In short
WSJ Your Money Briefing - Episode Summary
Episode Title
What’s News in Markets: AWS Outage, Warner Plans, Earnings Movers
Air Date: Saturday, October 25 Host: Francesca Fontana Podcast Description: Your Money Briefing provides insights into personal finance and career management, focusing on important financial decisions.
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Overview
In this episode, Francesca Fontana discusses significant stock market movements influenced by recent news, including an Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage, Warner Bros.' plans to explore a sale, and notable earnings reports from major companies. Overall, the stock market experienced a positive week despite some challenges.
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Key Topics
- Market Performance
- Overall Trends:
- Dow Jones: +2.2%
- S&P 500: +1.9%
- Nasdaq: +2.3%
- Impact of Trade Tensions:
- Tech stocks fell mid-week due to fears of renewed U.S.-China trade tensions, but optimism was restored ahead of a meeting between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
- Amazon AWS Outage
- Incident Details:
- On Monday, a significant outage linked to AWS affected numerous services, causing over 4,000 flight delays and disrupting financial transactions and various platforms (Slack, Zoom, Venmo, etc.).
- Highlighted the fragility of global internet connectivity, given Amazon's control over a substantial portion of public cloud services.
- Stock Impact:
- Amazon's stock remained resilient, closing 1% higher on the day of the outage and gaining over 5% for the week.
- Warner Bros. Discovery Sale Plans
- Announcement:
- Warner Bros. is considering a sale of some or all of its media holdings, a move that could significantly impact the entertainment industry.
- Previous bids from Paramount Skydance were rebuffed, and the media landscape is currently active with various mergers and acquisitions.
- Investor Reaction:
- Warner’s shares jumped 11% following the announcement and continued to rise, ultimately gaining 16% for the week.
- In contrast, shares of Paramount dropped by 2.8% initially but stabilized, ending the week down less than 1%.
- Earnings Report Highlights
- Netflix:
- Reported increased profits and sales but missed expectations due to a Brazilian tax issue.
- Resulted in a 10% drop in stock value on the reporting day and an 8.7% decline for the week.
- Tesla:
- Despite a rise in electric vehicle demand, Tesla's earnings fell by 37% due to insufficient sales growth.
- After-hours trading showed a slight recovery, but the stock had a weekly decline of 1.3%.
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Conclusion
This episode provided a comprehensive look at the week’s major financial news, illustrating how specific events can create significant market movements. The resilience of Amazon's stock amidst an outage and the strategic shifts at Warner Bros. highlight the dynamic nature of the stock market influenced by corporate decisions and external factors like trade tensions.
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Additional Resources
- For further analysis of stock movements and in-depth financial reporting, listeners are encouraged to refer to Francesca Fontana's column "The Score" in the Wall Street Journal's Exchange section.
Production Credits
- Produced by: Zoe Colkin
- Deputy Editor: Chris Sinsley
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Note: This summary encapsulates the pivotal discussions and insights shared in the podcast episode, focusing on market news relevant to personal finance decisions.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:28Find your perfect home on Realtor.com. Hey, listeners. Your money briefing is on a break. But we'll be back with more personal finance information for you in the future. Until then, here's the news moving markets this week.
0:42Hey, listeners. It's Saturday, October 25th. 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. Overall, we had a relatively sunny week in the stock market. Tech stocks took a hit on Wednesday due to fears of renewed trade tensions between the U.S. and China. But overall, investors seemed to be optimistic about President Trump's upcoming meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Meanwhile, it was a jam-packed week for corporate earnings. We'll dig into some specific earnings reports in a bit.
1:20But to put it in perspective, nearly one-fifth of the S &P 500 reported results, including big names like Tesla and Netflix. I can't speak for everyone, but it really feels like this year is flying by. I don't know where the time is going. All in all, the Dow rose 2.2 % for the week, the S &P 500 gained 1.9%, and the Nasdaq rose 2.3%. Now don't think I wasn't going to mention the giant internet breakdown that kicked off this week. No, I put it at the top of my list. Amazon breaks the internet. So a quick rundown, in case you were off the grid this past week. On Monday, a widespread outage linked to Amazon web services cascaded across the web.
2:03More than 4 ,000 flights were delayed. Financial transactions were affected. Slack was down. Zoom was down. Venmo. Instacart. News websites like WSJ.com. The list goes on. And it put into stark relief just how fragile our global internet connectivity is. One glitch sending huge ripple effects across corporations and our everyday lives. Especially when, for instance, Amazon controls about a third of the public cloud computing market, aka the internet's core infrastructure. By late afternoon on Monday, Amazon said it had restored much of the service that had been knocked offline. Compared to the CrowdStrike outage last summer, which sent the company's stock into a total tailspin, I'd say Amazon's stock certainly came out unscathed.
2:50Its shares ended more than 1 % higher on Monday, and on a weekly basis, Amazon notched a gain of more than 5%.
3:07Warner Brothers' Discovery debuted some big news this week. The TV and film giant is putting itself up for sale. Warner said it's exploring a potential sale of all or some of its media holdings, setting into motion a deal process that could reshape the future of the entertainment industry. You may recall that the Wall Street Journal recently reported Warner has received and rebuffed multiple bids from rival Paramount Skydance. Remember, Paramount recently wrapped up a deal of its own, its merger with Skydance. Media dealmaking has been in the air as of late. Paramount also just bet$150 million on a deal to acquire the news and opinion site The Free Press and made co-founder Barry Weiss editor-in-chief of CBS News.
3:51So how did investors react to Warner's announcement? Well, its shares jumped 11 % on Tuesday, while Paramount's shares lost 2.8%. And throughout the week, Warner continued higher, ultimately gaining 16%, While Paramount evened things out, ending less than 1 % lower.
4:12Last but not least, let's go through some big earnings movers. First up, Netflix. On Tuesday, Netflix reported higher quarterly profit and sales driven by membership growth, price hikes, and increased advertising revenue. But its earnings missed expectations, which Netflix said was due to an expense connected to a Brazilian tax issue. We certainly don't need to go into the details, but the bottom line, the stock fell 10 % on Tuesday and lost 8.7 % on a weekly basis. We also had Tesla's report late Wednesday. The takeaway? A surge of electric car demand in the third quarter didn't give Tesla enough of a boost.
4:50Its net income fell 37%, even as American shoppers raced to buy EVs before a$7 ,500 tax credit expired last month. After an after-hour slump, Tesla actually closed up 2.3 % on Thursday, but the stock notched a weekly decline of 1.3%. 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 in the Wall Street Journal's Exchange section. Today's show was produced by Zoe Colkin with Deputy Editor Chris Sinsley. I'm Francesca Fontana. Have a great weekend and see you next Saturday.
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From the publisher
How did Amazon’s stock react to the big internet outage it was behind? And what did investors think of Warner Bros. putting itself up for sale? Plus, what were the notable movers among the myriad of earnings reports? Host Francesca Fontana discusses the biggest stock moves of the week and the news that drove them.
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