DAILY UPDATE: Meta Anti-Trust Trial and Drug Price Negotiations with Few UP and Many DOWN Stocks

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Meta’s antitrust trial resumes: The FTC is accusing CEO Mark Zuckerberg of purchasing Instagram and WhatsApp to gain an unfair monopoly in the social media space, while the defense is expected to argue that the success of those apps is a product of Meta’s acquisition. Testimony will continue this week, with one Vanderbilt law professor telling Quartz that she expects to hear more expert testimony: “Judges tend to put a lot of stock in expert opinion in antitrust cases, especially when it comes to market definition and monopoly power.”

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🟢 What’s up

  • Netflix rose 1.57% on a strong vote of confidence from Wall Street pros: After last week’s earnings blowout, the streaming service received price target upgrades from JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Evercore ISI, Morgan Stanley and Piper Sandler today.
  • Discover Financial Services climbed 3.53% after its merger with Capital One got the greenlight from regulators. Capital One rose 1.54%.
  • MicroAlgo exploded 74.93% after the tech holding company became the latest hot penny stock du jour.
  • Gold miners continue to mint big gains as the hot commodity broke yet another record. Barrick Gold gained 1.39%, while Anglogold Ashanti climbed 2.13%.

What’s down

  • Chipotle sank 3.48% after announcing plans to open its first restaurant in Mexico.
  • Hertz Global gave up some of last week’s big gains today, dropping 4.98% as investors took profits following Bill Ackman’s hint that the rental car company may team up with Uber.
  • Speaking of, Uber fell 3.08% after the FTC sued the ride-hailing company for “deceptive billing and cancellation practices.”
  • Amazon lost 3.11% thanks to a downgrade from Raymond James analysts. They believe the e-commerce titan’s retail and advertising businesses are too exposed to tariffs.
  • Salesforce stumbled 4.45% on a downgrade from DA Davidson analysts, who say the SAAS company is too focused on AI and not on its core business.
  • Deutsche Post AG, better known as DHL, announced it is suspending shipments worth over $800 as the international shipping company struggles with tariffs. Shares fell 1%.
  • Comerica lost 4.36% after the regional bank forecast lower loans and deposits in 2025.

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Now that the US government is negotiating drug prices directly with manufacturers, states want to get in on the action, too. These efforts vary by state, but generally involve creating a board to review drugs’ affordability and sometimes setting upper price limits (UPLs). While none have implemented UPLs as of April, as the idea gains momentum, there are questions about UPLs and boards’ legality, practicality, and whether they will actually lower costs for patients.

Visualize: How private equity tangled banks in a web of debt, from the Financial Times.

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DAILY UPDATE: Earnings Season, the FOMC, Threads and Boeing

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Wall Street is counting down the hours until Friday, which is when Q2 earnings season kicks off. Investors are hoping anyone besides Big Tech will post impressive results to keep the rally going. Although the stock market has set record after record this year, it’s mostly been the work of tech giants. As of Tuesday, about 40% of S&P 500 companies were in the red for 2024.

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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will give updates on the economy to Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday, where he’ll likely be asked about the prospect of interest rate cuts. Those plans could become clearer on Thursday, when the consumer price index inflation report drops.

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Meta’s Twitter clone, Threads, has 175 million monthly users one year after its launch, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.

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Boeing will plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge stemming from two fatal crashes of 737 Max planes and pay an additional $243.6 million fine, allowing it to avoid a criminal trial sought by victims’ families. More here.

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DAILY UPDATE: GDP Worries as Markets Stumble with Meta but other Technology Stocks are Good

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Essays, Opinions and Curated News in Health Economics, Investing, Business, Management and Financial Planning for Physician Entrepreneurs and their Savvy Advisors and Consultants

Serving Almost One Million Doctors, Financial Advisors and Medical Management Consultants Daily

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New GDP numbers out yesterday show a worrying combo of stubborn inflation + waning growth that dampens hopes for a potential interest rate cut. Per the latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the first quarter of 2024 was a confounding one:

  • GDP increased at a 1.6% annualized rate, far below projections of 2.4% and notably down from 3.4% at the end of 2023.
  • While slow growth would typically signal that the Fed could cut rates, another metric complicates matters: Consumer prices (excluding volatile categories), a solid indicator of inflation, shot up to a much higher than anticipated 3.7%.

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Meta reported record Q1 revenue yesterday, but it was overshadowed by the billions of dollars the company is spending in its efforts to win the Artificial Intelligence race and make the Metaverse happen. Investors were unhappy with the company’s forecast that its spending will rise by $10 billion dollars to support Artificial Intelligence development, sending Meta’s stock price down 15% after hours.

Here’s where the major benchmarks ended:

  • The S&P 500 index fell 23.21 points (0.5%) to 5,048.42; the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 375.12 points (1.0%) to 38,085.80; the NASDAQ Composite® ($COMP) shed 100.99 points (0.6%) to 15,611.76.
  • The 10-year Treasury note yield (TNX) rose about 5 basis points to 4.704%.
  • The CBOE Volatility Index® (VIX) fell 0.64 to 15.33.

Communication services shares were the weakest S&P 500 sector Thursday behind the plunge in Meta Platforms. Late Wednesday, the Facebook parent provided lighter-than-expected second-quarter revenue guidance, while CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed spending in currently unprofitable pursuits such as artificial intelligence (AI) and mixed reality. Meta’s first-quarter earnings and revenue both came above analysts ‘ estimates, however.

Meta’s slump helped send the S&P 500 Communication Services index ($SP500#50) down 4%. Banks were also particularly soft amid concern that persistently high interest rates may compress lender margins. Semiconductor and transportation shares were among the few pockets of strength.

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But, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Snap reported Q1 earnings yesterday, and were generally good. Alphabet issued its first-ever dividend and authorized $70 billion in stock buybacks, after it beat Wall Street’s revenue expectations. Microsoft also beat revenue forecasts on the strength of its cloud services. And Snap shares soared after it topped estimates and impressed investors with its 422 million global daily active users. It was a much-needed boost for the sector after Meta spooked the market with how much it’s spending on AI.

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MICROSOFT: The Artificial Intelligence Revolution

By Staff Reporters

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Microsoft is looking at a broader AI future than just OpenAI

Microsoft has been at the forefront of the AI revolution through its $13 billion stake in the ChatGPT-maker, but recently it showed it’s also making other Artificial Intelligence bets, announcing it will pursue several partnerships and is investing $2.1 billion in French startup Mistral AI. Mistral’s tech will be available to Microsoft Azure users.

And then Microsoft President Brad Smith told Axios that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is “brilliant”, but …… Read Axios Story.

Perhaps even to counter Mark Zuckerbergs META Platform.

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META: Stock Up!

By Staff Reporters

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2022 was a rough year for Meta. Inflation and high interest rates dinged the company, and Apple made changes to its operating system that made it harder for brands to target customers, and rival TikTok kept on growing. Meta’s stock price fell more than 60%.

But the company saw a dramatic turnaround of its fortunes in 2023. Its full-year net income rose 69% over 2022 to $39.1 billion. Its diluted earnings per share went from $8.59 to $14.87, a 73% YoY jump. Q4 2023 was especially good for Meta: Its net income more than tripled and its revenue rose 25%.

And for the first time, the company gave out cash dividends to investors. Technology analyst Ben Barringer described the move to CNBC as a “symbolic moment” that showed Meta viewed itself as a “mature, grown-up business.”

Meta’s success, though, required paring down. It reduced operating expenses in 2023 by laying off some 20,000 people, slashing its headcount by 22%. It spent $2.5 billion on “facilities consolidation,” or reducing its office footprint. The changes were part of a plan to make the company “leaner” so it would be better able to weather volatility over the next five to 10 years, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.

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SNAP: Employee Staff Layoffs

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According to Wikipedia, Snapchat is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before they become inaccessible to their recipients. The app has evolved from originally focusing on person-to-person photo sharing to presently featuring users’ “Stories” of 24 hours of chronological content, along with “Discover”, letting brands show ad-supported short-form content. It also allows users to store photos in a password-protected area called “my eyes only”. It has also reportedly incorporated limited use of end-to-end encryption, with plans to broaden its use in the future.

Snapchat was created by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown, former students at Stanford University. It is known for representing a mobile-first direction for social media, and places significant emphasis on users interacting with virtual stickers and augmented reality objects. In July 2021, Snapchat had 293 million daily active users, a 23% growth over a year. On average more than four billion Snaps are sent each day. Snapchat is popular among the younger generations, particularly those below the age of 16, leading to many privacy concerns for parents.

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So yesterday, Snap laid off 10% of its staff. The job cuts, which amount to roughly 540 people, are Snap’s largest since 2022. Ad revenue at the social media giant has slowed since Apple changed its privacy policy, making it harder for advertisers to access user data.

Meta also suffered from the changes but has rebounded after the company laid off thousands of workers as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency.” Snap’s layoffs prolong a ghastly start to 2024 for the tech industry, which has endured 32-K job cuts already this year, as per the Layoffs.

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Citigroup, Moderna and A.I. Referee

By Staff Reporters

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Citigroup announced a major reorganization aimed at eliminating unnecessary management layers. It will involve layoffs, but the bank didn’t say how many.

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One day after the CDC recommended that everyone above six months old get the new Covid booster, Moderna stock shot up. But it was mostly because the company showed it’s got a future beyond the virus with encouraging flu-shot trial results.

Elon Musk called for a regulator to ensure that AI development proceeds safely following a closed-door meeting with US lawmakers that also included Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg—which was probably an awkward run-in for Musk.

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SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE “Meta Verified”

By Staff Reporters

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According to Alexandra Bruell at alexandra.bruell@wsj.com the aim of Meta Verified is to increase security and authenticity across the company’s services, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said Sunday in social-media posts. It is also meant to “help up-and-coming creators grow their presence and build community faster,” according to a Meta spokesperson.

The service will cost $11.99 a month for Facebook and Instagram accounts that sign up from a web browser, or $14.99 a month for subscriptions through devices running Android and Apple Inc.’s iOS system, according to Meta. Tests of the service will begin in Australia and New Zealand this week. 

In the coming months, the company expects it to roll out in the U.S. and eventually other markets, according to the spokesperson.

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A Generation of Technology Millionaires

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All Under Age 30

Here’s an infographic which highlights nine entrepreneurs who made it big pretty early.

Mark Zuckerberg – who at age 27 has an estimated personal net worth of $17.5 billion as Facebook goes public – tops the list; followed by Groupon founder Andrew Mason ($1.3 billion) and Firefox founder Blake Ross ($150 million).

Assessment

No physicians, financial advisors or medical management consultants here.

Source: hrblock.com

Conclusion

And so, your thoughts and comments on this ME-P are appreciated. Please review our top-left column, and top-right sidebar materials, links, URLs and related websites, too. Then, subscribe to the ME-P. It is fast, free and secure.

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Future of Health Publishing and Business Journalism

Good Content and “Fly” Beats the Competition

By Dr. David Edward Marcinko; MBA, CMP™

[Publisher-in-Chief]dr-david-marcinko7

Last month, Steve Brawner [Steve Brawner Communications, a free-lance journalist for the Medical Business News, Inc., and the publisher of Medical News of Arkansas] contacted me to talk about hospitals, healthcare economics and the current financial dilemma in medical care. The interview will appear, as a special report, in April

But, after discussing answers to his top ten questions, we at the Institute of Medical Business Advisors, Inc www.MedicalBusinessAdvisors.com posited another interesting query. It was not on any particular subject area of our expertise, but aimed at us as electronic-publishers, reporters and health journalists.biz-book3 

The Future of Journalism

In other words, the question was:

“What do we think is the future business model for health journalism?”

Now, we’ve been mulling this thought over some time now, and our opinion goes something like this:

“We don’t – the old media is collapsing.”

And, while I don’t pity the likes of Chicago billionaire Sam Zell [the so-called “grave-dancer” for his penchant to buy distressed companies on the cheap and revitalize them for profit] – poor Sam – he was a very successful real-estate entrepreneur and the Chairman of Equity Group Investments. He thought this knowledge or luck was transferrable to the publishing industry, it wasn’t.

But, I do feel for distressed print newspapers like the Seattle Post Intelligencer, Chicago Tribune and especially the Baltimore Sun; as a native Balti-moron. I have both a favorite uncle, and older cousin, whose entire careers were spent in the print and ink business, there.

Link: https://healthcarefinancials.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/healthcare-experts-versus-health-journalists/

New Media “Fly”

How has this happened? Well, Google destroyed the advertising model for most media, and blogs and social networks have democratized the commentary / opinion playing field to some greater / lesser extent. Think: Mark Zuckerberg [Facebook] of Harvard, whose parents are both physicians – incidentally Mark’s got “fly” – Zell does not. We got the electrons at the ME-P, but little cash.

The Problem

The problem is that not many “new” media outlets, like the Medical Executive-Post, can afford to take on the interesting part of publishing; which is paying real investigative journalists. Think: The Huffington Post. Something I would love to be able to do; as there’s lots of muck to be raked in health economics, finance, administration, health IT; as well as medically focused financial planning, Wall Street and related personal investing activities for doctors – an integrated oeuvre of topics to say the least.

www.HealthDictionarySeries.comdhimc-book1

Our Own Investigative Reporter

About the closest we have to a true investigative reporter is Darrel K. Pruitt; DDS. And, although he is no Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein; he does occasionally do a good job. Think: William Mark Felt as FBI agent “deep-throat”.

Of course, as regular readers of the ME-P are aware, Darrell broke the dental profession’s [allegedly dufus] conspiracy with CCHIT [allegedly faux], and regularly reports on the folly of eHRs, eDRs, NPIs and eMRs. Think: citizen doctor journalist.  

Link: https://healthcarefinancials.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/cchit-is-prejudiced-and-lacks-diversity-%e2%80%93-an-indictment/

Link: https://healthcarefinancials.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/avi-baumstein-and-hipaa-compliancy/

Link: https://healthcarefinancials.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/don%e2%80%99t-rush-ehrs/

Assessment

But, when the ME-P gets financially solid enough to hire others, and put them into the mix of expertise, commentary and free-labor entrepreneur punditry we now have on the site; then there’ll be no need for the current newspapers [at least insofar as our covered topic channels are concerned]. Until then; we don’t know what the answer is, but it, like the economy, doesn’t look good for the print media space.

Link: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable

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As Editor-in-Chief of the premium subscription, two volume, 1,200 pages, institutional print-guide Healthcare Organizations [Financial Management Strategies], we prefer engaged readers who demand compelling content; old or new media.

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According to the conventional wisdom expressed above, this printed guide should be a relic of the past, from an era before instant messaging and high-speed connectivity. But, our experience shows just the opposite. Applied healthcare economics and financial management literature has grown exponentially in the past decade and the plethora of internet information makes updates that sort through the clutter and provide strategic analysis all the more valuable.

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Conclusion

And so, your thoughts and comments on this Medical Executive-Post are appreciated. What is our best-of-breed business model for print and the internet? Should we charge for our electronic content – and if so – how much? OR, shall it remain an informal and complimentary companion to the $535 annual print guide? Please opine. 

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