In this week’s Recap we talk about how Elon Musk is now the world’s richest person over Jeff Bezos, Stocks are at record highs and Bitcoin is having a wild climb in prices.
Elon Musk edges past Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest person. A +6% rise in Tesla shares early Thursday lifted the value of its CEO’s stock holdings & options by $10B, taking his net worth to about +$191B. A more modest rise of less than 2% lifted Bezos’ Amazon shares by about $3B, putting his net worth at $187B. Bill Gates is now a distant 3rd at $132B.
Bitcoin continues its wild ride of volatility. On Wednesday morning it surged +10.4% to 35,042.00 surpassing $34K, reached on the weekend. Early Thursday Bitcoin was up another +7.5% at $37,459.00 by late afternoon it moved to $39,436.30, after breaking $40K for the 1st time ever.
U.S. Treasuries extend steepest sell-off in months with bond yields rising faster than expected after Democrats won control of the Senate; traders now focusing on more economic stimulus & the likely return of inflation. Thursday’s closing level is the highest since March & is the largest 4-day yield gain since November.
Shares of South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor soared +19.42% an $8 billion surge in market valuation, following a local media report of a deal between the firm & the U.S. tech giant Apple, on developing electric vehicles & batteries. Hyundai acknowledged it was indeed in early-stage talks, which it later walked back.
U.S. based aircraft maker Boeing reaches a $2.5B settlement with the DOJ to end criminal charges that the firm defrauded the FAA when it 1st won approval for the flawed 737 Max jet. It was grounded by the FAA in March 2019 following 2 fatal crashes Was approved to fly passengers again last Nov. after making numerous changes to the flawed safety system.
For much of the early 2000’s, the U.S. imported over 45M barrels of Saudi crude on a monthly basis. In October, the U.S. still imported some 8.54M barrels. Now for the 1st time in 35 years, no oil arrived from Saudi Arabia to the United States last week, once again demonstrating the declining U.S. reliance on Middle Eastern oil.
Trump will not be attending President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration; Iran took possession of a South Korean oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz; US manufacturing activity increased in December.
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