ADENA FRIEDMAN

Expedia's Peter Kern and Warner Bros.

The risks to the global economy are leading to an increasingly gloomy view of the months ahead for corporate leaders, government officials and other VIPs gathered at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

The Senate has dodged a U.S. debt disaster by approving legislation to lift the federal limit on new borrowing by nearly a half-trillion dollars.

The Nasdaq stock exchange is seeking U.S. authority to require more diversity in the boardrooms of Nasdaq-listed companies, or for those companies to explain why they can not. According to the 2018 Board Diversity Census from the Alliance for Board Diversity and the consulting firm Deloitte, women held just 22% of Fortune 500 seats in 2018, compared to 20% a year earlier and 16 percent in 2010. Nasdaq said the proposal's goal is to give stakeholders a better understanding of a company's current board composition and to bolster investor confidence that all listed companies are considering diversity when the look for new board members. Companies listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market and Nasdaq Global Market will be expected to have two diverse directors within four years of listing rule approval. Companies listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market will be expected to have two diverse directors within five years of the SEC’s approval.

CORRECTS TO NASDAQ, NOT NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE - In this image from video made available by NASA, astronaut Chris Cassidy, right, rings the opening bell of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange accompanied by fellow astronauts Robert L. Behnken, left, and Doug Hurley in the International Space Station on Tuesday, June 2, 2020. (NASA via AP)CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The astronauts launched into orbit by SpaceX joined in the ringing of the opening bell for the Nasdaq on Tuesday to mark a pivotal moment" for the space economy. NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken took part in the ceremony from the International Space Station, three days after their launch by Elon Musks company. The two astronauts floated alongside space station commander Chris Cassidy as he rang a ships bell to open trading on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. Their image, along with live-streamed pictures of other NASA staff, lit up the Nasdaq marquee in New York's Times Square.

Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman told CNBC on Wednesday that taking employees' temperatures will probably be part of their coronavirus plan to return workers to company offices around the world. "We will likely ask them a series of questions, take their temperature and do other things to make sure we can manage our employees successfully," Friedman said on CNBC's "Squawk Box." Nasdaq has offices in 30 countries. Friedman's comments come as some states are getting ready to relax their coronavirus mitigation measures in hopes of reopening their economies. Many health experts and business leaders are warning that such moves may be premature in the absence of widespread testing.

2020 is going to be a strong year for initial public offerings, according to the presidents of the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Some highly anticipated technology companies in the IPO stages, such as Uber and Lyft, and pre-IPO stages, like WeWork, made headlines for their lack of profitability. The public markets spoke and Uber and Lyft ended the year as some of the most disappointing public offerings. Friedman said there is strong demand from both private equity held companies as well as technology companies. Biotechnology and financial technology companies also continue to be strong parts of the industry, Friedman added.

President Donald Trump's lack of engagement on the issue of climate change has meant companies will need to step up their environmental efforts instead, according to the CEO of Nasdaq. Friedman said that Trump's inaction on climate was "not necessarily a good thing" and has left a "hole" that the corporate sector has found a way to fill in. She said she still thinks it would be better "if the whole ecosystem is engaged and aligned." The U.S. was widely panned by the international community when it decided to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement, which aimed to reduce carbon emissions significantly, thereby decreasing the impacts of climate change. The architect of the agreement, Christiana Figueres, on Monday blasted Trump over the decision, asking: "How can he face himself?"