What’s News in Markets: Fed Chair, Layoffs, Meme Stock

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Krystal Hur (0:18)

Hey, listeners. It's Saturday, January 31st. I'm Krystal Hur 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 to it. An onslaught of news coming out of corporate America and the White House, more on that later, led to topsy-turvy moves this week. Gold, a haven for nervous investors, jumped to a new record earlier this week and settled above $5,300 for the first time. But trading turned volatile by Thursday, with prices seeing the largest range between the midday high and low since 2013 On Friday, gold slumped more than 11 percent and silver prices crashed 31 percent. Both metals saw their largest one-day percentage declines since 1980 Also on Thursday was some trouble in tech stocks. Disappointing earnings from Microsoft drove a widespread tech sell-off and signaled that investors were skeptical about the eye-popping cost of building artificial intelligence infrastructure. Microsoft lost $357 billion in market value, its largest single-day drop on record, and the second-largest one-day market cap decline for any US company. In the stock market, though, the moves were much more mild. The S&P 500 was the only major index to end the week with gains, rising 0.3 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4 percent, and the NASA Composite declined 0.2 percent. First up, let's talk about the biggest piece of news this week for Fed heads. President Trump has nominated Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor-turned-critic, to chair the Central Bank after Jerome Powell's term expires in mid-May. The nomination was one of the most important personal decisions Trump faced for the remainder of his term, because the Fed sets interest rates that affect every part of the economy and financial markets. The Fed on Wednesday held rates steady and signaled it's in no rush to cut rates further. Here's what to know about Warsh. He served on the Fed's Board of Governors from 2006 to 2011 and played important behind-the-scenes roles in Washington's rescue of Wall Street during the financial crisis. He gained a reputation for being an inflation hawk or a supporter of tighter monetary policy during and after leaving the Fed because he spent years warning that easy monetary policy would drive rising prices. But more recently, he has said the Fed should cut rates faster. Warsh will have to be confirmed by the Senate, which could be complicated by a Justice Department probe of the Fed.

Now, let's talk about how the new era of corporate cost cutting is continuing to bruise American workers. Big companies are looking to slash their head count after years of rapid growth, which largely took place during the height of the COVID pandemic. In 2020 and 2021, companies expanded their workforces and gave big raises to employees to ensure they had enough skilled workers. Now, they're worried about bloated costs. Amazon said Wednesday that it would lay off an additional 16,000 corporate employees after laying off 14,000 workers in the fall. Combined, those cuts amount to roughly 10% of Amazon's corporate workforce. On Tuesday, UPS said it expected to slash 30,000 jobs this year on top of 48,000 cuts last year. That same day, Pinterest said it planned to shrink its workforce by up to 15%. For the week, Amazon shares rose less than 0.1%, UPS lost 1.6% and Pinterest tumbled around 15%.

GameStop is looking to make big moves. Shares of the video game retailer have tumbled around 80% since 2021, when the retailer was the king of meme stocks. GameStop's chief executive, Ryan Cohen, says that he has a plan to turn that around. He told the Wall Street Journal in an interview that he wants to turn the $11 billion company into one worth $100 billion that does more than just sell video games and collectibles. How is he going to do that? By eyeing a major acquisition of a publicly traded company, likely one in the consumer or retail industry. Michael Burry, the investor played by Christian Bale in the film The Big Short, is cheering him on. He's a GameStop shareholder, and said in his newsletter earlier this week he bought more stock recently and sees upside in the stock if Cohen spends $10 billion or more to acquire a quality business. GameStop shares reached a high of around $121 five years ago this week. They closed at about $24 Friday, up 4% for the week. And now you know What's News in Markets this week. Today's show was produced by Michael LaValle with supervising producer Melanie Roy and Jana Herron. I'm Krystal Hur. Have a great weekend, and see you next Saturday.