E*TRADE Generation Trader - Performance of Olympic Sponsors
Americans are coming off big gold medal wins on Thursday from the women's hockey team to men's curling. For premiere athletes, olympic glory can also come with high-valued sponsorship deals. In this episode of Generation Trader in Partnership with E*TRADE Cheddar Anchors Hope King and Baker Machdo explore the performance of some of the top sponsors at this year's winter games.
Visa is sponsoring a number of U.S. athletes at this years games, including snowboarding gold medalist Chloe Kim, slalom gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin, and free-skier David Wise.The credit card company, which has sponsored the Olympic games since 1986, says it chooses athletes who embody its values of acceptance, partnership, and innovation.
Shares of visa rebounded this week after the stock--like many others--fell during a broad market sell off earlier this month.
In 2017 Alibaba announced a long-term strategic partnership with the International Olympic Committee. IT will be the official cloud and e-commerce provider for the games until 2028. Alibaba's first global ad campaign for the games showcases the story of Kenya's ice hockey team, and pays tribute to "the greatness of small." This week shares of the company are rebounding after it fell as much as 18 percent at the start of February along with the rest of the market.
Ralph Lauren designed uniforms for Team USA. David Lauren, Chief Innovation Officer at the company, told Cheddar, "We want them to feel like they are representing our country and what our country is about." Shares of Ralph Lauren are down more than 6 percent this month, after a recent disappointing quarterly earnings report.
DJ X, alongside Molly Holder, Senior Director of Product Personalization, takes us inside Spotify's A.I. DJ and how it's the best new way to listen to music.
Skype users are scrambling to find an alternative after Microsoft shut down the pioneering internet phone service which let people make cheap long distance calls and chat with other users. Google Voice lets users make calls from a smartphone or a desktop web browser but it's only available to people in the U.S. Viber users can call phone numbers but can't get a number to receive calls. Zoom offers phone options too. You could get a number from a low cost virtual carrier or try other internet phone services. Microsoft says some Skype features will migrate to Teams, but its Teams Phone feature is only for businesses.
Amid a backdrop of ongoing tariff uncertainty, more and more gamers are facing price hikes. Microsoft raised recommended retailer pricing for its Xbox consoles and controllers around the world this week. Its Xbox Series S, for example, now starts at $379.99 in the U.S. — up $80 from the $299.99 price tag that debuted in 2020. And its more powerful Xbox Series X will be $599.99 going forward, a $100 jump from its previous $499.99 listing. The tech giant didn’t mention tariffs specifically, but cited wider “market conditions and the rising cost of development.” Beyond the U.S., Microsoft also laid out Xbox price adjustments for Europe, the U.K. and Australia. The company said all other countries would also receive updates locally.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Thursday that the majority of iPhones sold in the U.S. in the current fiscal quarter will be sourced from India, while iPads and other devices will come from Vietnam as the company works to avoid the impact of President Trump’s tariffs on its business. Apple’s earnings for the first three months of the year topped Wall Street’s expectations thanks to high demand for its iPhones, and the company said tariffs had a limited effect on the fiscal second quarter’s results. Cook added that for the current quarter, assuming things don’t change, Apple expects to see $900 million added to its costs as a result of the tariffs.
