Listen below or on the go on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Walmart (WMT) exits JD.com (JD) to focus on its own China business. (00:22) Waymo (GOOG) expands rapidly to 100,000 robotaxi rides a week. (01:23) Microchip Technology (MCHP) suffers cyberattack, shuts down some systems, stock slips. (02:34)
This is an abridged transcript of the podcast.
Walmart (NYSE:WMT) has disposed of its near 10% stake in JD.com (NASDAQ:JD).
The news, disclosed in an exchange filing, sent the Hong-Kong listed shares of the Chinese e-commerce firm down 9.6% on Wednesday.
JD.com’s (JD) U.S.-listed stock dropped 9% after hours on Tuesday when reports of a block sale by Walmart (WMT) surfaced and is down 7% premarket.
The stake sale “allows us to focus on our strong China operations for Walmart China and Sam’s Club, and deploy capital towards other priorities,” Walmart (WMT) told CNBC.
JD.com (JD) separately said it conducted an around $390M stock buyback, and has fully utilized the amount authorized under its $3B share repurchase program approved in March.
Walmart owned around 9.4% of JD.com’s (JD) total shares as of March 31, making it the largest holder of JD.
Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) (GOOGL) Waymo confirmed on Tuesday that the autonomous vehicle specialist has surpassed 100,000 trips per week. The trip volume is double what Waymo reported in May.
Chief Product Officer Saswat Panigrahi said Waymo hit the milestone by scaling deliberately, optimizing costs, and delivering a strong consumer experience.
Panigrahi highlighted that Waymo’s approach of designing both hardware and software from the ground up has been crucial to the early success, and continues to pay off as the company introduces 6th-generation hardware.
The Waymo milestone arrived less than two months before Tesla (TSLA) is scheduled to hold its robotaxi event. The race for robotaxi development and deployment includes, to varying degrees, Tesla (TSLA), Waymo (GOOG), Amazon’s (AMZN) Zoox, Pony.ai, May Mobility, Baidu’s (BIDU) Apollo, General Motors’ (GM) Cruise, WeRide, AutoX, Aurora Innovation (AUR), and Motional (APTV) (OTCPK:HYMTF). Within the group of robotaxi fleet aspirants, Tesla (TSLA) has been the most vocal about creating a fleet that allows drivers to rent out their personal vehicles to the fleet.
Microchip Technology (NASDAQ:MCHP) fell more than 2% Tuesday and is down 0.3% premarket after it revealed “an unauthorized party disrupted the company’s use of certain servers and some business operations.”
The company noticed suspicious activity in its IT systems on Aug. 17, and “began taking steps to assess, contain and remediate the potentially unauthorized activity,” it revealed in an SEC filing this afternoon.
The steps included “isolating the affected systems, shutting down certain systems, and launching an investigation with the assistance of external cybersecurity advisors.”
Microchip Technology said it is still working to bring the affected portions of its IT systems back online and restore normal business operations.
As of today, the company is not sure if the cyberattack is expected to “materially impact” its “financial condition or results of operations.”
More articles on Seeking Alpha:
Oppenheimer’s top 32 ideas for August-September
Pot meet kettle: SHEIN sues Temu for selling counterfeit products, copyright infringement
Fed’s Bowman says she remains wary of future rate cuts
Catalyst watch:
-
Shareholders with Allete (ALE) will vote on the offer from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Global Infrastructure Partners to acquire the energy company for $67 per share.
-
O’Reilly Automotive (ORLY) will hold an Analyst Day event that will feature a presentation by the company’s management team, a Q&A session, a distribution center tour, and store tours.
-
It is the deadline for competing bids for Paramount Global (PARA).
-
The two-day Needham Virtual Semiconductor & SemiCap 1×1 Conference will begin. Axcelis (ACLS), Veeco Instruments (VECO), and MaxLinear (MXL) are scheduled to participate. The event has led to some share price rallies after the presentations led to analyst rating and price target changes.
-
Target (TGT) will hold its earnings conference call at 8am. Options trading implies a share price move of 6% after the report is released. Target shed 8% on the day of its Q1 earnings release. Honest Company (HNST) and Mattel (MAT) are two major suppliers to Target that have shown strong share price correlation following the retailer’s report.
Now let’s take a look at the markets as of 6 am. Ahead of the opening bell today, Dow, S&P and Nasdaq futures are flat. Crude oil is up 0.5% at $73/barrel. Bitcoin is down 2.4% at $54,000.
In the world markets, the FTSE 100 is up 0.2% and the DAX is up 0.3%.
The biggest movers for the day premarket: Keysight Technologies (NYSE:KEYS) shares surged over 10% after the company exceeded FQ3 expectations, despite an 11% year-over-year decline in revenue.
On today’s economic calendar:
Read the full article here