Something for the weekend
(Bloomberg) — Hello and a warm weekend welcome to you.
It’s been a terrible week for the crypto world’s mop-haired prince and his legion of fans. Sam Bankman-Fried’s personal wealth plunged to zero from $16 billion on Monday, and the former FTX co-founder will most likely take down a lot of small investors with him. The FTX.com crypto exchange has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and so far hasn’t said how it intends to repay creditors or reorganize. You know it’s bad when Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary, compared the company’s meltdown to Enron’s.
Annie Massa takes a forensic look at what went wrong at the House of Sam and explains why the likes of Tom Brady are now on the hook. The collapse also highlights how venture capitalists are desperate to find the next PayPal, but many lack the expertise to evaluate the risks associated with fintech businesses.
Over on old-school Wall Street, the S&P 500 had its best weekly jump since June. While that’s good news for our 401ks and comforting to think the worst of the market carnage is over, some money managers insist inflation is still sticky and forecasts for a recession next year continue to rise. Also weighing in is Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman, who says there are good reasons for the Fed to consider pausing interest-rate increases.
It’s Day 5 of the midterms and neither party can claim a majority in the House and Senate. The Red Wave expected by many never materialized and Republicans may choose to shuffle their leadership to take responsibility for their lackluster showing on Tuesday.
In Florida, GOP victories dominated the polls thanks to huge support from heavily-Hispanic counties. The state’s governor, two Senators and Cabinet-level statewide positions are all held by Republicans now, which hasn’t happened since Reconstruction, according to the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper.
Will the last person to leave Twitter please turn off the lights? Layoffs that affected almost half of the staff, including the team that oversaw sharing of user data with advertisers and research partners, have triggered internal concerns about vulnerability to security threats and potential violations of FTC rules. But, as Bloomberg’s credit team reports, Elon Musk’s talk of Twitter going bankrupt is premature.
Supermarket prices are notably higher, especially for Thanksgiving staples like turkey, but you can still find what you need in your local grocery store aisles. There’s also no shortage of pubs and restaurants in the UK catering to Americans hankering for a traditional pilgrim-style feast. For expats feeling especially homesick, the Benjamin Franklin House near Trafalgar Square even features an after dark tour on Turkey Day that comes with a slice of of what the museum boasts is the best pumpkin pie in London.
And lastly, a tiny Connecticut lab is making headline after headline finding chemicals and carcinogens in everything from sunscreen and dry shampoo to — most famously — heartburn medication Zantac. Listen to the story of how Valisure got started and is frustrating regulators.Enjoy the rest of your Saturday. We’ll be back tomorrow with a look-ahead to the coming week.
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