Monday markets: Twitter saga may end in court battle, digital ad spend slowdown poses threats
The Australian share market is poised to open positively this week, despite Federal Reserve hikes and dismal unemployment figures in the US. Courtroom battles begin for social media giants Twitter and Meta, as they prepare to tackle two very different opponents. Global advertising holding companies all see their stocks ubiquitously tumble over the last month.
On Friday, ASX 200 ended the week on a high note, with the benchmark index rising 0.45%. The AUD has also slightly inched up in value.
Jobs data for June is due this Thursday from the Bureau of Statistics, in addition to market confidence indicators from NAB and Westpac.
Wages rising in the US is fuelling fears of inflation, with the unemployment figures growing each week.
Read on for a weekly wrap of the stock figures and latest news emerging from the world’s biggest advertising and media companies.
Twitter:
- The Twitter-Musk saga reached its dramatic climax over the weekend, with Musk officially and formally withdrawing his $44b offer for the tech giant.
- Musk’s attempt to terminate the takeover may very soon land him in a messy legal battle with Twitter, the social media giant reportedly set to file a lawsuit any day now.
- On Friday, shares of Twitter fell 5 per cent to $US36.81, ($53.61) well below the $US54.20 ($78.92) that Musk had offered to pay.
- Today, the Twitter share price is trading at 36.81 USD, down −1.93
Meta:
- The Meta share price has seen a decline, trading at 170.88 USD today, down −1.31
- Meta stock has however increased in value over the last month, by +6.62 (4.03%).
- Meta is facing the impact of the economic downturn, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg telling staff in a Q&A session on Thursday that he plans on “turning up the heat” on performance goals as the company’s growth slows.
- Meta, which collects data from billions of users, has this week launched two lawsuits against parties for data scraping; one against scraping-for-hire company Octopus, and one against Ekrem Ateş, a Turkish individual who scraped Instagram data for use on a clone site.
- Meta told employees in a memo in May that it was ‘pausing hiring’ due to revenue growth being slower than expected.
Omnicom Inc.:
- Omnicom shares are currently trading at 64.46 USD, up +0.62 (0.97%) today.
- Omnicom stock has seen an overall decline in the last month of -1.55
- Omnicom Group last posted its quarterly earnings results on April 19th, reporting $1.39 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.28 by $0.11.
- Omnicom Group had a net margin of 9.06% and a return on equity of 37.06%.
- The business had revenue of $3.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.29 billion.
Publicis Groupe:
- Publicis Groupe is trading at an increased share price today, sitting at 44.25 EUR, up +1.46 (3.41%).
- PUB stocks continue the trend of overall declines in value over the previous month, with shares seeing an overall loss of -2.05 EUR
- The firm recently disclosed a dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 20th. Investors of record on Monday, July 4th will be paid a dividend of $0.5066 per share.
Dentsu:
- Dentsu’s share price is today sitting at 4,215 JPY.
- Dentsu’s share price has struggled over the last month, seeing a downwards tumble of -85.00 JPY (-2.00%) in stock’s value.
- Dentsu Media CEO, Sue Squillace, has announced she will be leaving after almost three years at the business.
WPP:
- The WPP share price is today trading at 793.70 GBX, an increase of +9.10
- Over the last month however, the share price has fallen, seeing a decline of -41.70 (-4.99%) in the last month.
- WPP last week announced the creation of a new company, Design Bridge and Partners, formed by the merger of WPP subsidiaries Design Bridge and Superunion.
Havas Media Group:
- The Vivendi share price is currently trading at 9.72 EUR today, up +0.22 (2.34%) since markets closed.
- The share price has also tumbled over the last month, seeing a decline in value of -1.16 ast month.
- Havas Media Group launched its Havas Market solution in five new countries earlier this year, including Australia and India, and says its service provides businesses with a strategic full-service eCommerce offering at a time when sales are increasingly moving online.
Alphabet Inc.:
- Alphabet Inc. has seen a consistent positive uptick in share price, today trading at 2,387.07 USD, up +11.41 (0.48%).
- Over the last month, Alphabet actually saw an overall increase in value in its share price, of 259.22 USD
- The economic slowdown may curb Alphabet’s digital ad spending and negatively impact earnings
- The slowdown in digital advertising could deliver a substantial blow to the company. According to an SEC filing, Alphabet generated more than 80% of total revenue from the display of ads online in 2021.
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