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 SHINES
Apple hit a market value of $3 trillion and became the first company ever to close out the day at that sky-high benchmark. Citi gave the stock a Buy rating on Thursday and Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities says the tech giant has potential to bump that up to $4 trillion in two years as consumers upgrade their iPhones. Apple was the first company ever to hit $3 trillion back in January 2022, but dropped below that before the end of the trading day and took more than a year to regain that position. Apple ended the week up 3 percent.
OVERSTOCK BECOMES BBB
Bed Bath & Beyond is back…sort of. Overstock.com bought bankrupt company's intellectual property and has decided to change its own name to Bed Bath & Beyond. But why? Overstock.com CEO Jonathan Johnson told Cheddar News, "We've morphed over the last couple years to be 100% home company. The name Overstock, I think, was creating some headwind as people associated us with liquidation goods or something else. This I think will be a better name to truly represent what we are: we're an online home furnishings and furniture company and Bed Bath & Beyond says just that." Overstock stock ended the week up a whopping 35 percent.
TESLA DOWNGRADES
For the second week in a row, Tesla stock faced downgrades from Wall Street bigwigs. On Monday, Goldman Sachs said it expects the EV leader to start falling from its pedestal as competitors step up their electric game…and at much lower prices. Still, the automaker stayed strong and pulled off a recovery on Wall Street by the end of the week, landing up about 5 percent (and 26 percent over the last month).
SAVERS VALUE VILLAGE
The IPO craze has been on ice since the pandemic, but that didn't stop discount chain Savers Value Village from shooting its shot on Wall Street. And boy, did it work out for them. The stock opened Thursday 38 percent higher than its IPO price, landing the company a $4 billion market cap. From the floor of NYSE, CEO Mark Walsh told Cheddar News the raise will largely go to paying off debt, noting the business has strong cash flow that it will use to grow.
AIRLINES FLYING HIGH
Airlines stocks had a good week as we hit the summer travel season in earnest. Fuel prices are low, ticket sales are high, and this is spelling big money. The good news for investors comes even as some airlines race to hit a July 1 deadline to make all planes 5G compliant or risk the chance that non-compliant planes will no longer be allowed to land in risky weather. Since the beginning of the year, United is up 47 percent, Delta is up 45 percent, American is up 40 percent, JetBlue is up 36 percent…need I go on?
Wealthfront’s CFO Alan Iberman talks the $2.05B IPO and the major moment for robo banking as the company bets on AI, automation, and “self-driving money."
A rare magnum of Dom Pérignon Vintage 1961 champagne that was specially produced for the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana has failed to sell during an auction. Danish auction house Bruun Rasmussen handled the bidding Thursday. The auction's house website lists the bottle as not sold. It was expected to fetch up to around $93,000. It is one of 12 bottles made to celebrate the royal wedding. Little was revealed about the seller. The auction house says the bids did not receive the desired minimum price.
The New York Times and President Donald Trump are fighting again. The news outlet said Wednesday it won't be deterred by Trump's “false and inflammatory language” from writing about the 79-year-old president's health. The Times has done a handful of stories on that topic recently, including an opinion column that said Trump is “starting to give President Joe Biden vibes.” In a Truth Social post, Trump said it might be treasonous for outlets like the Times to do “FAKE” reports about his health and "we should do something about it.” The Republican president already has a pending lawsuit against the newspaper for its past reports on his finances.
OpenAI has appointed Slack CEO Denise Dresser as its first chief of revenue. Dresser will oversee global revenue strategy and help businesses integrate AI into daily operations. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently emphasized improving ChatGPT, which now has over 800 million weekly users. Despite its success, OpenAI faces competition from companies like Google and concerns about profitability. The company earns money from premium ChatGPT subscriptions but hasn't ventured into advertising. Altman had recently announced delays in developing new products like AI agents and a personal assistant.
President Donald Trump says he will allow Nvidia to sell its H200 computer chip used in the development of artificial intelligence to “approved customers” in China. Trump said Monday on his social media site that he had informed China’s leader Xi Jinping and “President Xi responded positively!” There had been concerns about allowing advanced computer chips into China as it could help them to compete against the U.S. in building out AI capabilities. But there has also been a desire to develop the AI ecosystem with American companies such as chipmaker Nvidia.
