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- This article focuses on the car ride company, Uber, with how they ended up getting profits that were below expected.
- Could Uber having less than expected profits hurt PayPal's plan to buy $500 million of Uber's stock

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The Uber logo on a car. Uber Technologies Inc. announced has selected the NYSE for its much anticipated initial public offering that could be one of the top five IPOs in history. The listing could value the ride sharing company at over $120 billion.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Uber Technologies Inc., the on-demand ride-hailing Goliath, revealed in its highly anticipated updated S-1 that it will price its initial public offering at $44-$50 per share for a market valuation of as much as $84 billion, well below expectations of at least a $100 billion valuation

While it's still likely to be the year's biggest IPO, the price point is lower presumably as a result of competitor Lyft's disappointing performance following its March IPO, according to Michael Ramsey, a senior mobility analyst at Gartner.

"Though Uber has a greater market share than Lyft, their businesses are ultimately very similar. With Uber's underwriters on the hook, you don't want to be able to not sell the stock and have a failed IPO," Ramsey told Forbes.

Selling 180 million common shares, Uber plans to raise up to $9 billion ahead of its public debut on the New York Stock Exchange in May.

The company's offering is being led by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, and on Friday the bankers, along with Uber's management, will begin marketing the stock to potential investors, pitching the shares prior to setting the final price on May 9.

PayPal Holdings Inc., however, has already agreed to purchase $500 million of Uber's stock at the IPO price in a private placement, according to the amended S-1. PayPal has supported San Francisco-based Uber's payment capabilities since 2013 and is the company's lead payment-processing partner in the U.S. and Australia. This new investment is part of a deal to extend the companies' global partnership to explore future payment collaborations, including the development of a digital wallet for Uber, according to a PayPal spokesperson.

Though bankers maneuvering to lead Uber's IPO indicated last year that it could be valued as high as $120 billion, the company's offering at $84 million is still set to be among the ten largest U.S. IPOs of all time as well as the biggest on a U.S. exchange since Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s in 2014.

The IPO comes at a time when a slew of other high-profile consumer tech companies have made their public debuts, including Pinterest, Zoom Video Communications and of course, Uber's ride-hailing rival Lyft, which raised $2.34 billion in its initial offering, the biggest so far this year. Lyft IPO'd at a $20.5 billion valuation but had dropped to a market value of $16.1 billion as of Thursday.

Asad Hussain, an analyst at Pitchbook, believes the lower-than-expected price point for Uber and Lyft's current stock price plunge are "indicative of investor hesitance to invest in highly capital-intensive, deeply unprofitable and untested business models at this late stage of the economic cycle."

Ramsey echos this sentiment stating, "Neither Lyft or Uber have a shortage of capital and both are disruptive businesses, but it's not clear they can actually move to profitability. They've taken a very Amazon-like approach, scaling quickly, butright now they're essentially asking investors to 'trust us.'"

In the updated filing, Uber provided a range for its Q1 performance and noted an expected net loss between negative $1 billion and $1.11 billion. The company asserts that the loss is primarily due to its huge spending on incentives and promotions for its drivers. To keep drivers working for Uber, rather than say Lyft, the company shells out significant capital, a move that Ramsey believes will ultimately force Uber to raise the cost of its rides.

According to Friday's filing, Venture capital firm Benchmark, Uber's second-biggest shareholder, intends to sell the most shares into the public offering. That could net the firm up to $287 million.

The SoftBank Vision Fund as well as Uber cofounders Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick also plan to sell part of their holdings.

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Uber Starts Investor Roadshow With Lower-Than-Expected Valuation But A Fresh $500 Million From PayPal

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Uber Technologies Inc., the on-demand ride-hailing Goliath, revealed in its highly anticipated updated S-1 that it will price its initial public offering at $44-$50 per share for a market valuation of as much as $84 billion, well below expectations of at least a $100 billion valuation While it's still likely to be the year's biggest IPO, the price point is lower presumably as a result of competitor Lyft's disappointing performance following its March IPO, according to Michael Ramsey, a senior mobility analyst at Gartner.

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- This article focuses on the profits Nintendo had for the Switch for the January - March period.
- How much of an affect did the release of the highly popular video game "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" affect Nintendo's profits?

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Japanese video game maker Nintendo Co. reported Thursday a 39% rise in profit for the fiscal year through March on healthy software sales for its popular Switch console.

The Kyoto-based company behind the Super Mario and Pokemon franchises recorded a 194 billion yen ($1.7 billion) annual profit. Annual sales rose 14% to 1.2 trillion yen ($10.7 billion).

Nintendo says popular Switch software included "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate," which sold 13.8 million units.

By quarter, Nintendo posted a profit of 25 billion yen ($223 million) for the January-March period, more than five times what it earned the previous year, on 203 billion yen ($1.8) quarterly sales, up 2%.

It expects to ship 18 million Switch devices the current year through March 2020, up from 17 million for the year just ended. The results for the year through March were 3 million fewer than the company had projected.

Switch is a hybrid game machine that works both as a console and a tablet. It went on sale about two years ago, but Nintendo said it continued to hope that new game software will continue to drive hardware sales.

Nintendo has been diversifying its business, including theme park facilities, merchandising and movies featuring its characters, hoping to cash in on its rich content.

It is also offering games for smart devices, such as "Pokemon Go."

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Nintendo profit jumps 39% on Switch software sales

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Japanese video game maker Nintendo Co. reported Thursday a 39% rise in profit for the fiscal year through March on healthy software sales for its popular Switch console. The Kyoto-based company behind the Super Mario and Pokemon franchises recorded a 194 billion yen ($1.7 billion) annual profit.

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- This article focuses on Walmart's plan to start its own original content market similar to Apple or Disney.
- Should Walmart, a department store, get into the streaming business?

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After conflicting reports earlier this year about whether retail giant Walmart was ready to push ahead into the original streaming content arena with its OTT service Vudu, the company is now reportedly sharing plans with advertiser s to fund a handful of original family-oriented programs later this year in partnership with MGM.

Walmart, the largest seller of TVs of any retail chain, acquired Vudu in 2010 in a far-sighted move to counter falling sales of physical DVDs with its own streaming service. But while Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and others used their platforms to launch exclusive new content and lock viewers in to a paid subscription model, Walmart retained an advertising-supported model for Vudu, using it primarily to distribute digital versions of DVD programs, movies and other previously-released material. As competitors surged ahead into the original content and subscription-based streaming space, Walmart did not seem to be up to much with Vudu beyond keeping its toe in the water.

Now as Apple, Disney, Comcast, ATT/Warner Media and other major players are moving all-in to the OTT original content arena, Walmart has quietly been preparing its own strategy aimed at family viewers. Last year, Walmart entered into a deal with MGM and others to develop original content based on franchises from MGM's film and TV catalog, under exclusive license in North America. That library includes film franchises James Bond, Rocky, Pink Panther, The Hobbit and 21 Jump Street, plus TV properties like Vikings, Teen Wolf, Fargo and The Handmaid's Tale.

As late as January, Walmart downplayed media reports of moving into the original content market in a big way. "Certainly Vudu is a focus for us and it has been for a while," Walmart spokesperson Tara House told Variety on January 17, 2019. "To say that we aren't thinking about different ideas often would be false. But we don't have anything to announce or further discuss when it comes to any kind of a streaming video agreement or alignment."

But yesterday, Bloomberg reported the company has signed up for a half-dozen original shows to air in the next year, starting with "Mr. Mom," a contemporary spin on the 1983 John Hughes movie that starred a young Michael Keaton as a stay-at-home dad who takes over domestic chores from his high-powered wife. That is consistent with earlier reports that Walmart plans to focus on tried-and-true family-style programming with "Goldbergs" or "Big Bang Theory" reach and appeal, rather than investing heavily in edgy, buzzworthy content.

That seems like a good fit for Walmart's brand and its Vudu-centric OTT strategy, which relies on advertising rather than monthly subscription fees. Recent research from the Harris Poll and OpenX suggests the market is evenly split between viewers willing to pay for OTT content and those who prefer a full or partially ad-supported service. That same research suggests there is a lot more potential for high-performance interactive ads that drive viewers directly to product purchase options - especially those watching on mobile devices.

Walmart formed a joint venture with interactive content startup Eko in October, 2018, reportedly investing over $200 million in the company specializing in new storytelling formats that blend linear content with games and user-driven narrative. How that move plays into Walmart's original content strategy remains to be seen, but it certainly ups the ante with respect to Walmart's biggest retail competitors, Amazon and Costco, which is also looking into a "streaming service for average Americans."

I am an author, consultant and educator with a professional interest in the business implications of new media and a personal passion for comics and visual communication...

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Walmart Is Finally Ready To Dip Into The Original Streaming Content Market

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After conflicting reports earlier this year about whether retail giant Walmart was ready to push ahead into the original streaming content arena with its OTT service Vudu, the company is now reportedly sharing plans with advertiser s to fund a handful of original family-oriented programs later this year in partnership with MGM.

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- This article focuses on the company, Microsoft, with how it became the 3rd US company to hit the $1 trillion mark in market capitalization.
- If Microsoft's cloud business didn't growth the way it did and boost earnings, how would their valuation be affected?

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Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday briefly surpassed $1 trillion in valuation for the first time, boosted by better-than-expected earnings and the growth of the company's cloud business.

So far this year, Microsoft's stock has gained about 24 percent, after hitting a record high of $125.85 during regular trading hours. Shares continued to climb in after-hours trading, sending the market cap over $1 trillion.

That makes it the third U.S. company to top $1 trillion in market capitalization; Apple became the first in August and was followed in September by Amazon. Apple is the only company, however, to have spent some time above $1 trillion, although it has not done so since November.

During the third quarter, the Seattle-based company reported a 14 percent increase in revenue to $30.6 billion. Its operating income was $10.3 billion, an increase of 25 percent from the year-ago period.

"Leading organizations of every size in every industry trust the Microsoft cloud," CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. "We are accelerating our innovation across the cloud and edge so our customers can build the digital capability increasingly required to compete and grow."

According to Dow Jones data, Microsoft hasn't held the title as the most valuable U.S. company since the dot-com boom in 2003. Under Nadella, the company has benefited from optimism about demand for cloud computing services, while concerns about the iPhone's future have hurt Apple.

Amazon and Microsoft have both dominated the cloud market: According to Synergy Research Group, Amazon controls more than 30 percent of the cloud infrastructure services market share, followed by Microsoft at 15 percent.
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Microsoft briefly tops $1 trillion market cap after earnings boost

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Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday briefly surpassed $1 trillion in valuation for the first time, boosted by better-than-expected earnings and the growth of the company's cloud business. So far this year, Microsoft's stock has gained about 24 percent, after hitting a record high of $125.85 during regular trading hours.

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Kadina Group President Gary B. Smith on the outlook for Amazon and Intel.

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Mark Zuckerberg's net worth jumped over $4 billion today.
2018 Getty Images

The net worths of big tech's blue chip billionaires jumped Thursday as soon as stock markets opened. The gains came after both Facebook and Microsoft reported better than expected revenue growth on Wednesday after the market closed. Altogether the value of Facebook and Microsoft shares held by 27 billionaires rose $7.4 billion, thanks to the strong earnings reports.

The biggest gainer by far was Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the largest individual shareholder in the social network he founded in a Harvard dorm room 15 years ago. Zuckerberg's fortune rose $3.9 billion on Thursday to $71.8 billion.

Despite concerns over its platforms' data security and privacy, Facebook's quarterly revenue exceeded $15 billion, a 26% year-over-year increase. The company estimates that 2.1 billion people use one of its services every day. Its share price on Thursday rose 5.8% to $193.26.

Facebook also disclosed a $3 billion to $5 billion legal charge from the FTC, which it claims dragged its diluted earnings per share down 55%. The penalty seems to be tied to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which sparked a national conversation about the social media giant's usage of user data. But investors seemed to shrug off that news.

"We're making significant investments in safety and security while continuing to grow our community and our business. This quarter once again, shows that we can do both," said Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's billionaire chief operating officer. The 22 billionaire Facebook shareholders' stakes are collectively worth $5.7 billion more as of 4:30 pm ET Thursday than at the market close on Wednesday.

The day's second-biggest gainer was Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO who holds more shares in the software giant than any other individual. His fortune jumped $1.2 billion, to $48.2 billion.

Microsoft's earnings shattered expectations, with diluted earnings per share up 20%. Its quarterly revenue climbed 14% to $30.6 billion, largely on the back of its commercial cloud business, which alone has jumped 41% year-over-year.

Steve Ballmer is Microsoft's biggest individual shareholder.
Getty Images for The New York Times

Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 as its 30th employee and served as CEO from 2000 to 2014. He bought the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers from fellow billionaire Donald Sterling in 2014 for $2 billion. Ballmer has put $2 billion into a donor-advised fund focused on addressing poverty in America.

He's not Microsoft's only big winner today. Cofounder and former CEO Bill Gates sold or gave away most of his shares years ago but still enjoyed a $400 million boost. According to Forbes' real time wealth tracker, he's now worth $101 billion, one of just two centibillionaires alive, beaten only by Jeff Bezos. (Bezos's net worth could skyrocket during trading Friday in the wake of a strong quarterly earnings report from Amazon today.)

Overall, the nine members of Forbes' list of the World's Billionaires who have significant stakes in Microsoft-a verifiable "who's who" of investors that include Gates, Ballmer, Reed Hastings, Charles Simonyi, Penny Pritzker, Mark Stevens, Herbie Wertheim, Robert Duggan and Reid Hoffman -saw their fortunes rise a combined $1.7 billion.

Not every billionaire won after Wednesday earnings. Elon Musk lost over $650 million of his net worth, with Tesla facing a bigger-than-expected $702 million loss. "This was one of the most complicated quarters I can think of in the history of the company," Zachary Kirkhorn, Tesla's new CFO, said on a conference call with analysts.

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Zuckerberg, Ballmer Gain Combined $5.1 Billion After Strong Microsoft, Facebook Earnings

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The net worths of big tech's blue chip billionaires jumped Thursday as soon as stock markets opened. The gains came after both Facebook and Microsoft reported better than expected revenue growth on Wednesday after the market closed. Altogether the value of Facebook and Microsoft shares held by 27 billionaires rose $7.4 billion, thanks to the strong earnings reports.

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- The article focused on the profits made by the movie "Avengers: Infinity War" for its opening.
- Would this movie have made this much money this quickly if the previous movie didn't do as well?

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'avengers: endgame' shatters records with $1.2 billion opening    - cnn

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'Avengers: Endgame' shatters records with $1.2 billion opening

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The Avengers assembled the biggest box office in film history, far surpassing multiple records on the books.

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Update: A Financial Times

Iranian flags flutter during an inauguration ceremony for new equipment and infrastructure on February 25, 2019 at the Shahid Beheshti Port in the southeastern Iranian coastal city of Chabahar, on the Gulf of Oman. - With the web of US sanctions
AFP/Getty Images

news article reports only that the U.S. was negotiating with Saudi Arabia and UAE to increase oil production, not that there was an agreement.
According to an opinion piece in the Washington Post, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo may announce as early as Monday, April 22 that the United States will no longer grant exemptions to countries importing Iranian oil in contravention of the U.S. sanctions. According to the piece, the State Department expects that Saudi Arabia will play a key part in increasing production to offset the loss of Iranian exports and prevent oil prices from rising.

If this is true, Saudi Arabia would be negating its position of strength within OPEC and decreasing its negotiating power just as the June OPEC meeting approaches. Come June, Saudi Arabia wants to make sure that all of the 14 OPEC member nations plus the 10 participating non-OPEC member nations (most importantly Russia) hold to whatever agreement they make.

Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih chairs the 13th meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) of OPEC and non- OPEC countries in Baku on March 18, 2019. (Photo by Mladen ANTONOV / AFP) (Photo credit should read
AFP/Getty Images

If Saudi Arabia comes into the June meeting in Vienna already having made a commitment to the United States that it will produce at a certain level, then it loses any leverage to compel other countries to control production. Even if Saudi Arabia does not have such an agreement with the United States, but the world believes that Saudi Arabia does, the kingdom's negotiating power in Vienna will be hampered.

For the current six month OPEC agreement, Saudi Arabia has actually claimed to be producing below its allocated 10.3 million barrels per day. Therefore, until the end of June, Saudi Arabia can overproduce because OPEC judges compliance based on a 6 month production average. However, the OPEC and non-OPEC countries meeting in Vienna in June care about Saudi Arabia's production for the next 6 months (July through December). If Saudi Arabia looks like it has committed to producing at a certain level in agreement with the United States, Saudi Arabia will lose leverage.

Some people may wonder if Saudi Arabia or the world has the spare capacity to do this. According to information gleaned from the recent Saudi Aramco bond prospectus, the answer is yes. The Saudi government requires Aramco to be able to ramp up production to 12 million barrels per day within 3 months and hold that level for up to 1 year. This is called MSC and it is possible that the Saudi government may raise the MSC above 12 if it desires.

So, we know Saudi Arabia has the ability to come to an agreement with the U.S. to compensate for lost exports from Iran. However, this would harm Saudi Arabia's position of power within OPEC, at least for the time being. As traders look at this news, they will need to take into consideration whether the strategy, as laid out, makes sense for all the players involved.

Ellen R. Wald, Ph.D. is a historian and consultant on energy and geopolitics. She is the author of Saudi, Inc., president of Transversal Consulting & a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.

I'm an energy historian writing about how governments and energy businesses interact globally. My work looks at how policy, wars, diplomacy, the stock market, oil pric

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If Sanctions Cut Iran's Oil Exports To Zero, Would Saudi Arabia Really Fill The Void?

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Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin Update: A Financial Times news article reports only that the U.S. was negotiating with Saudi Arabia and UAE to increase oil production, not that there was an agreement. According to an opinion piece in the Washington Post, U.S.

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- This article focuses on the app, Spotify, with the large amount of subscribers (over 100 million) it had for the paid tier.
- Would Spotify do as well as it is if it didn't have the Hulu partnership?

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spotify now has more than 100 million paid subscribers - cnn

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Spotify now has more than 100 million paid subscribers

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Spotify has surpassed 100 million paid subscribers.

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Netflix plans to open a new production hub in New York City that it said will bring $100 million in investments and result in hundreds of new jobs, according to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The expanded office in Manhattan, which will take up approximately 100,000 square feet in the city's Flatiron District, will create 127 high-paying jobs over the next five years. Netflix currently has 32 employees based in New York.

In addition, Netflix -- which is based in Los Gatos, California -- leased approximately 161,000 square feet in Brooklyn to build six sound stages and support spaces, which will ultimately house thousands of production jobs.

"Netflix is innovative, creative and bold - just like New Yorkers - and the expansion of this cutting-edge company in New York once again demonstrates the Empire State is open for business," Cuomo said. "We're proud Netflix chose New York to grow its business, and we look forward to the jobs, economic activity and world-class productions this project will bring."

In order to woo Netflix, the Empire State Development offered up $4 million in performance-based tax credits over 10 years, which are directly tied to job creation. To receive the full incentive, Netflix is required to create the 127 jobs by 2024 and then retain those new jobs and their existing office jobs for another five years.
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The announcement comes just a few months after Amazon pulled out of New York City, following protests against its plan to build a second headquarters in Long Island City, a Queens neighborhood. Amazon would have received $3 billion in incentives as part of the deal. In return, the e-commerce behemoth said it would create 25,000 high-paying jobs and invest tens of millions of dollars in the local area.

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Netflix expanding New York presence, months after Amazon departure

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Netflix plans to open a new production hub in New York City that it said will bring $100 million in investments and result in hundreds of new jobs, according to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The expanded office in Manhattan, which will take up approximately 100,000 square feet in the city's Flatiron District, will create 127 high-paying jobs over the next five years.

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a deeply wounded boeing faces shareholders ready for a fight - cnn

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A deeply wounded Boeing faces shareholders ready for a fight

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Boeing executives are expected to face shareholders' tough questions about the 737 Max crisis at the company's annual meeting in Chicago on Monday.

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tesla to shakeup its board of directors - cnn

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Tesla announces shakeup to its board of directors

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Tesla revealed Friday that four directors will leave the company - shrinking the size of its board to seven eventually.