The daily business briefing: December 18, 2023

1. Southwest reaches settlement over 2022 holiday meltdown

Southwest Airlines has agreed to pay a $35 million fine as part of a $140 million settlement agreement over a December 2022 meltdown that stranded more than two million holiday travelers. The U.S. Department of Transportation said the assessment was the largest ever imposed on an airline for violating consumer protection laws, and would discourage Southwest from repeating the chaos. Most of the money from the settlement will help compensate passengers. "This penalty should put all airlines on notice to take every step possible to ensure that a meltdown like this never happens again," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. Before the settlement, Southwest said refunds and lost ticket sales from the meltdown would cost the airline more than $1.1 billion. The Associated Press

2. Falling mortgage rates boost hopes of frustrated would-be homebuyers

The lowest mortgage rates since the summer have started increasing interest among potential homebuyers, although owners with much lower mortgage rates are still reluctant to sell, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. The average 30-year fixed-rate loan fell from nearly 8% in October to less than 7% last week. Mortgage applications have risen for six straight weeks as rates fell, prompting real-estate agents to predict more buying in 2024, starting after the holidays. "There's just a lot of pent-up demand," Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at real-estate listings database Bright MLS, told the Journal. The Wall Street Journal

3. Union members authorize potential Anheuser-Busch strike

Teamster union members voted overwhelmingly over the weekend to authorize a strike at Anheuser-Busch's U.S. breweries. Ninety-nine percent of the union's 5,000 members at Anheuser-Busch's 12 breweries across the country backed the potential strike. Strike authorizations are a common negotiating tactic and don't always result in a walkout. The Teamsters union is demanding a new agreement that increases wages, protects jobs and improves health care and retirement benefits for its members when their current contract expires on Feb. 29. The threatened strike comes after Anheuser-Busch's parent company, AB InBev, lost sales and saw its stock price fall amid a conservative-led Bud Light boycott over the brand's brief partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. USA Today, Reuters

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4. Stock futures inch up after Wall Street posts another weekly gain

U.S. stock futures edged higher after the major indexes extended their winning streak to seven weeks. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 were up 0.2% at 7 a.m. ET. Nasdaq futures were flat. The S&P 500's gains last week capped its longest series of weekly increases since 2017, CNBC noted. It is now up 3.3% this month. The Dow and the tech-heavy Nasdaq have gained 3.8% and 4.1%, respectively, so far in December. The Dow also reached record closings and intraday highs last week after the Federal Reserve boosted investor sentiment by indicating it anticipated three interest-rate cuts in 2024 now that inflation is cooling. CNBC

5. 'Wonka' debut fuels hopes for holiday box office

"Wonka," featuring Timothée Chalamet in the title role, brought in a better-than-expected $39 million in its debut weekend in North American cinemas, in a promising sign for the holiday season box office. The musical fantasy film led the domestic box office, beating out another prequel, "Hunger Games: A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes," for the top spot. "Wonka," which tells the origin story of the fictional chocolatier, also scored $92.6 million in ticket sales overseas, making it the No. 1 movie globally over the weekend. The film follows a young Willy Wonka before his days as the mysterious chocolate factory owner from Roald Dahl's 1964 book, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." The Hollywood Reporter, CNN