An Excerpt compendium of how the stock market went down in 2022
Preface
Hello, my people!
2022 has been such a year!
I looked forward to writing to you every week to gist you about the stock market. I felt like your go-to bestie for market gist. Hehehe. Loved every moment of it!
I’ve been racking my brain on what to give you guys for the end-of-the-year and I thought, “Tomi, how about you do something they’ve always enjoyed?”. So that’s what I’m doing—writing to you. But this time, instead of a weekly stock update, I’m putting together some of the top stories of the 2022 newsletter.
The goal of this is to
- Help you catch up on the newsletters you missed
- Remind you of the major stock events that went down in 2022
Don’t forget to make a tweet or share snippets of the news you found fascinating on Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #TomiFromTrove and tag @trovefinance.
Enjoy, as always! I love you guys!
Your Stock News Bestie
Tomi from Trove
Introduction
Can you remember the first Tomi from Trove gist I shared with you this year?
*silence* *silence, again*
Did I hear you say, “ehm, ehm”😏
Oya, relaxxxxxxx.
I knew something like this could happen that’s why I made this ebook.
This ebook contains a compilation of some of the major stock gist on Tomi from Trove.
Like Elon’s Saga, Pinterest’s whopping win, and the shocking layoffs, to mention a few.
I also added links to the other stock news that weren’t featured so you could binge on them on a hot chocolate in this chilled weather.
Enjoy! 🥰
January
Into the Metaverse we go!!! 🌀
The Metaverse as we know it is expanding, and Microsoft just made a big move!
Microsoft announced Tuesday it will buy video game giant Activision Blizzard in a $68.7 billion all-cash deal. This January sapa no reach everybody ooo 🥲😥. Activision, which is known for popular games such as Call of Duty and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, had been mired in controversy for the last several months after reports of sexual misconduct and harassment among the company’s executives. They really needed this! 🤦♂️
The deal plays into a long-term vision for Microsoft as it competes with Meta (Facebook Y’all) to build the metaverse. Today, virtual worlds [especially the Metaverse] are dominated by gaming, but the hope is they expand to cater to other demographics and replace a lot of traditional social networking activity online.
“When we think about our vision for what a metaverse can be, we believe there won’t be a single, centralized metaverse,” according to Nadella. That being said, see you in the metaverse! 🥽
Tomi in the metaverse:
Coincidentally, Sony shares fell over 12% after Microsoft and Activision’s deal was announced. One man’s food is another man’s…🤮
Amazon Begins a Clothing War!! 👗👕🧥
The Wolf of E-commerce is coming for the brick and mortar stores
It’s not new that Amazon has been waiting to take a share of the multi-billion dollar brick and mortar market. Amazon opened its first bookstore in 2015, then it went on to acquire one of America’s largest chain stores, Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017.
Now, Amazon plans to open its first Amazon-style physical clothing Store in Los Angeles later in the year.
Users will be able to enjoy both the online and offline experience in these stores. They will feature women’s and men’s apparel, shoes, and accessories from a mix of well-known and emerging brands, with prices catering to a wide range of shoppers.
Do you think Amazon will win against brands like Nordstrom (JWN), Urban Outfitters (URBN), J. Crew, H&M and others?
Amazon says it’s hoping to fix some of the pain points found in traditional retail stores such as the fitting room while cutting some of the clutter that can make sales floors look daunting and disorganized.
Netflix shares are….chilling? 🙄
Netflix shares fell 20% after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday.
Why, you may ask?
Well…The company beat expectations on both top & bottom lines, but shares slumped due to slowing subscriber growth. The stock market strikes again!
Netflix added 8.28 million global paid net subscribers in the fourth quarter. Analysts had expected the company to add 8.19 million, according to Street Account estimates. But that’s fewer than the 8.5 million subscribers Netflix added in Q4 2020, the same figured it had forecasted for Q4 2021, and its outlook was worse.
Holders of Netflix (NFLX) right now:
“Consumers have always had many choices when it comes to their entertainment time – competition that has only intensified over the last 24 months as entertainment companies all around the world develop their own streaming offering,” Netflix said. [We hope these aren’t excuses 👀]. “While this added competition may be affecting our marginal growth some, we continue to grow in every country and region in which these new streaming alternatives have launched.” What we like to hear! 😁
A Chinese-Canadian Partnership?
I’m as shocked as you are. You mean the Chinese can collaborate?
Crazy tings are really happening.
The Canadian E-commerce platform, Shopify, is partnering with Chinese online retailing giant, J.D to enable U.S merchants to sell their goods in China.
This partnership creates another gateway for Western merchants to sell their products in the country with the largest population in the world.
Sorry, Amazon 🤭
The service will make use of JD’s 1,300 warehouses and 200,000 delivery employees in China, according to the firms. J.D will also handle price conversion, translation, and other support.
The partnership will be quite symbiotic, Chinese merchants will also be able to sell their products to Western markets using the service.
This agreement represents a major step forward towards Shopify’s China expansion, as well as another step forward in JD’s globalization ambitions.
Next step:
Meanwhile, this is me patiently waiting for the Chinese “authorities” to make an appearance.
February
Sony joins the spending spree!
Sony decided not to be left behind since everybody [and their mama] is buying gaming companies!
Sony Interactive Entertainment has agreed to acquire privately-held video game developer Bungie for $3.6 billion, adding to a flurry of industry consolidation this month.
Bungie is the company behind the multiplayer shooter games Destiny and Halo (Not that halo on an angel’s head😇, or the beyonce song 😏), the latter of which it developed until 2010. Bungie was acquired by Microsoft in 2000 and split from that company in 2007. Is Microsoft regretting that now? 🤔
While smaller than both Take-Two Interactive’s $12.7 billion Zynga deal and Microsoft’s $69 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition, Sony agreed to buy the company that, with Halo, helped launch Microsoft’s first Xbox in 2001.
All three video game deals were announced in January.
Sony, after Microsoft & Take-Two’s deals:
Amazon is chilling with the Big Boys
OMG!! The stock market was on fire this friday 🤯. It was a big day for many tech companies and their investors. One company made the biggest gain ever recorded by a US company in the market while another tech company made the largest-ever loss in a single day.
Amazon Inc saw its share price soar 13.54% on Friday after the company almost doubled its profit from the holiday period while its cloud-computing and advertising businesses continue to bring in huge gains. Amazon has also said it will be increasing the price of Amazon Prime Membership in the US from $119 to $139.
Amazon shareholders must be having a time of their lives
While Amazon was rejoicing, their backyard neighbour suffered a huge punch to the actual gut with share price dropping 26% on Friday. Facebook’s Meta saw $232 billion wiped off its market value because users are spending less time on more lucrative services from the social media giant.
The big question remains; which camp do you fall into: the Amazon rejoicing camp or Facebook wiping camp or both? Cos e be thingz 🤒
Google is On the Move
How does 20-for-1 sound to you? 😏
Google Alphabet is ready to bring things down to our level, Finally!! Come on, $2,750 is on the high side for a share for an individual investor. $2750 can feed my village if we’re being real here 😏
The company has announced that come 15th of July, Alphabet shareholders will receive 19 additional shares for every share they hold. This will automatically bring its share price to $137 a share.
For the record, Alphabet shares rose 65% last year as its profit in 2021 almost doubled what the company made in 2020. With this stock split, investors might enjoy even more share price increases if we’re to consider the Tesla & Apple stock splits.
Me doing the math, if i buy Alphabet shares at $137, how long will it take for it to get to $2,000+:
Meta’s headed downhill?
I never experred that we’d be talking about this but it looks like 2021 was a long year for all of us (billionaires not excluded).
Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘Meta’ lost more than 10 billion dollars last year.
Yup, you read that right. More than 10 billion in a single year!
This was revealed in Meta’s 2021 fourth-quarter earnings report which was published last Wednesday. Reality Labs, the branch of Meta that is charged with taking the Metaverse from a dream to reality, reported a net loss of $10.19 billion on $2.27 billion in revenue.
According to Meta’s CFO, David Wehner, the losses are going to get even worse this year. The Reality Labs losses also heavily impacted the overall profitability of Meta. The company would’ve made $56 billion in profit last year if not for the losses from Reality Labs.
Meta investors reading this are probably like:
After the financial report was made public, Meta’s share value plummeted, dropping by more than 26%. This caused the elimination of over $200 billion in market value resulting in the largest single-day wipeout for a US company.
It appears that Uncle Mark’s village people are hard at work again.
As if things weren’t bad enough, Mark Zuckerberg lost about $29 billion in his personal net worth on Thursday. Bringing his net worth down from well over $100 billion to $85 billion.
War Shook the Markets….Of course 🏹🗡️
U.S. stocks opened lower Thursday as Russia began invading Ukraine. But remarks President Joe Biden made during an afternoon address on the conflict quelled some anxiety amongst investors. Investors like me 😢
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (30 prominent companies on US exchanges), S&P 500 (500 largest companies on US exchanges) and the NASDAQ Composite (kinda like the S&P 500, but different), which all opened down more than 2%, rebounded and closed higher.
The tech-heavy NASDAQ index ended Thursday with the greatest gains amongst the three indices. It closed 436 points higher, amounting to a 3.34% increase. The S&P 500 closed 63 points higher, or 1.5%, while the Dow closed 92 points higher, or 0.28%. So, things weren’t so bad? 👀
Crude oil was trading at more than $105 a barrel briefly on Thursday, the highest level since 2014, but closed under $100 a barrel. Oil Prices 🤝 War time
Trump stays winning!
Truth Social, a new social media platform backed by former President Donald Trump, sat at the top of Apple’s free apps download charts as of Tuesday morning.
The platform unveiled a soft launch late Sunday, according to Reuters, with many users prompted to join a waitlist. Truth Social has been delayed several times. The full launch was first planned for Feb. 21, but that date has been pushed back to March 31.
The app is a product of the Trump Media & Technology Group, which planned to go public via a merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition corporation, or SPAC, with a market cap of more than $3 billion.
What can Q4 earnings do to you?
The last trading day of the week was an OMG!!! moment for investors in these two companies as their stock price rose upon announcement of their Q4 earnings.
Guys, imagine your investment rising 43% in a single day. I’m sure some investors will be smiling to the bank come Monday Morning.
Shares of CarGurus took a big jump as the company announced its quarterly earnings of $0.43 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.29 per share which represented an earnings surprise of 48.28%.
Investors were wowed because the company had surpassed the consensus EPS estimates four times in a row.
Another company that made investors happy this Friday was Square’s Block. Shares of Block surged more than 26% after the company reported earnings results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2021, while also providing guidance for the year ahead.
Block reported adjusted earnings per share of $0.27 in the quarter on revenue of $4.08 billion, both of which beat analyst estimates. Gross profit on Cash App came in at $518 million, while gross profit at the rest of Square came in at $657.3 million.
Mayday, Mayday, Slack Down!
On Tuesday last week, our go-to tool for all work communication, Slack, was down (and out) for about 5 hours.
An employer’s worst nightmare. Meanwhile, employees would be like:
The work communication app owned by Salesforce was down from about 9 am ET, till about 2:30 pm ET. Users were unable to log in, send messages and receive notifications. Leaving several organizations and their staff stuck. With 750,000 companies and over 10 million users, a 5-hour outage must have been excruciating but most certainly not for those employees ‘working from home.’
For us in Nigeria, this happened very close to the end of the workday so it didn’t affect us much.
If not this, Tomi be like:
However, this is not the first time slack has experienced an outage. On the first Monday of 2021 (which was the first full workday of the new year following the Christmas and New Year’s holidays), Slack experienced a 3-hour outage where some customers were also unable to connect or send messages.
Even Slack was still stuck in holiday mode 😂
But it’s not so funny when the outages start affecting the company’s earnings and share value. For example, in 2019, Slack’s stock value dropped by 14% after an earnings report in September 2019 showed an $8.2 million loss in revenues because of credits to customers after service-level disruptions.
Like Egungun, slack better be careful!
March
Next Stop: Movies. 🎬
Amazon closed an $8.5 billion deal to buy MGM, combining the fabled movie maker behind “Rocky” and “James Bond” with the online retailing giant as it looks to draw consumers through more streaming video. 🎬
Remember this legendary intro?
Yep, Amazon owns all that now!
Amazon doesn’t have any layoffs planned as it said it would welcome all MGM employees to the company and work with the studio’s leadership. A sigh of relief!
Lyft is feeling the heat of fuel prices!
Lyft will now add a 55-cent surcharge to each ride, beginning next week, to help drivers with higher fuel prices. The company’s justification is that the surcharge will help offset fuel costs and keep more drivers on the road.
It’s about to be real in this gas economy! 😖
For context,
Oil prices have been rising steadily, due to the ongoing war in Ukraine. This has been affecting ride-hailing services and logistics services more severely. That’s why companies like Lyft and Uber are taking measures like this to help their drivers shoulder the higher prices.
The company said the surcharge will last for at least 60 days. As of Wednesday, the national average for a gallon of gas (fuel) in the US was $4.305. The national average a year ago was $2.873.
Yikess….*Laughs in Nigerian* 🤯😂
[p.s. Nigeria suffers a worse fate & still rolling with the punches]
This is Tomi’s advice:
Lyft’s competitor, Uber, was the first {of course they were} to announce fuel surcharges after drivers began to voice their complaints. Riders taking Uber trips will pay a fee of $0.45 to $0.55 per trip for at least two months, the company said.
🥺😩😫
Chinese EV stocks made a huge run!!
Most Chinese automaker companies had an amazing week as their stock price soared during a volatile stock trading week.
Chinese EV Stocks:
The biggest runner of the week was Xpeng, with a percentage increase of 43.71%, the price moved from $20.02 on Monday to close at $28.77. Li Auto, another EV maker based out of China, also saw its share price move 40% during the week.
Y’all wanna cash out without me, but my God is bigger than you!
Nio also had a good run: its stock price moved from $14.78 on Monday to close on Friday at $20.86, giving its investors a 38.24% return in a single week.
Stock Price Driver: The company delivered a new record-high quarterly delivery in the company’s history. Fourth-quarter deliveries represented a 44.3% year-over-year increase. Vehicle deliveries during the fourth quarter amounted to 25,034 vehicles.
Google’s Googlegeist Ratings
Everyone wants a job at Google but based on a recent employee survey, it seems like all that glitters isn’t gold.
Like several other companies, Google is setting up for staff to return back to the workplace.
I’m sure Google’s staff are not excited about that 😂
However, it also turns out that Google staff are not exactly pleased with their jobs.
During their annual employee survey, known internally as Googlegeist, they found that employees are increasingly dissatisfied with their job experience. But the lowest satisfaction rates were with compensation and execution.
It turns out only about 46% of staff believe their pay is competitive compared to jobs at other companies and only 54% of employees believe that the promotional process is fair
Ermmm Not sure how to feel about this though.. I mean you work at Google! Although, the numbers aren’t very encouraging. 😬
But this isn’t the first time Google has had to have a discussion about staff’s remuneration. Last December, Google’s Vice President of Compensation responded to rising concerns about inflation and if Google would be increasing salaries to help offset some of the effects, which he said they would not.
Google staff be like :
Seems like google execs have some serious work to do.
However, it wasn’t all bad news. Employees were happy with Google’s ability to deliver on their mission and also their products. With google’s mission receiving a rating of 90%.
Russia is being cancelled!
Companies have taken action to limit, put on hold or exit business activities in Russia following a wave of sanctions imposed after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The whole country is being cancelled, effectively!
Here are some of the companies that have “cancelled” Russia so far:
- Entertainment: Hollywood studios – Disney, Warner Bros, and Sony Pictures Entertainment suspended new film releases in Russia 🎬
- Sports Apparel: Adidas suspended its partnership with the Russian Football Union with immediate effect. Nike has also made merchandise purchases on its website and app unavailable in Russia as it cannot guarantee delivery. ⚽🏀 Yikes!
- Technology Gadgets: Apple paused all product sales in Russia. 📱 No new Iphones/Macbooks?🥶
- Apps: Google blocked mobile apps connected to Russian broadcasters
These companies to Russia:
- Cars/Machinery: General Motors and Sweden’s Volvo Cars suspended vehicle exports to Russia until further notice. Harley-Davidson suspended its business and shipments of bikes to Russia, while Ford suspended operations in Russia until further notice. 🏍️🚗
- Even Big Oil is cancelling too! 🤯 France’s TotalEnergies would no longer provide capital for new projects in Russia. BP abandoned its 19.75% stake in Russian oil giant Rosneft, while Shell would exit all its Russian operations. ExxonMobil will exit Russian oil and gas operations that it has valued at more than $4 billion. This is huge; considering how crucial Oil is to the Russian economy!
- Shipment: UPS and FedEx are halting delivery services to Russia and Ukraine.📪 Shipping group Maersk will temporarily halt all container shipping to and from Russia. Deutsche Post has stopped DHL deliveries to Russia. How will Russians get deliveries now?
Where are the Avengers when we need them?
Uber & Airbnb are helping Ukraine!
Lots of big companies are helping with their humanitarian efforts, but today’s prize has to go to Airbnb & Uber!
There is an estimate of over 500,000 Ukrainians who have fled since the war began. Airbnb said it will offer free, temporary housing for up to 100,000 of these refugees fleeing Ukraine. The company will fund these stays with help from Airbnb hosts and donations to the Airbnb.org Refugee Fund. 🏠
“We need help to meet this goal,” Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky said on Twitter. “The greatest need we have is for more people who can offer their homes in nearby countries, including Poland, Germany, Hungary and Romania,” Chesky tweeted. Well said!
Let’s give Airbnb a round of applause:
Uber on Wednesday said it would be offering unlimited free rides between the Ukraine-Poland border and two Polish cities.
The service is part of a broader set of initiatives Uber announced Wednesday to support Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion. “Our teams are working 24/7 to keep impacted employees, riders, and drivers safe and are partnering with NGOs to support relief efforts on the ground,” the company said.
Kudos to Uber for doing their best for humanity:
The Double Combo Run of Oil and Gold
There is a popular saying that there are no winners in a war.
As much as that’s true, Gold and Oil be killing it out here!
The tension caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused the price of both Oil and Gold to reach a historical high, as more investors find safe havens in them. On Thursday, U.S. oil prices touched levels not seen since September 2008. Prices for Brent crude oil neared $119 a barrel, before settling back down to $110 a barrel on the day. 🤑🛢️
My people, if you have been following some Oil and Gold ETFs since they started, you should have seen some sweet profit by now oooo. {Not financial advice sha}
Oil prices have surged roughly 20% since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine amid fears of production cuts from Russia and that of Gold has seen 15% a while Palladium rose 5.8%, bringing this week’s gain to about 24%, on concerns over potential supply disruptions. Russia produces about 40% of the metal mined globally. Silver and platinum edged higher.
Sweet, golden profits! 🤑
Investors in Gold & Oil:
April
[Y]our favourite Billionaire has His Eyes on Twitter
You just gotta love Elon Musk; the guy certainly knows how to keep us talking about him. Arguably, he may even be better skilled than the Kardashians👀
Last week, we informed you that Elon announced his 9.2% stake in Twitter, making him Twitter’s largest individual shareholder. But as we all know, Elon is the epitome of go-big-or-go-home. …and apparently, being the largest shareholder of one of the biggest social networks in the world is infinitesimal by Elon standards.🤠
You know what isn’t small though? Offering to buy the whole company all together. 🥶🤭🌚
I’m sure every day he gets up, looks in the mirror and thinks to himself “how can I cause chaos today?”
And if we know anything about Elon, he always delivers.
Earlier this week, Elon offered to buy all of Twitter’s outstanding shares at $54.20 per share, calling that his best and final offer. His offer indicated a premium to the current share price of the company’s stock. Elon wrote a letter to Twitter chairman, Bret Taylor, stating in summary that Twitter isn’t currently reaching its full potential and he (Elon, of course) can help the company unlock its fullest potential by taking the company private.🥺
Twitter share value rose by 13%, after news of the offer broke.
Twitter confirmed in a press release that they had received the offer and it would be carefully reviewed and considered by the board of directors. The board believes they will act in the best interest of the shareholders.
So I guess… now we wait…
Tesla To Resume Production In Its Chinese Plant
Tesla intends to resume production in its Chinese plants, tomorrow, Monday 18th April. This comes after a 3-week suspension of activity at its factory in Shanghai due to the recent Covid outbreak in the country.
Another win against COVID
The resumption has the go-ahead from the local authorities but is subject to change depending on how the present epidemic situation plays out in the country. The current plan is for the car maker to begin with one shift then gradually ramp things up as the situation permits.
This most recent production suspension has been the longest since the factory commenced operations in 2019. Hopefully this signals the return to production for other EV makers in China such as XPeng and NIO.
My NIO and XPENG holders, are y’all staying strong?
However, the CEO of XPeng said on Thursday that many automakers in China may have to shut down production again in May if the suppliers in Shanghai and the surrounding cities do not return to work.
Another possible shutdown when the companies haven’t even fully resumed?
COVID: can we catch a break pls?!
A Cannabis Story
New Jersey is finally coming on board: the state will begin sales of recreational cannabis starting April 21, 2022.
It’s been a hard year for many cannabis investors as companies in the industry have seen a steady decline in their share prices.
Quick Recap: Green Thumb is down 26% year to date, while Trulieve is down 30%. Curaleaf Holdings (CURLF) has fallen 25%, Tilray (TLRY) is down 14%, Aurora Cannabis (ACB) has declined 35%, Sundial Growers (SNDL) is off 8%, and Canopy Growth (CGC) has dropped 22%.
But a glimpse of hope seems to be here:
The New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission will be issuing licenses to seven alternative treatment centers to begin adult-use operations, and at least 13 retail dispensaries. In March, the commission approved 68 conditional cannabis licenses, including 18 for manufacturing businesses and 60 for cultivation facilities.
New Jersey will become the first state in the New York metropolitan region to sell licensed recreational marijuana without a medical card according to Gov. Phil Murphy in a tweet.
Music Lovers, Get In Here!
STEINWAY & SONS: The legendary piano maker founded in 1853 is about to go public after rejecting a $1 Billion Chinese bid offer. Talk about knowing your worth?!!
According to its IPO filing, it intends to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker STWY, although share price is yet to be disclosed. According to reliable sources, the Steinway piano was the instrument of choice for approximately 97% of concert pianists when performing with orchestras across the globe during the 2018–2019 concert season.
The pianos were first born in Manhattan from German immigrant, Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, and in the 169 years since, the brand has crafted a legacy as the premier instrument for concert pianists performing in the world’s most celebrated theaters, from the Royal Albert Hall in London to the Sydney Opera House in Australia.
The company made $538 million in sales last year, with $59 million in profit, up 13% from the prior year. In coming years, it anticipates significant growth in China, which is the world’s largest piano market.
Would you buy this stock?
Elon, Now Inside Twitter
Musk has been recently added to the board at Twitter🤠 and the question on everyone’s mind is, Can One Vote Change it All?
Musk wasn’t added to the board because ‘he is Musk’ hah (although thats a tempting assumption lol), the man now owns 73,486,938 shares of Twitter, representing a 9.2% stake in the company, making him the largest individual shareholder in the company. Upon the news, the company’s stock jumped 27% and Twitter has literally been on our fingers (😉) as well incessantly in the news, cough cough, Elon on the beats.
Who’s Shocked?🌝🌝
As expected, because anything with Elon’s name on it, stays newsworthy
During the week, the company posted that Elon is now a board member of Twitter, which means Elon now gets a say on how Twitter should operate. Elon did say he has no present plans to “shake things up” at Twitter or change any of its policies, board or the company’s dividend or share-buyback policy.
Within the week, the company also posted an Ask-Me-Anything session between company staff and their new billionaire investor. In a company wide email, Twitter’s CEO said the ‘ask me anything’ will be for employees to address their questions to Mr Musk and Twitter leadership about this week’s development.
Has Robinhood Come To Its Wit’s End?
Seems like its biggest investors have lost hope in it as Goldman now says it’s a sell
Things are not looking good for the management team and early investors in Robinhood at the moment. They seem to have lost their magic and the big boys might be ready to cut their losses.
Goldman Sachs, which led Robinhood’s IPO less than a year ago, has placed a sell rating on the stock.🤔😰 And it’s not just Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and other institutional investors have also turned bearish on the free-stock trading app.
In case you’re wondering why all of this is happening, it’s simple. People have returned back to work, meaning many of Robinhood’s customers are not trading as frequently as they were during the pandemic.
Shares of the company are down 70% below its IPO price and 84% below the record highs in August 2021.
JD’s CEO Steps Down
Earlier this week, the CEO of JD.com announced that he would be stepping down.
You can already imagine that the Chinese “authorities” might have a hand in this👀
Richard Liu, who is also the founder of China’s second-largest online retailer, has joined a long list of technopreneurs who have stepped aside from top management roles due to the crackdown on tech businesses by the Chinese government. Other CEOs who have towed this path include ByteDance’s (owner of TikTok) founder Zhang Yiming, who stepped down in November of 2021.
And because nothing good stays on the market for long…
The role of CEO will be taken over by Xu Lei effective immediately. Xu Lei recently became President of JD.com and he has about 10 years of experience working at JD. The announcement of the founder’s departure from management resulted in JD’s stock dropping by about 3% as of the close of the stock market on the same day.
Clearly investors aren’t too thrilled about the change
Nonetheless, Richard Liu still remains chairman of the company with a massive voting power of 76%.
NIO EV Production, Suspended
The Chinese electric vehicle company announced that it would be suspending production of its EVs due to supply chain disruptions.
Not good news for NIO shareholders. Sorry guys.
The company had to shut down its plant in Hefei, China due to the effect of COVID-19 on its suppliers in various cities and unfortunately, these suppliers are yet to recover.
Can COVID give us a break already 😫
Unfortunately, this is not the first time NIO has had to shut down production. In March of 2021, it shut down for 5 days due to a semiconductor shortage. The company also shut down in October 2021 for about two weeks which greatly affected the number of vehicles delivered for 2021. There was about a 27% decrease in the number of vehicles produced in 2021 as compared to 2020.
NIO isn’t the only EV maker affected by the outbreak. Tesla and Volkswagen have also had to shut down their plants in China.
There is no indication as to how long NIO’s production suspension will last and this will definitely put a dent in their production goals for this year.
To my NIO holders, y’all stay strong, okay?
🥺😫
Robinhood adds four additional hours to extended trading!
On Tuesday, Robinhood announced that it is adding four extra hours to its trading day. In a push to eventually provide 24/7 equities trading, Robinhood said it will now be available from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET. Until Tuesday, Robinhood offered trading 30 minutes before the open and two hours after the close. Plenty of time for scintillating extra profits! 🤑
The U.S. stock market opens at 9:30 a.m. ET and closes at 4:00 p.m. ET as part of its regular session. Extended trading is allowed beginning as early as 4 a.m. and goes as late as 8 p.m. ET and a few electronic brokers do offer that extended access.
Now, Robinhood users can now say this 🌝:
Happy Hour In the Mud.
“Our customers often tell us they’re working or preoccupied during regular market hours, limiting their ability to invest on their own schedule. Our new extended trading hours for equities will give them more opportunities to manage their portfolio at a convenient time for them”, Robinhood said. …and the market couldn’t agree more! 😉
Robinhood’s stocks popped about 25% following this announcement, which is great news but the firm is still down about 15% overall this year.
Amazon continues with JP Morgan Chase!
Amazon has chosen to renew a deal allowing JPMorgan Chase to issue the tech giant’s flagship rewards credit card, ending months of heated negotiations. That’s why you have both Moguls up here ☝️ looking at each other that way! 😁
Why’s this a big deal?
It’s a long story, but here’s the summary:
While JPMorgan has issued Amazon’s card for about two decades, that didn’t stop Amazon from soliciting bids to replace the bank in mid-2021. American Express and Synchrony were among the issuers involved in discussions, and Mastercard had hoped to displace Visa as a payments network. According to experts, “This was a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to penetrate Amazon …Any winner would gain instant credibility and a new growth story for Wall Street,” according to sentiments on the streets.
Yup. it’s that deep!
Of course, Amazon drove a hard bargain (as you can imagine). That’s because the Amazon Prime Rewards card is one of the industry’s most highly coveted co-brand deals, because of the massive scope of Amazon’s loyalty program, with its estimated 150 million U.S. members.
Apple cuts iPhone Production!
Apple appears to be scaling down production of its new budget iPhone SE. The company seemingly cut down the production of its budget $429 5G phone by 2 million units.
$429 is a bargain. God when? 😭
The reduction in production didn’t stop with just the iPhone SE, Apple also reduced the production of AirPods by about 10 million units.
Time for everyone to be careful with their Airpods. Seems like there aren’t going to be too many new ones in circulation and yes I’m looking at you guys who constantly lose one ear. 👀
The production cuts are reportedly a result of lower than expected demand linked to the Russian war on Ukraine. The war and inflation are having a negative effect on the demand for electronics.
A number of tech companies have stopped sales in Russia following its Ukrainian invasion. Several countries have also imposed economic sanctions on Russia causing a disrupted supply chain and increasing inflation risks.
Looks like we all going to be holding our iPhones, AirPods, & like-to-have electronic devices a lot longer than typical, especially with the high energy prices in the UK, and insane oil prices in North America. We’d need a little bit of disposable income in our pockets, I reckon.
🥺🥺
These 3 stocks are up 100% this year🤑🤑🤑
The stock market is truly the place to be! It’s raining money !!!
As we end the first quarter of 2022 and move to the next, it’s important to highlight the best-performing stocks in the market year-to-year.
I don’t know if your guess is as good as mine (just in case you have a superpower like I do😁) all three stocks are from the same sector. Yes, one industry beat them all, and no it’s not EVs or Gold, it’s the “black gold” space: Energy.
I know you want to know them already, here they are:
- First is NexTier Oilfield Solutions Inc. (NEX) with a massive run of 160.2% year to date. NexTier Oilfield Solutions, an energy services company, has benefited from rising oil and gas prices in 2022.
- The second on the list is Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU), the stock price is up 143.5% this year alone
We are just a few months into the year and stocks are returning above 140%, my god why didn’t I see this coming😭😭😭?
- The last of the three is RPC Inc. (RES), an oil and gas equipment and services company. RPC shares have trended steadily higher throughout the opening months of 2022 as crude oil prices have surged to their highest levels since 2008. The share price is up 135% year to date.
Me looking at my portfolio😭😭😭
May
What’s Up With Faang?
FAANG stocks have been dealt some pretty brutal blows this year, and it’s only May.
Now, unless you’re really up to date on your stock market lingo, you’re probably wondering what FAANG means (why else am I here than to demystify these jargons to you 😉). As always, Tomi has your back. Here you go:
FAANG is an acronym for the 5 major American technology companies which are Meta (formerly known as Facebook), Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Alphabet (formerly Google) -> so yea, the F-A-A-N-G combined 😄. The acronym was originally FANG excluding Apple but investors began to add Apple to the list in 2017.
I mean, why not Apple? So rude!
Anywhos, Back to the real gist,
FAANG companies and Microsoft lost a combined $1.4 trillion in market value in April and their combined market cap has dropped by about $2.21 trillion in 2022.
Hold up, over 1 trillion? In a month?
Amazon shares fell by 14% on Friday, Netflix shares have fallen by 64% this year and Microsoft has lost $495.4 billion dollars in value in the past four months.
The stock market is a blood bath right now; Cough cough – diversify your portfolio, guys!
It’s Official: A Twisla Takeover
On Monday 25th April, Twitter finally agreed to Elon Musk’s takeover bid.
I’m sure no one is surprised. Much like a tornado, Elon takes everything he sets his eyes on.
The deal entails Elon buying Twitter at about $54.20 per share, AKA $44 billion in total. Upon completion of the deal, Twitter will no longer be a publicly traded company. Additionally, Musk has made it oh-so-clear that his primary interest with Twitter is protection of free speech.
But the biggest question on everyone’s mind is ‘How, on earth, is Elon Musk going to fund a $44 billion dollar buyout?’
Looking at his $250 billion net worth, you might think that’s not so difficult but the issue is most of Elon’s worth is tied up in Tesla shares.
According to the documents Musk filed with the SEC, his financing plan consists of $13 billion dollars in bank loans, $21 billion in cash (likely from selling his Tesla shares) and a $12.5 billion margin loan, using his Tesla shares (again) as collateral. He will most likely be required to pledge about $65 billion in Tesla shares (which is about one-quarter of his current holdings) to secure the loan.
Before the current Twitter bid, Musk already had about $90 billion worth of shares pledged for loans. Should this Twitter deal go through, along with adding ‘Owner of Twitter’ to his long list of titles, he would also be adding ‘America’s Most Leveraged CEO’.
Which in layman terms is pretty much ‘Overall best in Borrowing.’
I guess it’s only because you have something to borrow against -_-. Talk about a man with a heart for risks! I mean, this dude has his hands in a few hot pots & I guess he can claim he’s done a decent job so far, but dang son! If this ain’t aggressive, i-d-k what is.
Tesla shares dropped by 12% on Tuesday after news of Twitter’s acceptance became public, cutting more than $20 billion from Elon’s net worth. So remember the $250 billion networth we quoted earlier? It suddenly became ~$220 billion – I mean, Potato Patahto but…
For Elon’s sake, I sincerely hope this Twitter deal is worth it.
Amazon At It Again: Project Kuiper
Amazon also never ceases to ‘do-the-most’. The company has unveiled its plan to deliver internet from space using 3,236 small satellites in low Earth orbit: called Project Kuiper.
Just last month, Amazon signed a multibillion-dollar contract (it’s all billions & trillions over here) — the largest rocket deal in the history of the commercial space industry — to launch its Kuiper satellites with three different entities: Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance (a Boeing/Lockheed Martin joint venture) and Europe’s Arianespace.
🌝Looks like Elon Musk’s Space X’s Starlink has got company!
Although SpaceX’s Starlink has 2,000 of the 12,000 approved satellites in orbit with 250,000 subscribers to date, it might not be long before Kuiper joins the stage. Elon: Welcome Aboard, Jeff.🥶
Is Amazon just ‘kinging’ the Everything-Company nickname?
This would be cool to watch: Elon vs. Jeff
Amazon hasn’t yet launched a single satellite, but it could still be a big player in the game.
Apple X Aramco Battling It Out
We all know the stock market hasn’t been playing nice with anyone, and even tech behemoths aren’t safe.
This week Apple lost a highly coveted title – World’s most valuable company.
Apple acquired the title in 2020 when there was a surge in sales of its devices and services which led to a strong financial performance that has had investors sitting pretty for a minute.
That year, when almost every tech stock was flying high and everyone’s portfolio didn’t give them heartache,
Apple’s revenue continued to soar during the pandemic, due to the rise in demand for tech gadgets. It didn’t shock anyone when Apple surpassed the Saudi oil giant, Saudi Aramco, to become the world’s most valuable company and the first company to hit the $3 trillion market cap.
However, this year no one has been spared from the ruthlessness of the stock market. Apple shares are down 17% since January and the company has lost millions in market cap. While on the other hand, crude oil prices have soared due to supply issues resulting from the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine and Saudi Aramco shares have risen by 25% this year alone.
The Saudi oil giant announced in March that its net income increased by 124% to $110 billion in 2021, compared to $49 billion of the previous year.
As you would expect, Saudi Aramco took the chance to reclaim the title of the world’s most valuable company with a market cap of $2.382 trillion as of May 13, compared to Apple’s $2.381 trillion – I mean, it’s really a close call but
Saudi Aramco to Apple right now:
However, due to the volatility of the stock market, Analysts predict that the title will vacillate between Apple and Saudi Aramco for a while.
More Twisla Story
We’d never stop hearing about Twitter saga, would we?
Our most famous CEO, Elon Musk, singlehandedly tumbled Twitter’s shares on Friday when he tweeted that he was putting his Twitter acquisition ‘On Hold” so that he can research the proportion of fake and spam accounts on the platform. Even though Musk followed his tweet with another clarifying that he is committed to the deal, he is still awfully interested in sorting out the fake account issues.
Now, let’s assume he really wanted to back out of the deal
I mean, we know Elon has multiples of the break up fee and he could just, you know, pull out his $1 billion and be like yea, i’m out people! … but ermm it ain’t that simple boo. The breakup fee isn’t an option payment that allows Musk to bail without consequence.
Elon,
Tomi coming over with some clarity:
Just so you know, a reverse breakup fee paid from a buyer to a target applies when there is an outside reason a deal can’t close (not like, you know… just cos I’m almighty Elon), such as regulatory intermediation or third-party financing concerns. Also note that a buyer can also walk if there’s fraud, or the discovery of incorrect information has “material adverse effect” but general macro events like the current sell-off wouldn’t count.
Elon: You mean I’m not powerful all the time?
Tomi: I might as well become Elon’s personal reporter now cos I be talking about this dude literally daily. He never stays out of the news, geez! Kardashians need to take a lesson or two from the dude. No?
Affirm Stock Making A Comeback
Amid recent market turbulence , Affirm, like several other firms, has seen its share value steadily decline. Affirm share value has dropped by about 61% over the past three months. But it appears the company may be making a comeback.
Earlier in the week, shares of the buy-now, the pay-later company rose by about 31.4% after they announced that they beat expectations for their fiscal third quarter.
Affirm holders be like:
The company reported a loss of 19 cents per share on $355 million of revenue while analysts had predicted a loss of 51 cents per share on $344 million of revenue. Affirm also reported that it processed $3.9 billion in gross merchandise volume in the quarter, which was 73% higher than what was processed a year earlier. Their GMV also beat analysts’ expectations of $3.85 billion.
Affirm stays bearing analysts’ expectations left, right and center.
And to let investors know that money will keep rolling in, Affirm also announced a multiyear extension of its Shopify partnership. This means Affirm will be the sole provider of “pay-over-time” tech for the company’s U.S. Shop Pay Installments product.
June
An Obama Energy?
So we all know Former First Lady Michelle Obama – and her always flawless fashion style. I mean whoever be styling that lady has done a hellova phenomenal job! The mogul has quietly been earning about $70 million through deals with Spotify, Netflix and undoubtedly influencing the fashion industry.
Apparently, Michelle drove more than $2 billion to the “retail sector” with her fashion choices and companies saw “a 2.3 percent stock gain when she shows up in their apparels—five times that of a typical celebrity endorsement.”
A Queen I Stan!!!
E for Energy!
The Obamas also made a mark with their Spotify deal where after they signed the deal, in 2020 the streaming platform’s stock jumped five percent and led to a boost in subscribers. “Spotify’s total monthly active users and premium subscribers both increased by 31% year over year, to 286 million and 130 million, respectively, in the first quarter,” Nasdaq reported.
Nevertheless, her fashion influence really comes through. Word on the street is that the companies whose clothes she wore in public appearances have cumulatively high stock price gains, and her frequent wears have seen long-term gains but Mrs Obama still mixes expensive exclusive fashion with everyday items.
My Girl!
A Pot of Hot Tears?
A couple weeks ago Coinbase announced that it would be slowing down on recruiting, and everyone probably thought that was pretty bad but it just got way worse.
This week, Coinbase announced that it would freeze hiring for the foreseeable future and they would also be withdrawing some job offers that have already gone out 
Yikes! One minute you have a job, next minute you don’t.
Although, they did mention that they would also be extending their severance policy to those prospects, assisting them with resume review and job placements.
I mean it could be worse or could it?
Coinbase stocks had previously been one of the top tech stocks in the market. But currently, they have lost more than 70% of their value this year alone. Coinbase revealed that revenue in the latest quarter had dropped 27% from a year earlier, and total trading volume had also decreased from $547 billion in the fourth quarter of last year to $309 billion in the first quarter of 2022.
Over a 40% decrease in just a couple months?
Big Shoes
Amazon announced that their CEO of Worldwide consumer, Dave Clark, would be leaving the company after 23 years and his last day would be July 1st.
Dave Clark is among the few most important executives at Amazon controlling the company’s huge retail division, and he’s also a part of the CEOs S-team which consists of a handful of senior executives spanning across virtually all aspects of Amazon’s business. Dave Clark took on the role After Jeff Wilke stepped down in 2020.
As CEO of Amazon’s worldwide consumer department, Clark manages several important units, including online stores, physical stores, the marketplace of third-party sellers, and the Amazon Prime subscription business, all of which generated more than 75% of Amazon’s revenue in the first quarter of 2022.
Imagine being responsible for 75% of Amazon’s income? I need a master class, Pronto!
Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy is yet to name a replacement for Clark.
But to be honest, who can blame him? Those are big shoes to fill.
Reputation In The Mud
I know how we promise to “ride till the wheels fall off” …Well, Toyota is right there with us & may have taken it a little too literally.
Just two months after launching their set of first Electric vehicles, Toyota announced that they would be recalling ~2700 units of the bZ4X SUV. The bZ4x is the first EV from Toyota that was produced for the global market.
I bet the big question on your mind is – What in God’s universe is this?!
The vehicles are being recalled because after a few drives, all (not one or two) of the hub bolts on the wheel of the subject vehicle can loosen and the wheel can fall off. I mean, that’s an accident/crash in the making.
Of the 2,700 recalled EVs, 2,200 were set to be delivered to Europe, 260 to the United States, 10 to Canada and 110 to Japan.
While Toyota investigates the cause of the issue, sales and deliveries from the company’s plant in Motomachi, Japan have been halted. And owners of the $42,000 EV are being instructed not to drive the car at all until a solution has been found and implemented.
Imagine spending $42k on a car and not being able to drive it?
Reputation in the mud. Toyota has worked hard over the years to set the industry standard for reliability & durability but as it stands?
Let me go ahead and mind my business.
Zendesk Acquisition
The journey to Zendesk’s acquisition has been quite arduous.
It started with an offer in February to buy the company for $17 billion dollars, which was turned down because the company believed they were worth more. The company’s stock took a sharp dive after that because investors were not pleased with the decision.
The acquisition debacle concluded with the firm being acquired by a consortium of private equity firms for $10 billion dollars, which is far below the previous offer.
How can that be?
…But goes to show how much investors can humble you.
The investor group was led by Permira and Hellman & Friedman. The company was bought at $77.50 per share, which was 34% higher than closing price the day before the deal was closed.
Zendesk’s stock value rose by about 27% after news of the acquisition became public. Once the particulars of the deal are finalized, the investor group plans to take the company private.
The vote to close the deal was unanimous with Zendesk’s board and it is expected to be finalized in the fourth quarter of 2022.
…a ray of sunshine, I guess.
The Kellogg Split
Cereal giant, Kelloggs, announced that the company has decided to separate its North American cereal and plant-based foods businesses into three independent public companies.
Pending naming ceremonies 
- “Plant Co.”: with ~$340 million in net sales, will be a leading, profitable, pure-play plant-based foods company;
- “Global Snacking Co.”: with about $11.4 billion in net sales, will be a leading company in global snacking, international cereal, and noodles;
- “North America Cereal Co.”: with about $2.4 billion in net sales, will be a leading cereal company in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean.
Why Split?
Kellogg isn’t the first company to do this — it has become a trend for consumer goods, especially because these companies faced unexpected challenges in the last two years (The COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukraine conflict). It is, arguably, a way for them to find new opportunities for increased growth and profit in the decelerated economies.
Another (surprising) reason is that cereal brands aren’t top breakfast choices anymore. Strange, isn’t it? Yup, these days people are leaning towards junk food, fast food or breakfast-on-the-go options.
So, What Does It Mean For Investors?
Luckily, Kelloggs has you in mind. So Kellogg stocks will split, but if you invested in the company before this split, you will receive your new shares on a pro-rata basis (Note: On a pro rata basis means assigning an amount to each person according to their share of the whole), essentially depending on your holdings.
Oh! There’s one more thing you should expect as a Kellogg investor. Kellogg is thinking of selling off the Plant Co. Fingers crossed that this is in fact beneficial to the company & shareholders.
Before we go… we gotta highlight the big news of the week!
Is Jeff Giving Jumia and Konga A Run For Their Money?
We’ve all heard that tech giant, Amazon, is set to expand to five new countries across Europe, Africa, and South America …and apparently, rumours have it that the company has been silently recruiting engineers and salespersons in Lagos, hinting at an expansion even though no official statement has been released yet.
Dubbed “Project Fela” (I appreciate the creativity NGL), the expansion is set to roll out in Nigeria in April 2023, giving the long-term players (Jumia and Konga) a run for their money. I’m almost certain that the CEOs of both companies are sweating or maybe hyperventilating right now (and to be honest, I get it)
For Jeff Bezos’s found company, expanding to more countries may seem like a move in the right direction… some have succeeded at this type of expansion in the past.. and others have taken a hit.. so Amazon’s fate is yet to be determined.
I bet the company is excited about robust & budding e-commerce industry in Nigeria and it does create jobs opportunities for Nigerians but there are so many other grey areas that business owners, founders, regulators etc… could be assessing with such a move.
But… until we get an official statement from the wildly successful company, we’d have to hold our breath to see how things unfold. Best believe, your dearest Tomi from Trove has got you covered once we hear more.
July
Your Boy, Elon!
Okay maybe not the finale finale, but it looks like the story is wrapping up.
Good ol’ Elon Musk has expressed that he would like to put an end to the $44 billion dollar deal to acquire Twitter.
I laugh in wakandan
Elon,
Talk about buyer’s remorse
This decision to halt the deal was communicated via a letter sent by a lawyer on his behalf to Twitter’s Chief Legal officer. As you would expect, Twitter shares sadly fell by about 6% in after hours trading on Friday.
According to Elon’s legal counsel, Mike Ringler, he wants to terminate the deal because Twitter has not complied with its contractual obligations. 
The terms of the agreement stated that Elon Musk is required to pay $1 billion if he backs out of the deal.
Still not a bad deal, right ? Well, the Twitter board doesn’t agree.
The board of Twitter had indicated that they intend to hold Elon Musk to his original deal by suing him if decides to walk away. And Twitter has good reason to, the company’s shares have fallen from 54.20 to about $36 since the announcement of Elon’s takeover offer.
Tomi watching Elon & the Twitter Board
Yay!!! Us Stocks Staging A Comeback?
So… on today’s episode of What Tomi Has To Say… we got some good news for ya! The US stock market is hopefully recovering from its poorest first half of the year’s performance in decades! It’s been super real this first half, mehn!
But umm, don’t get too excited, we’d have to see what happens next.
Fingers oh-so-crossed.
Quick Summary: The S&P 500 grew by 1.50% on Thursday while the Dow Jones and Nasdaq grew by
1.12% and 2.28% respectively. Some energy stocks like ExxonMobil and Occidental Petroleum grew by almost 4%. Another great performer was mining giant, Freeport McRoRan which gained about 6.7%. Solar energy provider, Sunrun also increased by over 7%.
Can Wall Street maintain this positive streak for long? Not to be a debbie downer or anything, but the unemployment rate is still at 3.6%, the pandemic hasn’t exactly ended, and the Russia/Ukraine war is still ongoing. 
Tomi be like – I hope it ain’t too long fam!
Boris Johnson Steps Down & Stocks Rally
Okay…I know this might sound unusual, but UK stocks rose by more than 1% on Thursday after news of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s resignation.
Chill. I know it did seem like everyone in the UK wanted him to step down as the UK Prime Minister (no thanks to his numerous scandals), but I just didn’t expect the stock market to react. Lol, who am I kidding? I expected the stock market to react, but not just that quickly.
Following his resignation speech on Thursday, export-reliant FTSE 100 closed with a 1.1% gain. The British pound also went up by 0.5% against the dollar compared to what it was before. The UK 10-year bond also recovered from its 5-week low of under 2% to close at 2.1%. Are the UK economy and the UK stock market trying to say Boris was bad vibes?
Gamestop Split
It’s another stock split season.
Video game retailer, GameStop, has announced that they would be undergoing a 1-for-4 stock split. A company typically undergoes a stock split when they wish to make the shares more affordable for investors.
The stock split was approved by the company’s board on Wednesday after which the share price swiftly rose by 15% over the course of the trading day.
I mean who wouldn’t want more?
Note that GameStop shareholders who still own the stock by July 18th will be eligible to receive three more units of shares, in addition to each full stock they own.
However, the additional shares will be disbursed after trading ends on July 21, and the stock will start trading on a split-adjusted basis the next day.
My GameStop holders be like?!
A July To Remember
July has been the greatest month for the US stock market since 2020
I knowwwww right?!?! It sure don’t feel like it!
The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 6.7%, while the S&P 500 climbed 9.1%, making July each index’s best performing month since November 2020. *Insert new Tomi dance here because ayyeeee!!!* Since April 2020, the Nasdaq Composite, which is heavily weighted in tech, also increased by 12%. That’s not all! This month alone, 86% of stocks in the S&P 500 have risen.
Won’t He Do It? Literal Footage of Tomi From Trove right now…
If you’re wondering why I am so happy… I mean this whole year has given everyone a run for their money but let me keep you up-to-date on the the US stock market gist:
The first half of the year saw the S&P and Nasdaq decline by 21% and 29%, respectively, making it the worst first-half performance (for the $44 trillion US equities market) in more than 50 years.
Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Ford are some of the stocks that drove the stock market to this new high.
Heavy Tech investors
Stocks be like: We will not be down forever, y’all
The Amd X Intel ‘buga’
Still on this ongoing rivalry matter
AMD’s market capitalization exceeded Intel’s.
School time: What is market capitalization? Think of it as the stock price multiplied by the total number of outstanding shares of the company. The stock price is the more volatile value of the two components in the market cap. So essentially, the higher the stock price, the higher the market capitalization… in a nutshell.
But Intel Investors
Sooo AMD’s market capitalization hit $153 billion BUT Intel shares dropped by almost 9% (i.e. market cap in the murrdd), on the same day, because their earnings report failed to meet expectations. At the close of the trading day on Friday, Intel’s market cap was at about $148 billion.
aMeannnn… potato.. Potahtooo… $148 <> $153
All the gains could disappear at the tap of a finger. Ask AMC
In any case, this rivalry for both chipmakers exceeds just the race to a higher market cap but also cuts across both companies’ business models. An asset light AMD may be more appreciated than an asset-heavy Intel. AMD contracts production to external chip factories, while Intel continues to establish and operate its own plants. Both business models most certainly have their pros & cons though..!
The bigger crux is that Intel’s chips used to be perceived as more superior to AMD’s but…
Recently, AMD chips have become almost at par with Intel’s products …as some even outperforming Intel’s speed and efficiency.
This competition is getting more intense, baby!
Sad Times For Roku
Digital hardware streaming company, Roku, experienced an almost share price slum of about 23% during trading hours on Friday due to the company’s poor earnings report. Deep Sigh. Must be a rough time for Roku’s management right about now. Not only did Roku report severe earning losses of 82 cents per share and revenues of $764 million both lower than analysts’ estimates, they also revealed their third-quarter forecast which fell ~$200 million short of expectations.
Roku’s board right now
As with many others, Roku partially blamed the loss and lower sales on issues such as inflation and supply chain problems (AKA high gas/fuel prices).
Tech companies this year, when it’s time to explain their earnings
Roku has lost more than 62% of its value this year alone.
Market Capitalization in the murrdddd
Shopify Be Like: See Y’all …Never
On Tuesday, the CEO of Shopify through an internal memo to employees said that the company will be cutting down 1000 employees (about 10% of its global staff). On this episode of ‘another bad scenario’, the CEO said he had overestimated the duration of the pandemic driven e-commerce boom, which is why the company had tripled its workforce to prepare for their projected “global transition to e-commerce.”
The stock market of course didn’t react well to the news (who’s shocked?), as the company’s shares fell by about 14.7% that same day on both the US and Toronto stock exchanges.
So far this year, Shopify shares have lost 75% of their value.
Ouch !!!
If I bought Shopify at the top of the year:
I guess there’s always a need for cautious optimism… especially in such an uncertain environment but you can’t really blame Tobi (Tobias), the founder & CEO of Shopify… The company nearly doubled in size in 2020 and recorded a 57% increase in revenue for 2021, which was about $4.6 billion.
Anywayssss, the severance package for the affected employees is decently hefty: they get 16 weeks of severance pay and an additional week for every year spent at the company.
The company will also give them access to career coaching, resume crafting, interviewing support and so on.
Soooo… Not so bad, right? My exact sentiments.
August
Cooling Off With Some Starbucks
They say the streets are cold… but boi is it super hot in the American summer right now. Clearly, Americans are hot and thirsty.
How best to “cool me cool me downnnnn” in Tomi, Big Wizzy’s voice?
Them folks be outchea spending all their funds on Starbucks cold drinks. I mean, to be honest, I can attest to it, Starbucks drinks can do a thing or two on ya, if that’s your thing.
Americans be like: Git’mi one of those!!!
…but i hear its sooo hot though. Can’t blame them now, can we?
This has led to a spike in demand for Starbucks’ cold coffee products and in turn, better-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenue. The company said that the popularity of its iced shaken espresso and other cold beverages accounted for 75% of U.S. sales this quarter, and its shares also jumped about 1.13%. The company came out with quarterly earnings of $0.84 per share, beating the estimate of $0.77 per share.
Starbucks also beat revenue estimate as revs came in at $8.15 million dollars, compared to the estimate of $8.11billion
Let’s put on our thinking caps for a hot minute (pun most certainly intended). Is it strange that Americans are not exactly reducing their spending/consumption despite the looming inflation? Not to mention, the jobs created in July doubled the estimated/expected number… story for another day though but one would think that because of the soaring prices of gas and other goods, budgets would be tight? Or are folks just hella desperate? Is it that hot?
I mean?
Another Billion Dollar Amazon Acquisition
The developer of Roomba robot vacuum cleaners, iRobot, has agreed to sell its business to Amazon for $1.7 billion. Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot makes it the company’s fourth-largest acquisition after its $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods in 2017. The world’s largest online retailer, Amazon, made the deal official on Friday, announcing that it would pay $61 per share in cash to acquire iRobot.
…must be nice, init?
iRobot’s Roomba has been around for 20 years, and has been a leader in the home robot industry. Since 2017, Roomba and Alexa from Amazon have worked together: from partnership to acquisition 
I’m lowkey curious to see how this plays out but then again, Amazon… is AMAZON.
Tesla Stock Split
I bring good news, o ye investors…
Does Elon ever stay out of the news? hehehe
Anyways, earlier in the week, Tesla Inc. shareholders approved a plan to make the company’s stock more affordable, thereby enticing more individual investors.
I’m sure you can already guess what it is
Tesla announced a three-for-one stock split that will begin on the 25th of August. This split will lower Tesla’s share price to about $300.
This will be Tesla’s second share split in under two years. In 2020, the company did a five-for-one stock split, and it resulted in a 60% surge in share price between the day of the announcement and the execution date. After the 2020 stock split, Tesla shares, which began trading at $17 a share in 2010, increased to more than $1,200 late in the year, pushing the company’s market worth above $1 trillion.
Can they remake this magic? Only time will tell.
Paypal Stocks
I’m sure Paypal investors are grinning from ear to ear right now. The company shares grew by about 14% this week when the company announced its Q2 earnings. This last quarter, the overall volume of payments increased by over 9%, making the value of payments made ~$340 billion.
Where are they getting this money???
What is ‘occurring’, y’all?
At the end of the second quarter, there were 429 million active PayPal accounts, up 6% from the same period last year, and this number includes 35 million business accounts. The total payment volume also grew to $339.8 billion increasing by 13%.
But there was a surprising element in all of these…
The CEO, Dan Schulman, hinted that the company plans to lower its operating costs by saving $900 million in expenses this year and $1.3 billion next year. Now usually, announcements like these can cause stock prices to fall but this clearly didn’t happen, hence my surprise.
But then again, it’s the stock market. You can’t exactly predict anything.
Is The Worst Over?
It’s not news that this year hasn’t been the best for US stocks and the US stock market in general, but perhaps the worst is may be behind us? The market experienced some rebound recently, leaving lot of investors wondering if this downtrend is finally over. Well, Nasdaq is currently up ~20% and the S&P 500 is up by 15%. These recent gains have led financial analysts to declare on Thursday morning that Nasdaq had exited its bear market and is now approaching its bull market!
It’s not all over though… The index remains down about 21% from its record high close last November. The entire thing is tricky but…
The sentiment is that we are probably edging on to the recovery path…
Tomi Be Like: God Abeg O, Who Go Help O! [God Please, Who Would Help?]
Cloud Stocks Are Back!
…but before we go ahead, what exactly are cloud stocks? Cloud stocks are stocks of companies that operate in the world of cloud computing, so essentially companies that work to store and manage data …online. A few big-name examples are Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) for Amazon Web Services, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) for Azure, and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) for Google Cloud.
The cloud software market that plunged at the beginning of the year has increased by over 50% from its lows.
Quick background: Cloud stocks sold off earlier this year because investors were sooo worried about inflation and rising interest rates. Can’t blame them, uhn? We all weren’t sure where the chips may fall really.
Anyways, cloud stocks are inching back, following some pretty strong quarterly results and optimistic full-year forecasts. Numerous stocks have soared up to 50% from their lows at the beginning of the year. For example, GitLab’s shares have doubled in the past three months, and Confluent, a data-processing software developer has its shares up by 81% since mid-May.
Amazing, right?
We’re here for all of it!
Kenyan Stock Market Soars amid Presidential Elections
The Kenyan stock market opened with a massive gain of about Sh31.8 billion (~$266 million) following their Presidential elections.
Talk money to me!
Twenty-four of the sixty-three listed stocks recorded gains while seven counters shed value as local investors continued to snap low-priced shares. This increased the market value to Sh2.261 trillion, which is the highest valuation since mid-May, and financial analysts have attributed this success to the general elections.
If you could invest in the Kenyan stock market on Trove right now…
But before this period, Kenyan shares were declining due to capital flight as interest rates increased in developed economies like the US. The stock market is never really drama-free, is it?
The five largest stocks in the stock market — Safaricom, Equity Group, Co-operative Bank, KCB, and EABL contributed about 86% or roughly Sh69.03 billion to these gains. These businesses are appealing choices for investors trying to hold onto value in their portfolios, especially during times of market downturns since they have recently recorded strong earnings and declared consistent dividends.
Let’s drink to that!
China Drama
Get ready for this one…
By the end of August, five state-owned Chinese enterprises, including the country’s biggest chemical and energy corporation, will no longer trade on the New York Stock Exchange. These companies namely Sinopec (SHI), China Life Insurance (LFC), China Petroleum & Chemical (SNP), Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH), and PetroChina (PTR), stated that “poor turnover in the US” and “heavy administrative load and expenditures” is the reason for pulling out of the exchange …but China Drama?
Here’s the twist…
These five companies were added to the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA) list in May after they were identified as not meeting U.S regulators’ auditing standards.
Let me just tell you now that Beijing and Washington have been negotiating to end a protracted disagreement that might result in Chinese companies being delisted from U.S. stock markets if they do not adhere to U.S. audit regulations.
This doesn’t get any better…
Alibaba, J.D Com Inc, and Baidu Inc are at the risk of being delisted from the US Stock Exchange. However, this is not the first time Chinese stocks get delisted. In 2021, the Trump administration moved to limit foreign investment in Chinese technology companies, so China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom were delisted from the US stock exchange. That decision still stands as the Biden administration has not modified that decision.
Errrmm, the only way these companies won’t be delisted is if Beijing allows regulators have access to their corporate auditors buttt *side eye*
It’s only a matter of time before we all see how this plays out.
September
Oh, Snap! Layoffs again?
Get it?
Layoffs seem to be the new order of the day now.. sigh
Snapchat is laying off about 20% of its employees, and the company has been planning this move for a few weeks.
Snap isn’t just laying people off to cut costs, the company proposes they will be restructured to focus on augmented reality, community, and revenue growth. Snap will also slow down production on other businesses like Zenly, Voisey and Pixy drone.
Just like other companies, the major reason for the layoffs is to save money in this global economic recession (Ugh, I CANNOT wait for this whole saga to end!)
The company management has confirmed that they will save an estimated $500m in annual costs with these layoffs but promised to pay four months of compensation to the laid-off employees.
Do you think it’s a fair deal? Tweet at me (Tomi from @Trovefinance)Let me know what you think
Just a bit of back story for your dinner table: Snap has struggled financially for some months. They missed their revenue goal for Q2 this year because their revenue was up by only 13% ($1.11billion), compared to the 20% – 25% growth that was predicted. To make matters worse, Snap was worth $130bn a year ago, but it’s now valued at less than $20bn.
Oh Lawd of Nebuchadennezarrrr
Is It Goodbye Affirm?
If you are familiar with BNPL companies, then Affirm needs no introduction. It is with heavy heart that i bring this to your notice: this leading consumer lending company is not having the best of times. Last month, the stocks of the company was down by about 21%
You know I wouldn’t spare you the details of how it happened…
You:
So, here’s the thing. The reason the company stocks decline wasn’t just because the market sentiment is bearish at the moment. It’s largely because the earning report Affirm released in August was far from impressive. Although the revenue rose 39%, the company net loss widened from $123.4 million to $186.4 million, creating a ripple effect on the company shares market …which has been down 70% this year.
Affirm shareholders right now…
It’s neither here nor there what folks could make out of this situation but Affirm investors… how y’all holding up? How I actually feel about everything going on right now:
Now to some artificial intelligence drama…
Nvidia x Sale Restriction
The American government has ordered Nvidia, the world’s largest maker of artificial intelligence chips, to stop supplying processors for artificial intelligence to China and Russia.
So (nothing new to see here …because the rivalry continues between America & China) the American government wants to introduce new license requirements for China and Hong Kong, in a bid to lessen the risk of the processors being used by the Chinese military. As usual, the stock market reacted to this news with Nvidia stocks dropping by a whopping 11%, losing ~$20 million, which is the biggest loss the company has seen since 2022.
Nvidia shareholders be like
The escalating political tension between America and China, and the Russian-Ukraine crisis, has severely deteriorated the relationship between the three countries. Who’s shocked?
Liz Truss, Tackling High Energy Costs
Wondering who Liz is? hah 
Shall we say a prayer for the British economy? (Even though, to be honest, the entire world needs those prayers right now) In Britain, energy bills have doubled since last year
In any case, Liz Truss announced that she was going to focus on tackling the high energy costs without forcing heavy taxes on oil and gas profits, and boom – the FTSE (Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index) gained about 0.3% and the mid-FTSE climbed up to 0.4%.
One more thing…
Liz also made some high stakes promises: She said she plans to freeze consumer energy bills for about two years 
Brits with all that money going back into their pockets:
…making the news waves today is
Apple
The Apple event, one of the biggest events in the tech space this quarter, happened this week and boyyy…were we shocked at some things?
To start with, Apple did not hike the prices of the iPhones!
Yep! Just like last year’s iPhone 13 models, the prices of the high-end iPhone 14s are the same. But that isn’t the biggest surprise…The company dropped its cheapest option, the iPhone Mini! I mean, what? iPhone is definitely trying to ensure they stay in our pockets one way or another!
Then again, have you seen the global economic conditions?
Since the pandemic, everyone has been scaling back on retail spending while prioritizing services they actually need.
Do y’all think people will still say?
Who’s invested in Apple? Who’s bullish about the brand in the long term? …And who doesn’t really really care?
Tweet at me: Tomi from @Trovefinance
London Stock Exchange Remains Open
Money must be made.
It’s no news again that the longest-reigning British monarch passed on earlier in the week.
Hence, important events like the premier league and comedy shows were postponed till further notice #goodnightQueenElizabeth. However, at the London Stock Exchange, it was business as usual.
#OwoNiKoko aka #ItsAllAboutTheBenjamins
Before you start thinking the London stock exchange has no regard for the Queen’s death, the stock market wasn’t supposed to be shut the day she died.
According to Operation London Bridge, (the code-name of the funeral plan of the Queen), the stock market will not shut on the day she dies, rather, it’ll shut during her funeral, just like other businesses.
If you’re wondering what would happen to the British economy now that the monarch is no more, grab your popcorn & slide in here for the gist.
As the first monarch to feature on Bank of England banknotes, her image will continue to be on the currencies. However, over the next couple of years as they phase out the old, new currencies will have the next monarch, King Charles’ face printed on them.
Hold up! This doesn’t mean that currencies with her face would fade overnight. It just means it will just take time for it to fade from circulation. In addition to that, citizens’ passports, military, and police garbs will also change to reflect the next monarch.
Did I hear you ask how much all these are estimated to cost? Well, all these coupled with the cost of the funeral itself and the closure of several businesses during the funeral, the Queen’s death is expected to cost the British economy between $1.6 billion to a whopping $7 billion! But hey, it’s the British monarchy.
Did I hear you say thank you to me for schooling y’all?
More Tragedy For Bed Bath And Beyond
Earlier in the week, Bed Bath & Beyond shares fall 18% after the news of the sudden death of the Chief Financial Officer who plunged to his death from the New York Tribeca skyscraper known as the “Jenga” tower.
Two weeks before his death, it was alleged in a lawsuit that he and the GameStop Chairman, Ryan Cohen colluded to artificially inflate the price of the company stocks by illegally engaging in insider trading.
This came shortly after the struggling company said announced it was closing stores and laying off workers.
Your favorite Tomi from Trove reported this two weeks ago in the newsletter.
The company seems to be in deep financial trouble but the management is trying to get it out of this bankruptcy by shutting down 150 stores and cutting about 20% of its workforce. They also obtained more than $500 million in financing in an attempt to turn this unfortunate situation around.
$20 Billion For Your Company. Take It Or Leave It
Must have been a great week in Figma land this week! Earlier in the week, Adobe Inc. inked the deal to purchase software design firm, Figma Inc., for a whopping $20 billion with the aim of adding more creative tools for professionals to its suite.
Figma founders so emotional at the thought of everything…
To add more icing on this stupendous cake, the deal is a 50-50 cash and stock deal is one of the biggest takeovers a private software company has ever made. Also, this major acquisition for Adobe, and it is not atypical for the stock of the acquiring company to go down temporarily… I knew you’d ask why so (You’re welcome)…
Typically in a Merger & Acquisition, the acquiring company’s share price (in this case, Adobe’s) drops because it often pays a premium for the target company (Figma), or incurs debt to finance the acquisition. The target company’s (Figma’s) short-term share price tends to rise because the shareholders probably only agreed to the deal if the purchase price exceeds their company’s current value.
Nevertheless, Adobe faced a 15% dip in stock price in a single day, following the announcement… worst they’ve had since 2010 but they stand by it!
Cupping you some social media hot-takes:
Additionally, for over 10 years, Adobe shares were a stock market favorite, but a falling tide also sinks all ships… the company stocks dipped by over 45% this year alone – Oh the stock market this year. On the other hand, Figma was valued at $10 million in 2021 & just about a year later, they sell for $20billion.
Forget Davido’s #TartyBillion, God When?
On a side note, many UI/UX designers did not hesitate to share their grievances against the ‘marriage’ on social media, saying they mostly prefer Figma because it offers collaborative design tools and allows them try things out before making a purchase.
I mean… that’s all find and dandy but when the opportunity comes to maximize value for shareholders, it’s literally a fiduciary duty for the founders… and not to mention,
For $20 billion or more, i’ll sell my company too…
Or. Am I?
Fedex! What’s Going On?!
This week, the shipping giant, FedEx, announced that the company has seen a huge decrease in shipping not just in American market, but also in their global market as a whole.
Not too surprising. I mean, have you seen the prices of things?
Everybody right now
Back to the gist…
FedEx’s stock crashed about ~20% – the biggest daily crash the stock has had. The last time FedEx had a similar magnitude of stock decline in a single day was in 1987 when it recorded a 16.4% decline.
Errrhhh, Sheessshhh …So what really happened, you might ask?
Well, the company announced that they have to close about 90 offices, freeze hiring processes, cancel some projects and even pack their aircrafts due to the reduction in shipping volumes.
Excuse my french. I’m just in shock.
Anyhoo, later in the month, the company plans to shed more light on how they intend to deal with this. You can trust me to give you all the tea when that happens!
…one last gist before we wrap up for the day
Nigeria’s Inflation Rate Inches Even Higher
Report is reaching us that Nigeria’s inflation rate now inches above 20%
No! I don’t want to talk above inflation every other week, Nigeria! Get it together UGHHH!
According to the Consumer Price Index report by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the inflation rate rose to 20.52%, increasing from the previous 19.64% value recorded in July.
So… get this:
April’s Inflation Rate: 16.82%
July’s Inflation Rate: 19.64%
August’s Inflation Rate: 20.52% | August’s Food Inflation Rate: 23.12%
These are the highest figures we’ve seen in ~17 years!
Mehn! This spiking inflation rate hits home dearly… and it’ll force more Nigerians to drastically downsize and reduce all unnecessary excesses.
Urging you to invest any spare income you’ve got in one way or the other. Don’t let your hard earning money to keep losing value drastically.
Get started on the Trove app “inflation-proof” your money. (Not sure that is an actual word, but you get the drill)
…And there it is!
October
Elon Ends Up With The Twitter Deal
In what we’ll call an unexpected dramatic turnaround (although it would have been a very difficult court trial for him to win), Elon Musk, aka the richest god (or at least that’s how he poses himself ), has finally agreed to proceed with the Twitter deal!
In a letter addressed to Twitter this week, Elon agreed to pay the initial amount ($52.20 per share) he offered the social media platform before trying to get out of the deal.
Is it because he finally figured out that he’d probably lose the court battles? I mean dude is as smart as a whip… who knows if this was all stage drama anyways.
Tomi listening to Elon drag Twitter
Quick recap on this whole ‘soap-opera’: Remember that Twitter first accepted Elon’s offer sometime in April. Then, Elon proceeded to try to terminate the deal, claiming that Twitter breached its obligations by not properly reporting the number of spam and fake accounts on the platform. When in-fact, “mr. rich guy” did say he wanted to buy twitter to make its content better.
For context, Twitter said that the spam and fake accounts on the platform are less than 5% of its total users. Twitter’s board wasn’t having any of it, so they marched on to court, and trials were to begin on the 17th October, 2022. Yes, a few days from now.
When the market opened following this announcement, Twitter stocks climbed by over 20% to more than $52 each.
So is this an evident win for Twitter or is it too soon to tell?
Tweet @ me to tell me what you think! [Tomi From @TroveFinance]
Me side-eying all those smart ones that traded the twitter volatility – Teach me how to live, bruh!
Layoffs @ Peloton
When I saw this in the news, I was like “oh no, not again!”
The news of layoffs have probably over saturated us by now. I mean, zamn, it’s just like heavy rain in rainy season
Now, the high-end workout equipment maker based in New York is laying off about 12% (500 employees) of its entire workforce in its fourth round of layoffs this year. 
The CEO, Barry McCarthy, sent an internal memo to all staff on Thursday saying that the layoffs were mandatory in “saving” the company and fulfilling the company’s “restructuring plan”. He also mentioned that the company lost more than $100 million in retail sales last year, so it just might also close a number of its stores in the coming months.
This is rather unfortunate because the company did see its revenue soar during the pandemic, call it the pandemic boost, but as soon as the world opened back up and people returned to public gyms, the revenue also came back to earth in a steep decline.
In a ‘captain-save-me’ move, Peloton partnered with Amazon and Dick’s sporting goods to sell some of its products and give discounts to customers.
Spotify Axing 10 Podcasts
For the first time, the audio streaming platform is ceasing production on 10 podcasts within the next month. As a result of this, some podcast employees will be reassigned and laid off.
The company intends to take a step back on podcasts, so it can focus on original and high-profile shows like Meghan Markle’s “Archetypes,” and Kim Kardashian’s newly launched “The System”. These noteworthy shows have consistently hit the Top 20 on its charts.
Spotify be like…
In comparison to the company’s music streaming business, its podcast department hasn’t been tad-die-for. According to the Sportify’s CFO, Paul Vogel, it generated nearly €200 million in revenue with a negative gross margin of -57% in 2021 and has been predicted to fall even lower this year.
Love Don’t Cost A Thing, Uh?
A reliable source said: 22% of millennials (ages 26 to 41) and 19% of Gen Zers (ages 18 to 25) have gone into debt from what they’ve spent on dating.
“Everything is getting more expensive; It’s not just the new clothes, roses, ride-share, fancy dinner, concerts or the after-show coffee — it’s all of it.” The extra costs of these things by themselves may not be catastrophic, but all together, it can become a woeful mess, y’all.
Luckily, the report also says millennials & GenZers said they wouldn’t feel offended if their partner took them on a low-cost date. What are y’all waiting for then?
Isn’t it the thought that counts?
Tomi’s 2 cents is this: Create a tangible budget to make sure your finances aren’t in a hole by your dating life. Track your expenses monthly, at the beginning of the month and subtract from it after each date. c est fini!
Erhh, it’s tempting to want to sweep your partner off their feet by overspending to impress but dude 
#WiseUP
London Problems?
How It Started
Although new prime Minister Liz Truss came into office last month in high hopes and full of promises to reinvigorate the British economy, her tenure has been ridden with soaring mortgage rates, record-low falling pound and a chaos-infused bond market.
It’s really not been roses, petals & sunshine for Liz’s tenure, and to compound it, “Lizzy Baby” decided that announcing tax cuts (of >100 billion pounds) & spending increase without granular details on who’s going to bear the cost of these grandiosity was the best path forward. Needless to say, this spooked the markets because of concerns that it’s all probably going to come from debt aka borrowing, and of course, her competence immediately went under questioning.
…And She Fired The Black Man
Because of savage criticism, Lizzy Baby has now fired her finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, for creating literally the package of unfunded tax cuts, billion-dollar spending and deregulation that she had asked for.
She has also partly reversed the previously announced tax cuts, vowing to raise corporate tax rate by £18 billion ($20 billion)
Why Did This Raise Blood Pressures So Much?
Without getting too technical, think about this: In this current world of rising inflation, if the government pumps billions into the economy, it will likely further price increases i.e. more inflation & the Bank of England may need to raise interest rates even higher to control the inflation that is already running at a near 40-year high of 9.9%.
Where Do We Go From Here? In Tomi’s Voice
It’s really quite unclear what the future holds for the Truss’ tenure, as well as the economic stability of the almighty Britain but amidst all these, Tomi will continue to monitor the situation closely & let you in on developments as they unfold.
Zuckerburg On Meta Vs. Tiktok
I know some of you are probably thinking: Mark, please rest. Because you were on the forefront of a Facebook world doesn’t mean you’d be the TitTok Prince & who knows what’s next with social media! Rest Brother.
Uncle Mark has termed Tiktok as a ‘very effective competitor’ …and you know what that means? *cough cough* Reels vs. Snap Stories
He said he “sort of missed” a newer way people “interact with discovered content” on social media, that content need not be created by your friends and/or family, if the content is enjoyable to you, you’re in on it too. Where is the lie?
https://t.co/2u7r4mnipY” / Twitter”/>
Not like this is shocking but Meta’s plan to compete with Tiktok is now in it’s prime. Mark says Meta will bring in more content beyond a user’s friends or the people they follow, and tailor their feeds using A.I.
Additionally, Meta (although not solely focused on video content, and still extremely bullish on photos, texts, links, etc.) has realized that a ton of their audience are keen on videos. Even though Meta is sort of a late comer in that area, Zuckerberg now wants to make something new: a “discovery engine” that goes beyond video. He says ““You have a few minutes and you want to discover the best content. Sometimes I want to watch specifically videos, but a lot of the times I just want the best stuff.”
Zuckerberg also confessed that his company has been ″somewhat slow to this because it didn’t fit my pattern of a social thing, it felt more like a shorter version of YouTube to me.”
Tomi be like: “K“
Paypal In The Mud
In this economic climate, dare I say it could be extremely costly to lose users, especially at the rate that PayPal is.. because 
…and it looks like this is back-tracking season because PayPal has since called the policy update “an error.” Google searches spiked for both “delete PayPal” and “cancel PayPal” earlier this week from the backlash.
“An Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy. We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused,” said a PayPal spokesperson.
Many took to social media with hashtags like #PayPalCancelled trending on Twitter. Needless to say, PayPal stocks headed downwards after news of the policy update.
Trust that your boy, Elon, would never be missing in action – he equally slammed PayPal for such policy.
…And there you have it!
November
Twitter & Elon’s Wrath
Where Do We Begin?
- The Paying For The Blue Tick?
- The Massive Layoffs?
- The Infrastructure-Cut Ambitions?
Don’t worry because I gotchu! We’d go through each subtopic!
Paying for the Blue Tick
Simply put: content moderation will become super messy. You know why? If anyone could pay for the blue tick, well, hello impersonators, scammers, fraudsters, and the whole plethora of their gang. Mind you, Twitter’s current verification system, launched in 2009, was created to prevent impersonations of high-profile accounts i.e. celebrities and politicians.
…but Elon be like, I gotta make my $44 billion one way or another folks!
So, in a recent update to Apple iOS devices, Twitter said users who “sign up now” can receive the blue check next to their names “just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow”.
Who know’s what will happen to already verified accounts? When will they start demanding payments for those blue checks?
Elon: Yea, so that’ll cost you $8 a pop.
The Massive Layoffs
Musk’s goal is to kill 50% of the Twitter workforce, which is about 3,700 people. Elon says, these layoff will save the company ~$400 million/year. Right now, Elon claims that the company will keep losing over $4million/day if nothing is done.
Now doing the maths. When will we hit $44 billion in savings?
I kid hah
Lowkey, Elon has a point. Hence, Jack Dorsey’s response is in order? Take a look:
So perhaps Twitter’s workforce is truly bigger than it really needs to be? and Elon isn’t the only bad guy here?
Man has been benevolent (if he does say so himself) – he said “everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required.”
The Infrastructure Cut
Elon Musk has also directed Twitter’s teams to find up to $1 billion in annual infrastructure cost savings, for concerns that Twitter could go down during high-traffic events like the U.S. midterm elections.
Elon is ruthlessly looking for how to make money back tooth & nail because Elon feels like he overpaid for the deal. We all know he tried to back out but since he couldn’t, he is on a path to skin the cat in all the ways he can!
Elon:
Until Elon is done getting his cash, more drama to come.
My prediction.
On another note… Let’s talk EVs
Xpeng Vs. Nio
Chinese electric car startup, Xpeng has been underperforming for three straight months. Li Autos and NIO delivered double the number of cars that Xpeng did i.e. Li Autos & NIO reported monthly deliveries of more than 10,000 each, but Xpeng delivered just 5,101 cars.
Needless to say, Xpeng shares fell by 3%, while NIO’s rose by 0.4% and Li Auto shares jumped by 6.9%.
Quick caveat though: Unlike Xpeng and Nio, Li Auto’s vehicles are not purely electric because they come with a fuel tank to charge the battery and extend driving range.
PoTaTo PoTaHTo?
Layoffs: Amazon + Meta [Facebook]
The tech scene has been extremely rough and tough these last couple of weeks: Tech giants have been flooding the market with incredible talents that now have limited options to choose from.
More recently, Amazon kicked 10,000 corporate employees to the curb, shortly after Facebook also axed 11,000 of its workforce. Twitter, Microsoft, Snap & a few others have also done their own bidding. Tons of talented people are now facing steep competition as they ‘hustle’ to get into other ‘more stable’ companies.
According to some data sources, about 90,000 jobs have already been lost this year alone. The worst part is that the prediction says the grim is not over yet.
God Abeg O!!!
[God Please]
The hopeful solace is that.. perhaps, even though Tech is contracting, other parts of the economy are still hiring so, maybe they can take on some Tech talents.
Things won’t be tough forever. Whew!
A bit of a contextual backdrop: During the pandemic, bigger tech companies went on overdrive as they expanded rapidly to take advantage of people spending more time online.
We evidently saw a tech boom: Tech share prices soared, boosting confidence and stock-based payouts for workers.
But now, at this inflection point that the Federal Reserve is aggressively raising interest rates to fight inflation, venture capitalists are being stingier with their investments, forcing companies to be nimble and focus more on profitability than growth. Tech giants are feeling the heat: inflation means higher prices cutting into their revenue, therefore forcing them to cut costs.
Higher Rates, Maybe? The Fed
“The policy rate is not yet in a zone that may be considered sufficiently restrictive” to cool down rampant inflation, said James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He also said “this year’s series of interest rate increases “have had only limited effects on observed inflation.”
Even the U.S. stock market had an adverse reaction to this statement because 
Of course, relative to the overall economy.
Why should this matter, you might wonder?
Policy rate determined by the Fed pretty much control the interest rate that affects the broader economy… think: the cost of borrowing money throughout the economy.
Tomi: Where is the bottom?
Ad Content? Netflix / Disney…
The words of the critics: “I’m a little skeptical as to how many people do save a few bucks or are going to be willing to tolerate ads in what I would call long-form entertainment programming.”
Have they met the series of folks sharing passwords? OR just what this economy has become?
While adding commercials to long-form streaming content might change the definition of success for media companies in the long run, it might unlock a new segment of users potentially. Who knows where the chips will fall?
Of course, some people who already pay for the no-ads category might fall to the ads category, thereby reducing the revenues for streaming giants but overall, new users might also enter the market to take advantage of this ‘affordability.’
Netflix has launched. Disney+ is underway for December. Other streaming giants have mentioned that their ad-supported content plans are already in place.
Safe to say it’s the direction of the industry?
What do you think?
Tweet at me: @TomiSuave from @Trovefinance
Elon’s New Toy: Twitter
We aren’t novices to this Elon’s soap opera at this point but a quick summary on where things are:
A wave of Twitter engineers have voluntarily resigned, following all the stringent, thor-hammer-type leadership style that Elon is letting off in the company.
More recently, on Wednesday, Musk sent a company-wide email to inform employees that they should expect “long hours at high intensity” if they wanted to stay, and told the employees that they had until 5 p.m. ET on Thursday to decide.
On Thursday, this heavy-handed ruler, Musk, followed up with a pair of emails that said managers must meet with employees in person once a week or at least monthly, and that managers could be fired for allowing employees to work remotely if those employees do not prove, in his view, to be “excellent” or “exceptional.”
Key: In His View
The sentiments is that entire teams representing critical infrastructure and longstanding institutional knowledge are voluntarily departing Twitter, leaving the company at serious risk. E. B. Things.
As of Friday, Musk called for “anyone who actually writes software” to report to Twitter’s headquarters by Friday afternoon. Elon wants a high-level report of the best code they have worked on in the last six months.
ELON:
Software Developers:
December
Twitter < Tesla
Musk is going broke? and investors are panicking
With all the drama we know about Elon, it’s hard to conceive that such a smart man will ‘rob peter to pay paul’ – or at least, so to say.
Owner of Tesla, Space X, now Twitter, this man most certainly knows how to stay in the news!
Pre-Twitter, his businesses were doing great and getting a lot of share demands. In fact, during the pandemic, we all know that Tesla’s stocks went through the roof, literally. Hot off the shelves, like hot buns (Can someone tell I’m craving sweet buns?) …But let’s not get distracted 
We know that Musk initially sold some of his Tesla shares to finance the Twitter deal. Even more recently, Musk sold another $3.6bn in Tesla stocks (22 million shares) on Wednesday which means he’s taken ~$40bn off the table this year. This decision did affect Telsa so much that its Market Cap drastically dropped from $1.2 trillion to ~$500 billion.
Whew!
Or did he?
Musk also took bank loans worth billions just to finance Twitter. Investors believe buying Twitter was a bad decision financially and you won’t blame them, because see where it landed Musk.
Stay tuned though, this might not be the end of the story.
Rates & The Street
So the Fed rates might not go down as it keeps increasing like the rising of the sun. The Fed rate right now is the highest it has been in a whole 15 years. That’s mind blowing— and sad but what could we do? The Federal Reserve raised the rates, again, by 0.5% on Wednesday.
Remember that the goal of increasing the Fed rates is to cool down inflation. In other words, if goods were too expensive, less people would buy them, and retailers would then be forced to lower their prices in order to keep customers.
This means that the interest on the loan rate would increase causing people to spend less.
People who borrow short-term would pay way more in interest. Credit cards have also gone up to 19%, compared to 16.3% at the beginning of 2022. These rates might keep increasing in 2023 and potentially, 2024.
“What did I just read, Tomi?”
I feel you. I feel you.
This would mean that more people would need to save more in the coming years.
Maybe we shouldn’t detty this December too much o
…And
Conclusion
Hey, fam!
Hope you enjoyed reading through.
Don’t forget to make a tweet or share snippets of the news you found fascinating on Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #TomiFromTrove and tag @trovefinance.
See you in 2023!
