What Moved The Markets This Week 📈
Amazon Invests Another $2.75B In Anthropic, SBF Gets 25 Year Jail Sentence, China Blocks AMD and Intel Chips, Boeing CEO Steps Down, Databrick's New 'DBRX' LLM, and GME + CCL + BRZE Earnings
Sunday Morning Markets
Trading Week 13, covering Monday, Mar 25 through Friday, Mar 29. Your weekly financial markets update, in less than 5 minutes.
The Week In Review ⏪
US Markets 🇺🇸
Core PCE +2.8% (est 2.8% & prev 2.9%)
Boeing CEO to step down
Visa and Mastercard settle lawsuit for $30 billion
Earnings from Gamestop, Carnival, Braze
Global Markets 🌏
China blocks use of AMD and Intel chips
Alibaba abandons its IPO of its logistics arm
Argentine president to cut 70,000 government jobs
Tech ⚡
Amazon invests another $2.75 billion into Anthropic
Tesla to give one-month free trial of FSD
Databricks unveils its own LLM, DBRX
SBF gets 25 years in prison
US Markets 🇺🇸
Fed’s key inflation gauge rose moderately in February as the PCE index increased 2.5%, up from the previous reading of 2.4% but inline with estimates. Core PCE rose 2.8% on a 12-month basis, also matching estimates.
Consumer spending spiked 0.8% last month, up from the 0.2% increase in January. The personal savings rate fell to a multi-year low of 3.6%. Looking back before covid, 2008 was the last time the national savings rate was this low.
Visa and Mastercard reach $30B settlement over credit card fees with merchants. The companies agreed to reduce swipe fees over the next 5 years and remove anti-steering provisions.
Home Depot to acquire SRS Distribution for $18.25 billion as the company makes a push to win sales from home professionals. SRS sells supplies to professionals in the landscaping, pool, and roofing businesses.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun to step down in wake of ongoing safety issues. The company also reported that Chairman Larry Kellner won’t stand for reelection this year, and Stan Deal, CEO of the commercial unit, is out, effective immediately.
Major Baltimore bridge collapsed on Tuesday after it was hit by a large container ship. The fallen bridge will block the port of Baltimore, one of the busiest by twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) volumes.
Sales of newly constructed homes dipped unexpectedly in February, but the underlying trend remained strong. The median selling price of new homes slumped to $400,500, a 7.6% drop from a year ago.
Global Markets 🌏
China blocks the use of AMD and Intel chips on government PCs and servers. They also seek to sideline Microsoft’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of Chinese solutions.
Argentina's President Javier Milei to cut 70,000 state jobs and will terminate more than 200,000 “corrupt” social welfare plans. President Milei is on a mission to reshape Argentina’s balance sheet and fiscal spending.
UK confirmed in recession at the end of 2023, marking it out as one of the weakest performers among developed nations. The latest report shows GDP shrank 0.3% between October and December.
Alibaba abandons plans to list its logistics arm, dealing a major blow to Hong Kong’s IPO market. The move came after Alibaba shelved its cloud-computing spinoff and delayed plans to list its Freshippo grocery unit.
EU to investigate Apple, Google, and Meta for potential Digital Markets Act breaches. The commission will focus on Alphabet and Apple’s steering surrounding their app stores, and Meta’s 'pay or consent model'.
Ericsson to cut 1,200 jobs in Sweden as the telecommunications-equipment company expects a challenging mobile networks market in 2024, with further volume contraction as customers remain cautious about spending.
Huawei’s profit surges as it takes market share from Apple and Alibaba. The company’s smartphone shipments surged 47% in China, widely beating Apple’s 6% growth. Huawei’s cloud revenue also grew 22% to 55 billion yuan.
Tech ⚡
Amazon adds $2.75 billion to its stake in Anthropic, bringing its total investment in the AI startup to $4 billion. As part of the agreement, Anthropic will use AWS as its primary cloud provider and will also use Amazon chips.
Databricks releases open-sourced LLM called ‘DBRX’ and claims it outperforms Llama2, Mixtral, Grok, and GPT3.5. Companies can use the model for up to 700 million monthly active users before needing a license.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison for the massive fraud and conspiracy that doomed his cryptocurrency exchange. The judge also ordered SBF to forfeit $11 billion to the U.S. government.
SEC scores major win in lawsuit against Coinbase after the judge ruled that its claim that the crypto exchange engaged in unregistered sales of securities could be heard by a jury at trial. COIN 0.00%↑ shares fell 2.5% on the news.
Amazon launches same-day prescription delivery in New York and Los Angeles, with plans to expand to over a dozen cities by year-end. The services will be offered through Amazon Pharmacy.
Tesla to give one month free trial of FSD as they roll out v12 of the software. Tesla is also requiring employees to install and show customers how to use FSD before completing a delivery in North America.
Robinhood unveils its new Gold Card with 3% cash back on all spending categories, plus 5% back on travel. The product launch comes eight months after acquiring credit card startup X1 for $95 million.
FTX sells its stake in Anthropic for $884 million with the top buyer being a sovereign wealth fund in the UAE. Additional investors include Jane Street, venture fund HOF Capital, and the Ford Foundation.
Earnings Reports 💰
See other breakdowns on our Twitter page.
Weekly Poll 🗳️
SMM Product Hunt 🧠
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Week Ahead 📅
Monday
US - ISM Manufacturing PMI (MAR)🇺🇸
US - S&P Manufacturing PMI (MAR)🇺🇸
CA - BOC Business Outlook Survey🇨🇦
CN - Caixin Manufacturing PMI (MAR)🇨🇳
Tuesday
US - JOLTS Job Openings (FEB)🇺🇸
DE - CPI Inflation (MAR)🇩🇪
CN - Caixin Services PMI (MAR)🇨🇳
Earnings: Paychex, Dave & Busters💰
Wednesday
US - ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI (MAR)🇺🇸
US - S&P Services PMI (MAR)🇺🇸
EU - CPI Inflation (MAR)🇪🇺
Earnings: Acuity, Levi Strauss, Blackberry💰
Thursday
US - Jobless Claims🇺🇸
EU - HCOB Composite PMI (MAR)🇪🇺
Earnings: Lamb Weston, Conagra💰
Friday
US - Nonfarm Payrolls (MAR)🇺🇸
US - Consumer Credit (FEB)🇺🇸
CA - Ivey PMI (MAR)🇨🇦
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