Of Politics and Stock Prices

In this episode of Motley Fool Money, host Chris Hill is joined by senior analysts Jason Moser and Ron Gross to discuss how the business world reacted to the insurrection at the United States Capitol Building. Also, Bezos, Buffet, and Dimon pull the plug on health venture Haven, and Teledyne Technologies (NYSE:TDY) and FLIR Systems (NASDAQ:FLIR) team up in an $8 billion merger. ‘Home stock’ tumbles on earnings, while another consumer goods one rises, and fintech start-up SoFi prepares to go public via a SPAC. Two companies’ executives step down from their role and new deals are about to take place in the streaming world. The guys discuss these latest news, the stocks on their radar and more.

Plus, Wall Street Journal Senior Personal Technology Columnist Joanna Stern talks CES, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), and weird tech.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool’s free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our quick-start guide to investing in stocks. A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on Jan. 8, 2021.

Chris Hill: We’ve got the latest headlines from Wall Street. We will get a preview of next week’s Consumer Electronics Show with Joanna Stern from The Wall Street Journal. As always, we’ve got a couple of stocks on our radar. But we will begin with Wednesday’s events in Washington, D.C., and the insurrection at the United States Capitol building.

This is a show about business, finance, and investing. So, we’re going to start with some perspective from two of the most prominent leaders in finance and investing. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, condemned the violence, saying, “Our elected leaders have a responsibility to call for an end to the violence, accept the results, and as our democracy has for hundreds of years, support the peaceful transition of power.” Larry Fink, the CEO of Blackrock, the largest asset management firm in the world, called the violence an assault on our nation, our democracy, and the will of the American people. He added that “The peaceful transfer of power is the foundation of our democracy. At the end of the day, the mob lost, members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives went back to work. Democracy prevailed, and Vice President Mike Pence announced the certification of the transfer of power.”

My hunch, Ron, is that is part of the reason why we saw the stock market hitting an all-time high on Thursday, and then again on Friday.

Ron Gross: Yeah. It does feel counterintuitive to have the stock market at all-time highs among all of the turmoil and controversy, but as we always say, the market is forward-looking and it’s looking to transform formation of power. It’s looking at the fact that the vaccines are finally being distributed, although certainly not at the pace that we were all anticipating. I think there’s hope for additional stimulus,…