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.
APPLE POWER
The stock market rallied on Friday after Apple reported its quarterly earnings, which showed a decline in revenue but solid iPhone sales. The stock rose 5 percent, buoying the rest of the market, with some help from the latest job report as well. The U.S. economy added 253,000 jobs in April and the unemployment dropped to 3.4 percent, despite reports of layoffs across industries and continued fears of a recession. The rally comes just two days after the Federal Reserve announced a quarter-percent rate hike as expected, with many expecting the central bank to now ease up on tightening. Still, the labor market staying tight could change that.
BANK STOCKS RALLY
Regional bank shares also rebounded at the end of the week. Shares of struggling banks such as PacWest and Western Alliance jumped 81 and 49 percent respectively. Bank stocks had dropped precipitously in recent sessions, as investors braced for more bank failures. Data indicating strength in the economy helped temper those fears, and bank stocks rose accordingly. Shares of First Horizon were also up, despite its recent announcement that a planned merger with TD Bank was collapsing. Relatedly, JPMorgan earlier this week agreed to purchase the ailing First Republic bank.
FORD EARNINGS
Ford, meanwhile, benefitted from the rally, but nonetheless is down for the week due in part to a mixed earnings report. The automaker posted strong first-quarter revenue and profit, as demand for trucks and SUVs remains robust, but had a less optimistic outlook for the year in response to continued losses in its electric vehicle unit. This doesn't bode well for the ongoing EV transition, but Ford has warned previously that the division could see losses for the foreseeable future.
RIDESHARE FIRMS DIVERGE
Shares of Uber are up more than 17 percent for the week after the rideshare giant reported strong earnings and a 29 percent jump in revenue. At the same time, shares of Lyft tanked 16 percent, as investors responded to a dim outlook for the coming year.
Heila Technologies, a startup that develops hardware and software to integrate renewables and batteries on a microgrid, is helping to power the first clean energy microgrid for Auto Mercado, a top supermarket chain in Costa Rica. The plant will reduce 20 tons of CO2 emissions per year. Heila Technologies CEO Francisco Morocz joins Cheddar Climate to discuss.
GitLab CFO Brian Robins joined Cheddar's "Closing Bell" to discuss the single platform software development app's first earnings report since going public in October. The company frames itself as a one-stop-shop for businesses to transition into software development to manage in-network chat, video conferencing, and meeting scheduling among other applications. GitLab saw Q3 revenue jump 58 percent and was able to add a number of new customers since its IPO.
Bitcoin had a tough last few days. In just a 24-hour period spanning early Friday morning to early Saturday morning, bitcoin's price went from about $57,000 to $47,000. Patrick McCconlogue, CEO of Overline, joins Cheddar News discuss bitcoin's plunge.
The leading gaming organization and lifestyle brand 100 Thieves just raised $60 million in new funding closing its Series C. This new round of funding has raised the valuation of the organization to about $460 million. John Robinson, president and COO of 100 Thieves, joins Cheddar News to talk about what's next for the company.
The Quorum and Cultique released a new study where moviegoers weighed in on their attitudes on going to the theater right now. Linda Ong, founder of Cultique, and David Herrin, founder and CEO of The Quorum, join Cheddar News to discuss what moviegoers need in order to head back to theaters.
The nation's largest vacation rental management company, Vacasa, made its public debut on the Nasdaq via a SPAC merger with TPG Pace Solutions. CEO Matt Roberts joined Cheddar to talk about the company's better-than-expected success and the plans to leverage its IPO to expand the business and refine Vacasa's tech. He noted that with five million second homes across the country, the company has much more room to grow as it currently has just 35,000 rental properties in 400 locations available. Roberts also said that there has been no impact on bookings due to the omicron variant of COVID-19.
Marvel's "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" is gearing up for a sequel following its earlier this year topping the domestic box office to date. Destin Daniel Cretton will return to write and direct while also taking on additional projects in a multi-year deal.
Online platform Assemble is looking to provide career instruction and inspiration to Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) of all age groups for access to industries they might not have been privy to prior. Actor, activist, and one of Assemble's three co-founders, Jesse Williams, and CEO Cortney Woodruff joined Cheddar's "Between Bells" to discuss the Assemble mission and what people can expect from the program. "There's a lot of jobs that folks don't know even exist in the first place, and what we know is that there are incredible innovators at the peak of their field that are Black and brown – in every single field," Williams noted.
Payoneer CEO Scott Galit joined Wake Up With Cheddar to talk about the company's partnership with Walmart to provide working capital to retailers on Walmart's marketplace.
As the country continues to bounce back from the job losses felt at the start of the pandemic, businesses are still struggling to fill jobs, mainly due to the record number of people who have voluntarily left the workforce. and experts say that the challenge of finding the people to fill those roles will likely follow us well into 2022. Beth Ann Bovino, U.S. Chief Economist at S&P Global Ratings explains what’s behind the ‘Great Resignation’.
