Markets Defused aims to give an easy-to-understand and straightforward recap of the day’s most engaging stock market news.
- Peloton under pressure as it hits refi button
- Ethereum rising ahead of SEC call on ETH ETFs
- Pepsi to buy a fleet of Tesla EVs in California
- XP Power is London’s latest takeover target
- AstraZeneca targets $80bn revenues by 2030
- Nvidia earnings sleuths eye big boost on Wednesday
Peloton under pressure as it hits refi button
Peloton Interactive Inc (NASDAQ:PTON) shares tumbled around 13% lower in Tuesday’s trading, after the exercise technology firm announced a refinancing.
It is selling $275 million of convertible loan notes, due in 2029, in a private deal and also secured a new $1 billion loan over 5 years, plus $100 million revolving credit facility.
Proceeds will repay $800 million of existing notes due in 2016, along with other debt repayment.
It comes after Peloton earlier this month announced a key management change, with chief executive Barry McCarthy exiting the business.
At the same time, it reported a plan to cut $200 million of costs, including job cuts, and reported a net loss of $167 million for its third quarter.
That was Peloton’s 13th consecutive quarterly loss.
More recently, Peloton shares were last week boosted by reports of “private equity interest”.
Today, in New York, Peloton shares were down some 14% changing hands at $3.36.
Crypto rising as traders ahead of SEC call on ETH ETFs
The price of Bitcoin was again on the front-foot on Tuesday, rising nearly 2% in the past 24 hours, whilst Ethereum was stronger.
ETH advanced nearly 20% in the past day, to bring the past seven day’s trade moving the price up 30%.
It comes as crypto markets await a hotly anticipated decision from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the next high profile applications for spot-price exchange traded funds (ETFs).
The applications are for (phonetically-jarring) ETH ETFs being proposed by managers VanEck and Ark Invest, which expect the regulator to rule on Thursday and Friday.
If approved, like Bitcoin ETFs, the greenlight for ETH ETFs could spur a significant increase in institutional demand for the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency.
Evidently, the rising price of ETH suggests there’s optimism amongst speculative traders.
At 69,608, Bitcoin the price was up 1.7% and was up 13.46% over the past seven days.
Eth was meanwhile priced at $3,732, up 18.7% for the past day and was up 29% higher for the past seven days.
Elsewhere, Solana was slightly lower at $176.99 and similarly Dogecoin was up slightly at 16.83 cents.
Pepsi to buy a fleet of Tesla EVs in California
PepsiCo Inc (NASDAQ:PEP, ETR:PEP) has said it is planning to ‘more than triple’ the number of electric vehicles (EVs) across its fleet in California.
The corporation behind the Pepsi, Doritos, and Walkers brands (among many others) plans to roll-out the EVs in just a few months.
It is going to buy 50 of Tesla's semi class 8 trucks and 75 new electric Ford transit vans, and, will also install an array of charging facilities to power the fleet.
The move comes after American state sought to promote the proliferation of EVs, by this year introducing in new legislation that mandates that new commercial vehicles using California’s ports must be ‘zero emission’.
"Our fleet electrification is an important part of our pep+ (PepsiCo Positive) strategy and illustrates how sustainability is a core business strategy at PepsiCo— good for the planet, good for our business, and good for the communities we serve," said John Dean, PepsiCo Beverages president for the ‘West’ division.
The new EV fleet will be used to distribute Pepsi, STARRY, Gatorade, Rockstar, Aquafina branded products among others, the company noted.
XP Power is London’s latest takeover target
London-listed XP Power Ltd (LSE:XPP) saw its stock close Tuesday’s session up 47%, at 1,720p, after it rejected a premium-priced takeover offer, describing it as ‘opportunistic’.
Advanced Energy Industries (Nasdaq: AEIS), in a public statement in the UK, announced it had so far made three offers – with the most recent pitched at £19.50 per share, valuing the company at £468 million.
The AEIS offer ‘fundamentally undervalues the company and its prospects’, XP said.
AEIS, meanwhile, said each of its three offers were priced at a significant premium to XP’s share price at the time, but there had been a lack of engagement from the XP board.
The American firm added that its latest offer “represents a compelling and highly attractive opportunity”.
It meanwhile threatened that the company would “remain disciplined” when considering any potential acquisition.
“Advanced Energy believes that the Latest Proposal provides a unique opportunity for XP Power's shareholders to realize, on completion of the possible offer, the value of their shareholdings in cash at a highly attractive valuation.
“This valuation may not be achieved should XP Power remain as a standalone company,” it added.
AstraZeneca targets $80bn revenues by 2030
Britain’s second-largest company AstraZeneca PLC (LSE:AZN) told investors it is aiming to increase revenue by three-quarters to $80 billion a year by the end of this decade.
It plans to do so by expanding its range of products across key medicinal portfolios including oncology, biopharmaceuticals, and rare disease.
The projection came as chief executive Pascal Soriot hosted AstraZeneca’s ‘investor day’ event
"The breadth of our portfolio together with continued investment in innovation supports sustained growth well past the end of the decade," Soriot said in a statement.
AstraZeneca intends to launch up to 20 new drugs, and, City analysts noted that the latest investor coms would be in-line with the company’s signaling that its growth would ramp-up in from 2025 onwards, though they await more detail from the drug-maker before updating the broker’s forecasting.
In London, AstraZeneca shares gained 2.2% on Tuesday, closing the session at 12,364p.
Nvidia earnings sleuths eye big boost on Wednesday
A day out from NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA, ETR:NVD) hotly anticipated quarterly earnings report sees stock market sleuths predicting the chipmaker’s market value can jump some $200 billion.
According to Trade Alert, a data analytics firm, options trading ahead of the results point to a potential 8.7% swing in Nvidia’s price come Wednesday.
Now, $200 billion of course sounds like a lot of money … but, actually that’s less than Nvidia’s price moved after its recent quarters, as the price has moved on average 12% for the past eight quarters.
It is all being driven by the soaring demand for its data centre products that enable AI computing, which Nvidia’s chips are uniquely suited to deliver.
Analysts at Barclays earlier this week, in a note, said: “All signs point to another revision higher.”
Barclays projects NVIDIA's data center segment revenue (which encompasses AI chip sales) to be around $23 billion in the first quarter, extending $24.5 billion in July, surpassing Street estimates of $21.1 billion and $22.8 billion, respectively.
The investment bank has an ‘overweight’ rating for Nvidia, with a $1,100 price target suggesting significant further upside from the current price of $950.