What Moved The Markets This Week 📈
Binance Pleads Guilty To Federal Charges, Bezos Dumps $1B Of Amazon Shares, Sam Altman Back As OpenAI's CEO, Israel & Hamas Ceasefire, Home Sales Hit 13-Year Low, and NVDA + ZM Earnings
Sunday Morning Markets
Trading Week 47, covering Monday, Nov 20 through Friday, Nov 24. Your weekly financial markets update, in less than 5 minutes.
The Week In Review ⏪
Home sales plummet to a 13-year low
Sam Altman is back as OpenAI’s CEO
Jeff Bezos to dump $1B in Amazon shares
Binance’s ‘CZ’ pleads guilty to federal charges
Thanksgiving & Black Friday sales jump over 5%
Ford takes a step back from its EV battery plans
Israel & Hamas agree to four-day ceasefire, exchange hostages
Earnings from NVDA, ZM — see breakdown below
US Markets 🇺🇸
Thanksgiving Day online sales jump 5.5% this year to $5.6 billion as discounts motivate holiday shoppers. For Black Friday, online spending is expected to climb even higher and bring in $9.6 billion, up 5.7% year over year.
Home sales fell to a 13-year low in October as volume was 14.6% lower than they were a year earlier. The median price of an existing home sold in October was $391,800, an increase of 3.4% from a year prior.
Fed gave no indication of possible rate cuts, meeting minutes show. They said policy will need to stay “restrictive” until data shows inflation is on a convincing trek back to the central bank’s 2% goal.
Ford to scale back plans for $3.5 billion Michigan battery plant as EV demand disappoints. The company also said it is cutting production capacity by roughly 43% and reducing expected employment by over 30%.
Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot to be approved by the EU, pushing IRBT 0.00%↑ shares up 35% this week. The $1.7 billion all-cash deal is still under review by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
Bezos to dump another $1 billion in Amazon shares according to a recent SEC filing. Last week, the Amazon founder unloaded $240 million worth of shares. Bezos still owns roughly 988 million shares of Amazon.
Global Markets 🌏
Javier Milei wins Argentina’s presidential election off his platform of dollarizing the economy, abolishing the country’s central bank, and privatizing the pension system. He received roughly 56% of the vote.
Israel and Hamas agree to four-day ceasefire which started on Thursday. The deal includes the release of 50 Israeli hostages held in the Palestinian enclave, in exchange for many Palestinian women and children detained in Israel.
Inflation in Canada continues to cool off, opening the door to an interest rate cut 'as early as Q2'. The Consumer Price Index slowed to 3.1%, under analysts’ estimate of 3.2%, and a drop from the previous month’s reading of 3.8%.
Germany's economy shrinks slightly in third quarter as the country continues to be among the weakest economies in Europe this year with high energy costs, weak global orders, and higher interest rates taking their toll.
Turkey’s central bank hikes rates by 500 basis points to 40%, well above expectations. The size of the rate increase was double economists’ estimates, who had forecasted a 250-basis-point hike.
Japanese inflation accelerates in October, reinforcing investors' views that stubborn inflation may push the BOJ to pivot its stance soon. The nationwide core CPI rose 2.9% after slowing to 2.8% last month.
Tech ⚡
OpenAI brings Sam Altman back as CEO less than a week after he was fired by the board. Hundreds of OpenAI employees signed a letter demanding that the remaining board members resign or they would leave.
Google’s Bard AI can now answer questions about YouTube videos in latest update. “For example, if you’re looking for videos on how to make olive oil cake, you can now also ask how many eggs the recipe in the first video requires.”
Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt resigns from GM-owned Robotaxi unit following a string of missteps. Mo Elshenawy, who previously served as EVP of engineering at Cruise, will now serve as president and CTO.
Binance and CEO ‘CZ’ plead guilty to federal charges, agreeing to pay $4.3B in fines to resolve the DOJ’s investigations. Richard Teng, Binance’s former global head of regional markets, will be the exchange’s new CEO.
Binance sees $956 million in outflows in the 24 hours after Zhao steps down to settle the US probe. Still, the outflows were small relative to the more than $65 billion of assets that remain on Binance.
Kraken sued by SEC for operating an unregistered exchange and improperly mixing up to $33 billion in customer funds with its corporate assets. The suit aims to halt Kraken’s operations and fine them for all ill-gotten gains.
Earnings Reports 💰
See other breakdowns on our Twitter page.
Weekly Poll 🗳️
Week Ahead 📅
Monday
US - New Home Sales (OCT)🇺🇸
AU - Retail Sales (OCT)🇦🇺
Earnings Reports: Zscaler💰
Tuesday
US - CB Consumer Confidence (NOV)🇺🇸
NZ - Interest Rate Decision 🇦🇺
Earnings Reports: Crowdstrike, Intuit, Workday, Splunk💰
Wednesday
US - GDP (Q3)🇺🇸
DE - CPI Inflation (OCT)🇩🇪
CN - Manufacturing PMI (OCT)🇨🇳
Earnings Reports: Snowflake, Salesforce, Okta💰
Thursday
US - PCE Inflation (OCT)🇺🇸
US - Pending Home Sales (OCT)🇺🇸
CA - GDP (Q3)🇨🇦
EU - CPI Inflation (OCT)🇪🇺
Earnings Reports: Marvell, Ulta, Samsara, Dell, UiPath💰
Friday
US - ISM Manufacturing PMI (OCT)🇺🇸
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