Highlight of the Week
Janet Yellen sworn in as first woman to be Treasury secretary
- Yellen has held top economic jobs in the government, having served as chair of the Federal Reserve and the Council of Economic Advisers.
- She was sworn in by Kamala Harris, the first woman to be Vice President.
Rate Curves
Rapid Report:
Coronavirus Updates (as of Wednesday morning)
-COVID-19 has registered 100 million cases and 2,170,000 deaths worldwide. There are over 73 million recovered cases.
-The US has accounted for over 26 million cases and has surpassed 435,000 deaths. The US has registered over 15.8 million recovered cases.
-Georgia has 855,000 cases and 13,065 deaths.
Fed likely to keep interest rates near zero as Economy stumbles
-The Fed has set short-term interest rates near zero, launched a bond-purchase program of $120 billion a month, and said it would keep stimulus measures in place until its goals of lower unemployment and 2% inflation have been achieved.
-Last month marked a setback, because the virus resurged and many states resumed business shutdowns. Employment and retail sales fell in December as the number of American filing for unemployment has been rising since November.
Atlanta-based cloud scheduling platform surpasses $3B valuation
Calendly, an Atlanta-based cloud scheduling platform, raised a $350 million investment led by OpenView Venture Partners, a Boston-based expansion stage firm.