Rockstar Games Confirms GTA VI Leak

MARKET MOVERS

• Take-Two’s Rockstar Games confirms GTA VI leak. The company confirmed the company suffered a network intrusion where a third party illegally accessed footage of the new Grand Theft Auto videogame. A user posted videos of the game in its early development stage, revealing details like the location, the main characters, and other features of the game. More than 90 videos of GTA VI in its early development stage were shared in an online forum.

• Opendoor is selling homes for a loss, for the first time. Opendoor is selling around 2,000 houses per month with an average sale price of $400,000. A buy-to-sale loss of two percent amounts to a $16 million loss. Plus Opendoor is racking up other expenses, including $3,500 buyer agent commission bonuses and seller concessions, to previously unseen levels. The result is going to be a pretty tough Q3. Read more here.

• The homebuilding sector historically outperforms following early declines, KeyBanc says. Analyst Kenneth Zener double upgraded the homebuilding sector to overweight, saying history points to higher prices after declines this year, which came amid slowing demand and rising mortgage rates. The analyst pointed to data going back to 1963 showing that the relationship between homebuilders and the S&P 500 now offers relative risk to reward.

• Wix surges as Starboard amasses stake. Starboard Value amassed a 9% stake in the cloud-based company, according to a regulatory filing after the close of trading on Friday. While the activist hedge fund didn’t lay out any specific goals for the company, it said it believed shares were “undervalued” and an “attractive investment opportunity.”

• Used Car prices are down 13% over the last 9 months.  At their lowest levels since last September. It was a leading indicator of higher inflation rates in 2020 and the recent downturn is likely a leading indicator of lower inflation rates to come.
  

WHAT TO WATCH

• The S&P 500 could retest its bear market low as the Fed meeting looms. Stocks could be volatile again this week, with the Federal Reserve meeting Tuesday and Wednesday. The Fed is expected to raise its target fed funds rate by another 75 basis points Wednesday and also provide new forecasts on the economy, inflation, and interest rates. Some analysts believe the market will bottom in October and then rally in the fourth quarter. Read more here.

• Cathie Wood’s ARK sees a huge jump in EV sales coming. ARK Invest believes electric vehicle sales worldwide won’t grow in a straight line—a certain number every month or year. Instead, sales will explode, doubling or tripling compared with totals of late. If ARK is right, way more EVs will be on the roads than anyone expects.

• VW sets a price range for Porsche IPO. Shares are set to begin trading on Sept. 29 in one of the largest European public listings in years, raising up to $9.4 billion and valuing the sports car maker at as much as $78 billion. VW is selling 25% of Porsche's preferred shares, or about 12.5% of the entire company, to investors in the public offering.

• Instacart plans to focus IPO on selling employee shares. In meetings with prospective investors in recent weeks, Instacart executives said they didn’t plan to issue many new shares in their IPO, the people said. The sale of mostly employee shares would allow Instacart’s staff, including some of its earliest hires, to at last cash out of some of the shares they have been accumulating.

• Tesla has plans to sell more cars than Toyota in Germany this year. A report from German automotive news outlet Automobilwoche this weekend said Tesla is focused on doubling its sales in Germany this year compared to 2021. If the electric-vehicle (EV) leader achieves that goal, it would surpass Toyota for market share in Europe's largest economy. Read more here.