Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway can afford almost any of America's public companies following the coronavirus sell-off. The billionaire investor's conglomerate held $125 billion in cash and short-term investments at the end of December. Berkshire's cash pile exceeds the market capitalizations of more than 450 companies in the S&P 500, more than 80 in the Nasdaq 100, and 11 in the Dow 30. Ignoring all other factors, Berkshire could afford McDonald's ($125 billion), Boeing ($102 billion), Tesla ($97 billion), or Starbucks ($82 billion). Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway can afford to buy almost any of America's public companies after coronavirus fears decimated their market capitalizations in recent weeks. The famed investor's conglomerate boasted $125 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments in US Treasuries at the end of December. Assuming that figure hasn't changed, and looking purely at market caps — ignoring whether a purchase would be feasible, sensible, or even legal — Berkshire could buy one of more than 450 companies in the S&P 500, more than 80 in the Nasdaq 100, and 11 in the Dow 30 without needing a loan, as of the close of trading on March 27. For example, Berkshire could afford McDonald's ($125 billion) or PayPal ($118 billion) in the S&P 500. On the Dow, it could snap up Boeing ($102 billion), IBM ($100 billion), or Goldman Sachs ($57 billion) without blowing its budget. In the Nasdaq 100, neither Tesla ($97 billion) nor Starbucks ($82 billion) would break the bank. True, Buffett prizes financial security and has vowed to never exhaust Berkshire's cash pile. "We consider a portion of that stash to be untouchable, having pledged to always hold at least $20 billion in cash equivalents to guard against external calamities," he said in his 2018 letter to shareholders. Read more: MORGAN STANLEY: Buy these 11 stocks, which have been dominant throughout history following recession-driven bear markets Moreover, shareholders of a company on the auction block typically demand a premium to its current market cap to reflect its future earnings potential. Assuming Berkshire wouldn't spend more than $105 billion in total, and had to pay a 20% premium, it could still afford the industrials titan 3M ($78 billion), T-Mobile US ($73 billion), United Parcel Service ($86 billion), or General Electric ($71 billion). It could even buy Target ($48 billion) and have enough cash left over to buy General Motors ($32 billion). As a cautious investor, Buffett would undoubtedly snub many of these businesses. However, the raft of possible acquisitions in his price range highlights both the scale of the recent sell-off and the rich potential of Berkshire's huge cash pile. Buffett is on the hunt for an "elephant-sized acquisition," and his choice of elephants has grown substantially. Read more: Stocks are trading like they did early in the financial crisis — and it's proof to one Wall Street equity chief that the coronavirus crash will worsen Here's a chart showing how several blue-chip companies have fallen into Buffett's price range: Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: A big-money investor in juggernauts like Facebook and Netflix breaks down the '3rd wave' firms that are leading the next round of tech disruption

Across America, non-essential services and businesses are temporarily shuttered as people stay home to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Embattled retailer GameStop, the world's largest video game retail chain, argued it was "essential" and stayed open until March 21.  While the company is still operating a "delivery at door" service for in-store pickup, employees told the Boston Globe that they're not being given proper safety equipment to operate during a pandemic. In a memo from GameStop's corporate office, employees are instructed to "tape a GameStop plastic bag over your hand and arm" while handling customer credit cards. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. While the coronavirus outbreak caused all "non-essential" businesses and services to pause indefinitely, GameStop, the world's biggest video game retailer, kept its stores operating far longer than most and even argued its business operations were "essential" because they "enable and enhance our customers' experience in working from home." The company only walked back standard operations on March 22, and introduced a "delivery at door" service where customers can order products online for pickup at the door. Employees still working during the ongoing pandemic say that proper safety measures aren't being taken to ensure they don't get sick. According to a memo sent to GameStop managers and reported by the Boston Globe, employees were reportedly told to cover their hands am arms with plastic bags when interacting with customers.  "Lightly (you want to be able to get it off easily) tape a Game Stop plastic bag over your hand and arm," the memo read. "Do not open the door all the way — keep the glass between you and the guest's face — just reach out your arm." COVID-19 is spread primarily through respiratory droplets released when an infected person coughs or sneezes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Beyond disinfecting surfaces and washing your hands, the number one way to prevent catching or spreading coronavirus is through so-called "social distancing" — staying away from other people so you can't breathe in their potentially infected droplets. A GameStop manager who spoke with the Boston Globe highlighted the discrepancy between those guidelines and what he's being asked to do by his employer. "I have to make a choice between doing a job that nobody needs during a pandemic and not being paid, and possibly infecting people or being infected," he said. Across the last year, the company's stock value dropped by two-thirds — from about $15 in January 2019 to under $5 by January 2020 — and it reshuffled its C-suite. Like Blockbuster Video and Tower Records before it, GameStop faces major challenges to its business model from the internet. As more people buy video games through digital storefronts, fewer buy games on physical discs from GameStop, leaving the company struggling to modernize its business.  GameStop representative Joey Mooring offered the following statement in response to our request for comment: "With employee and customer safety as our paramount concern, we've closed all our stores to customer access. Where provided for by state and local directives, we are only processing orders on a digital basis through our new curbside Delivery@Door pick-up service. Only employees may enter our stores at this time. Importantly, all GameStop employees have been assured that they do not have to work if they are not comfortable, or need to stay home to care for a family member. While GameStop is best known as a provider of gaming and home entertainment systems, we also offer a wide array of products and devices that are important to facilitate remote work, distance learning, and virtual connectivity."SEE ALSO: GameStop wants to keep its stores open, describing itself as 'essential retail' amid the novel coronavirus outbreak Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 8 weird robots NASA wants to send to space

Online job-hub company ZipRecruiter laid off 443 employees and furloughed dozens on Friday, days after the CEO said the business was safe, said two employees who attended the meeting.  The cuts hit across departments, including engineering and about two-thirds of the enterprise team, which works with big clients.  ZipRecruiter last raised $156 million in an October 2018 Series B funding round led by Wellington Management and IVP that valued the company at $1.5 billion.  Visit BI Prime for more stories. ZipRecruiter CEO Ian Siegel had a reassuring message for the company's roughly 1,300 employees at a virtual all-hands meeting last Monday: the business was safe. Two employees told Business Insider on Saturday that their takeaway from the meeting was that the Santa Monica, California-based job search engine was on track to hit second quarter goals.  On Friday, ZipRecruiter's human resources team sent out an invitation to another webinar with the CEO. In that meeting, Siegel spoke for less than 10 minutes, telling hundreds of employees they were laid off, according to the two employees, who declined to be named because they're not authorized to speak to the press.  Siegel detailed what benefits the employees would receive: one month of salary and three months' health insurance. They could also keep their company-issued laptops.  During Friday's cuts, 443 employees were laid off, and 49 employees were furloughed, per Dot.LA, which first reported the news on Sunday.    A ZipRecruiter spokesperson and Siegel, chief financial officer David Travers, and chief operating officer Jeffrey Zwelling did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday. Siegel told Business Insider on Sunday afternoon that employees misconstrued his remarks.  "On Monday I reported for the second week in a row a significant decline in all key metrics we track. I walked people through the data and said we were evaluating what our response would be and everyone would find out soon," Siegel said. "What I said to employees: I'm confident this period of staying at home will end and hiring will rebound in the US."  He declined to share a copy of Monday's all-hands meeting.  "Based on these strategic moves, we're now well-positioned for the long term," Siegel said. "Through March 10, we were setting records as a business … It is intuitive and highly likely that we're headed for a steep increase in hiring as we come out of the safer-at-home edict period."  He declined to share information about the company's business and financial metrics. Friday's layoffs went across departments, affecting groups ranging from communications to engineering to two-thirds of the enterprise team, which works with big companies, one of the sources said.  Startups struggle with coronavirus hit ZipRecruiter, founded in 2010, says it's worked with over 1.8 million businesses and has offices in the US, Canada, the UK, and Israel. It last raised $156 million in an October 2018 Series B funding round led by Wellington Management and IVP that valued the company at $1.5 billion, according to data provider Pitchbook.  Companies globally are struggling with the immediate economic hit from the coronavirus, which has frozen operations across industries. Unemployment claims in the US spiked this week, hitting a record 3.3 million.  The unprecedented number of unemployment claims shows the exceptional damage the coronavirus pandemic is inflicting on the US economy. As the country races to curb its spread, states have gone into lockdown — sending workers home, encouraging social distancing, and closing schools, restaurants, and factories. Startups across industries, many of which lack a capital cushion, have begun laying off and furloughing employees. On Friday, flexible space operator Knotel laid off 30% of its workers and furloughed another 20%, Business Insider previously reported.  TripActions, the $4 billion Andreessen Horowitz-backed corporate travel startup, laid off 296 employees on Tuesday as the travel industry grinds to a halt.  Editor's note: This story was updated after a conversation with ZipRecruiter's CEO and to remove a line about the previous chief marketing officer, who departed in April 2019 following a BuzzFeed report about sexual assault allegations.  Get in touch! Contact this reporter via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (646) 768-1627 using a non-work phone, email at mmorris@businessinsider.com, or Twitter DM at @MeghanEMorris. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop. SEE ALSO: Leaked memo reveals Knotel CEO's playbook for burying news about jobs cuts at the flex-office startup SEE ALSO: Major law firms are weighing pay cuts for partners against unseemly staff layoffs as billings plunge Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: WeWork went from a $47 billion valuation to a failed IPO. Here's how the company makes money.

Hello! This was the week that the economic toll of the coronavirus pandemic really became clear. On Thursday, the Labor Department revealed that around 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending March 21, a record high. As Joseph Zeballos-Roig reported, the true unemployment number is likely much higher.  The scale and speed of the surge in unemployment is striking. For many in corporate America, the dramatic turn of events has meant layoffs via virtual meeting. Here's a sample of some of our headlines from the past week: TripActions' CEO said it's slashing benefits, closing offices, and its cofounders are cutting their pay in half just days after laying off one-fourth of its workforce. Andreessen Horowitz-backed Wonderschool laid off 75% of staff on a Zoom call, telling employees the coronavirus could dry up any more funding for two years. Airbnb-backed Zeus Living laid off 30% of staff as the coronavirus upends travel and hospitality startups. SoftBank-backed real estate brokerage Compass slashed 15% of staff and is pausing marketing as coronavirus slams the housing market. Days after laying off 20% of its workforce, Brookfield-backed Convene furloughed more than half of its remaining employees due to coronavirus closures. Flex-space unicorn Knotel just laid off 30% of workers and furloughed another 20% as the coronavirus cripples a once buzzy industry. A leaked memo revealed the CEO's playbook for burying news about the jobs cuts. The CEO of AMC Entertainment told hundreds of staff they would be furloughed in a virtual meeting, as it looks to make sure it can reopen its doors after coronavirus. Hobby Lobby is preparing to lay off employees and slash salaries to cut costs in states with mandated store closures due to the coronavirus, according to a leaked letter. Leaked email reveals Tesla is furloughing some workers in Norway after a big drop in demand caused by the coronavirus. Electric scooter startup Bird laid off 30% of the company in a scramble to preserve a "cash runway" to last until the end of 2021. Layoffs, furloughs, and spending cuts: We're tracking how oil giants from Exxon to Halliburton are responding to the historic price shock. What you need to know about the stimulus bill President Trump on Friday signed a $2 trillion stimulus bill that's meant to offset the economic damage resulting from the pandemic and shutdown. Our team quickly set about making sense of what it means, and potential winners and losers. Jennifer Ortakales reported that small business owners can get either loans or payroll relief from the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill, but not both. She spoke with two experts to make more sense of the bill and understand how small businesses can determine which program is best for them. Troy Wolverton reported that while the new stimulus law offers help to all kinds of companies, startups may be barred from tapping into one of its more generous provisions. He explained why Silicon Valley is worried. Meanwhile, Kimberly Leonard reported that more than $100 billion of the $2 trillion will go toward hospitals, and there are also changes to regulations for over-the-counter drugs and rules about what insurers must cover. She broke down what the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill means for hospitals, doctors, and health insurers. While we're talking politics, I want to highlight this profile of Sen. Kelly Loeffler and her husband, Jeff Sprecher, the founder, CEO, and chairman of ICE and chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. The pair hit the news in recent weeks when it was reported that Loeffler sold stocks after being briefed on the impact of the coronavirus. You can read the story here: She's a US senator. He's one of the most powerful men in finance. Meet the $500 million power couple getting slammed for stock trades placed as the coronavirus tanked markets. There's a wave of restructuring ahead Casey Sullivan reported this week: Restructuring attorneys are scrambling to the aid of businesses large and small as the global spread of the novel coronavirus forces employers to consider what actions they'll take to sustain a months-long slowdown in revenue.  Dennis Dunne, a Milbank lawyer who represented creditors in the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, said that the "complete and sudden collapse of revenues and earnings for many companies" was unlike anything he had seen in his career. "We will be working through the fallout from this economic meltdown for years to come," he said.  You can read his story in full here: 'All hands on deck': Restructuring lawyers say a sudden collapse of revenues is accelerating work with the retail and energy sectors As Casey previously reported, private equity bet billions on live entertainment in 2019, and now the coronavirus has turned that investment thesis on its head. For example, it was reported this week that Cirque du Soleil, which is backed by private equity firm TPG, was exploring debt restructuring options that included a possible bankruptcy filing. In related news, Alex Morrell reports that restructuring bankers are suddenly Wall Street's hot commodity as they're getting swamped with calls from clients facing a cash crunch. On a lighter note ... The coronavirus has triggered a wave of human and economic suffering unlike anything that's been seen in a long, long time. And it's been hard the past few weeks, especially as a resident New Yorker who's keeping an eye on friends and family in the UK, to not feel overwhelmed at times.  So I found it heartening that one of the most popular stories on Business Insider over the past two weeks is this one:  Yale's most popular class ever is available free online — and the topic is how to be happier in your daily life It would seem that lots of folks are taking this time to reassess what's important to them. I think that could be one good thing to come out of this. And, if you are reassessing your career, Shana Lebowitz reported that social distancing could create 15 million jobs in the next decade. She talked to career experts who predicted which industries and workers stand to benefit the most. Below are headlines on some of the stories you might have missed from the past week. Stay safe, everyone. -- Matt 'Ground to a halt': Insiders detail the struggles of trying to launch a hedge fund during a global pandemic Morgan Stanley studied decades of recession history to compile a playbook for what to buy during and after a stock bear market — and when to do it Major law firms are weighing pay cuts for partners against unseemly staff layoffs as billings plunge 7 charts show how the coronavirus could clobber real estate, from retail vacancies of nearly 15% to plunging office rents in Texas cities DevOps startups that help developers be more productive will fare well in an economic downturn, VCs say. Here are 17 they think will thrive in 2020. The top 17 managers and agents for gaming YouTubers, streamers, and esports competitor The coronavirus is upending advertising. Top marketers at Toyota, Burger King, and Hippo reveal how they're changing their ad strategies to keep up. Leaked emails show Amazon is moving full steam ahead with this year's Prime Day shopping extravaganza, even as it grapples with the coronavirus pandemic Meet the 12 telemedicine startups being put to the test as they gear up to confront the coronavirus pandemic 8 tips to nailing a video job interview in the age of coronavirus Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: WeWork went from a $47 billion valuation to a failed IPO. Here's how the company makes money.

Vlad Khandros, the global head of market structure and liquidity strategy at UBS, said some of the Swiss bank's clients were questioning whether exchanges' physical trading floors should reopen. The New York Stock Exchange, along with Chicago trading pits run by Cboe Markets and CME Group, temporarily closed in recent weeks as a result of the spread of the novel coronavirus.  Khandros said the US equities market has largely worked fine despite NYSE's trading-floor closure. Options trading may be one market that has been negatively affected by not having a trading floor, he added, though it might be too early to understand what the root cause of the issue is.  Click her for more BI Prime stories. With exchanges' physical trading floors empty amid concerns over the spread of the novel coronavirus, some on Wall Street are asking if they should keep their doors closed for good. Vlad Khandros, the global head of market structure and liquidity strategy at UBS, said "a number of clients" have asked if trading floors will ever reopen, with many hoping they remain closed because they view it as an additional source of friction for trading. "The longer things go very smoothly, the more clients are wondering if the exchange floor is really needed," Khandros said on a media call Thursday morning. "Does that perhaps make access to information more democratized? Does having a floor perhaps add friction to the process? These are questions we are getting from clients constantly." The New York Stock Exchange's iconic trading floor, along with Chicago trading pits for options and futures run by Cboe Markets and CME Group, closed in recent weeks. All the exchange operators have said the closures are temporary as a precaution regarding the coronavirus. In a statement announcing its closure, NYSE said the floors "provide unique value to issuers and investors." Some industry veterans have already suggested the money companies save by keeping the floors closed, which is likely in the millions, could keep them shut for good. While it's still early days, Khandros said his team was looking at datasets to understand how the no-floor model has changed trading, whether it's for better or worse.  He said that generally, the US equities market has continued to run without any issues despite the market's largest trading venue, NYSE, closing its floor. One hiccup has been adjusting to not having D-orders, which allow investors to leverage floor brokers during NYSE's closing auction. Khandros said the loss of D-orders has limited some flexibility trading firms typically have had, adding that some clients weren't happy about the change and UBS made adjustments so clients could properly trade the close. But by and large, the change hasn't had a huge impact, he added. "A number of our clients still feel like, broadly speaking, the open but more importantly the close, where a lot of the D-order usage was concentrated on NYSE, has worked relatively well from a market-mechanics standpoint," Khandros said. "There's certainly pockets and some tickers that folks feel could have been improved and further handled now that there are no D-orders into the close, and we're still digging into it, but we are always working to improve our clients' execution quality." To be sure, the markets haven't operated completely seamlessly without trading floors. Options trading is one area where some spreads have widened, liquidity has decreased, and, in some cases, volatility has increased, Khandros said.  Because the changes are so new, though, Khandros said it could simply be a matter of trading firms needing more data to adjust to doing business without a trading floor.  "The little bit of historical data we now have in the last number of days or weeks is so varied that some firms would still struggle to implement curves appropriately anyway," he added.SEE ALSO: The CRO of $27 billion data giant Refinitiv says the coronavirus could permanently alter how it employs staff and serves clients SEE ALSO: Real-estate services giant JLL explains how the coronavirus could usher in a permanent 'paradigm shift' towards more remote work SEE ALSO: She's a US senator. He's one of the most powerful men in finance. Meet the $500 million power couple getting slammed for stock trades placed as the coronavirus tanked markets. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: WeWork went from a $47 billion valuation to a failed IPO. Here's how the company makes money.