Judge orders Musk to testify in SEC probe
16M expected to take Super Bowl sick days
Maybe America should just make the Super Bowl a national holiday.
Well, not the actual game, but the day after. As the Super Bowl spectacle shines ever brighter, so have reports of people not showing up for work on the Monday after the NFL crowns its champion.
So-called Super Bowl Monday is routinely named as one of the least productive days on the calendar. About 16 million people are expected to skip this year after the Kansas City Chiefs topped the San Francisco 49ers in overtime, according to an estimate based on a survey by UKG Workforce Institute.
“Folks are going to be playing sick,” said Jarik Conrad, president of UKG Workforce Institute. “They're probably not going to be very truthful.”
About 45 million people will be less productive on Monday, according to estimates from UKG's survey data. That's roughly a third of America's full-time workforce.
Commercial real estate debt is coming due
Nearly 20% of outstanding debt on U.S. commercial and multifamily real estate — $929 billion — will mature this year, requiring refinancing or property sales.
The volume of loans coming due swelled 40% from an earlier estimate by the Mortgage Bankers Association of $659 billion, a surge attributed to loan extensions and other delays rather than new transactions.
With the Federal Reserve signaling that it's done hiking interest rates, it's likely more deals will get done this year, according to Jamie Woodwell, head of commercial real estate research at the bankers group.
About $4.7 trillion of debt from all sources is backed by U.S. commercial real estate, ratcheting up concern among regulators and investors as building values slide. Increasing defaults and write-downs have hit lenders such as
New York Community Bancorp, KKR & Co.'s commercial mortgage real estate investment trust and holders of commercial mortgagebacked securities.
An estimated $85.8 billion of debt on commercial property was considered distressed at the end of 2023, MSCI Real Assets reported, citing an additional $234.6 billion of potential distress.
About 25% of office loans are coming due in 2024, the MBA said. Values have plummeted and vacancies have soared with the growth of remote and hybrid work.
A judge has ordered Elon Musk to testify for a third time as part of the Securities and Exchange Commission's investigation into his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, now called X, in 2022.
Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler issued an order Saturday giving Musk, his team and the SEC a week to agree on a date and location for Musk's testimony. In a court hearing last December, Beeler said she would issue an order if the two sides couldn't agree on when and where the Tesla and SpaceX CEO would testify.
“The parties, at least initially, agreed to a date but ultimately the respondent did not appear and resists the subpoena on the grounds that the SEC's investigation is baseless and harassing and seeks irrelevant information,” Beeler wrote in the order in federal court in Northern California.
“Also, he contends that the subpoena — issued by an SEC staff member appointed by the SEC's Director of Enforcement — exceeds the SEC's authority because it was not issued by an officer appointed by the President, a court, or the head of a department,” as required by the U.S. Constitution, she added.
The SEC has given Musk the option to testify in Texas, where he lives.
Compiled from Bloomberg and Associated Press reports.