📈 Apple kills car

Apple cancels decadelong work on electric car, BlackRock ETF hits ‘insane’ volume as Bitcoin passes $57K, Wendy’s plans Uber-style ‘surge pricing’ to fluctuate based on demand, Macy’s to close 150 stores, and American’s spend largest share of income on food in 3 decades…

Author

Smart Owl
February 28, 2024

Good morning.

The Fast Five → BlackRock ETF hits ‘insane’ volume as Bitcoin passes $57K, Apple cancels decadelong work on electric car, Wendy’s plans Uber-style ‘surge pricing’ to fluctuate based on demand, Macy’s to close 150 stores, and American’s spend the largest share of income on food in 3 decades…

Calendar:

  • Today, 2/28: GDP, 8:30a ET

  • Thu, 2/29: Consumer sentiment (final), 10:00a ET

Your 5-minute briefing for Wednesday, February 28:

BEFORE THE OPEN

As of market close 2/27/2024.

PRE-MARKET

MARKETS

  • US stocks gained modestly yesterday as investors prepared for key inflation data later this week

  • Treasuries were mixed after a $42B auction of seven-year notes and a heavy slate of new corporate debt

  • Bitcoin rallied past $57k as big buyers flocked in

  • Crypto market cap is now back to $2T

EARNINGS

  • Macy’s beat Wall Street EPS and revenue estimates but reported another quarter of falling sales and announced plans to close 150 stores by 2026 (link)

  • Lowe’s beat Wall Street estimates but saw falling sales and forecast the decline to continue further this year (link)

  • AutoZone shares hit a record high after beating on profit estimates and outlining prospects for reversing slowing sales growth (link)

  • What we're watching this week:

    • Today: Salesforce, AMC

    • Thursday: Birkenstock, Best Buy, Dell

  • Full calendar here

NEWS BRIEFING

BlackRock’s Bitcoin spot ETF surpassed $1 billion in daily trading volume on Monday. This places BlackRock’s ETF among the top 11 ETFs in terms of volume.

Apple (AAPL.O) will wind down its team working on electric cars, called Special Projects Group, according to Bloomberg.

  • BOE may sell whole QE portfolio in divergence from US Fed (link)

  • Big investors grow nervous about private credit boom (link)

  • McKinsey-led think-tank advised China on policy that fed US tensions (link)

  • US Republicans call for McKinsey to be banned from federal contracts (link)

  • Macy's will close 150 stores but expand Bloomingdale's and Bluemercury (link)

  • Investors poured $4T into US ETFs over past decade, with mutual funds seeing outflows (link)

  • Americans are spending the biggest share of their income on food in 3 decades (link)

  • Apollo co-founder Leon Black sold stock worth $173M (link)

  • Starbucks agreed to begin bargaining talks with unions (link)

  • US launched an antitrust investigation into UnitedHealth (link)

  • The SEC accused Alfi's ex-CEO of using burner accounts to boost its meme stock (link)

  • Wells Fargo named M&A veteran Braunstein as vice chair in IB push (link)

  • Carlyle hired Goldman's ex-head of commodities research Jeff Currie (link)

  • Wendy's planning Uber-style 'surge pricing' where burger prices fluctuate based on demand (link)

CRYPTO

  • The SEC is expected to drag its feet on new wave of crypto ETFs (link)

  • The IRS hired an ex-Binance executive to beef up its crypto expertise (link)

  • Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy purchased another 3,000 Bitcoin for $155M this month (link)

You Can Sponsor this Newsletter details here.​

BULLISH BITES

🔥 Behind the curtain: Kara Swisher’s new memoir, ‘Burn Book,’ roasts tech industry.

🥇 Best of: Consumer Reports Top 10 car picks of 2024.

🔐 Replaced? Companies flock to passwordless tech.

🎵 On key: The Boston Typewriter Orchestra goes electric.

DAILY SHARES

Keep the curation going! Buy the team a coffee ☕️