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Technology

Microsoft launches Loop Office app for real-time collaboration

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on Nov. 30, 2016, in Bellevue, Washington.

Stephen Brashear | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Microsoft said at its online-only Ignite conference on Tuesday that it will release a new Office application called Loop that people can use to collaborate on projects.

The effort shows Microsoft is attempting to provide more value to Office subscribers, which will start paying higher prices next year. That should boost financial results for the world’s most highly valued public company.

Microsoft’s Office subscription bundles already come with Word and Excel, where people can be co-authors on text documents and spreadsheets. And the SharePoint tool gives workers online hubs for accessing relevant files. Loop promises a modern alternative, which is important because Microsoft’s core productivity software increasingly faces pressure from well-funded start-ups such as Airtable, Coda and Notion, which aren’t weighed down by proprietary file formats.

Emerging productivity software from those companies can handle content creation, but they’re lacking in communication, said Jared Spataro, a Microsoft corporate vice president. Workers can share Loop elements in Teams text conversations. Users can quickly discuss Loop projects by kicking off voice or video calls in Teams, which has grown to more than 250 million monthly active users following the onset of Covid-19, he said.

“Essentially what we’re doing with Loop is we’re blowing up the document,” he said.

The combination of communication and creation is more well suited to hybrid work configurations, where not everyone is located in the same physical space, Spataro said. That’s important now that the pandemic has pushed many organizations to adopt remote work at a greater scale. Cisco’s Webex, Salesforce’s Slack and Zoom have all developed enhancements to better accommodate hybrid work.

Microsoft’s Loop shows where people’s cursors are located as they view and contribute to pages.

Microsoft

Loop contains three elements:

Components. Multiple people can simultaneously read and contribute to these miniature documents. Drawing on the Fluid Framework technology that Microsoft first talked about in 2019, Loop components can appear in multiple Microsoft applications. They’re coming first to OneNote, Outlook and Teams, starting this month. Components stay up to date across different applications, so people don’t have to worry about sharing the latest version of a file.

Microsoft has developed ready-to-use Loop components for voting on ideas and tracking the status of projects, and the company said a Loop component could also be as robust as a customer record drawn from the Dynamics 365 cloud service for tracking sales opportunities. Third-party developers will be able to build Loop components, too.

Pages. These are full-on documents in which people can type text, enter reactions and find related Loop components, links and documents. The user interface shows other users’ cursors to give a sense of what people are doing in the document right at a given moment, similar to the redesigned Whiteboard digital brainstorming app in Office.

Workspaces. These are areas where people can check progress on shared initiatives and enter reactions, as a casual hub for project management. People can reach multiple pages from a workspace.

Even though Loop promotes the presentation of information across various programs, Microsoft will provide a dedicated Loop application where people can quickly get to Loop content. The idea for the app came from Microsoft employees who were using Loop components internally and realized it was hard to locate and organize them, Spataro said.

Microsoft will begin a preview of Loop’s application, workspaces and documents in the first half of next year, Spataro said.

WATCH: Jim Cramer on why Microsoft had ‘the best quarter of the year’

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Business

Sequoia changes fund structure to hold public companies and back crypto

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Sequoia Capital Global Managing Partner Doug Leone speaks onstage during Day 2 of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 at Moscone Center on September 6, 2018 in San Francisco, California.

Steve Jennings | Getty Images

Over the past half-century, Sequoia Capital has established itself as the envy of Silicon Valley, from early bets on Cisco, Apple and Google to more recent wins such as Zoom, Snowflake and Airbnb.

Now the firm is changing its fund structure entirely and declaring that the existing time-based model for investing has “become obsolete.”

“Our industry is still beholden to a rigid 10-year fund cycle pioneered in the 1970s,” Roelof Botha, a partner at Sequoia, wrote in a blog post Tuesday. “As chips shrank and software flew to the cloud, venture capital kept operating on the business equivalent of floppy disks.” 

Sequoia is abandoning the 10-year venture fund, in which limited partners, the outside investors that contribute to the fund, expect to get paid back over a decade. The firm said it’s establishing a single fund, the Sequoia Fund, that will raise money from LPs and then funnel that capital down to a series of smaller funds that invest by stage.

Proceeds from those funds will feed back into the Sequoia Fund. With no time horizon, Sequoia can hold public stock for longer stretches, rather than distributing those shares to LPs. Investors who want liquidity can pull money out instead of waiting for distributions.

Like Andreessen Horowitz two years ago, Sequoia is becoming a registered investment advisor, giving it more flexibility to invest outside of venture restrictions. That could mean putting money into IPOs, and “it also enables us to further increase our investments in emerging asset classes such as cryptocurrencies and seed investing programs.”

The traditional venture model has been dying a slow death for the past decade or so, as investors from across the globe and all walks of life have poured into the seemingly never-ending bull market. Solo VCs have raised funds and others tied themselves to online syndicates for seed deals, and at the opposite end of the spectrum, private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds have been writing IPO-sized checks.

While venture returns have shot up across the board in the last couple of years, Sequoia has managed to stay on top, despite warning portfolio founders and CEOs at the beginning of the pandemic that “we should brace ourselves for turbulence.”

The Airbnb logo is displayed on the Nasdaq digital billboard in Times Square in New York on December 10, 2020.

Kena Betancur | AFP | Getty Images

By the end of 2020, the IPO market was setting records, and Sequoia was a major beneficiary, thanks to the debuts of Snowflake, Airbnb, DoorDash and Unity.

Going forward, investors will be betting on Sequoia, the firm, to put their money to work across the entire spectrum of tech. Sequoia will choose how much goes into early-stage start-ups, more mature businesses, secondaries, crypto and international deals.

Without thematic funds, Sequoia won’t have to worry about selling stock or distributing shares of companies to fit the old venture framework. If a company goes public and within two decades is worth over $1 trillion, Sequoia could potentially still own a good portion of its stock.

“This new structure removes all artificial time horizons on how long we can partner with companies,” Botha wrote.

Just imagine if Sequoia had never sold its Google stake.

WATCH: Former Google exec turned venture capitalist on the opportunities in ESG

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Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Merck, Moderna and more

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Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.

Merck — Shares surged more than 9% after it announced its new antiviral pill cut the risk of death or hospitalization by 50% for Covid patients. The pharmaceutical company plans to file for emergency use authorization.

Moderna, Regeneron — Companies with other Covid-19 drugs fell after Merck’s oral pill showed positive data in a clinical trial. Moderna’s stock fell nearly 13%, while shares of Regeneron dropped more than 5%.

United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines — Airline stocks rallied as Merck’s oral Covid drug showed promising results. United Airlines rose nearly 6%, Delta Air Lines gained more than 5% and American Airlines rallied roughly 4%. Southwest Airlines jumped more than 4% as well following an upgrade on the stock by JPMorgan.

Penn National Gaming, Hilton Worldwide, Norwegian Cruise Line — Travel and entertainment stocks jumped following the positive results from Merck’s Covid pill. Penn National Gaming rallied more than 6%, Live Nation Entertainment added about 5%, Hilton Worldwide gained more than 4% and Norwegian Cruise Line rose nearly 4.8%.

Lordstown Motors — Lordstown Motors saw its stock sink more than 15% after it announced an agreement to sell its Ohio assembly plant to iPhone maker Foxconn for $230 million. Shares of Lordstown Motors had rallied by as much as 21% by Thursday as reports indicated the deal was in the works.

Zoom Video Communications — Zoom and Five9 terminated what would have been a $14.7 billion deal. Five9 shareholders rejected the proposed acquisition by Zoom. Zoom shares gained 2.2% and Five9 shares rose 3.2%.

Walt Disney — Shares of the media giant popped 3% on news that Disney and Scarlett Johansson settled a lawsuit involving the “Black Widow” movie. Johansson had sued Disney over the release of the movie on the Disney+ streaming service at the same time it was debuting in theaters.

Exxon Mobil – The oil giant advanced more than 2% after the company updated Wall Street on its expected third-quarter results. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Exxon said that higher oil and gas prices could lift earnings by as much as $1.5 billion. Analysts at Bank of America said the company is on track for its highest earnings per share since the third quarter of 2014.

International Flavors & Fragrances – Shares of International Flavors popped more than 6% after the company announced its chief executive Andreas Fibig plans to retire. The company said Fibig will remain at the helm of the company until a successor is found.

— CNBC’s Jesse Pound and Maggie Fitzgerald contributed reporting

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Business

Merck, Lordstown Motors, Coty, Zoom and others

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Check out the companies making headlines before the bell:

Merck (MRK) – Merck shares surged 7.5% in the premarket after it announced that its experimental Covid-19 pill cut the risk of death and hospitalization by 50% in a late-stage study. Merck plans to file for emergency use authorization as soon as possible.

Lordstown Motors (RIDE) – Lordstown struck a deal to sell its Ohio plant to Taiwan’s Foxconn for $230 million, with Foxconn taking over the manufacturing of Lordstown’s full-sized electric pickup truck. It was reported earlier this week that a deal between the two sides was near. Lordstown rallied 6.3% in premarket trading.

Coty (COTY) – The cosmetics company’s stock gained 2% in the premarket as it announced a deal to sell another 9% stake in its Wella beauty business to private equity firm KKR (KKR). In return, KKR will redeem about half its remaining convertible preferred shares in Wella, reducing Coty’s stake to about 30.6%. Coty had sold a 60% stake in Wella to KKR last December.

Zoom Video Communications (ZM) – Zoom and Five9 (FIVN) have terminated a nearly $15 billion deal by mutual consent. Zoom had struck a deal to buy the contact center operator, but it was rejected by Five9 shareholders. The two sides will continue a partnership that had been in place prior to the proposed transaction. Zoom jumped 4% in the premarket while Five9 slid 1.4%.

Walt Disney (DIS) – Disney and Scarlett Johansson have settled a lawsuit involving the “Black Widow” movie. Johansson had sued Disney over the release of the movie on the Disney+ streaming service at the same time it was debuting in theaters. Terms of the settlement weren’t disclosed.

Wells Fargo (WFC) – Wells Fargo will have to face a shareholder fraud lawsuit involving its attempt to rebound from years of scandals. A judge rejected the bank’s moved to have the suit dismissed, saying it was plausible that statements by various Wells Fargo officials about the recovery were false or misleading.

Exxon Mobil (XOM) – Exxon Mobil said in an SEC filing that higher oil and gas prices could boost third-quarter earnings by as much as $1.5 billion. Exxon profits have been improving amid the rising prices as well as cost cuts by the energy giant.

Nio (NIO) – Nio reported deliveries of 10,628 vehicles in September, a 126% increase over a year ago for the China-based electric vehicle maker. Nio added 1.8% in the premarket.

International Flavors (IFF) – The maker of food flavoring and cosmetic ingredients said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Andreas Fibig plans to retire, although he’ll remain at the helm of the company until a successor is found. Shares added 2.5% in premarket action.

Jefferies Financial Group (JEF) – Jefferies reported a quarterly profit of $1.50 per share, beating the 99-cent consensus estimate, with the financial services company’s revenue also topping Wall Street forecasts. Jefferies saw its results boosted by a strong performance in its investment banking business. Jefferies gained 1.4% in the premarket.

MGM Resorts (MGM) – Susquehanna Financial downgraded MGM to “negative” from “neutral,” saying the DraftKings (DKNG) bid for British gambling company Entain weakens MGM’s prospects in the digital gaming and betting market.

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Business

Microsoft launches Teams phone features as Zoom rivalry continues

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gestures as he speaks during a Bloomberg event on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 21, 2020.

Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Microsoft said Monday it’s adding features for its cloud-based calling service that will make it more competitive against Zoom.

Microsoft is upgrading its Teams Phone service — which is part of the Teams communication app — to include the ability to transfer calls among devices, take calls in vehicles through Apple’s CarPlay and transcribe calls. It will also be able to identify spam calls, integrate contact center software and make calls to five additional countries through calling plans.

Zoom Phone has all these features already, according to Zoom’s website, though the spam service is still in beta. But Microsoft is also enhancing Teams Phone with a detail that Zoom is missing. In October, Teams Phone will add a virtual walkie-talkie, allowing users to push a button to talk.

Microsoft has been investing heavily in Teams, particularly since the early days of the pandemic, when consumers flocked to Zoom because it was easy to download and use from any device. In March 2020, Microsoft said it would allow users to upload custom virtual backgrounds for video calls, a feature that had been available in Zoom for months.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told analysts in July that Teams Phone had almost 80 million monthly active users. At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference last week, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield said Microsoft has made its intentions pretty clear.

“Over the last year, maybe even 18 months, I think Microsoft’s preoccupation with killing us has shifted somewhat to a preoccupation with killing Zoom,” Butterfield said. Salesforce closed its acquisition of Slack earlier this year.

Microsoft is also releasing Operator Connect, a product it announced in March to let customers draw on their existing services from carriers such as NTT and Verizon to make calls. Zoom supports fast connections to existing landline carriers.

Telecommunications companies work directly with Microsoft, so customers don’t have to launch integration projects on their own, Microsoft corporate vice president Jared Spataro said.

“I’m starting to see this really take off for us in terms of interest,” Spataro said.

Zoom isn’t sitting still, however. The company is using its stock market gains from the pandemic to bulk up beyond cloud-based video and phone calls. In July, Zoom announced its intent to acquire call center technology provider Five9 for $14.7 billion.

Call center agents can already use Zoom Phone with Five9. Now the same thing is possible with Teams Phone.

“I think whenever you have your own — they’re going to pay a lot of money for acquiring their contact-center solution — I think they will of course try to make that fantastic,” Spataro said.

To get Microsoft’s Teams Phone service, organizations with at least 300 users must buy the high-end Office 365 E5 or Microsoft 365 E5 subscriptions. If they have a less expensive subscription, they can add the new features for a fee.

Microsoft said last month that it will increase the cost of Office 365 E5 in March. That will mark the first broad price adjustment since the company introduced the subscription bundle in 2011 as an alternative to traditional licenses.

E5 subscriptions represent 8% of the entire Office 365 commercial installed base, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood told analysts on a conference call in July. The company has over 300 million Office 365 commercial paid seats.

WATCH: Microsoft CEO: Flexibility key to future of hybrid work

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Business

Here’s the big challenge confronting the Fed — and it’s not the taper

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It would be a great few days to be a fly on the wall at the Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

Even were it normal times, there’s the scandal of regional Fed presidents engaging in stock-market trading, which at least one outside group has said was possibly illegal. But it’s not normal times.

A key issue is the fate of its bond purchase program. A slightly out-of-consensus call comes from Drew Matus, chief market strategist at MetLife Investment Management, who says the Fed will wait until the beginning of next year to start reducing its bond purchases. “They’re trying to find the perfect time to do something that people might not react kindly to, and you probably don’t want to upset the holidays for people,” he says.

There’s also the situation at property developer China Evergrande
3333,
-0.44%,
which has captured media headlines this week as it struggles to pay off creditors. Matus doesn’t expect China to be mentioned in the FOMC statement, and possibly not even the minutes. “Once they get to the point where they don’t think that there’s any sort of systemic risks to the U.S., and financial markets are functioning, that’ll be the end of the conversation, and they will migrate onto other things,” he says.

The big issue confronting the Fed is that demand has recovered more quickly than supply, creating all sorts of shortages as companies struggle to find the necessary workers and parts. “The more widespread shortages are, and the more that we talk about different products being in short supply, the more likely it is that a growing proportion of the consumer class is seeing their expectations for inflation de-anchor,” he says.

Matus says these shortages threaten the economic cycle. “It’s a race between how much do companies have to pay for things, and how much of that can they pass on to consumers,” he says. If corporate profit margins contract sharply, that would increase the chances of a recession, he says. The word “shortage” has received the most mentions in the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book of economic anecdotes since 1973, during the OPEC oil embargo. “If you think of 1973, the U.S. economy wasn’t really functioning all that well then,” he says.

He says he’s perplexed why bond yields remain so low. “When you’re looking at a 10-year note
TMUBMUSD10Y,
1.325%
in the U.S., you’re looking not just at inflation next year, you’re trying to estimate where inflation is going to be over the next 10 years. And so even if inflation moderates from current levels, you would expect inflation would probably average over a 10 year period much higher than the current yield is,” he says, adding he doesn’t think real yields should be negative. The 10-year TIPS yielded -0.98% on Tuesday.

What could be happening is that investors are seeking a flight to quality, he says, though that doesn’t neatly fit with stock markets near records, and other assets surging. “You have to put the money somewhere,” he replies.

Matus says investors are in an unusual position where they can’t measure critical factors like the duration of the pandemic or how it will spread. “I think for a lot of investors, it defaults to basically, ‘do I want to be in the market or do I want to be out in the market, am I risk on or am I risk off?’ And I think that’s the behavior that you’re seeing in financial markets today.”

Market focus on the Fed dot plot

The Federal Reserve decision comes at 2 p.m. Eastern, and Chair Jerome Powell’s press conference is at 2:30 p.m. Key to the market reaction will be the dot plot of interest-rate forecasts. “Today’s dotplot likely will show more dots for a rate hike in 2022, but it’s not clear that progress since the June meeting has been enough to push three more FOMC members — making a majority — into expecting action next year,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

The onshore subsidiary of China Evergrande said it has resolved the issue of its coming debt payment, as the fate of a dollar-denominated bond remains in doubt. A report said Evergrande could be restructured into three separate entities that would involve state ownership.

An example of the margin pressure Matus discussed came as shipping and logistics giant FedEx
FDX,
-8.65%
lowered its outlook for the year, citing supply-chain disruptions and a tight labor market.

Adobe
ADBE,
-4.69%
beat Wall Street estimates, though the software maker’s stock still saw pressure.

The Justice Department is investigating Zoom Video Communication’s
ZM,
-0.73%
deal to buy Five9
FIVN,
-0.54%
for $15 billion over China ties, according to a letter posted on the Federal Communications Commission website.

Restaurant payments company Toast
TOST,

is due to start trading, after pricing its initial public offering at $40 per share, significantly above the expected range to garner a $20 billion valuation.

Netflix
NFLX,
+1.66%
agreed to buy the Roald Dahl Story Co., adding popular children’s stories to its stable — and the ability to make not just films and television shows but also games and live theater.

The market

After the 10th drop in 12 sessions for the S&P 500
SPX,
+0.40%
on Tuesday, stock futures
ES00,
+0.55%

NQ00,
+0.27%
were pointing solidly higher.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury
TMUBMUSD10Y,
1.325%
was 1.32%.

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Business

American Airlines, Nucor, Goldman Sachs and more

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Bundles of steel from Nucor Corp. sit for sale to at Thompson Building Materials in Lomita, California, U.S., on Thursday, Aug. 30, 2012.

Patrick Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.

American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines — Shares of American Airlines the major airlines rose over 1% Monday after the White House said it would ease travel restrictions for international travelers who are vaccinated against Covid-19. Shares of Delta and United gained earlier but ticked down nearly 0.2% each.

China Evergrande Group — Shares of the embattled Chinese property giant dropped 10% on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company has been scrambling to pay its suppliers, and warned investors that it could default on its debts. Last week, the company said its property sales will likely continue to drop significantly in September several months of weakness.

Centerpoint Energy, Dominion Energy — Utility stocks rose on Monday as investors shifted toward defensive plays during the broader market slide. Shares of Centerpoint and Dominion rose roughly 1% each.

Nucor, Freeport-McMoRan, Ford, Caterpillar — Stocks linked to global growth declined Monday. Steel stock Nucor declined 8.4%, miner Freeport-McMoRan fell 6.6%, auto maker Ford dropped 6% and construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar retreated 4.8%.

APA, Devon Energy — Energy stocks tumbled amid a drop in oil pries on concerns about the global economy. The S&P 500 energy sector fell 3.3%, becoming the worst-performing group among the 11 groups during Monday’s market sell-off. APA and Devon Energy both shed more than 6%. Occidental Petroleum dropped 6% and Hess slid over 5%.

Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase — Financials stocks declined as the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield dropped, with falling rates typically crimping bank profits. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Citigroup all shed more than 4%. JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley both declined more than 3%.

ARK Innovation, Coinbase, Tesla, Zoom, Square — Shares of Cathie Wood’s flagship fund dropped more than 4% as innovation names experienced harsh selling. Top holdings Coinbase and Teladoc both lost more than 5%. Unity Software shed over 5%, and Tesla dropped more than 3%. Square and Zoom Video dropped more than 3% each.

Pfizer — The drug maker stock ticked 0.3% higher after the company said its Covid vaccine is safe and appears to generate a robust immune response in kids ages 5 to 11. If the FDA spends as much time reviewing the data for that age group as it did for 12- to 15-year-olds, the shots could be available in time for Halloween.

AstraZeneca — Shares of the United Kingdom-based pharmaceutical company popped more than 4% in midday trading after announcing that its breast cancer drug Enhertu showed positive results in a phase-three trial.

Invesco — Invesco shares declined 9% Monday. The stock ran up on Friday following a Wall Street Journal report that the asset manager is in talks to merge with State Street’s asset management unit. The report, citing people familiar with the matter, said a deal is not imminent and might not happen at all.

— CNBC’s Maggie Fitzgerald, Yun Li and Jesse Pound contributed reporting

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5 things to know before the stock market opens Tuesday, Aug. 31

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Here are the most important news, trends and analysis that investors need to start their trading day:

1. S&P 500 looks to cement longest monthly win streak in nearly 4 years

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, on Monday, Aug. 23, 2021.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

U.S. stock futures were steady Tuesday, on the last day of August, with the S&P 500 tracking for a seventh straight monthly gain, its longest monthly winning streak since December 2017. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq again closed at record highs Monday. The Dow fell slightly, sending the 30-stock average to just over 0.6% away from its latest record close earlier this month. The Dow and Nasdaq were also poised for solid gains for August.

A trader working after the Nasdaq opening bell ceremony on April 18, 2019 in New York City.

Kena Betancur | Getty Images

Zoom Video Communications shares sank more than 14% in Tuesday’s premarket, a drop that would wipe out 2021 gains and then some. While beating estimates with quarterly earnings and revenue, the stock was under pressure on slowing growth from the meteoric levels seen as the Covid pandemic began in 2020. Zoom also delivered forward guidance that basically matched estimates.

2. South Korea bill to limit Apple, Google control over app store payments

The App Store logo displayed on a smartphone.

Igor Golovniov | SOPA Images | LightRocket via Getty Images

South Korea’s parliament passed a bill Tuesday to curb the payment policies of Apple and Alphabet’s Google that force developers to only use the tech giants’ proprietary billing systems. The measure, when signed into law, will make South Korea the first country to go after major app store operators, which can charge commissions as high as 30% on in-app transactions. Regulators worldwide are focusing leveling the playing field, and analysts view the South Korea measure as a possible first step toward greater scrutiny from other countries.

3. Biden set to address nation about end of America’s longest war

Taliban forces stand guard a day after the U.S. troops withdrawal from Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan August 31, 2021.

Stringer | Reuters

President Joe Biden plans to address the nation Tuesday afternoon about his decision not to prolong the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. The U.S. has finished its evacuation efforts from Kabul’s airport, effectively ending America’s longest war. The nearly two-decade conflict began not long after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In the final weeks of the U.S. troop and diplomatic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the civil government fell to the Taliban. On Thursday, terrorists from the group ISIS-K killed 13 U.S. service members and dozens of Afghans in an attack outside the airport. U.S. forces retaliated and launched strikes.

4. Ida power outages could take weeks to fix; wildfire threatens Lake Tahoe

A building was destroyed after Hurricane Ida passed through on August 30, 2021 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Brandon Bell | Getty Images

Power outages from Hurricane Ida could take weeks to fix in some parts of Louisiana, according to officials. Ida ravaged the region’s power grid, leaving the entire city of New Orleans and hundreds of thousands of other Louisiana customers in the dark. Power outages and widespread flooding slowed efforts Tuesday by energy companies to assess damages at oil production facilities, ports and refineries, many of which were shuttered ahead of the storm.

A chairlift at Sierra-at Tahoe ski resort sits idle as the Caldor Fire moves through the area on August 30, 2021 in Twin Bridges, California.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

A wildfire swept toward Lake Tahoe on Tuesday, hours after the entire California resort city of South Lake Tahoe was ordered to evacuate. Communities just across the state line in Nevada were warned to get ready to leave. The threat of fire is so widespread in the region that the U.S. Forest Service announced Monday that all national forests in California would be closed until Sept. 17.

5. CDC scientist says data limited to evaluate general population boosters

Nurse Samantha Reidy gives Alan Kramer, 74, a cancer patient, his Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 booster shot at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut on August 24, 2021.

Joseph Prezioso | AFP | Getty Images

A CDC scientist said Monday the data needed to properly evaluate Covid vaccine boosters for the general population is limited — even as the president pressures health officials to clear the additional shots for wide distribution beginning the week of Sept. 20. The CDC emphasized that vaccinating the unvaccinated should be a “top priority,” adding delivery of booster doses to vaccinated individuals should not deter outreach to those who remain unprotected from the virus. Biden said Friday that U.S. regulators are looking at administering Covid booster shots five months after people finish their primary immunizations.

— The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. Follow all the market action like a pro on CNBC Pro. Get the latest on the pandemic with CNBC’s coronavirus coverage.

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Stock futures are flat as S&P 500 and Nasdaq sit at a record

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A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., on Monday, Aug. 23, 2021.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

U.S. stock futures were steady in overnight trading on Sunday as investors readied for the final trading days of August.

Dow futures rose just 11 points. S&P 500 futures were little changed and Nasdaq 100 futures traded around the flatline.

Stocks could stay range-bound until the release of August’s jobs report on Friday. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect 750,000 jobs were created in August and the unemployment rate fell to 5.2%.

Monday and Tuesday mark the last two trading days of August. Thus far, the S&P 500 is up 2.6% in August. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.5% and 3.1% this month, respectively.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite closed at all-time highs on Friday as investors breathed a sigh of relief after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled bond tapering could start this year, but the central bank is in no rush to hike interest rates. 

Powell said inflation is solidly around the central bank’s 2% target rate, one of the goals of the Fed’s dual mandate; however, the Fed chairman also explained why he continues to think the current inflation rise is transitory and will eventually drop to the target level.

Based on statements from other Fed officials, a tapering announcement could come as soon as the Fed’s Sept. 21-22 meeting. Powell said the central bank has “much ground to cover” to reach its other goal of maximum employment.

Friday’s gains added to a strong week for the major averages. The Dow finished up 0.9%, while the S&P 500 added 1.5% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 2.8% last week.

With the Fed’s Jackson Hole meeting in the rearview, investors are now focused on the direction of stocks for the final months of the year. The S&P 500 is up more than 20% in 2021 but the market is also absorbing peak policy stimulus, peak earnings acceleration and peak reopening momentum.

Oil futures were up marginally as the commodity proved to have a minimal reaction to Hurricane Ida. WTI Crude futures rose 0.8%.

Cloudera and Zoom Video report earnings after the bell on Monday.

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Business

Square, Moderna, First Solar and more

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Take a look at some of the biggest movers in the premarket:

Square (SQ) – The digital payments company agreed to buy Australia’s Afterpay for about $29 billion in stock, representing a roughly 30% premium for Afterpay shareholders. Square shares fell 4.8% in the premarket, but news of the deal boosted shares of U.S.-based payment company Affirm (AFRM) by 8.2%.

Zoom Video (ZM) – The video conferencing company agreed to pay $85 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it violated the privacy rights of users. It also agreed to beef up its security practices to prevent so-called “Zoombombing,” where hackers disrupted Zoom meetings.

General Electric (GE) – GE has completed its previously announced one-for-eight reverse stock split and will begin trading on a post-split basis today.

Moderna (MRNA), Pfizer (PFE), BioNTech (BNTX) – Moderna and Pfizer both raised prices for their Covid-19 vaccines in their latest supply contracts, according to the Financial Times. Additionally, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Food and Drug Administration is under pressure to give both vaccines full approval and that this could happen within the next month for Pfizer and partner BioNTech. Moderna rose 2.5% in the premarket, Pfizer gained 1%, while BioNTech surged 5.1%.

Foot Locker (FL) – The athletic footwear and apparel retailer announced a deal to buy California-based shoe store chain WSS for $750 million and Japan-based streetwear brand Atmos for $360 million.

Uber Technologies (UBER) – Shares of Uber gained 1.1% in premarket trading after Gordon Haskett Research Advisors initiated coverage with a “buy” rating. Haskett called Uber a company that is continually engraining itself in the everyday lives of consumers through its ride-hailing and food delivery services.

Capri Holdings (CPRI) – Capri rose 1.2% in the premarket following an upgrade to “buy” from “neutral” at MKM Partners, which noted a string of better than expected quarters for the company behind brands like Michael Kors and Versace. MKM also cited an overall improvement in the luxury goods sector.

Discovery (DISCA) – Discovery is in informal talks about a potential bid for British state-owned broadcaster Channel 4, according to Britain’s Telegraph newspaper.

Robinhood (HOOD) – More than 300,000 users of the stock trading app bought shares in Robinhood’s initial public offering last week, according to The Wall Street Journal. That represents about 1.3% of the company’s funded account base. Robinhood added 1.5% in premarket trading.

Parker-Hannifin (PH) – The maker of motion control technology and other industrial products is buying British rival Meggitt for about $8.8 billion in cash. Parker-Hannifin shares fell 2.2% in premarket action.

Li Auto (LI) – The China-based electric vehicle maker delivered 8,589 vehicles in July, an increase of 125% compared to July 2020. Li’s U.S.-based shares surged 4.3% in the premarket.

First Solar (FSLR) – The solar power systems maker’s shares gained 2.9% in premarket trading after Susquehanna Financial upgraded the stock to “positive” from “neutral,” based on upbeat management comments on solar module demand and pricing.

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