Netflix got growth issues 🥴
Real estate freeze, Moderna knighted, and InMobi bags a chip.
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Market summary: 📊
Downward spiral continues into third straight day — as bad loans chatter weighs down investor mood. US took its turnaround rally into another day, shaking off any Delta variant worries!
US:
S&P 500 - up 0.82%
Nasdaq - up 0.78%
India:
Nifty 50 - down 0.76%
Sensex - down 0.68%
Gimme a shot of caffeine ☕
✅ Get through the winter — stock market enthusiasm is driving insane energy at the late stage. Crypto exchange, FTX trading, raised a mammoth $900 million pot from Softbank at an $18 billion valuation. That’s quite a sizable $$$ deal for the crypto world, and Coinbase’s blockbuster listing may have played a role here in stretching imagination of what’s possible. 29-year-old founder Sam Bankman is now one of the richest crypto founders on the planet, the irony in that name!
✅ Rewarded with street cred — Moderna, the vaccine maker that was one of the firsts to show humanity has a fighting chance back in November 2020, will be added to the S&P 500 market index — a kind of a market Knightship that automatically adds the company to millions of institutional investors’ portfolios globally, offering it some serious credibility. Before COVID, Moderna was valued at ~$10 billion — nothing more than a “biotech promise”, but today… $125B giant, a 1,500%+ return since 2020!
Reed, why aren’t they signing up? 😥
Netflix is in quite the pickle — subscriber growth for the streamer during the peak of the pandemic was soooo freaking strong that, that they continue to struggle to find more users to pay for the service.
Last night’s quarterly numbers again soured mood — Netflix added a total of 1.5 million new subs, well above its own guidance, but below Wall Street’s expectations.
Firstly, after getting 200 million+ paying households to use your product, there’s only so many more left who can afford $10/month. But that’s no excuse useful for the Wall Street greed machine, obviously! 🤷♀️
But revenues grew a healthy 19% to $7.5 billion in the quarter — thanks to those slyly forced price increases that go unnoticed with broad inflation right now, which kinda helped save the day.
What’s ahead — now that western world is vaccinated, big shot Hollywood gods would be comfortable stepping out of their Malibu mansions to get some movies done. That is expected to once again charge up Netflix’s content slate — drawing more eyeballs, more FOMO, which then brings more users.
Until then, investors collectively decided to show some patience, keeping Netflix stock flat — a favor after a true tasteless show.
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AdTech king InMobi picks up a winner 🧐
What happened —Axios reports, AT&T is offloading it’s advertising technology business, called Xandr, to the king of digital ads in India, for a billion dollars.
AT&T kicked off Xandr as its weapon against the assault of tech companies like Google and FB — to digitally transform AT&T’s TV advertising empire, and keep a piece of the digital ad market for itself.
And Xandr makes well over $300 million annual revenues — but with a couple key execs leaving, and AT&T entering a brutal 5G telecom war in local markets, adtech quickly became a low priority for the telco giant.
Meanwhile, InMobi gets a super credible, $$ kicking platform now to defend itself on the hometurf against the recent incursion of global ad tech giants like Trade Desk.
And honestly if there’s 1 IPO we can’t wait to get into…
COVID ain’t got shit on Pizza and Donuts 🍕
Jubilant Foodworks — the company that runs Dominos and Dunkin’ Donuts in India — blasted an outstanding quarter, smashing Dalal Street’s expectations by a mile and more.
Quick look at the numbers: ☝️
Net Profit of ₹63 crore, compared to losses of ₹73 crore loss a year ago
Revenue of ₹879 crores, up 131% YoY
Same store sales grew 114% YoY — this is a number investors look up to understand if new store openings is what’s clouding growth
And while most mainstreet laid low during the second wave, Jubilant opened 20 new Dominos, three Dunkin’ stores and six other restaurants — in anticipation of the recovery boom.
Big picture — at a time when banking and financial stocks are sounding the horn, consumers stepping out, easing up their wallets for an expensive bite, is a good sign for the markets to hold on to!
Closing out — remote bug is eating up real estate 🖥️
Bloomberg quint says demand for office workspace in India has crashed to EPIC proportions — down nearly 38% YoY for the first half of 2021, as lease renewals get abandoned and new lease commitments are avoided like it's the plague!
Meanwhile, developers picking signs of shifting consumer behaviors are now halting new projects — down 5% YoY so far. Vacancies across major cities run 15-16% levels, while rents have crashed 5-10%!
Big picture — real estate moves slow, which makes us believe this trend of decline ain’t reversing anytime soon. Worst impact of which will be on folks downstream — small vendors, SMEs, commercial service providers, etc.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
👋 Slapped 1 more time - Chinese regulators fined Tencent and Alibaba along with a few other tech giants, for apparently making sexually suggestive content involving children. Bruh, anything else left?
💵 Pay them - YouTube announced, Super Thanks, a feature to let fans directly pay creators for individual videos. Love it!
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Folks, quick correction here. Markets in India were closed yesterday for Eid, and we’re running high on too many coffees 🤷🏻♀️