abby Jones/Bloomberg
Affirm late Tuesday priced an offering of 24.6 million Class A shares at $49 each, above the recently increased target range of $41 to $44 a share. The original range was $33 to $38.
The IPO price values the consumer lender above $15 billion, once accounting for all outstanding shares and stock options.
The offering is led by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Allen & Co. Affirm will trade on Nasdaq under the symbol AFRM. Shares are set to begin trading Wednesday.
Affirm had revenue for the June 2020 fiscal year of $509.5 million, up 93% from a year ago, while losing $112.6 million. For the September quarter, revenue was $174 million, up about 98% from the comparable year-earlier period, with a loss of $15.3 million.
Updated Jan. 13, 2021 4:47 pm ET
U.S. stocks wobbled Wednesday, swinging between small gains and losses for most of the session, as investors monitored the impeachment proceedings against President Trump in Washington.
House lawmakers voted shortly after the stock market closed to impeach the president for inciting last week’s Capitol riot, just days before he is due to leave office. While the political rancor has weighed on market sentiment in recent days, most money managers are looking past the developments in Washington to focus on the prospects for additional fiscal stimulus.
“The market is largely focusing on the fundamentals around a Biden administration,” said Willem Sels, global chief investment officer at HSBC Private Banking.
The consumer price index rose 0.4% in December on a seasonally adjusted basis but core prices, which exclude the volatile food and energy categories, were up only 0.1%.
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Vaccine news is less likely to affect broad stock-market moves this year. Vladimir Zivojinovic/AFP via Getty Images
Major macro events are a less important driver of the stock market than they were last year. That means investors should become more discerning in their stock picks.
In early December,
Barron’s reported that the macro contribution, or the amount of the
S&P 500’s movement explained by macro forces, had declined to 60%, according to Evercore ISI. While it has since ticked up to 66%, it remains well below its early-2020 peak of more than 80%. That 80% level was notable because it was last seen in 2010, when markets were relying on Federal Reserve stimulus to recover from the financial crisis.
British stocks have enjoyed a world-beating rally since the start of December, with international investors beginning to buy back into one of their least-loved countries.
CME. Alternatively, they could try purchasing the
Invesco DB Oil exchange-traded fund (ticker: DBO), which holds a basket of crude oil futures. The fund has gained 7.5% this year through Jan. 11. It lost 21% in 2020, according to
This year crude has already rallied about 9%, due in part to an unexpectedly bullish move by OPEC+ (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus Russia) earlier this month.
The world’s second-largest producer, Saudi Arabia, surprised the world by announcing it would cut production in February and March by one million barrels a day (bpd). That move more than offset a combined 75,000 bpd increase for the same period by Russia and Kazakhstan.
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Intel has dismissed CEO Bob Swan, naming current VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger—the onetime chief technology officer of Intel—to take his place. The move is effective on Feb. 15.
Investors cheered the news Wednesday morning, sending shares of Intel (ticker: INTC) up 8.5%, to $57.74.
Swan had been CEO since January 2019, after serving in an interim...
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Intel Is Replacing CEO Bob Swan. Investors Are Cheering the Move.
Intel has dismissed CEO Bob Swan, naming current VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger—the onetime chief technology officer of Intel—to take his place.
From
Updated Jan. 13, 2021 9:35 am ET
Europeâs antitrust watchdog on Wednesday approved London Stock Exchange Group PLCâs $15 billion deal to acquire Refinitiv Holdings Ltd. with conditions, removing a key hurdle in the companyâs bid to challenge Bloomberg LP, S&P Global Inc. and other industry heavyweights offering financial data.
The decision by the European Commission ends a monthslong probe into the risks of the deal. The probe centered on concerns the deal could give the LSE undue market power over trading and clearing government bonds, interest rate derivatives, and the sale of financial data such as stock- and bond-price quotes.
Nasdaq Composite gained 0.3%. The small-cap
Under the surface, the S&P 500 energy sector closed up 3.6%, financials gained 1.1%, and consumer discretionary stocks added 1.5%. Defensive utilities and health care fell 0.6% and 1.1%, respectively, while technology stocks lost 0.5%. That dynamic has more or less prevailed since the fall.
Fourth-quarter earnings season begins later this week, with several large banks kicking things off as usual. Wall Street expects S&P 500 earnings to be 12% lower in the final three months of 2020 versus the same period in 2019, according to data from Bloomberg. Sales are expected to decline 6%.
The scrutiny will be much higher for defensive and relatively pandemic-proof sectors like consumer staples or technology. Those companies’ fundamentals have held up or improved during the pandemic, and investors will want to see that continuing in the fourth quarter. For the cyclical and economically sensitive companies that have led the market since the fall, some signs of progress or optimistic management commentary about the post-pandemic future should suffice.