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Aerospace Billionaire Branson Falls on Wall Street

Virgin Orbit, the famous British billionaire Richard Branson’s aerospace company, fell hard on the stock exchanges in New York on Tuesday. The stock fell 22 percent after the company’s failed first space rocket launch from Western Europe.

The launch took place in the South West of England on Monday evening.

Virgin Orbit focuses on bringing satellites to space. The company does this with a rocket launched from a Boeing 747. It is unclear what happened to the cargo of satellites. The plane, called the Cosmic Girl, returned to the airfield in Cornwall with the crew without any problems. The company proposes to study the data from the failed launch.

The mood on Wall Street was otherwise cautious. Investors are especially awaiting the speech that US central bank president Jerome Powell will give later. On Monday, Wall Street was already reacting negatively to statements by two other Fed executives, who indicated that interest rates in the US are likely to rise above 5 percent.

Shortly after the start of trading, the Dow Jones index was 0.3 percent higher at 33,605 points. The broad S&P 500 rose 0.3 percent to 3,905 points, and tech gauge Nasdaq gained 0.5 percent to 10,686 points.

Coinbase Global advanced 4.8 percent. The crypto exchange will lay off about a fifth of its staff due to the turmoil in the crypto world caused by the collapse of the FTX. Coinbase already laid off 18 percent of its employees in June. At the end of September, the company had about 4,700 employees.

Microsoft gained 1.3 percent. According to the Bloomberg news agency, the software group is in talks about a billion-dollar investment in OpenAI, the company behind the ChatGPT program. ChatGPT has caused quite a stir in recent months by producing legible texts based on artificial intelligence. The amount that Microsoft would like to invest in OpenAI could reach 10 billion dollars.

AT&T gained 0.9 percent. Analysts from Wells Fargo raised their recommendation for the telecom group, which they believe has attractive growth prospects. On the other hand, Boeing had to deal with a proposal cut by Morgan Stanley and lost 1 percent.

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