📉 last Fall, the proportion of Democrats buying Teslas fell by more than 60%, precisely when Musk became most vocal on X

📉 the mix of Democrats, who have been core constituents for the Tesla brand, had remained mostly steady up to that point

📈 gains with Republicans and Independents haven't been enough to make up the loss

Source: Elon Musk Lost Democrats on Tesla When He Needed Them Most

Trump Media shares fall sharply after company reports net loss of $58 million in 2023

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/01/trump-media-lost-58-million-last-year-sec-filing-shows.html

​

KEY POINTS

• Shares in Trump Media Technology Group fell sharply after the company reported a net loss of $58 million in 2023.
• The newly publicly traded social media company of former President Donald Trump had total revenue of just $4.1 million last year, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
• A year earlier, Trump Media & Technology Group reported a net profit of $50.5 million and total revenue of only $1.47 million, according to the 8-K filing.
• “TMTG expects to incur operating losses for the foreseeable future,” says the filing by the company, which has a market valuation of more than $6.5 billion.
• Trump Media, which trades under the ticker DJT on the Nasdaq, owns the Truth Social app.

​

The share price of Trump Media fell sharply Monday morning after the social media app company closely tied to former president Donald Trump reported a net loss of $58.2 million on revenue of just $4.1 million in 2023.

Trump Media & Technology Group shares were trading down by more than 18.8% as of 12:38 a.m. ET.

Despite that plunge, the company’s market capitalization was still more than $6.8 billion after its 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed the loss for last year.

Much of the net loss appears to come from $39.4 million in interest expense, according to the filing.

A spokesperson for the company did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the new filing.

The filing shows that in 2022, Trump Media had a net profit of $50.5 million and total revenue of only $1.47 million.

The company ended 2023 with just $2.7 million in cash on hand, the filing said.

The losses last year by Trump Media — the owner of the Truth Social app routinely used by the former president — could continue for some time, according to the company.

“TMTG expects to incur operating losses for the foreseeable future,” says the filing, which came a week after the company began trading under the ticker DJT on the Nasdaq.

The filing also warns shareholders that Trump’s involvement in the company could put it at greater risk than other social media companies.

TMTG also disclosed to regulators that the company had identified “material weaknesses in its internal control over financial reporting” when it prepared a previous financial statement for the first three quarters of 2023.

As of Monday, Trump Media said these “identified material weaknesses continue to exist.”

​

Trump owns 57.3% of Trump Media shares, a stake valued at more than $4 billion, which Forbes last week said would represent well more than half of his total net worth.

He also stands to receive another 36 million shares of so-called “earn-out” shares over the next three years, as long as Trump Media’s stock during that time hits a series of price benchmarks. These targets are all well below the company’s stock price early Monday.

Trump Media’s share price rocketed when its stock began trading Tuesday, several days after the firm merged with a special purpose acquisition company. The newly merged company now trades under Trump’s initials, DJT.

Analysts note that the company’s high valuation is partly due to stock purchases by Trump’s political supporters, who are enthusiastic about owning part of a company so closely associated with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

That enthusiasm creates unique risks for the company, however. The new 8-K filing says that Trump Media “may be subject to greater risks than typical social media platforms because of the focus of its offerings and the involvement of President Trump.”

“These risks include active discouragement of users, harassment of advertisers or content providers, increased risk of hacking of TMTG’s platform, lesser need for Truth Social if First Amendment speech is not suppressed, criticism of Truth Social for its moderation practices, and increased stockholder suits.”

Tesla’s biggest retail shareholder, Leo Koguan, confirmed that he is voting against Elon Musk’s $55 billion package and the re-election of two board members.

We first reported on Koguan in 2021 when the little-known investor became the third largest individual shareholder in Tesla behind Elon Musk and Larry Ellison.

The Indonesian-born Chinese American businessman is better known for founding SHI International Corp, a large private IT company that made him a billionaire. He is also involved in academia and philanthropy.

Koguan has previously described himself as an “Elon fanboy” (the featured image above is him and Musk) and believes in Tesla’s mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. He has been willing to put his money on it and by 2022, he had invested more money in Tesla than Musk himself.

Source: Electrek

April 17 (Reuters) - Electric automaker Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab on Wednesday asked shareholders to ratify billionaire Elon Musk's compensation that was set in 2018 under the CEO pay package, just months after a Delaware judge rejected it. The judge had tossed out Musk's record-breaking $56 billion pay in January, calling the compensation granted by the board "an unfathomable sum" that was unfair to shareholders. Tesla also urged its investors to approve moving the company's state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas in a regulatory filing.

Shares of the world's most valuable automaker were up 1% before the bell.

Reuters

Elon Musk has dismissed two Tesla senior executives and plans to lay off hundreds more employees, frustrated by falling sales and the pace of job cuts so far, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing the CEO’s email to senior managers.

Rebecca Tinucci, senior director of the electric vehicle maker’s Supercharger business, and Daniel Ho, head of the new vehicles program, will leave on Tuesday morning, the report said.

Musk also plans to dismiss everyone working for Tinucci and Ho, including the roughly 500 employees who work in the Supercharger group, The Information said. It was not clear how many employees worked for Ho.

Tesla’s public policy team, which was led by former executive Rohan Patel, will also be dissolved, the report said.

“Hopefully these actions are making it clear that we need to be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction,” Musk wrote in the email, the report said. “While some on exec staff are taking this seriously, most are not yet doing so.”

Tesla, which had 140,473 employees globally as of end-2023, did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment.

Ho joined Tesla in 2013 and was a program manager in the development of the Model S, the 3, and the Y before being put in charge of all new vehicles, while Tinucci joined in 2018 as a senior product manager, according to their LinkedIn profiles.

Two other senior leaders — Patel and battery development chief Drew Baglino — announced their departures earlier this month, when Tesla also ordered the layoffs of more than 10% of its workforce.

Tesla is grappling with falling sales and an intensifying price war, which led to its quarterly revenue falling for the first time since 2020, the company reported last week.

Musk made progress towards rolling out Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance package in China, the epicenter of the EV price war, during a surprise visit to Beijing on Sunday.

That trip came just over a week after he scrapped a planned trip to India, where Tesla has long sought to start operations, due to “very heavy Tesla obligations.”

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/30/musk-lays-off-tesla-senior-executives-in-fresh-job-cuts-report.html

Apple reported fiscal second-quarter earnings on Thursday that were slightly higher than Wall Street expectations, but showed overall revenue down 4%, and iPhone sales falling 10%.

Apple announced that its board had authorized $110 billion in share repurchases, the largest in the company’s history, and a 22% increase over last year’s $90 billion authorization.

Here’s how Apple did versus LSEG consensus estimates in the March quarter:

EPS: $1.53 vs. $1.50 estimated

Revenue: $90.75 billion vs. $90.01 billion estimated

iPhone revenue: $45.96 billion vs. $46.00 billion estimated

Mac revenue: $7.5 billion vs. $6.86 billion estimated

iPad revenue: $5.6 billion vs. $5.91billion estimated

Other Products revenue: $7.9 billion vs. $8.08 billion estimated

Services revenue: $23.9 billion vs. $23.27 billion estimated

Gross margin: 46.6% vs. 46.6% estimated

Apple did not provide formal guidance, but Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC’s Steve Kovach that overall sales would “grow low single digits” during the June quarter.

Apple posted $81.8 billion in revenue during the year-ago June quarter and LSEG analysts were looking for a forecast of $83.23 billion.

Apple reported $23.64 billion in net income, a 2% decrease from $24.16 billion in the year-earlier period. Overall sales fell 4% in the March quarter.

Cook told CNBC’s Steve Kovach that year-over-year sales suffered from a difficult comparison to the year-ago period, when the company realized $5 billion in delayed iPhone 14 sales from Covid-based supply issues.

“If you remove that $5 billion from last year’s results, we would have grown this quarter on a year-over-year basis,” Cook said. “And so that’s how we look at it internally from how the company is performing.”

Apple said iPhone sales fell nearly 10% to $45.96 billion, suggesting weak demand for the current generation of iPhones, which were released in September. The sales were in-line with analyst estimates, and Cook said that without last year’s increased sales, iPhone revenue would have been flat.

Mac sales were up 4% to $7.45 billion, but they are still below the segment’s high-water mark set in 2022. Cook said sales were driven by the company’s new MacBook Air models that were released with an upgraded M3 chip in March.

Other Products, which is how Apple reports sales of its Apple Watch and AirPods headphones, was down 10% on an annual basis to $7.9 billion in revenue.

During the quarter, Apple released its first new major product category in years, the Vision Pro virtual reality headset, but the $3500 device is expected to sell in low quantities, especially compared to Apple’s major product lines.

“We’re only scratching the surface there so we couldn’t be more excited about our opportunity there,” Cook said.

Apple has not released a new iPad since 2022, which is a drag on sales. Revenue for the division fell 17% to $5.6 billion. Apple is expected to announce new iPads on May 7 that could revive demand for the product line.

Cook also said Apple has “big plans to announce” from an “AI point of view” during its iPad event next week as well as at the company’s annual developer conference in June.

Services was a bright spot during the quarter. Sales rose 14.2% to $23.9 billion. That’s how Apple reports revenue from its subscription services, warranties, licensing deals with search engines, and payments. Apple has a broad definition of subscribers, which includes users subscribing to apps through Apple’s App Store, and said that it has over 1 billion paid subscriptions.

Sales in Greater China, Apple’s third largest region, were off 8% to $17.8 billion in revenue, which was significantly better than the $15.25 billion in sales expected by FactSet analysts, potentially quelling investor worries that Apple may have been losing market share to local competitors such as Huawei.

“I feel good about China, I think more about long term than to the next week or so,” Cook said.

Cook told CNBC that iPhone sales grew in China during the quarter. “That may come as a surprise to some people,” Cook said.

In addition to the buyback authorization, Apple said it would pay a 25 cent dividend, a one cent increase. Apple’s $110 billion buyback authorization is the largest-ever announced, ahead of Apple’s previous repurchases, according to data from Birinyi Associates.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/02/apple-aapl-earnings-report-q2-2024.html

The Department of Justice sued Apple on Thursday, saying its iPhone ecosystem is a monopoly that drove its “astronomical valuation” at the expense of consumers, developers and rival phone makers.

Federal antitrust enforcement and 17 attorneys general also say that Apple’s anti-competitive practices extend beyond the iPhone and Apple Watch businesses, citing Apple’s advertising, browser, FaceTime and news offerings.

“Each step in Apple’s course of conduct built and reinforced the moat around its smartphone monopoly,” the complaint filed in the District of New Jersey said. Apple shares were down around 1.8% as investors anticipated the lawsuit.

The Justice Department said in a release that to keep consumers buying iPhones, Apple moved to block cross-platform messaging apps, limited third-party wallet and smartwatch compatibility and disrupted non-App Store programs and cloud-streaming services.

The challenge represents a significant risk to Apple’s walled-garden business model. The company says that complying with regulations costs the company money, could prevent it from introducing new products or services, and could hurt customer demand.

The lawsuit could force Apple to make changes in some of its most valuable businesses: The iPhone, in which Apple reported over $200 billion in sales in 2023, the Apple Watch, part of the company’s $40 billion wearables business, and its profitable services line, which reported $85 billion in revenue.

“If left unchallenged, Apple will only continue to strengthen its smartphone monopoly,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in the release.

Apple said in a statement that it disagreed with the premise of the lawsuit and that it would defend against it.

“This lawsuit threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets. If successful, it would hinder our ability to create the kind of technology people expect from Apple—where hardware, software, and services intersect,” an Apple spokesperson told CNBC. “It would also set a dangerous precedent, empowering government to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.”

The lawsuit follows years of investigations into Apple’s business practices and two prior DOJ cases against Apple: One over e-book prices and another over allegations that it colluded with other technology companies to depress salaries.

“This anticompetitive behavior is designed to maintain Apple’s monopoly power while extracting as much revenue as possible,” the complaint said.

iMessage, Apple Watch, and cloud gaming

The complaint highlights comments from CEO Tim Cook and other executives. Some users have asked Apple to improve Android-to-iPhone messaging. Developers have gone as far as creating apps that can circumvent the platform limitations, only to be shut down by Apple.

Prosecutors highlighted one exchange between Cook and a consumer.

“Not to make it personal but I can’t send my mom certain videos,” the complaint says one user told Cook, referring to a 2022 interview at a Vox Media event.

“Buy your mom an iPhone,” Cook responded.

The DOJ is also focusing on Apple’s smartwatch, Apple Watch, saying the company designed it to only work with iPhones, and not Android devices. The company’s decision means that “users who purchase the Apple Watch face substantial out-of-pocket costs if they do not keep buying iPhones,” according to the complaint.

The DOJ said Apple has fought cloud streaming services on its App Store platform, blocking consumer access to high-quality video games on iPhones, echoing complaints from Microsoft and Facebook parent Meta.

Apple has faced several significant antitrust challenges more recently, largely focused on its control over the iPhone App Store. It mostly won in a civil suit against Epic Games in 2021, although it made concessions during the trial and had to make some changes to its policies under California law.

“Today’s lawsuit seeks to hold Apple accountable and ensure it cannot deploy the same, unlawful playbook in other vital markets,” Assistant Attorney General for antitrust Jonathan Kanter said in the release.

The company is currently jockeying with the European Commission over whether it’s complying with a new Digital Markets Act, which forces Apple to open up the iPhone app store to rivals such as Microsoft or Epic Games. Apple plans to charge big companies that eschew its app store 50 cents per download.

Apple was fined $2 billion in the EU over a dispute with Spotify about whether the music streaming service can link to its website and account system inside of its app.

Apple had 64% of the market share for U.S. iPhones in the last quarter of 2023, versus 18% for Samsung, according to Counterpoint Research.

Apple isn’t the only big tech company facing government scrutiny. The DOJ filed an antitrust case against Google in 2020 over its dominant search position and another year over its advertising business. The DOJ also famously sued Microsoft in the 1990s, eventually forcing it to allow users to unbundle the Internet Explorer browser from the Windows operating system.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/21/doj-sues-apple-over-iphone-monopoly.html

On Fortune:

"Wall Street’s stance on Tesla Inc. worsened further on Wednesday as yet another analyst warned about risks to sales, and said its strategy of cutting prices to boost demand was losing its effectiveness.
The electric vehicle maker’s growth in its core markets has moderated, Wells Fargo analyst Colin Langan wrote in a note to clients Wednesday, as he downgraded the stock to the equivalent of a sell rating. Langan expects Tesla’s sales volumes to be flat this year and to fall in 2025.

Elon Musk’s company is a “growth company with no growth,” Langan wrote. He highlighted that sales volumes rose only 3% in the second half of 2023 from the first half, while prices fell 5%.

Tesla analysts are getting increasingly wary, and the share of bullish ratings on the stock has dropped to the lowest since April 2021. Sentiment deteriorated after the company in January said its growth will be “notably lower” this year, while other automakers, EV suppliers and even rental-car companies have sounded similarly cautious comments about the near-term demand for EVs.

As a pure-play EV company with an eye-wateringly high valuation, Tesla shares have taken a serious hit. The stock has already fallen 29% this year through Tuesday’s close, placing it among the worst performers on the S&P 500 Index. The Austin-based company fell as much as 2.8% by 9:32 a.m. in New York.

This year’s selloff has wiped more than $224 billion from the company’s market value through its last close, and pushed it off the list of the 10 biggest companies on the S&P 500.

Even after the decline, the stock still trades at 55 times its forward earnings, compared to the average of about 31 for the Bloomberg Magnificent 7 Price Return Index.

“While an EV and battery technology leader, Tesla screens poorly relative to Mag 7 peers,” Wells Fargo’s Langan said, noting the valuation discrepancy. The analyst lowered his 2024 profit estimate for the company to $2 a share from $2.40. That compares to analysts’ average expectation of $3.03 a share for the year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Still, some analysts see a bright future for the company, and the drop in shares reflect an overly bearish outlook.

“The demand story for EVs globally has clearly moderated, however we believe Tesla is on the broader trajectory to see growth and margin improvement return to the story over the coming quarters,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note Wednesday. “Now is not the time to throw in the towel on Tesla.”

Ross Gerber on Yahoo finance: "The original story that I think most investors bought into with Tesla didn't really include Elon and Twitter. And... for a long time, we all hoped that it really wouldn't affect Tesla and the demand for its products," Gerber says. "We all know that that has now happened. The demand for Tesla products is obviously lower. They've had to discount and do many things that hurt margins and returns and, ultimately, profits for Tesla."

....End of Article...

Source: https://fortune.com/2024/03/13/elon-musk-tesla-growth-company-no-growth-wells-fargo-downgrade/

https://finance.yahoo.com/video/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-hurting-165507347.html

Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) stock fell more than 10% on Tuesday after the company announced it's launching a new live TV streaming platform.

According to a press release, Trump Media — the parent company of Donald Trump's social media platform Truth Social — will launch the live streaming service on phones, tablets, and TV through the Truth Social app.

Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-media-stock-sinks-after-company-announces-plans-to-launch-live-tv-streaming-platform-165111515.html

Meta shares are up 20% this morning, after the company surpassed analyst expectations and beat earnings. This growth took the company from a market cap near $1 trillion to a market cap of about $1.2 trillion, good for a $200 billion surge, possibly the largest in history.

Meta also announced a $50 billion stock buyback and a new shareholder dividend.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-02/meta-s-meta-200-billion-surge-is-biggest-in-stock-market-history

The U.S. House Energy and Commerce committee on Thursday unanimously approved legislation giving China's ByteDance six months to divest from short video app TikTok or face a U.S. ban.

The 50-0 vote represents the most significant momentum for a U.S. crackdown on TikTok, which has about 170 million U.S. users, which had stalled over the last year amid heavy lobbying by the company.

Lawmakers hope to move quickly on the measure and said the U.S. House of Representatives could take up the bill in the coming weeks.

"This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States," the company said after the vote. "The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression. This will damage millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country." Before the vote, lawmakers got a closed-door classified briefing on national security concerns about TikTok's Chinese ownership.

....

The bill would give ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok; if it did not, app stores operated by Apple, Google, and others could not legally offer TikTok or provide web hosting services to ByteDance-controlled applications.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/technology/new-push-congress-ban-tiktok-or-force-chinese-divestiture-gains-steam-2024-03-07/

Trump Media has warned the CEO of the Nasdaq Stock Market of ‘potential market manipulation’ of the company’s stock by “naked” short selling of shares.

The warning came as Trump Media has offered shareholders detailed instructions on how to avoid someone loaning out their DJT shares to short sellers, who then execute trades betting that the price of the stock will fall.

Source: CNBC

Tesla reported a 9% drop in first-quarter revenue on Tuesday, the biggest decline since 2012, as the electric vehicle company weathers the impact of ongoing price cuts.

Here are the results.

Earnings per share: 45 cents adjusted vs. 51 cents per share expected by LSEG

Revenue: $21.30 billion vs. $22.15 billion expected by LSEG

Revenue declined from $25.17 billion a year earlier. Net income dropped 55% to $1.13 billion from $7.93 billion a year ago.

A livestream of the earnings call is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. ET.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/23/tesla-tsla-earnings-q1-2024-.html

THOUSANDS OF AIRBNBS and short-term rentals are about to be wiped off the map in New York City.

Local Law 18, which came into force Tuesday, is so strict it doesn’t just limit how Airbnb operates in the city—it almost bans it entirely for many guests and hosts. From now on, all short-term rental hosts in New York must register with the city, and only those who live in the place they’re renting—and are present when someone is staying—can qualify. And people can only have two guests.

In 2022 alone, short-term rental listings made $85 million in New York.

Airbnb’s attempts to fight back against the new law have, to date, been unsuccessful.

There are currently more than 40,000 Airbnbs in New York, according to Inside Airbnb, which tracks listings on the platform. As of June, 22,434 of those were short-term rentals, defined as places that can be booked for fewer than 30 days.

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/airbnb-ban-new-york-city/

​

Nvidia surpassed Google parent Alphabet in market capitalization on Wednesday. It’s the latest example of how the artificial intelligence boom has sent the chipmaker’s stock soaring.

Nvidia rose over 2% to close at $739.00 per share, giving it a market value of $1.83 trillion to Google’s $1.82 trillion market cap. The move comes one day after Nvidia surpassed Amazon in terms of market value.

The symbolic milestone is more confirmation that Nvidia has become a Wall Street darling on the back of elevated AI chip sales, valued even more highly than some of the large software companies and cloud providers that develop and integrate AI technology into their products.

Nvidia shares are up over 221% over the past 12 months on robust demand for its AI server chips that can cost more than $20,000 each. Companies like Google and Amazon need thousands of them for their cloud services. Before the recent AI boom, Nvidia was best known for consumer graphics processors it sold to PC makers to build gaming computers, a less lucrative market.

Google was largely expected to benefit from AI, especially since employees at the company pioneered many of the techniques — such as transformer architecture — used in cutting-edge models like ChatGPT.

Google shares are still up 55% in the past 12 months, though the company has grappled with layoffs and culture issues after it declared a “code red” situation to build AI services into its products. Google announced a $20 per month AI subscription called Gemini Advanced earlier this week, one of its first paid generative AI products.

Nvidia is now the third largest U.S. company, only behind Apple and Microsoft. Nvidia reports quarterly earnings on Feb. 21. Analysts expect 118% annual growth in sales to $59.04 billion.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/14/nvidia-passes-alphabet-market-cap-now-third-most-valuable-us-firm.html

Shares of Trump Media plunged more than 17% in the pre-trading hours Monday after the company filed to issue millions of additional shares of stock.

The company behind the Truth Social app, which trades under the stock ticker DJT on the Nasdaq, fell nearly 20% last week.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/15/trump-media-shares-plunge-after-company-files-to-issue-additional-djt-stock.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-30/elon-musk-s-55-billion-tesla-pay-package-voided-by-judge

Elon Musk’s $55 billion pay package at Tesla Inc. was struck down by a Delaware judge after a shareholder challenged it as excessive, a ruling that takes a giant bite out of Musk’s wealth.

The decision Tuesday means that more than five years after the electric car maker’s co-founder was granted the largest executive compensation plan in history, Tesla’s board will have to start over and come up with a new proposal.

HONG KONG (AP) — A Hong Kong court ordered China Evergrande, the world’s most heavily indebted real estate developer, to undergo liquidation following a failed effort to restructure $300 billion owed to banks and bondholders that fueled fears about China’s rising debt burden.

“It would be a situation where the court says enough is enough,” Judge Linda Chan said Monday. She said it was appropriate for the court to order Evergrande to wind up its business given a “lack of progress on the part of the company putting forward a viable restructuring proposal” as well as Evergrande’s insolvency.

China Evergrande Group is among dozens of Chinese developers that have collapsed since 2020 under official pressure to rein in surging debt the ruling Communist Party views as a threat to China’s slowing economic growth.

But the crackdown on excess borrowing tipped the property industry into crisis, dragging on the economy and rattling financial systems in and outside China.

Chinese regulators have said the risks of global shockwaves from Evergrande’s failure can be contained. The court documents seen Monday showed Evergrande owes about $25.4 billion to foreign creditors. Its total assets of about $240 billion are dwarfed by its total liabilities.

“It is indisputable that the company is grossly insolvent and is unable to pay its debts,” the documents say.

About 90% of Evergrande’s business is in mainland China. Its chairman, Hui Ka Yan, who is also known as Xu Jiayin, was detained by authorities for suspected “illegal crimes” in late September, further complicating the company’s efforts to recover.

It’s unclear how the liquidation order will affect China’s financial system or Evergrande’s operations as it struggles to deliver housing that has been paid for but not yet handed over to families that put their life savings into such investments.

https://apnews.com/article/china-evergrande-property-liquidation-order-7965ab1ec2f0208c53f9298daf8b9fd0

Reddit shares plunge almost 25% in two days, finish the week below first day close

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/28/reddit-shares-on-a-two-day-tumble-after-post-ipo-high.html

​

KEY POINTS

• Reddit shares are plummeting after experiencing a rally stemming from the social media company’s IPO last week.
• Shares closed Thursday at $49.30, falling below their closing price on Reddit’s first day of trading last week on the New York Stock Exchange.
• Earlier this week, Reddit disclosed in a corporate filing that CEO Steve Hoffman sold 500,000 shares, and Reddit COO Jennifer Wong also disclosed that she sold 514,000 shares.

​

Reddit shares are plummeting after experiencing a rally stemming from the social media company’s IPO last week.

Shares closed Thursday at $49.30, falling below their closing price on Reddit’s first day of trading last week on the New York Stock Exchange.

Reddit shares began their downward spiral on Wednesday, when they sank about 11% to $57.75 at market close. That day, Hedgeye Risk Management described Reddit’s stock as “grossly overvalued” in a report cited by Bloomberg News, adding that the company was on the firm’s “short bench.”

Earlier this week, Reddit disclosed in a corporate filing that CEO Steve Hoffman sold 500,000 shares. Ben Silverman, VP of research at Verity, told CNBC the move was expected and represents just “a portion of his holdings.”

Reddit COO Jennifer Wong also disclosed that she sold 514,000 shares and now holds 1.4 million of the company’s shares.

“There’s always a bit of a disconnect, because the purpose of bringing the company public is twofold,” Silverman said. “It’s not just to generate liquidity for the company itself so that it can expand and grow. In these situations, it often allows insiders to cash out to generate liquidity, and that’s something executives have to consider here.”

“If the prospects are so bright, why are insiders selling?” Silverman added.

Reddit shares started off the week on a high note and soared 30% on Monday. The company’s shares then rose 8.8% on Tuesday to close at $65.11, even after New Street Research issued a neutral rating on the company.

The New Street Research analysts wrote in a note that they wouldn’t alter their $54 price target and that they expect “volatility into the first earnings report.”

McDonald’s is planning to sell Krispy Kreme doughnuts at its restaurants nationwide by the end of 2026, the chains announced Tuesday.

The rollout will start in the second half of this year, but it will take roughly two and a half years as Krispy Kreme more than doubles its distribution to satisfy the partnership. For the duration of the agreement, McDonald’s will be the exclusive fast-food partner for Krispy Kreme in the U.S.

The doughnut chain uses a “hub and spoke” model that lets it make and distribute its treats efficiently. Production hubs, which are either stores or doughnut factories, send off freshly made doughnuts every day to retail locations such as grocery stores and gas stations.

The partnership with McDonald’s is a major opportunity for Krispy Kreme to expand its reach. It delivers its doughnuts to 6,800 third-party stores, as of Dec. 31. McDonald’s has roughly 13,500 restaurants in the U.S. and plans to open 900 new locations nationwide by 2027.

“We think we can service about 6,000 restaurants with our existing infrastructure, mostly doughnut shops, which have excess capacity,” Krispy Kreme CEO Josh Charlesworth told CNBC.

Krispy Kreme has also been expanding its capacity so it can deliver fresh doughnuts to the roughly 7,500 McDonald’s restaurants that it can’t currently reach.

While McDonald’s is the primary reason the company is expanding its distribution so quickly, Charlesworth said Krispy Kreme will also be using the opportunity to land in grocery and convenience stores that prefer national suppliers.

“That means that the overall efficiency and productivity of our distribution network will significantly improve over time, not just because of all those local deliveries,” he said.

Additionally, Krispy Kreme’s doughnut shops typically make more of the sweet treat than the chain can sell. The extra demand from McDonald’s and other new customers means its production lines can churn out higher volume with few additional costs.

“Overall, therefore, it makes our system more profitable to grow the deliver fresh daily channel, and McDonald’s is an accelerator of that,” Charlesworth said.

The two chains’ relationship started about a year and a half ago, when McDonald’s began selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts at nine restaurants as a test. Months later, the pilot had expanded to roughly 160 restaurants across Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky. Those initial restaurants will keep selling the doughnuts during the national rollout.

Demand from McDonald’s customers during the tests exceeded both chains’ expectations, according to Charlesworth.

For McDonald’s, the addition of Krispy Kreme doughnuts helps bolster its bakery and breakfast offerings. The burger chain has been leaning into coffee, a common drink pairing for doughnuts, but trimming other bakery items such as cinnamon rolls from its menu.

McDonald’s customers will be able to order the original glazed, chocolate iced with sprinkles and chocolate iced cream-filled doughnuts, either individually or in packs of six. The restaurants will sell the doughnuts all day.

In the long term, Krispy Kreme now expects it can reach more than 100,000 points of access for its doughnuts globally, up from its prior outlook of 75,000 locations. The chain’s doughnuts can currently be found in more than 14,100 stores across 39 countries.

Shares of Krispy Kreme have fallen 20% over the past year, dragging its market value down to $2.11 billion. As hype over weight loss drugs such as Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic has soared, investors have worried about whether the treatments will cut into Krispy Kreme’s future sales.

Similar concerns have weighed on McDonald’s, although its stock has risen 2% in the past year as consumers trade down to its cheap food and drinks. The company has a market value of $201 billion.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/26/mcdonalds-to-sell-krispy-kreme-doughnuts-nationwide-by-end-of-2026.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/02/chegg-drops-more-than-40percent-after-saying-chatgpt-is-killing-its-business.html

Chegg shares tumbled after the online education company said ChatGPT is hurting growth, and issued a weak second-quarter revenue outlook. “In the first part of the year, we saw no noticeable impact from ChatGPT on our new account growth and we were meeting expectations on new sign-ups,” CEO Dan Rosensweig said during the earnings call Tuesday evening. “However, since March we saw a significant spike in student interest in ChatGPT. We now believe it’s having an impact on our new customer growth rate.”

Chegg shares were last down 46% to $9.50 in premarket trading Wednesday.Otherwise, Chegg beat first-quarter expectations on the top and bottom lines. AI “completely overshadowed” the results, Morgan Stanley analyst Josh Baer said in a note following the report. The analyst slashed his price target to $12 from $18.

Tesla just published its first-quarter vehicle production and deliveries report for 2024. Here are the key numbers:

Total deliveries Q1 2024: 386,810 Total production Q1 2024: 433,371

Tesla doesn’t break out sales of its vehicles by model but reported that it produced 412,376 Model 3/Y cars and delivered 369,783 of those cars. It produced 20,995 of its other models and delivered 17,027.

In the same period last year, the electric automaker reported 422,875 deliveries and production of 440,808 vehicles. In the fourth quarter of 2023, Tesla reported 484,507 deliveries and production of 494,989 vehicles.

Deliveries are the closest approximation of sales reported by Tesla but are not precisely defined in the company’s shareholder communications.

According to a mean of 11 estimates compiled by FactSet, analysts were expecting deliveries of around 457,000 for the period ending March 31. Estimates ranged from a high of 511,000 deliveries to a low of 414,000 for the first quarter, with estimates updated in March ranging from 414,000 to 469,000 deliveries.

Independent auto industry researcher Troy Teslike, whose work is closely followed by Tesla fans, had expected deliveries to come in around 409,000.

Tesla’s head of investor relations Martin Viecha sent around a company-compiled consensus based on 30 analysts’ estimates over the weekend to select investors. The consensus, which was viewed by CNBC, said analysts were expecting a mean of 443,027 deliveries and a median of 431,125 deliveries for the quarter.

Tesla faced numerous challenges in the first quarter.

Houthi militia attacks on shippers in the Red Sea disrupted Tesla’s component supply and temporarily suspended production at its German factory outside of Berlin in January. In March, environmental activists set fire to infrastructure near that same factory, depriving Tesla of sufficient operation power and again causing a pause in production.

In China, Tesla faced an onslaught of competition from domestic EV makers, including BYD and newcomers such as the phone maker Xiaomi. After sluggish sales numbers for its China-made cars in January and February, Tesla reduced production of its Model 3 and Model Y at its Shanghai plant and slashed workers’ schedules to 5 days a week from 6 and a half days.

In the U.S., reviews were mixed for Tesla’s newest model — an angular pickup dubbed the Cybertruck — which the EV maker only began to sell in small numbers in December last year.

A series of discounts and incentives appeared to be less effective in driving sales volume than in the past for Tesla.

During the final days of the first quarter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk mandated that all sales and service staff install and demo the newest version of the company’s premium driver assistance system for customers in North America before handing over their cars. The system is marketed as Full Self-Driving but doesn’t make Tesla cars autonomous. They require a human at the wheel, ready to steer or brake at any time.

Shares of Tesla dropped 29% in the first quarter, the biggest decline since the end of 2022 and the third-steepest quarterly plunge since the company’s IPO in 2010.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/02/tesla-tsla-q1-2024-vehicle-delivery-and-production-numbers.html

May 23, 2022

GRAPEVINE, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 23, 2022-- GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) (“GameStop” or the “Company”) today announced it has launched its digital asset wallet to allow gamers and others to store, send, receive and use cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”) across decentralized apps without having to leave their web browsers. The GameStop Wallet is a self-custodial Ethereum wallet. The wallet extension, which can be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store, will also enable transactions on GameStop’s NFT marketplace, which is expected to launch in the second quarter of the Company’s fiscal year. Learn more about GameStop’s wallet by visiting https://wallet.gamestop.com.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS - SAFE HARBOR

This press release contains “forward looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements generally, including statements about the Company’s NFT marketplace and digital asset wallet, include statements that are predictive in nature and depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, and include words such as “believes,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “projects,” “estimates,” “expects,” “intends,” “strategy,” “future,” “opportunity,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “could,” “potential,” “when,” or similar expressions. Statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on current beliefs and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update any of them publicly in light of new information or future events. Actual results could differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement as a result of various factors. More information, including potential risk factors, that could affect the Company’s business and financial results are included in the Company’s filings with the SEC including, but not limited to, the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 29, 2021, filed with the SEC on March 17, 2022. All filings are available at www.sec.gov and on the Company’s website at www.GameStop.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220523005360/en/

GameStop Corp. Investor Relations
(817) 424-2001
[ir@gamestop.com](mailto:ir@gamestop.com)

Source: GameStop Corp.

The European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, on Monday hit Apple with a 1.8 billion euro ($1.95 billion) antitrust fine for abusing its dominant position on the market for the distribution of music streaming apps.

The Commission said it found that Apple had applied restrictions on app developers that prevented them from informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app.

Apple also banned developers of music streaming apps from providing any instructions about how users could subscribe to these cheaper offers, the Commission alleged.

This is Apple’s first antitrust fine from Brussels and is among one of the biggest dished out to a technology company by the EU.

The European Commission opened an investigation into Apple after a complaint from Spotify in 2019. The probe was narrowed down to focus on contractual restrictions that Apple imposed on app developers which prevent them from informing iPhone and iPad users of alternative music subscription services at lower prices outside of the App Store.

Apple’s conduct lasted almost 10 years, according to the Commission, and “may have led many iOS users to pay significantly higher prices for music streaming subscriptions because of the high commission fee imposed by Apple on developers and passed on to consumers in the form of higher subscription prices for the same service on the Apple App Store.”

Apple response:

In a fiery response to the fine, Apple said Spotify would stand to gain the most from the EU pronouncement.

“The primary advocate for this decision — and the biggest beneficiary — is Spotify, a company based in Stockholm, Sweden. Spotify has the largest music streaming app in the world, and has met with the European Commission more than 65 times during this investigation,” Apple said in a statement.

“Today, Spotify has a 56 percent share of Europe’s music streaming market — more than double their closest competitor’s — and pays Apple nothing for the services that have helped make them one of the most recognisable brands in the world.”

Apple said that a “large part” of Spotify’s success is thanks to the Cupertino giant’s App Store, “along with all the tools and technology that Spotify uses to build, update, and share their app with Apple users around the world.”

Apple said that Spotify pays it nothing. That’s because instead of selling subscriptions in their iOS app, Spotify sell them via their own website stead. Apple does not collect a commission on those purchases.

Developers over the years have spoken out against the 30% fee Apple charges on in-app purchases.

Spotify did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

The fine will ramp up tensions between Big Tech and Brussels at a time when the EU is increasing scrutiny of these firms.

Last year, the Commission designated Apple among other tech firms like Microsoft and Meta as “gatekeepers” under a landmark regulation called the Digital Markets Act, which broadly came into effect last year.

The term gatekeepers refers to massive internet platforms which the EU believes are restricting access to core platform services, such as online search, advertising, and messaging and communications.

The Digital Markets Act aims to clamp down on anti-competitive practices from tech players, and force them to open out some of their services to other competitors. Smaller internet firms and other businesses have complained about being hurt by these companies’ business practices.

These laws have already had an impact on Apple. The Cupertino, California-based giant announced plans this year to open up its iPhone and iPad to alternative app stores other than its own. Developers have long-complained about the 30% fee Apple charges on in-app purchases.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/04/apple-hit-with-more-than-1point95-billion-eu-antitrust-fine-over-music-streaming.html

Tesla will reveal its robotaxi product on Aug. 8, CEO Elon Musk said in a social media post on X.

Musk has spoken about the robotaxi project for years, and it could represent a major new business for the carmaker as investors grow wary of the company during a period of slowing growth.

Tesla shares rose over 3% in extended trading after Musk’s tweet.

Musk shared the release date on Friday after Reuters reported that plans for Tesla’s highly anticipated low-cost car model had been scrapped. Musk accused Reuters of “lying.”

Tesla’s robotaxi project, according to Musk’s past remarks, would allow Tesla vehicles to use self-driving technology to autonomously pick up riders for fares. In 2019, Musk said that he expected to have over 1 million robotaxis on the road by 2020. Author Walter Isaacson also mentioned the robotaxi project in his biography of Musk, published in 2022.

Currently, Tesla offers advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS,) including its Autopilot option, as well as a premium Full Self-Driving “FSD” option, which costs $199 per month for subscribers. However, Teslas currently cannot operate without human intervention.

There is significant competition in the market for taxi services that use self-driving cars.

Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle unit Waymo operates driverless ride-hailing services in Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and is now ramping up in Tesla’s home base of Austin, Texas.

GM’s Cruise service previously offered self-driving car services in San Francisco before being wound down under regulatory scrutiny after an accident. Since the incident, Cruise’s robotaxi fleet has been grounded, local and federal governments have launched their own investigations and Cruise leadership has been gutted.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/05/elon-musk-says-tesla-will-unveil-its-robotaxi-on-aug-8-shares-pop.html