• AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford are facing criticism over their COVID-19 vaccine trial results after acknowledging a mistake in the vaccine dosage.
• During the trial, some patients got two full doses of the vaccine, while others had a half-dose in their first shot followed by a full dose in the second.
• An AstraZeneca executive, Dr. Mene Pangalos, described the "mistake" as "serendipity": The vaccine was found to be 90% effective in the group with the initial half-dosage, compared with 62% effective in the full-dosage group.
• Some health experts have expressed concern about the mistake. "Astrazeneca/Oxford get a poor grade for transparency and rigor," one biostatistician at the University of Florida said.
• Pangalos told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that the mistake was "irrelevant." 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford on Wednesday acknowledged a dosing error in their COVID-19 vaccine trial — and some health experts say it has eroded their confidence in the shot.

The COVID-19 vaccine was found to be 70% effective on average in large-scale trial results announced Monday. The vaccine appeared to be 62% effective in those who had two full doses but rose to 90% effective in those who had a half-dosage in their first shot.

On Monday, AstraZeneca acknowledged that the half-dosage was initially a "mistake," Reuters first reported. The plan was for patients in the British trial to receive two full doses of the vaccine one month apart, but some received a half-dose for their first shot instead.

"We went back and checked ... and we found out that they had underpredicted the dose of the vaccine by half," Dr. Mene Pangalos, an AstraZeneca executive responsible for the company's research and development, told Reuters.

The half-dosage appeared to increase the vaccine's effectiveness, and Pangalos described the error as "serendipity."

"That, in essence, is how we stumbled upon doing half dose-full dose (group)," Pangalos said. "Yes, it was a mistake."

The trials included more than 20,000 volunteers in the UK, Brazil, and South Africa.

In a press release on Monday, AstraZeneca said fewer than 2,800 patients were given the smaller dosing regimen, compared with almost 8,900 patients who received two full doses.

Some experts have raised concerns about the mistake.

On Tuesday, Moncef Slaoui, the head of the US vaccine program Operation Warp Speed, said in a call with reporters that participants receiving the half-strength initial dose were under 55 years old, per The New York Times.

If the half-dosage wasn't tested in older patients, this raises questions about the effectiveness of AstraZeneca's vaccine, since older people are generally at greatest risk of severe infection.

In addition, efficacy results were pooled from clinical trials in Britain and Brazil that were designed differently, per The Times.

John LaMattina, a former president of Pfizer's global research-and-development unit, said in a tweet it was "hard to believe" the Food and Drug Administration would issue emergency authorization for a vaccine whose most efficacious dose has been given to 2,300 people.

—John LaMattina (@John_LaMattina) November 24, 2020

John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, told The Times: "The press release raised more questions than it answered."

Natalie Dean, a biostatistician specializing in vaccine study design at the University of Florida, posted on Twitter: "Astrazeneca/Oxford get a poor grade for transparency and rigor when it comes to the vaccine trial results they have reported."

She questioned how AstraZeneca had monitored the trials.

"I really don't know what to make of the results," Dean wrote in a follow-up tweet. "I'm glad this is not the first vaccine to read out, because it is awfully confusing for experts and non-experts alike."

—Natalie E. Dean, PhD (@nataliexdean) November 24, 2020

Read more: Wall Street analysts lay out how the unexpected pause in AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine trial could slow the race to halt the pandemic

AstraZeneca didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, but a spokeswoman told The Times that the trials "were conducted to the highest standards."

Pangalos also told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that the mistake was "irrelevant."

"Whichever way you cut the data — even if you only believe the full-dose, full-dose data ... We still have efficacy that meets the thresholds for approval with a vaccine that's over 60% effective," he said.

This isn't the first hurdle that AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford have faced. Their vaccine trials were paused after an "unexplained illness" in one UK trial participant in September. But they were soon given the green light to restart.

This month, the drugmakers Pfizer and Moderna announced that late-stage trial results suggested their respective vaccines were about 95% effective in preventing COVID-19.

Though AstraZeneca's vaccine appeared less effective, manufacturers say it's considerably cheaper and easier to distribute than the other two.

• Republicans have wrongly created a narrative where white men see themselves as "victims" who are "under attack", according to Barack Obama.
• The former president said this belief was pervasive among many Republican voters despite the fact that it "obviously doesn't jive with both history and data and economics."
• "That's a story that's being told and how you unwind that is going to be not something that is done right away," Obama said in a radio interview on Wednesday.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Trump and the Republicans have won millions of votes partly by framing white American men as "victims" who are "under attack," according to former president Barack Obama.

In an interview with the Breakfast Club radio show on Wednesday, reported by The Guardian newspaper, Obama said one of the reasons Trump managed to secure a record-breaking number of votes in his defeat to Joe Biden was that Republicans have created and perpetuated "the sense that white males are victims."

"What's always interesting to me is the degree to which you've seen created in Republican politics the sense that white males are victims," Obama told the Breakfast Club radio show.

"They are the ones who are under attack — which obviously doesn't jive with both history and data and economics.

"But that's a sincere belief, that's been internalized, that's a story that's being told and how you unwind that is going to be not something that is done right away."

Obama said that pushing this narrative helped Trump secure the highest number of votes for any sitting president in American history, despite his administration "objectively" having "failed, miserably, in handling just basic looking after the American people and keeping them safe."

Trump won white men by a margin of around 31% in his 2016 election victory over Hilary Clinton, and performed particularly well among white men in rural areas. Analysis of this month's election indicates that the outgoing president lost ground with this group, though he still defeated President-elect Biden by around 23%.

In his interview on Wednesday, Obama said he understood why some black people and those from other ethnic minorities felt disappointed by what he did for them while in the White House, but insisted that he managed to improve their conditions significantly despite the constraints of Congress.

"I understand it [the disappointment] because when I was elected there was so much excitement and hope, and I also think we generally view the presidency as almost like a monarchy in the sense of once the president's there, he can just do whatever needs to get done and if he's not doing it, it must be because he didn't want to do it," he said, adding that unlike Trump, he didn't break the law and disregarded the constitution in the pursuit of his agenda.

Watch Obama talk about race and politics

"The good news for me was I was very confident in what I had done for Black folks because I have the statistics to prove it," Obama said.

He warned that Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would face similar struggles in implementing their own policies if the Democrats did not win two upcoming runoff elections in Georgia. Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are being challenged by Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock respectively.

"If the Republicans win those two seats, then Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will not be able to get any law passed that Mitch McConnell and the other Republicans aren't going to go along with," he told host DJ Envy.

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US stock markets are closed in observance of Thanksgiving Day. Here's what you need to know in global markets today.

1. European shares hover around nine-month highs. See today's market highlights here.

2. Bitcoin tumbled more than $2,000 as crypto bulls cashed in on their holdings. Here's why the digital token saw its biggest one-day drop in nearly three months.

3. Goldman Sachs is using drones to secure billion-dollar deals. Over 95% of the bank's deal transactions were conducted without using face-to-face interaction this year. 

4. Warren Buffett faced a fast-food Thanksgiving in 2008. He joked that he'd celebrate the day with a Big Mac, fries, and a milkshake in 2008 if US officials hadn't bailed out the banks.

5. US corporate profits jumped a record $495 billion in the 3rd-quarter. Domestic profits of financial corporations leaped by $24 billion as economic reopening and rebounding demand lifted spending.

6. Two areas in technology are still undervalued. Investors have piled into the FAANG trade, but that doesn't mean there aren't other opportunities in tech, according to Bank of America. 

7. Bitcoin could soar to $100,000 by the end of next year. The macroeconomic environment right now is "rocket fuel" for the digital token, according to crypto investor Anthony Pompliano. 

8. Lazard's 3-point ESG investment strategy. Here's how you can get exposure to major ESG trends without paying the lofty premiums of a Tesla-like stock.

9. 8 disruptive stocks that could grow 30% every year. An innovation-focused portfolio manager at a $158 billion firm says these eight firms would thrive in any environment.

10. A senior portfolio manager shares his playbook as stocks run higher. And here are 3 non-COVID threats that will occupy his attention in 2021.

• New reporting by CNN alleges that Fox News higher-ups are asking guests not to appear on Newsmax, its cable TV rival.
• Newsmax's ratings have exploded after the election as it offers its viewers false hope that President Trump may yet win re-election.
• The move suggests that Fox — though still far ahead on its ratings — is getting nervous about Newsmax's ascendancy.
• Fox News did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment, but denied to CNN that there was any such directive from management. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

An intense rivalry over guest appearances and TV ratings is brewing between Fox News and Newsmax, according to CNN.

Fox News sources told CNN that producers are now monitoring guest bookings on Newsmax, and pressuring guests who appear on both channels to stop going on Newsmax. 

Fox News denied to CNN that there was any directive from management for guests to stop appearing on the competing network.

Business Insider has contacted Fox for comment as well.

Newsmax told CNN that the pressure from Fox was indeed real. Its CEO, Chris Ruddy, accused Fox of an "anti-competitive violation" by trying to block guests.

CNN cited Fox News sources responding with the words "Welcome to the big leagues."

Ratings figures show that Fox is still far ahead of Newsmax, a far smaller operation.

Nonetheless, since the election Newsmax has seen its ratings explode, while President Donald Trump and his allies have encouraged their supporters to abandon Fox.

One Newsmax evening host, Greg Kelly, has seen his viewership increase from 80,000 viewers before the election to over 800,000 a day, the week after the election.

Part of Newsmax's appeal is that, unlike the vast majority of outlets, is has not called the 2020 presidential election.

According to the network's reporting, there is yet hope that President-elect Joe Biden's victory will melt away and that Trump will take another term.

Insider and other outlets called the race for Biden a few days after Election Day, citing his leads in swing states that consolidated further in the days since.

Trump has cheered on the rise of Newsmax while attacking Fox. On Tuesday, the president tweeted Newsmax's unverified online poll asking "Should President Trump concede to Biden?" to which over 90% of the respondents answered "No."

Trump's new attacks on Fox News have been echoed by supporters too, who chanted "Fox News Sucks!" outside the Maricopa County election center on November 4, a reference to the network's contentious early call that the state would vote for Biden.

• President-elect Joe Biden is considering Roger Ferguson, former vice-chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, for National Economic Council director, sources close to the matter told CNBC.
• Biden is considering regulatory veteran Gary Gensler, who worked for both the Obama and Clinton administrations, for Deputy Treasury Secretary, they said.
• Kenneth Chenault, who spent nearly 40 years at American Express, is also being considered for a top economic policy position, they added. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President-elect Joe Biden is considering Roger Ferguson, Gary Gensler, and Kenneth Chenault for some of the top economic policy roles in his administration, CNBC reported Wednesday, citing sources close to the matter.

Ferguson, the outgoing CEO of The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, who has previously held government roles, could be Biden's National Economic Council director, the sources said.

Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Gensler could be appointed Deputy Treasury Secretary, they said. On Monday, Biden picked former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen to head the Treasury Department.

Former American Express CEO Chenault, who has sat on boards including at Facebook, Airbnb, and Berkshire Hathaway, could also be in the running for another economic policy position, the sources said.

Biden is expected to announce some of the appointments to his economic team early next week.

Roger Ferguson

After being considered for Treasury Secretary, Ferguson is now in the running for National Economic Council director, the sources told CNBC. Ferguson is currently the CEO of the Fortune 100 fund manager TIAA, but earlier this month he announced his retirement in March after almost 13 years in the role.

Ferguson, who has three degrees from Harvard University, has held previous governmental roles.

After working in the legal industry, he was appointed to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors by the Clinton administration in 1997. He was appointed to the board's vice-chair two years later, and resigned from the role in 2006.

Ferguson sat on Barack Obama's Transition Economic Advisory Board when he first ran for president in 2008, and was considered for Federal Reserve Board chair in 2013.

Ferguson currently sits on the board of Alphabet, Google's parent company.

Gary Gensler

Biden is also considering Gary Gensler for Deputy Treasury Secretary, the sources said.

Gensler is currently leading Biden's financial policy transition team, which involves overseeing Wall Street and the regulations that govern it, alongside reviewing the Federal Reserve.

In this role he will likely knuckle down on financial and consumer protection policies, four securities lawyers told Business Insider.

Gensler has also worked alongside previous presidents. During the Obama administration, Gensler chaired the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates the United States' derivatives markets.

He also served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Markets and then Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance under former president Bill Clinton.

Gensler was also the chief financial officer for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.

Gensler additionally spent 18 years working at Goldman Sachs, and is a professor of global economics and management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Kenneth Chenault

Former American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault is also under consideration for a top economic policy position, the sources said.

Read more: Expect to hear from Bernie, AOC, and these other 28 progressive power players during a Biden administration

After working at the financial services company for 20 years, Chenault served as its CEO and chairman from 2001 to 2018, making him the third-ever Black CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

Chenault has sat on the boards of IBM, Procter & Gamble, Airbnb, Facebook, and Berkshire Hathaway. He is currently managing director of General Catalyst Partners.

• Coinbase on Thursday issued a preemptive denial of an upcoming New York Times story, saying the piece will allege workplace discrimination against Black employees.
• Coinbase said the Times story, due to be published in print Sunday, will cover organizational changes made in 2018, and "will likely imply that Black employees were discriminated against during this process; this is false."
• Members of Coinbase's executive team told staff they "don't care what The New York Times thinks."
• "Overall, we expect the story will paint an inaccurate picture that lacks complete information and context, despite our best efforts to fact-check details of the story with the reporter," it said.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Coinbase on Thursday released a statement preemptively denying an upcoming New York Times story, which the cryptocurrency company said would likely allege workplace discrimination against Black employees.

According to Coinbase, the story will focus on changes made to two internal teams, its "Compliance and CX orgs," in 2018. The story, which Coinbase said will be published in print this Sunday and online before that, will include on-the-record quotes from former employees and contractors involved in the organizational changes, according to Coinbase.

"The story will likely imply that Black employees were discriminated against during this process; this is false," Coinbase executives said in an unsigned blog post. 

"Overall, we expect the story will paint an inaccurate picture that lacks complete information and context, despite our best efforts to fact-check details of the story with the reporter," Coinbase executives said in an unsigned blog post. 

The company added: "The story will also likely allege that a number of Black employees and contractors referenced in the story filed complaints with the company. In reality, only three of these people filed complaints during their time at Coinbase."

Coinbase also said internal conversations about Black Lives Matter were leaked to The Times. 

The New York Times did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment. 

Earlier this year, more than 60 employees resigned from the crypto startup, which is valued at about $8 billion, after CEO Brian Armstrong created a policy banning corporate social activism.

Company insiders described Armstrong as being intense, sometimes miscalculating how his communications would be received. 

In Thursday's blog post, Coinbase said members of its executive team addressed an employee resource group this week, telling them in part, "we don't care what The New York Times thinks. The most important thing we care about is you, our employees, and what you think."

Executives at Coinbase hadn't seen the full story, but they said it will be inaccurate "despite our best efforts to fact-check details of the story with the reporter."

In the blog post, much of which was also sent as an email to staff, the company said it expects increased media scrutiny after publication. Executives urged staffers to focus on the company's mission, rather than "these types of questions and comments again." 

The company said: "That said, we know the story will recount episodes that will be difficult for employees to read. As we shared in a recent AMA, no organization is ever as perfect as the media suggests in the most glowing article, or as bad as the media alleges in the most negative article."

Read more: An incident known as 'bathroomgate' left some Coinbase employees feeling 'targeted,' say former workers. It's the kind of fight CEO Brian Armstrong wants to avoid.

The company did not detail the allegations, but said each allegation of discrimination had been investigated internally or by an independent third party. 

According to Coinbase, part of The Times' story would revolve around its Belonging, Inclusion & Diversity team (BID). As of Thursday, Coinbase had a job posting listed on its website for a director of that team. 

In part, that person would be responsible for: "Owning, executing and advancing our newly refreshed BID Strategy, which rests on the vision that every employee feels they belong and can suc eed," according to the listing.

The job listing was posted on LinkedIn a week ago.

• Goldman Sachs has been using drones to help secure billion-dollar deals during the pandemic.
• The shift to remote work forced investment bankers to conduct virtual tours of potential acquisition targets for their clients, the bank's co-head of mergers told CNBC.
• "It gives buyers the confidence they need because when you are buying a business, you want to see, touch and feel what you are buying," he said.
• Over 95% of Goldman's deal transactions were conducted without using face-to-face interaction.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Goldman Sachs has been using drone technology to get a closer look at potential targets for clients before securing billion-dollar deals, the bank's global co-head of mergers and acquisitions told CNBC.  

The coronavirus pandemic abruptly halted in-person meetings and conventional modes of conducting business deals. So the firm decided to use commercial-grade flying drones to virtually oversee everything from railroads to chemical factories, shipping ports, warehouses, and other retail locations, Stephan Feldgoise said in a CNBC interview.

"We have been selling asset-based businesses all over the world, using drones for site visits and fly-overs," he said. "It gives buyers the confidence they need because when you are buying a business, you want to see, touch and feel what you are buying."

According to him, over 95% of Goldman's hundreds of deal transactions were conducted without in-person interaction. Drone technology is likely to become an established trend, as he said "we believe it will change the M&A landscape forever."

Read More: We mapped out the power structure at Goldman Sachs and identified the bank's 125 top execs. Here's our exclusive org chart.

The unexpected shift to remote work this year forced Wall Street bankers to find ways that help companies navigate the financial fallout from COVID-19. In fact, they found that time eliminated at airports and restaurants actually boosted productivity as they could easily set up teleconference meetings via Zoom, BlueJeans, Cisco, and Microsoft Teams. 

In terms of volume, Goldman Sachs nabbed the top spot as financial advisor on mergers and acquisitions in the US so far this year, followed by Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan. Goldman has advised on 333 deals worth about $815 billion in 2020, according to Dealogic.

JPMorgan and other boutique investment banks have also begun to use on drone technology, CNBC said.

Read More: Lazard's top ESG stock-picker outlines the 3-part strategy he's used to beat 75% of his peers and smash his benchmark without paying Tesla-like prices

• The $330,000 Rolls-Royce Ghost isn't just an ultra-luxury sedan whose driver's seat is meant for either owners or chauffeurs. It's a big, fancy display of light and shadows.
• From the shooting-star headliner to its glowing front grille, the Ghost is full of little details — fiber optics cut by hand, laser-etched surfaces — that make its whole light display come together.
• Henry Cloke, the lead exterior designer on the car, discussed those details during the car's September launch in Austin.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

When it comes to Rolls-Royce, the devil and the glory alike are in the details. The automaker is so obsessed with the little things, in fact, that discussing them all would take far more words than any mortal has the time for. The company's 5,000-word press releases prove that much. 

But on the new, $330,000 Rolls-Royce Ghost, there's one feature of which Rolls is particularly proud: giving the car a sort of simple warmth to help balance all of its various design and engineering influences.

"If you have a car that is just super technical and cold, it doesn't feel like a Rolls-Royce," said Henry Cloke, the Ghost's lead exterior designer, at the car's September launch in Austin. "If it's over flamboyant and it doesn't feel sincere, it also doesn't feel like a Rolls-Royce. So a huge amount of it is finding that balance point." 

That warm balance came partially from the car's plays on light and shadows, which could easily be overlooked as "pretty car with a pretty glow" by us normal folks. But every fiber of the Ghost's lighting came down to the minute detail. 

There are its body lines and newly created paint colors, sculpted to make a simple shape look dramatic and mixed to accentuate that drama. There's the fiber-optic night sky lighting the car's shooting-star headliner. There's the glossy "GHOST" display in front of the passenger seat, lit and polished perfectly to mimic the night sky on the ceiling. There's the car's imposing front grille, lit softy and warmly enough to make it look almost unintimidating to casual passersby.

"The light and shadow thing — there is obviously first the overall form of the car," Cloke said. "Although there are very few lines, the surfaces actually have kind of convex and concave bits, and you need paint with a certain level of interest in it that really shows you that light and shadow."

Cloke said some paints, like the "Tempest Grey" seen on the car in these photos, were made specifically for the new Ghost to "really reflect those shapes" and "give an attitude to the car." How paint looks is a big focus for Rolls, which has a fancy lamp that can be adjusted to show buyers what their paint will look like under the sun anywhere in the world. 

On an overcast day in Austin, it looks like this. 

Coming across a new Ghost at night will draw your attention toward its glowing new grille — something Cloke described as "that kind of Rolls-Royce presence, but in a really understated way."

"We wanted it that if you were driving in the evening, you could have this warm glow," Cloke said. "It's not like a big, bright light. We didn't want to have a sort of super techie blue light that sounds futuristic."

Rolls uses stainless steel instead of chrome for the Ghost's slatted Pantheon grille, but quickly learned that it would need some adjustments to get the perfect glow. 

"When it reflects the light, you get this slightly warm color," Cloke said. "But our first iterations were much too much too bright, because if you fully polish everything and then add light, it didn't fit with this calm mood we wanted to create.

"That's why you'll notice the back of all of those individual veins have actually been sandblasted, so they're effectively matte on the backside and gloss on the front side."

Also new on the Ghost is a twinkling display in front of the passenger seat, complete with more than 850 light-up imitation stars and a glowing "GHOST" logo. Rolls-Royce said the feature was "developed over the course of two years and more than 10,000 collective hours," and can be turned off and on.

But those stars? They aren't on a screen. Everyone has a screen these days, and Rolls-Royce drivers aren't everyone. 

"The illumination itself comes from 152 LEDs mounted above and beneath the fascia, each meticulously colour matched to the cabin's clock and instrument dial lighting," Rolls-Royce said upon announcing the new Ghost, adding that more than 90,000 laser-etched dots create "a twinkling effect as the eye moves across the fascia." 

Cloke said the goal with the 850 stars, just like with Rolls' famous starlight headliner, was to make them random but realistic. All of the dots can't be the same size or they won't look natural, yet all need to have a certain balance to them.

The surface displaying those stars is made up of three layers, including a high-gloss finish to make the surface smooth despite the etched surfaces underneath. That way, if an owner turns the stars off, it'll be like they were never there.

"I think so much of the technology was really important that it's not in your face, it's just there if you want it," Cloke said. "It just creates that mood or it gives you that function, but you're not confronted by it all the time."

The fascia is an extension of the starlight headliner, often imitated with aftermarket mods but always synonymous with a Rolls-Royce. While it's been around a lot longer than the twinkling display up front, the headliner is just as complicated to create. 

"Everyone takes it for granted, but actually, we've put stars on the roof of a car," Cloke said. "There are more than 1,000 fiber-optic cables that have to be put in by hand, and then what makes the star feeling is all of those fiber optics are then cut by hand with scissors at slightly different angles. 

"That means that you're not always looking at a completely 90-degree cut fiber optic, because if you did, they would all look as bright as each other and [be] the same size dots. The reason that it feels starlike is because there's a certain randomness in it."

Sure, you could boil a Rolls-Royce's lighting down to "pretty car with a pretty glow." But that would ignore just how many hands have a role in creating each light feature, from sandblasters to paint specialists to the folks cutting individual fiber optics with scissors. 

And those are just the people involved with the lighting, not the ones perfecting stitches on the leather or melting the steel used for the Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament, which can duck away into the car's bonnet if you try to swipe it. (Good try, though!)

So, when you really think about it, the devil isn't in the details — Rolls-Royce is. But you might just have to make a deal with the guy to afford the payments.

• Microsoft this month launched an analytics tool for employers called "Productivity Score."
• The tool collects detailed data about how employees are using Microsoft's tools, including how much they use email and whether they turn their camera on during meetings.
• Privacy experts have voiced concerns that the Microsoft tool is a serious invasion of privacy, as employers are able to view employees' activity individually.
• Data privacy researcher Wolfie Christl said it "turns Microsoft 365 into an full-fledged workplace surveillance tool."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Microsoft has a new tool that lets companies break down how much time employees are spending on work tools like email, Microsoft Teams, and Word — and privacy experts say it amounts to "workplace surveillance."

The tool, called Productivity Score, was first announced by the company in October and launched on November 17. It allows employers to gather granular data about how their employees are using Microsoft's suite of tools.

The system then assigns an organization a "productivity score" out of 800 over a 28-day period, which they can compare to scores from other companies in their industry.

The data points Productivity Score uses are incredibly detailed, and employers are able to focus on individual employees. For example, an employer is able to look at how much time a specific person has spent in Microsoft Outlook over the past 28 days, or how much time they've spent sending direct messages in Microsoft Teams.

The employer is also able to see how many of these messages contained "@" mentions.

The tool also collects more surprising data, for example how often an employee switches on their camera during a Teams meeting.

Privacy experts have raised concerns about the tool.

Data privacy researcher Wolfie Christl said it "turns Microsoft 365 into an full-fledged workplace surveillance tool." He added that the tool may even be illegal to use in some EU countries with strict rules on data privacy and consent.

"This productivity suite lacks transparency and do not inform employees nor requires their consent. Companies such as Microsoft should not be giving incentives to employers to turn their office suites into surveillance machines violating employees' dignity," Eliot Bendinelli, a technology at Privacy International, told Business Insider.

Christl pointed out that although employers are able to turn off monitoring of individual employees, it's on by default when they first load it up.

"This normalizes extensive workplace surveillance in a way not seen before," he said.

Bennett Cyphers, a staff technologist at the privacy advocacy Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Forbes tools like Productivity Score could permanently shift the power balance between employers and employees.

"I'm afraid that when Microsoft eases people into these employee monitoring dashboards, employees are getting used to living with this level of surveillance, and managers are going to get used to having a nice data feed about their employees and it'll be a boon for the industry," he said.

"All in all, this encourages employees to work for the algorithm to get a better score rather than for their employer, breaches trust between employee and employers, and constitutes an unwelcome invasion of privacy in a time where support and care is most needed," Bendinelli said.

Microsoft says Productivity Score is not a surveillance tool. "Let me be clear: Productivity Score is not a work monitoring tool," wrote Microsoft corporate vice president of 365 Jared Spataro when the company first announced the tool was on the way in October.

"Productivity score is an opt-in experience that gives IT administrators insights about technology and infrastructure usage," a Microsoft spokesperson told Business Insider.

Read more: Companies are increasingly monitoring remote workers as offices remain closed. Here's what they're tracking.

"Insights are intended to help organizations make the most of their technology investments by addressing common pain points like long boot times, inefficient document collaboration, or poor network connectivity. Insights are shown in aggregate over a 28-day period and are provided at the user level so that an IT admin can provide technical support and guidance," the spokesperson added.

Working from home during the pandemic has highlighted the problems of workplace surveillance. In March, downloads of a tool called Sneek, which took pictures of people every five minutes through their webcams, shot up tenfold.

Gartner analysis published in June found 16% of employers were deploying tools to do things like monitor emails and work computer usage.

• President Donald Trump has stopped talking about the coronavirus pandemic, even as the US struggles through its third outbreak, and new hospitalizations and infections continue to soar.
• Since President-elect Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Trump has used his public statements to double down on the baseless claims that the election was stolen from him.
• Trump's press conferences and tweets in the past week barely reference the outbreak. When he does, it has been to tout COVID-19 vaccine development under his watch.
• On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that the US could pass 300,000 coronavirus deaths by December 19.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President Donald Trump has all but stopped talking about the coronavirus pandemic, despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warning the US could pass 300,000 deaths by Christmas.

Throughout the pandemic, Trump often blamed China, praised the White House's work in finding a vaccine, and downplayed the threat that the virus posed to Americans.

But, in the past week, the topic seems to have disappeared from his public statements.

Since President-elect Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, Trump has used his public statements — either in press briefings or tweets — to double down on the baseless claims that he will have a second term, and that votes were stolen from him.

"This Election was RIGGED, but we will WIN!'" he tweeted Wednesday.

Trump's decision to gloss over the virus come as the US outbreak is still raging, with experts fearing holiday season travel and celebrations will ensure deaths continue to rise.

The US is currently in the throes of its third — and likely deadliest — coronavirus outbreak.

On Wednesday, the CDC said that the US may hit 300,000 coronavirus deaths before December 19. The US has currently reported 262,000 deaths — the highest in the world — according to Johns Hopkins University data.

On Tuesday, the US recorded 2,216 new daily COVID-19 deaths — the highest since June 26, The New York Times reported, adding that daily new deaths were trending upwards and would likely soon surpass the record of 2,752 set on April 15.

Trump has made few statements in recent weeks, and when he has, his remarks largely avoided discussing the virus.

On Tuesday, Trump gave a Thanksgiving press conference in the Rose Garden which he began by praising the Dow Jones Industrial Average gains and only briefly mentioned the pandemic, thanking Americans who "waged the battle against the China virus."

Earlier that day, Trump gave a bizarre, minute-long press briefing in which he again praised the stock market, but added he was "thrilled with what's happened on the vaccine front."

And on Wednesday, Trump joined a GOP hearing by phone, calling the election a "disgrace" and floated already-debunked conspiracy theories about dead people voting in the 2020 election. That same day, Biden called for unity in a Thanksgiving-Eve speech and noted that "we're at war with a virus — not with each other."

Trump's tweets, often the gateway to his true concerns, have also been mostly free from virus references in the past.

When Trump has spoken about the virus it has been in the context of the hunt for a vaccine, and his administration's role in producing one.

On November 13, Trump praised Operation Warp Speed — the White House team tasked with finding and rolling out a vaccine in the US — which he said deserved credit for helping Pfizer develop its vaccine, which has been found to be 90% effective.

As Business Insider's Sarah Al-Arshani previously noted, Trump has been neglecting his official duties since his election loss.  

• Sidney Powell, the attorney formerly working with President Donald Trump's campaign, on Wednesday released legal documents challenging the election results in Georgia and Michigan.
• Business Insider found that the Michigan suit had been lodged in federal court but could not verify the status of the Georgia one.
• Powell was dropped from Trump's legal team after making outlandish claims that a vast communist conspiracy was responsible for stealing the election from Trump.
• Her legal documents repeated many of her allegations, including of Chinese and Iranian interference and digital vote-switching by machines linked to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Many of these claims have been debunked.
• One of the lawsuits misspelled words like "district," and both had numerous typos.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Sidney Powell has pressed ahead with lawsuits alleging "massive election fraud" in Georgia and Michigan even after President Donald Trump's legal team publicly dumped her.

Powell, an attorney who has been dismissed as a conspiracy theorist, published the lawsuits on her website on Wednesday at midnight and announced them in a tweet using her catchphrase "The #Kraken was just released."

As of Thursday morning, the tweet appeared to have been deleted, but the documents remained on Powell's website.

Business Insider verified that the Michigan suit had been lodged in federal court but could not verify the status of the Georgia suit, which made many of the same claims.

The lawsuits are dozens of pages long and contain several spelling errors and typos, including "Districct Court" and "Distrcoict of Georgia" in one.

The documents repeat many of the baseless allegations Powell made at a press conference with Rudy Giuliani on November 19, when she was still part of the Trump campaign's legal team.

A few days later, the Trump campaign disowned her, saying in a statement that she was "practicing law on her own."

One unnamed Trump advisor told the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman that Powell's ideas were "too conspiratorial even for him."

In the lawsuits, Powell charges that voting machines used in Georgia and Michigan switched votes to Joe Biden and had been designed to ensure that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013, won his elections. These allegations have been debunked, according to CNN.

Citing Andrew Appel, a Princeton academic who has highlighted the vulnerabilities of voting machines, Powell said the machines had been designed to switch votes in a way that is undetectable.

But Appel — whose comments were published long before the 2020 election — has dismissed the idea that the software is part of a conspiracy, noting earlier this month that "vulnerabilities are not the same as rigged elections."

Michigan has paper ballots that can be recounted by hand, Appel said. Georgia, which uses touchscreen ballot-marking machines, still has vulnerabilities, but "hacks and glitches" there "have been detected and corrected," he said.

Powell's lawsuits allege that software "was accessed by agents acting on behalf of China and Iran in order to monitor and manipulate elections."

Powell previously declined to provide evidence for her claims at the request of the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has been open to many of Trump's claims of election fraud.

In an unusual segment on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Friday, Carlson called Powell out for refusing to provide evidence, saying he would have given her "the whole hour" if she had.

The segment prompted a right-wing backlash against Carlson that quieted after the Trump legal team distanced itself from Powell.

In Michigan, Powell's lawsuit is against officials including Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor who was targeted in a right-wing kidnapping plot in October.

In Georgia, Powell's suit is aimed at Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, among other officials.

Raffensperger, who said his family voted for Trump, recently wrote an opinion column defending his state's election management and arguing that Trump had thrown him "under the bus."

• The Taycan is Porsche's first EV and comes in three trims: the $104,000 4S, $151,000 Turbo, and $185,000 Turbo S.
• My 4S loaner came to $143,690 after options.
• On paper, Porsche's iconic gas-powered 911 Turbo S is faster. But in practice, the Taycan 4S feels like it has warp drive.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The luxury electric car space is saturated with the likes of Tesla, Lucid, Polestar, Audi, and Jaguar. But one of the biggest names to recently enter is the Taycan sport sedan, which is, quite literally, the Porsche of EVs. That alone is worth paying attention to.

I'm not typically one to doggedly heap praise on a brand, but I'm making a begrudging exception here. Porsche knows what it's doing. The Porsche 911 is the 911, and the 718 models are modern automotive perfection. Even its compact SUV, the Macan, handles like a sports car way more than it has any right to. 

My point here is, this is a company that knows how to build a car, and build one well.

The Taycan is Porsche's first attempt at making an EV — a first attempt with all the money and resources that the automotive giant Volkswagen Group can throw behind it. 

If that didn't spoil the review verdict for you already, I will: It's a damn fine first crack.

From 'Mission E' to 'soul of a spirited young horse'

The Porsche Taycan started life as a concept called the Mission E, which debuted at the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show. The Mission E spent the next four years tooling around, sparking rumors and noiselessly touring places like Germany's famed Nürburgring track. 

Finally, at the 2019 Frankfurt Motor Show, the production version of Porsche's first EV appeared with a Turkish name that roughly translates to "soul of a spirited young horse." Sure!

Currently, there are three versions of the Taycan available: the 4S, the Turbo, and the range-topping Turbo S. Yes, I know neither of those cars are turbocharged. Words mean things until they don't.

It weighs, like, more than two tons

Like a Tesla, the Taycan uses a skateboard design: All of the batteries are located along the floor of the vehicle, which lowers the center of gravity and frees up space for two trunks. System voltage comes to 800 volts instead of the typical 400 volts, which Porsche says cuts charging time, decreases weight, and allows for high performance. 

Charging claims are as follows: When plugged into an AC outlet with 9.6 kW, the 4S takes 9.5 hours to charge from 0 to 100%. A 50-kW DC charger takes 93 minutes from 5% to 80%. A fast-charging DC charger takes 22.5 minutes to charge the car from 5% to 80%.

The EPA gives the Taycan 4S with the Performance Battery Plus a range of 203 miles. The Taycan measures 16.3 feet long, 6.5 feet wide, and 4.5 feet tall. Its rear trunk has a cargo capacity of 14.3 cubic feet. Curb weight comes to 4,947 pounds.

What stands out: Warp drive

On paper, Porsche's gas-powered 911 Turbo S has the Taycan 4S beat. The Turbo S has more horsepower, more torque, a quicker estimated 0-to-60 time. You know the Turbo S is faster. But when you floor the "go" pedal in the Taycan, all that knowledge flies out the window alongside your grasp on reality.

One second, you're cruising along quietly and the next, you're being shot forward through space-time, fired from what feels like the universe's biggest bowstring. You're warping forward so powerfully you've left your stomach in the previous galaxy. And you, the one with brake pedal access, are the one who controls when the passenger screaming stops. This is a good thing, by the way.

If you do want some sound, putting the car in Sport Plus mode or activating the "engine" "noise" option will pipe in some artificial motor noise (it sounds like a musical generator). But it still doesn't adequately prepare you for the instant torque. Nothing does until you've done it to yourself a few times.

From the outside, the car is stunning. Sleek and purposeful, it doesn't look that different from the Mission E concept we first saw five years ago. Mine wore a wonderful coat of Mamba Green Metallic Paint, 21-inch gold Mission E Design Wheels, and a set of carbon-ceramic brakes with yellow calipers. Life is too short for boring cars. Dress mine up like a mobster, please.

What falls short: Could use a hatch

Inside the Taycan, I could count the number of physical switchgears on one hand. Aside from what was on the steering wheel, the driver's only physical touchpoints were the gear selector lever and the car's on/off button. 

But even things you expect to have some kind of hard switch do not. The headlight controls, for example, are operated via touchscreen off to the side of the driver information cluster.

Unfortunately, no Taycan will have one-pedal driving. All regenerative braking will be handled through the brake pedal, according to Autoweek. From what I understand, people have a love/hate relationship with one-pedal driving, so take this news as you will.

But I actually saw the Taycan's biggest shortcoming when I parked it next to a Tesla Model S. We were loading up our cars with supplies, the Model S owner and I. The difference was that the Model S's trunk is a hatch. The Taycan's is not. 

Competitor comparison: $$$$

In terms of range, the Taycan unfortunately brings up the rear behind the Tesla Model S (402 miles estimated) and the upcoming Lucid Air (406 miles estimated for the base model).

Then we get into the options, because it's a Porsche and the options list is longer than a diner menu. Instead of waffles, corned beef hash, and club sandwiches, it's multi-thousand-dollar brake kits and frivolous vanity features. Ready? 

All of that, plus the delivery/processing/handling fee, brought my loaner's MSRP up to $143,690. It's a very expensive car.

When taking my friend for a ride, he jokingly asked if the car had a whoopie cushion feature.

Of course not. This is a car built by adults. 

Our impressions: Heavy but planted

Getting into any Porsche product expecting it to be bad is like thinking Lewis Hamilton will lose a race. Kind of like gravity or celestial movement, it's just not something you bet against. The Taycan is no exception. 

There are, of course, a few things that feel a bit half-baked — the rear visibility, for one. Plus, the piped-in fake motor noise is rather gimmicky and at odds with what is otherwise a very serious car. But in terms of feeling quality and driving like a roller coaster, the Taycan absolutely nails it. 

But I can tell you this. I liked the Taycan quite a bit. It's not built on an internal-combustion engine platform that's been repurposed for an EV, so there aren't any glaringly obvious passenger or cargo room compromises. Sitting in the back does not give you the distinct feeling that you're astride a battery pack.

The Taycan weighs more than two tons, but it conducts itself like a very planted sports car. The optional rear-axle steering helped with maneuverability in tight spaces. It cruised quietly and smoothly on the highway when it wasn't gluing my passengers to their seatbacks.

Perhaps, though, this is a similar method to Tesla's: Launch the expensive, halo model first to get people excited about the idea and the brand, and then launch the cheaper volume seller.

For now, though, those who want "the Porsche of EVs" now have one from the brand itself — and it's a pretty good one, at that.

♦♦♦

• Airlines will rack up losses up to $157 billion until borders reopen safely and a vaccine rolls out, the International Air Transport Association predicted.
• The loss will be five times the deficit racked up during the 2008 financial recession.
• The slump in revenue during the pandemic shows airlines will lose $66 for every passenger carried this year, the association said.
• "The history books will record 2020 as the industry's worst financial year, bar none," IATA's CEO said.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Airlines will keep racking up losses into next year, as the industry expects the distribution of vaccines to take a while before flying returns to normal.

The International Air Transport Association this week predicted a worse than expected record loss for airline carriers, saying the industry will lose a total of $157 billion in 2020 and 2021. This would be five times larger than the deficit built up during the 2008 financial crisis. 

During the "devastating and unrelenting" crisis, the trade group said although airlines have cut costs by about 46%, revenues are down 60%.

A major consequence is that they will "lose $66 for every passenger carried this year," IATA said.

The forecast is in spite of an expectation of further federal relief for the sector. Airlines have been especially hard-hit because their very business relies on proximity among people — one of the greatest risks of the year. Carriers began laying off tens of thousands of workers last month to cut costs and weather the slowdown in travel.

Read More: Lazard's top ESG stock-picker outlines the 3-part strategy he's used to beat 75% of his peers and smash his benchmark without paying Tesla-like prices

"The history books will record 2020 as the industry's worst financial year, bar none," Alexandre de Juniac, IATA's director general and CEO said in a statement. "Airlines cut expenses by an average of a billion dollars a day over 2020 and will still rack-up unprecedented losses."

Airlines won't return to profitability until the fourth quarter of 2021, assuming that there will be a wide reopening of borders and vaccine availability, IATA predicted.

There could also be a billion more travelers next year, with the number of passengers expected to grow to 2.8 billion in 2021. However, passenger volumes may not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024.

Read More: An innovation-focused portfolio manager at a $158 billion firm shares 8 disruptive stocks across multiple industries he thinks could grow 30% every year over the next decade

• Delta is trialing a new testing program that will allow passengers to travel to Europe without quarantine.
• The airline is piloting the scheme on flights between Rome and Atlanta from December alongside Italian airline Alitalia.
• Passengers will have to take two COVID-19 tests before boarding the plane in the US, and another one upon arrival in Italy.
• If the Delta flights are 60% full and the tests are combined with other protective measures, the risk of COVID-19 infection "should be nearly one in a million," the Mayo Clinic said.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Delta Air Lines will allow passengers to skip one of the major hurdles associated with travel to Europe during the pandemic – quarantine – because of a new testing program it is launching on flights between Rome and Atlanta, Georgia.

From December 19, US citizens who are permitted to travel to Italy for essential reasons, including for work, health and education, as well as all EU and Italian citizens flying from the US, won't have to quarantine when they arrive in the country if they take part in the program, it announced Thursday. 

To board the flights, operated by both Delta and Italian airline Alitalia, passengers must produce a negative COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test taken up to 72 hours before departure, alongside a rapid test administered at the airport in Atlanta before boarding.

Upon arrival in Rome, they will have to take a second rapid test.

To return to Atlanta, passengers will also need to take a rapid test at the airport in Rome.

They will need to provide details to support the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's contact-tracing protocols, the airline said.

The program is pending an upcoming decree that Delta expects the Italian government to issue.

It applies to flights between Aeroporti di Roma in Rome, Italy and Georgia's Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Read more: There are 12 coronavirus tests you can use from home. Here's how they work and where to order one.

Advisors from the Mayo Clinic have reviewed Delta's testing program. When the testing protocols are combined with other protective measures including mask requirements, proper social distancing, and environmental cleaning, "we can predict that the risk of COVID-19 infection – on a flight that is 60% full – should be nearly one in a million," Henry Ting, chief value officer at the Mayo Clinic, said.

"Carefully designed COVID-19 testing protocols are the best path for resuming international travel safely and without quarantine until vaccinations are widely in place," Steve Sear, president of Delta's international operations, said.

This week, five other airlines, including Virgin Atlantic and United Airlines, announced that they would roll out shared digital health passes to prove negative COVID-19 tests in December.

The CommonPass shows the results of passengers' COVID-19 tests, and is designed as an international standard. In the future, it could also be used to record vaccination results.

On Wednesday, Reuters reported that the White House was considering lifting its restrictions on inbound travel to the US from most of Europe, per five US government and airline officials.

The US barred most travelers from Europe in March, and shortly afterwards Europe restricted entry from the US.

• It is possible to have discussions about income, religion, politics, or other taboo topics at the dinner table without getting heated or defensive, says communications professor James M. Honeycutt.
• When it comes to 'constructive arguing,' Honeycutt recommends utilizing positive understanding, being rational and considerate, and avoiding generalizations. 
• If you really want to change someone's beliefs, try to get your family member to recognize discrepancies in their arguments and use empathic understanding to help them identify with other perspectives. 
• It's important to remind yourself that people often rely on stereotypes and shortcuts to form political beliefs, so enter the conversation knowing they may not receptive to your point of view. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Sex, income, religion, and politics — these are some of the biggies on the list of taboo topics during polite discussion. Even a conciliatory tone doesn't always protect you if the subjects are spicy. When singer Katy Perry tweeted post-election encouragement to reach out to family members who supported the other candidate, she was skewered online.

Traditionally the year-end holidays are a time when friends and family with diverse points of view gather. In a pre-Thanksgiving Pew Research Center survey in 2018, people who reported more family discord about politics were less likely to be comfortable talking politics with their family, with 40% of respondents saying they try to avoid the subject.

Even during this tumultuous year, with stress running high for so many reasons, there are ways to discuss politics without the shouting and angst. Based on courses I teach on conflict resolution in relationships and organizations, here's my practical advice, whether you're connecting via Zoom or in person.

Keeping the conversation conflict-free

During arguments, it's easy to fall into what marriage therapist John Gottman calls the four horsemen of the apocalypse: contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and withdrawal. Once you go there, it's hard to have any kind of constructive or positive outcome.

Read more: A $500,000 PPP loan is saving a family business. Here's how the millennial cousins serving customers like Applebee's and Chili's are spending every dollar.

Here are the rules I've developed for constructive arguing among couples:

• Show positive understanding — "I get where you're coming from."
• Exhibit rationality — for instance, keep cool, don't raise your voice.
• Be concise, be specific, don't generalize.
• Show consideration — for example, don't push your view as the only one.

It's easy to get frustrated and start letting go of these ideals, especially in the heat of the moment.

A coaching strategy that encourages empathic understanding can help here. Known as support for thought, this technique encourages you to support your counterpart's willingness and ability to think constructively. You show respect for their different point of view and ask questions that reflect active and supportive listening.

Changing minds through discussion

Maybe you have higher aims than just keeping the peace. Sometimes you really want to challenge someone's beliefs. There are ways to do so constructively.

For example, you can try to get your family member to recognize a discrepancy between their current anxiety and their ideal future by suggesting some outcomes that are counter to their current beliefs.

Imagine your aunt is scared of losing health insurance. What she hopes for in the future is affordable health care. If you can recognize where she's coming from and where she wants to wind up, you can bring up a point that might not fit with her current view but that would help her accomplish her goals — like mentioning the possibility of using less expensive telemedicine options. You're using empathic understanding, identifying with the perspective of another.

Brains like to keep it simple and the same

You might save yourself some unpleasantness if you keep in mind the old maxim that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. People can change their minds — but it's not easy. The human default is to stick to your beliefs.

For one thing, people are cognitive misers and it's more efficient to adhere to pre-existing beliefs. It takes time, research and mental effort to make a change. Back in the 1950s, psychologist Jean Piaget called the process of modifying your existing ideas as a result of new information or new experiences "accommodation."

Neuroscience research reveals that the way the brain's connected makes it easier to assimilate new information that reinforces existing beliefs than to "unlearn" old information and replace it.

Political beliefs appear to be particularly "mindless" — people don't tend to spend a lot of time internally rehearsing their arguments when those claims fall along party lines. People rely a lot on existing stereotypes as shortcuts as they move through political discussions.

Read more: I spent 5 years studying more than 100 working parents across the globe. There are 3 steps every successful couple takes to properly balance work and life.

So, if a person is not receptive to your political arguments after you've given it your best shot, maybe you can take heart in knowing you're up against brain functions that have evolved over millennia to help people make efficient decisions without needing to painstakingly analyze every new bit of data.

Since the alternative is utter futility and fatalism, try to keep hope alive that compromise does sometimes occur. With any luck your holiday discussions, when approached calmly and respectfully, can provide some examples.

James M. Honeycutt, distinguished professor emeritus of communication studies from Louisiana State University; lecturer in executive education, University of Texas at Dallas

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

• Bank of America recently released its 2021 stock market outlook. Strategists led by Savita Subramanian detailed their preferred sectors, key investment themes, and a 2021 year end S&P 500 price target of 3,800.
• The strategists told investors 2 critical rules to follow for higher returns: extend your investment horizon and avoid panic selling. 
• Subramanian's team also highlighted why value stocks are poised to make a comeback next year.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Bank of America strategists say the S&P 500 will climb to 3,800 by the end of 2021—a 6% gain from current levels—but the path won't be a straight ride up, and the team cautioned on near-term risks. In a 2021 outlook note, strategists led by Savita Subramanian laid out two rules every investor should follow for the next 12 months. 

Rule #1: Extend Your Time Horizon 

"Historically, lengthening one's time horizon is a recipe for loss avoidance: 10-yr S&P 500 returns have been negative just 6% of the time. Other asset classes do not sport such characteristics - for example, the same 10-yr loss rate for commodities is 30%," said the strategists.

Rule #2: Avoid Panic Selling

The strategists also cautioned against "panic selling." Selling stocks when the market is trending downwards may feel like a way to protect against additional losses, but research shows staying in the market even on the worst days leads to higher long-term returns. 

"The best days usually follow the worst days for the market. Since the 1930s, if an investor sat out the 10 best return days per decade, his/her returns would be just 19% compared to >16,000% (16,485%) returns since then," the strategists added.

Read more: 93 units with another 122 under contract: How Emma Powell built a king-size real-estate investment portfolio leveraging a simple strategy

Bank of America has an overweight rating for financials, energy, tech, and healthcare, while rating consumer staples, communication services, and real estate as underweight for 2021. Subramanian said the top two sectors—financials and energy— are "unapologetically cyclical and value-focused," and reflect BofA's preference for value stocks over growth stocks.

"Value is the new growth sector," Subramanian said in a Tuesday webinar.

She added: "Value is a theme that hasn't worked for quite some time because we've been in an environment of weak economic growth and very low interest rates and we haven't necessarily seen a full-fledged economic cycle.

However, in the three-month period after the last 14 recessions, a value strategy has outperformed a growth strategy said Subramanian. She added that the Rusell 1000 value benchmark has a higher projected earnings growth than the Russell 1000 growth benchmark.

Her team also highlighted potential risks to the stock market in the year ahead.

"The recovery is intact and the world likely re-opens in the 2H, but a lot of optimism is priced in already on vaccine/recovery. Vaccine execution risk, delayed fiscal stimulus and longer lockdowns are risks," the strategists added.

Read more: An innovation-focused portfolio manager at a $158 billion firm shares 8 disruptive stocks across multiple industries he thinks could grow 30% every year over the next decade.

• A pair of pranksters took over the domain DonaldJTrump2024.com and gave it subheadings including "Trump Lost" and "Trump Is a Loser."
• The stunt was carried out by Jason Selvig and Davram Stiefler, who call themselves "The Good Liars" on Twitter.
• Earlier this week, President Donald Trump allowed the transition process to begin for President-elect Joe Biden, though he has continued to claim victory. Biden received 306 electoral votes, while Trump received 232.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Pranksters claimed the domain DonaldJTrump2024.com and plastered it with messages including "Trump Lost the Election."

Jason Selvig and Davram Stiefler, a comedy duo also known as "The Good Liars," said on Twitter on Wednesday that they had the domain name.

The website resembles President Donald Trump's legitimate website, DonaldJTrump.com, but has subheadings that mock his defeat in this year's election, including "Trump Lost" and "Trump Is a Loser."

—The Good Liars (@TheGoodLiars) November 24, 2020

Bloomberg reported on Thursday that 10 days after the election, Trump told his national security advisor, Robert O'Brien, along with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence, that he might run again in 2024.

"If you do that — and I think I speak for everybody in the room — we're with you 100%," O'Brien responded, while Pence and Pompeo remained silent, Bloomberg said.

Trump tweeted on Monday that he had instructed the General Services Administration to begin the transition to President-elect Joe Biden's administration. But he subsequently tweeted that he would "never concede."

Biden received 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232, making Trump only the fourth president to lose reelection since the end of World War II. Biden is also expected to have defeated Trump by more than 6 million votes.

Selvig and Stiefler have carried out other political stunts, such as switching covers of Donald Trump Jr.'s book, "Triggered," for ones that said "Daddy, Please Love Me" and interrupting the president's speeches.

• The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted businesses in multiple ways, especially when it comes to recruiting and hiring. 
• The most adaptive organizations are refocusing their efforts to find the best talent and build trust throughout the hiring process, not just going with the most-qualified candidates on paper. 
• If you're unable to fill job openings with the right people, try aligning your company values and talent expectations to show candidates how their skills can be a good fit. 
• Reflect on the core competencies you need to fill and prioritize them — you could even go through the process of applying to a job at your company to understand how it can improve or differentiated. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The only way to win in a post-COVID-19 world is to relentlessly focus on creating the best team possible. This has always been important during periods of economic contraction and business uncertainty. The difference now is that the rewards and the risks have never been greater. COVID-19's disruptions, a shortage of in-demand talent and millennial-led trends will force a permanent rethinking of how companies are structured. The organizations that can do more with less — by attracting better talent and better engaging them — will likely see massive productivity improvements when compared to the average company, where 60% of the company is not engaged or actively disengaged. 

The most adaptive organizations are thinking about talent in the same way they think about their ideal customer. Companies spend significant time and money working to understand the customers they want to attract and finding ways to reach them. The best possible hire you can make today does not need your job, and they will not seek your company out to sell themselves. They expect to be sought out and sold.

Any company that treats their talent as commodities is signaling to the entire world that their business model is outdated. They are signaling that their company is not a place where you will see your future improved. This is why talent strategies need to shift from funneling down to the best candidates remaining, and toward a strategy that funnels in the best talent. Utilizing this method can also capture the employee's trust during the hiring process.

Read more: 6 important tips for interviewers looking to hire top talent from diverse backgrounds, according to HR and D&I leaders

Benefit your customers and employees equally

Organizations that do not create an authentic, symbiotic, trusting culture will not gain the trust of the best talent. Trust has never been more important than during the COVID-19 era, as Americans' happiness is at a low. People are dealing with economic uncertainty and pandemic-related anxiety, which is a natural distraction from efforts on the job.

Any talent that is not engaged will not find a way to be as productive as they were pre-COVID-19. Talent that trusts their employer and believes in their mission will find a way to maximize their productivity and help their employer navigate the massive disruptions occurring today.

Fill the gap strategically

Even today, when most assume there is an ever-shrinking pool of jobs available, American companies are unable to fill more than 4 million jobs because they cannot find the right talent for those roles. There are more unfilled roles during the COVID-19 pandemic when compared to this same time in 2014. 

This gap between what companies are looking for and what's available will not change overnight and it can't be solved by spending more on job advertising or paying a recruiter to find someone that checks all the boxes on a sheet of paper. The best talent will continue to have leverage, they won't just want the average market rates for their skills. The best hires will want to be paid a premium, and want a company that fits in with their lifestyle needs and life goals.

This may sound challenging, or even intimidating. It is if you aren't properly aligned toward the future of work and talent expectations. The good news, however, is disruption creates opportunities. There has never been a better time to make the necessary changes in your company and align yourself for massive growth long term. Small- and mid-size companies now have more access to talent than ever. All companies and talent are now open to remote work, creating a massive opportunity for companies in all markets to compete for amazing talent they never had access to before. 

Read more: I'm a Google recruiter who's interviewed thousands of candidates at top tech companies. I wish more job seekers knew these 4 things about the interview and hiring process.

Some immediate steps you can take to benchmark your ability to capture the best talent:

• Remember a time you were most engaged and happiest with your job. Would you have ever learned about your current company's open roles and why you should work there? 
• Go through the process of applying to a job at your company. Does it treat you like the company is anxious to have a conversation with you and sell you on why the partnership between you and them will be mutually beneficial , or does it feel more like being at the DMV? 
• Mystery shop your own company by applying to a job under another name and with a fake resume. How long does it take before you get a response that isn't automated?  Mark down how long it takes before you find out if the company is interested or not, and how the communication makes you feel. If this takes any longer than three days — you're losing out on the best talent and settling for talent that is more likely to end up disengaged. 
• Begin the process of understanding the core competencies and differentiators of your organization. What jobs are indispensable for you to compete in the marketplace?  Anything that is on this list should get prioritized and benchmarked, and you should do whatever possible to get the best talent and keep them happy. Everything else can be done better through new talent platforms or outsourcing to companies that specialize in those areas. Don't be OK at everything — be amazing with a narrowed focus. 

The importance of engaged and talented individuals being part of your team is never going to go away. The rate of change in technology, competition, and our economy will only continue to increase. There are no permanent moats, and your differentiator today will be commoditized tomorrow. The only way to prosper in this ever-changing environment is to focus on having the best team possible to handle whatever comes your way. Focus on being great where you can. Where you can't, find partners that are.

• Bitcoin fell by over 10% on Thursday as cryptocurrency traders cashed in on holdings whose values have gained 20% this month alone.
• The digital token looked set to hit a record high of $20,000 this week.
• Traders said that after such a swift rally, several large investors booked profits on their holdings, many of which may have been moved to exchanges to secure a better price.
• "It feels more and more like we're hitting a Bitcoin tipping point," a crypto trader said. "In fact, a cooldown is to be expected."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Bitcoin slid by more than $2,000 on Thursday in its biggest one-day drop in nearly three months.

The price of the world's largest cryptocurrency had fallen by 11%, to $16,725, as of 8:45 a.m. GMT. The price is still up by about 21% this month and by 138% on the year. It hit a peak of $19,497 on Wednesday but did not break the record of $19,666 set in December 2017.

The price correction may also be a function of crypto traders moving larger volumes of bitcoin to exchanges — where they can be more easily sold at a better price — when the token approached $20,000.

"It feels more and more like we're hitting a Bitcoin tipping point," said John Kramer, a trader at the crypto trading firm GSR. "In fact, a cooldown is to be expected. But with more well-known fund managers and institutions re-examining their Bitcoin theses every day, it's getting harder to not take the asset more seriously."

Kramer said many investors feel that the stock market is utterly divorced from economic reality right now. The S&P 500 hit record highs this week as US COVID-19 cases surged and as many as 2,200 Americans were dying every day from the virus. Prospective returns from traditional markets are low, while the risks are quite high, he said.

Part of the rally in cryptocurrencies in the past few weeks has stemmed from the fact that they — unlike equities, bonds, gold, or oil — have very little correlation to the economy, interest rates, or even other asset classes.

"The stimulus response to the pandemic has stoked lingering concerns among several large asset managers about the devaluation of the US dollar, shining a light on Bitcoin's finite supply," Kramer said. "The risk-return relationship for digital assets is now uniquely poised as an attractive alternative that is uncorrelated to wider macro and increases the diversification of a traditional portfolio."

Read more: Lazard's top ESG stock-picker outlines the 3-part strategy he's used to beat 75% of his peers and smash his benchmark without paying Tesla-like prices

Despite the sell-off on Thursday, Bitcoin may soon hit $20,000, said Ki Young Ju, the creator of CryptoQuant, an on-chain analytics firm.

"All Exchanges Inflow Mean increased a few hours ago," he said in a tweet. "It indicates that whales, relatively speaking, deposited $BTC to exchanges. But long-term on-chain indicators say the buying pressure prevails. I still think we can break 20k in a few days."

Other digital coins tumbled alongside Bitcoin. Ethereum fell by more than 13%, to about $491, and Ripple's XRP fell by 20%, to $0.49.

Smaller "altcoins" have benefited from the push into cryptocurrencies. Ethereum is still up by about 30% this month, while XRP has more than doubled in value.

Read more: An innovation-focused portfolio manager at a $158 billion firm shares 8 disruptive stocks across multiple industries he thinks could grow 30% every year over the next decade

• The head of Operation Warp Speed, the US government's program to help develop and roll out a COVID-19 vaccine to the country, said he may leave the position before the point when most Americans would be vaccinated.
• Moncef Slaoui, told Politico that he could step down from the position "by the end this year or early next year."
• Ordinary Americans would likely not have access to coronavirus vaccines until around April 2021.
• Slaoui said he was close to what he wanted to achieve with getting vaccines and drugs authorized, and that he always viewed his role as temporary.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The official in charge of the US government program tasked with helping develop and roll out a vaccine for the country has said that he may leave his role before the point when most Americans would be vaccinated.

Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific advisor to Operation Warp Speed, told Politico that he could step down from the position "by the end this year or early next year."

Companies developing coronavirus vaccines have reported positive results in their late-stage trials, and could start distributing doses to Americans and other countries at the end of this year.

But most Americans would not be vaccinated until later in 2021  — which is when Slaoui may have left his role.

As Business Insider's Aria Bendix previously reported, around 70 million to 80 million people could be vaccinated across the US by the end of February 2021 if the vaccines all get the right approvals.

The people vaccinated at this stage would likely be priority groups like healthcare workers and vulnerable people, and the vaccines could become available to the general population by April.

This graph shows that timeline:

Vaccine makers have said that actually making enough vaccines and getting them to people will have its own host of challenges even after the vaccine is created and approved.

They also said that countries need to be ready with enough infrastructure for people to be able be vaccinated quickly.

Operation Warp Speed has helped fund the manufacturing of vaccine candidates, and aims to accelerate the delivery of vaccines across the country.

Slaoui told Politico that he was close to what he wanted to achieve in his role, which is two authorized coronavirus vaccines and two authorized coronavirus drugs.

He said that he always thought of his role with Operation Warp Speed as being temporary, and that he was not as necessary to the program as manufacturing speeds up. 

"The way I look at it is: Am I adding value or no?" he said.

Slaoui added that his leaving is not a reaction to the Biden presidency. Politico also noted that he is a registered Democrat.

"I do not want my departure from the role to have anything to do with the new administration. I have more affinity for the new administration than the current one," he said.

"This doesn't have to be black and white. I can continue to be available as needed."