Here are the most important news items that investors need to start their trading day:
1. Stocks and jobs
Stock futures rose Friday morning after the monthly jobs report. U.S. equities markets are coming off a mixed Thursday, which saw the Dow and the S&P 500 snap out of four-day losing streaks, while the Nasdaq suffered its fifth straight day of losses – its longest skid since February. Investors are looking for clues as to just how aggressive the Federal Reserve could be later this month, when the central bank is widely expected to raise rates again in its fight against inflation. The economy added 315,000 jobs last month. Economists were projecting an increase of 318,000, according to Dow Jones.
2. A new Starbucks CEO, eventually
Starbucks has chosen its next chief executive officer: Laxman Narasimhan, who just resigned as CEO of Reckitt, which owns Lysol cleaning brands, Durex condoms and more. Yet Howard Schultz, who has been the coffee chain’s interim CEO since April, isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Narasimhan will join Starbucks in October, but won’t take over as the company’s chief until April. Schultz will also remain on the company’s board and continue to be an advisor after Narasimhan, also a PepsiCo veteran, assumes the role. More details are on the way at Starbucks’ investor day, which is slated for Sept. 13 in Seattle.
3. Amazon union scores another win
The National Labor Relations Board said Thursday that the Amazon Labor Union’s winning effort to unionize a Staten Island, New York, warehouse should be upheld. The e-commerce giant began its formal objection in May, the month after the union won. But the NLRB attorney overseeing the case said Amazon “had not met its burden” in its bid to demonstrate that the union used objectionable means to secure its victory. The grassroots Amazon Labor Union, meanwhile, is looking to expand its influence. It failed to unionize another Staten Island warehouse in May, but workers at warehouses in Albany, New York, and Kentucky are seeking to organize with the union.
4. UN team digs in at Ukraine nuclear plant
After hours of delays due to shelling in the region Thursday, inspectors with the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency finally made it to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine. The organization doesn’t plan to leave, either, as long as the Russian-occupied facility is vulnerable to a catastrophe. “We are not going anywhere,” IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told reporters. “The IAEA is now there, it is at the plant and it is not moving. It is going to stay there. We are going to have a continued presence there at the plant.” The Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility is the largest in Europe.
5. Meme Stock: The Motion Picture
Here’s a fun story for the last holiday weekend of the summer. An all-star cast – including “This is the End” star and “The Boys” executive producer Seth Rogen, and Pete Davidson of “SNL” and Kim Kardashian fame – will take on the wild story of the GameStop meme stock phenomenon of early 2021. “Dumb Money,” which will be helmed by “I, Tonya” director Craig Gillespie, is slated to start filming this month, when rights to buy the movie also go on sale. The film will be based on Ben Mezrich’s nonfiction book “The Antisocial Network.” If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Mezrich also wrote “The Accidental Billionaires,” a juicy account of the founding of Facebook. That book was adapted into the Oscar-winning 2010 classic “The Social Network.”
