10 stories we are following this morning.
1. The Fed meets today and we will get a sense of Chairman Powell’s latest thinking on interest rates.
See Yahoo Finance
“The Federal Reserve is widely expected to hold interest rates steady at the conclusion of its policy meeting Wednesday, but the path forward is anything but certain for Jerome Powell.
Investors will be listening closely to the central bank chairman at a 2:30 p.m. ET press conference for any hints on future monetary policy”
2. Futures point up early today but it can be a volatile day with the Fed meeting and the Powell press conference. One of my closest colleagues plans his entire week around the Fed Press Conference.
3. If a close friend runs a business of any sort and you want to be a good supportive friend, either buy from the friend or encourage the friend but don’t ask the friend for free stuff or discounts from the friend.
4. The DoorDash death spiral. This is overstated but it’s always a big concern when a company sees declining revenues and announces huge acquisitions to offset its slowing revenues. DoorDash dropped more than 7% yesterday.
5. The Walt Disney Company is up more than 6% pre market as it reported better than expected revenues and earnings for the quarter and it also saw improved results at its parks. It’s still down 16% year to date. One of my best colleagues has 5 children and their family’s trip probably made the first quarter. If my other favorite colleague with 8 kids goes this quarter, the first half of the year will be in good shape.
6. Thanks to Barry Tanner, it was fantastic yesterday to visit with brilliant founders Rooshil Shah and Natalie Curnes. Brilliant. Also fantastic to interview each Amber Walsh and Michelle Byers-Robson on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast yesterday.
7. There’s been a shake up at the top of the market cap rankings. Microsoft is at number 1 at $3.22 trillion. Apple is number 2 at $2.96 trillion. NVIDIA is number 3 at $2.77 trillion.
8. Hims & Hers jumped 18% yesterday and is up more than 300% over the last year.
9. We recently passed 7 million downloads on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast and the podcast also spent much of the last two weeks ranked first in the Apple business news rankings.
10. Great to visit with gifted entrepreneur Sanjeev Agrawal this week. Also congratulations to SUTKER MORAN on their explosive growth and to Stanford Slovin in his tremendous transformation and move. Also hats off as always to Kelly Jo MacArthur and Nancy Temple by far the most gifted of the core. The others are terrific but Nancy and Kelly are really gifted. William is fun but they are brilliant.