(Bloomberg) -- At Bloomberg, we put out a lot of lists at the end of the year. These feature some of our best photos, roundups of political and business news, and reading recommendations from our editors and reporters — or sometimes business leaders.
This time, we decided to let our readers define the list — to highlight what features, analysis and interactive projects they found most compelling in Bloomberg’s coverage of the year.* What emerged is a collection of stories that offer a nuanced take on some of the biggest news events — from the hunt for the origins of coronavirus to the global race for vaccines to the rise of meme-stock trading and one of Wall Street’s biggest implosions in years. Take a look:
Meet the thrill-seeking amateurs prowling for profits in the wildest corners of the crypto market — all in search of the next big coin.
Document shredding. Risky trades. A family divided. At 93 years old, Beverley Schottenstein decided her JPMorgan financial advisers needed to pay — even if they were her own grandsons.
Bill Hwang amassed one of the world’s great fortunes in virtual secrecy — and then lost $20 billion, very publicly, in the blink of an eye. Bankers and federal authorities were left sifting through the wreckage. Bloomberg reporters caught up with Hwang in New Jersey, where he was grasping for answers of his own, in the wake of one of the biggest debacles in Wall Street history.
Cyberpunk 2077, a role-playing game set in a sci-fi dystopia, sold 13 million copies at $60 apiece in the first 10 days after its release. But soon players found it was glitchy on PCs and almost unplayable on consoles. Its maker CD Projekt, for a while Poland’s most valuable company, faced fierce backlash. Employees and ex-staffers tell us what doomed one of the hottest games of 2020.
Scientists probing the origins of the coronavirus find “important clues” about a Wuhan seafood market’s role in the outbreak.
When things go horribly wrong during a stay, the company’s secretive safety team jumps in to soothe guests and hosts, help families — and prevent PR disasters.
How did shares of GameStop go from single-digit prices in September 2020 to $65.01 in January 2021? Here’s a look back on one corner of the meme-stock frenzy and the investors who got burned.
For ages, Tommy Fisher dreamed of building an epic piece of infrastructure. When Donald Trump ran for president promising a wall along the entire 1,954-mile southern border of the United States, Fisher erected a 3-mile fence along the Rio Grande. Bloomberg caught up with Fisher as he was looking for either a buyer or someone willing to pay him to keep building.
The Amazon founder's superyacht, which will likely cost more than $500 million and have its own support yacht with a helipad, is the latest accessory heralding Bezos’s transformation from geeky technologist to globe-trotting megabillionaire. It’s also a testament to the fiercely secretive industry of yachts that’s thrived as the rich get even richer.
In September, we published a story asking scientists for their outlook on the next six months. They had some bad news for those hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel — including predictions for more variants and more surges. Basically, almost everyone will be either infected or vaccinated (maybe both) before this thing ends. Now in December, we’re seeing parts of this outlook become real life.
The last foreign scientist left the Wuhan Institute of Virology in November 2019 — just before the pandemic. For the first time, she shares her story on the now infamous lab.
The drive to get people back into offices is clashing with workers who’ve embraced remote work as the new normal.
Before Rivian’s stellar IPO in November and subsequent stumble in its first earnings report this month, the electric-car maker was making buzz for its plans to build its own charging network. Bloomberg’s analysis pitted those ambitions against that of Tesla’s experience.
What’s notable about Bill Hwang taking two slots on this list is that few people had ever heard of him before March. Shortly after Archegos went under, Bloomberg Businessweek examined the fast rise and even faster fall of how the seemingly modest, churchgoing trader bet big with borrowed money.
In August, we wrote about how vaccinated people may be more vulnerable to serious illness from the Covid delta variant than previously thought — leaving the inoculated confused about how to protect themselves.
*Methodology: We pulled a list of the top stories published on Bloomberg.com in 2021 by unique page views from Jan. 1 to Dec. 6, and whittled away articles focused on breaking news, short-term market movements and announcements. We also left out rankings, lists and Q&A-type stories.
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