Musk says he wants more control of Tesla (25% voting power). He only owns 13% of its stock, a smaller amount after monetizing billions of dollars’ worth to finance his Twitter buyout. In his explanation, he took a dig at Fidelity’s mgmt. and others who “don’t show up for work” even though they own a lot of stock. But this comes at a time when the board is already feeling the heat from shareholders (CEO and director comp, lack of Musk focus, use of company resources, drug use, DEI communication) and federal probes.
GS exceeded revenues expectations based on asset mgmt results that were 3x consensus. MS beat on the top line due to investment banking. Cue one of the largest deals being announced today, Synopsys’ acquisition of Ansys for $35bn. But MS is also in the news for burning big clients like Blackstone and Oaktree. It’s equity leader Passi had shared inside info with hedge funds before executing block trades for them, per BBG.
The Fed should be “little concerned” about starting rate cuts too early, says the NASDAQ CEO. Guess which sector does well when rates go down? …(tech).
Competitors of AMZN, MSFT and META say the biggies aren’t complying sufficiently with the new EU competition rules, saying they’re not doing enough to play ball with them. The three, along with other “gatekeepers” GOOG, AAPL, and ByteDance are especially called out for self-preferencing. The Mar 7 deadline for the new rules is being watched carefully to see what changes the companies make. I’d imagine that after having a monopoly for so long, it’s hard to figure these things out, right?!
The WSJ notes that Shell has joined BP, and Qatar Energy in suspending all shipments through the Red Sea indefinitely. This follows an attack on a US-owned ship over the weekend and reports on BBG that a Greek-flagged cargo ship was struck by a missile this morning. Unsurprisingly, oil is trading higher this morning as approximately 12% of global seaborne oil goes through the Red Sea.
Central bank leaders in the US and the EZ are pushing back on near-term rate cut expectations, saying that it’s too early to say inflation is over. BBG had this nifty chart below, which shows that there is a pretty large range of potential outcomes after a first rate cut in the US for the S&P. Consensus profit forecasts have been going up, but unfortunately, history shows that rate cuts don’t bode well for earnings, per Bloomberg….because guess why the Fed usually starts cutting rates? Things are not so rosy.
The US pays 50% per capital more for prescription drugs than Canada. Florida just got approval from the FDA to import cheaper meds. One problem is Canada saying they don’t have enough to export to us. So, folks are saying it won’t have much of an impact. Let’s hope Congress helps them figure out a solution so other states can follow.
China’s stock market regulator and sovereign wealth fund want to stabilize China’s equity market, per the FT. Select investors are positioned for a China stock market rebound, citing attractive valuations (although they have been getting even more attractive, right? per Bloomberg)
MSFT is opening its AI assistant to consumers and making the corporate version available to smaller companies. The $20-a-month version of Copilot has access to its latest ChatGPT technology. Not sure what I’d use it for yet, but I’d like to see what it does.