1) A second crash of a new Boeing 737 MAX 8 airliner, in just months, is raising doubts about its safety. Speaker Pelosi is calling on Boeing to ground all 737 MAX 8 airliners. The airliner was one in Ethiopia’s airline fleet, which like the first one, crashed just after takeoff killing all onboard. Reportedly, one of the Ethiopian pilots had only 200 hours experience, while American pilots typically average about 1,500 hours. In America 200 hours is only enough to qualify for a commercial license, but doesn’t allow a pilot to fly aircraft over 12,500 pounds (airliners). General rule – that at 300 hours a pilot is considered most dangerous and overconfident, and so gets into trouble, but doesn’t have the experience to get out of trouble.
2) The sudden questions of the Boeing’s 737 MAX 8 airlines caused Boeing’s stock to drop 9%. But even with a 9% drop in Boeing stock, the rise in tech stocks pushed the overall stock markets up.
3) Facebook is facing ever increasing series of problems starting with Senator Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to break up the company, then came Facebook’s longest outage of network and services. Followed by news of a criminal investigation into data agreements with other companies, then two of Facebook’s top executives left the company. Finally, the live movies of the New Zealand’s shooting massacre focusing the growing problem of hate on social media.
4) 15 MAR 19 Stock market closings:
Dow 25,848.87 up 138.93
Nasdaq 7,688.53 up 57.62
S&P 500 2,822.48 up 14.00
10 Year Yield: down at 2.59%
Oil: down at $58.39