Peter Russell

Trump brags about Dow 30,000 at surprise news conference, leaves after a minute

President Donald Trump briefly emerged to tout the Dow Jones Industrial Average breaking 30,000 for the first time ever, and then vanished after a minute without taking questions.
The president’s brief appearance came less than a day after his administration took a major step toward the transition to Joe Biden’s presidency.
Trump, three weeks after Election Day, still has not conceded the race to Biden.

Nikola shares fall after CEO fails to reassure investors GM won’t pull out of $2 billion deal

Shares of embattled electric vehicle start-up Nikola Corp. fell more than 8% during afterhours trading.
Nikola CEO Mark Russell failed to reassure investors of a deal being finalized with GM and that there wouldn’t be a selloff of its stock next week by founder and ex-chairman Trevor Milton.
There are roughly 360.9 million shares of company stock outstanding, making Milton Nikola’s largest single shareholder.

Asia is leading the way in travel recovery, says bookings platform Agoda

The best pockets of recovery are domestic travel in Taiwan, Thailand and increasingly, Vietnam, said John Brown of Agoda, a subsidiary of Booking Holdings.
“All eyes globally” are looking at Asia to see how we manage domestic and international travel under arrangements such as the travel bubble between Singapore and Hong Kong, he said.
The bubble was postponed for two weeks after Hong Kong reported a rise in coronavirus cases, but Brown said he expects it to come online “soon enough.”

JPMorgan Chase pays $250 million penalty over weak controls in its wealth management division

JPMorgan Chase agreed Tuesday to pay a $250 million fine after one of its U.S. regulators found a “pattern of misconduct” in its asset and wealth management division.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said in a release that the New York-based bank’s risk management controls were “deficient” and the firm couldn’t avoid “conflicts of interest” in the business.
Neither the bank nor regulator gave much detail about the potential wrongdoing and conflicts of interest that garnered the fine. In late 2015, JPMorgan agreed to pay more than $300 million in fines after the Securities and Exchange Commission found that the bank failed to disclose that it put some clients into higher-fee products created by the firm.

UK’s four nations agree to relax Covid restrictions for Christmas

The four nations of the United Kingdom have agreed to relax Covid-19 restrictions for Christmas to allow up to three households to meet at home for five days.
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have taken differing approaches to handling the pandemic so far but the leaders of the devolved nations settled on a common approach on Tuesday for the festive period.
A national lockdown in England is due to end next week after which different parts of the country will face varying restrictions as part of a tiered system announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

British telcos may be fined 10% of revenues for using Huawei gear under new law

British telcos could face large fines if they fail to tighten security in their networks under new legislation being announced Tuesday.
The proposed Telecommunications Security Bill is designed to improve security in the U.K’s 5G and full-fiber networks.
Notably, the bill gives the government the power to fine operators if they use Huawei equipment in the nation’s 5G networks.