Weekly Market Recap – April 25th

Netflix Inc. lost customers for the first time in a decade last quarter, and the streaming service is forecasting even more in the current three-month period. Netflix projected it will shrink by another 2 million customers in the second quarter, a huge setback for a company that regularly grew by 25 million subscribers or more a year.

Bill Ackman -a well recognized hedge fund manager- was one of the Stock’s earnings release casualties, as the stock tumbled more than 30% during trading with losses for Ackman reaching USD 400 MM.

Investors are preparing for a flurry of earnings releases from Asian corporates this week as they assess the impact of inflation and lockdowns in China. More than 800 members of the MSCI Asia Pacific Index are set to announce results, according to Bloomberg-compiled data, the most this season. That includes Kweichow Moutai Co., China’s most valuable company, and South Korean chipmaking giant Samsung Electronics Co.

Higher mortgage rates are compounding affordability challenges for home shoppers, who are already dealing with record price gains and inventory issues. The typical U.S. home is worth $337,560, up 20.6% from a year ago. Combined with surging mortgage rates, the cost to service the debt on a typical U.S. home has increased by 19.5% in just three months, and is up 38% from a year ago, according to data compiled by Zillow.

Business openings surged past 150,000 last quarter in the U.S., according to Yelp Inc. data, signaling that the burst in entrepreneurship that started during the pandemic is getting even stronger. Hotels and travel, nightlife, and beauty salons saw the biggest gains in openings last quarter. The number of new restaurants and food businesses dropped slightly from a year earlier — but they’re still 5% above pre-Covid level, according to Yelp.