GameStop COO, Dogelon Mars Surge, Snowden On Shiba Inu, J&J Settlement, Cathie Wood's FB Bet: 5 Headlines

Heading into a new trading week, here is a quick roundup of the top five stories from the technology, corporate and cryptocurrency sectors that investors would not want to miss out on from the weekend.

1. Johnson & Johnson Settles Risperdal Lawsuits: Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) said it has settled most of the 9,000 lawsuits it faced over its anti-psychotic drug Risperdal and recorded $800 million in legal expenses related to the settlement in the third quarter.

The lawsuits accused J&J of failing to warn of the risk of a condition called gynecomastia (enlargement of the breast tissue in men or boys), associated with Risperdal.

2. GameStop COO Departure: GameStop Corp. (NYSE:GME) disclosed in a regulatory filing that Chief Operating Officer Jenna Owens has left just seven months after joining the company. The videogame retailer, a Reddit-favorite stock, did not give reasons for the sudden departure of Owens, a former Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) executive.

3. Musk-Inspired Cryptocurrency Skyrockets In October: Dogelon Mars, a meme cryptocurrency named after Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, gained over 4000% in October. Dogelon, an ERC20 cryptocurrency built on the Ethereum blockchain, thanked its holders on Friday for their support in getting the coin listed on OKEx.

4. Cathie Wood’s Facebook Bet: Popular money manager Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest bought shares estimated to be worth $63.8 million in Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) on Friday, a day after the Mark Zuckerberg-led social media company said it has changed its name to Meta Platforms Inc.

5. Snowden’s Shiba Inu Warning: Whistleblower Edward Snowden has warned that people should not invest their hard-earned money in cryptocurrency Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB), which he called a “clone of dog money.”

His comments come after the self-described “Dogecoin killer” outperformed Dogecoin to become the world's ninth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization again on Friday.

What Else: Among other stories from the weekend, investors would want to check out the EV week in review, Elon Musk laying a condition for helping the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), and fast-food giant McDonald Corp.’s (MCD) foray into the non fungible token (NFT) market.

Tech giant Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) may launch its mixed-reality handset as soon as next year, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said in the latest edition of his “Power On” newsletter.