1) To settle its civil law suit over fake accounts, Wells Fargo, America’s fourth largest bank, is paying $3 billion dollars. In order to meet sales quotas, employees opened millions of savings and checking accounts using the names of actual customers. Wells Fargo is accountable for tolerating fraudulent conduct, which was remarkable for its duration and scope. The bank company took several steps to conceal the accounts from customers, such as forging signatures and preventing other bank departments from contacting customers to survey their accounts.
2) John Deere, a manufacturer of farm and construction equipment, has experience a first quarter profit, signs that the U.S. farm market is stabilizing. The manufacturer has been buffeted for the last two years by the U.S. – China trade war, which has pushed agriculture business down leaving farmers struggling to turn a profit.
3) Facebook will stop listening to and transcribing messenger voice for its speech recognition technology development. But the company still needs the voice recordings to improve its speech recognition, so the company will pay selected users to record snippets of audio using a development program called ‘Pronunciations’. Test subjects will have phrases recorded, which Facebook will specify, and in turn will receive compensation.
4) Stock market closings for – 21 FEB 20:
Dow 28,992.41 down 227.57
Nasdaq 9,576.59 down 174.38
S&P 500 3,337.75 down 35.48
10 Year Yield: down at 1.47%
Oil: down at $53.46