STOCK MARKET NEWS: FTX crisis, Fed speak impacts stocks, Elizabeth Holmes sentencing

A California judge sentenced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes to 135 months in prison for defrauding investors in her now-defunct blood testing startup that was once valued at $9 billion.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, Calif., sentenced Holmes on three counts of investor fraud and one count of conspiracy. A jury convicted Holmes, 38, in January following a trial that spanned three months.

Though she was convicted on four counts, Holmes was acquitted on four other counts alleging she defrauded patients who paid for Theranos tests.

Davila had denied Holmes’ requests to overturn her convictions, saying they were supported by the evidence at trial.Now that the sentence has been imposed, Holmes can challenge those rulings and her sentence at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The corporate of Ticketmaster is reportedly facing an antitrust probe. The New York Times reported the Department of Justice is looking into whether the ticket seller is a monopoly that has taken unfair advantage of its market position with its practices.

The news follows problems with the handling of ticket presales for Taylor Swift’s upcoming “The Eras” tour. However, the antitrust probe apparently started well before Swift’s ticketing issues, according to The New York Times.

Presales for Swift’s tour opened Tuesday, with many fans waiting hours in the online Ticketmaster queue to purchase tickets or wind up empty-handed.

Used-car retailer Carvana Co is cutting 1,500 jobs, or 8% of its workforce, the company said on Friday, amid waning demand for used cars on the back of sky-high prices and supply shortages.

Demand for used cars has been negatively impacted by hybrid-working models and higher costs caused by rising interest rates, as consumers rethink personal mobility options to try and trim their daily expenses.

CNBC, which first reported the layoffs, cited an internal memo, that the company faced economic headwinds from higher financing costs and it “failed to accurately predict how this would all play out and the impact it would have on our business.”

Carvana, whose shares were down about 7% at noon, has missed expectations for adjusted earnings in the last five quarters, per Refinitiv data, as expenses soared and demand for used cars dipped.

The company, best known for its automated car vending machines, earlier this year laid off around 2,500 employees, or 12% of its workforce, in a bid to cut costs among its other measures.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao says his firm did not cause FTX to collapse.

Binance pulled out a deal to buy Sam Bankman-Fried’s company after signing a non-binding letter of intent to buy FTX.

“As soon as we discovered that he actually moved user funds without disclosing that, and basically he was lying to everyone, I said, this guy is probably going to be in a lot of trouble, most likely going to jail. I couldn’t trust the data in the data room anymore,” Zhao told FOX Business’ Susan Li on “Varney & Co.”

Zhao said walking away from FTX may have been the “last straw that broke the camel’s back.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Jeffrey K. Galvani, Stuart A. Jeffery, and two New York-based entities they controlled with operating as unregistered broker-dealers that facilitated more than $1.2 billion of securities trading, primarily in penny stocks.

The SEC’s complaint alleges that Galvani and Jeffery provided brokerage services to approximately 60 customers involving at least 19,000 securities trades, primarily in penny stocks.

The brokerage services they allegedly provided included taking possession of customer securities, directing trades to executing brokers, facilitating trade settlements, and disbursing trading proceeds to customers.

In return for these services, the defendants allegedly received at least $12 million in transaction-based and other compensation.

General Motors is repairing repairs cars from rival Elon Musk’s Tesla.

Company president Mark Reuss said the business is growing, with GM service centers performed repairs on more than 11,000 Tesla vehicles since 2021.

GM currently has four all-electric models of its own across its brands, but will add at least six more through early 2024 as it aims to reach a North American production capacity of one million vehicles annually by 2025.

New Twitter owner Elon Musk says the social media platform has not decided whether to reinstate former President Donald Trump.

@realDonaldTrump was permanently suspended
in January 2021.The billionaire said Kathie Griffin, Jorden Peterson & Babylon Bee have been reinstated.

Musk also outlined a new free speech policy.

He said: “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.”

Laid off tech workers could find new jobs at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) as the 100-year-old British automaker looks to hire hundreds of engineers to help develop electric cars.

JLR, which is owned by India’s Tata Motors, on Friday announced a jobs portal for displaced tech workers to fill 800 roles spanning self-driving, electrification, machine learning and data science.

The luxury carmaker, which wants to become an “electric-first” business from 2025, said it believed workers leaving big tech groups like Amazon were most likely to have the required skills to fill new roles in Britain, Ireland, the United States, India, China and Hungary.

The majority of the jobs will be in Britain and split between JLR’s offices in Manchester and Gaydon in central England, Chief Information Officer Anthony Battle said.

The hiring drive comes after thousands of layoffs in recent weeks at U.S. tech firms including Twitter, Meta and Amazon, some of which have offices in London and Dublin.

Twitter’s offices are closed until Monday.

The move comes following the resignation of engineers responsible for preventing service outages and fixing bugs and an employee ultimatum.

However, new owner Elon Musk wants any employees who write software code report to the 10th floor of Twitter’s office in San Francisco at 2 p.m., according to an email reviewed by Reuters.

“There will be short, technical interviews that allow me to better understand the Twitter tech stack,” Musk wrote in the memo.

Additional reporting from Reuters.

The Securities Commission of The Bahamas is taking control of all digital assets of FTX Digital Markets (FDM). The regulators say the assets will be placed in a digital wallet for safekeeping.

“Urgent interim regulatory action was necessary to protect the interests of clients and creditors of FDM,” the commission said. “Over the coming days and weeks, the Commission will engage with other regulators and authorities, in multiple jurisdictions, to address matters affecting the creditors, clients and stakeholders of FDM globally to obtain the best possible outcome.”

Atkore shares are surging in Friday trading. The manufacturer and distributor of electrical, mechanical, and safety infrastructure solutions reported record full year net sales and net income. Net income per diluted share increased to $20.30 from $12.19 in prior year.

Fourth quarter revenue rose 11.4% to $1.03 billion from a year ago; analysts expected $981.80 million.

Net income for the three months ended September 30 was $220.8 million, up from $202.6 million.

Quarterly adjusted earnings were $5.52​​ per share for the quarter ended in September. The mean expectation of four analysts for the quarter was for earnings of $5.08 per share.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Existing-home sales retreated for the ninth straight month in October, according to the National Association of Realtors. All four major U.S. regions registered month-over-month and year-over-year declines.

Total existing-home sales decreased 5.9% from September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.43 million in October. Year-over-year, sales dropped by 28.4% (down from 6.19 million in October 2021).

“More potential homebuyers were squeezed out from qualifying for a mortgage in October as mortgage rates climbed higher,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “The impact is greater in expensive areas of the country and in markets that witnessed significant home price gains in recent years.”

Foot Locker Inc. on Friday reported fiscal third-quarter profit of $96 million.

The New York-based company said it had net income of $1.01 per share. Earnings, adjusted for asset impairment costs and non-recurring costs, came to $1.27 per share.

The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.09 per share.

The shoe store posted revenue of $2.17 billion in the period, which also topped Street forecasts. Seven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $2.12 billion.

For the current quarter ending in January, Foot Locker expects its per-share earnings to range from 45 cents to 53 cents. Analysts surveyed by Zacks had forecast adjusted earnings per share of $1.10.

The company expects full-year earnings in the range of $4.42 to $4.50 per share.

Buckle is higher in Friday trading. The teen clothing retailer topped Wall Street revenue and profit estimates.

Third quarter revenue rose 4% to $332.34 million from a year ago; analysts expected $326.65 million.

Comparable store net sales increased 3.0%. Online sales increased 8.8%.

Net income for the three months ended October 29 was $61.4 million, down from $62.2 million a year ago.

Quarterly adjusted earnings were $1.24​​ per share. The mean expectation of two analysts for the quarter was for earnings of $1.19 per share.

Reuters contributed to this story.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy gave more details on the looming layoffs at the retail giant.

U.S. stocks post modest gains as investors wrap a choppy down week for equities digesting more Fed speak and the prospect for retailers ahead of Black Friday. In commodities, oil tanked nearly 4% trading below the $80 per barrel level. 

Troubled cryptocurrency firm FTX updated its bankruptcy filing in Delaware on Thursday, and the document is chock-full of new insights into the chaotic and questionable business practices that occurred under the leadership of former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

John Ray III, who was appointed as FTX’s new CEO a week ago and previously oversaw the bankruptcy of scandal-plagued energy firm Enron following its collapse in 2001, blasted Bankman-Fried’s management of the company in the court document.

“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” Ray wrote.”From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented,” he added.

Read more details on the story by clicking here: New FTX CEO highlights ‘pervasive failures’ in court filing

Bitcoin was trading around $16,000, after gaining in three of the last four days.

For the week, bitcoin has declined more than 4%.For the month, the cryptocurrency was lower by 18%.

Bitcoin is down 63% year-to-date.

Ethereum was trading around $1,200, after sliding 7% in the past week.

Dogecoin was trading at 8 cents, after losing 4% in the past week.

There is no question Elizabeth Holmes will serve time in federal detention, it’s a matter of how long and where.

That’s according to experts who say the disgraced Theranos founder can expect a lengthy term behind bars at her sentencing hearing Friday.

Holmes faces up to 20 years in prison after being convicted on three felony counts of wire fraud and one felony count of conspiracy to commit fraud.

Her attorneys are asking that she serve no more than 18 months if she is incarcerated at all, arguing that the high-profile case has ruined the former Silicon Valley darling’s reputation, saying she poses no threat to the public and noting that she has no prior criminal history.

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The nationwide price for a gallon of gasoline slipped Friday to $3.707, according to AAA.

The average price of a gallon of gasoline on Thursday was $3.725.  

One week ago, a gallon of gasoline cost $3.794. A month ago, that same gallon of gasoline cost $3.870.

Gas hit an all-time high of $5.016 on June 14.

Diesel declined to $5.330.

Oil moved higher Friday, but prices were on track for a steep weekly decline on concerns about weakening demand in China and further interest rate hikes.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures traded around $82.00 a barrel.

Brent crude futures traded around $90.00 a barrel.

WTI is down more than 7% so far this week, while Brent is down nearly 6%.

Remarks from U.S. Federal Reserve officials this week and stronger-than-expected retail sales data have dashed some hopes for the moderation of aggressive interest rate hikes in the United States.

The Fed is expected to raise rates by a smaller 50 basis points in December after four consecutive 75 bp hikes, according to a Reuters poll.