Good morning. US stock futures fell in Friday morning trading as investors continue to parse through the latest batch of corporate earnings.

"We've seen what happens to companies whose chief executive gets the best press. They are often the ones who end up with the least profits"

Henry Singleton

Top News

US economy grows but cools

• US gross domestic product rose at a 2.9% annualized pace in the last quarter of 2022, down from 3.2% in the third quarter.

• GDP growth was primarily led by increases in consumer spending, which represents 68% of GDP, along with increases in private inventory investment and government spending in the fourth quarter.

EU considers Russian oil price caps

• The European Union is proposing to limit the cost of Russian diesel to $100 per barrel in an effort to lessen the impact of a fuel import ban that will be imposed on Russia in the coming days.

• EU officials have been worried about shortages of diesel after the import ban, with the price cap aimed at making sure Russian exports can still be sold to other parts of the world thereby keeping global supplies in balance.

IMF mulls multi-billion dollar aid package for Ukraine

• The International Monetary Fund is considering a multi-year financial aid package for Ukraine to the tune of $16 billion.

• The IMF estimated Ukraine's external funding needs to be at least $39.5 billion this year, with economists predicting Ukraine's economic growth for 2023 to be about 0.3%

In Other News

Data debacle

• Home Depot's Canadian branch was found to be sharing customers' in-store purchase data with Facebook's Meta Platforms without customer permission according to Canada's privacy regulator.

• The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada discovered that Home Depot shared customer purchase information and email addresses with Meta as part of a program called "offline conversions".

We're going public...kinda, sorta...

• Stripe, the Fintech company once valued at $95 billion by private market investors, will make a decision on its plans to go public within the next year according to comments shared by the company's co-founders to employees.

• The tech IPO market has been frozen since late 2021, after two record breaking years during the Covid-19 pandemic.

For sale!

• Amazon is selling a vacant Bay Area office complex it purchased about 16 months ago, the company's most recent efforts to unwind pandemic-era expansion that left it with a surfeit of properties.

• Last year Amazon began its biggest ever round of job cuts that has led to the company reducing head count by roughly 18,000 employees.

Key Economic Events

• Friday - U. Of. Mich. Sentiment

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