🦢Black Swan Street Weekly Stock Market Summary (Oct. 30th - Nov. 3rd 2023)

Welcome to Black Swan Street!

Welcome to Black Swan Street, we’re like a slice of pizza - you can enjoy it any time of the day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, midnight snack - doesn’t matter.

Here’s what we’re serving up:

• Netflix Bringing in the Dough💸

• WeWork’s Legendary Fail😔

• Headline Roundup🗞

• Next Week In The Stock Market🔮

Read time: 6 minutes

Netflix Bringing in the Dough💸

This week, Netflix announced its cheaper, ad-supported tier has amassed 15 million monthly active users.

Why is this a big deal?

This comes just one year after the original launch of Netflix’s ad-supported plan. This also marks a significant increase from the 5 million users the company announced back in May.

Netflix’s head of advertising, Amy Reinhard, said in a blog post “we have built an incredible foundation, focusing on areas advertisers told us matter most, all while delivering unmissable entertainment at an unbeatable value”.

Also to note: Monthly active users (MAUs) are not the same as paying subscribers. MAUs can include multiple people using the same account. Netflix has yet to reveal the actual subscriber figure for the ad-tier.

Presented by …

It Took 15 Years to Disrupt the iPhone🤳

Tech Startup With Traction: Turn your phone from a cost to an income source. Intriguing idea, isn't it? This is why, we have our eyes on the launch of Mode Mobile’s Pre-IPO Offering. It’s the latest in a series of impressive raises among smartphone innovators, likely spurred by Apple’s recent $3+ trillion valuation.

Mode saw 150x revenue growth from 2019 to 2022, a leap that has made them one of America’s fastest growing companies. Mode is on a mission to disrupt the entire industry with their "EarnPhone," a budget smartphone that’s helped consumers earn and save $150M+ for activities like listening to music, playing games, and ... even charging their devices?!

Over 11,000 investors already acquired shares — and with only days remaining prior to their bonus tier closing, allocations are limited.

📈 Claim Exclusive 110% Bonus: $0.16/Share*

*Disclosure: Please read the offering circular at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile’s Regulation CF Offering.

WeWork’s Legendary Fail😔

WeWork, the workspace provider, that was once valued privately at $47B, now plans to file for bankruptcy.

So what happened?

1. Rising interest rates

2. Excess supply of office space

3. New work-from-home culture

These 3 components were able to take WeWork’s public market capitalization from an IPO price of $9B to now under $60M. Not to mention the near $11.4B in net losses from 2020-2024.

Sad story for WeWork.

Headline Roundup🗞

• Ares Acquisition Corp & X-Energy mutually terminate $2B deal to go public due to ‘persistently volatile public markets’ - MS

• U.S. S&P/Case-Shiller House Price Index YoY: 2.2%, from previous 0.2%, and above 1.6% forecast

• Nvidia may be forced to cancel up to $5B worth of advanced chip orders to China in compliance with new U.S. government restrictions - YF 

• Missouri jury found the National Association of Realtors and other industry players guilty of colluding to maintain high brokerage commissions, real estate stocks plunge - BBG 

• United States cuts quarterly borrowing target to $776B, still record - BBG

• Walmart to upgrade 1,400 stores with $9B investment, investment marks national rollout of “store of future” concept - CNBC

• Pentagon awards $1.3B in contracts to Northrop Grumman and York Space for 100 satellites - CNBC

• UAW reaches deal with GM, ending strike - RT

• Healthpeak Properties & Physicians Realty Trust to merge in $21B deal - WSJ

• Realty Income buys Spirit Realty Capital for $9.3B in an all-stock deal - INVP

• Six Flags & Cedar Fair near merger - MW

• Fed hold interest rates steady, keeping the federal funds rate in a target range between 5.25%-5.5% - CNBC

• Panera to lay off more than 300 employees ahead of IPO - FB

• Charles Schwab lays off about 2,000 employees (or ~6% of employees) - CNN

• Beyond Meat will cut 8% of jobs - BBG

Next Week in the Stock Market🔮

Earnings Calendar Next Week:

What the swan is watching:

Monday: Dish Network, Brookfield Asset Management, Goodyear Tire & Rubber

Tuesday: Uber, Rivian, KKR, Ebay, Robinhood, Lucid Motors

Wednesday: Roblox, AMC, Warner Bros Discovery, Lyft, Disney, U-Haul, Under Armour, MGM Resorts

Economic Calendar Next Week:

The Swan’s Picks🦢

💸Gavin Newsom vs Minimum Wage: California Governor, Gavin Newsom, has signed two bills raising the minimum wage in 2024 for Health care workers and fast food workers. Fast food workers’ minimum wage will increase to $20/hr, while health care workers is aimed to reach $25/hr by 2026.

🔪Hedge fund manager murdered after big losses: Hedge fund manager, Christopher Callahan, from Ontario-based ‘Traynor Ridge Capital’ was found dead. His death lead to an investigation that uncovered tens of millions of dollars in losses the fund appeared to have run up. Long story short, the police said his death “isn’t suspicious”… do you believe them?

💵Raising Cane’s raising $500 million: Fast-food chain Raising Cane’s sold $500 million of junk bonds on Wednesday. The senior unsecured notes were priced at par with a 9.375% coupon.

🚗 Uber and Lyft to pay $328M to New York drivers: The settlement, with Uber paying $290M and Lyft paying $38M, comes after the New York attorney general says “for years, Uber and Lyft systematically cheated their drivers out of hundreds of millions of dollars in pay and benefits while they worked long hours in challenging conditions”.

The Wrap-Up🔄

That’s all we got this week!

As you probably noticed, this week, we had our first ad! I know, as a reader, you may not like this, but our team creates all this content for free, and the squads gotta eat.

So, if you could, please interact (click) the ad so our team can afford dinner :)

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