1. Trump to nominate Christopher Waller, Judy Shelton to Fed board
President Trump said Tuesday he plans to nominate economists Christopher Waller and Judy Shelton to the central bank's board. Trump has frequently criticized the Fed for not slashing interest rates to give the economy a boost. Shelton, the U.S. executive director for the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, supports the gold standard and has expressed support for lowering interest rates. Waller, executive vice president and research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, has not been as clear about his position on interest rates, although his regional Fed bank's president, James Bullard, has called for lower rates. Both candidates would have to be confirmed by the Senate.
2. Former auto industry leader Lee Iacocca dies at 94
Lee Iacocca, the auto industry leader known for helping develop the Ford Mustang in 1964 and rescuing Chrysler in the 1980s, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 94. After graduating from Lehigh University, Iacocca began working at the Ford Motor Company in 1946, moving his way up the ranks and becoming president in 1970, before being fired by Henry Ford II in 1978. He took over Chrysler while it was on the brink of bankruptcy, and turned the company around. With Iacocca at the helm, Chrysler introduced the minivan, and he appeared in the company's commercials, saying, "If you can find a better car, buy it." He is survived by two daughters and eight grandchildren.
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3. Germany fines Facebook $2.3 million for underreporting complaints
Facebook was hit with a $2.3 million fine by German authorities, who say the company underreported the amount of illegal content complaints it has received. The German Federal Office of Justice on Tuesday said that a 2018 transparency report Facebook submitted as required by German law "lists only a fraction of complaints about illegal content," creating a "distorted public image." Officials said Facebook only counted certain types of complaints in the report, producing an inaccurate number. The law was implemented to combat hate speech. Politico notes this is the "first time that a European country has sanctioned an American social media giant for failing to be transparent about the way it handles hate speech." Facebook in a statement said its report was "in accordance with the law."
4. Modest gains lift the S&P 500 to another record
Stocks edged higher on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 climbing by 0.3 percent to a new record-high close despite concerns about newly announced tariffs on an additional $4 billion worth of European goods. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq also inched up by just over 0.2 percent. The proposed duties are the latest development in a 15-year dispute at the World Trade Organization over aircraft subsidies given to U.S. aircraft maker Boeing and European rival Airbus. Early Wednesday, U.S. stock index futures continued to rise, but modestly. Futures for the Dow were up by 0.2 percent, while those of the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq gained 0.3 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively, as investors awaited a fresh batch of economic data.
5. Tesla reports record quarterly deliveries
Tesla shares rose by nearly 7 percent in after-hours trading after the electric-car maker reported Tuesday that it had delivered 95,200 cars in the latest quarter, beating a company record of 90,700 deliveries set in the fourth quarter of 2018. In the first quarter of 2019, Tesla delivered 63,000 vehicles. In the second quarter last year the figure was just 40,740, as Tesla struggled to ramp up production of its first mass-market car, the Model 3. That car is already Tesla's best-selling vehicle. It accounted for 77,550 of Tesla's deliveries in the latest quarter. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the Model 3, priced lower than Tesla's earlier luxury vehicles, "remains the linchpin of the Tesla growth story."
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