WSJ What’s News - What’s News in Markets: Markets Bounce Back, New Starbucks CEO, Trump’s Tweets

Episode Date: August 17, 2024

 Why did markets have their best week of the year? And how did investors react to new CEOs at Starbucks and Victoria’s Secret? Plus, how did Donald Trump’s tweets affect Trump Media & Technology? Host Francesca Fontana discusses the biggest stock moves of the week and the news that drove them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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to register in Canada. Hey, listeners. It's Saturday, August 17th. 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. Last week was a market freakout. This week was a total 180. Last week was all about recession fears and Fed worries and lots of turmoil. But this week we got a lot of reassuring data on the U.S. economy. Plus on Thursday two Federal Reserve officials signaled that they could support a September

interest rate cut. And just like that stocks were erasing those losses and bouncing back from that early August meltdown. All in all, each of the three major stock indexes had its best week of the year. The S&P 500 gained 3.9% this week, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.9%, and the Nasdaq Composite ended 5.3% higher. Two big companies switched up their CEOs this week, and in doing so, they served up some pretty big stock moves. First, Starbucks gave its shares a jolt, if you'll pardon the coffee pun, after it said

it's bringing on Brian Nicol, chief executive of Chipotle Mexican Grill, as its next leader. Nicol slated to take over as Starbucks' CEO and executive chairman of its board on September 9. Investors welcomed the change, and the stock ended up gaining a whopping 25% on Tuesday, holding onto the lion's share of those gains the rest of the week. Then on Wednesday, it was Victoria's Secret, which is poaching its new CEO from Rihanna — or rather, the pop star and billionaire mogul's lingerie brand, Savage X Fenty. Hilary Super was CEO of Anthropologie before she took the helm at Savage X Fenty, where

she spearheaded its rebranding efforts. Now, Victoria's Secret has been doing some rebranding itself in recent years. It's been working to win back customers in North America with more inclusive sizing and diverse models. And it certainly won back some investors on Wednesday, when Victoria's secret shares soared 16%. They jumped nearly 10% on Thursday and pulled back about 1% Friday, ending the week up almost 22%.

INTRO Let's talk DJT. Yes, the initials for the former president Donald Trump himself, and the ticker for his company, Trump Media and Technology. On Monday, Trump did something we haven't seen him do in ages. He tweeted. Sorry. He made a post on X. Trump also appeared in a live stream discussion on X with its owner, Tesla's CEO Elon Musk, later that day. We all remember Trump's penchant for the platform formerly known as Twitter, but now that platform is also a rival to Truth Social, owned by Trump Media. And so his return to mainstream social media platforms like X have many analysts questioning

Truth Social's business prospects. Plus, Trump Media's stock has been pretty volatile and may only become more so as we get closer to the 2024 presidential election. So how'd Trump Media investors respond? Well, shares ended down about 5% Monday and lost 3.6% Tuesday. On a weekly basis, the stock lost 12%. And last but not least, Cisco Systems. That's a bit of a tongue twister, isn't it?

Cisco Systems. Anyway, that's the networking company that makes hardware, software, telecom equipment, etc. I personally know it as the maker of my desk phone at my very first job. After markets closed on Wednesday, Cisco announced the layoffs. The company said it plans to cut its workforce by 7%. That comes out to about 6,000 people. Why the cuts?

Cisco says it needs to lower costs and invest in growth areas like artificial intelligence, the cloud, and cybersecurity. That wasn't the only news that Cisco had, because it also had its quarterly earnings report. A pretty darn good one. For its fiscal fourth quarter results, the company beat expectations for revenue and adjusted earnings as it saw steady customer demand. Investors took it all in and the next day, Thursday, Cisco shares jumped nearly 7%, ending the week up 8.8%.

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. I'm Francesca Fontana, have a great weekend, and see you next Saturday.