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Social Media Stocks Plunge, Snapchat Collapses
Shares of social media stocks, including Meta & Twitter plunged, the Snapchat stock collapsed by more than 40% on Tuesday’s trading session. The Snapchat parent of the popular social media platform has warned that it expects to miss profit & revenue estimates due to macroeconomic deterioration.
As a result, the company's market capitalization has plummeted to $20.92 billion, almost three-fold away from its highest levels of the year; nearly $82 billion in early February. The Snapchat stock (NYSE: SNAP) fell sharply from $22.49 to $12.79 on Tuesday, down from its debut price of $17 in 2017.
MACROECONOMIC DATA ANALYSIS
New Zealand's central bank raised interest rates for the fifth time in a row, gesturing a significantly tighter path as officials aim to mitigate the second-round impacts of runaway inflation. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) hiked the official cash rate to 2.0% on Wednesday, the highest level since November of 2016. Importantly, a hawkish RBNZ now expects the cash rate to jump to 4% percent next year and remain at that level until 2024.
Central bank policy tightening, recession fears & the economic impact of the Ukraine crisis are all expected to cap any meaningful increase in European markets for the rest of the year, a Reuters poll found. The pan-European STOXX 600 index is expected to hit 450 points by the end of 2022, according to a poll of 21 fund managers, strategists & analysts conducted over the past two weeks.
CURRENCIES
The U.S. dollar was higher on Wednesday morning as investors & traders eagerly await minutes from the latest U.S. Federal Reserve meeting. The New Zealand dollar rebounded from a one-month low as the country's central bank took a hawkish stance, while the U.S. dollar rallied off a one-month low amid stabilization in Treasury yields. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the value of the greenback against a basket of other currencies, rallied 0.14% to 102.005.
GOLD
Gold prices declined slightly on Wednesday, retreating from two-week highs achieved in the previous day’s session, as the dollar greenback regained some momentum, but worries regarding the path of inflation boosted the outlook for the safe haven. The bullion edged 0.45% lower to price at $1,857 per ounce.
OIL
Oil prices rose more than a dollar on Wednesday, driven by tight crude supplies and the prospect of escalating demand from the start of the summer driving season in the United States, the world's largest crude consumer. The International Energy Agency (IEA) cautioned this week that unless Chinese demand remains modest in the months ahead, prices would continue to rise. Brent futures jump 0.90% to $111.69 a barrel, and WTI oil futures bounce by 0.97% to $110.81 per barrel.
INDICES
USA: S&P500 -0.81%, Dow Jones Industrial Average +0.15%, Nasdaq Composite -2.20%
Europe: FTSE 100 -0.39%, DAX -1.80%, CAC 40 -1.66%
Asia: Nikkei 225 -0.26%, Hang Seng +0.55%, CSI 300 -0.42%, Nifty 50 -0.17%
Newest
Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, has provided the closest thing to a confirmation that the company is developing a headset.
In a recent interview with China Daily USA, Cook was questioned about what, in his opinion, are the essential elements for augmented reality, or AR, to be successful in the consumer market.
“I am incredibly excited about AR as you might know. And the critical thing to any technology, including AR, is putting humanity at the center of it,” he said, echoing comments he’s made in the past about how important AR is to the company.
Meta, Microsoft, and other tech titans racing to build the emerging metaverse concept have formed a group to encourage the development of industry standards that will make the companies' nascent digital worlds compatible with one another.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), as well as other well-known standards-setting organizations, are among the participants in the Metaverse Standards Forum, according to a statement released by the group on Tuesday announcing its formation.
