drug Administration’s decisions on Covid-19 vaccine boosters have commanded considerable attention in recent weeks, but the agency has plenty more on its plate in the coming months.
Before the year is out, the FDA will announce a handful of billion-dollar decisions expected to have major impacts on big pharma companies like Pfizer and Eli Lilly, and on biotechs small and large, including Intra-Cellular Therapies and BioMarin Phamaceutical, among others.
J&J Booster Backed by FDA Advisory Committee
A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee voted unanimously on Friday to authorize a booster dose of Johnson & Johnson’s one-and-done vaccine.
The committee recommended the booster for all adults ages 18 and over who had received a single shot two months earlier.
U.S. Jobless Claims Dip Below Key Pandemic Threshold
New applications for U.S. unemployment benefits dipped below 300,000 for the first time since the pandemic began, a milestone in the labor market’s recovery from the devastation wrought by the virus last year.
The tally of weekly applications for jobless aid became one of the most visible signs of economic ravages of Covid-19, as the total surged into the millions in March 2020.
Retail Sales Were Surprisingly Strong. Delta Can’t Kill Demand.
Retail sales unexpectedly rose in September, a good sign for bullish investors as supply-chain woes and high demand continue to reverberate across the sector.
Overall sales rose 0.7% month over month. That number follows an upwardly revised 0.9% increase in August, Department of Commerce figures showed Friday. Excluding autos, sales increased 0.8% in September.
Ransomware Threat Is Back, and Stronger, After a Post-Colonial Pipeline Retreat
After briefly retreating to the shadows after the Colonial Pipeline breach drew attention from federal cyberauthorities, ransomware extortionists are back and stronger after having survived the U.S. crackdown, according to a new report.
Following a May ransomware attack damaging computer systems managing the network of Colonial Pipeline carrying fuel to the southeastern U.S., President Biden announced measures to invest in cybersecurity upgrades, as well as a diplomatic offensive meant to pressure Eastern European countries to crack down on criminals acting within their borders.
Coinbase Calls for a Crypto Czar to Oversee the Industry. That’s a Tall Order.
Coinbase Global, one of the largest cryptocurrency brokerages, is calling on Congress to create a new crypto czar that would oversee the industry.
Coinbase issued a policy proposal this week, asking Congress to craft entirely new laws for the industry, including a definition of digital assets and a single regulator that would oversee “Marketplaces for Digital Assets,” or MDAs.
Microsoft to Shutter and Replace China Version of LinkedIn
Microsoft plans to shut down LinkedIn in China later this year in response to the country’s increasingly aggressive regulatory environment, the company announced in a blog post.
Microsoft launched a localized version of the professional social network in China in 2014. The company said at the time that its goal was to connect Chinese professionals with each other and with the rest of LinkedIn’s members around the world.
IMF Chief Talks of Hard Economic Choices That Face the World
The world’s policy makers face the most complex choices in decades as they grapple with the pandemic and economic inequality, inflation, and the risks of yearslong easy monetary policy, the head of the International Monetary Fund said this week.
Kristalina Georgieva, the fund’s managing director, spoke from Washington, where the IMF and World Bank are holding their annual meetings this week.
FDA Delays Clearing Moderna Vaccine for Adolescents
The Food and Drug Administration is delaying a decision on whether to approve Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine for adolescents, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Regulators have been analyzing whether the shot contributes to higher risks of myocarditis, a rare inflammatory heart condition, among younger men who received two shots of Moderna’s vaccine compared with young men who got Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine, according to the report.
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