A shareholder asked Warren Buffett at this year's annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting why the billionaire investor has “been so silent” about the scandal that plagued Wells Fargo starting in 2017. Buffett said: "It looks to me like Wells made some big mistakes," adding that the banking institution incentivized "the wrong behavior."
The backdrop: When it was revealed that Wells Fargo employees had opened more than a million unauthorized accounts, the Department of Justice launched an investigation into the companies handlings of wealth management, and the bank was fined for charging customers for unwanted insurance. Buffett also became the largest shareholder of Wells Fargo in 2017 with about 10% of the shares.
The U.S. economy is confounding: Three months from the longest expansion since such data began being tracked 170 years ago, the economy keeps pumping out strong job growth, and has now pushed down unemployment to a 50-year low.
Yes but: It is delivering only middling wage growth,lower for instance than the last expansion in the 2000s. That has been an enduring mystery, especially amid month after month of ultra-low jobless figures over the last year.
Beyond Meat shares popped 163% yesterday on their first day of trading, marking the best IPO day performance since before the financial crisis.
The bull case: Beyond Meat rival Impossible Foods recently got onto Burger King's menu, and there is widespread speculation that Beyond Meat will strike a similar deal with McDonald's or Wendy's.
The U.S. economy added 263,000 jobs in April, blowing past the 180,000 economists were expecting, the Labor Department said on Friday, while the unemployment rate dropped from 3.8% to 3,6% — the lowest since December 1969.
The big picture: Average hourly wage growth rose 3.2% on an annual basis, which is somewhat slower than before. That's not great for workers, but it could be a sign that there's still slack in the labor market and room for more job growth.
Earlier this week we marveled at how news of WeWork's confidential IPO filing hadn't leaked, despite having submitted it last December. We also should have noted the import of that particular month, since it was the last opportunity for WeWork to be considered an "emerging growth company."
The bottom line: Companies with less than $1.07 billion in revenue for their most recently-completed calendar year qualify for certain benefits that make the IPO process easier.
American consumers may not have benefited all that much from the pharmaceutical components of trade deals, a new article in the New England Journal of Medicine argues.
The big picture: Starting with NAFTA, every U.S. trade agreement made since has included a pharmaceutical component.
