Good morning. Jim McIngvale, a Houston area furniture mogul better known as "Mattress Mack," placed the largest mobile sports wager of all time: $4.5 million on the Bengals moneyline to beat the Rams in the Super Bowl. He'd earn $7.7 million if the Bengals win and could finally buy that box spring he's been eying. Have a great weekend, everyone! —Neal Freyman, Jamie Wilde, Matty Merritt | | | |  | Nasdaq | 14,098.01 | | | | | S&P | 4,500.53 | | |  | Dow | 35,089.74 | | | | | 10-Year | 1.913% | | | | | Bitcoin | $40,552.13 | | | | | Amazon | $3,152.79 | | | | *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean. | - Markets: The stock market was downright nutty this week. A day after Meta suffered the worst one-day drop in value in US stock market history (losing more than $230 billion), Amazon set the record for the biggest one-day gain on Wall Street (adding $191 billion). As for the major indexes, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq posted their best week so far this year.
- Economy: The jobs report "hot mess express" that analysts were warning about turned out to be a cool clean adding machine. US employers stunned experts by adding 467,000 jobs last month, far more than expected and a sign of an extraordinarily strong labor market. In even better news, the government said it had undercounted the number of jobs added in November and December by more than 700,000.
| | Lars Hagberg/AFP via Getty Images A group of protesters rallying against vaccine mandates has paralyzed downtown Ottawa since rolling into town last Friday, using an assortment of trucks to blockade streets and forcing many businesses to close. City officials are concerned that with potentially tens of thousands more protesters heading to the Canadian capital this weekend, the self-titled Freedom Convoy is transitioning into a prolonged occupation. How did this begin? A new law that went into effect in January required Covid vaccinations for truckers crossing the US–Canada border. Some truck drivers chafed at the measure, accusing the government of overstepping its bounds. It snowballed from there, morphing into a broader protest against Covid restrictions and won the backing of prominent folks who've long attacked government measures to battle the virus. - Former President Trump and podcaster Joe Rogan have voiced support for the Ottawa protesters, and Elon Musk also decided to chime in: "Canadian truckers rule," he tweeted last week.
Neither side is backing down Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said the country was "shocked and frankly disgusted" by the behavior of some protesters, has signaled he's not lifting Covid restrictions. A spokesperson for the Freedom Convoy said the protests will continue until he does. But last night the Freedom Convoy lost a major financial lifeline. The crowdfunding platform GoFundMe, through which the protest organizers had raised $10 million, removed the Freedom Convoy from its platform due to police reports of violence and unlawful activity. It said it would hand out refunds to donors and send all remaining funds to charities. What do Canadians think? In a poll taken after the trucks started rolling in, the majority of Canadians said they oppose the idea of the protest, while 32% support it. The Canadian Trucking Alliance, an industry group, stated that 90% of Canadian truckers were vaccinated and that the entire industry should "adapt and comply" with the rules. Zoom out: The Ottawa demonstrations arrive as countries have taken vastly different approaches to managing a virus that appears to be waning (for now). At least three European countries—Sweden, Denmark, and Norway—announced end dates for their Covid rules. Compare that to Austria, which as of today is requiring vaccines for all adults.—NF | | Meta Meta announced yesterday that it's rolling out a "personal boundary" tool to block avatars from invading a nearly four-foot perimeter around your virtual character in its Horizon VR experiences. Avatars will be halted upon approach and have to "extend their arms to be able to high-five or fist bump" Creation of Adam-style. Why is it taking this action? Well, harassment has made its way from the realverse → metaverse. - Bloomberg tech reporter Parmy Olson told the BBC that male avatars in Horizon Worlds swarmed around her, stared, took pics, and "zoomed up" to talk directly in her ear.
- Another woman, Nina Jane Patel, told the Daily Mail she was sexually assualted in Horizon Venues by male avatars who groped her.
Zoom out: Meta has a storied history of attempting to moderate its social platforms, and digital worlds add another dimension of complexity. CTO Andrew Bosworth told the BBC last year that it "could feel a lot more real to me, if you were being abusive towards me," but on the flip side, users have the power to mute each other so "you would cease to exist for me and your ability to do harm to me is immediately nullified."—JW | | Domino's It's not delivery, it's Di-do it yourself. Domino's said this week that customers could earn a $3 "tip" to put toward their next order if they choose takeout instead of delivery. The largest pizza company in the world isn't just missing your beautiful face in its stores—the promo comes as the chain is still struggling to hire enough delivery drivers. Last year, CEO Richard Allison blamed staffing shortages (specifically a lack of drivers) for same-store sales falling 1.9% in Q3—the first time quarterly sales dropped since 2011. - Digital orders make up 50% of Domino's sales. Delivery accounts for about two-thirds of those orders, while one-third are takeout.
Backed into a takeout corner. The pivot to pickup is really Domino's only choice. While you can get Little Caesars or Papa John's on Uber Eats, Domino's has made it their thing to be anti-delivery apps. Last year the chain handed out over $100,000 in gift cards to random delivery customers for other local restaurants to highlight the third-party delivery fees that smaller restaurants pay. Another cost-cutting measure…the chain also took away some of your chicken wings. They cut the size of an order from 10 pieces to eight.—MM | | | Everyone claims to have a "smart phone" these days, but wait until you catch wind of how smart your phone could be when you start investing with Fidelity: - You can receive proactive notifications on your phone about events that could impact your portfolio.
Now THAT is what we're talking about, people! All you have to do is set up alerts on your Fidelity account, and Fidelity will ping you about portfolio-impacting events. That way, you can stay on top of your portfolio better than you've ever been able to before, while spending way less time frequenting your chosen business news sites. (Cough, Morning Brew.) Go for that run! Make your grandma's award-winning 27-layer peanut butter and jelly sandwich which took home gold at the county fair back in '89! And do it all knowing your portfolio is in well-informed hands: your own. Get proactive notifications and zero trading commissions on online U.S. stocks and ETFs when you invest with Fidelity today.** | | James Sheppard/Future via Getty Images Stat: In less than five years since its launch, Nintendo's Switch console has surpassed the Wii in sales. More than 10% of Switch's 103.54 million total unit sales went down this winter, despite a strapped supply chain making it more difficult to snag than King Dedede in Super Smash Bros. Quote: "President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election." Former VP Mike Pence, speaking at the Federalist Society meeting in Florida, forcefully pushed back on false claims made by Trump that Pence could have somehow overturned the 2020 presidential election. Read: How we broke the supply chain. (The American Prospect) | | - Peloton is getting interest from several companies (including Amazon) regarding a takeover, the WSJ reports. Its stock shot up 30% after that news dropped.
- Southwest Airlines said it would resume alcohol sales on most of its flights later this month. The union representing Southwest flight attendants called the move "irresponsible."
- WSJ publisher News Corp. said its journalists and other employees had their data hacked, and a firm hired to investigate the breach suggested it was a Chinese intelligence-gathering operation.
- Lawyer Michael Avenatti was found guilty of cheating his client Stormy Daniels out of nearly $300,000.
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