Stocks took the day off on Monday, with all three major indices closing little changed.
The Dow and S&P ticked up into the green, while the Nasdaq ticked down into the red.
First up, the scoreboard:
- Dow: 21,409.55, +14.79, (+0.07%) S&P 500: 2,439.07, +0.77, (+0.03%) Nasdaq: 6,247.15, -18.10, (-0.29%) US 10-year yield: 2.135%, -0.009 WTI crude: $43.41, +0.40, 0.93%
1. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway made a big bet on real estate. Store Capital, a real estate investment trust, said Monday that Berkshire Hathaway invested $377 million in the company. Shares of the company jumped after the announcement.
2. Senate Republicans released a significant change to their healthcare bill. The revised version of the bill includes a provision that’s meant to replace the individual mandate by punishing people whose insurance has lapsed, locking them out of coverage for six months. The revision closes a loophole in the original bill that could have hurt the health insurance market.
3. Third Point, an $18 billion activist hedge fund founded by billionaire Dan Loeb, has taken a massive stake in Nestlé. While Third Point owns only about 1.4% of the Swiss company, it's one of the biggest activist plays ever - Third Point's 40 million shares are worth more than $3.5 billion.
4. The Senate healthcare bill process "could end in a raging political dumpster fire," according to Chris Krueger, an analyst at Cowen Washington Research Group. "This could be the most consequential week of the Trump Presidency thus far on Capitol Hill," he said. With almost every other agenda item "bottle-necked behind healthcare," as Krueger put it, the pressure is on for McConnell to deliver.
5. Bitcoin fell. The cryptocurrency traded down 10.11% on Monday, at $2,275 a coin, a one-week low. The action seems to be a continuation of the selling that developed on Wednesday, when rival Ethereum flash-crashed from $296 to 10 cents before recovering its losses.
6. Ethereum was also under pressure, trading down 18.55% near $241. The selling comes despite a late Friday blog post from GDAX - an exchange for cryptocurrencies like ethereum and bitcoin - promising that victims of last Wednesday's flash-crash will be made whole.
7. The ruble climbed. The currency was up 1.0% at 58.7991 per dollar in the late afternoon.
ADDITIONALLY:
Apple is crushing the Swiss watch industry - and one brand is particularly vulnerable.
The 9 GOP senators who will decide the fate of the Republican healthcare bill.