Catch up on the weekend’s top five stories with this list compiled by The Fly: 1. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a sweeping order requiring the use of face masks on nearly all forms of public transportation Monday as the country continues to report thousands of daily COVID-19 deaths, Reuters’ David Shepardson reported. The order, which takes effect at 11:59 p.m. EST on Monday, requires face masks to be worn by all travelers on airplanes, ships, trains, subways, buses, taxis, and ride-shares and at transportation hubs like airports, bus or ferry terminals, train and subway stations and seaports, the author noted. Publicly traded companies in the space include Alaska Air (ALK), American Airlines (AAL), Delta Air Lines (DAL), JetBlue (JBLU), Southwest (LUV), Spirit Airlines (SAVE) and United Airlines (UAL). 2. The chief executives of ExxonMobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) spoke last year about combining the oil giants, The Wall Street Journal’s Christopher Matthews, Emily Glazer and Cara Lombardo reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Chevron Chief Executive Mike Wirth and Exxon CEO Darren Woods spoke shortly after the coronavirus pandemic took hold, decimating oil and gas demand and putting enormous financial strain on both companies, the people said. The discussions were described as preliminary and aren’t ongoing but could come back in the future, the sources added. 3. QuantumScape (QS), a battery start-up founded by Stanford University scientists a decade ago, generates no sales and says it won’t have meaningful revenue until 2026, Al Root wrote in this week’s edition of Barron’s. Yet its stock has rocketed 377% since August-even after a recent pullback of more than 60% from its peak, he adds. QuantumScape has generated excitement by pioneering a new battery technology, but by any measure, this is an overvalued stock, the author contended, noting however that overvaluation is everywhere in 2021. 4. Facebook (FB) in 2019 redesigned its flagship product to center on what it called Groups, forums for like-minded users, but now the social-networking giant is clamping down on Groups, The Wall Street Journal’s Jeff Horwitz wrote. The effort began after Facebook’s own research found that American Facebook Groups became a vector for the rabid partisanship and even calls for violence that inflamed the country after the election, the author noted. The changes, which Facebook escalated after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, involve overhauling the mechanics of a product that was meant to be central to its future, the publication added. 5. IG Group said it will restrict any new positions on GameStop (GME) and AMC Entertainment (AMC). Via Twitter, the online trading platform said that, “Due to extreme volatility, and to prioritize the service we give our existing clients, we are not allowing any new positions to be opened on the US stocks GameStop and AMC Entertainment.” Meanwhile, Interactive Brokers (IBKR) announced that on Friday it lifted all trading restrictions on options in AMC, BlackBerry (BB), Express (EXPR), GameStop, Koss Corp. (KOSS) and other options that experienced recent market volatility. The options, as well as the underlying stocks, are currently subject to increased margin requirements, which are subject to change depending on market conditions, the company said.
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