A New Milestone for U.S. Debt: $40 Trillion
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How is the experimental mRNA melanoma vaccine impacting Moderna’s stock and cancer treatment?
Shares of Moderna more than double after a successful trial of an experimental new cancer vaccine. Plus, the FTC is putting retailers on notice for using consumers' personal data to set prices.
They have a consumer profile just of you. They know what you like, they know what you've paid, they know what you browsed, and then they tailor that price to you specifically.
And the US debt load has passed forty trillion dollars. It's Wednesday, August nineteenth. I'm Alex Ossole for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News? The top headlines and business stories that move the world today.
And
In a big development for cancer treatment, Moderna and Merck said today that an experimental vaccine prevented melanoma from coming back or spreading. The results of that study paved the way for a potential new treatment for the thousands of people who are diagnosed with the deadly skin cancer each year. It was also the first successful late stage trial for a personalized mRNA cancer therapy that validates decades of research into custom treatments that are engineered specifically for an individual's tumor mutations. Moderna CEO Stefan Boncel today told CNBC about the science behind the cancer vaccine.
It's totally individualized using sequencing technology.
What does the personalized mRNA cancer therapy involve and when might it hit the market?
It's at the molecular level because we know today cancer is a disease of DNA. And that's why it's so possible. Does
that make it safe? Moderna hopes to have the drug on the market next year. Its shares more than doubled while Merck stock hit a record high. Personalized pricing is when retailers use consumers' personal shopping data to see how willing they'd be to pay higher prices. Now the Federal Trade Commission is putting companies on notice. Today the agency said that companies have to disclose when they're using personalized pricing and may face lawsuits if they don't.
Companies gather up all this information about you.
And the concern is that the technology will be used to raise prices. We don't know how many retailers use this kind of technology, but the Federal Trade Commission said last year that it is widespread and that companies are doing this. So Instacart, for instance, allowed its um its retail partners uh to use its software to vary prices to different people who put the same items in their shopping carts in different cities.
How are retailers using personalized pricing and what is the FTC’s new disclosure rule?
And this was discovered by some outside researchers. And it it sparked a real outcry and Instacart pulled back after how much concern this experiment cost.
Dave says it's not totally clear yet how that disclosure will look to people when they're shopping online.
The FTC says that the businesses need to provide clear, conspicuous disclosure of when they are doing this. So we'll see what that looks like when it shows up on a phone screen or a a browsing session of somebody. But you could at least imagine at this point that it it shouldn't be in like the super fine print at the bottom of a web page. But we expect them to sue companies if the companies violate the policy statement in a really clear way.
In other retail news, Target reported strong second quarter earnings and raised its outlook for the year. The company said its same store sales for the second quarter, a key retail metric, rose 3.8%. The company says the results show that its recent turnaround efforts are going over well with shoppers. It's been redoing its stores and it's cut prices on more than 10,000 items over the past year. Target says it's planning even more price cuts. Shares closed up more than four percent today.
What are Target’s recent earnings highlights and its strategy for price cuts?
Coming up, government action in the bond market sends bond yields diving. That and more after the break.
US debt hit a new milestone today. It's now surpassed forty trillion dollars. By itself, maybe it doesn't mean much for the economy. But it's a symbol of something that economists broadly agree on: that the country's fiscal trajectory is unsustainable. Economics reporter Matt Grossman is here now with more. Matt, what does it mean on a functional level to have the debt this high? Like, are there certain things that the government can't do?
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
How is the experimental mRNA melanoma vaccine impacting Moderna’s stock and cancer treatment?
0:03–1:22
2
What does the personalized mRNA cancer therapy involve and when might it hit the market?
1:22–2:48
3
How are retailers using personalized pricing and what is the FTC’s new disclosure rule?
2:48–4:00
4
What are Target’s recent earnings highlights and its strategy for price cuts?
4:00–5:07
5
Why does the U.S. debt surpassing $40 trillion matter for the government’s fiscal outlook?
5:07–6:19
6
How do economists explain the continued demand for U.S. Treasury bonds despite massive debt?
6:19–7:47
7
What effect did the Treasury’s bond‑repurchase program have on yields and the broader market?
7:47–9:30
Speakers
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