The Rundown - Amazon's iRobot Acquisition Unlikely, Spirit Airlines Raises Q4 Forecast

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

Stock market update for January 19, 2024. Spirit Airlines Raises Outlook (WSJ) YouTube and Spotify Won’t Launch Apple Vision Pro Apps, Joining Netflix (Bloomberg) Wayfair shares surge after home goods retailer announces 1,650 job cuts, 13% of workforce (CNBC) iRobot Stock Plunges as Its Takeover by Amazon Likely Is Dead (Barrons) The content of the podcast is for general and informational purposes only. All views presented in this show reflect the opinions of the guest and the host. You should not take a mention of any asset, be it cryptocurrency or a publicly traded security as a recommendation to buy, sell or hold that cryptocurrency or security. Guests and hosts are not affiliated with or endorsed by Public Holdings or its subsidiaries. You should make your own financial and investment decisions or consult respective professionals. Full disclosures are in the channel description. Learn more at Public.com/disclosures. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. There is a possibility of loss with any investment. Historical or hypothetical performance results, if mentioned, are presented for illustrative purposes only. Do not infer or assume that any securities, sectors or markets described in the videos were or will be profitable. Any statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements are strictly based on the current views, opinion, or assumptions of the person presenting them, and should not be taken as an indicator of performance nor should be relied upon as an investment advice.

Welcome to the rundown, your daily market update in under five minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Friday, January 19th. In today's show, we're going to be discussing the rally in tech stocks and the S&P 500 potentially make an all-time highs today. We also talk about Apple's new Vision Pro, which goes on pre-sale today, and we also have an update on the Spirit Airlines JetBlue Block merger. Then we wrap the show with some winners and losers in the market today, and a fun fact about housing.

Spoiler alert, there are not a lot of houses for sale right now. All right, let's get started. Let's start with a quick recap of stocks on Thursday because after a couple tough days, stocks bounced back big time on Thursday. The Dow, S&P, and NASDAQ, all finished higher. The NASDAQ was up more than 1% because the rally in stocks has largely been driven by big tech companies. I'm talking companies like Apple, Nvidia, Google, meta, all are seeing solid gains this week. You know, every time I think that maybe the AI hype might be fading a bit, we get another rally like this and the hype is fully back on. And the hype isn't stopping today.

Stocks are looking to finish off the week on a high note. All three indices are in the green today at the time of this recording around noon, eastern, and the S&P 500 just crossed 4,800. And if it stays above that number today, it'll close at all-time highs. Woo! First time in two years. Okay, let's run through some headlines. I know we've been talking a lot about Apple on this show over the past few days,

but we have to talk about them again today. Because today, the Apple Vision Pro VR headset is going on pre-sale. This is Apple's first new product since like the AirPause that launched back in 2016. And what's interesting is that some of the top apps won't be available on the Vision Pro. Companies like Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify won't have a dedicated app for the Vision Pro, which I thought was kind of surprising. Typically, with any Apple product, developers are lining up to have apps on there. But that doesn't seem to be the case for the Vision Pro. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Apple hasn't really been the best partner when it comes to being on the app store.

especially regarding their app store fees. Maybe Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify, we're like, you know, we're just going to sit this one out. Now, not all companies are sitting out the Vision Pro. Disney Plus, Max, Peacock, and ESPN will all have apps on day one. As a tech nerd, I'm still excited for the launch. I'll be watching countless hours of detailed reviews on YouTube. And I might even stop buying an Apple store on February 2nd when this thing finally drops.

But man, $3,500. Just a little too steep. Let's switch gears and talk about some airline drama because we have an update regarding the Spirit Airlines Jet Blue blocked merger saga. Earlier in the week, a federal judge blocked the JetBlue Spirit merger, saying that it was anti-competitive and bad for consumers. Remember, JetBlue agreed to buy Spirit Airlines for $3.8 billion back in early 2022. And if JetBlue is being honest, they're probably somewhat relieved that this deal is no longer happening. Because Spirit Airlines business has not

been doing so hot over the last 18 months. It's likely that Spirit Airlines was worth nowhere close to $3.8 billion. Since this deal was blocked, Spirit Airlines stock has dropped more than $16,000, Right now, the market is valuing Spirit Airlines business at less than a billion dollars because their business is facing an uphill battle. Spirit has more than $1.1 billion in debt due in 2025. And some analysts are thinking that it's so bad that Spirit might have to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Well, Spirit decided to come out on Friday morning trying to give some confidence to investors. The airline said that it plans to refinance the $1.1 billion in debt that it has due coming next year. and it also said that its Q4 revenues is expected to be higher than it previously projected due to a strong holiday season.

There was enough to get investors some confidence because Spirit Airline stock is up more than 20% at the time of this recording around noon Eastern, making it one of the top movers for today, which is actually a good transition to talk about more stock about more than big winner today. The stock of the online furniture maker is up more than 8% at the time of this recording around noon Eastern after announcing a restructuring of their business. The restructuring is going to result in cutting 13% of the workforce. As for losers, iRobot is having a tough day. And in fact, a tough year. IROB is a maker of the Rumba Robot vacuums. And their stock is down more than 25% today at the time of this recording around noon Eastern after the EU blocked Amazon's acquisition of the company.

Amazon agreed to buy IROB got IROB back in August of 2022 for $1.7 billion. And similar to the Spirit airline story, Irobot's business has struggled since that acquisition was announced. The revenues for the first nine months of 2023 were down 29%. So just like with JetBlue, I'm sure Amazon is okay with walking away from this deal. All right, let's wrap up the show with a fun fact of the day where I share some stats that I thought were kind of interesting. Today's fun fact, sales of previously owned homes in 2023 drops to the lowest level in 28 years. Only 4.1 million existing homes were sold in 2023, which is 20% less in the 5 million homes that were sold in 20,000. Now look, this isn't really that surprising. And that's one of the reasons why prices of homes have

continued to gone up. It has to do with the lack of supply. Truthfully, the whole housing market just continues to be a mess. All right, guys, that's all I got for you guys today. Another fun week. Thank you guys so much for listening. Have a great weekend and I'll see you guys back here on Monday. This is Public Live, your real-time resource for news events and trends in the markets. All views presented in this show reflect the opinions of the guests. You should not take any mention of a publicly traded security as recommendation to buy, sell or hold that security. Public live hosts are not financial advisors and are not affiliated with public holdings or its subsidiaries.

You should make your own financial and investment decisions or consult. Respective professionals. Learn more at public.com slash disclosures. In paid partnership with Zaid Admani, brokerage services for U.S. listed, registered securities are offered by Open to the Public Investing Incorporated, member FINRA and SIPC.