MARKET MOVERS
- Warren Buffett buys another $500 million of Occidental Petroleum. According to securities filing on Wednesday night, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought another 9.55 million shares of Occidental over the past week at a cost of roughly $529 million. Berkshire now owns more than 152 million total shares of Occidental, according to the filing. Read more here.
- Netflix lays off about 3% of its workforce in a new round of cuts. The move follows a previous round of layoffs in May that affected 150 employees. It comes as Netflix is reining in some of its content spendings and looking to drum up new revenue with the planned launch of an ad-supported tier of its service. This round of layoffs primarily affected employees in the U.S. across a number of roles, though they also extended globally.
- Demand for vacation homes slips below pre-pandemic levels. Mortgage locks for second homes fell 4% from pre-pandemic levels in May as mortgage rates rose to nearly 6% and the housing market continued to cool, according to data issued Friday by Redfin. Read more here.
- Owning becomes more expensive than renting as rates, and prices surge. Homeownership is 31% more expensive than renting, nationally. With demand shifting and the market for home purchases cooling, homebuilders now court investors, a report notes. Read more here.
- Twitter's board gives Elon's bid the go-ahead. The board unanimously voted to approve Elon's $44 billion offer. Musk said this week that there are still a few unresolved matters and there is also the shareholders' approval that needs to happen. The proposal will now go to the social media giant's shareholders, who will vote on whether to approve the deal at a special stockholders meeting. Source(29:27)
WHAT TO WATCH
- Coinbase Global is launching a Bitcoin derivative. Coinbase Derivatives Exchange will launch Nano bitcoin futures, its first listed product, on June 27. It will allow investors to buy contracts tied to the future value of one-hundredth of a bitcoin. It will be accessible through third-party retail brokers and clearing firms. This comes in the midst of a meltdown in the market for digital assets.
- Merck pushes forward with the potential deal for Seagen. The company is pushing forward with a potential deal for biotech Seagen Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, in what would be one of the largest takeovers of the year. If there is a deal, it would be significant, given that Seagen’s market value is well over $30 billion. Read more here.
- Zendesk stock soars after a $10 billion buyout deal confirmed at a 34% premium. The customer experience platform company is confirmed to be acquired by an investor group that includes Permira and Hellman & Friedman in an all-cash deal valued at about $10.2 billion. Under terms of the deal, the Permira and H&F will pay $77.50 for each Zendesk share outstanding, which represents a 33.7% premium to Thursday's closing price of $57.95.
- Ethereum faces the biggest technical risk of any blockchain due to the Merge. Post-merge, Ethereum will have a greater degree of centralization than Bitcoin. From a legal/regulatory perspective, compliance with demands could be attempted by approaching centralized services e.g. CEX and companies operating staking pools that control large amounts of ETH. This is a possible risk to the integrity of the network. Read more here.
- The boom in residential real estate will be in the mountain-west, the southwest, and the south of the US. Peter Zeihan thinks this boom will happen for at least the next 15 years. Boomers are moving there because it's warmer and Millennials having families are moving there because it's cheaper. Plus, nobody wants to be in a metro where they could get covid again or any new virus. Source(49:36)
