Amazon’s Big Day; Gaming Giant IPOs; Netflix Drops Earnings

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THE HEADLINES

 

EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTER

Amazon Is Developing A Wearable Device That Can Read Human Emotions

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Like a Coachella MDMA bender, the peaks and valleys were too real for Jeffrey Commerce yesterday. July 17th began on a sour note for Amazon’s fearless leader as the European Union announced that it would be launching an antitrust investigation into the way Amazon deals with merchants that sell goods on its site.

In case you’ve been living under a rock since 1994, Amazon shoppers can buy goods from merchants who pay a fee to use the marketplace. For some products, the A to Z provider manufactures and sells the goods directly.

The question at hand is whether or not the tech giant is using the private data submitted by its merchants against them, and if Amazon is unfairly showcasing its own products at the top of the search results. We can save the EU regulators the time: guilty … on all charges.

Prime time

But it’s doubtful that Jeff Bezos gives any f*cks about the investigation his company is facing as it just announced that this year’s “Prime Day” sales hit 175M items, beating the combined number sold on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Other large retailers joined in on the fun and according to Adobe Analytics, a company that apparently tracks e-commerce activity in addition to making PDF software, 80 of the top US online retailers took in a combined $2B in online sales each day.

Still, Amazon’s stock was down roughly 1% yesterday.

 

“DOUYU SEE?”

– DouYu to the Nasdaq

DouYu, unlike its fellow People’s Republic tech company, Huawei, is not feeling the squeeze of White House sanctions … yet. The video game streaming service, which counts Twitch and Huya among its competition, just raised $775M through a Nasdaq IPO.

DouYu’s IPO marks the second-largest offering from a Chinese company in the US this year, edging out Luckin Coffee’s $645M move to the public markets in May. DouYu’s IPO values the firm at more than $3.73B.

So what do they do?

Like Amazon-backed Twitch, China-based DouYu is a player in the fast-growing esports streaming space. Last year more than half of the countries population, or 638M people, played games on their phones, computers, or game consoles. And in related news, approximately 638M dudes in China have never felt the tender touch of a woman.

So esports are pretty hot, huh?

Yeah, you n00b. Rival Huya, which listed on the NYSE in May 2018, has doubled its share price. And while DouYu is ready to compete in the esports arena its success has been rather recent from an accounting standpoint. Prior to the quarter ending in March, DouYu had posted three consecutive years of net losses … before earning a net profit of $2.7M in the three months leading up to March.

What will DouYu do with the money? Well, according to the company, it’ll be investing in content development, marketing, and R&D. I wonder if that R&D includes finding out how to make your dad proud of you if you’re a gamer. 

 

HOUSE OF CARDS

Netflix Q2 earnings dropped yesterday and let’s just say it was a lot like a certain recently deleted ‘13 Reasons Why’ scene. At the time of writing, NFLX had dropped 12% in after-hours trading, to $319 per share.

Domestically the N in FANG lost 126k paid subscribers, compared to a forecasted gain of 352k. And if you think that’s bad, international paid subscriber additions were 2.83M, compared to 4.81M expected. EPS came in at 4 cents over estimates, at 60 cents, and revenue was a near-miss at $4.92B compared to $4.93B. Rounding error?

The streaming company attributed its poor subscriber figures to a weak content lineup … even though Netflix produces a lot of its own content, and on a price increase … even though Netflix chooses how much to charge its customers. In summary, Netflix done f*cked up.

What’s next?

Q3 is shaping up to be a better quarter for content, with new szns of ‘Stranger Things,’ ‘Orange is the New Black,’ and ‘The Crown’ hitting the OTT service. The strong selection of original series is a big driver for its forecast of seven million global net paid additions and a revenue stream of $5.25B for Q3. Ever heard of underpromise and overdeliver, Reed?

Define arrogant

Surprisingly, the company stated that competition from other streaming services was not a factor in Q2, and even went on to say that it was good for attention and buzz in the industry.

One can only assume Netflix is absolutely thrilled about losing its two most popular shows in the next couple years, as ‘Friends’ was picked up by AT&T to stream exclusively on HBO Max in 2020, and ‘The Office’ is moving to the NBCUniversal streaming service in 2021.


IN OTHER NEWS

news

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  • The Bernie Madoff scandal is the herpes of Ponzi schemes … it’s the gift the keeps on giving. The trustee liquidating Madoff’s “fund” reached an $860M settlement with Kingate Global Advisors, which represents roughly 93% of the withdrawals made by the fund. The dirty money will be tacked onto the $13B-ish recovered and repaid to thousands of victims … mostly the New York Mets.

 

  • Remember, Bill, if you ain’t first, you’re last. Bad news out of Bill Gates’ camp. You might want to sit down for this … Billy Operating Systems is now the 3rd richest man in the world after being overtaken for second place by Bernard Arnault, the French CEO of LVMH *audible gasps*.

 

  • Welcome to America in 2019, where everyone’s favorite strung out mad scientist, Elon Musk, is creating an army of monkeys and mice that can control computers with their brains. Elon’s side-hustle, Neuralink, gave a glimpse into the future on Tuesday, outlining how it plans to link human brains and machines beginning with patients suffering from neurological conditions. The company is prepping a US FDA submission and if all goes well could begin human testing next year. According to Musk, testing has already begun in mice and primates.

 

  • You live by the Zuck and you die by the Zuck. Bitcoin is falling quicker than Becky does for the guy who is 6’5” with a job in finance after six tequila shots. And Facebook is to blame. The ‘book’s proposed crypto got absolutely steamrolled by Congress during days-long hearings and took the entire crypto market with it. Despite its recent run-up, bitcoin has fallen below $10k.

 

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