Good morning! Things are looking up today… except maybe for Google. Snap saw its shares soar to a record high and air travel is showing signs of improvement. Meanwhile, the Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Google.
FINANCE
Snap Shares Soar To Record High

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Oh, Snap! Snap Inc’s stock price has soared more than 22% in after-hours trading after the company showcased an unexpected adjusted profit as well as positive user and revenue growth in its Q3 earnings.
Here’s what it reported:
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An adjusted profit of 1-cent per share, compared to the 5-cent loss analysts predicted.
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Revenue jumped 52% to $678.7 million, exceeding the $559.2 million average analysts estimated.
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249 million daily active users, up 18% from the year-ago period.
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Net loss fell to $200 million or 14-cents a share — that’s down nearly 12% from $227 million net loss last year.
Why the rise?
In the third quarter, civil rights groups — such as #StopHateForProfit — successfully encouraged over 1,000 advertisers to temporarily pause ads on FB to boycott the company’s hate speech and misinformation policies. On top of that, Q3 also saw the Trump vs TikTok saga.
The two events coincided to force advertisers to re-evaluate how (and where) they were spending their money on social media.
BUSINESS
The Justice Department Filed Lawsuit Against Google

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The day of reckoning is here. The Justice Department has finally filed a lawsuit against the tech giant — with a 13-year-old deal between Google and Apple at the crux of the suit.
Filed in a federal court on Tuesday, the lawsuit alleged that:
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Google uses several exclusive business agreements to lock out competition.
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This includes Google’s payment of billions of dollars (an estimated $8 billion to $12 billion a year) to Apple to place its search engine as the default for iPhones.
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With this monopoly over search and search ads, competition and innovation have suffered.
Google responded by describing the lawsuit as “deeply flawed.” Meanwhile, Apple is staying out of it — as much as it can, anyway — and did not respond to a request from the New York Times for comment.
BUSINESS
Air Travel Appears To Be On the Mend

Yassine Khalfalli
Wheels up! Airlines can finally let out a sigh of relief — but just one sigh, though — as air travel appears to be improving after months of struggle due to the pandemic:
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The TSA screened more than 1 million passengers on Sunday — the most since March 16.
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The TSA also reported another pandemic high: it screened 6.1 million passengers nationwide last week (October 12-18), the highest weekly number since the pandemic began.
Tough year for the industry
While this is a sign that more people are getting comfortable flying again despite the pandemic, the struggle is far from over for the industry:
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The TSA screened more than 2.6 million people on the same day in 2019.
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Both United Airlines and American Airlines announced over 32,000 job cuts after federal aid expired in October.
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The US airline revenue plunged about 86% from last year.
APPENDIX
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Billionaire alert: Austin Russell, the 25-year-old founder and CEO of Luminar, is set to become one of the youngest self-made billionaires through an SPAC deal.
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The Batmobile has a new competition in 2020. SSC’s Tuatara is now the world’s fastest car after it clocked a record 316.11 mph.
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Fancy some hot Apple? Some Apple Watch SE owners in South Korea have reported issues with overheating after a few hours of usage.
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Perch, a Boston-based startup that acquires (and then operates) D2C businesses and products that are already selling on Amazon, has raised $123.5 million in funding.
- Amazon is now shelling out $$$ for your data. The eCommerce giant has launched a new program that pays consumers for info about what they’ve purchased outside of Amazon.
