On Friday, the
much-anticipated IPO of the year happened. Uber raised more than $8.1 billion
in an OPO that valued the company at more than $72 billion. As the shares
started trading, things changed and the stock tanked by 5% making it the
worst-performing IPO of the past few years. This is despite it being the
biggest IPO since Facebook and Alibaba. The decline was attributed to two main
factors. First, investors are concerned about the company’s growing losses. In
this, they are unsure whether the company will ever become profitable. Third,
the previous IPO of Lyft dampened the market. The underperformance of Uber
could halt the IPO momentum that was already building. Already, companies like
WeWork have submitted their IPO materials.
On Friday, the UK released
mixed economic data. In March, the country’s industrial production rose by
1.3%, which was higher than the expected 0.5%. The manufacturing production
rose by an annualized rate of 2.6%. In addition, the country’s trade deficit
narrowed to $13.65 billion. In the first quarter, the country’s GDP rose by an
annualized rate of 1.8%, which was in line with the expectations. On a QoQ
basis, the economy expanded by 0.5%. In the quarter, the business investment
declined by an annualized rate of -1.4%, which was better than the expected
-2.7%.
On the same day, Canada
released its jobs numbers. The data showed that the unemployment rate declined
to 5.7%, which was better than the expected 5.8%. The participation rate
increased to 65.9%, which was better than the expected 65.7% while the economy
added more than 106.7K jobs. In the US, the headline CPI declined to 2.0% while
the core CPI increased by 2.1%.
Over the weekend,
investors continued to focus on the trade issues between the US and China. On
Friday, the US president said that he still hoped that a deal with China will
happen. Yesterday, Larry Kudlow said that the president will likely have a
conversation with China’s Xi at the upcoming
G20 meeting, which will happen in Japan. The administration is expected
to release a list of additional Chinese goods worth $300 billion to place a
tariff on.
In the United Kingdom,
Theresa May was under pressure to quit. Over the weekend, Theresa May’s senior
officials expressed their worries that the party will not win the upcoming
European elections. Nigel Farage’s Brexit party is expected to win most of the
seats. Opinion polls indicate that her support within the party has weakened
ahead of the crucial elections. An opinion poll by Observer found that 34% of
the respondents intend to vote for Farage’s party with Labour at 21%. Another
one by ComRes placed the Brexit party at 27%.
The post Weekend Review: Uber IPO Flops as Theresa May Faces Pressure to Quit appeared first on Forex.Info.