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Thursday's Scoop: Bounce☀️
Kroger Discrimination & Wells Fargo's First Union
Scoops Team
December 21, 2023
No Scoops Next Week!❄️🎊
Hey friend - we are taking a break from scoops next week for the holidays. We’ll return with your regularly scheduled scoops when markets reopen on January 2nd. Look out for the Weekly Scoop tomorrow.
Thanks for supporting us this year. We’ve had many amazing milestones - from our community fundraise to our premium launch. We’re excited to show you the Scoops app next year. You’re going to love it!
Here’s what you need to know today…
Big Picture
Office buildings are in trouble.
Manufacturing is still struggling.
Layoffs are still pretty low.
The Market: ⬆️+1.0%
S&P 500: 4,746.75
1Mo: +4% | 1Yr: +24% | 5Yr: +91%
The market jumped today after yesterday's slump. There wasn't any significant news driver. The next big data points will come in the new year. Markets are more volatile around the holidays, with fewer traders.
Remote work may be about to kill commercial real estate. Office building vacancies are still at record highs, and return-to-office rates have slowed, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. Most building owners purchase their properties with debt, and while many secured extensions over the past year, owners face loan renewals at nearly double their existing borrowing costs. This could spark building sales at steep discounts. High-profile office buildings have already been handed over to lenders.
Layoffs are still low. The Labor Department reported initial jobless claims rose slightly last week to 205,000, in line with a healthy economy. The number of people receiving unemployment benefits for consecutive weeks fell after trending higher. Unemployment is still near record lows.
The US manufacturing industry is still in a recession. With people spending less on stuff, factory activity has slowed. S&P Global, ISM, and the Federal Reserve reported declining business output in December. The manufacturing sector accounts for 10% of the economy but has been in a slump for months.
How are you feeling about the economy? |
Company Scoops 🗣️🌎💰
💡Join the board at America’s biggest companies. Vote and judge their decisions.
 Kroger | Hiring Discrimination California is suing the nation's largest grocery chain for screening out hundreds of job applicants based on their criminal records, violating the state's Fair Change Act. Kroger operates over 70 Ralph's stores across the state. |
 Wells Fargo | Union Breakthrough Wells Fargo employees at a New Mexico branch voted to form the first-ever union at a major US bank, aiming to negotiate for better staffing and compensation. It was only 8 employees of the bank's 200,000, but the union expects growth. |
 Nike | Lean Machine Nike's sales have slowed significantly, falling globally except in China, but the sportswear giant boosted profits by clearing inventories and quietly trimming staff. Nike plans to cut costs by $2B over 3 years with increased efficiency. |
 Carnival Cruise Lines | Sea Craze Carnival Cruise Lines still hasn't seen much of a slowdown in travel demand, reporting record bookings for its holiday sales and shrinking losses. The cruise giant has booked up most of next year at significantly higher ticket prices. |
 Coinbase | French Connection The largest US cryptocurrency platform just earned its license to operate in France, expanding its market reach while competitors struggle. Coinbase aims to open in Italy, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates next. |
(These links only work for 24 hours while the story is live.)
Inside Scoop 🤓
What do investors mean by overbought and oversold?
The stock market is all about competing opinions about the value of an abstract piece of a company (or many companies). Valuation is an opinion. An investment is an opinion about the future, believing that everyone else is undervaluing the potential of a particular company. No one knows what’s going to happen, and conflicting views are what make up the market. No matter what price you buy a stock at, someone is selling it to you at the price.
There are several neat terms Wall Street uses to share their opinions. To say that something is overbought implies that the speaker thinks the price is too high and that there are too many buyers. Oversold is the opposite. So when you hear people say the market is overbought, they expect it to fall. If the term oversold starts trending in a bear market, expect a rally.
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