AnalytixInsight

Last week, the Dow Jones gained 4.15%, S&P 500 was up 5.9%, and the Nasdaq rose 8.1%, in its best weekly gain since March, aided by a cooler-than-expected inflation report. The rest of week was defined by seemingly never ending FTX and Twitter headlines. Crypto exchange FTX has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. and founder Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned as CEO on Friday. Alameda Research, the trading company founded by Bankman-Fried, has also filed for bankruptcy. Crypto lender BlockFi freezes withdrawals, cites ‘Lack of Clarity’ on FTX. Elon Musk sells at least US$3.95 billion worth of Tesla shares after Twitter deal. Some laid off Twitter employees say they’re being asked to come back to Twitter after mass layoffs. Twitter pauses Twitter Blue as trolls overtake platform. Boosted by Twitter drama, Mastodon reaches 1 million active monthly users. Disney warns on economic impact on Disney+ profit target, and is likely to announce layoffs. TikTok slashes global revenue targets by at least US$2 billion. Netflix is interested in carrying live sports. Meta to lay off more than 11,000 employees, or 13% of staff. Apple warns iPhone 14 Pro availability is limited as COVID-19 restrictions close supply chain factories in China. Roblox stock drops on widening losses in Q3, but other growth metrics remain strong. The U.S.-listed shares of ASML shot up 12.8% toward the biggest one-day gain in 20 years in midday trading Thursday, after the Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment maker set a new 12 billion euro (US$12.2 billion) stock buyback program. MicroStrategy stock tumbles, as bitcoin prices fall well below ‘low watermark’ for carrying value in Q3. In Canada, Xanadu closed US$100 million Series C as the quantum computing firm becomes Canada’s latest unicorn. Hopper closed a US$96 million round from Capital One at more than US$5 billion valuation.

Last week, the Dow Jones Industrial fell 1.4%, S&P 500 was down 3.3%. Nasdaq fell 5.7%, its worst loss since the week ended Jan. 21. Numerous tech companies announced hiring freezes and/or reductions in force; Amazon has paused corporate hiring for ‘next few months’, Lyft will lay off 13% or 683 employees from its workforce, Stripe will lay off 14% or ~1k people from workforce, Chime will lay off 12% of its workforce, Opendoor laid off ~550 employees or 18% of its workforce. In Canada, Dapper Labs lays off 22% of its staff. Snowflake opens a Toronto HQ, engineering hub to expand investment in Canada. A Financial Times piece pointed out investors are questioning Big Tech’s capex plans as their businesses now raise serious questions about whether the returns from the latest spending binge will be as predictable as those of the past. Venture capital investments in China are falling sharply this year, making it one of the worst-performing countries globally. Gartner pointed out that worldwide spending on public cloud services will grow 20.7% in 2023, to US$591.8 billion. Stocks of Twilio, Atlassian, Roku, DraftKings had big moves down following earnings report. Robinhood reported a steep drop in users.Qualcomm is predicting a ‘double-digit’ drop in phone sales. Banks prepare to hold US$12.7 billion Twitter debt on books until early 2023. The Council on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) should take action to ban TikTok, Brendan Carr, one of five commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, told Axios in an interview. Uber app may get worse as company experiments with push notification ads. Disney+ subscribers now have early access to Disney merchandise, including Marvel and Star Wars products. Fidelity Investments is gearing up to launch crypto trading for small investors, announcing on Thursday that it had opened up a waitlist for customers.

Last week, the Dow Jones was up 5.7%, its fourth straight weekly gain, S&P 500 was up almost 4%, the Nasdaq was up 2.2%, including a 2.9% Friday move. Mega tech had a rough earnings season, and the five mega-caps were down an average of 12% post earnings. Apple, was exception and rose 5.75% last week, including a 7.6% move on Friday. Mobileye pops more than 37% in IPO after spinning out of Intel. Alphabet posts 6% revenue growth as ad downturn worsens. Microsoft’s 11% revenue growth is slowest in five years. Amazon’s stock tanks on grim holiday forecast. Meta shares drop 19% on weak fourth-quarter forecast and earnings miss and a big tech investor writes to Zuckerberg: Meta’s ‘lost confidence of investors’. Twitter shares to be delisted following Musk takeover. Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims. Alibaba falls to 6-year low as Chinese President Xi secures 3rd term. VC-funded China-based companies with recent US IPOs down over 90%. Microsoft says more than 20 million people have used Xbox Cloud Gaming, and Xbox Game Pass is profitable as it sees subscription growth slow. TikTok gaming push will be an “enormous” one; post Nov 2 launch. GM is delaying its plan to build 400,000 EVs in North America. Tesla cuts China prices by up to 9% as analysts warn of ‘price war. Shopify shares surged as revenue growth ticks higher. Telus will acquire product development shop WillowTree for US$1.2 billion. Toronto venture funding plunged to a two-year low in third quarter of 2022. While total investment in Toronto during Q3 2022 looked very different from 2021 levels, it was in line with the pre-bull market levels of 2020 (investment totalled roughly between $200 million and $300 million in each quarter of that year). Several local investors have noted this recent venture funding decline is a reversion to the mean and more reflective of a normalized capital deployment cycle than a catastrophic crash.