Why it matters: The initial success of Mickey D's long-awaited Beyond Meat burger bodes well for a growing number of fast-food and fast-casual chains debuting plant-based meat.
Fed leaders see an economy too much in flux to say definitively how they’ll transition the country away from the past two financially piqued years.
Catch up quick: The Federal Reserve confirmed Wednesday expectations for an interest rate hike in March and that its massive bond-buying program would end by then.
Spotify on Wednesday confirmed it will remove Neil Young's music from its platform, after the singer demanded that the streaming giant take it down in response to vaccine misinformation being spread by Joe Rogan, a popular podcaster on the platform.
Why it matters: Young is the first high-profile artist to boycott Spotify because of content moderation issues.
Why it matters: Fed leaders are looking to choke off inflation by raising interest rates in the near future, but keeping its options open for how fast and far the effort will go.
UBS, a Swiss bank and one of the world's larger wealth managers, on Wednesday said it will buy U.S. robo-advisor Wealthfront for $1.4 billion in cash.
Why it matters: Big banks continue to buy fintech companies in order to expand their client offerings, although robo-advising has almost become table stakes at this point.
Self-checkout, self-service, autonomous stores, DIY: The retail world is prepping for a future with fewer human workers and more technology involved in selling us stuff.
Why it matters: While 72% of retail sales are still expected to take place in brick-and-mortar stores in 2024, merchants are busy installing interactive signage, smart price tags, and remote checkout systems that point to a very different customer experience.
Chris Lehane, a top Airbnb exec and former Clinton administration official, tells Axios Pro Fintech Deals he plans to join the leadership team of a crypto venture-capital fund next month.
Why it matters: The move by Lehane is a sign of the growing allure the crypto world holds for tech pioneers who have already amassed power and wealth but still want to scratch the "disruption" itch.
Vishal Garg will be CEO of home mortgage lender Better.com if and when it goes public via SPAC, despite having laid off around 900 employees via Zoom and then trashing many of them via an "anonymous" social media account. But Garg's level of control remains in flux, due to a side letter agreement with SoftBank.
Why it matters: SPAC mergers with a lot less hair on them have been canceled for a lot less.
Ripple, the cryptocurrency company behind XRP, has repurchased all of its Series C shares at a $15 billion valuation. The late 2019 round had raised $200 million led by Tetragon Financial Group at a $10 billion post-money valuation.
Why it matters: This sort of thing is very rare, and comes as Ripple continues to fight SEC allegations that it sold unregistered securities. It also could presage a late 2022 or 2023 IPO for Ripple, which still has over $1 billion on its balance sheet.
AccuWeather, one of the largest and oldest private sector players in U.S. weather forecasting, is rolling out a new program it's calling "ClimateReady Risk Mitigation." The aim, it says, is to help companies and communities worldwide prepare for climate change impacts.
Why it matters: AccuWeather is joining an increasingly crowded marketplace for climate risk forecasting, with competitors including Jupiter Intelligence, IBM, Moody's, S&P Global, First Street Foundation and XDI.
Tesla is expected to report record earnings Wednesday afternoon after its highest-ever quarterly and full-year sales.
Why it matters: Beyond the Q4 numbers, analysts and investors will be looking for clarity on the still-mysterious timing of planned products like the Cybertruck and the semi-truck.
Families with lower incomes are seeing their financial cushions eroded as we get further away from pandemic-era government support.
Driving the news: About 40% of adults earning less than $50,000 per year said in January that their savings wouldn't cover one month of expenses — that's up from 32% who said so last month, and 28% the month before.
FTX.US, the affiliate of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, raised $400 million in funding, valuing it at $8 billion roughly a year and a half after it launched in the U.S.
The big picture: Investors in the round included Softbank Vision Fund 2, Paradigm, Temasek, and Multicoin Capital, all of whom also invested in FTX.
Private equity firm Ames Watson is levering portfolio company Lids with a new $250 million term loan to finance the private equity firm's acquisitions, it said Wednesday morning.
Why it matters: The new funding will help Ames Watson, which has a mix of long-term holdings as well as VC and PE investments, consolidate the retail and apparel industries.
It's been a decidedly ugly start to the year for the stock market, with particular pain in the tech trade.
State of play: As of the end of trading Tuesday — the 16th session of the year — 2022 is now, officially, the worst-ever start in the history of the S&P 500, according to data from Ned Davis Research, a stock market research shop.
GM is making the largest investment in company history in its home state of Michigan, with plans to spend $7 billion to convert a factory to make electric pickups and to build a new battery cell plant, AP reports.
Why it matters: GM is rolling the dice on Americans converting from internal combustion engines to battery power.
Inflation and jobs may get all the economic headlines, but meanwhile a big shift is taking place in the underpinnings of the world economy: The U.S. trade deficit is soaring.
What's happening: Americans' spending on imported physical goods has gone through the roof, while exports are growing slowly, making the U.S. the world's consumer of last resort.
An industrywide move toward reservations — instead of in-the-moment purchasing — could alter the way Americans buy vehicles, limiting what’s available on dealership lots.
Driving the news: Ford announced Monday that it will stop accepting orders for the 2022 Ford Maverick, a compact pickup with a $20,000 starting price, due to overwhelming demand.
