The daily business briefing: February 7, 2020

1. Casper Sleep shares rise from low IPO price

Mattress startup Casper Sleep made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, receiving a muted response from investors. The company, which sells mattresses online, launched its initial public offering of stock at $12 per share. The stock opened at $14.50 per share, and closed at $13.50 on its first day. The initial price was at the low end of the expected range. Casper raised $100 million in the offering, which valued the money-losing company at less than $500 million. It was valued at $1.1 billion by private investors last year. Casper was the latest in a string of money-losing young companies to get a lukewarm welcome from investors.

The Wall Street Journal The New York Times

2. Trump administration finalizes plan to open once protected land for business

The Interior Department on Thursday finalized plans to allow drilling, mining, logging, and grazing in parts of southern Utah once protected in the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. President Trump two years ago sharply reduced the size of the monuments, angering tribal groups and conservationists. The proposal to open the land for business is expected to energize a legal fight over the land, which includes badlands, slot canyons, and other features sacred to Native American nations. Under language Congress included in a spending bill, the earliest the Trump administration could approve mining claims or other projects in the areas is Oct. 1.

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The Washington Post

3. January jobs report expected to show solid gains

Economists expect the monthly employment report coming out Friday morning to show that nonfarm employers in the United States added 161,000 jobs in January, according to FactSet. That would be below the monthly average hiring growth of the past two years, but enough to reduce the unemployment rate over time. The jobless rate currently stands at 3.5 percent, a 50-year low. Unseasonably mild temperatures probably helped the employment picture in weather-sensitive industries like construction, boosting expectations of continued modest growth. But the Labor Department report is expected to show that job gains from April 2018 through March 2019 were not as strong as initially estimated.

The Associated Press Reuters

4. Stock futures fall slightly from Thursday's record highs

U.S. stock index futures edged down early Friday after four straight days of gains. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq were down by about 0.1 percent several hours before the opening bell. On Thursday, the main U.S. indexes closed at all-time highs thanks to a boost from China's announcement that it would halve tariffs on $75 billion worth of U.S. imports to "advance the healthy and stable development" of trade between the world's two largest economies. That news overshadowed lingering concerns over possible economic damage from China's coronavirus outbreak.

CNBC Barron's

5. Uber shares surge after ride-hailing company moves up profitability target

Uber shares rose by as much as 10 percent in after-hours trading after the company reported a fourth-quarter loss that was smaller than expected. The surge followed CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's announcement during the company's earnings call that Uber was moving a key profitability target to the fourth quarter of 2020. Previously, the ride-hailing company had promised to reach profitability in 2021. Uber is forecasting a $1.35 billion loss for 2020, below a FactSet analyst consensus of $2.83 billion. Uber's quarterly revenue came in at $4.07 billion, just beating the $4.06 billion expected by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.

CNBC