The Week's Top Stories is a guided tour through the biggest market stories of the week, from winning stocks to brutal dips to the facts and forecasts generating buzz on Wall Street.
UNITED AUTO WORKERS ON STRIKE
The Big 3 automakers could be in a bind after 13,ooo autoworkers went on strike at midnight Friday morning. It's the first time in union history that its members have walked out on General Motors, Ford and Stellantis at the same time, but for now this is less than 10 percent of the union's total membership. The UAW is currently targeting a few factories rather than staging a full walkout, although it could still have a huge impact on the supply chain. Workers are demanding a number of improvements, including significant wage increases in light of the automakers making huge profits. The strike doesn't seem to have spooked investors: stock for all three automakers ended the week up.
IPHONE 15 REVEAL
Apple fans now know what to expect from the next generation of iPhones. When the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro come out on September 22, users ready to upgrade (or switch to Apple) smartphones will get to enjoy new camera technology, faster processing, and the much-talked-about USB-C charging system that the rest of the world uses. Pre-sales began Friday. The iPhone 15 Pro Max, the top model, will set you back $1,200 the basic iPhone 15 will run $800. Investors weren't thrilled - the stock dropped 2 percent on the news. Meanwhile, Apple says it will update the iPhone 12 after France claimed the phones were giving off too much radiation. Also, an update from last week: We told you about reports that China planned to ban Apple and other foreign-branded phones for government officials. This week, the government said it didn't do that. Apple stock ended the week down about 2 percent.
ARM IPO
Investors hope the roaring success of Arm Holdings, which began trading on the Nasdaq Thursday, indicated a new wave of IPO success. The chip designer backed by Softbank closed the first day of trading with shares up almost 25 percent and a $68 billion valuation. Wall Street hasn't seen those numbers from an IPO in two years.
SMUCKERS BUYS HOSTESS
This deal should be a piece of cake! J.M. Smucker, the conglomerate famed for jelly, is buying snack cake maker Hostess in a deal valued at more than $5 billion. Hostess began back in 1925, but things really took off when it introduced Twinkies in 1930. The company began to struggle in recent years and it has been selling off its brands like Wonder, the bread company, and Drake's Cakes in the last decade or so. Smucker's stock dropped 7 percent when the deal was announced, but Hostess stock skyrocketed 19 percent.
CASINOS CYBERATTACK
Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts were at the mercy of cyberattackers this week. Caesars reportedly paid millions to get access to their systems back, but not before the hackers stole customers' private data. MGM tried to preemptively shut down some of its systems over the weekend to try to cordon off any damage but kept its resorts open.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
