Weekly Cache

Weekly Investment News and Analysis

Please see what we’ve been reading in technology and ESG related investing this week. Please feel free to send us what you’ve found interesting.

Latest Invesment News

April 28, 2024: Mega Cap Earnings Advance Markets

Last week, the stock market rebounded strongly due to mega-cap earnings even amid an alarming inflation report — Dow Jones rose 0.7%, S&P 500 gained 2.7%, Nasdaq advanced 4.2%. Rubrik rose 16% in its trading debut after the cloud and data security startup backed by Microsoft topped its fundraising goal with a US$752 million IPO. Vista Equity Partners-backed automotive data and software services provider Solera is weighing an IPO that may raise over US$1 billion. Traders who bet against the “Magnificent 7” group of big U.S. tech stocks booked their biggest-ever weekly profit of more than US$10 billion last week, with the biggest gains coming from their short position in shares of Nvidia and Tesla. Thoma Bravo will buy UK-listed Darktrace for £4.3 billion. IBM has agreed to buy Hashicorp, for US$6.4 billion in cash to strengthen its position in cloud computing and AI. Alphabet shares rose as much as 13% in after-hours trading after the company reported 15% higher revenues in the first quarter—stronger growth than analysts had anticipated—and announced it would begin paying a dividend. Meta plunged 16% on weak guidance even though Q1 results beat estimates. Tesla shares jumped 13% after Musk says the company aims to start production of an affordable new EV by early 2025. President Joe Biden signed into law a foreign aid package that includes a requirement that TikTok cut ties with its Chinese owner ByteDance or face a ban. TikTok has about a year to find a new owner, under the law. In Canada, Sophic Client Kraken Robotics gained access to over $100 million in liquidity via a bought deal equity offering and new expanded bank credit facilities in order to fund growth. Sophic Clients Xcyte Digital, OneSoft Solutions, UGE, ADM Endeavors will be presenting at the Planet MicroCap Showcase next week and will also host 1×1 investor meetings.

Invesment News in the Past Weeks

September 13, 2020

Lots of activity in the Canadian VC space this past week, as well as Lightspeed’s NYSE debut. Sophic client, Kontrol (KNR-CSE) had positive news of another successful test of its Covid detection product, BioCloud.

September 6, 2020

We hope you’re enjoying the long weekend with your loved ones. Many high growth stocks pulled back on Thursday, and Friday to some extent – however, valuations still remain elevated. Interestingly a Financial Times piece on Friday suggested Softbank’s option trading could have been tech stocks higher over the summer.

August 30, 2020

Monday saw the one the highest number of SEC S-1 filings for high profile companies going public as we have seen in nearly fifteen years in capital markets. September, should be a very interesting month!

August 23, 2020

While the Tik-Tok drama continues to unfold, high profile companies including SpaceX, Robinhood, Airbnb, Ant Financial, Palantir move ahead to either raise capital or go public. Palantir also plans to move its headquarters from the Bay Area to Denver, which could aid the trend of tech companies being more widely located, which we believe is a tailwind for the Canadian tech ecosystem. For example, Odyssey Interactive’s founders previously worked in the United States but opted to establish the company in Canada, because of the strong startup ecosystem in Canada.

August 16, 2020

Epic Games and Facebook appear to be pushing back against app store policies, which could have far reaching implications. Several high profile companies are expected to go public this fall & Robinhood is garnering lots of attention (including, gracing the cover of this week’s Barrons).