With Vice President Harris acting as the tiebreaker (and following a 15-hour amendment vote-a-rama), the Senate voted on Thursday to move forward with the White House’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief measure. The House has already passed its own budget resolution, so the Senate vote kicks the reconciliation process into high gear - Bloomberg and NYTimes and WSJ and MarketWatch
Better-than-expected (but still “historically high”) jobless claims helped propel stocks upwards on Thursday, with the S&P and Nasdaq hitting new highs and the Dow nearly doing the same - WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
We’ll get a better overall employment picture (and the US economic recovery) when January’s jobs report numbers drop later this morning. Here’s what we’re looking for in the data - Bloomberg and NYTimes and WSJ
After a fair showing mid-week, the meme stocks took it on the nose yesterday, with GameStop down nearly 90% since its peak a week ago and fellow Redditor stonk fave AMC down nearly 50% in that same stretch - NYTimes
On cue, Treasury Secretary Yellen and fellow financial regulators met this week “to discuss recent market volatility and [a] few wild weeks on Wall Street.” While a lot was on the table, the group landed on a message that they “believe the core infrastructure was resilient during high volatility and heavy trading volume” - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
Streetwise agrees - WSJ
The normally staid Bank of England has warned the British banking system to “prepare their systems for negative interest rates, opening up a pathway for the central bank to use this additional policy tool to encourage more lending.” Policymakers then rushed to clarify that they weren’t cutting rates “imminently” - NYTimes
Yogurt-maker Chobani has its sights set on a 2021 IPO, with hopes for a valuation of as much as $7 to $10 billion - WSJ
That auto-industry chip shortage that shuttered GM factories across North America is taking a bit out of Ford’s bottom line, too - WSJ and MarketWatch
CNN president Jeff Zucker, the “relentless, ratings-obsessed executive who transformed American television news” who has helmed the network since 2013, revealed this week that he expects to step down from that position at the end of the year - NYTimes
The Journal’s reporting that Credit Suisse was on notice of a rogue private banker’s misconduct “years before” he was sentenced to prison for fraud and forgery. Despite a flood of red flags, the bank “turned a blind eye, proposed lenient punishment for his misconduct or otherwise glossed over the issues because he brought in around $25 million in revenue a year” - WSJ
Federal prosecutors have unsealed an indictment “charging the CEO of asset manager GPB Capital and two of his associates with running a Ponzi-like $1.8 billion fraud scheme.” GPB owner and founder David Gentile is facing criminal charges in E.D.N.Y. as well as civil enforcement actions by the SEC and 7 state attorneys general over the scheme – Law360
Brazilian mining giant Vale has agreed to a $7 billion settlement—the biggest in Brazilian legal history—over the socioeconomic and environmental fallout from the collapse of its Minas Gerais dam in 2019 - WSJ
Why Big Auto’s shift to EVs requires a heck of a lot more than swapping out a combustion engine for a few battery cells - NYTimes
The Big Game will go on, Covid and all, but expect those ads to look a bit different this time around - WSJ
Stay safe, and have a great weekend,
MDR
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