Daily Archives

4 Articles
International

Move over Spotify because Tencent Music is HERE

Posted on

Tencent is comin’… to the United States. That’s right – Tencent Music plans to go public in what is shaping up to be one of largest recent US IPOs by a Chinese company – ever. The company has set a target price of $1 billion, which values the company between $25 and $30 billion. The $1 billion IPO would be the third largest in the United States for Chinese companies.

 

Tencent Music is the… Spotify of China because China seems to have their version of just about everything. In fact, Spotify owns 9% of the company. Tencent Music also has 800 million monthly active users. The company posted a profit of $263 million and revenue of $1.3 billion in the first half of 2018.

 

And they have lofty goals… because the company expects the number of people paying for music to quadruple between 2017 and 2023. Tencent Music will be listed on the Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange, but it hasn’t decided. Sheesh. What happened to good old days of pirated music?

Read more

Blue Chip

The results for Tesla are in…

Posted on

Calm waters for Tesla… and the company came through with 83,500 delivered vehicles during the third quarter. Of that number, 56,000 were Model 3s. Tesla also managed to build 53,000 Model 3s this quarter; that figure was short of 5,000 vehicles per week, but well within company projections.

 

Good news considering… all the antics of Elon Musk. We all know about the SEC lawsuit and executives leaving the company – including the chief accounting officer who left after just one month. However, even with the solid production and sales report, Tesla stock was down 2%.

 

More to come… when the company releases its revenue and profit results later in the quarter. In the company’s ten year history, Tesla has only reported two-quarter of modest profits. However, that should soon change. Will Tesla actually make a profit this quarter or fall flat on its face? Stay tuned for more!

Read more

Mid caps

It’s about time: JCPenney finally has a CEO

Posted on

Turning around JCPenney… will be no easy task; but who better to do it than Jill Soltau, the company’s new CEO! Actually, it is now her job to do it; but don’t feel bad because she will be making $1.4 million per year with a $6 million signing bonus. And Wall Street is backing the new CEO – shares of JCPenney were up 10% upon the news.

 

But there is work to do… because JCPenney is down 50% this year and has been trading as low as $1.50 per share. The former CEO, Jeffrey Davis, resigned just 14 months after accepting the position. The company is $4 billion in debt and has posted a profit only twice over the last four years.

 

Decisions, decisions, decisions… such as what to do with all of the out-of-style clothing stocked up in warehouses and what to do with the company’s 860 stores. However, Soltau has the merchandising experience and can hopefully turn things around; but she certainly has her work cut out for her…

Read more

Miscellaneous

Amazon is ‘Bernie Sanders’ approved!

Posted on

Coming this November… everyone at Amazon will be paid at least $15 per hour. The wage increase will benefit full-time, part-time, and even seasonal workers. Even Amazon subsidiaries, like Whole Foods, will see the same jump. Now, CEO Jeff Bezos is “encouraging our competitors and other large employers to join us.” Our guess is that won’t happen anytime soon.

 

On their high horse… over at Amazon because the company also stated, “We’ll leave it to Congress and professionals to decide what the right number is; but for us, that number is $15.” And for those other guys, the right number is a wimpy $7.25 or so. However, Amazon even won over the support of Bernie Sanders, which is not an easy thing for a giant corporation to do.

 

And it could be helpful… especially with the labor market being as tight as it is currently. Amazon has the money and presumably needs the workers – especially for the holiday season. It looks like Amazon will be on the seasonal worker wish list this year.

Read more