All Eyes on July Jobs Report Following Fed Rate Hikes

Jobs Report Friday! Most economists are expecting a slowdown, and the question is how much the Fed’s newly hawkish approach (aimed at fighting inflation) is seeping into the labor market. Here’s what we’re looking for in the numbers - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch

Warner Bros. Discovery announced in its first earnings report as a combined company that it has over 92 million subscribers for its streaming services, including HBO Max and Discovery+. Still, the company swing to a massive $3.42 billion loss in Q2 (attributable partly to “charges related to the recent merger that created the media giant), and is facing pressure to cut costs and find new revenue. Part of that process will involve a combined Max/Discovery+ streaming service offering – WSJ and NYTimes and MarketWatch and TechCrunch

Good news for DoorDash, which saw revenue climb in the second quarter “as consumers stuck to ordering food and household essentials despite restaurant and store reopenings.” Though the delivery service expects “a softer consumer spending environment” in the second half of 2022, it raised guidance for the year on the strength of its first half performance - WSJ and Bloomberg

Big U.S. companies are continuing their spending spree on capital projects, with such expenditures among S&P500 companies “growing at a faster pace than stock repurchases for the first time since the first quarter of 2021.” This spending boom—on “big-ticket items, such as real estate, equipment or technology”—is helping support a “stock market that has been buffeted by worries about soaring inflation and the pace of the Federal Reserve’s campaign to raise interest rates” - WSJ

But far from all economists are rosy about the future of the U.S. economy. Here’s why - Bloomberg

So with those examples of rampant mixed signals in mind, none of us should be surprised when “weird” is a key adjective to describe the state of the 2022 summer economy - NYTimes

Goldman Sachs disclosed in a securities filing this week that the CFPB is investigating the firm’s business practices in its credit card unit, including “how the bank handles customer refunds and resolves billings disputes,” the company’s advertisements, and “how it reports consumer information to credit bureaus.” Goldman said it is cooperating with the investigation - WSJ and Law360

Elon Musk has accused Twitter of fraud in a countersuit filed in Delaware, accusing the social media company of misrepresenting “the condition of its business and key metrics about users on its platform before he agreed in April to acquire the company for $44 billion.” Twitter has already pushed back hard against the claims in court, calling Musk’s claims “implausible” and noting that he gave up his rights in the agreement to “back out based on his concerns over the number of spam or fake accounts on its platform” - WSJ and NYTimes

The DOT is out with new rules aimed at “providing more recourse for passengers when airlines cancel flights or significantly alter a flight’s schedule, route or seat categories”—a direct result of what’s been an “infuriating” summer of attempted air travel for many Americans - NYTimes

Google may soon be staring down the barrel of a massive 21 million member class action over alleged anti-competitive behavior based on a recent hearing at which N.D. Cal. Judge told the tech company’s counsel the “evidence ‘overwhelmingly’ suggest common issues predominate and that he’s ‘having trouble seeing why flying as a group is a bad idea.’” The consumers claim they were harmed by Google’s actions to block competition in its app store – Law360

Meta ended its status as one of the remaining S&P500 companies without debt with a mammoth $10 billion bond offering that it can use for “purposes including capital expenditures, stock repurchases, and acquisitions or investments” - Bloomberg and MarketWatch

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No aliens. No living in video games (at least not yet, Zuck). And no KHAAAAAAN. But it’s still hard to argue against this Times take that the big five Sci-Fi offerings from the summer of 1982 played a huge role in “shap[ing] our present” - NYTimes

Stay safe, and have a great weekend,
MDR

The Robins Kaplan Financial Daily Dose features top stories and latest news headlines in financial markets, banking, securities and technology topics.