News & Insight • Weekly Newsletters

05 August 2022 | William Buckhurst

That Was The Week That Was

MACRO

• The Bank of England raised rates by 0.5%, its single largest increase since 1995, while outlining an incredibly gloomy economic forecast
• US House Secretary, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan triggering a number of military operations by China around the island

COMPANY NEWS

• Novo Nordisk overall revenues were in line with consensus but slower sales from its obesity drug Wegovy sparked a sell-off in the share price
• Zimmer Biomet revenues were ahead of analysts’ expectations with both knee and hip operations recovering
• Paypal showed net revenues growing 10% and free cash flow up 22%
• Toyota shares fell as it posted a large drop in quarterly earnings with a 42% year-on-year decline in operating profit

SMALL CAP NEWS

Purplebricks, the UK’s biggest online estate agent, revealed in delayed results that it had swung to a loss and was unlikely to be profitable again until 2024. New CEO, Helena Marston, said that financial performance had been hit by a new operating model whereby agents have been brought in house and are no longer self-employed. The shares have lost around 80% of their value over the last year

THIS WEEK IN HISTORY

1995: Westinghouse agrees to buy CBS for $5.4bn, five years later it is sold to Viacom for $35.6bn

2018: Apple becomes the first company with a $1trillion market cap (up around 40,000% from its IPO in 1980)

IN OTHER NEWS

The return of the meme stocks? Hong Kong based but US listed AMTD Digital has risen more than 14,000% since it’s IPO, and this week briefly overtook Alibaba’s New York stock market valuation.  AMTD’s ticker HKD was one of the most mentioned on Reddit’s WallStreetBets chatroom over the last few days. Meanwhile Michael Burry of Big Short fame tweeted that “the silliness is back”…

MARKET DATA

 As at 5^th August 2022. Source: Financial Express

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