And they're off 📈

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Welcome back, friends. Let's get into it.

By Allison Morrow

💸 BUCKLE UP...

Look, there are a lot of things about 2021 we wish would go away for good – the supply chain crisis, Covid-19, "Emily in Paris" – but unfortunately, we don't have a magic wand to wave when it comes to the global economy. That's why we're still talking about... drum roll, please… inflation.

It's not all bad news, of course. Wages are going up, as are home values, so many Americans won't necessarily feel the sting of rising prices on everyday goods.

Starting this weekend, 21 states rolled out minimum wage increases.
Salaried workers in America can expect their biggest base pay bump in over a decade.
Homeowners can expect to see their property values keep rising, albeit at a slightly less bonkers pace than last year. Inflation also benefits people with fixed-rate debt, like a 30-year mortgage.

Still, inflation is sitting at a nearly four-decade high, and that won't go away just because we turned a new digit on the odometer. Blame the usual suspects:

Supply-chain bottlenecks exacerbated by high demand.
Commodity price surges that are driving up prices of food and energy.
Big corporations seizing the moment to jack up prices on consumers and fatten profit margins. (President Biden has been hitting that last point hard, and on Monday the White House said it would allocate $1 billion to boost competition in the meat-processing industry and lower prices for consumers.)

Even as the latest inflation indicators show a slight slowdown in price increases, my colleague Anneken Tappe reports, it may take months for such incremental changes to show up in in the data economists use. And just to keep everyone on their toes, the Omicron variant has emerged as a wild card that could once again upend consumer behavior.

Look ahead: The Federal Reserve, which is tasked with keeping prices stable, is rolling back its pandemic-era stimulus policy – amounting to tens of billions of dollars being pumped into financial markets each month — and is expected to begin raising interest rates in the first half of the year. That two-prong strategy should help bring prices down, especially as supply-chain bottlenecks ease around the world.

#️⃣ NUMBER OF THE DAY

936,000

Tesla sold a record 936,000 cars last year, up 87% from 2020. That's a jaw-dropping figure for a few reasons. First, it's about 36,000 more vehicles than Wall Street analysts had expected. And it also sets Tesla apart from its rivals, virtually all of whom saw sales decline in 2021 because of an acute, persistent shortage of computer chips and other vital parts. Tesla shares soared more than 13% Monday on the news.

📰 FOOD NEWS

Here at Nightcap, we're always on the hunt for a good snack. And 2022 has blessed us with this bounty.

THE BELL

First up: Taco Bell is getting into the chicken wings game. Now, before you start shouting that the Bell needs to stay in its lane, know that this is a short-term deal, not a permanent menu change. And while they might seem out of place next to your Gordiatas Crunch or Crunchwraps Supreme, chicken wings have become the go-to order of the pandemic era. Everyone's got wing option these days. Plus, I mean, it's Taco Bell, the company that invented Nacho Fries and made Mexican Pizza a thing (Side note: Bring back the Mexican Pizza, you cowards).

Anyway, Taco Bell's chicken wings will be available for a limited time starting this Thursday.

SEEING GREEN

Sweetgreen, the leafy veg peddler that has bamboozled countless office workers out of their hard-won wages by making salad actually taste good, is getting craftier with its plans to drain health-conscious bougie drones of our lunch money.

Starting today, the chain is selling a $10 subscription called Sweetpass that gives customers as much as 30% off each purchase. For the rest of the month, you can get three bucks off one order of $10 or more, once a day. And trust me, no one has ever spent less than $10 at a time at Sweetgreen, so that could be a good deal for all my fellow Shroomami addicts out there.

PIZZA PIZZA

Not even Little Caesars is immune from inflation. The pizza chain's signature $5 Hot-N-Ready pizza now costs 11% more, or $5.55. In announcing the product's first price increase in nearly 25 years, Little Ceasars said the pizza is "new and improved," with more pepperoni than before.

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

⚖️ JUST IN: Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of blood-testing startup Theranos, was found guilty on four federal criminal charges — three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

💰 I don't know about you, but Wall Street's feelin '22... (and no, this will not be the last Taylor Swift joke of the year, deal with it). The Dow and S&P 500 both notched record highs on the first day of trading in the new year.

🍎 Apple just became the world's first $3 trillion company.

🏦 Goldman Sachs joined a growing list of Wall Street firms advising employees to stay home in response to soaring Covid cases.

📱 Verizon and AT&T, America's largest cellular carriers, rejected regulators' pleas to push back the rollout of 5G wireless service near airports over concerns about potential aviation signal interference.

🇹🇷 Turkey's inflation soared 36% last month, hitting nearly two-decade high as the country's currency continues to decline.

💻 The annual tech nerd-fest CES is moving forward with plans to host in-person events in Las Vegas this week despite the Omicron threat.