The daily business briefing: August 13, 2020

Tesla shares soar after stock-split announcement, media mogul Sumner Redstone dies at 97, and more

A Tesla car recharges in Germany.
(Image credit: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)

1. Tesla shares jump after stock-split announcement

Tesla shares surged by more than 13 percent on Wednesday, a day after the electric-car maker announced plans for a 5-to-1 stock split. Tesla's stock has gained more than 500 percent over the last year as the company reached profitability and hit many of its targets for deliveries of its first mass market car. Tesla's rise above $1,500 a share has generated interest, but a share split does nothing to change a stock's fundamentals. "Any value in the stock that's created by this is false," CNBC's Jim Cramer said on Squawk Box. "But I think the idea of getting newer, younger people involved into the stock market who aren't just brainwashed to put money into index funds is terrific."

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Harold Maass, The Week US

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.