What you need to know on Wall Street today
Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours.
Few areas of the US market performed better than small-cap stocks following the presidential election. But hedge funds are betting the group's best days are finished.
The Russell 2000 has surged by 17% since Donald Trump's victory - handily outpacing the S&P 500 by more than 3 percentage points - amid expectations that the more domestically focused group would be best positioned to benefit from a lower corporate tax rate.
Now that investors are growing increasingly skeptical that any of Trump's policies will be passed in a timely fashion, those big relative gains in small-cap shares look awfully precarious.
Treasury yields pressed to their lowest levels since the days following Trump's election win. And Wall Street has been dead wrong on one of its biggest calls of the year.
Job openings in America are at a record high. China just went full-on Big Brother on its credit card system. China's economy is becoming more like America's - and not in a good way. And South Africa slumped into its first recession since 2009.
Jim Chanos' pharma short got crushed after an ally bashed it to all Wall Street. Bidding on a lunch with Warren Buffett quickly hit $1 million. And a group including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have taken a stake in the Yellow Pages of finance.
In news about millennials:
- A daily cup of coffee ends up costing a lot more than you think
- "Psychologically scarred" millennials are killing dozens of industries - and it's their parents' fault
- Six reasons why more millennials aren't buying homes
- Apple made a big change to Apple Pay that could kill millennials' favorite payment app
- Here's the average net worth of Americans at every age
- San Francisco is spending $70,000 to rebrand its financial center as a hipster enclave
In other news, Bitcoin hit a new high. Mark Cuban thinks the cryptocurrency is a bubble. And Wall Street firms are betting that the technology behind bitcoin could help them cut jobs.
Two giant drugmakers are racing to make a breakthrough in treating HIV, and there's $22 billion on the line.
New York's MTA says it will write "late-to-work" notes for commuters as subway delays surge, leaving people stranded and furious. GM shareholders shot down David Einhorn's radical stock-split plan. More than 9,000 Volkswagen employees are taking a deal to leave the company as the carmaker cuts costs.
Qatar Airways has chartered emergency flights to evacuate stranded passengers. One map shows how much trouble Qatar Airways may be in.
In tech, Apple is now the leader in the technology that could replace the smartphone, but it doesn't have a vision yet. Spotify has a video business you've never heard of, and it's hoping a new "surgical" approach will change that.
Lastly, for $300, this new startup will clean your closet, fold your clothes, or create outfits for you.
Finance Insider will be back next week after a short break.