Friday's Pre-Market: Wells Fargo, Ford vs Tesla, DraftKings, Jeff Bezos, Toast's layoffs

Wells Fargo says regulator has lifted a key penalty tied to its 2016 fake accounts scandal

Wells Fargo said Thursday one of its primary regulators lifted a key penalty from its 2016 fake accounts scandal.
The bank said in a release that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency terminated a consent order that forced it to revamp how it sells its retail products and services.
Eight consent orders remain, including one from the Federal Reserve that caps the bank’s asset size, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

Ford CEO Jim Farley urged Wall Street to forget about Tesla as the future of the auto industry, arguing investors should instead focus on Ford’s “Pro” fleet business.
Ford Pro is made up of the automaker’s traditional fleet and commercial businesses as well as emerging telematics, logistics and other connective operations for business customers.
Ford expects the Pro unit’s pre-tax earnings to increase to between $8 billion and $9 billion this year, the automaker said earlier this month.

DraftKings posted fourth-quarter results that missed Wall Street’s estimates on Thursday.
The sports betting company saw 44% growth in revenue year-over-year.
DraftKings also reported a 37% increase in monthly unique payers.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos sold roughly $2.03 billion of shares in the company over the past few days, according to a filing.
It’s the third time Bezos has liquidated a large chunk of Amazon stock this month.
Bezos said last year he would leave Seattle and head to Miami, a move that could save him hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes on the share sales.

Toast said it would lay off 550 employees, resulting in $45 million to $55 million charges, mostly in the first quarter.
The maker of restaurant software reported better-than-expected results, but growth continued to slow after an acceleration in 2021.
Toast is beginning share buybacks.