Daily Archives: January 30, 2022

The stock market officially entered a correction this week, declining 10% from the most recent high. Many stocks are down even more.Stock market correctionslike this can feel brutal since no one likes losing money.

However, they can also be excellent opportunities for long-term investors to scoop up shares of great companies at lower prices. Two stocks that look like unbelievable bargains given their growth prospects areBrookfield Renewable(NYSE:BEPC)(NYSE:BEP) andPinterest(NYSE:PINS). That makes them smart options for those with $500 to deploy right now.

Image source: Getty Images.

Shares are Brookfield Renewable have slumped more than 45% over the past year. That sell-off makes no sense whatsoever. Therenewable energygiant delivered excellent results last year. It produced record third-quarter earnings, pushing its total for the first nine months up 20% year over year.

With its earnings surging while the stock tumbled, Brookfield Renewable now trades at a much lower valuation. It has generated $1.69 per share of cash flow over the last 12 months. Given its recent sub-$32 share price, it trades at less than 19 times cash flow. That's dirt cheap, considering its growth prospects.

Brookfield has a quartet of growth drivers that should power 10%+ cash flow per share growth through at least 2026. It sees upside potential of as much as 20% annually. One of its power sources is inflation. Its energy contracts allow it to raise rates along with inflation. With inflation near a 40 year high of 7% last year, Brookfield's inflation-related earnings should surge. That's on top of the growth from higher power prices, its large-scale development pipeline, and M&A activities.

Brookfield should be able to deliver high-powered growth for decades to come, given the investment needed to switch the entire global economy from carbon-emitting fossil fuels to cleaner alternative energy sources. That long-term upside makes it look like a smart investment these days, given the decline in its share price.

Social mediaplatform Pinterest has plunged more than 60% in the past year. That's partly due to two rumored buyouts that failed to materialize. Payments giantPayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) reportedly explored a deal valued at $70 a share ($45 billion) last fall. Meanwhile, tech behemoth Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT) reportedly approached Pinterest with a $51 billion deal earlier in the year.

The big draw for those tech giants was Pinterest's large and growing user base. The company ended the third quarter with more than 444 million global monthly active users (MAUs). These giants saw Pinterest as a way to expand their user base and further monetize the platform. However, they couldn't agree to terms, taking some of the air out of the stock.

Those failed buyouts might be a blessing in disguise for long-term investors. Pinterest is still in the early days of cashing in on its highly engaged userbase. Its revenue grew 43% in the third quarter, while earnings more than doubled. It still has a lot of room to run. The platform tallied only $1.41 in average revenue per user (ARPU) during the quarter. Of note, its ARPU was $5.55 in the U.S., where it has 89 million MAUs, against $0.38 globally, where it has 356 million MAUs. Its international monetization opportunity alone is massive. Meanwhile, its overall ARPU is still a fraction of most other social media sites.

With Pinterest's stock tumbling this year, it trades at a ridiculously low valuation, given its growth potential. At the recent price below $30 a share, it sells at around 21 times its forward price to earnings. That's only a little bit more expensive than theS&P 500's current forward PE ratio of 19.6 times. That makes Pinterest seem dirt cheap since it's growing at a much faster rate than the market.

The recent stock market dip has made many stocks look more attractive these days. Among the most compelling opportunities are Brookfield Renewable and Pinterest. They look like absolute bargains, given their long-term growth prospects. And that means they look like smart ways to deploy $500 these days.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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The Smartest Stocks to Buy With $500 Right Now - The Motley Fool

Welcome to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. Its inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here.

Hello my dear friends, heres hoping that you are warm, safe, and happy today. Welcome to the weekend. Todays Exchange note is somewhat brief, and, I hope, good fun. Were talking gaming and competition, two of my very favorite things.

While the venture capital world loses its mind over crypto-based video games bringing fiscally focused activity to the gaming space, some builders are sticking to more traditional models.

One such company is Frost Giant, which announced a Series A this week worth $25 million, and is building a de novo RTS game. As a longtime fan of the genre, I am incredibly excited about this. As a business and technology journalist, I am curious as well.

I got on the phone the other day with its founders the Two Tims to chat through what they are building. Details are somewhat sparse at the moment because the company is still a ways from releasing its title. But! It will be a real-time strategy (RTS) game, a genre made famous by beloved entries like Age of Empires and Starcraft. It should feature, we learned, a campaign and multiplayer capabilities. And the group is talking to esports players as well so that it works out of the box for more competitive battles.

Per the company, its being built to be a game as a service of sorts, with a long shelf life. Thats a big goal. And to do so with new IP as the core is a big gamble. In a good way, I think; this is what venture capital is for venturing into the unknown. Not just building more B2B SaaS.

For now, Frost Giant is staying mum on setting and anything more substantial about the games core elements, so well be keeping an eye on what its building.

In a more nuts/bolts sense, Frost Giant raised a $4.7 million seed round after being founded in 2020, later adding another $5 million to that round. Kakao Games, a South Korean game developer, led the companys Series A, which should provide its team of 25 full-timers and 12 contractors plenty of breathing room to get the game right.

And speaking of taking time to get the game right, lets talk about Paradox. Paradox is a gaming studio based in Sweden, is the maker of so-called grand strategy games. They are real-time in a sense, but different from the traditional RTS genre in their complexity and length of play. You can K.O. someone in Starcraft 2 in 15 minutes if you know what you are doing. A play-through of Paradox title Crusader Kings 3 (CK3) could take you days and days of plugging away. Not that I am intimately aware of that fact or anything.

Anyhoo, Paradox is executing a natural experiment before our eyes with its first major expansion to CK3, called Royal Court. The company announced it ages ago, only telling fans last October that it would come out this February. The news was a bit of a surprise, but after some hiccups in expansions for some of its other titles, the CK3 player base appeared mostly cool with the later-than-anticipated launch, provided that the new code came out the gate solid as a rock.

February 8, the launch date for Royal Court, is just around the corner, and as Paradox is a public company, well be able to see if its wager that making gamers wait and perhaps lose interest? for a big update pays out. I, for one, am buying the expansion, but dont want to over-index on my own experiences.

In related CK3 news, Paradox just announced that it is bringing the title to consoles this week. I actually got invited to a press event with the company, and the studio it hired to help bring the game to a handset-powered environment. Why folks dont just buy a damn gaming PC is beyond me, but I will say that I learned quite a lot about how games get ported to other platforms. Its a lot of work to make a PC game work in a non keyboard/mouse environment, it turns out.

Wrapping on a tiny note, did you catch this story in The Information? At one point, Databricks (soon to be public, worth a bajillion dollars) and Snowflake (public, worth a bajillion dollars) were kinda friends. And if you asked, say, Databricks, about the other company, it might tell you that they were operating in different areas.

And maybe that was true for a while, but as The Information notes, its no longer the case.

Why do I bring this up? Simply to make another public request for the Databricks S-1 document? Well, yes, but more to note that startups of all sizes love to talk about how they arent really competing with one company or another. But as they grow, they tend to overlap more and more with a greater swath of the market.

So the next time a startup says that they arent competing with a similar entity or a major firm in their space, just set a timer. And wait.

Alex

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Frozen giants, and why everyone is competing with everyone regardless of what they say - TechCrunch

Wall Street and tech analysts are predicting that 2022 could bring on a merger-and-acquisition shopping spree from the tech giants.

Microsoft and other cloud giants are already off to a hot start: The Redmond giant announced last week it was making its largest-ever acquisition, buying video-game publisher Activision in an all-cash deal valued at about $68.7 billion. Earlier this month, Google Cloud bought the Israeli security startup Siemplify for about $500 million. And right at the end of 2021, Oracle announced it planned to buy medical the records giant Cerner in a $28 billion deal.

More deals seem likely given this month's market woes, where tech stocks across the board have been hit hard suppressing their market caps and perhaps making takeover bids more feasible. Big names like Zoom are down 22%, and others as low as 40%, in the stock market's worst downturn since the first COVID-19 crash.

"The market downturn will lead to a surge of M&A in the tech sector," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told Insider on Friday. "Between strategic and financial buyers there is roughly $600 billion of dry powder to do deals."

Matthew Hedberg, managing director of software research at RBC Capital Markets, told Insider that declining software-company valuations could indeed "open up some interesting potential M&A" from tech's biggest players.

In the cloud-computing and software space in particular, more deals could be on the horizon. Fluctuating startup and big company valuations, plus a changing view of M&A from the big cloud vendors, will likely lead to some top-dollar acquisitions this year, analysts told Insider.

Tech giants also have more buying power right now because they haven't been as punished by market volatility , Dan Newman, Futurum's principal analyst, said. So for an Amazon, Microsoft, or Google, if they "see something on sale, and it's going to fill a particular need," they're likely to set out on some "opportunistic shopping," Newman said.

Microsoft in particular has an even stronger position after reporting strong third-quarter earnings on Tuesday, led by its Azure cloud growth, which Ives called "robust cloud guidance 'for the ages," in a recent investor note.

To get a sense of which other companies might be on the tech giants' shopping lists this year, Insider asked analysts which firms they thought were ripe for acquisition. The companies included specialize in security, productivity software, data, and developer tools.

More:

12 Cloud Companies That Could Be Takeover Targets in 2022 - Business Insider

Despite record-breaking levels of quits across the US workforce, the technology industry is booming.

In 2021, CompTIA's Workforce and Learning Trends report predicted the tech industry would grow to 12.4 million employees. And as the industry grew, so did salaries. Tech job salaries increased 6.9% from 2020 to 2021, according to a Dice report, and in 2021, the average salary of a US-based worker in the technology industry was $152,000, according to Hired's annual State of Tech Salaries report.

In other words, it's never been a better time to chase your dreams of creating the next great technology breakthrough.

Here are the things any job candidate looking to land a job at Meta, Google, Amazon, Salesforce, or Apple should know before starting the application process.

Whether you're interested in helping build Meta's virtual reality landscape, or growing one of the company's existing applications, there are plenty of available positions within the social-networking company.

Insider previously reported Meta is planning to hire 10,000 people over the next five years to build the metaverse, and the company has over 3,000 open roles at Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and more, listed on its careers page.

Facebook is hiring 10,000 people to build its 'metaverse.' A recruiting director breaks down his 5 tips to ace the interviews.

This key Facebook exec started off as an auditor. He mapped out his transition to a big Silicon Valley job from a career in finance.

A Facebook VP of recruiting says using this tactic can help you land a coveted job at the company, where the average salary is just over $122,000 a year.

How to ace your interview at Facebook

In 2020, Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company, employed over 130,000 workers and announced the creation of its career-certificate program, a six-month program that teaches prospective employees tech skills, Insider previously reported.

Additionally, in 2022, Google ranked number 7 on Glassdoor's Best Places to Work list. The company has 5,000 job listings on its careers website.

Google is hiring 10,000 new people this year. The tech giant's director of recruiting explains how it screens for team players in job interviews.

A former Google exec asks job candidates to tell their life stories. Here's her advice for conveying your values in an interview.

Amazon had an over $100 billion revenue increase during the pandemic, according to Forbes. And the company only continued to grow announcing plans to hire more than 125,000 employees across the US.

These open jobs also come with high salaries, with Amazon Web Services workers on average earning a base salary well above $100,000. AWS alone has over 27,000 open roles.

An Amazon recruiter breaks down 5 tips to land a role at AWS, which pays engineers as much as $185,000 in base salary.

Amazon is hiring for 500 data science roles right now. Here's how much you can make as an engineer, researcher, and more.

Amazon launched a recruiting tool that offers senior engineers multiple jobs at once. Here's how it can help you land one of 10,000 open roles.

How to master Amazon's ruthless interview process and get a job there, according to insiders

In 2021, Salesforce, the San Francisco-based software company, planned to add over 12,000 new jobs, bringing the total number of employees at the company that year to 56,000, Insider previously reported.

Salesforce ranked number 10 on Glassdoor's Best Places to Work in 2022 list, and currently lists 4,000 job opportunities on its website.

Salesforce is hiring for 1,700 US roles right now, many paying over $100K. Here's how much you could make across tech, sales, finance, and more.

Here are the 3 questions Salesforce's former chief recruiter asks nearly every job candidate and the answers she wants to hear.

Here's what it takes to get hired as a Salesforce expert, for jobs with six-figure salaries as high as $225,900

4 people share how they used Salesforce's free online learning tool Trailhead to break into the tech industry and land great jobs.

An Apple store boasts the tech company's iconic fruit logo. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Apple employs 80,000 people, according to the company'sjob creation website, and ranked 56th in Glassdoor's 2022 list of the 100 Best Places to Work.

The consumer electronics, software, and online services company remains hush-hush about its interview process, as Insider previously reported, but there is still plenty to know about how to land one of the company's over 600 available US-based positions.

An ex-Apple engineer shares the simple interview advice that 'really blew them away' and landed her a job at the tech giant

An engineer who spent 15 years working at Apple shares what it takes to land a role at the tech giant, where engineers are paid over $100,000 a year

Both of these 21-year-old twins landed full-time jobs at Apple here's how it happened, and their best interview advice

While the tech industry is creating the innovative and progressive products of the future, the industry's hiring practices remain antiquated.

Women in the tech industry face discrimination,sexual harassment, and a worsening gender pay gap. And in 2019, it was estimated that Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous workers made up only 5% of Silicon Valley's tech workforce, according to a Wired survey.

Insider compiled additional resources for women and underrepresented minorities looking to apply to the tech giants.

Women in tech should use these two skills to excel in their careers, according to 6 female founders who've done it.

7 tech recruiters to know in 2022, whether you want to join a startup or an industry giant.

I'm a vice president at Facebook who's had to unlearn self-criticism. My advice to other women in tech: Don't overfocus on weaknesses.

Read this article:

How to land your dream job in tech, according to industry experts - Business Insider

Monday 24 January 2022 8:04 am

Martyn Landi / Press Association

The Governments draft Online Safety Bill would fail to prevent the sharing of the most insidious images of child abuse and violence against women and girls, a new report from MPs has warned.

The House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee said the draft legislation is currently neither clear nor robust enough to tackle some forms of illegal and harmful content.

Its report says the Government needs to address some types of content which are currently technically legal, citing examples such as the activity of breadcrumbing in child abuse where perpetrators carefully edit images to subvert content moderation to stay online as well as types of online violence against women and girls, such as deepfake pornography.

MPs said the Bills definition of illegal content must be reframed to combat these concerns, and more should be done to define the risk around activities that fall below the threshold of criminality but nonetheless form part of the sequence for online abuse.

Elsewhere in their report, the DCMS committee said the draft Bill fails to correctly balance freedom of expression and tackling harmful content, with MPs warning that the current focus on remedial measures such as fines could lead to excessive takedowns by platforms in order to avoid penalties.

Read more: Exclusive: UK businesses making strides in quantum computing despite the technology being considered overhyped

In its current form what should be world-leading, landmark legislation instead represents a missed opportunity, said DCMS Committee chair Julian Knight.

The Online Safety Bill neither protects freedom of expression nor is it clear nor robust enough to tackle illegal and harmful online content.

Urgency is required to ensure that some of the most pernicious forms of child sexual abuse do not evade detection because of a failure in the online safety law.

These are matters of important public debate to which we will return as the Bill makes its way through Parliament.

The recommendations come in the wake of another report by MPs and peers on the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill published in December which said the draft online safety laws needed to bring more offences into scope, such as paid-for scam and fraudulent advertising, cyber flashing, content promoting self-harm and the deliberate sending of flashing images to people with photosensitive epilepsy.

The Government has already suggested significant improvements could be made to the draft Bill, with Culture minister Chris Philp telling MPs during a debate in the Commons earlier this month that there were a number of areas where the Online Safety Bill can be improved substantially.

A revised piece of legislation is expected in the coming months.

A DCMS spokesperson said: We do not agree with the criticism of the committee.

The Bill has been recognised as setting a global gold standard for internet safety.

It has strict measures including a duty of care to stamp out child sexual abuse, grooming and illegal and harmful content.

There are also stringent rules to make sure tech firms and Ofcom protect peoples free speech and privacy, so content is not taken down without good reason.

The Bill will make the UK the safest place to go online while protecting freedom of speech.

NSPCC chief executive Sir Peter Wanless said: Its crucial the Bill is tightened to comprehensively respond to the child abuse threat.

The legislation needs to unambiguously tackle grooming across multiple platforms, and prevent abusers being able to exploit gaps that allow them to continue to commit and organise abuse in plain sight.

See the original post:

MPs: Online harm bill a "missed opportunity" to rein in tech giants - City A.M.

Late last year, investors took a deep interest in The Trade Desk (NASDAQ:TTD) as the stock shot 29% higher the day after it released its fiscal 2021 third-quarter earnings report in early November.

However, since peaking in mid-November, it has lost approximately half of its value as many other tech growth stocks have generally declined. Despite the correction going on in the market, such drops have historically turned into buying opportunities for stockholders in emerging tech companies. The question for investors of The Trade Desk now is whether this constitutes an excellent opportunity to buy or if its sell-off is justified.

Image source: Getty Images.

The Trade Desk stock has delivered significant gains since launching its initial public offering in 2016, rising in value by as much as 3,600%. Yet the current drop in the stock price has taken that total return down to under 2,000%, and the stock price is down about 18% over the last year.

The stock tumbled as investors turned on the tech sector in general as the Federal Reserve signaled a tighter monetary policy, an action that typically reduces the borrowing of money. Moreover, the stock's price-to-earnings ratio had reached a high of almost 200. Amid rising rates, this could have persuaded many investors to reconsider the stock price. Although the earnings multiple has fallen to around 110, whether that discount will attract investors remains unclear.

That valuation is one reason The Trade Desk may not look like a compelling value proposition at first glance. Also, one might wonder how a company with a market cap of $30 billion can gain traction considering that large tech giants such as Alphabetand Meta Platformsdrive the majority of revenue from ads.

However, instead of competing directly with tech giants, the company says it acts as "an independent media buying platform." This means it works with companies to tailor and manage online ad campaigns and spending priorities. Since it acts merely as a media buyer of existing ad inventory, it mitigates some of its potential competition.

It also locks customers in with master service agreements. Such deals make it more difficult to switch away from The Trade Desk. And though the phasing out of customer-identifying data cookies from apps might concern its investors, the company is preparing for a cookie-less world. Thanks to the development of Unified ID 2.0, it can now deliver personalized ads without compromising a customer's privacy. This likely offers relief to users concerned about revealing closely held personal information.

Clients have taken well to The Trade Desk's approach. The company reported $801 million in revenue in the first three quarters of 2021. This surged 55% versus the first nine months of 2020. Despite that impressive number, investors should also note the 39% revenue increase in the third quarter. Political spending in Q3 2020 led to higher revenue for that quarter, and The Trade Desk reported 47% revenue growth in Q3 when excluding political spending.

The operating expense during that timeframe came to 36%, helping the company earn a net income of $130 million in the first nine months of 2021. Profit grew by only 43% compared with the same period in 2020. However, The Trade Desk paid $19 million in income taxes during the first three quarters of 2021. In contrast, it received a $53 million tax benefit during the same time in 2020, significantly cutting profit growth.

Also, the company forecasts at least $388 million in revenue for the fourth quarter, which amounts to revenue growth of 21%, 33% when excluding political spending. Again, stockholders should remember that political spending in Q4 2020 led to a revenue bump in the second half of the year, reducing an increase in revenue.

Analysts also forecast a 31% revenue increase in 2022, signaling a slowdown. Nonetheless, other analysts see this estimate as overly conservative. A product refresh and the likelihood of higher political spending in the U.S. during the midterm elections could further boost revenue.

Given a less favorable interest rate environment, slowing revenue growth, and an elevated valuation, prospective buyers may want to consider staying on the sidelines for now.

Admittedly, with the vital role The Trade Desk plays in the burgeoning digital ad market, the tech sell-off will likely turn it into a buying opportunity. Still, with investors turning from growth tech stocks amid rising interest rates, investors should look for a sustained increase in the stock price before adding positions.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

Continue reading here:

Amid the Sell-Off, Is The Trade Desk Ready for a Bull Run? - Motley Fool

Now that we have that facility, we can capitalize on that and bring additional submarine fiber optic cables into the United States here and really create an internet traffic hub, Lightsey, the commerce secretary, said, adding that the Grand Strand could see growth similar to whats happened in Virginia. Those kinds of businesses are part of our future.

The Grand Strand does have a site set up for a tech park. Located near Myrtle Beach International Airport, the Myrtle Beach International Technology and Aerospace Park (ITAP) is a 460-acre property prepared specifically to accommodate the technology industry.

But even if the cable companies wanted to choose another location, county leaders said they would try to accommodate them.

Obviously, the county will facilitate and do whatevers necessary to make it a reality, said Horry County Councilman Gary Loftus, who serves on the EDCs board. He noted that Myrtle Beach State Park and ITAP are in the same general area.

While some places in the world have established tech parks near subsea cable sites, sometimes landing sites are simply a sort of box on the beach.

The promise of new industry isn't a given,Starosielski said. Whether the community adopts plans for attracting tech businesses and how leaders develop their infrastructure would be critical in creating such a hub.

That can happen and that has happened,she said of the tech parks. But also the opposite thing has happened, like where nothing occurs. A cable landing gets set up, and its just a building, and they just pay taxes and thats it.

Take the interstate analogy. Sure, there are giant manufacturers that choose to build their plants near interstate exits.

But some exits are, well, just roads to empty land.

It doesnt mean anyones going to get off or on,"Starosielski said. "But if somebody wanted to set up shop, they could.

Originally posted here:

Why tech companies, including Google, want to bring subsea cable to the Myrtle Beach area - Myhorrynews

What just happened?

So far, 2022 is off to a rocky start for the stock market. Yesterday, after an initial plunge in which stocks dropped as much as 4 percent the biggest one-day drop in nearly a year the market rallied and ended the day with a slight gain. At one point, the S&P 500 was in a correction, a decline of 10 percent from a recent peak, for the first time since the start of the pandemic. And then it wasnt.

What gives?

There was no news or Fed commentary to speak of, Michael Antonelli, a strategist at Baird, told DealBook of Mondays turnaround. Its a super-hard question to answer, like asking why the momentum changes in a sporting event. John Canavan, an analyst at Oxford Economics, said that the sell-off was overdone and it had to do more with a panicky decline than it had to do with any rational adjustment to economic or Fed expectations.

The foundations supporting the market during the pandemic are looking less stable. That starts with the Fed, which has flooded the market with money and kept interest rates low. The unwinding of this stimulus is preoccupying market watchers, who are looking to the central bank this week for clues about its intentions (more on that below). Rising interest rates, combined with uncertain corporate earnings prospects and geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine, form an investor triple-whammy, Ben Laidler of eToro wrote in a research note.

Futures are falling this morning, suggesting another nervy start to trading. Here are three of the things that are worrying investors before the markets open for what looks like another eventful session:

Interest rates are proving hard to predict. The Fed has indicated it is likely to raise rates soon to bring down high inflation. Thats not necessarily a bad thing, if it tames inflation without denting corporate profits or dampening consumer demand too much. But long-term interest rates, despite the expected moves from the Fed, have fallen in recent days. That suggests expectations for long-term economic growth may be dropping.

Tech stocks look vulnerable. Half of the stocks in the Nasdaq 100 have dropped more than 20 percent from 52-week highs. Earnings growth is slowing, and not even the big-cap tech giants major winners during the pandemic are bucking the trend, with expectations for higher interest rates making growth-oriented companies less attractive. Microsoft, which reports its latest results later today, is expected to tell investors that its profit growth is slowing, a trend analysts expect to continue in the coming quarters. The same applies to Apple, which reports its results on Thursday. Apple and Microsoft make up more than 10 percent of the S&P 500 index.

Geopolitical tensions add uncertainty. Fears of a conflict between Russia and Ukraine are rising. This would threaten the energy supply in Europe, which is already coping with soaring natural gas prices, rattling companies that do business there.

Some see a benefit to letting a little air out of inflated market valuations. We havent had a correction in a long time, said Lindsey Bell, the chief money and markets strategist at Ally Invest. Sell-offs like the one in the first half of the day yesterday may be uncomfortable, she said, but the sooner a drop happens, the earlier and the more likely you are to make up that lost ground before year-end.

Four attorneys general sue Google over tracking users. The District of Columbia and Indiana, Texas and Washington claimed that the tech giant deceived users by continuing to use their location information even after they changed privacy settings to prevent such tracking.

A challenge to affirmative action reaches the Supreme Court. Justices agreed to decide whether race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina are constitutional. Legal experts say the courts conservative supermajority will likely view the program with skepticism, casting doubt on the future of affirmative action in higher education more generally.

A New York judge blocks the states mask mandate. The rule requiring masks at all indoor public places was enacted unlawfully because it hadnt been approved by state lawmakers, the judge ruled. In other coronavirus news, France has begun barring unvaccinated people from restaurants and sports venues, and public transportation data in London show that ridership is up as pandemic restrictions lift.

Unilever plans to cut 1,500 management jobs. The consumer products giant announced a broad reorganization of its business amid pressure from investors to improve its performance. In addition to the layoffs, Unilever will split its food business in two, potentially signaling plans to sell more brands.

Google hires a McKinsey senior partner to study techs effects on society. James Manyika, the chairman of the McKinsey Global Institute and a longtime adviser to Silicon Valley companies, will become the tech giants senior vice president of technology and society. Hell report to Alphabets C.E.O., Sundar Pichai.

The Feds latest policy meeting, which starts today and concludes tomorrow, comes as inflation remains high, markets look jittery and signs of economic stress are emerging.

The Fed chairman, Jay Powell, who will announce the banks policy decisions tomorrow, has suggested recently that inflation is his main concern. Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle wrote in a note to clients that the Fed will look to tighten at every meeting until the inflation picture changes. Few expect the Fed to raise interest rates this week, but the first increase could come as soon as March, and the path of tightening after that will depend on several issues:

Inflation: A debate remains over whether high inflation is the result of a hot economy or snarled supply chains. If pandemic disruptions are the main culprit, interest rate increases could make the problems worse.

The pandemic: The Omicron variants spread likely slowed the economy recently. Some believe the number of employed people is likely to drop in January, the first time that has happened in more than a year. If the latest surge convinces consumers that Covid will continue to come back in waves, they may stop spending. But if Omicron, like earlier variants, merely delays spending, the Fed may want to act ahead of the next surge in prices.

Consumer debt: Even if the inflation debate isnt settled, the Fed may still think it is time to raise interest rates. Cheap loan rates have led American consumers to take on more housing and auto debt. The recent run-up in housing prices, and related concerns about affordability, could be enough to make the Fed want to raise interest rates sooner rather than later.

Jan. 28, 2022, 8:29 p.m. ET

Artur Sychov, the founder and C.E.O. of Somnium Space, on the hype surrounding metaverse ventures. (He conducted his interview with Vice inside his companys virtual world to show how advanced it was relative to competitors.)

Domain Money, a stock and crypto investment app started by Adam Dell, the serial tech entrepreneur and former Goldman Sachs partner, is launching today, DealBook is first to report. The app addresses a gap Dell perceived in the market while he was at Goldman: the lack of guidance for investors navigating the the noise and confusion of crypto. (The price of Bitcoin has fallen by nearly 50 percent from its November peak.)

Dell, the brother of Michael Dell, told DealBook that he identified problems while working in the bowels of the financial system. He was drawn to blockchain technology the distributed ledgers underlying cryptocurrencies after Goldman bought his finance app Clarity Money in 2018 and it became part of Marcus, Goldmans personal finance service. Dell left the bank last year, convinced that it is inevitable that blockchain will become the operating system of the global financial system and that mainstream investors need help navigating this new space, he said.

Domain Money believes that investors in digital assets will pay for insights, data and professional help from a team with its roots in Goldman. (Dell took 25 of the banks employees with him to the new venture.) Customers can have their hands held if they want, Dell said, by calling to speak with live agents. They can also access information that isnt otherwise available, like social sentiment scores based on online chatter. Weve gone really deep down the rabbit hole, Dell said.

Rest assured, Robinhood: Domain Money isnt angling for your customers. Robinhood brought millions of new investors into markets by offering fee-free trading, but Domain Money sees its competition as online brokerages like E-Trade, Charles Schwab and Fidelity, which may offer exposure to crypto but not direct trading.

Domain Money has raised $33 million from investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners and the Salesforce founder Marc Benioff. Notably, its advisory team includes Christopher Giancarlo, the crypto-friendly former chairman of the C.F.T.C., and Dell says that one of the apps selling points is that the team is very familiar and comfortable with compliance and regulations.

Deals

Nvidia has reportedly told business partners that it doesnt expect its $40 billion deal for the computer chip maker Arm to close, amid scrutiny from regulators. (Bloomberg)

Sony Music bought Bob Dylans recorded music catalog, worth potentially about $200 million. (NYT)

Credit Suisse warned that its investment bank lost money in the fourth quarter, as its trading business suffered. (FT)

Jonathan Kanter, the Justice Departments antitrust chief, said he favors filing lawsuits to block deals, instead of striking settlements that he says often have significant deficiencies. (Bloomberg)

Tesla countersued JPMorgan Chase in a dispute over a 2014 debt offering. (WSJ)

Policy

House Republican leaders have reportedly discussed making bans on lawmakers trading in individual stocks a campaign issue for the midterm elections. (CNBC)

The Rise of the Crypto Mayors (NYT)

The Supreme Court will hear a case that could limit the Environmental Protection Agencys powers under the Clean Water Act. (WaPo)

Amazon and Meta spent record sums on federal lobbying last year about $20 million each as they sought to beat back efforts to curb their market power. (The Hill)

A fight over rooftop solar panels could endanger Californias goal of relying only on clean energy by 2045. (NYT)

Best of the rest

Amazon is seeing an exodus of employees, over concerns about compensation, work culture and more. (Bloomberg)

Is the jobs boom leaving men behind? (Bloomberg Opinion)

Starting next year, Lamborghini will only produce cars with electric or hybrid engines. (Electrek)

Neil Young demanded that Spotify remove his music from its platform to protest Joe Rogan spreading coronavirus misinformation in his podcast. (Rolling Stone)

Separately, Spotify is hiring staff to help Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, produce more podcasts to fulfill the terms of their $30 million content deal. (The Sun)

Wed like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.

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The Market Sell-Off Reversed, but Investors Remain Anxious - The New York Times

Happy Friday and welcome to On The Money, your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line. Subscribe here: thehill.com/newsletter-signup.

Todays Big Deal: Inflation just keeps getting higher. Well also look at the Biden administration preparing banks for potential Russian sanctions and a push forantitrust legislation.

But first, find out the name of the White Houses new cat.

For The Hill, were Sylvan Lane, Aris Folley and Karl Evers-Hillstrom. Reach us at slane@thehill.com or @SylvanLane, afolley@thehill.com or @ArisFolley and kevers@thehill.com or @KarlMEvers.

Lets get to it.

Inflation gaugehitsfastest pace in 39 years

The Federal Reserves preferred gauge of inflation rose nearly 6 percent last year, marking the fastest rise in the closely watched index since 1982.

The sharp rise in prices comes as the Fed plots a series of interest rate hikes, likely beginning in March, to quell a stretch of high inflation. Read more here.

LEADING THE DAY

Biden calls for return of US manufacturing in Pittsburgh visit

President BidenJoe BidenFormer chairman of Wisconsin GOP party signals he will comply with Jan. 6 committee subpoena Romney tests positive for coronavirus Pelosi sidesteps progressives' March 1 deadline for Build Back Better MORE on Friday made the case for U.S. manufacturing as a way to rebuild the economy while on a visit to Pittsburgh.

From day one, every action Ive taken to rebuild the economy has been guided by one principle: make it in America. Like we used to. No one knows that better than all the folks here in Pittsburgh, he said at Carnegie Mellon University.

Biden went to Pittsburgh to deliver remarks about the administrations focus on strengthening supply chains, revitalizing American manufacturing and creating good-paying union jobs, including through the bipartisan infrastructure law.

He also promoted the economic growth seen in his first year in office, noting 6.4 million jobs were created in one year.

And he mentioned Intels $20 billion investment to build chip factories, which was announced last week, and General Motors recent announcement that the auto giant will invest nearly $7 billion in electric vehicle manufacturing sites in Michigan.

The Hills Alex Gangitano has more here.

BIDEN BRIEFS BANKS

Biden administration briefs banks on possible Russian sanctions

The Biden administration has spoken with the country's largest banks this week about possible sanctions against Russia amid concerns over a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The talks included Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg News first reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Senior administration officials and members of the National Security Council (NSC) reportedly spoke with executives from the major companies.

Although most of the top banks dont have a large presence in Russia, Biden administration officials briefed banks about their plans to ensure that sanctions dont disrupt the global economy.

Alex has more on the briefing here.

IT'S APP-ENING

App company CEOs urge senators to back antitrust bill

A coalition of tech executives are urging members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to support a bill aimed at reining in the market power of Apple and Googles app stores.

CEOs of 20 tech companies, including Spotify, Basecamp and Tile, wrote a letter to the committee members asking them to back the bipartisan Open Markets Act. They said that U.S. tech giants use a vice-like grip to control developers and impose terms and conditions that undermine competition, throttle innovation, limit consumer choice, and lead to higher prices.

The antitrust proposal, co-sponsored by Sens. Amy KlobucharAmy KlobucharOn The Money Fed's inflation tracker at fastest pace since '82 Hillicon Valley Presented by Cisco Apps urge senators to advance antitrust bill App company CEOs urge senators to back antitrust bill MORE (D-Minn.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha BlackburnMarsha BlackburnOn The Money Fed's inflation tracker at fastest pace since '82 Hillicon Valley Presented by Cisco Apps urge senators to advance antitrust bill App company CEOs urge senators to back antitrust bill MORE (R-Tenn.), is scheduled for a committee mark up on Tuesday.

The Hills Rebecca Klar has more here.

Good to Know

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday announced that it worked out a solution with Verizon and AT&T to deploy 5G towers near airports without disrupting flights.

The FAA has previously blocked some 500 towers from activating over concerns that they would mess with aircrafts instruments. The agencys most recent statement indicates that it is getting closer to resolving the 5G standoff that pitted airlines and the FAA against wireless carriers and the Federal Communications Commission.

Heres what else have our eye on:

ON TAP NEXT WEEK

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Thats it for today. Thanks for reading and check out The Hills Finance page for the latest news and coverage. Well see you Monday.

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On The Money Fed's inflation tracker at fastest pace since '82 | TheHill - The Hill

Baltimore Tracksis tracking its own progress.

The 40 member organizations of the 2020-founded coalition, which is committed to improving racial equity in the local tech community, hired a consultancy firm to conduct this years diversity, equity and inclusion report.

Mattingly Solutions will build and conduct the survey, and offer recommendations for action and workshops to help member orgs boost diversity within their ranks.

Last years DEI report created a snapshot of the makeup of the Baltimore tech workforce through the self-reporting of its at-the-time 19 member orgs. The findings: Local tech workers are 67% white, 14% Asian and 7% Black. Contrast that to the city as a whole, which is 32% white, 3% Asian and 63% Black, per the latest US Census data.

A big part of the problem is a lot of the companies dont know where to start, said Michael Castagnola, Baltimore Tracks steering committee member and chief of staff at Baltimore software development consultancy SmartLogic. Everybody has good intentions and wants to improve their [DEI] and belonging, but it can be hard to get started. How do I put one foot in front of the other?'

Michael Castagnola. (Courtesy photo)

Castagnola said he doubts most companies implemented DEI strategies after getting the results from the first report, butthink this year will be different,thanks to the support mechanisms in place for member organizations via the expertise of the consultancy firm.

Our business isnt to force folks to do stuff, but to set the table in a way that companies will be able to take action, he said. Theyll get the data, have a way to aggregate and present it. That presentation should lead to opportunities to take next steps.

Unfortunately, its not abnormal for the process of DEI to be slow going. Across big tech companies like Google and Microsoft, the number of US technical employees who are Black or Latinx rise by less than a percentage point between 2014 and 2019, based on numbers self-reported by the tech giants.

Beyond the data collection itself, Baltimore Tracks is putting action behind its internal research by participating in a midyear version of its six-week, summertime paid work experience partnership for youth with computer science education nonprofit Code in the Schools, technical training nonprofitPass IT OnandBaltimore City Public Schools. The midyear internship program offers companies the chance to make a direct impact on the diversity of the tech talent pipeline by giving Baltimore youth firsthand experience inside local tech firms. Twelve companies and 14 youth are slated to participate.

This years DEI report is expected out the second week of July. By the end of this year, Castagnola expects progress.

Hopefully, the forcing of pen to paper around having to report something will demand some thinking, Castagnola said. What is one thing your company will legitimately do to address or improve diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in your company?

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Baltimore Tracks is setting the table for DEI work in the local tech community - Technical.ly