5 things to know before the stock market opens Tuesday, Oct. 5
Here are the most important news, trends and analysis that investors need to start their trading day:
1. Wall Street looks higher after Monday’s tech decline
A trader looks up grimly at a screen at the New York Stock Exchange September 17, 2001 in New York.
Chris Hondros | Getty Images
2. U.S. oil prices rose to around 7-year highs
Oil-storage tanks are seen from above in Carson, California, April 25, 2020 after the price for crude plunged into negative territory for the first time in history on April 20.
Robyn Beck | AFP | Getty Images
U.S. oil prices, as measured by West Texas Intermediate crude, rose modestly Tuesday morning to around seven-year highs near $78 per barrel. WTI jumped roughly 2.3% on Monday as international oil producers decided to keep a cap on supplies. Despite pressure from the U.S. to ramp up output, OPEC and its allies were concerned that a fourth global wave of Covid infections could slow a demand recovery, a source told Reuters just before Monday’s vote. U.S. oil prices have surged more than 60% in 2021, bringing major energy companies along for the ride. Exxon has gained nearly 50% this year.
3. Facebook whistleblower to testify; platform outage fixed
Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram logos are displayed through broken glass in this illustration taken October 4, 2021.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen is set to testify at Tuesday’s hearing of the Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection. After recent reports in The Wall Street Journal based on documents she leaked raised a public outcry, Haugen revealed her identity in an interview on the CBS program “60 Minutes,” which aired Sunday night. She insisted that “Facebook, over and over again, has shown it chooses profit over safety.” Shares of Facebook rose 1% in Tuesday’s premarket after closing down almost 5% in their worst session in nearly a year.
Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp services are back online after a massive global outage. Facebook said late Monday that “the root cause of this outage was a faulty configuration change.” The roughly six-hour incident marked the longest stretch of downtime for the social media company since 2008, when a bug knocked the site offline for about a day, affecting around 80 million users. The company’s platforms currently have billions users.
4. Tesla must pay ex-worker $137 million over hostile workplace, racism
Tesla Chief Executive Office Elon Musk speaks at his company’s factory in Fremont, California.
Noah Berger | Reuters
A San Francisco federal court decided that Tesla must pay a former contract worker, Owen Diaz, around $137 million after he endured racist abuse working for the company, his attorneys told CNBC. The jury awarded more than attorneys had asked for their client, including $130 million in punitive damages and $6.9 million for emotional distress. Diaz told the court that colleagues used epithets to denigrate him and other Black workers, telling him to “go back to Africa” and leaving…
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