Author: CNBC News

Buffalo defensive back Damar Hamlin was in critical condition early Tuesday after the Bills say his heart stopped following a tackle during the Monday Night Football game, which was indefinitely postponed.

Hamlin collapsed on the field during the first quarter of the nationally televised game against the Cincinnati Bengals and was given medical treatment for nearly 20 minutes before being taken to a hospital.

“Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest following a hit in our game versus the Bengals. His heartbeat was restored on the field and he was transferred to the UC Medical Center for further testing and treatment,” the Bills said in a statement. “He is currently sedated and listed in critical condition.”

Jordon Rooney, a family representative who described himself as a good friend of the player, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday that Hamlin’s relatives are in good spirits but going through a lot and need their privacy. He declined to give details on Hamlin’s condition other than to say he is sedated.

“All I can say is he’s fighting; he’s a fighter,” Rooney said.

In a chilling scene, Hamlin was administered CPR on the field, ESPN reported, while surrounded by teammates, some of them in tears, while they shielded him from public view. He was hurt while tackling Bengals receiver Tee Higgins on a seemingly routine play that didn’t appear unusually violent.

The NFL announced Hamlin’s condition shortly after he was taken to a hospital, but neither the league nor the hospital released any other details about the 24-year-old’s medical condition. The team’s statement was released before its flight arrived back in Buffalo early Tuesday. There was no immediate update about the future status of the game.

On the play the 6-foot, 200-pound Hamlin was injured, Higgins led with his right shoulder, which hit the defensive back in the chest. Hamlin then wrapped his arms around Higgins’ shoulders and helmet to drag him down. Hamlin quickly got to his feet, appeared to adjust his face mask with his right hand and then fell backward about three seconds later and lay motionless.

Hamlin was treated on the field by team and independent medical personnel and local paramedics, and he was taken by ambulance to University of Cincinnati Medical Center. Teammate Stefon Diggs later joined Hamlin at the hospital.

About 100 Bills fans and a few Bengals fans gathered on a corner one block from the emergency room entrance, some of them holding candles.

Jeff Miller, an NFL executive vice president, told reporters on a conference call early Tuesday that the league had made no plans at this time to play the game, adding that Hamlin’s health was the main focus.

An ambulance was on the field four minutes after Hamlin collapsed while many players embraced, including quarterbacks Buffalo’s Josh Allen and Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow.

“Please pray for our brother,” Allen tweeted.

Hamlin collapsed at 8:55 p.m., and when he was taken off the field about 19 minutes later in what seemed like an eternity, the Bills gathered in prayer. A few minutes after the ambulance left the field, the game was suspended, and players walked off the field slowly and into their locker rooms where they awaited word on Hamlin and the game.

“I’ve never seen anything like it since I was playing,” NFL executive Troy Vincent, a six-time Pro Bowl cornerback during his career, said in the conference call early Tuesday. “Immediately, my player hat went on, like, how do you resume playing after seeing a traumatic event in front of you?”

Hamlin’s uniform was cut off as he was attended to by medical personnel. ESPN reported on its telecast that Hamlin was also given oxygen.

Vincent said the league took no steps toward restarting the game and did not ask players to begin a five-minute warmup period as ESPN’s broadcasters had announced.

“It never crossed our mind to talk about warming up to resume play,” Vincent said. “That’s ridiculous. That’s insensitive. That’s not a place we should ever be in.”

Vincent said the Bills were returning early Tuesday morning to the team facility in Orchard Park, New York, with the exception of a few players who stayed behind with Hamlin.

There was a heavy police presence at Buffalo Niagara International Airport when the team arrived at about 2:45 a.m. A small group of fans gathered across the street from the players’ parking area near the airport. Police blocked off the road to allow the players to leave.

The Bengals led 7-3 in the first quarter of a game between teams vying for the top playoff seed in the AFC. Cincinnati entered at 11-4 and leading the AFC North by one game over Baltimore, while AFC East champion Buffalo was 12-3.

“The NFLPA and everyone in our community is praying for Damar Hamlin,” the players’ union said in a statement. “We have been in touch with Bills and Bengals players, and with the NFL. The only thing that matters at this moment is Damar’s health and well being.”

The unfinished game has major playoff implications as the NFL enters the final week of the regular season, with the wild-card playoff round scheduled to begin on Jan. 14.

The aftermath of the injury was reminiscent of when Bills tight end Kevin Everett lay motionless on the field after making a tackle on the second-half opening kickoff in Buffalo’s 2007 season-opening game against the Denver Broncos.

Everett sustained a spinal cord injury that initially left him partially paralyzed.

Hamlin spent five years of college at Pittsburgh — his hometown — and appeared in 48 games for the Panthers over that span. He was a second-team All-ACC performer as a senior, was voted a team captain and was picked to play in the Senior Bowl.

He was drafted in the sixth round by the Bills in 2021, played in 14 games as a rookie and then became a starter this year once Micah Hyde was lost for the season to injury.

By late Monday night, a community toy drive organized by Hamlin had surged to more than $1.2 million in donations. His stated goal was $2,500.

Kathryn Bersani and her mother, Gayle, were among the Bills fans who traveled from Buffalo for the game and went to the hospital from the stadium.

“This is our family Christmas,” Kathryn Bersani said. “We thought it would be a great game. Joe (Burrow) and Josh (Allen) are such great men. Sad, sad time. Such a shock. I just hope he can live a normal life. It stunned us.”

Chuck and Janet Kohl went to the hospital after watching the game at home.

“This is much more important than football,” Chuck Kohl said. “Had to come and pray for Mr. Hamlin.”

Entering the game, Hamlin had 91 tackles, including 63 solo tackles, and 1 1/2 sacks.

A tweet from the Pitt football account was simple and clear: “Damar Hamlin is the best of us. We love you, 3,” the tweet said, referring to Hamlin by his college jersey number. “Praying for you.”

Media and entertainment company Endeavor saw its shares fall Tuesday after a video showing Dana White, president of its Ultimate Fighting Championship business, slapping his wife.

Endeavor shares closed down nearly 6%.

This week, a video published by TMZ showed White getting into an altercation with his wife, Anne, at a New Year’s Eve party in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. In the video, it appears the two are arguing before Anne White slaps Dana White. He then slaps her.

Endeavor and the UFC didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

White issued a public apology Monday, according to media reports. Anne White also issued a separate statement to TMZ, calling it an isolated incident.

White is synonymous with UFC, having served as its president since 2001.

In 2014, White spoke out about domestic violence after Ray Rice of the NFL assaulted his fiancee, saying you “don’t bounce back from putting your hands on a woman,” according to media reports. “Been that way in the UFC since we started here.”

Following the comments, White also revealed the UFC screens people for domestic violence.

Hollywood powerhouse Endeavor began as a talent agency and was co-founded by one of the industry’s most recognizable agents, Ari Emanuel. Endeavor has bulked up over the years through a series of acquisitions, owning and managing live events like the Miami Open tennis tournament and the Miss Universe international beauty pageant.

Endeavor acquired a controlling interest in UFC, a popular mixed martial arts league, in 2016. It took full ownership of UFC in 2021, the year Endeavor had its initial public offering, according to a securities filing.

Stock futures traded higher Wednesday and rates slid as investors await key economic data reports that will show how the U.S. economy is faring amid the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes to tame inflation.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 100 points, or 0.30%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures climbed 0.42% and 0.57%, respectively. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond slipped more than 11 basis points as investors await minutes from the central bank’s latest meeting. Yields and prices move in opposite directions and one basis point is equivalent to 0.01%.

Sentiment was boosted in part by encouraging inflation data from Europe, including a greater-than-expected decline in the French consumer price index and a drop in German import prices.

U.S. stocks started 2023 on a downbeat note Tuesday as rising rate concerns, high inflation and recessionary fears crushed hopes that Wall Street could kick off the new year on a positive note. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite lost 0.4% and 0.8%, respectively, while the Dow closed just below breakeven. The major indexes were also pressured by steep declines in Apple and Tesla shares.

“U.S. stocks were unable to hold onto earlier gains as restrictive policy and recession fears remained front and center for investors,” wrote Oanda’s senior market analyst Ed Moya in a note to clients Tuesday. “Discount buying triggered another bear market rebound that didn’t last long at all.”

Investors will gain more insight into what Fed members are thinking on Wednesday afternoon as minutes from the central bank’s latest policy meeting are released. Earlier in the day, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, and ISM manufacturing data are due out.

Friday’s December jobs report also will be closely watched as it is the last read on the labor market before the Fed meeting in February.

“It is too early to start betting on a Fed pivot this year and that should make this difficult environment for stocks,” Moya said.

A New York man was sentenced on Tuesday to two years in prison for conspiring to steal General Electric‘s trade secrets to benefit China, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Xiaoqing Zheng, 59, of Niskayuna, New York, was convicted of conspiracy to commit economic espionage following a four-week jury trial that ended in March last year, according to the Justice Department. U.S. District Judge Mae D’Agostino also sentenced Zheng to pay a $7,500 fine and serve one year of post-imprisonment supervised release.

U.S. officials have said the Chinese government poses the biggest long-term threat to U.S. economic and national security, and is carrying out unprecedented efforts to steal critical technology from U.S. businesses and researchers. China denies the allegations.

Zheng was employed at GE Power in Schenectady, New York, as an engineer specializing in turbine sealing technology. He worked at GE from 2008 until the summer of 2018, the Justice Department said.

The trial evidence showed Zheng and others in China conspired to steal GE’s trade secrets surrounding its ground-based and aviation-based turbine technologies to benefit China, including China-based companies and universities that research and manufacture parts for turbines, the Justice Department added.

“This is a case of textbook economic espionage. Zheng exploited his position of trust, betrayed his employer and conspired with the government of China to steal innovative American technology,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the Justice Department’s national security division.

The United States had accused the former GE engineer and another Chinese businessman named Zhaoxi Zhang in 2019 of stealing secrets and spying on GE to aid China. Zheng had pleaded not guilty at the time.

A U.S. federal court in Cincinnati sentenced a Chinese national in November to 20 years in prison after he was convicted of plotting to steal trade secrets from several U.S. aviation and aerospace companies.

Sometimes a little perspective is needed to really drive home the magnitude of a specific statistic. That’s the case with the gigantic losses tallied by Apple and Amazon last year.

The two stocks were the biggest losers of market cap in 2022. Apple shed $846.34 billion in value and Amazon lost $834.06 billion. Market cap measures the combined value of all of a company’s stock.

The value shed by each of the two companies dwarfs the total size of other household tech stocks. Bespoke Investment Group called the numbers “staggering” in a tweet.

Amazon’s stock sunk as the company’s earnings floundered and fourth-quarter guidance was dispiriting. Its performance was in line with the tech sector more broadly, which has been hurt by rising interest rates, slowing internet advertising and other factors.

Despite being one of the few big tech names to avoid an earnings plunge, Apple still struggled as questions swirled around the popularity of its new products and it faced difficulty with iPhone 14 shipments during the holiday season due to Covid-19 restrictions at its main China factory.

The personal tech titan also has slowed the pace of hiring along with others in the sector as concerns grew over a potential recession, which could dilute demand as consumers delay purchases of big-ticket items to save money. Apple stock shed 3.7% in trading Tuesday — hitting a 52-week low as its market cap fell below $2 trillion for the first time since May.

But what can get lost in the data is just how large these two companies are within the stock market. Compared with peer Meta Platforms‘ $315.56 billion year-end market cap, Amazon was more than twice the size at $856.94 billion. On Dec. 30, Apple was multiple times that size at $2.067 trillion.

In fact, what each of the two stocks shed in one year alone is more than double the size of Meta’s complete market cap.

That $830 billion loss alone is the equivalent of

Cameron Winklevoss, co-founder and president of digital currency exchange Gemini, accused the head of crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group of engaging in “bad faith” tactics but insists he wants to resolve a complex lending dispute with the company that emerged in the wake of FTX’s collapse.

The spat arises from a pact Gemini has with Genesis Global Capital, the lending arm of crypto investment firm Genesis Global Trading, a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group. Gemini offered users yields as high as 8% via its lending product Gemini Earn. To generate those returns, Gemini lent users’ funds to Genesis Global Capital, which in turn loaned them out to institutional borrowers.

A few days after FTX filed for bankruptcy, Gemini paused redemptions for its Gemini Earn service as Genesis Global Capital also suspended new loan originations and redemptions. Gemini has denied any exposure to Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire, but Genesis said in a Nov. 10 tweet that its derivatives business has roughly $175 million in funds locked inside FTX.

Winklevoss on Monday penned an open letter to Digital Currency Group boss Barry Silbert, alleging Silbert refused to meet with the Gemini team on multiple occasions to find a resolution to the liquidity crisis facing clients of Gemini Earn.

According to the letter, Gemini Earn clients are owed more than $900 million from Genesis.

“For the past six weeks, we have done everything we can to engage with you in a good faith and collaborative manner in order to reach a consensual resolution for you to pay back the $900 million that you owe, while helping you preserve your business,” Winklevoss said in the letter, which was tweeted publicly Monday.

“We appreciate that there are startup costs to any restructuring, and at times things don’t go as fast as we would all like. However, it is now becoming clear that you have been engaging in bad faith stall tactics.”

Digital Currency Group owes Genesis $1.675 billion. The debts consist of a $575 million liability due in May 2023, and a $1.1 billion promissory note Genesis issued to Three Arrows Capital, which Digital Currency Group absorbed following the controversial crypto hedge fund’s collapse.

“To be clear, this mess is entirely of your own making. Digital Currency Group (DCG) — of which you are the founder and CEO — owes Genesis (its wholly owned subsidiary) ~1.675 billion,” Winklevoss said.

“This is money that Genesis owes to Earn users and other creditors. You took this money — the money of schoolteachers — to fuel greedy share buybacks, illiquid venture investments, and kamikaze Grayscale NAV [net asset value] trades that ballooned the fee-generating AUM [assets under management] of your Trust; all at the expense of creditors and all for your own personal gain.”

In addition to Genesis, Digital Currency Group also owns Grayscale, the embattled digital asset manager. Grayscale is facing difficulties of its own, with its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust trading at a 45% discount to the price of its underlying asset even as bitcoin trades at multiyear lows.

“DCG did not borrow $1.675 billion from Genesis,” Silbert said in reply to Winklevoss’ tweet Monday.

“DCG has never missed an interest payment to Genesis and is current on all loans outstanding; next loan maturity is May 2023,” he added. “DCG delivered to Genesis and your advisors a proposal on December 29th and has not received any response.”

Three Arrows Capital co-founder Zhu Su also weighed in on the matter Tuesday. In a Twitter thread, Su said that Digital Currency Group “took substantial losses in the summer from our bankruptcy” and other firms impacted by the failure of algorithmic stablecoin terraUSD. Su, whose company collapsed into insolvency after making risky bets across the industry, has been active on Twitter even as lawyers seek to establish his whereabouts, and he reportedly faces investigations from U.S. regulators.

Gemini and Genesis are the latest firms to get caught up in the messy, entangled contagion resulting from FTX’s fall into bankruptcy last year.

Evgeny Gaevoy, founder and CEO of crypto market maker Wintermute, said in a November interview that industry contagion is expected to be widespread “because anyone in the crypto space and beyond crypto could have been exposed to them one way or another.” Wintermute itself had funds trapped in FTX, the amount of which was “within our risk tolerances and does not have a significant impact on our overall financial position,” according to a Nov. 9 tweet.

— CNBC’s Ari Levy, MacKenzie Sigalos and Rohan Goswami contributed to this report.

Southwest Airlines stabilized its schedule over the weekend after about 16,000 cancellations since late last month, but its systemwide holiday meltdown could cost it hundreds of millions of dollars.

Southwest had canceled 304 flights since Friday, 2% of its schedule, most of them on Monday when U.S. airlines faced bad weather and ground stops in Florida tied to a Federal Aviation Administration equipment outage. For comparison, from Dec. 21 through Dec. 29 Southwest had scrubbed about 45% of its operation, a far bigger share than other major airlines, according to FlightAware.

Now come two more difficult tasks for Southwest: going through thousands of passenger reimbursement receipts and improving the internal technology that contributed to the meltdown.

“We have plans to invest in tools and technology and processes, but there will be immediate work to understand what lessons are learned here and how we keep this from ever happening again, because it cannot happen again,” Southwest CEO Bob Jordan, who took the helm in February, told staff Friday.

Jordan said employees from other departments have volunteered to help customers and process refunds. The carrier is working with FedEx to help get customers their luggage.

“We’ve cut the number of bags in half since Thursday and we’re on track to get the majority if not all bags shipped to our Customers later this week,” Jordan told staff on Monday.

On Tuesday, Southwest began offering travelers whose flights were canceled or significantly delayed between Dec. 24 and Jan. 2, and who didn’t travel or rebook, 25,000 Rapid Rewards points, a roughly $300 value, according to the airline.

The miles required to redeem for a ticket vary depending on demand and capacity. Over Easter weekend, for example, it currently costs more than 25,000 Rapid Rewards points to travel roundtrip between Baltimore and Los Angeles, but it would more than cover a ticket a week later.

Bad weather kicked off the issues last month, impacting flights throughout the U.S. But Southwest crews struggled to get reassigned automatically after all of the changes and were forced to wait on hold for hours with crew scheduling services. Hundreds of thousands of passengers were impacted, and Southwest is still working through a backlog of misplaced luggage.

The carrier had canceled about two-thirds of its flights for much of the last week in an attempt to get crews and planes where they needed to go, before operating close to normally on Friday.

The chaos could cost Southwest between $600 million and $700 million, according to estimates from Bank of America airline stock analyst Andrew Didora on Tuesday. That includes both lost revenue from refunds and the reimbursements to affected passengers, which could include expenses like hotels and rental cars.

Didora cut his fourth-quarter adjusted earnings forecast for Southwest to 37 cents a share from 85 cents.

A Southwest executive last week said the cancellations will “certainly” hit its fourth-quarter results but that it will take weeks to work through customers’ reimbursement requests.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg vowed to hold Southwest accountable if it didn’t provide customers with refunds and reimbursements, though such fines associated with a failure to pay back customers can take months if not years.

Southwest shares fell 3.2% to $32.60 on Tuesday, a bigger drop than rivals. The Dallas-based airline is scheduled to report results on Jan. 26 but is likely to preview the meltdown’s costs before then.

Manhattan apartment sales fell by 29% in the fourth quarter, sparking fears of a frozen market in which buyers and sellers stay on the sidelines due to economic and rate fears.

There were 2,546 sales in the quarter, down from 3,560 last year, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The decline was the largest since the third quarter of 2020, during the depths of the pandemic.

Prices also declined for the first time since early 2020, with the median price down 5.5%.

The declines in both sales and prices mark the end of the roaring comeback in Manhattan real estate after the worst days of the pandemic and raise fears of continuing weakness into the new year. Rising interest rates, a weaker economy and a falling stock market, which has an outsized impact on Manhattan real estate, are all likely to weigh on the market this year.

Analysts say their big worry is a prolonged standoff between buyers and sellers — with sellers unwilling to list amidst falling prices and buyers pausing their searches until prices fall further.

“I could see the market moving sideways, with some modest declines in some sectors,” said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, the appraisal and market research firm. “And it could weaken further if there is the backdrop of recession and job loss.”

Even as prices and sales drop, however, inventory remains tight as sellers hold off on listings. There were 6,523 apartments on the market at the end of the fourth quarter, according to the report, up only 5% from last year but still well below the historical average of around 8,000. Without a large increase in inventory, analysts say prices are unlikely to fall enough to lure back many buyers waiting for discounts. The average discount from initial list price to sales price was 6.5%, up from 4.1% in the third quarter, according to Serhant.

Rising interest rates have also moved more Manhattan buyers into all-cash deals, which accounted for 55% of all sales in the fourth quarter, the highest on record, according to Miller.

As with much of the recovery, the high-end and luxury segment remains the strongest. Median sale prices for luxury apartments — defined as the top 10% of the market — increased 4% in the fourth quarter, compared to a decline in the broader Manhattan market. Median prices for luxury apartments are up 21% compared to 2019, twice the increase as the broader market.

Drones, robotics technology, and now satellites.

John Deere’s Chief Technology Officer Jahmy Hindman told CNBC the world’s largest agriculture equipment player is in the process of finalizing a satellite partner.

“We really have been focused on trying to solve connectivity, globally. We look at the burgeoning efforts that are happening in low Earth orbit satellites as an example – potentially – for us to start to solve some those connectivity issues.”

The goal is to create a geospatial map that farmers can use to better track productivity and the performance of crops.

“There’s so much friction and getting that data from the field into the cloud, where they can do something useful with it, that it really isn’t used very effectively at all.” As to when satellites will become in use, Hindman said Deere is “right at the cusp” of solving the connectivity problem for farmers.

Currently, farmers can use the data collected by its See & Spray device to understand what part of the farm still needs to be fertilized. It is one of the technologies that will be showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Thursday.

While the global economy may be slowing, the agriculture market remains hot. Crop prices, albeit volatile, are still up double digit percentage points from three years ago. Rising crop prices, including wheat and corn, have fueled farmer profits. In fact, DA Davidson citing USDA numbers says corn cash receipts were up 32% in 2022 compared to the year prior. 2023 cash receipts are expected to be even higher, writes Michael Shlisky, senior research analyst at DA Davidson in client note. An added bonus: fertilizer and chemical prices have eased in recent months, improving the outlook for farmers this year.

With more money in the bank, farmers are expected to continue spending on agriculture equipment, where John Deere remains a leader.

Shares of Deere gained 20 percent in 2022, vastly outperforming the XLI Industrials ETF, which lost 7 percent. Gabelli Funds has been a longtime investor in the agriculture equipment maker and remains bullish.

“We would expect the stock to perform well as the year sets up as a good one for the industry. Limited supply has effectively elongated the cycle while keeping used machinery prices high. At the same time, the company continues to offer technologies that make the farmer considerably more productive than the machines used in each previous version,” said Brian Sponheimer, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds to CNBC.

Supply chain issues have plagued Deere and the broader sector, but Hindman is betting that China’s reopening should ease some of the pain in 2023.

 “In addition to being a large agricultural consumer, they’re one of the world’s largest producers of the things that we all need in order to fill our supply chains. We do hope China reopens in 2023. The supply chain will begin to normalize and stabilize a bit,” said Hindman.

The big wild card: the ongoing war in Ukraine which has sent agriculture prices skyrocketing. According to Melius Research, wheat prices spiked 40% in the six months after the war started, and are now 20% above pre-war prices.

“The war has certainly added uncertainty to crop prices,” Rob Wertheimer, founding partner of Melius Research, told CNBC.