It’s the Five on Friday, where we bring you the biggest market stories of the week, including a new acquisition, Boeing, Facebook, Apple, and Tesla.
Jan. 10, 2020
The Quick Fix
#HabitBurger — Yum Brands, the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, announced on Monday that it was acquiring The Habit Burger Grill.
#Boeing737 — Boeing stock was hit again this week following the tragic news that one of its 737 models crashed on Wednesday morning.
#SameOldFacebook — Another year, another story about Facebook refusing to fact-check political ads or limit ad targeting.
#AnAppleADay — The world’s most valuable brand, Apple, just keeps growing as company stock hit all-time highs this week.
#AndFinally — The only thing that could overshadow Tesla stock hitting an all-time high this week is CEO Elon Musk strip-dancing on stage.
#HabitBurger
We’re barely a week into the new year and one of MyWallSt’s stocks — The Habit Burger Grill — has been purchased.
What does this mean?
It was announced on Monday that Yum Brands (NYSE: YUM) — the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut — had acquired The Habit Restaurants (NASDAQ: HABT) in a deal worth about $375 million. The California-based burger chain has previously topped USA Today’s 2019 reader survey of the best regional fast food and it is regularly ranked as one of America’s favorite restaurants and burgers. The popular burger joint has expanded rapidly in recent years, growing from 172 restaurants in 2017 to 278 locations worldwide in 2019, including landmark openings in China. The deal marks Yum Brands’ first acquisition of a chain that is not a traditional fast-food brand, which could set a precedent for the $30 billion company’s plans moving forward to expand.
Bet you didn’t know
Americans eat nearly 50 billion burgers a year, which translates to three burgers a week for every single person in the United States. That’s a lot of beef
#Boeing737
There has been yet another crash involving a Boeing (NYSE: BA) aircraft this week, and it wasn’t even one of the company’s grounded Max range.
What went wrong?
A shadow was cast over the market this week following the tragic deaths of 176 people on board a Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 plane that crashed in Iran on Wednesday. There has been much speculation surrounding the nature of the tragedy due to ongoing tensions between the Islamic country and the U.S. Despite an initial stock drop, Boeing later recovered its losses following statements from the U.S. and Canada claiming that an Iranian missile took down the plane, but this is yet to be confirmed. However, for Boeing, as the old adage goes, ‘when it rains, it pours.’ The company has another problem on its hands as hundreds of internal messages regarding the manufacture of its MAX range were released to the Federal Aviation Administration, with one message claiming the plane was “designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys”. In light of new evidence, the FAA will investigate further if Boeing’s management of MAX production led to a faulty plane and hundreds of deaths.
Bet you didn’t know
The proper name of what we know as the ‘black box’ is Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and it is generally orange in color.
#SameOldFacebook
Social media giant Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) will limit the number of political ads its users see coming into the new election year but has maintained that it will not fact-check them.
Why is Facebook doing this?
The company announced a slew of new updates aimed at boosting transparency around political ads coming into a U.S presidential election year. The news comes as Facebook faces intense political scrutiny and after Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) implemented an outright ban on political advertising, while Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) also limited the extent to which political groups can target users with paid posts. Starting this summer, Facebook will “add a new control that will allow people to see fewer political and social issue ads on Facebook and Instagram.” Facebook has insisted that it still won’t fact-check political ads, however, the very reason CEO Mark Zuckerberg was called to a congressional hearing last year. The company argues that this could interfere with free speech in politics, nor will it limit algorithmic targeting for such posts, meaning we will still be subject to targeted advertising on Facebook. So really, Facebook isn’t changing all that much, but they want us to think otherwise.
Bet you didn’t know
Back in October, it was reported that the Trump re-election campaign was spending upwards of $1 million per week on political ads.
#AnAppleADay…
…makes investors shout ‘hooray’, apparently. The world’s most valuable company saw its stock hit all-time highs this week following successful iPhone sales in China.
What does this mean?
What a year it has been for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL). Despite pessimistic reports of declining iPhone sales, talk of the stock being overvalued by the likes of Warren Buffett, a lackluster Apple TV+ launch, and of course, the trade war with China, the company still seems to be thriving. Apple stock reached an all-time high of $309.63 thanks to an iPhone sales spike in China. Apple shipped 3.2 million iPhones in China through December, up from 2.7 million units shipped in December 2018 — growth of 18%. Apple stock is up more than 100% year-on-year as of Thursday, January 9, experiencing its best year in the post-Steve Jobs era. It’s never smart to write off this market-leading ‘fruit’ company.
Bet you didn’t know
Apple actually invented the first digital color camera; the Apple QuickTake 100, which was released in 1994.
#AndFinally
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has been on a real hot-streak as of late with the successful opening of its Shanghai Gigafactory, plans for a European counterpart, and its stock hit an all-time high this week. However, none of this can excuse the atrocity which occurred at the company’s Chinese base on Tuesday — Elon Musk strip-danced across the stage. In what can only be described as a ‘car crash moment’ (where you want to look away but can’t), the eccentric Tesla CEO strutted across the stage with all the guile and grace of a giraffe on roller-skates. In his defense, I would be dancing too if my company had just become the most valuable U.S. car company in history, almost reaching the combined value of both General Motors and Ford.
What does this mean?
And what does Musk have to say about the striptease-style shimmy that managed to bring a little light to these otherwise dark times? “Just tryin’ to grow my follower count on Pornhub.” You’ve got to hand it to the man, whether it’s stripteasing or smashing bulletproof windows, the guy knows how to put on a show.
Bet you didn’t know
The Tesla Model 3 is the world’s best-selling all-electric vehicle model, delivering more than 92,000 in the last quarter of 2019 alone.
The Week In Numbers
367,500
cars were sold by Tesla in 2019, a record-breaking figure for the electric car company.
$1.4 billion
was spent on Apple’s App Store between Christmas and New Year.
$8 billion
is how much deliberate government-led internet shutdowns cost the global economy last year.
MyWallSt operates a full disclosure policy. MyWallSt staff currently holds long positions in companies mentioned above. Read our full disclosure policy here.