Episode 95: Fed Powell Tapering Bond Purchases
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell gave his long-anticipated speech at the central bank’s annual symposium Friday, preparing the markets for it to pull back on some of its monetary stimulus. He said the Fed is likely to start tapering its $120 billion in monthly bond purchases this year. Powell’s speech seemed to lift stocks Friday, but it isn’t clear how markets will react when the tapering begins.
Slack was added to Salesforce and it’s blowing up the channel. Software giant Salesforce raised its yearly earnings forecast on unexpectedly strong sales, and the stock popped 4% yesterday. Contributing to Salesforce's strong quarter was Slack, which has 10M+ daily users, for a whopping $27.7B last quarter. Slack is expected to generate just 4% of Salesforce’s revenue this year — but its sales last quarter grew faster than all of Salesforce’s major divisions.
Forbes, a long-standing media publication, announced Thursday it plans to go public via a merger with a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company. The company, merging with Magnum Opus Acquisition, is expected to be valued at an implied pro forma enterprise value of $630 million. The deal is expected to close late in the fourth quarter of this year or early in next year’s first quarter.
Amazon is getting into the buy now, pay later space. The e-commerce giant is partnering with Affirm for its first-ever installment payments option on the popular e-commerce site. Affirm’s buy now, pay later checkout option will be available to certain Amazon customers in the U.S. starting Friday with a broader rollout in the coming months, the companies said in a statement. The partnership will let Amazon customers split purchases of $50 or more into smaller, monthly installments.
Friday Market Close
Dow 30 35,455.80 +242.68 (+0.69%)
S&P 500 4,509.37 +39.37 (+0.88%)
Nasdaq 15,129.50 +183.69 (+1.23%)
Filed IPO/SPACs
Toast, a Boston-based restaurant management platform, filed for an IPO. It plans to list on the NYSE (TOST) and reports a $235 million net loss on $704 million of revenue for the first half of 2021. The company raised around $900 million in VC funding, most recently at a $2.7 billion valuation, from firms like Tiger Global (12.8% pre-IPO stake), Bessemer Venture Partners (12.5%), T. Rowe Price (6%) and TCV (5.5%). http://axios.link/m1Qs
LATAM
Nuvemshop, a Brazilian e-commerce platform, announced a $500M Series E funding round, bringing the company’s valuation to over $3B. Insight Partners and Tiger Global Management led the round, with participation from Sunley House Capital, VMG Partners, and various existing investors.