Data Sheet—Growing Dangers to Stocks From the U.S.-China Trade Conflict
Going, going, gone. The latest federal auction of airwave licenses suitable for 5G networks kicks off today. Much of the 28 GHz band is already owned by Verizon but what’s left, spread across over 1,500 counties, goes up for sale by the Federal Communications Commission. Fear not, would-be 5G providers. The FCC has at least four more auctions planned for similar airwaves over the next year.
Spoiled meat. Bad day on the stock market for Blue Apron. The prepared food packager reported revenue declined 28% to $ 151 million even as its net loss improved to 18 cents a share from 47 cents last year. Total customers shrank by 16% to 717,000. Oh, and some layoffs are on the way, the company said. In premarket trading, Blue Apron’s shares, down almost 90% from its IPO last year, fell as much as 6%. Shares of teen-dream-messaging app Snap fell 7% in premarket trading on a report the company is the subject of a federal investigation over possible misleading statements made ahead of its IPO. Snap said all its statements had been “accurate and complete.”
Synthetic comedy. Tired of Amazon Alexa‘s voice, especially telling the corny jokes the digital assistant offers, if you ask for a joke? “Actually my friend Jimmy Fallon wants to tell you a joke,” Alexa will reply for the next few weeks. Spoiler alert: Fallon’s delivery is much better, but the jokes are just as corny. “Why does Dwayne Johnson sleep under a pile of magazines? Because paper covers rock.” Ha ha.
Synthetic marketing. Advertisers spent $ 49.5 billion on digital sites in the first half of the year, up 23% from 2017. Mobile nabbed 63% of the spending, up from 54% a year earlier, the Interactive Advertising Bureau reports. Online video advertising remains a small segment but growing fast. It jumped 35% to $ 7 billion, with more than half going to mobile devices.
Bezos benefits. Some additional follow up on the HQ2/HQ3 decision by Amazon, if you’re not already sick of reading about the story. The Wall Street Journal talked to some insiders to get behind the curtains of the search process. Also, there’s already some budding political opposition to the sweet deals New York and Virginia granted to attract the offices.
Who is in charge here? The developers of bitcoin were all about freeing financial transactions from the grasp of governments and their central banks. But now those central banks may be trying to get into the cryptocurrency game themselves. In a new paper, the International Monetary Fund and managing director Christine Lagarde consider the possibilities. “The case is based on new and evolving requirements for money, as well as essential public policy objectives,” Lagarde explained in a speech on Wednesday. “My message is that while the case for digital currency is not universal, we should investigate it further, seriously, carefully, and creatively.”
