Zillow Reopens The Door to iBuying

MARKET MOVERS

Zillow partners with Opendoor for iBuying. Zillow Group is now essentially getting back into iBuying virtually risk-free, leveraging archrival Opendoor’s technology in order to do so. The two online real-estate giants both said in conjunction with their respective earnings that they have entered into a multiyear exclusive partnership such that home sellers on Zillow’s platform will be able to request an offer on their home directly from Opendoor. Read more here.
Elon Musk alleges Twitter fraud in a countersuit filed in Delaware. Mr. Musk said in a countersuit made public Thursday that he decided to terminate the merger agreement after learning of what he described as troubling facts, including a restatement of Twitter’s monetizable daily average users days after the pact was signed and that Twitter was allegedly miscounting the number of false and spam accounts.

DoorDash revenue climbs as restaurants raise prices, and consumers continue spending. Revenue was helped in part by restaurants raising menu prices on delivery and by the company’s acquisition of European delivery company Wolt Enterprises Oy, a deal that closed during the quarter. Analysts say the company outflanked its rivals thanks to a strong delivery network in the suburbs.

Berkshire Hathaway reports operating earnings surge but posts big investment loss amid market rout. The conglomerate’s operating earnings totaled $9.283 billion in the second quarter of 2022, marking a 38.8% increase from a year ago. However, the company posted a $53 billion loss on its investments during the quarter. Warren Buffett again asked investors to not focus on the quarterly fluctuations in its equity investments. Read more here.

Netflix is expanding its push into video games. The company plans to expand its video game catalog from 24 to 50 by year-end, marking a significant investment. Netflix’s mobile games have been downloaded by 23.3 million globally, according to Apptopia. The app tracker estimates an average of 1.7 million people are engaging with the games daily, less than 1% of Netflix’s 221 million subscribers.

Middle America is the hot new trend for Gucci and Chanel. After years focused mainly on expansion in China, luxury brands are rediscovering the U.S., opening boutiques across America in cities where they have never previously operated stand-alone stores. Wealth has spread to new parts of the U.S. in recent years, with cities such as Atlanta and Austin, Texas, emerging as new tech hubs, for example. Read more here.

Flow token pumps 45% as Meta uses it to enable Instagram NFTs. Instagram's parent company Meta announced that users of that social media site are now able to post NFTs on that platform using the Flow blockchain. Flow blockchain was developed by the NFT pioneers at Dapper Labs who created successful NFT projects such as CryptoKitties, NBA Top Shot, NFL All Day, and UFC Strike.

Inflation is getting a little pushback. Gas and oil are way down. There is clearly a limit to how much people will pay for a gallon. Gasoline consumption is going down. The commodity prices are also reflecting expectations that the economy is slowing down. The supply is modestly up while demand is massively down. The same thing is happening with groceries. Home prices are also falling down in price and the inventory is spiking. Source(16:08)

Elon Musk predicts a ‘mild recession’ for 18 months and says inflation has peaked. At the company's annual shareholder meeting, Mr. Musk said, “My guess is that we are past peak inflation and that we will have a recession.” He added, “I think it will be a relatively mild recession. I’m just guessing here. This is total speculation, but I would guess it’s a mild recession for 18 months or something like that.”

Fed rate hikes are expected to become more aggressive after a strong jobs report. Many economists had expected the central bank to slow its pace of rate increases to a half-point hike in September, but the strength in today’s number leaves the base case assumption that the Fed would probably have to do another 75-bps rate hike from here unless the CPI report shows some dramatic weakness which seems highly unlikely at this point. Read more here.

Pfizer is in advanced talks to buy Global Blood Therapeutics. Pfizer is aiming to seal a deal for GBT in the coming days for about $5 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The situation is still fluid, and other suitors are still in the mix, some of the people said. Pfizer has been looking to add products to its lineup and pipeline, as the company seeks to find long-running sales growth that doesn’t depend on pandemic products.