Network goes down - It only lasted for several hours on Tuesday, but an outage at Amazon Web Services (AMZN) showed just how connected our world really is. The issue primarily affected the "US-EAST-1 Region," which is hosted in Northern Virginia, but covers cities across the country including Boston, Chicago and Houston. Warehouse and delivery workers, along with drivers for Amazon Flex, couldn't scan packages or access delivery routes, while some Ring devices went offline, as well as voice assistant Alexa.What happened? Amazon didn't reveal the cause of the outage, but others were quick to comment. "More and more these outages end up being the product of automation and centralization of administration," said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Kentik. "This ends up leading to outages that are hard to completely avoid due to operational complexity but are very impactful when they happen."Multiple popular websites were also impacted, including those hosted McDonald's (MCD), Robinhood (HOOD) and Coinbase (COIN). The outage separately took down major streaming services, like Netflix (NFLX) and Disney+ (DIS), and prevented people from getting into Walt Disney's theme parks. Meanwhile, customers trying to book or change trips with Delta (DAL) had trouble connecting to the airline, Toyota's (TM) U.S. East Region for dealer services went offline and some smart lightbulbs and Roomba vacuums stopped working.Market movement: The outage did not impact Amazon shares. The stock finished the session up 2.8% to $3,523, in line with the broader market.
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| | Top News  Shutterstock It only lasted for several hours on Tuesday, but an outage at Amazon Web Services (AMZN) showed just how connected our world really is. The issue primarily affected the "US-EAST-1 Region," which is hosted in Northern Virginia, but covers cities across the country including Boston, Chicago and Houston. Warehouse and delivery workers, along with drivers for Amazon Flex, couldn't scan packages or access delivery routes, while some Ring devices went offline, as well as voice assistant Alexa.
What happened? Amazon didn't reveal the cause of the outage, but others were quick to comment. "More and more these outages end up being the product of automation and centralization of administration," said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Kentik. "This ends up leading to outages that are hard to completely avoid due to operational complexity but are very impactful when they happen."
Multiple popular websites were also impacted, including those hosted McDonald's (MCD), Robinhood (HOOD) and Coinbase (COIN). The outage separately took down major streaming services, like Netflix (NFLX) and Disney+ (DIS), and prevented people from getting into Walt Disney's theme parks. Meanwhile, customers trying to book or change trips with Delta (DAL) had trouble connecting to the airline, Toyota's (TM) U.S. East Region for dealer services went offline and some smart lightbulbs and Roomba vacuums stopped working.
Market movement: The outage did not impact Amazon shares. The stock finished the session up 2.8% to $3,523, in line with the broader market. | | Trending The crypto world will tune in to a House hearing this morning, entitled, "Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: Understanding the Challenges and Benefits of Financial Innovation in the United States." On the witness list are top brass from half a dozen crypto firms, including Alesia Jeanne Haas, CFO of Coinbase Global (NASDAQ: COIN). Lawmakers hope the session will improve their understanding of crypto assets and how the sector fits into existing regulations. Bigger picture: The executives are expected to highlight the potential upsides of crypto and blockchain technology while downplaying the risks of the sector. They'll also urge Congress to pass laws which would give crypto regulatory authority to a single federal agency. Under current rules, the SEC oversees spot markets for securities, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversees derivatives markets based on commodities, but neither regulator maintains regular oversight of spot markets for commodities like Bitcoin ( BTC-USD) and Ethereum ( ETH-USD). "A successful policy framework would allow crypto platforms to offer both spot and derivatives trading on crypto assets under one unified system, with one rule book and one technology platform to manage risks related to all trading activity in customer accounts," Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX, said in prepared remarks to the House Financial Services Committee. Go deeper: Other topics likely to be discussed are investor protection, accountability of crypto exchanges, stablecoin offerings and emerging fintech products and services. Supporters say crypto can enable faster and cheaper transactions than traditional payment networks, as well as innovation and financial inclusion. However, policymakers have previously voiced concerns over the threat to financial stability, and criminal activity like fraud, tax evasion and money laundering. | | Sponsored By Northern Trust  With new private investment opportunities emerging across a range of asset classes, is now the time to reevaluate the role of private investments in your portfolio? A new report offers research-backed insights to weigh your options. Learn More | | Covid In what could be the first lab-based testing on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against Omicron, researchers at the Africa Health Research Institute in South Africa have found that the variant could partially evade the protection generated by Pfizer-BioNTech (PFE, BNTX) COVID-19 vaccine. Under the experiment, the scientists took 14 plasma samples from 12 participants that had been vaccinated, 6 of whom were previously infected.
Specifics: The laboratory led by Prof. Alex Sigal found that an Omicron infection resulted in a 41-fold drop in virus-blocking antibodies compared with the original strain of the coronavirus detected in Wuhan. Omicron also escaped antibody neutralization "much more extensively" than the Beta variant that was previously dominant in South Africa. Meanwhile, researchers reported that people who had previously been infected with COVID-19 - in addition to having been double vaccinated - retained "relatively high levels" of antibody protection, which would "likely confer protection from severe disease in Omicron infection."
BioNTech will respond to the publication with its own data later this week, with CEO Ugur Sahin saying, "I would be more optimistic." Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel feels differently, warning that the new variant would likely result in a "material drop" in vaccine effectiveness.
Analyst commentary: Evercore ISI is warning against reading too much into a single study, noting there has been significant variability in measuring declines in antibody levels. "Let's wait for additional studies to draw a mosaic," declared analyst Umer Raffat. Investors also seem to be reflecting similar sentiment, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average set to record its best start to a December since 1997 following a brief panic over Omicron. | | Tech China's crackdown on its technology sector looks set to continue following nearly a year of unwieldy regulatory efforts. It all began in November 2020, when Jack Ma's Ant Group was forced to cancel what would have been the world's largest IPO. Regulatory efforts then turned to data security and protection - with large fines imposed on Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) and food-delivery giant Meituan ( OTCPK:MPNGY) - and culminated in a New York Stock Exchange delisting announcement last week by DiDi Global (NYSE: DIDI). | | |
The latest: China is said to be drawing up a blacklist that will make it harder for new technology companies to raise foreign funding and list overseas,
FT reports. The blacklist could be published as early as this month, and would include startups that use a so-called variable interest entity structure, which is controlled by a company by means other than a majority of voting rights. VIEs have been used for decades by Chinese tech groups, such as Alibaba (
BABA) and Tencent (
OTCPK:TCEHY), to circumvent foreign investment restrictions and raise funds internationally.
Prompting the decision is the Chinese Communist Party's move away from the proliferation of the private sector to a more state-owned enterprise economy (or at least having more involvement and control of the business environment). Compared to prior decades, the new economic order is more concerned about the control of data and flows of capital vs. economic liberalization and reforms. The CCP is also fearful that foreign investment could lead to "disorderly capital expansion," which means that foreign interests influence what goes on inside China.
Thought bubble: The U.S. has taken similar measures to restrict Chinese investment in Silicon Valley startups, though most of those worries come from a place of fear that critical technologies and intellectual property could be stolen. Washington has also beefed up the power of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which can block deals on national security grounds. However, some fears surrounding data sharing are more similar, like the executive orders targeting TikTok (
BDNCE) under the Trump administration or the investigation of apps tied to foreign adversaries under President Biden.
Today's Markets
In Asia, Japan +1.4%. Hong Kong +0.1%. China +1.2%. India +1.8%.
In Europe, at midday, London +0.1%. Paris -0.3%. Frankfurt -0.4%.
Futures at 6:20, Dow +0.2%. S&P flat. Nasdaq +0.3%. Crude -1.3% at $71.15. Gold +0.5% at $1793.50. Bitcoin -4.1% at $49416.
Ten-year Treasury Yield -4 bps to 1.44%
Today's Economic Calendar
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