Boeing's brutal 2024, Reddit's IPO, AI stocks, and underwater car loans: The week's most popular stories

This was supposed to be Boeing’s year. After putting Boeing’s last 737 Max crisis behind it, CEO Dave Calhoun had been hoping the company could chart a path toward smoother skies. But then an ill-fated Alaska Airlines flight threw Boeing’s whole year into chaos.

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Boeing got dealt another reputational blow on Friday, but not because of something one of its planes did. Instead it’s because the credit ratings agency Fitch announced that it was affirming the rating for plane maker’s long-term default risk but downgrading the outlook on that rating to “stable” from “positive.” A small change that speaks volumes.

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Reddit hasn’t turned a profit since it was founded in 2005. The social media site posted a loss of $91 million in 2023, according to the company’s IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But the losses are getting slimmer. The company’s total loss shrunk 43% between 2022 and 2023, when Reddit started charging fees to third-party developers using its application programming interface (API). The move sparked outrage among Redditors, but their protests had little effect. Reddit sales increased about 21% to $804 million last year.

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Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman has been blasted by Redditors and in media reports over his recently-revealed, super-sized pay package of $193 million in 2023. The staggering figure was included in the company’s U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing on Feb. 22 as it prepares to launch an initial public offering this week. Huffman defended his compensation in a video on his social media platform this week. Quartz calculates that it’s more than the pay packages for the CEOs of Pinterest, Snap, and Meta — combined.

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The AI investing craze has continued to heat up in 2024. AI chip maker Nvidia’s stock alone is up 77% since of the start of the year. While some Wall Street analysts warn that the AI frenzy is a “bubble within a bubble,” others argue that the big tech stocks are actually undervalued.

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The supply chain snarls that followed the pandemic have been mostly unsnarled. Inflation has fallen far below its 2022 peak. And the economy continues to hum, with the recession forecasts that dominated last year well in the rearview mirror. But many of America’s biggest retailers are still dealing with a tangled mess: too many stores, too much product, and shoppers still too spooked by high prices to buy anything they don’t really need.

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Medicare will start covering the popular weight loss drug Wegovy for patients who are prescribed the medication as a way to reduce their risk of serious heart events such as heart attacks and strokes, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced.

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Every year, the price of a new car ticks ever upwards. Loans get longer, yet monthly payments are always on the rise, leading to an epidemic of folks underwater on their loans. Now, there’s a new complicating factor: Used car prices are falling, meaning folks are getting less for their over-leveraged trade than ever.

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It can seem impossible these days to find a car that’s cheap, reliable, safe and new — good deals do exist. To prove it to you, we’re sharing a great study from Consumer Reports; the publication has found some of the cheapest cars in America based on transaction price. Yes, there are still cars out there that are selling for under MSRP! And, according to CR and partner TrueCar, many of those cars are actually even good.

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Law enforcement in Kansas recorded the front of a man’s home for 68 days straight, 15 hours a day, and obtained evidence to prove him guilty on 16 charges. The officers did not have a search warrant, using a camera on a pole positioned across the street to capture Bruce Hay’s home. A federal court ruled that it was fine for law enforcement to do so, in what’s potentially a major reduction in privacy law.

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Federal regulators want to fix McDonald’s broken ice cream machines, and they’re asking to expand right-to-repair laws to address the issue. In a letter to the U.S. Copyright Office, regulators asked for commercial soft-serve machines to be exempt from current laws making them difficult to repair. The laws also make it more difficult for you to get a McFlurry. Gizmodo

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A CT scan of Stanley’s viral Quencher cup has confirmed what the company has been saying all along: There’s only lead at the bottom of the cup. The lead is covered by a stainless steel cover, which Stanley says makes it “inaccessible to customers.” In the end, though, lead exposure might come down to a matter of luck. 

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