Here are the most important news items that investors need to start their trading day:
1. Tough August
Wall Street kicked off the week with a winning day on Monday. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose 0.6% and 0.8%, respectively, while the Dow ended more than 200 points higher for a gain of about 0.6%. Nonetheless, stocks had a rough August and all three indexes are on pace to end the month lower. The Dow is on track to finish 2.8% lower, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are poised for losses of 3.4% and 4.5%, respectively. On Tuesday, investors are watching for earnings from Best Buy and HP, as well as data on home prices, job openings and consumer confidence. Follow live market updates.
2. Open(AI) for business
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OpenAI is rolling out a new business tier for its artificial intelligence chatbot. It’s the company’s biggest launch since it announced ChatGPT’s debut. OpenAI said more than 20 companies of varying sizes and industries helped develop the tool, including beta users Block, Canva and Estée Lauder Cos. ChatGPT Enterprise, as it’s called, includes access to the latest version of OpenAI’s primary large language model, GPT-4, with no usage caps; performance that’s up to two times faster than previous versions; and API, or application programming interfaces, credits. OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap said pricing “will depend, for us, on every company’s use cases and size.”
3. Goldman gets out
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon speaks during the 2023 Forbes Iconoclast Summit at Pier 60 on June 12, 2023 in New York City.
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Goldman Sachs is selling another business that CEO David Solomon once touted. The bank said on Monday it would offload its personal financial management unit to a competitor named Creative Planning, declining to disclose the transaction price. Goldman paid $750 million for a team of about 220 financial advisors managing $25 billion in assets in May 2019. Solomon at the time said it was a way to broaden Goldman’s reach beyond its ultra-rich clientele. But his retail banking plan ultimately didn’t take off and the bank determined the personal financial management unit was too small.
4. Google maps data
Google workers stage a walkout protest over job cuts at the company’s headquarters in London, United Kingdom on April 04, 2023.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Google plans to license some of its mapping data to a variety of other companies. CNBC’s Jennifer Elias reports that Google has data on more than 350 million buildings, as well as solar and energy information and air quality. The idea is that other companies — such as those that install solar panels or are in the real estate sector — may want access to that information. Google currently licenses its mapping API for navigation to companies like Uber, but this would be a new venture with different APIs. Google hopes to generate up to $100 million in its first year by selling access to APIs with the data.
5. Utility liability
Employees of the Hawaiian Electric restore electric poles in the aftermath of the Maui wildfires in Lahaina, Hawaii on August 16, 2023.
Yuki Iwamura | AFP | Getty Images
As infrastructure ages, electric utilities in the United States are increasingly facing lawsuits for allegedly being at fault for massive fires that have cost hundreds of lives and billions of dollars in damages. Hawaiian Electric is the latest. Lawsuits claim it failed to prepare for extreme weather after a wildfire in Maui, Hawaii, left more than 100 people dead and destroyed the town of Lahaina. In this case, plaintiffs say the utility didn’t turn off power despite weather warnings, claims Hawaiian Electric has pushed back against. Others facing litigation include PG&E over the 2018 Camp Fire in California, Berkshire Hathaway’s PacifiCorp over the 2020 Labor Day wildfires in Oregon, and Xcel Energy over the 2021 Marshall Fire in Colorado. Experts say old power lines could make the problem worse in the future.
— CNBC’s Alex Harring, Hayden Field, Hugh Son, Jennifer Elias, Spencer Kimball and Gabriel Cortés contributed to this report.
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