/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/JEUL2B5V7BJCFMRTKGOS3ZSN4Y.jpg "Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ law breaches international rights standards – European rights body")
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/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/UF7R3GWJGNMQBMFSDN7PJNRJ5Y.jpg "Blinken touts deeper U.S. engagement amid concern over ‘aggressive’ China")
What’s happening? (October 24-30)
The Facebook papers
Last week, more than a dozen news organizations released reports based on a pool of internal Facebook documents leaked by a former product manager. The documents describe what Facebook knew about its role in radicalizing users, the questions people asked about the impact of its core functions, and its efforts to contain dangerous content internationally. Former Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen appeared in “60 Minutes” before Congress and last week in the UK Parliament to argue that the company is putting profits before people. (Facebook has said it has millions of documents contradicting Ms. Haugen’s). Whistleblowers have filed at least nine complaints against Facebook with the Securities and Exchange Commission based on internal documents. On Thursday, Facebook changed its name to Meta.
Tesla joins the trillion dollar club
Tesla hit a $ 1 trillion market valuation last week, a milestone only exceeded by five other companies: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Alphabet. The rise in Tesla’s share price was driven by an announcement by Hertz that it would convert more than 20 percent of its rental fleet to Tesla’s electric cars by the end of next year. The car rental company said it would buy 100,000 Tesla, a purchase that Bloomberg reported would generate approximately $ 4.2 billion in revenue. Tesla’s market capitalization is higher than that of General Motors, Toyota, Ford, Volkswagen, BMW, Honda, and several other automakers combined.
Inflation continues to rise
Both businesses and buyers are seeing the impact of high inflation, partly caused by supply chain bottlenecks. Meat, poultry, fish, and egg prices in U.S. cities have increased 15 percent since early 2020. General Electric, Sherwin-Williams, and Hasbro all found rising prices hurt their business calls with investors over the past week. An inflation measure released on Friday, the consumer spending price index, showed that prices in the United States rose at the fastest rate in three decades in September, while another measure in October showed the highest inflation rate in the euro area ever. Signals from the bond market suggest that rising inflation may last longer than the temporary surge that many politicians had expected due to the pandemic.
What’s next? (October 31 – November 6)
It might be time to rejuvenate yourself
Federal Reserve officials will be gathering this week, and the two-day meeting is a big one. The central bank is expected to announce that it will scale back its bond-buying efforts that it put on to prop up the economy during the pandemic. The Fed has been signaling for months that it intends to start tapering its bond purchases in November. However, an interest rate hike cannot be expected until the middle of next year at the earliest.
The pace of job growth
On Friday, the Ministry of Labor will report how many vacancies were filled in October. Employment growth slowed to the slowest pace of the year in September as consumers and businesses responded to a surge in coronavirus cases. However, hospital stays and coronavirus-related deaths declined in October, so economists expect employment growth to have accelerated. Nevertheless, labor shortages and low labor force participation may have continued to hamper the recovery. Fewer Americans were looking for work in September than before the pandemic, even though extended unemployment insurance expired earlier this month. At the same time, with so many vacancies in place, a record number of workers quit their jobs in August, data released earlier this month showed.
On the Supreme Court agenda
The Supreme Court has two highly anticipated cases on its schedule this week. On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in two separate challenges against Texas law, which bans most abortions after six weeks of gestation. Both challengers said the law was contrary to Roe v. Wade, which prohibits states from banning abortions before the fetus is viable or before about 23 weeks. Dozens of companies, including ridesharing service Lyft and cloud storage company Box, publicly opposed the law in September when it went into effect. On Wednesday the court will hear its first major gun case under the second amendment in more than a decade. The case is a long-standing New York law that severely restricts the carrying of weapons outside of the home.
What else?
PayPal has ended its Pinterest deal. The Democrats are trying to reach an agreement on their spending deal. Millennials struggle to manage their Generation Z employees. And if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signs the administration of Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine to children ages 5-11 as expected, children could start vaccinating as early as Wednesday.
