Tesla Shares Rally, Newsmax Value Cut, Amazon Rises

On this episode of Stock Movers:

- Tesla (TSLA) investors shrugged off the company’s worst vehicle sales since 2022 and bid up its shares on hopes that Elon Musk will step back from his work for the Trump administration. While the billionaire has yet to make an announcement about his plans, a report by Politico Wednesday suggested his time as a top adviser to Donald Trump may end soon. The president has told his inner circle recently that the Tesla chief executive officer will return to his businesses in the coming weeks, according to the news outlet, which cited unidentified Trump insiders. Tesla shares jumped following the report.

- Newsmax (NMAX) shares were cut in half on Wednesday after a raucous two-day surge fueled in part by retail traders briefly made it larger than Fox Corp. The stock slumped as much as 50%, wiping out $15 billion in market value, after a 2,230% surge in Newsmax’s first two days as a public company. Retail investors were less vocal about the stock in trader chatrooms compared to prior days, with buy orders on Fidelity’s platform more muted compared to those for larger companies.

- Amazon (AMZN) shares rose after the NYT reported that the e-commerce giant made a last-minute offer to buy TikTok in the US. The company sent its proposal in a letter to Vice President JD Vance, who’s heading efforts to help facilitate a sale of the US operations of the video platform ahead of a deadline later this week, and to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, The.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Stock Movers podcast, your roundup of companies making moves in
the stock market, harnessing the power of Bloomberg Data.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Let's take a look at some stocks on the move
this week, with us as Isabelle Lee, Bloomberg News cross
Asset reporter, joining us here in the Bloomberg Business Week Studio.
Let's start with one that's been all over the place today, Tesla.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
This is interesting. I feel like it's been a roller coaster.
We started off the day with Tesla Inda red, and
people were gloomy because they had their vehicle sales slumped
of Lobos in twenty twenty two, it was down thirteen percent,
and a lot of people were saying, oh my gosh,
this is going to be the beginning of the unraveling
of everything. And then at eleven seventeen, political publisher News

(00:52):
saying that Elon Musk will be stepping back from working
the Trump administration. And at eleven nineteen you see shares
edging higher, and now it's up by six percent, and
you can see the Tesla investors are really just shrugging
off any of those fears and just hoping that Elon
Musk will have more time for the company.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
We should note that Caroline Levitt, the Press Secretary, pushed
back on this in a tweet. She said, this scoop
in quotes is garbage. Elon Musk and President Trump have
both publicly stated that Elon will depart from public service
as a special government employee when is incredible work at
DOGE is complete. The market, though, seems to think that
his days at DOGE could be numbered because shares did
not move down after she sent that.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Note exactly, And there is that. But the note is
also interesting because it didn't really say anything definitive. I mean,
then it just said.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
She said it's garbage.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
There is that.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
But this is when you start to parse words like
I mean, I would think that if you say something's garbage,
it would be incorrect.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
There's a lot of garbage out there, that's true. All
right now, I'm just gonna say, but we don't.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Know tweets here.

Speaker 4 (01:51):
I think we're going to get in trouble. Let's talk
about news, Max Man, this is a story we've talked
about a lot over the last what is it now,
it's third day of trading. It has soared more than
two thousand percent yesterday and the day of its IPO,
different trade today different.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
It's down by seventy percent, which is eye popping if
you think about it, if you look at it in isolation,
but not really if you see the two thousand percent
stage during the first two days of its trading as
a public company. And honestly, it's still up by around
one thousand percent from its ten dollars offer price, but
still shares were cut in half today after a really
spectacular two day rally, and it's really just meant that

(02:28):
itself as a meme stock now because a lot of
retail investors were the ones piling into the stock. Did
you look at the market cap?

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, it was above it. It was close to thirty
billion dollars as of yesterday. Now it's down to eight
point two billion dollars, which is still that's like a
paramount size market cap roughly New York Times Company market a.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
While it was bigger than Fox. So can you believe no?

Speaker 3 (02:52):
I mean, I think people would argue it's not one
that's necessarily has been trading on fundamentals, which is why
you called it a meme stock.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I mean, if you if you scrolls are a lot
of the social media platforms, they would say, it's the
new game. Stop touting just the really easy returns. Can
you imagine if you invested on Monday, how much you
will have even today, even you're right, you're still up
down seventy percent, you're still up a lot. But it's
just the.

Speaker 4 (03:14):
Volatility and the swings, and it's really kind of interesting
because volume. I feel like it's kind of an interesting
to want when to watch in terms of the trades
because it's kind of slow.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Volume is also what we watch on the ETF world
because that's where you see the movement of money. But
it just reminds you of really the memestop craze in
twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, and that was exciting.
So this again because I was all, was it really?
It was exciting to come report institutional reporters. You were like,
what is this thing that is fair? But then yeah,

(03:47):
now you see the IPOs are really a dud, so
it's an anomaly out there.

Speaker 4 (03:51):
Yeah yeah, well yeah, I don't know TVD on this one.
I keep saying, mid May, we're going to get their
earnings and we're going to pick apart that balance sheet
and listen. It may be incredible, right, but we'll find
out what the business really is. I always feel like
that's your great good checks.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
All right, Isabelle? Finally Amazon a company that's on your
radar today? Is it because of the TikTok news?

Speaker 1 (04:13):
Potentially two headlines related to that. So first is that
we have New York Times reporting that the e commerce
giant is really just swooping in with the last minute
offer to buy TikTok. They have TikTok are several offers,
like from Oracle, but some people are saying it's not
really serious. And you see Oracle shares didn't really budge
after this news. Another headline is Amazon saying it will

(04:33):
launch the first batch of satellites to power its quote
Internet from Space initiative. This is projectis apriline.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yes, this is long delayed. This is big news.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yes, it's very big news. And the business that's dominated today,
the business dominating that today is BaseX Starlink. So again,
another Elon Musk thread in there. But that's great news
for Amazon and that's why shares are probably popping one
and a half percent.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
Yeah, it's kind of interesting, right, I mean great, it's
turned out to be a pretty decent business right for
first space.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
But we'll see if Amazon can actually hold a candle
to what SpaceX can.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Get product out there.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Though it is, but I feel like it. I mean,
you deliver Internet connectivity to companies, governments, to consumers. There's
a little bit of purpose driven in that. I mean,
you see it.

Speaker 4 (05:17):
Are you starling, I've got a starlink.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
Yeah, like people who are you know out on you
know RV's or booths V on my RV room room.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
No, that's a motorcycle.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
No, but yeah, I mean I get it, like, and
there's different layers in terms of you. So yeah, maybe
on my RV.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Would you have a problem with that?

Speaker 3 (05:36):
No, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
The Stock Movers podcast from Bloomberg Radio. Check back with
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