Daily Pulse: US Stocks Plummet, Foursquare Shake-Up, Apple Board Rejects Diversity Proposal

Sell Fever: US equities markets tumbled hard at the open and remained near session lows mid-morning. All major indices were down in the 2% range, with the Dow bouncing off the 16,000 mark. Causes? The usual: A selloff in China markets and oil dipped below $30 again. It's also an options expiration day and the last trading opportunity before a three-day weekend.

Foursquare shake-up: Cofounder Dennis Crowley will be stepping down as CEO. He'll move on up to executive chairman, while COO Jeff Gluecke will take over as chief exec. The shift comes as the company secures funding from Union Square Ventures—the $45 million round nearly halves Foursquare's valuation, which was $650M back in 2013.

Apple's board on diversity: ˉ\_(ツ)_/ˉ. The company's predominantly white, male board recommends that investors reject a proposal to boost diversity efforts. Investor Antonio Avian Maldonado II put forth the proposal, calling the company's current attempts to increase diversity in its leadership "painfully slow." The board has called the proposal “unduly burdensome and not necessary," citing existing diversity programs, such as sponsoring the Grace Hopper conference, providing scholarships for students at historically black colleges, and providing Apple devices to underserved schools. 

And while those are all great initiatives, at least from where I sit, they fail to properly address Maldonado's concerns. Diversity in senior leadership and on company boards isn't just representation for the sake of it; it allows for a diversity of perspectives and ideas, better serving the variety of consumers Apple hopes to reach. Glassbreakers CEO Eileen Carey told Quartz, “The board is honestly one of the most important parts of the organization that needs diversity. It’s important to represent at the very top of the organization all the people a company serves.”

One Telco to Rule Them All: UK watchdog Competition and Markets Authority has given BT the clear to acquire EE, creating a telecoms powerhouse. The￡12.5bn (that's 'billion' with a b) deal will "bring together the UK's largest fixed-line business and the largest mobile telecoms business." The companies have 35 million customers between them.

One small step for Sierra Nevada... NASA has given contracts to SpaceX, Orbital ATK, and Sierra Nevada to provide supplies to the International Space Station from 2019 to 2024. NASA plans to launch four missions a year. It's the first major NASA contract for Sierra Nevada, which solidifies its place in the private space industry.

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Cover Art: A graph showing the movement of the Hang Seng Index is displayed on a screen at a securities brokerage in Hong Kong, China, on Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Asian stocks sank to a three-year low as oil fell back below $31 a barrel. 

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