PayPal COO Responds to Company's Break-Up with eBay
PayPal posted better-than-expected results, but news that eBay is abandoning the company in favor of a smaller European competitor caused the stock to fall. Bill Ready, COO of PayPal, joined us to explain why he thinks investors are misunderstanding the news.
Ready says PayPal will retain a majority of eBay’s volume with the deal it did for PayPal branded checkout. He also said the primary part of PayPal's business was actually expanded with eBay. Ready added that investors may be getting it wrong because this kind of news takes time to digest.
EBay explained that its decision to integrate Adyen's payment processor would result in lower costs and more control for its merchants. Ready responded by highlighting all the long-term partnerships the company has with Airbnb, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Uber.
Venmo has been a solid source of growth for PayPal, processing $10.4 billion in payments in just the fourth quarter. Ready said that now more than 2 million retailers are able to accept payments from Venmo. Many people have said Apple Pay Cash is going to be a Venmo-killer. Ready said the rush of competitors into the digital payments space hasn't stopped Venmo's business from accelerating.
Facebook parent Meta’s miss on Q4 earnings raised alarm bells amongst investors. The tech giant lost users for the first time as it invests a lot into the metaverse, its virtual realm, in the hopes that consumers will move their social media consumption there. The stock dropped around 25 percent on the report, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg chalked it up to people flocking toward apps like TikTok, even as his own platform attempts to make a big pivot to the metaverse future. "It's gonna take a long time to develop and it's gonna take a long time to bring to fruition," Rebecca Walser, president of Walser Wealth Management told Cheddar. "In the meantime, the world is moving on. We have a very short attention span, especially on social media, and we want the short little videos. And Tiktok has just taken off."
Wall Street saw another volatile day after the Federal Reserve left rates unchanged for now, with plans to raise rates in March at its next meeting in order to ease inflation. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the Fed has not made decisions on the size of rate increases, adding that the Fed is not trying to get inflation below two-percent. Ken Johnson, CFA and Investment Strategy Analyst explains why Powell thinks that high inflation is a significant threat to the labor market.
Ed Butowsky, managing partner at Chapwood Investments, joined Wake Up With Cheddar to break down the disappointing takeaways from Spotify's Q4 earnings report, which sent the stock plunging.
Anu Gaggar, global investment strategist for Commonwealth Financial Network, joined Cheddar News to discuss how global supply chains could be disrupted even further by an armed conflict in Ukraine.
Google parent company Alphabet saw yet another successful quarter reporting its final earnings report for 2021 on Tuesday. The tech giant beat Wall Street expectations across the board with much of that success owed to not only the growth of its cloud business, but also its multi-platform advertising. Joanna O'Connell, Principal Analyst at Forrester explains why advertising may be one of the keys to Alphabet’s future success.
Solid-state battery maker Factorial Energy recently raised $200 million in a Series D round led by Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis. Factorial says the funding will be used to accelerate commercial production and deployment of its solid-state battery technology, which the company says is safer, and offers up to 50% more driving range than current lithium-ion technology. Factorial also has joint development agreements (announced in late 2021) with Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and Hyundai, three of the top 10 global automotive manufacturers, to commercialize its batteries. Factorial CEO Siyu Huang joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
