The daily business briefing: June 20, 2023

Indian airline IndiGo announced a record order for 500 Airbus A320 aircraft

(Image credit: INDRANIL MUKHERJEE / AFP via Getty Images)

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1. IndiGo airline makes record order for Airbus planes
2. Alibaba announces leadership reshuffle
3. 1.5 million lose Medicaid coverage
4. Stock futures rise after S&P 500, Nasdaq extend weekly winning streaks
5. Companies pledge to find work for 250,000 refugees in Europe

By Harold Maass, The Week US

published 20 June 2023

1. IndiGo airline makes record order for Airbus planes

Indian airline IndiGo announced a record order for 500 Airbus A320 aircraft on Monday on the first day of the Paris Airshow. The deal, valued at $55 billion before adjusting for bulk order discounts, would be the biggest single airline purchase in history. With the new order, IndiGo has committed to buying 1,330 planes from Airbus, the European rival of U.S. aircraft maker Boeing. IndiGo said the new planes would help it reduce its operating costs and increase the fuel efficiency of its fleet. India is the fastest growing G-20 economy, and its airline market, with a rush of first-time flyers since pandemic restrictions ended, could soon replace China as the industry's main source of growth.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba announced Tuesday its CEO and chair Daniel Zhang is stepping down from those jobs and will focus on his responsibilities as head of the company's cloud division. The unexpected shakeup comes as Alibaba presses ahead with its plan to split into six businesses. Zhang took over leadership of the cloud unit in December after it had what Alibaba described as its "longest major-scale failure" in more than a decade, according to Reuters. Executive Vice Chairman Joseph Tsai, a longtime confidant of billionaire co-founder Jack Ma, will take over as board chair, and Eddie Wu, head of Alibaba's core Taobao and Tmall online commerce divisions, will take over as CEO. Alibaba shares fell 2.4% in New York pre-market trading.

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About 1.5 million people have lost Medicaid health coverage in recent weeks as some states cut back now that the coronavirus public health emergency is over. Most of those who have lost coverage were dropped because they didn't complete paperwork for a required eligibility review. The Biden administration said it was wrong to deprive so many people of coverage in such a short period. The biggest cuts have come in Florida, which has dropped several hundred thousand people. Half of those dropped in May were in Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia.

U.S. stock futures fell early Tuesday ahead of a trading week shortened by the Juneteenth holiday. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 were down 0.4% at 6:30 a.m. ET. Nasdaq futures were down 0.5%. Markets were closed Monday for Juneteenth, but the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq are coming off their best weeks since March. The S&P 500 gained 2.6% last week, its fifth straight positive week. The Nasdaq rose 3.3%, marking the first time since 2019 it has gained in eight consecutive weeks. The gains suggested investors were responding positively to the Federal Reserve's June decision to pause its campaign to aggressively raise interest rates to fight high inflation.

Dozens of multinational companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, Marriott, and Hilton, pledged on Monday to hire, train, or find work for 250,000 refugees in Europe over the next three years. The agreement came ahead of World Refugee Day on Tuesday. Kelly Clements, United Nations deputy high commissioner for refugees, said the commitments are "absolutely essential" as there are 110 million displaced people worldwide, 12 million of them from Ukraine, and nearly half live in Europe. "Having money and a job can help them get a bit of dignity and a feeling that they are contributing, which can be cathartic," said Margot Slattery, global head of diversity and inclusion at workplace facilities management company ISS.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.