Wall Street loses ground ahead of job market reports
Wall Street gave back some of its recent gains Monday as stocks finished lower ahead of some key reports this week on the job market that might provide more insight into the Federal Reserve’s thinking about interest rates.
The S&P 500 closed 0.5% lower. The benchmark index was coming off its best month in more than a year, and reached its highest level in more than a year on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1%, while the Nasdaq composite dropped 0.8%.
Treasury yields rose broadly, putting some pressure on stocks. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences mortgage rates, climbed to 4.25% from 4.21% late Friday.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 24.85 points to 4,569.78. The Dow dropped 41.06 points to 36,204.44, and the Nasdaq gave up 119.54 points to 14,185.49.
Spotify axes 17% of workforce in 3rd round of layoffs
Spotify says it’s axing 17% of its global workforce, the music streaming service’s third round of layoffs this year as it moves to slash costs while focusing on becoming profitable.
In a message to employees posted on the company’s blog Monday, CEO Daniel Ek said the jobs were being cut as part of a “strategic reorientation.” The post didn’t specify how many employees would lose their jobs, but a spokesperson confirmed that it amounts to about 1,500 people.
Spotify had used cheap financing to expand the business and “invested significantly” in employees, content and marketing in 2020 and 2021, the blog post said. But central banks started hiking interest rates last year, which can slow economic growth. Stockholm-based Spotify posted a net loss of about $500 million for the nine months to September.
The company announced in January that it was axing 6% of total staff. In June, it cut staff by 2%, or about 200 workers, mainly in its podcast division.
Bitcoin tops $41,000 for first time since April 2022
Bitcoin is once again having a moment. On Monday, the world’s largest cryptocurrency soared past $41,000 for the first time in over a year and a half – and marking a 150% rise so far this year.
Volatile bitcoin rocketed from just over $5,000 at the start of the pandemic to nearly $68,000 in November 2021, according to FactSet, a period marked by a surge in demand for technology products. Prices fell back to earth during an aggressive series of Federal Reserve rate hikes aimed at taming inflation and then the collapse of FTX, one of the biggest companies in crypto.
When 2023 began, a single bitcoin could be had for less than $17,000 after losing more than 75% of its value. Investors, however, began returning in large numbers as inflation started to cool. And the collapse of prominent tech-focused banks actually led more investors to turn to crypto as they bailed out of positions in Silicon Valley start-ups and other risky bets.
Fueling this latest rally are prospects for the possible approval of spot bitcoin exchange traded funds – a pooled investment security that can be bought and sold like stocks. Industry advocates say this new way of investing in bitcoin at spot prices, instead of futures, could make it easier for anyone to enter the cryptoverse while lowering some of the risks associated with investing in cryptocurrencies.