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Waymo is making a multi billion dollar bet that its self driving cars are the future of driving. Will it pay off? Find out in Waymo and the Robo Taxi Race, a new series in the WSJ's Future of Everything feed.
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Hey listeners, it's Saturday, January 11th. I'm Francesca Fontana for the Wall Street Journal and this is what's News in Markets, our look at the biggest stock moves of the week and the news that drove them. Let's get we had another short trading week this week with markets closed Thursday for our national day of mourning in honor of former President Jimmy Carter. But during the four trading sessions we did have, there was plenty of action. Primarily, we saw the markets react to the devastating wildfires that broke out on Tuesday in Los Angeles and have wreaked havoc across the region. In the case of this kind of natural disaster, we can see investors concerns affecting stocks like the local utilities such as Southern California Electric Co. Edison International. And there are the home and auto insurance stocks like Allstate, AIG and others. And their shares fell on Friday as analysts estimate that the devastation will cost insurers billions of dollars. On Friday, we also got the December jobs report, which topped expectations. Way more jobs were created than anticipated, which suggests that the labor market has recovered and it might even be gaining steam. As we've discussed before on this podcast, the jobs report is an important consideration for the Federal Reserve and for traders guesses as to where interest rates are headed. So now investors are pricing in just one rate cut this year. All three major indexes, the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, ended the week lower. The Dow and the S and P each fell about 1.9% and the Nasdaq lost more than 2%. Now first up, let's talk Fubo. That's F U B O Fubo TV, the sports streamer that announced a big deal with Disney at the start of the week. So Disney agreed to combine its Hula plus live TV streaming service with fubo. It's a deal that will also end pending litigation between them. Now, full disclosure, I am not a big sports guy myself, though I do tune into some hockey now and again. But I have been keeping up on the Fubo Disney drama because there has been drama beef, even quick play by play. Last year, Disney, espn, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox Corp. Say they're creating a joint streaming service, a supergroup of live sports named Venu Venu Venue. No, it's pronounced Venue. Then Fubo sued all three companies to try and block the venture it alleges that Disney at all wouldn't let Fubo carry a small bundle of sports focused channels that the big three partners wanted to include in venue. The judge comes in with a preliminary injunction blocking the watch. And now Disney and Fubo are mending fences, joining forces. And on Friday, Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Called off their big venture. No more venue. Quick side note, Fox and Wall Street Journal parent News Corp. Share common ownership. So how big a win was this week for Fubo's stock? Well, it was huge. On Monday, FuboTV shares surged 251%. The stock then added a relatively modest 7.9% to that on Tuesday and made some smaller moves lower Wednesday and Friday. Next up, let's talk about vaccines. No, not for Covid like we're all used to hearing about. No, this time for the H5N1 bird flu. And we're going to talk about the biotech firms that are making these shots, like Moderna and novavax. Specifically, they're developing experimental vaccines against pandemic influenza, including this avian strain that has infected more than 60 people in the US in the past year. So on Monday, US health officials confirmed the first American death caused by this flu, which put these stocks into focus because this death could spur more federal funding for the vaccine's development. Moderna's efforts are part of a $176 million federal contract that it received last year. It could also prompt purchase orders of the shots, that is, if the vaccines succeed in testing and are authorized by regulators. As a result, Moderna shares jumped more than 11.5% on Tuesday and Novavax gained 10.9%. And now you know what's news in markets this week. You can read about more stocks that moved on the week's news in the Score, my column in the Wall Street Journal's Exchange section. Today's show is produced by Pierre Bienname with supervising producer Talia Bell. I'm Francesca Fontana. Have a great weekend and see you next Saturday.