What we’re reading (1/19)
“TikTok Says It Will Restore US Service After Brief Shutdown” (Semafor). “TikTok said it would restore its US service Sunday, having shut down for 14 hours after a national ban went into effect. The apparent reversal came after Donald Trump said in a social media post that he will issue an executive order to delay the ban Monday after his inauguration — which TikTok’s CEO is attending.”
“Hedge-Fund Fees Eat Up Half Of Clients’ Profits” (Wall Street Journal). “Hedge-fund investors often gripe about high fees. A new report puts the problem in sharp relief. Just over half of the industry’s total gross performance was eaten away by fees over the past two decades, according to LCH Investments. That compares to about 30% between 1969 and the early 2000s, said the company, which manages and advises on investments in hedge funds on behalf of investment firm Edmond de Rothschild and other investors.”
“Contrarian Bet Emerges That Next Fed Move Is Higher, Not Lower” (Bloomberg). “It’s at best, a longshot, but one that’s emerged among a group of die-hard bond traders — that the Federal Reserve’s next move on interest rates will be up, not down. The wager, which arose after a blowout jobs report on Jan. 10, stands in stark contrast to the consensus on Wall Street for at least one rate cut this year. That contrarian bet has remained in place even after a benign inflation report on Wednesday strengthened the Fed’s rate-cutting stance and caused yields in the US Treasury market to retreat from multi-year highs.”
“Amazon Has A New Way Of Checking Whether Employees Are Really Coming Into The Office Five Days A Week” (Business Insider). “Amazon's strict new RTO policy comes with changes to how the company tracks office attendance, according to internal messages viewed by Business Insider. The new approach provides managers with less granular data on office attendance and appears to give managers more freedom to decide which employees are not complying and how to deal with these situations, the messages show.”
“US Accuses Walgreens Of Filling Unlawful Opioid Prescriptions” (CNN Business). “The U.S. Justice Department on Friday accused pharmacy chain operator Walgreens Boots Alliance of contributing to the U.S. opioid epidemic by filling millions of unlawful prescriptions for addictive painkillers and other drugs. The department intervened in a whistleblower lawsuit filed in federal court in Chicago and accused Walgreens of ignoring ‘red flags’ and filling prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances that lacked a legitimate medical purpose.”
