Financial Daily Dose 4.16.2021 | Top Story: Lower Jobless Claims and Big U.S. Retail Sales Power Dow Above 34,000

More good economic news in the U.S. this week, with first-time jobless claims falling to 613k, a decrease of more than 150,000 from a week earlier and the lowest level of the pandemic. At the same time, retail sales “surged in March,” up almost 10% from February “as Americans spent their latest round of government stimulus checks and the continued roll out of coronavirus vaccines lured more people back into stores” - NYTimes and WSJ and HuffPost and Marketplace

The twin figures helped power the Dow to close above the 34k mark for the first time  - WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch

China’s economy is back to humming right along, too, but “a slow vaccine rollout and fresh memories of lockdowns” have largely kept its consumers from engaging in the kind of “revenge spending” that “economists hope will power growth” there - NYTimes and WSJ

Though victorious in its battle with pro-union labor leaders at its Bessemer, AL warehouse, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos highlighted the recent vote in a letter to shareholders this week as a sign “the company needs a better vision for its employees” and their success at the company  - WSJ

CBS News has gone outside the company to replace outgoing news division president Susan Zirinsky, naming Hearst VP Neeraj Khemlani and former ABC exec Wendy McMahon as the “presidents and co-heads of CBS News, a division that will be expanded to include local stations owned by the network.” Neither was an expected choice for the position - NYTimes and WSJ

Massachusetts’ securities regulators moved on Thursday to revoke Robinhood’s registration as a broker-dealer in the state based on the company’s “continued . . . pattern of aggressively inducing and enticing trading among its customers.” Robinhood, in turn, moved to invalidate a recently adopted statewide fiduciary rule that would require broker-dealers to act in their clients’ best interest - WSJ and Law360

Good news for 277 ticket holders from the ill-fated 2017 Fyre Festival, the Netflix and Hulu-documented disaster helmed by now-jailed Billy McFarland. As part of a $2 million class-action settlement in SDNY Bankruptcy Court proceedings, each will receive $7220 apiece (though the final amount could be lower depending on negotiations with other creditors) - NYTimes

Brook Jarvis on the primal joy and awe of staring up at the sky and taking in a [briefly] unexplainable cosmic event - NYTimes

Stay safe, and have a great weekend,
MDR