Category: Money

Business Insider 

Microsoft recognized its first union in the US, formed by workers at one of its video game subsidiaries ZeniMax Studios.

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Microsoft recognized its first US labor union, the Communications Workers of America said, Tuesday.
Around 300 workers at Microsoft subsidiary ZeniMax Studios voted to unionize in December. 
Microsoft said it respected its employees “legal right” to form or join a union, last year. 

Microsoft recognized its first labor union in the US, after an overwhelming majority of video game testers at ZeniMax Studios voted to unionize, the Communications Workers of America union announced on Tuesday. 

Around 300 software testers across four of ZeniMax’s locations in Maryland and Texas voted to unionize, according to Reuters. 

ZeniMax is a video game production company popular for its games like The Elder Scrolls and DOOM, and was acquired by Microsoft for $7.5 billion in March 2021. 

Workers at the Microsoft subsidiary had been organizing for months and began signing union authorization cards in November 2022. The official voting process commenced on December 2 through a confidential online portal, and closed on December 31. 

“We want to put an end to sudden periods of crunch, unfair pay, and lack of growth opportunities within the company. Our union will push for truly competitive pay, better communication between management and workers, a clear path for those that want to progress their career, and more,” Victoria Banos, a senior quality assurance audio tester at ZeniMax said in the CWA release. 

Microsoft agreed to voluntarily recognize the union if workers voted to unionize in December, per Reuters. This was a first for the company in the US. 

“Other video game and tech giants have made a conscious choice to attack, undermine, and demoralize their own employees when they join together to form a union,” CWA president Chris Shelton said in the release. 

“Microsoft is charting a different course which will strengthen its corporate culture and ability to serve its customers and should serve as a model for the industry and as a blueprint for regulators.”

Microsoft said it respected its employee’s “legal right to choose whether to join or form a union,” in 2022 after quality assurance workers at Activision Blizzard formed a union. Microsoft was acquiring Activision in a $69 billion deal at the time. 

Companies often opt to voluntarily recognize unions to avoid legal trouble. Union workers can petition to the National Labor Relations Board to force their employer to recognize their union, but the process is long and arduous. 

Microsoft and ZeniMax Studios did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

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Viking’s Orion cruise ship was barred from entering several ports because of the growth on its hull.

Photo by Osman URAS/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Hundreds of passengers who traveled on Viking Cruises’ Orion cruise ship are set to be compensated.
Passengers missed several stops due to a “marine growth” on the ship’s hull.
Viking Cruises said guests will receive a voucher equal to what they had paid, per Reuters. 

Hundreds of passengers who traveled on Viking Cruises’ Orion ship have been offered compensation in the form of vouchers after they were forced to miss several stops.

The cruise ship, which set sail on Boxing Day, had been due to stop at nine ports around New Zealand and Australia, per Reuters.

However, the ship was turned away from four ports, and passengers were instead forced to stay on board due to a “marine growth” on the ship’s hull, Insider reported.

The vessel had amassed plants, algae, and microorganisms known as biofoul, on its hull. This needed to be removed before the ship was allowed to dock or enter Australian waters.

In a statement shared with Reuters, Viking Cruises confirmed that guests would receive a voucher equal to the cost of the cruise to use on future voyages.

At the time of the incident, passengers on board the cruise took to social media to complain about the journey. 

One passenger wrote on Twitter: “People are livid. Thank you @VikingCruises for a horrible journey. Another day sitting at sea where 2 boats are cleaning the ship hull. Negligence plus.”

Another passenger described the cruise as a “trip from hell.”

She said: “It’s been the most surreal and enraging experience. I guessed this morning before they announced it that we’d be missing yet another port. Now, I just want to get off this ship and go home.”

Representatives for Viking Cruises did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

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TheStreet 

Stock futures edge higher with jobs, Fed in focus; Fed minutes may show rate path split as economy, inflation cools; GE HealthCare shares to begin trading on the Nasdaq; Microsoft slumps as UBS cuts rating, flags Azure weakness and Kevin McCarthy faces ‘last shot’ at House Speaker after three failed votes.

Five things you need to know before the market opens on Wednesday January 4:

1. — Stock Futures Edge Higher With Jobs, Fed In Focus

U.S. equity futures edged higher Wednesday, while the dollar and Treasury bond yields eased, as investors eyed jobs data and the release of Fed minutes amid rising market volatility levels paired with thin trading volumes.

Stocks ended lower Tuesday, however, and look vulnerable to a similar pattern today, with daily trading volumes below typical averages in the holiday-shortened week and investors taking early cues from movements in the U.S. dollar .  

The CBOE’s VIX volatility gauge, meanwhile, jumped 5.6% in the overnight session to 22.87 points, suggesting daily moves for the S&P 500 of around 55 points over the next 30 days, the highest since mid-December. 

Benchmark 10-year Treasury note yields were marked another 3 basis points lower in the European session and trading at 3.701% while the U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six global currencies, gave back around 0.5% to change hands at 104.015.

Overnight trading was broadly solid, with the Asia’s MSCI ex-Japan index rising 1.69% into the close of trading and Europe’s Stoxx 600 getting a boost from softer-than-expected inflation data from France and an improved reading for economic activity around the region in the form of final PMI data from S&P Global.

On Wall Street, traders are likely to focus on the release of minutes from the Fed’s December policy meeting, slated for 2:00 pm Eastern time, as well as JOLTS jobs data at 10:00 am Eastern, which is expected to indicate that around 10.3 million positions remained unfilled over the month of November. 

Those figures could feed into expectations for Friday’s December payroll report, as well as bets on the Fed’s next month in February, where traders are pricing in a 70.3% chance of a 25 basis point rate hike. 

Heading into the start of the trading day, futures tied to the S&P 500 are priced for a 15 point opening bell gain while those linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average are set for an 88 point bump. The tech-focused Nasdaq is looking at a 72 point advance. 

2. — Fed Minutes May Show Rate Path Split As Economy, Inflation Cools

The Federal Reserve will release minutes from its December rate setting meeting Wednesday, with investors likely to focus on any split among policymakers with respect to future hikes amid one of the most aggressive tightening paths on record. 

The Fed raised its benchmark interest rate for the seventh time in 2022 when it last met on December 14, taking the benchmark Fed Funds rate to a range of between 4.25% to 4.5%, the highest since 2008, and said ongoing be needed in order to combat the fastest inflation in nearly four decades.

The so-called Dot Plots, which illustrate the views of the Fed’s eighteen member rate-setting committee, indicated a terminal Fed Funds rate of around 5.1% by the spring, a level that it plans to hold until the end of the year. 

Data since then, however, has suggested weakness in the overall economy, while inflation continues to slow, and bond markets have been testing the Fed’s hawkish view for more than a month, with benchmark 2-year notes trading at 4.347%, well below the terminal rate projected by the December dots.

“We expect the minutes of the December FOMC meeting to reaffirm policymakers’ commitment to driving inflation back down to the target,” said Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics. “But we also expect the voices suggesting that the tightening is nearly over to be a bit louder than in November.”  

3. — GE HealthCare Shares To Begin Trading On The Nasdaq

GE HealthCare, recently spun-off from the iconic industrial group under the leadership of CEO Larry Culp, will make its trading debut on the Nasdaq Wednesday.

GE finalized plans to spin-off the healthcare division in late November, with shareholders receiving one share of GE HealthCare for every three shares of the main group they own under a distribution that took place after the close of trading last night.

GE HealthCare shares will debut on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol GEHC today.  GE Vernova, the group’s power and renewables division, will likely spun-out into the public markets through a tax-free deal in 2024, leaving GE Aerospace as the final piece of the group’s breakup, trading on the NYSE under the traditional  (GE) – Get Free Report ticker. 

General Electric shares were marked 20.7% lower in pre-market trading to reflect the GE HealthCare spin-off and indicate an opening bell price of $67.40 each.

4. — Microsoft Slumps As UBS Cuts Rating, Flags Azure Weakness

Microsoft  (MSFT) – Get Free Report shares slumped lower in pre-market trading after analysts at UBS lowered their rating on the tech giant, citing weakness in its flagship cloud division.

UBS analyst Karl Keirstead lowered his rating on Microsoft to ‘neutral’ from “buy’, while shaving $50 from his price target to $250 per share, as he cautioned that its Azure cloud offering is heading for a sharp deceleration in growth. He also noted vulnerability in Microsoft’s Office 365 business.

Azure revenues rose 35% over the three months ending in October, the group’s fiscal first quarter, slowing notably from its prior quarter gains as companies pulled back on investment spending. Microsoft said that rate will slow further into the second quarter even after stripping away the impact of the stronger U.S. dollar.

Microsoft shares were marked 2% lower in pre-market trading to indicate an opening bell price of $234.70 each.

5. — Kevin McCarthy Faces ‘Last Shot’ At House Speaker After Three Failed Votes

Congressional lawmakers will reconvene Wednesday as they attempt to elect a Speaker for the House of Representatives following three failed votes on Tuesday that left Republican favorite Kevin McCarthy scrambling for support from the party’s conservative base. 

McCarthy, the former House Minority Leader who represents California’s 20th Congressional District, has been working for months to shore-up support among the 202 member Republican caucus after the party narrowly took back control of the House in November.

His efforts fell short, however, following back-to-back roll call vote losses Tuesday that earned him the distinction of being on the second prospective Speaker that wasn’t elected on the first ballot since the Civil War. 

Republican lawmakers could now either discuss floating a new candidate after Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio won 20 votes in Tuesday’s final ballot, or encourage dissident caucus members to vote “present”, rather than aye or nay, in a move that would lower the threshold McCarthy would need to earn majority support in the chamber. 

“I think that Kevin knows that this is his last shot,” said Colorado Representative Kenneth Buck.

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Business Insider 

A war between China and Taiwan poses the biggest ‘black swan’ risk to markets right now, Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan has warned.

Lucas Jackson/Reuters

The risk of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is the most significant `black swan’ scenario threatening markets, according to Alan Greenspan.
The former Federal Reserve chair said in his 2023 investment outlook that a conflict between the two countries would be “a nightmare scenario” for the global economy.
Chinese president Xi Jinping tightened his grip on power when he was appointed for a third term last year.

Investors should start worrying more about China – because it could invade Taiwan and trigger a global economic crisis that fuels major market sell-offs, Alan Greenspan has warned.

The former Federal Reserve chair said Tuesday that a war between the two Asian countries poses the most significant “black swan” risk to financial markets right now.

Black swans are unpredictable events – such as the 2008 financial crisis or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year – that end up having unexpected and severe consequences for stocks and other financial asset classes.

“The black swan event I think markets, and really the world at large, ought to be most worried about is some kind of conflict erupting between China and Taiwan,” Greenspan, who is an economic advisor to Advisors Capital Management, said in a year-end question-and-answer investment commentary published on the firm’s website.

“Xi Jinping has methodically consolidated power and made himself essentially president for life,” he added. “He has been fairly candid in his intention to eventually bring Taiwan back into the fold, and he may begin to feel his window is closing.”

President Xi tightened his grip on power last year when he secured a third consecutive five-year term as Chinese leader.

He proceeded to elevate political allies with defense backgrounds to key posts – and told the Chinese people to “prepare to undergo high winds and waves and even for the stormy seas of a major test“, which many western political strategists saw as a reference to an eventual invasion of Taiwan.

An attack on Taiwan would rock the global economy because of the island’s importance to the global semiconductor trade, Greenspan said.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is the world’s largest independent chipmaker and the 15th-largest stock by market capitalization, with a total valuation of just under $400 billion.

“Taiwan has shown no willingness to acquiesce to Xi’s plans and so the conditions for some type of conflict in the near future are there,” Greenspan said.

“The sheer amount of world trade that currently flows through that region, and the number of semiconductors fabricated by Taiwanese firms upon which the technologies we enjoy rely, make any conflict a potential nightmare scenario,” he added.

Greenspan isn’t the only major voice in markets to raise the alarm about a war over Taiwan in recent months.

In November, Bridgewater Associates co-CIO Ray Dalio said that China and the US are “dangerously close” to a military conflict over the island.

Hayman Capital Management chief Kyle Bass warned in the same month that Xi had installed a “war cabinet” that could set the stage for China invading Taiwan within the next two years.

Read more: China could be gearing up to invade Taiwan now that President Xi has installed a ‘war cabinet’, veteran investor Kyle Bass warns

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Business Insider 

Courtesy of Rachel Bacha

Rachel Bacha is a 23-year-old airport baggage handler in Boise, Idaho.
Bacha gets to see the “behind the scenes” of how airports function and finds it really interesting. 
“If I could tell the public anything, it’s that we work hard to make sure your bags are on time,” she says.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Rachel Bacha, a 23-year-old baggage handler in Boise, Idaho. It has been edited for length and clarity.

When people ask what I do for work, I usually just say I work in aviation. If they ask more questions, I’ll tell them that I’m actually a baggage handler. I’ve been one for four years. 

People are usually really surprised because they don’t think of a young woman when they think of a baggage handler, but I really love my job.

My favorite part of being a baggage handler is working with airplanes

I get to see the “behind the scenes” of how airports function, and it’s really interesting. It also gives me some useful insight for when I’m traveling.

For example, if my flight is delayed, I’ll look down at the ramp to see what’s going on and estimate how long the delay will actually be. I also get standby flight benefits, which I recently used to fly to and from Paris.

When I’m working, sometimes I’ll look up at the plane and be astonished. It’s wild to see a massive aircraft and realize my job is part of the ecosystem that keeps it running. When I have to get up before dawn for a shift, it can be really cold, but then I watch the sun rise over the airplanes and it’s all worth it.

I work two different kinds of shifts as a baggage handler

One is a “mid” shift, which is usually from about 2 in the afternoon to 8 in the evening. I also work morning shifts which are from 4 in the morning to 11 in the morning.

On one shift, I check the flight map for the day and see what planes are coming in and when. I do this so I know where I need to be to unload the bags, and either scan them onto the next leg of their journey or take them to baggage claim. 

On Fridays and Saturdays, I work in the ‘bag room’

I have to wake up at 2:45 a.m. to clock in for my shift at 3:50 a.m., and in the bag room, there can be hundreds of bags dropping from the plane at the same time. Sometimes I walk 17,000 steps on the days that I work.

Courtesy of Rachel Bacha

Once the bags drop, I sort them according to their next location. It can get chaotic, because sometimes people check multiple bags.

People can check their bags up to four hours before their flight, which means I have to sort bags for all the flights that are leaving within four hours. I read the tags and make sure each bag gets on the right cart to go to the next correct destination. It’s my fault if it goes on the wrong cart and is sent to the wrong city.

The job can be pretty physically demanding

I’m active outside of work, so I don’t usually get too sore from baggage handling. At the beginning of the pandemic, there were suddenly no flights and no bags because people weren’t really traveling.

When people started traveling again, more flights were added to the schedule, and it got so busy again. There were so many bags! 

I’ve started sharing my experiences of being a baggage handler on TikTok

Courtesy of Rachel Bacha

I started making the videos because my family wanted to see what I was doing at work, and then the videos took off, and now I have almost 45,000 followers.

People really like baggage handler content, and I do fun videos like rating people’s suitcases. I also show people what I wear and what I do during a shift.

I never thought anyone would be interested in what I do as a baggage handler, but that’s what makes TikTok so cool. It’s full of these niche worlds that you can look inside, even if they may seem strange to you.

I’ve loved being able to share my work online

The first TikTok I ever shared that blew up was me rating people’s bags. People ask me for more bag rating videos all the time, and it’s so fun.

It’s interesting because I often get people in my comments asking how they can apply or what they can do to get a job like mine. I never thought people would be this interested!

We work as hard as we can behind the scenes to make sure your bags are on time and everything is running smoothly

If I could tell the general public anything, it’s that. If you have to wait a long time at baggage claim, just know that behind the scenes, everyone is hustling and working really hard to find a solution as quickly as possible.

I feel like people think we’re just sitting around in the back when their bags are late, but we’re not. We’re doing everything we can, but not everything is in our control.

I don’t know how long I’ll continue to be a baggage handler

I know it can be tough on my body, but I love it. I think my work as a baggage handler has changed my future path. Now I think I want to stay in aviation.

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Placer.ai’s most promising 2023 retailers and restaurants

Placer.ai

Data firm Placer.ai tracks where people shop, work, and live using their mobile phones.
Their data shows the most promising retailers and restaurants for 2023.
Chains with winning strategies are growing in underserved markets and giving shoppers value.

Restaurants and retailers faced headwinds as they closed out 2022, with staffing challenges and rising inflation. 

But the chains well-positioned to succeed in 2023 are the ones that are expanding stores in underserved markets, capitalizing on shifts in consumer preferences, and doubling down on value pricing to appeal to bargain hunters, according to Placer.ai, a firm that uses mobile-phone data to track where people shop and eat. 

Chains with cult-like followings like Whataburger and Wawa are among the brands to watch in 2023,  Placer.ai said Tuesday. 

“While each company highlighted here is implementing a slightly different approach, these 10 brands have one thing in common – they all have a winning strategy for the coming year,” the firm said.

Here are the 10 brands to watch in 2023, according to Placer.ai.

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Mike Kemp/Getty Images

Gen Z is facing a “national crisis,” according to social psychologist and NYU professor Jonathan Haidt.
Haidt told the Wall Street Journal that Gen Z women are going to be less successful than Gen Z men.
That’s partly because many Gen Z women are facing mental health challenges like anxiety. 

Women still aren’t earning as much as their male coworkers. As Gen Z enters the workforce, the problem could get even worse.

That’s according to social psychologist, author, and NYU professor Jonathan Haidt, who said that while the gender gaps across some fields have improved in recent decades, they “might begin to widen in the 2030s.” 

The reason: Millions of Gen Z women — many of whom Haidt says could be depressed, anxious, and less inclined to take risks — will be flooding into the workforce. 

“Gen Z women, because they’re so anxious, are going to be less successful than Gen Z men,” he said.

Haidt was interviewed by journalist Tunku Varadarajan as part of a sweeping Wall Street Journal op-ed published December 30th. The interview touched on the “national crisis” of Gen Z, with a particular focus on the harms of social media and its impact on the younger generation’s declining mental health. According to Haidt, young women in particular are facing these challenges, which could hinder their career advancement and ultimately increase the gender pay gap in the decades ahead.

With the onset of social media — especially Instagram — depression rates skyrocketed, Haidt said. At the same time, Gen Zers were spending less actual time together, with childhood experienced “largely just through the phone.” Now, Haidt said, there has “never been a generation this depressed, anxious and fragile.”

There’s a similar problem in the UK and Canada, he said, and that the US’s “supply of young people who are not anxious or depressed will heavily depend on taking people who are not born in an English-speaking country.”

US women are still paid 17% less than men. Wage gaps are, however, smaller among younger workers. In 16 cities, Gen Z and younger millennial women actually outearn their male counterparts, according to a study of 16 to 29-year-olds from the Pew Research Center.  

That’s not necessarily unusual: Richard Fry, the Pew report’s author, previously told Insider “there’s evidence that the pay gap tends to be narrowest early in women’s careers.”

However, as Pew notes, pay gaps can worsen as cohorts age. The Census Bureau finds that pay gaps got wider as women grew older, within an over $2,000 gap in monthly earnings between women and men ages 35 to 44. 

There could be some factors pushing against that historical trend and the rising mental health concerns Haidt has raised. Soaring college enrollment and a higher likelihood of completing a degree among Gen Z women could potentially chip away at pay gaps widening or appearing later in their careers. 

“Given the differences in their current labor market position, as well as their education levels relative to men, it may be indeed a different story for this group of young women,” Fry previously said. 

At the same time, men without college degrees are dropping out of the workforce, in part because they see their lower-paying jobs as a blow to social status. According to a paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, many younger men facing down limited wage growth choose having no job over a low-paying one, which they see as a risk to marriage prospects and their social standing.

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