What we’re reading (5/17)
“Dow Closes At Record High Above 40,000 To Cinch A Five-Week Winning Streak” (CNBC). “Stocks finished the week strong, with the Dow up 1.2% to notch its fifth straight weekly gain. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq climbed 1.5% and 2.1% week to date, cinching their longest winning streak since February.”
“The Executive Who Revived Barbie Has A New Long-Shot Mission: Save Gap” (Wall Street Journal). “The 56-year-old Dickson is the latest in a long line of Gap leaders attempting to find an answer. He is trying to reconnect with people who remember the flagship Gap brand from its heyday in the 1990s as well as younger shoppers who have no recollection that a white Gap T-shirt and pair of khakis once defined a generation.”
“The Blue-Collar Job Boom” (Business Insider). “Alyssa DeOliveira followed a well-worn path: go to college, get a degree, find a white-collar job…she tried nursing and accounting before settling on criminal justice, landing a job at a law firm. For a little over a year she arrived every morning at about 8. She listened to voicemails and checked emails. If she was lucky, she left at 5…Today, should you find yourself in Boston riding the T's green line, DeOliveira might be your conductor….She loves her job. And benefits-wise, her job loves her. ‘I'm making almost double what I was making at the office job,’ she said. ‘My office job didn't give me a 401(k), but with the T, I have the pension, I have healthcare.’”
“Current And Former Dodgers Owners, World's Wealthiest Law Firm Working On Bid To Buy TikTok” (DealBreaker). “ByteDance certainly doesn’t *want* to sell the wildly popular app TikTok. However, the United States actually got over its partisan dysfunction to pass a “divest or ban” law, so they might not have much of a choice. That is, if the legal challenges fail. Frank McCourt (the billionaire former Los Angles Dodgers owner, not the Angela’s Ashes author) is working on a bid to buy Gen Z’s social media of choice. In an announcement, McCourt revealed that he’s working in consultation with Guggenheim Securities (whose parent company's CEO currently owns the Dodgers) and Kirkland & Ellis to put together “a people’s bid’ for TikTok.”
“A Supreme Court Victory Won’t End A War On Regulators” (DealBook). “The Supreme Court lifted the existential threat hanging over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, rejecting a challenge to the agency’s funding. The decision could have huge consequences for a raft of conservative-led lawsuits involving administrative authority — but business groups and Republicans are vowing to fight on. A recap: Payday lenders had sued the C.F.P.B. over a rule that would limit the number of times they could withdraw money from a customer’s account for repayment. The companies and conservative groups argued that the practice wasn’t harmful, and said the way the regulator is funded — via annual allocations from the Fed’s profits rather than from Congress — was unconstitutional.”
