Daily Pre-Market: Jobless Claims, Tax season, OpenAi, and Morgan Stanley

Weekly jobless claims post lowest reading since September 2022

Initial filings for unemployment insurance totaled 187,000 for the week ended Jan. 13, the lowest level since Sept. 24, 2022.
The total for continuing claims hit 1.806 million, below the FactSet estimate for 1.83 million.

Lawmakers are racing to avert a government shutdown, which could affect the upcoming tax season, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said last week.
By law, the agency can preserve certain activities for ongoing operations after a lapse in funding.
But it’s unclear exactly which areas of taxpayer service would be affected, experts say.

Both publicly and privately, U.S. executives said at Davos they weren’t concerned if Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election.
Banking leaders, in particular, expressed confidence that America will be OK if Trump returns to the White House.
Several World Economic Forum attendees said non-American executives have privately expressed far more trepidation about a Trump 2024 victory than American leaders.

OpenAI on Thursday announced its first partnership with a higher education institution.
Starting in February, Arizona State University will have full access to ChatGPT Enterprise and plans to use it for coursework, tutoring, research and more.
The partnership has been in the works for at least six months.
ASU plans to build a personalized AI tutor for students, allow students to create AI avatars for study help and broaden the university’s prompt engineering course.

Morgan Stanley’s new CEO, Ted Pick, on Thursday expressed confidence his bank will hit financial targets of $10 trillion in client assets and a 20% return.
Pick, a three-decade Morgan Stanley veteran who took over this month, said he has three priorities: sticking to the strategy laid out by predecessor James Gorman, maintaining the bank’s culture and achieving their targets.