WeWork: Rise & Fall

WeWork tumbles, ESPN getting into sports betting with Penn, Wall Street WhatsApp, texting fines exceed $2.5B, shares drop as Moody’s cuts ratings of US banks, and UPS job searches surge after $170K driver pay union deal… Stocks rebound from a losing week, North Korean hackers breached top Russian missile maker, Campbell acquires Rao’s sauces for $2.7B, Yellow files for bankruptcy shedding 30K jobs, and Paypal unveils dollar-baked stablecoin on Ethereum…

Author

Market Briefing
August 09, 2023

☕️ Good Morning.

WeWork tumbles, ESPN getting into sports betting with Penn, Wall Street WhatsApp, texting fines exceed $2.5B, shares drop as Moody’s cuts ratings of US banks, and UPS job searches surge after $170K driver pay union deal…

Here’s your market briefing for Wednesday:

BEFORE THE OPEN BEFORE

As of market close 8/8/2023.

MARKETS:

  • U.S. stock futures show little change after recent major averages selloff.

  • Dow futures down by 27 points, a 0.08% decrease.

  • S&P futures dip 0.06%, while Nasdaq 100 futures decline 0.06%.

  • Penn Entertainment surges 12% in extended trading on the announcement of ESPN Bet partnership.

  • Recent session saw major averages facing a down day, with the Dow closing 0.45% lower.

  • The S&P slid 0.42%, while Nasdaq dropped 0.79% amid Moody's regional bank downgrade.

  • Some view the selloff as an expected correction after substantial equity gains this year.

  • Roblox to release earnings before today’s open; Disney and Wynn Resorts to follow with post-close results.

EARNINGS

What we’re watching this week:

  • Today: Roblox (RBLX), The Trade Desk (TTD), Walt Disney (DIS)

  • Thursday: Alibaba (BABA)

  • Friday: Spectrum Brands (SPB)

  • Full earnings calendar here

NEWS BRIEFING

WeWork said in a filing Tuesday that there’s doubt about the company’s ability to keep operating as a “going concern.” The company’s stock price has been trading below $1 since early this year. Membership has been weaker than expected, attributed in part to a struggling economy.

Millions of Americans have a higher rate on their savings account than they’re paying for their mortgage. Marcus by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. recently raised the interest rate on its high-yield accounts to an all-time high of 4.3%, following the latest hike in the Federal Reserve’s key benchmark rate.

  • Treasury auctions off to good start, with strong demand for three-year notes (more)

  • Oil holds near four-month high as report sees US stockpile gain (more)

  • S&P drops ESG scores from debt ratings after investor confusion (more)

  • US Bank shares drop as Moody’s cuts ratings, warns on risks (more)

  • Wall Street WhatsApp, txt-message fines exceed $2.5B (more)

    • Banks hit with $549M in fines for use of Signal, WhatsApp to evade regulators’ reach (more)

  • Credit card balances jumped in the second quarter and are above $1 trillion for the first time (more)

  • Cloud stocks falter as Datadog trims 2023 revenue expectations (more)

  • UPS drivers' new $170K per year deal shows that unions may just save the middle class after all (more)

  • L.A. city workers stage one-day strike, latest in series of walkouts (more)

  • Amazon in talks to become anchor investor in Arm ahead of IPO (more)

  • Disney’s ESPN inks $2B deal with Penn Entertainment to launch sportsbook (more)

    • Disney taps two former execs to help sell ESPN stake (more)

  • Disney creates task force to explore AI and cut costs (more)

  • Nvidia launches new chip platform to cash in on generative AI demand (more)

  • Amazon is running a second Prime Day sale in October (more)

  • Twitter looks to bring advertisers back with expanded ad features (more)

  • Robinhood says it’s acing investigation from New York state (more)

  • KKR scoops up auto loan portfolio as regional banks shed assets

    (more)

  • Alibaba, Tencent’s $66 billion party starts to fade (more)

  • Private-jet firm Wheels Up seeks rescue funding (more)

DEALFLOW

  • Apple and Samsung to invest in SoftBank's Arm at IPO (more)

    • Amazon in talks to become anchor investor in Arm ahead of IPO (more)

  • Adani Enterprises weighs exiting $6B Wilmar Venturen (more)

  • ConocoPhillips to offer notes to fund $3B Surmont oil facility buyout (more)

  • PE firm KKR acquires $373M portfolio of Synovus Bank's prime auto loans (more)

  • Security firm ADT's commercial unit to be taken private by GTCR for $1.6B (more)

  • JD Sports to take full ownership of Poland's MIG (more)

  • Charlie Ergen reunites Dish, EchoStar in all-stock deal (more)

  • Australia's Woodside to sell 10% stake in Scarborough to LNG Japan for $500M (more)

  • Molson Coors makes big whiskey play with acquisition of Blue Run Spirits (more)

  • Glacier Bancorp to acquire Community Financial Groups (more)

  • PeopleGrove acquires jobZology® and their flagship product PathwayU strengthening science-based academic and career exploration capabilities (more)

  • Struengmann brothers, worth $24B, deepen private equity ties (more)

  • InComm Payments acquires Zenda (more)

  • Accenture completes acquisition of Anser Advisory (more)

  • Tyler Technologies buys Computing System Innovations (more)

  • Extendly acquires stake in ChatHQ (more)

  • Catch+Release, a content licensing marketplace for brands and creators, raised an additional $8.8M in Series A funding (more)

  • Chargeflow, a chargeback automation solution tailored exclusively for online businesses, closed an $11M financing round (more)

  • Figur8, a leader in the measure of musculoskeletal (MSK) health, has successfully closed a $25M Series A-1 funding (more)

  • Dropzone AI, an autonomous alert investigation platform for security operations teams, closed on $3.5M in seed funding (more)

  • Clinetic, a healthtech company focused on streamlining clinical research, closed a Series A financing round (more)

  • Membrion, an electro-desalination membrane manufacturer, held a second close of $5.5M in its Series B funding round, bringing the total to $12.5M (more)

  • MindsDB, an artificial intelligence virtual database enabling the creation of AI-centered applications, received an investment from NVentures, NVIDIA’s venture capital arm (more)

  • Birdstop, Inc., a remote sensing company, raised $2.3M in funding (more)

  • Grapevine, a collaborative giving platform, raised $1.67M in equity financing with an additional $180K in grants (more)

  • Simon Data, a customer data platform (CDP) provider, closed $54M Series D funding round (more)

  • Horizon3.ai, a provider of autonomous security solutions, raised $40M in Series C funding (more)

  • ConductorOne, Inc., a leader in identity security and access governance, raised an additional $12M in Series A funding (more)

  • Stamus Networks, a network security company, closed a $6M series A funding (more)

  • Beond, a premier leisure airline, closed an over $17M Seed funding round (more)

  • Verdagy, a developer of scaling electrolyzer technologies for industrial markets, closed a $73M Series B funding round (more)

  • Inrix, Inc., a provider of transportation analytics and connected car services, completed a $70M financing round (more)

  • Thunder, a Salesforce and Cloud consulting, implementation and managed services company, raised $16M in Series A funding (more)

  • Tenant Inc., a vertical SaaS technology platform company which offers a complete ecosystem tailored to the self-storage industry, closed a $25M third seed funding round (more)

  • Daybreak Health, a provider of school-based mental health services, raised $13M in Series B funding (more)

  • Gomboc.ai, an AI-powered cloud infrastructure remediation platform provider, raised a $5.2M seed funding round (more)

CRYPTO

  • US Fed steps up oversight of banks' involvement with crypto firms (more)

  • Circle seeks to make crypto payments easier with new 'programmable wallets' (more)

  • Only 30% of USDC adoption is driven by US customers (more)

BULLISH BITES

🎙 The Barstool Deal Is the Talk of Twitter…
The company was sold for $500M to Penn in 2020. Three years later, Portnoy acquired 100% of the brand back for $0. But that's not the whole truth. Here's what really happened…

🤩 The Weight-Loss Drug Frenzy Is Outrunning the Company Behind It…
Novo Nordisk A/S’s bestsellers Ozempic and Wegovy have given the Danish company a Hollywood sizzle. The drugs that help people lose significant amounts of weight were name-checked at the Oscars, touted by Elon Musk, feature in countless TikTok videos and even have a song dedicated to them. Now it faces a struggle to keep up…

DAILY SHARES

Know someone who would enjoy this?

Catch you in the morning, thanks for reading… -mb

Reply

or to participate.