WSJ What’s News - What’s News in Markets: Magnificent Seven, Spotify Jumps, UPS Disappoints

Episode Date: July 27, 2024

What made the Magnificent Seven so miserable? And why did Spotify’s latest earnings call please investors? Plus, how UPS failed to deliver. Host Francesca Fontana discusses the biggest stock moves of the week and the news that drove them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Francesca Fontana for The Wall Street Journal, and this is What's News in Markets, our look at the biggest stock moves of the week and the news that drove them. Let's get to it. The stock market really took a beating this week. The worst of the damage came on Wednesday when disappointing earnings reports by Tesla and Google parent Alphabet sparked a spiral downward and wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars in value

from the magnificent seven. If you're new to stock market shorthand, that's the name for a group of seven major tech stocks. It's Tesla in alphabet and also Apple, Amazon, Facebook parent, Meta platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. So the Magnificent 7 became the miserable seven this week, but it seemed like things were turning around on Friday. All three major indexes ended higher on the day, as did every industry sector in the S&P 500. On the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.7% higher, the S&P 500 notched a weekly decline

of 0.8%, and the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite ended the week 2.1% lower. Good news for Spotify investors, and maybe some of you Spotify listeners. The audio streaming company is humming along towards profitability. On Tuesday, we got to take a look at its second quarter earnings report. Spotify notched its second consecutive quarterly profit, expanded its margins, and added a better than expected 7 million paid subscribers. Not too shabby.

Plus, the company's CEO confirmed that Spotify is working on a long-awaited, more expensive subscription tier that would include high-fidelity, lossless music. Yes, lossless. You audiophiles tuning in, you already know what that is, but for the rest of us, that means that the integrity of the original audio is preserved during compression for streaming, making for clearer, crisper, high-quality audio. In other words, no data is lost, ergo lossless. More quality also means, like I said, more money. The CEO said a good chunk of existing subscribers would pay another $5 for features like Hi-Fi

Music, which would raise their total monthly subscription price to $17 or $18. The report was music to traders' ears, and Spotify shares jumped 12% Tuesday. The stock made smaller moves the rest of the week, holding onto most of those gains, and on a weekly basis gained 9%. One company that didn't deliver in its latest earnings report? UPS, aka United Parcel Service. The package delivery company posted disappointing results, lowering its revenue outlook for the year. UPS also said it cut prices, which helped turn around its declining U.S. package volumes.

Executives said customers are preferring cheaper, slower ground delivery rather than overnighting packages on planes. That makes sense, but with how much we talk about inflation and consumer spending on this show, it also makes sense that investors weren't too thrilled by the looks of Tuesday's reaction. UPS shares dropped 12% Tuesday, making it the worst performer in the S&P 500 that day, and on a weekly basis ended 11% lower. Now let's talk about Warner Bros. discovery. As you might have heard earlier this week, the National Basketball Association signed landmark media rights deals worth $77 billion with Disney's ESPN, Amazon, and Comcast's NBCUniversal.

Who was left on the sidelines? Current rights holder Warner. Here's the play-by-play. Warner's contract allowed it to match rival bids, so it tried to match the $1.9 billion a year Amazon Prime Video offered for a streaming package and a bid to keep basketball games on its TNT network. But the league stuck with Amazon, rejecting Warner's last-minute offer, and Warner shares fell nearly 6% on Thursday.

But wait, that's not all. On Friday, Warner called a foul. The company filed a breach of contract suit against the NBA over the week's rejection of its matching bid and that deal with Amazon. An NBA spokesman said Warner's claims are without merit. So we'll see how the rest of the saga unfolds, but for now let's check the stock. that deal with Amazon. An NBA spokesman said Warner's claims are without merit. So we'll see how the rest of the saga unfolds, but for now let's check the stock. Warner rebounded on Friday, gaining 4%.

And now you know what's news in markets this week. You can read about more stocks that moved on the week's news in the score, my column, and the Wall Street Journal's exchange section. I'm Francesca Fontana. Have a great weekend, and see you next Saturday!