Buchanan was named president and CEO designate at Michaels and appointed to the board, effective Jan. 6. He will succeed Mark Cosby as CEO after a transition period that ends April 1, the Irving, Texas-based retailer said in a statement. Cosby was named CEO in October after holding the position on an interim basis since February.

As the former chief merchandising and chief operating officer for Walmart’s U.S. e-commerce business, Buchanan satisfies Michaels’ need for “an executive with heavy digital experience,” according to Stephens Inc. analyst Rick Nelson. Shares of Michaels rose as much as 16% on the news, their biggest gain since Sept. 9.

“The arts/crafts industry appears to be in the early stages of shakeout with consumer creativity increasingly swinging to social media and competitors beginning to close stores,” Nelson wrote in a research note.

Near-term challenges remain. Michaels also said Friday that Chief Financial Officer Denise Paulonis has accepted a position at another company and will leave at the end of the fiscal year on Jan. 31. The company is also taking on some leases from rival A.C. Moore, which said in November that it would close its stores due to the tough retail environment.

“We see MIK as an eventual winner with a dominant market position, brand awareness, and strong balance sheet,” Nelson said, referring to Michaels by its stock symbol. “In the interim, however, store closings, liquidation sales, and new strategies are likely to produce choppy results.”

The China-built Model 3 was included Friday on a list of vehicles qualifying for an exemption from a 10% purchase tax in the country. The first 15 units of Model 3 sedans assembled at Tesla’s new multibillion-dollar Shanghai plant – its first outside the U.S. – will be delivered to company employees on Dec. 30, a Tesla representative said by phone.

The shares gained 0.2% to $431.9 in New York as of 9:37 a.m. local time. The stock has surged since the carmaker reported a surprise profit on Oct. 23, and is now more than double its year low of $178.93 in June.

Chief Executive Officer Musk is counting on the China plant to help build on recent momentum for the company in the world’s largest market both for EVs and autos in general. The Model 3 will compete with electric cars from local contenders such as NIO Inc. and Xpeng Motors, as well as global manufacturers including BMW AG and Daimler AG.

The Shanghai Gigafactory, which only broke ground at the start of this year, is a crucial test of Musk’s bid to keep his carmaker profitable as he bets big on Chinese appetite for electric cars. Originally just a muddy plot about a 90-minute drive away from Shanghai’s city center, Musk has said he’s never seen a factory built so quickly.

With Tesla’s volatile stock price and strained finances, investors will be watching closely how the ramp-up unfolds. The multibillion-dollar investment will be a deciding factor to determine whether Tesla will be able to take on local competitors and fend off challenges by the likes of Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi.

The launch will also provide clues about Tesla’s ability to truly go global. The company is planning to follow up with a production facility in Europe, where it is enjoying burgeoning sales growth in several markets.

Musk has predicted Tesla will make at least 1,000 cars a week in Shanghai by the end of the year – a volume the company’s original factory in California spent months trying to hit – and has said a weekly rate of 3,000 is a target at some point.

Tesla said in October the locally built Model 3 will be priced from about $50,000. On top of the tax exemption announced Friday, the China-built model this month qualified for a government subsidy of as much as about 25,000 yuan ($3,600) per vehicle.

The company may lower the price of the locally assembled sedans by 20% or more next year as it starts using more local components and reduces costs, people familiar with the matter have said.

The bank’s business activity index was -4.2 for the final three months of the year, compared with -7.4 in the third quarter, according to its report published Friday.

The survey covers the 11th Federal Reserve District, which includes not just Texas but energy-rich parts of Louisiana and New Mexico. The bank’s indexes for capital spending, employment and employee hours were also negative for the fourth quarter.

The data showed oilfield service companies bearing the brunt of the slowdown, while exploration and production companies reported a small uptick in business activity. Overall, the survey will likely reinforce the existing gloom surrounding oil and gas, with shale producers struggling — and largely failing — to achieve consistent free cash flow and investor returns in the face of stagnant oil prices and a plunge in the price of natural gas.

Next year may bring little respite. On average, respondents in the survey said they expect the price of West Texas Intermediate crude to be $58.54 a barrel by the end of 2020. The benchmark traded Friday at around $61.80. The expectation for Henry Hub gas is $2.51 per million British thermal units, about 20-30 cents above where it currently trades.

The controversial practice of gas flaring also featured in the latest survey. A lack of pipeline capacity was the main reason for flaring most frequently identified by respondents.

As usual, the Dallas Fed’s quarterly report includes unattributed comments from respondents, which provide color in addition to the survey data:

– On E&P: “The capital markets for oil and gas remain extremely difficult. The risk appetites of the banks for energy lending are much lower.”

“We have noticed an uptick in comments by acquaintances associating our business with the global warming narrative. We can see this eventually raising our costs of doing business.”

“We are having to divest properties in order to keep from dropping employees.”

“It is a very challenging operating environment for smaller E&P operators and oilfield service firms; the service quality of these smaller oilfield service firms may suffer. Viability of some oilfield service firms is a concern due to financial concerns. Operators will want to work with fewer, more financially stable and safer suppliers.”

– On oilfield services: “Access to capital for the oil and gas industry is the main driver of uncertainties for our business. The current trends in customer demands on our equipment (hydraulic fracturing) versus the prices our customers are willing to pay are unsustainable.”

“There is an oversupply of oilfield services for onshore activity, which is reducing margins.”

– On flaring: “No one wants to flare gas; that is like burning money! It is only flared or vented out of necessity or accommodation to ephemeral situations.”

“The flaring of natural gas is wasteful and should not be allowed by the Texas Railroad Commission. Flaring is energizing environmentalists and encouraging investment funds to go ‘green,’ which will further constrain oil and gas investments.”

Kylie Jenner became the youngest self-made billionaire this year after her company, Kylie Cosmetics, signed an exclusive partnership with Ulta Beauty Inc. She then sold a 51% stake for $600 million.

It has been almost two months since the Washington Nationals captured their first World Series championship, but people around the world are still singing along to the baseball team’s adopted rallying cry: “Baby Shark, doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo.” The Korean family that helped popularize the viral earworm are now worth about $125 million.

Even car wrecks proved to be a treasure trove. Willis Johnson, the gold-chain-wearing Oklahoma native who founded Copart Inc., has amassed a $1.9 billion fortune by building a network of junkyards to sell damaged autos.

The emergence of atypical fortunes underscores just how much money the uber-rich accumulated in 2019.

And the richer they were at the start of the year, the richer they got. The world’s 500 wealthiest people tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index added $1.2 trillion, boosting their collective net worth 25% to $5.9 trillion.

Such gains are sure to add fuel to the already heated debate about widening wealth and income inequality. In the U.S., the richest 0.1% control a bigger share of the pie than at any time since 1929, prompting some politicians to call for a radical restructuring of the economy.

“The hoarding of wealth by the few is coming at the cost of peoples’ lives,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described democratic socialist, said in a Dec. 12 tweet as the U.K. began to vote.

Still, the defeat of Britain’s socialist opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose campaign included attacks on billionaires and calls to “rewrite the rules of our economy,” gave an added boost to mega-fortunes.

Leading the 2019 gains was France’s Bernard Arnault, who added $36.5 billion as he rose on the Bloomberg index to become the world’s third-richest person and one of three centibillionaires — those with a net worth of at least $100 billion.

In all, just 52 people on the ranking saw their fortunes decline on the year.

Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos was down almost $9 billion, but that drop is because of his divorce settlement with MacKenzie Bezos. The e-commerce titan is still ending the year as the world’s richest person after Amazon shares jumped on Thursday. The company reported a ‘record breaking’ holiday season with billions of items shipped and “tens of millions” of Amazon devices like the Echo Dot sold.

Here’s what the year looked like for the 0.001%:

2019 winners:

– The 172 American billionaires on the Bloomberg ranking added $500 billion, with Facebook ‘s Mark Zuckerberg up $27.3 billion and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates rose $22.7 billion.

– Representation from China continued to grow, with the nation’s contingent rising to 54, second only to the U.S. He Xiangjian, founder of China’s biggest air-conditioner exporter, was the standout performer as his wealth surged 79% to $23.3 billion.

– Russia’s richest added $51 billion, a collective increase of 21%, as emerging-market assets from currencies to stocks and bonds rebounded in 2019 after posting big losses a year earlier.

2019 declines:

– Rupert Murdoch’s personal fortune dropped by about $10 billion after proceeds from Walt Disney’s purchase of Fox assets were distributed to his six children, making them billionaires in their own right.

– Interactive Brokers Group Inc.’s Thomas Peterffy saw his wealth slump by $2.1 billion as investors weighed a reshaped competitive landscape for brokerage businesses after rival Charles Schwab Corp. eliminated commissions and agreed to buy TD Ameritrade Holding Corp.

– WeWork’s Adam Neumann saw his fortune implode — at least on paper — as the struggling office-sharing company’s valuation dropped to $8 billion in October from an estimated $47 billion at the start of the year. Still, SoftBank Group Corp.’s rescue package left Neumann’s status as a billionaire intact.

New Billionaires

– White Claw, the “hard seltzer” that was the hit of the summer among millennials, helped boost Anthony von Mandl’s net worth to $3.6 billion.

– Mastering the art of fast-food deliveries proved rewarding for Jitse Groen, whose soaring Takeaway.com NV lifted his wealth to $1.5 billion.

– The popularity of soy milk gave eight members of Hong Kong’s Lo family a combined $1.5 billion.

Despite the widespread gains, plenty of the world’s richest people may be happy to wave farewell to 2019. The year included messy details of the Bezos divorce and the Jeffrey Epstein saga, which enveloped a who’s who of financiers and entrepreneurs, after the convicted pedophile arrested in July by federal agents after stepping off his private jet at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

Through it all, their bank balances remained robust, as a record bull market got a December kick with an easing of trade tensions between the U.S. and China, a resolution to Britain’s political stalemate and a blowout U.S. jobs report.