Apple's revenue grew considerably during the most recent quarter but iPhone sales were down. The company sold 77.3 million iPhones during the holiday quarter, about one million less than the same time last year. It's the first time Apple has ever seen declining sales on its iPhones during the holiday season. However, the company did post $88.3 billion in revenue, up 13% from last year.
There was good news and bad news in the earnings report for Alphabet, the parent company of Google. The company beat expectations on revenue but fell short on earnings. Ad sales were strong but that profit was offset by increased ad spending.
And Amazon soared past Wall Street expectations thanks to strong holiday sales. The company beat on revenue and earnings. Amazon also set a new record, posting profits above $1 billion for the first time.
We dive into these earnings reports with Gene Munster, Managing Partner at Loup Ventures. Munster believes Amazon's profitability was a one-time thing. He is also predicting that Apple will release a new iPhone soon with a screen that's 25% bigger.
Plus, Cheddar's CEO Jon Steinberg talks to veteran newsman Dan Rather about his new partnership with The Young Turks. Rather now has a half-hour show airing on the network's YouTube channel. "The News with Dan Rather" will offer commentary and analysis on today's news, something he never did on "CBS Evening News." The show airs Mondays at 5:30pm ET.
Amit Bendov, the CEO and co-founder of Gong, a platform utilizing artificial intelligence to help sales and customer support teams, joined Cheddar News to talk about the tech company's innovative use of AI. Bendov pointed to an example of how the platform aided a client in selling point-of-sales software to restaurants. "Gong came up with a recommendation that when they called to introduce yourself to a new company, you should talk about the iPad before the application. That small change increased sales by 12 percent. It's a very simple change," he said. "The funny thing, Gong doesn't even know what an iPad is, what the application [is], or anything about their business. It just observed. But this is what the top 5 percent of people are doing that nobody else does. It's a very simple change to implement. Very hard to detect."
The Week's Top Stories is a guided tour through the biggest market stories of the week, from winning stocks to brutal dips to the facts and forecasts generating buzz on Wall Street.
Between Bells EP Conor White recaps some of the biggest stories of the week, while Baker Machado and Hena Doba test their knowledge, and maybe learn a thing or two. It's This Week in Trivia!
The social marketplace Poshmark recently revealed its survey on spring cleaning with tips on how decluttering might lead to cash. Steven Tristan Young, the company's chief marketing officer, joined Cheddar News to talk about the survey of its customers, especially how Millennials and Gen Z'ers are gravitating toward cleaning out their closets to reboot their wardrobes. "I think style and fashion and image is so important to this audience that this is probably one of the reasons why they're really thinking about this spring cleaning, and our hope is turning it into spring selling," he noted.
U.S. regulators are sounding the alarms about the meme stock mania fueled by retail investors. FINRA, the regulator for all brokerage firms and exchanges in the U.S. is warning that retail traders could easily get in over their heads due to their lack of knowledge about complex investments like options, ETF's and structured notes. Thomas Gorman, Attorney, Dorsey Whitney & former Securities Exchange Commission Regulator joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss how regulators and trading platforms can crack down on retail investors.
The deadline for filing federal taxes is just a few weeks away. Experts are warning taxpayers to brace for yet another year of delays and complications, as the pandemic causes backlogs and obstacles to the system. Dan Geltrude, Managing Partner at Geltrude & Co, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to give some tips on tax season.
Sophie Karp, Equity Research Analyst at Keybanc Capital Markets, talks about the push toward clean energy amid rising oil prices and highlights the challenges the U.S. faces in shifting toward renewables.
The next generation of investors has a host of concerns about retirement with inflation and broader uncertainty topping the list. Rita Assaf, Vice President of Retirement, Fidelity Investments, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss Fidelity Investments' State of Retirement Planning Study.
