6 Most Important Things in Business Now
June 16, 2017 by Douglas A. McIntyreShares of once hot Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP), operator of Snapchat, fell back to $17, its IPO price. Anxiety about user growth and engagement have hurt the company’s ability to bring in advertising and marketing revenue. Snapchat also has several growing competitors, led by Facebook Inc.’s (NASDAQ: FB) Instagram.
Sales at Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) fell well short of expectations and its shares dropped over 14%. There is a deep concern among shareholders that the growth of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) grocery business will make Kroger’s store system difficult to support.
Office messaging software app company Slack may raise as much as $500 million at a $5 billion valuation.
After a tremendous run up, Bitcoin valuations have collapsed. According to Bloomberg:
Bitcoin sank as much as 19 percent, putting the digital currency on pace for its worst week since January 2015, as volatility climbs following a record-setting surge in the price.
After flirting with $3,000 on Monday, the cryptocurrency has retreated to as low as $2,076.16 in intraday trading. Other digital coins are also falling. The decline coincides with a slide in technology stocks that began after a report from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. warned that low volatility in the biggest tech stocks may be blinding investors to risks like cyclicality and regulation.
And those big tech stocks continue to sell off. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Facebook and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) have lost over $100 billion in combined market cap in less than two weeks.
The endless restructuring of Greek debt hit a roadblock as the International Monetary Fund, which usually participates in new loans and refinancing. said it would hesitate to take on more Greek sovereign paper. Managing Director Christine Lagarde told CNBC:
For us to engage and for us to participate financially, more needs to be clarified, defined and approved in terms of restructuring. What we believe will be needed is a deferral of interests, an extension of maturity, and a mechanism by which there is an adjustment based on growth … this is where further discussion and negotiation is needed.
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