The daily business briefing: September 13, 2017

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1. Apple unveils 10th anniversary iPhone X
2. Job openings hit record high
3. U.S. stock indexes all close at records
4. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon calls bitcoin a classic bubble
5. Trump administration releases self-driving car guidelines

published 13 September 2017

1. Apple unveils 10th anniversary iPhone X

Apple on Tuesday unveiled the iPhone X (pronounced "ten"), which CEO Tim Cook called the "biggest leap forward since the original iPhone." The 5.8-inch smartphone has a massive, edge-to-edge screen. There's no home button, and the phone will unlock using a facial recognition system. "Every time you glance at your phone, it detects your face — even in the dark," Apple Senior Vice President Philip Schiller said. Another new feature is Animoji, which Schiller described as emojis that can be controlled with your face. During the event, Apple also unveiled the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, cheaper versions of its smartphone that feature wireless charging, and the Apple Watch Series 3, which has built-in cellular capability.

U.S. job openings increased by 54,000 to a seasonally adjusted 6.2 million in July, a record high, the Labor Department reported Tuesday in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. The report also showed that more people were leaving their jobs in a sign that they were confident they could find something better elsewhere. The so-called quits rate matched a post-recession high. Employers also continued to have trouble finding skilled and experienced people to hire. Taken together, the data supported previous indications of a strong jobs market, despite a hiring slowdown in August, potentially encouraging the Federal Reserve to continue tightening its monetary policy this year.

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All three major U.S. stock indexes rose to all-time closing highs on Tuesday, building on Monday's strong gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed up 0.3 percent to set its 36th record of the year. McDonald's Corp. held back the Dow as they dropped by the most in a year after a bearish note by research firm M Science. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite also added 0.3 percent. Wall Street, lacking a catalyst for fresh gains, headed toward a lower open on Wednesday, with Dow and S&P 500 futures edging down by 0.1 percent, and Nasdaq-100 futures falling by 0.2 percent.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon said the cryptocurrency bitcoin was a "fraud" and its high-flying price was the result of a classic bubble, "worse than tulip bulbs," a 17th-century craze that swept Holland and has been cited as the textbook example of a market bubble ever since. Dimon said he would fire any trader he caught trading in bitcoin, "For two reasons: It's against our rules, and they're stupid. And both are dangerous." Bitcoin dropped by 1 percent after the remarks. CBOE Holdings Chairman and CEO Ed Tilly, whose company is teaming up with Gemini Trust Co. on a plan to offer bitcoin futures, defended cryptocurrencies. "Like it or not, people want exposure to bitcoin," Tilly said.

The Department of Transportation on Tuesday released revised guidelines on self-driving cars. The recommendations were the first issued under the Trump administration. They were similar to guidelines issued last year under then-President Barack Obama, but slightly scaled back. For example, the recommendations under Obama offered a 15-point voluntary safety assessment for companies designing automated driving systems, but the new proposed evaluation has just 12 points. The news came on a day when the National Transportation Safety Board concluded after a year-long investigation that Tesla's Autopilot system had "played a major role" in a fatal crash in Florida.

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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.