TheChek News Flow

• A shortage of semiconductors, the critical chips used to calibrate cars’ fuel injection, run infotainment systems, or manage cruise control, has shaken up the global auto industry, forcing assembly lines to shut down and denting dealers’ inventory.

• A year into the pandemic, millions of Brazilians are going hungry, evidence that president Jair Bolsonaro’s bet that he could protect the country’s economy by resisting public health policies intended to curb the virus has failed.

• After last week’s global climate change summit, Washington faces the challenge of steering the world towards cleaner energy—but the fact that several large countries made no new pledges to reduce fossil fuel use is a sign of limited US influence.

• Drug overdoses rose across the country during the coronavirus pandemic, but they skyrocketed in San Francisco, claiming 713 lives last year, more than double the 257 people there who died of the virus in 2020.

• The White House said it was unaware that a Baltimore factory had discarded millions of potentially contaminated doses of AZN’s coronavirus vaccine when Biden gave it permission to ship vaccines to Mexico and Canada.

• The Biden administration’s plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan has sparked worry about future Taliban rule, but the White House says the group must govern less harshly than feared if it hopes for recognition and financial support from world powers.

• Caitlyn Jenner, the Republican former Olympian and prominent transgender activist, announced she would challenge governor Gavin Newsom of California in this year’s recall election, though it’s uncertain if and when the recall would take place.

• The pandemic opened up new possibilities for companies that help restaurants operate—investors and venture capitalists are sourcing deals in the “restaurant tech” sector, looking for startups that bring the big chains’ advantages to independents.

• The Fed saved money market mutual funds for the second time in 12 years in March 2020, exposing regulatory shortfalls that persisted even after the financial crisis—and now “these savings vehicles could be headed for a more serious overhaul.”

• + DIS: ABC sold out its advertising inventory for the Academy Awards on Sunday, with companies like Google, GM, and VZ spending an estimated $2M for 30-second spots, only a slight decline from last year, though the audience is expected to be smaller.

• India’s coronavirus outbreak is becoming a devastating crisis, with hospitals full, oxygen supplies running low, people dying while waiting to see doctors—and mounting evidence that the actual death toll is far higher than officially reported.

• President Biden’s pledge to cut America’s climate warming emissions in half by 2030 is technologically feasible and ecologically imperative—but economically, it could pose a challenge, though the rewards should be worth the cost.

• Though the pandemic sent the US unemployment rate up and left millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet, chief executives—even those working at companies hard-hit by the crisis—continued to rake in huge pay packages.

• President Biden recognized the mass killings of Armenians more than a century ago as genocide, signaling a willingness to test an increasingly frayed relationship with Turkey, long a key regional ally and an important partner within NATO.

• A landmark United Nations report is expected to declare that reducing emissions of methane, the main component of natural gas, will be a crucial element of efforts to ward off the worst effects of climate change.

• In a Siena College poll, New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s ratings are at the lowest level of his tenure, with allegations of sexual harassment continuing to erode his support, but the numbers may not dent his re-election changes.

• Investors holding broadly diversified stock funds over the last year did well, says columnist Jeff Sommer—in the 12 months through Friday, the S&P 500 returned more than 50 percent—but things were so bad a year ago that the numbers had nowhere to go but up.

• Front page story reports “President Biden’s capital-gains tax proposals would alter wealthy Americans’ investment strategies and reignite the long-running political debates over the link between tax rates and economic growth.”

• Biden’s target for slashing auto emissions targets by 2030 would require companies in energy, transportation, agriculture and more to greatly speed the pace of change, and many would face significant new costs.

• Some SPACs are targeting companies with below-investment-grade credit ratings; not since the dot.com-boom two decades ago has stock-market enthusiasm been hot enough to fuel such activity in debt markets.

• Story says that as demand for plastics grows, so does concern over the waste—and that more than 90 percent of the plastics generated annually in the US winds up in landfills or incinerators, with only nine percent recycled, according to the EPA.

• Recent economic surveys indicate that US and global economies are showing signs of stronger growth as factories continued to boom and service businesses began to see the benefits of vaccination programs.

• The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus supports a gas-tax increase to fund infrastructure repair—the group proposed indexing gas and diesel taxes to inflation, highway construction costs, fuel-economy standards, or some combination of the three.

• Attorney General Merrick Garland told largest law-enforcement organizations that an investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department will be the first of several broad civil-rights probes by the Justice Department into police departments.

• In a story written by BBY chief Hubert Joly, he details his “Renew Blue” strategy to turn around the electronics retailer when everybody thought that competition from AMZN and other online players would bury it.

• H.O.T.S.: Online trading app Robinhood said a quarter of trading in Bitcoin and other online currencies is done by women, though that level lags their trading in stocks and ETFs; The initial buzz around 3-D printing didn’t pan out in the market—and current speculation may be no different; Corporate travel spending on AXP cards remains depressed, but trends such as younger spenders and a bigger desire for status could help.

FINANCIAL TIMES

Weekend

• “Joe Biden’s proposal to almost double capital gains tax rates for the richest Americans has triggered a chorus of disapproval from top lawmakers, underscoring the intense opposition the president is set to face as he attempts to push his plans through Congress.”

• A malaria vaccine trial from Oxford University found that the shot, known as R21, was 77 percent effective—dramatically better than existing shots for preventing one of the world’s most deadly diseases.

• German chancellor Angela Merkel defended her lobbying for Wirecard in China in 2019, saying there was no reason at that time to assume there were irregularities at the company where fraud was later uncovered.

• Russia will withdraw from the International Space Station in 2025, ending a period of time that saw strong international cooperation, dating back to planning for the station at the end of the Cold War.

• Moscow’s move to pull back soldiers from the border with Ukraine serves to send a message to the country and its Western supporters that Russia remains a force to reckon with on Europe’s south-eastern side.

• Japan announced a short period of Covid-19 restrictions, incorporating a week-long holiday in its largest cities in a bid to counter a rapid rise in cases.

• Big Read piece “Twelve of Europe’s top football clubs planned to shake up the sport with a new Super League. Instead, it collapsed spectacularly in just 48 hours amid mass public protest, communications disasters, and a political furor.”

• Lex Column: FirstGroup’s current business plans suggest it will be a lower margin business in the future—which also comes with fewer risks; Tod’s would be an ideal brand to take private—it has a small free float, has exhausted options for a recovery, and moves slowly; MAT can’t count on a pandemic sales boost lasting indefinitely.

• Comment: Delivery riders for Deliveroo will soon be an endangered species, says John Gapper—“There will be a place for supervisors, ambassadors, and doorstep greeters, but robots will be right behind them.”

• Bitcoin investors are dealing with a plunge in cryptocurrency after reports that President Biden is set to raise capital gains taxes on wealthy Americans, a move that could slow Bitcoin’s momentum.

• + MAT: The toy company “experienced a short-lived surge in its stock price Friday thanks to a blowout quarter fueled by continued demand for Barbie—who’s become unstoppable since the pandemic took hold.” - Source TradeTheNews.com