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(NEW YORK) — Stocks are holding on to broad gains at midday Friday, led by industrial companies and chipmakers.

Lyft made its much-anticipated trading debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange, jumping 21 percent to $87.24. Shares of the ride-hailing company were priced at $72.

The S&P 500 index is on track for its best quarterly performance since the third quarter of 2009. The S&P technology sector has led the gains with a jump of more than 18 percent.

Boeing rose 1.9 percent, boosting the industrials sector. Micron Technology rose 4.6 percent as makers of semiconductors saw solid gains.

The S&P 500 rose 13 points, or 0.5 percent, to 2,828. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 149 points, or 0.6 percent, to 25,866. The Nasdaq edged up 49 points, or 0.6 percent, to 7,718.

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March 29, 2019 at 08:15PM

The stall-prevention system on a Boeing Co. 737 Max jet automatically switched on before the plane crashed in Ethiopia this month, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing initial findings from the plane's flight data.

The conclusion was relayed at a briefing at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday and is the strongest indication yet that the same system malfunctioned in both the Ethiopian Airlines flight and the Lion Air disaster in Indonesia in October, the newspaper said.

A preliminary report from Ethiopian authorities is expected within days, though the preliminary conclusions — based on analysis of the aircraft's black boxes — could still change, the people briefed on the matter told the Wall Street Journal. A representative for Boeing said the company was unable to comment on the investigation.

The U.S. planemaker, working with regulators, has spent months refining the 737 Max's software since data from the Lion Air crash indicated the stall-avoidance system had repeatedly tipped the nose down before pilots lost control. Boeing was close to a software fix when the Ethiopian Airlines jet went down on March 10.

Air-crash experts have been using flight-data and cockpit-voice recordings recovered from the Ethiopian Airlines wreckage to piece together events leading up to the tragedy, which killed all 157 people on board. Parallels with the loss of an identical Lion Air plane led to a global grounding of the Max model and have given the probe added urgency.

The Ethiopian investigation has focused on the anti-stall system, which in the case of the Lion Air crash exerted more and more force until the crew lost control. The software had kicked in on the same aircraft the day before, when an off-duty pilot riding in the cockpit was able to save the plane by helping to cut the power to the rogue system.

The feature, known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, was designed to keep the Max from climbing too steeply and stalling. The U.S. Transportation Department has begun an inquiry into how it was approved as part of the Max's certification in 2017, while the Justice Department is using a grand jury to gather information.

Officials from the two departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigation began digging into a range of matters related to MCAS within weeks of the Lion Air loss, Bloomberg has reported.

There's no explanation of the MCAS — nor the steps needed to counter it — in the Max's U.S. and European pilot manuals. Boeing reasoned that crews were already drilled to counter similar behavior by the 737's horizontal stabilizer, running through a checklist to flip two center-console switches. The Federal Aviation Administration reviewed the U.S. company's analysis and agreed.

With Boeing's best-selling model out of action and its future in the balance, establishing the cause of the Ethiopian tragedy has become critical.

Read: U.S. Said to Have Probed Boeing 737 Max, Pilot Manuals Last Year

Boeing has said its planned software update and further pilot training guidelines for the Max will address concerns. The planemaker will stop charging for a safety feature called the disagree light, activated if a plane's sensors — which can trigger the MCAS — are at odds.

A wrongful death lawsuit was filed against Boeing in a U.S. federal court Thursday in what appears to be the first litigation over the fatal crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 earlier this month, Reuters reports.

The case was brought by the family of Jackson Musoni, a 31-year-old Rwandan national who was among at least 22 U.N. workers killed in the March 10 tragedy.

The suit alleges that Boeing's 737 MAX aircraft had a defectively designed automated flight control system and that Boeing failed to warn pilots about the allegedly faulty sensors. The ill-fated Flight 302 lost control minutes after takeoff from Ethiopia capital's Addis Adaba and the crash killed all 157 people on board.

Following the crash, dozens of countries and airlines grounded the 737 MAX. The same aircraft was involved in Indonesian carrier Lion Air's wreckage last October, which killed 189 people.

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg issued a statement on March 17 saying that the company is "working with the authorities to evaluate new information as it becomes available."

On Wednesday, Boeing announced it would be making changes to the 737 MAX 8 aircraft, which only entered into commercial service in 2017. An extra warning system, previously provided only as an optional, paid upgrade, will now become standard issue. Neither the Indonesian, nor the Ethiopian aircraft had the system installed.

Additionally, the plane-maker has reprogramed the aircraft's anti-stall software, which is believed to have repeatedly forced the aircraft's nose to lower, causing pilots to lose control in at least one of the crashes.

The Federal Aviation Administration also said it plans to revamp oversight of airplane development.

A preliminary report on the Ethiopian Airlines crash is expected to be made public later this week.

(NEW YORK) — The federal government charged Facebook with high-tech housing discrimination Thursday for allegedly allowing landlords and real estate brokers to systematically exclude groups such as non-Christians, immigrants and minorities from seeing ads for houses and apartments.

The civil charges filed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development could cost the social network millions of dollars in penalties. But more than that, they strike at the heart of Facebook's business model — its vaunted ability to deliver ads with surgical precision to certain groups of people and not others.

"Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live," HUD Secretary Ben Carson said. "Using a computer to limit a person's housing choices can be just as discriminatory as slamming a door in someone's face."

In a statement, Facebook expressed surprise over the charges, saying it has been working with HUD to address its concerns and has taken steps to prevent discrimination, including eliminating thousands of ad-targeting options last year that could be misused by advertisers.

Just last week, Facebook agreed to overhaul its targeting system and abandon some of the practices singled out by HUD to prevent discrimination, not just in housing listings but in credit and employment ads as well. The move was part of a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union and other activists.

"We're disappointed by today's developments, but we'll continue working with civil rights experts on these issues," the company said.

The HUD charges were seen as a possible prelude to a wider regulatory crackdown on the digital advertising industry, which is dominated by Facebook and Google. And the case was yet another blow to Facebook, which has come under siege from lawmakers, regulators and activists and is under investigation in the U.S. and Europe over its data and privacy practices.

HUD spokesman Brian Sullivan said the agency has reached out to Google and Twitter to "better understand their advertising practices." But he said neither is currently under investigation. Twitter says it doesn't allow discriminatory advertising, while Google says its policies prohibit targeting ads based on sensitive categories such as race, ethnicity and religious beliefs.

Google, in particular, has ad-targeting options similar to Facebook's.

The technology at the center of the clash with HUD has helped make Facebook rich, with annual revenue of close to $56 billion. Facebook gathers enormous amounts of data on what users read and like and who their friends are, and it uses that information to help advertisers and others direct their messages to exactly the crowd they want to reach.

HUD said Facebook is allowing advertisers to practice a sort of high-tech form of red-lining by excluding people in entire neighborhoods or ZIP codes from seeing their ads. The company was accused, too, of giving advertisers the option of showing ads only to men or only to women.

Facebook also allegedly allowed advertisers to exclude parents; those who are non-American-born; non-Christians; and those interested in Hispanic culture, "deaf culture," accessibility for the disabled, countries like Honduras or Somalia, or a variety of other topics.

The case will be heard by an administration law judge unless HUD or Facebook decides to move it to federal court.

"The nature of their business model is advertising and targeted advertising, so that is a slippery slope. That is their business model," said Dan Ives, an industry analyst with Wedbush Securities. "The government launched this missile and caught many in the industry by surprise."

Ives said the move may mean U.S. regulators are taking broader aim at the digital advertising market. "This is a clear shot across the bow for Facebook and others," he said.

Galen Sherwin of the ACLU likewise warned: "All the online platforms should be paying close attention to these lawsuits and taking a hard look at their own advertising platforms."

Facebook is already under fire for allowing fake Russian accounts to buy ads targeting U.S. users and sow political discord during the 2016 presidential election. The company has also been criticized for allowing organizations to target groups of people identified as "Jew-haters" and Nazi sympathizers.

HUD brought an initial complaint against Facebook in August. Facebook said in its statement that it was "eager to find a solution" but that HUD "insisted on access to sensitive information — like user data — without adequate safeguards."

In its settlement with the ACLU and others, Facebook said it will no longer allow housing, employment or credit ads that target people by age, gender or ZIP code. It said it will also limit other targeting options so that these ads don't exclude people on the basis of race, ethnicity and other legally protected categories, including sexual orientation.

"Unless and until HUD can verify that there is an end of the discriminatory practices, we still have a responsibility to the American people," said Raffi Williams, deputy assistant HUD secretary.

(NEW YORK) — Wells Fargo's CEO Tim Sloan stepped down Thursday, saying he'd become too much of a political target after a rocky tenure during which the deeply troubled bank dealt with a seemingly unending wave of scandals.

Sloan said in a statement he will give up his roles as CEO and president as well as his seat on the board, effective immediately. He will fully retire from the bank on June 30.

Sloan led the banking giant for less than three years. A longtime insider, Sloan was chosen to replace outgoing CEO John Stumpf, who resigned in October 2016 after Wells Fargo employees were found to have fraudulently opened millions of bank accounts in order to meet the company's unrealistic sales goals.

While Sloan sought to clean up Wells' reputation following the accounts scandal, new improprieties repeatedly came to light. The bank was found to have tacked unnecessary auto insurance onto the accounts of car loan customers. Tens of thousands of customers were unable to afford the payments and, in many cases, got their cars repossessed. The bank also foreclosed on the homes of hundreds of customers accidentally.

Those are just two examples in what became a game of scandal "whack-a-mole" at the nation's second-largest bank.

Sloan has faced considerable criticism from Congress during his time as CEO. Just two weeks ago, he was grilled by Democrats — and some Republicans — on the House Financial Services Committee, who questioned Wells Fargo's commitment to compensating all the victims of the various scandals at the bank over the past few years.

Sloan told investors Thursday on a conference call that the target on his back from politicians was one of the reasons he decided to step down.

"There's too much focus on me," Sloan said. "I could not keep myself in that position as I was becoming a distraction. It's a hard decision step down; I can assure you of that."

Wells Fargo's board of directors said it chose Allen Parker, who is currently the bank's general counsel, as interim CEO and president. The bank also said in a statement that it will be looking at external candidates for its next CEO. Sloan was the bank's chief operating officer and was also chief financial officer under Stumpf, and was not a popular choice as CEO with the public. While Sloan said he had no knowledge of the bank's bad practices, many experts felt Wells needed someone from the outside to help clean up its act.

Federal regulators lost patience with Wells Fargo's continued bad behavior and inflicted harsh punishments. Wells had to pay a $1 billion fine last year to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. But more importantly, the Federal Reserve stepped in and handcuffed Wells' ability to grow its business until the bank could prove that it had gotten its house in order.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters earlier this month that he did not believe Wells Fargo had made enough progress to warrant less scrutiny.

"We will not lift (our restraints) until Wells Fargo gets their arms around this, comes forward with plans, implements those plans, and we're satisfied with what they've done. And that's not where we are right now."

Among politicians, Sloan was a favorite target of Senator Elizabeth Warren, who crusaded against Wall Street and the big banks as a Senator from Massachusetts and continues to do so in her campaign for the presidency in 2020. Sloan testified in front of Congress earlier this month, where he continued to face heated questions about himself and Wells' business practices.

"About damn time. Tim Sloan should have been fired a long time ago," Warren said on Twitter.

Republicans are just as angry, if a bit more constrained.

"The bottom line is that we've not seen the type of cultural or institutional change so desperately needed at Wells Fargo," said Patrick McHenry, who is the top Republican sitting on the House Financial Services Committee.

Due to the harsh political climate facing Wells Fargo, and considering it could get worse as the 2020 election approaches, it was maybe the right time for Sloan to step down, analysts said.

"(Wells Fargo) was going be a punching bag through 2020 if he didn't step down," said Kyle Sanders, a bank analyst with Edward Jones who covers Wells Fargo.

Regardless of his legacy, Sloan is retiring a very rich man after being with the company more than 30 years. The compensation analysis firm Equilar estimates Sloan's total compensation — salary, stock and benefits — from 2011 to 2018 was roughly $150 million.

Also, Sloan will receive a standard retirement package and has stock grants that Equilar estimates are worth about $24.5 million, based on Wells' closing price Thursday of $49.09.

Wells Fargo shares rose 2.3 percent to $50.20 in after-hours trading.