The Daily Money: Stocks suffer like it's 2022

Good morning! It’s Daniel de Visé with your Daily Money.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at multiweek lows Wednesday, as lackluster earnings from Tesla and Alphabet undermined investor confidence in megacap tech names that had previously driven 2024's equity rally.

Behind the numbers, analysts sensed the market was correcting itself following a dramatic runup in stock prices this year for the so-called "Magnificent Seven," an elite group of tech companies, including Amazon and Apple, whose rise has lifted stock indexes in 2024.

Here's the full report.

What caused the CrowdStrike outage?

Last week’s global tech outage has been traced back to a bug in U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike’s quality control system, Bailey Schulz reports.  

The impact of the outage has been far-reaching, affecting roughly 8.5 million Windows devices and disrupting banks, emergency call centers and airlines. Fortune 500 companies – not including Microsoft – face an estimated $5.4 billion in losses from the outage, according to insurer Parametrix. Meanwhile, hackers have used the outage as an opportunity to target CrowdStrike customers. 

Here's how it happened.

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Who invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos?

I did, says a man named Richard Montañez. Now, he's taking the fiery dispute to court.

Montañez, a motivational speaker, has filed a lawsuit against PepsiCo, Frito-Lay's parent company, accusing the corporation of orchestrating a "smear campaign" against the self-proclaimed creator of the popular spicy chip flavor, Anthony Robledo reports.

Here is the full story.

About The Daily Money

Each weekday, The Daily Money delivers the best consumer and financial news from USA TODAY, breaking down complex events, providing the TLDR version, and explaining how everything from Fed rate changes to bankruptcies impacts you.

Daniel de Visé covers personal finance for USA Today.