Young Americans Shun Housing Market

MARKET MOVERS

• Peloton CEO John Foley is stepping down and would be cutting 2,800 jobs. He will become executive chair after stepping down as CEO. Barry McCarthy, the former chief financial officer of Spotify Technology and Netflix, will be named chief executive and president and join Peloton’s board. The company also is overhauling its board. Peloton also said it would reduce planned capital expenditures this year by about $150 million.

• Out-of-towners are causing home prices to soar in relocation hotspots. Prices are up as high as 30% in some relocation hotspots across the Sun Belt, where 9 of the 10 most popular US relocation destinations are, according to a report from Redfin released Monday. Sellers are listing their homes at higher prices than ever before, partly because of huge demand in the last year from out-of-towners.

• KPMG Canada adds Bitcoin & Ethereum to its balance sheet. The privately-held accounting firm giant said Monday it acquired Bitcoin and Ethereum. on its balance sheet through Gemini Trust Company’s execution and custody services. KPMG Canada declined to disclose the amount purchased. The Pomp says KPMG is positioning itself to be the advisor of choice for various corporations that want to put digital assets on their balance sheet.

• Cathie Wood sells $142 million of Twitter shares ahead of its Thursday earnings. She has been thinning her ownership of Twitter since December of last year. The founder and CEO of Ark Investment Management dumped 3.6 million shares of Twitter on Monday from her flagship fund ARK Innovation. Wood also sold 280,974 shares of Twitter from ARK Next Generation Internet ETF, a position worth about $10 million. Read more here.

• Young Americans are shunning the housing market. More than 80% of Americans ages 18–34 said now was a bad time to buy a house, according to a recent Fannie Mae survey. Their gloomy outlook is shared by the broader population but young people are getting squeezed harder than most by disappearing starter homes and a battle for the suburbs where home prices are rising the fastest. Read more here.

WHAT TO WATCH

• SoftBank pitches IPO for Arm after Nvidia deal collapsed due to antitrust concerns. The deal could have brought $80 billion, but CEO Masayoshi Son sees an upside. He said Arm is entering a “golden period” of high demand for the chips it helps create in smartphones, electric vehicles, and computer-server farms operated by the likes of Amazon.com Inc. SoftBank now plans an IPO by March 2023. Read more here.

• Alfa Romeo unveils electric-hybrid SUV with NFT, blockchain technology. Alfa Romeo’s new compact 2023 Tonale SUV will include an NFT and blockchain technology. The company said the NFT will record vehicle data, generating a certificate that can be used to assure the car has been properly maintained, with a positive impact on its residual value.  Read more here.

• Peter Thiel plans to step down from Meta's Board. Mr. Thiel intends to focus his efforts on helping Republican candidates supporting the agenda of former President Donald Trump in the 2022 midterm elections. Mr. Thiel is expected to step down after the company’s annual shareholder meeting, which is typically in May. His departure coincides with intensifying pressures confronting Facebook on several fronts.

• Higher interest rates and fears of inflation will affect real estate in the short term. These are going to cause stocks to outperform and real estate underperform. But if you look historically, 50 years ago, the real estate sector of the economy has done pretty well in periods of high inflation and interest rates. Motley Fool's Matt Argersinger thinks we're going to have short-term challenges only for Real Estate. Source(19:02)

• The White House is lobbying the European Union to water down landmark tech regulation. The legislation would prevent companies like Google and Amazon from using their market power to stifle competition. But the FT reports that a senior US official wrote to the EU lawmaker hoping Brussels will not just target American tech companies.  Source(0:52)