Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Here's your morning brief for Thursday, February 5th. I'm Daniel Bach for The Wall Street Journal. We're exclusively reporting that SpaceX is pushing for an early inclusion in a major index like the S&P 500 or NASDAQ 100. Typically, companies have to wait several months to a year after going public to prove their stability and liquidity to enter those indexes.
This week, the Nasdaq shared proposals to update how it lets companies into the Nasdaq 100, including one that would allow especially large companies to join within just 15 trading days. At their current valuation, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic would all qualify. Elon Musk's rocket and satellite business will make its stock market debut later this year.
In other market news, Danish shipping giant Maersk is cutting 1,000 jobs to slash costs as it forecasts a sharp drop in earnings.
Chapter 2: What is SpaceX's strategy for early inclusion in major stock indexes?
Chinese search engine Baidu is getting into the buyback game for the first time to the tune of $5 billion. And Europe's largest steelmaker ArcelorMittal says EU efforts to protect the industry from Chinese competition should help it capture market share in the coming years.
Its stock is up today about 3%. And the Trump administration is moving to strip civil service protections from 50,000 federal workers.
The reclassification will make it easier to fire career officials in senior positions, with the Office of Personnel Management saying it aims to prevent officials from, quote, sabotage or trying to find ways to thwart the objectives of the administration. And we have a lot more coverage of the day's news on the WSJ's What's News podcast.
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