Axios Closer

A new trend to watch: Major companies using Clubhouse to hold court with ordinary investors.

Why it matters: Executives are using the invite-only audio app to allow the type of access that was historically only offered up to Wall Street on stodgy, suited-up quarterly earnings calls.

What's happening: Car accessory website Carparts.com hosted a Clubhouse chat last night, with over 2,000 participants — the first time it specifically targeted retail investors.

• Retail traders account for nearly as much stock trading volume as mutual funds and hedge funds combined, the FT reports — a milestone of course helped by the Reddit-fueled trading frenzy earlier this year.

Between the lines: Companies are trying to capitalize on the buzz of Clubhouse. Its main allure has been the ability to drop in on conversations with influential people (including CEOs).

What's different now: Using it for conversations after reporting financial results — on a platform that's no doubt teeming with ordinary or would-be investors.

• "We never found the perfect forum," Carparts.com CFO David Meniane tells Axios, explaining why it hadn't done a specific event for retail investors before.
• "Clubhouse is a fast-growing channel, and the stars really aligned."

Another example: Restaurant Brands International — which owns Burger King, Popeyes and Tim Hortons — put its CEO on Clubhouse last month, one day after it released financial results to Wall Street.

• "Companies have calls with investors and business media every 3 months ... [w]hy not give our customers/guests the same access to our leaders." the invite read.

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Biden's stimulus package is expected to "boost the world economy," a new report from the Paris-based policy group OECD said today.

By the numbers: The U.S. will be the only country to finish 2021 with higher economic growth compared to what was expected before the pandemic struck.

What to watch: The House will vote on the relief package tomorrow morning — the final step before it heads to Biden's desk for a signature.

🎢 Big tech comeback: The Nasdaq closed up 3.6% — its best day in four months — after yesterday's sell-off that put it firmly in correction territory. (Reuters)

✈️ New orders for Boeing aircraft outpaced canceled ones for the first time since November 2019. (CNBC)

🚗 Kia is recalling nearly 380,000 vehicles in the U.S. because of concerns about potential engine fires. (Axios)

👀 More people on average traveled last week than at any point during the pandemic (excluding holidays) ... Airlines are pushing Biden to standardize proof-of-vaccine paperwork ... Meghan Markle's Royal Family revelations were "concerning," though "some recollections may vary," Buckingham Palace says.

A lesson in tweeting, courtesy of Burger King's U.K. account: The burger chain removed a controversial tweet that caused an uproar.

Catch up quick: The tweet read: "Women belong in the kitchen" — the opening of a thread that went on to say "only if they want to," before advocating for gender equality among chefs in honor of International Women's Day.

What they're saying: "We got our initial tweet wrong and we’re sorry."

P.S. The full-page ad it took out — which admittedly had better context — will (obviously) remain.

One year into the pandemic, Axios Re:Cap is looking back at the week of March 9, 2020 — when high-profile leaders were forced to make consequential choices that changed our lives and society.

Here's how Los Angeles schools superintendent Austin Beutner described the country's second-largest school district adapting to at-home learning closures: "It's flying the plane while changing the seats and the wiring in the midst of a thunderstorm running low on fuel. That's what we were doing."

Flashback: Beutner's decision to close schools affected between 3 million and 4 million people, including students, families and employees.

• The superintendent received some opposition from families that "didn't necessarily have the same information we did," Beutner said in an interview with Axios Re:Cap.

What he's saying: "If we close schools for fire, everyone can see the fire, it's very visible. Everyone can smell the smoke. It's visible."

• "We closed because of this unknown and, at that point in time, unknowable virus, which we thought presented an existential threat of sorts, but we didn't know the conviction."

🎧 Listen to the full episode. Subscribe to Axios Re:Cap here.

"I'm not expecting that the world is going to go into a big orgy, but I do hope that we will get into ... this Roaring '20s. It's a metaphor of the pent-up energy we're feeling."