Software, Technology Firms Not Enough to Drive CE100 Index Gains in Choppy Week

CE100, connected economy, index, PYMNTS

A holiday-shortened trading week ended up in the red.

To that end, the CE100 Index fared worse than its brethren, having declined by 2.2% on the week.  The Nasdaq, by way of comparison, slipped by 90 basis points.

CE100 Relative Performance

Source: PYMNTS

If we drill down a bit, gains in the “enabler” group were not enough to buoy the overall Index into positive territory. Within that segment, Mongo DB was up a bit more than 9.2%, followed by Amazon, which was up 6.3%.

Mongo surged on the heels of earnings results that showed that revenues were up 57% year on year to $285 million. Its Atlas platform, which accounts for more than half of the consolidated top line, saw sales grow by 82%.

The company’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings show that for the period that ended in April, the company’s other subscription-related revenues were $104.6 million, up from $81 million last year. Operating cash flow was $11.6 million in the period, versus $10.2 million last year.

In evidence of how enablers and eCommerce giants are changing logistics, Amazon, as noted in this space this past week, has launched Road to Ownership, a 16-week training and development program to help drivers and team members of Amazon Delivery Service Partners eventually open their own delivery businesses.

Meanwhile, Salesforce, which owns Slack, was up 12% through the past five days, having reported earnings that showed revenues up 24%, to $7.4 billion.

Volatile Trading, Everywhere Else

The aforementioned positive performances were not enough to offset the volatility seen with the platform companies — and that volatility has become something of a trend for the CE100.

Affirm plummeted 17% through the past week. The buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform said it is partnering with Stripe to drive growth, making Affirm’s Adaptive Checkout available to Stripe users in the U.S.

Read more: Affirm, Stripe Team to Bring Adaptive Checkout to US

Affirm’s Adaptive Checkout tool uses the company’s smart decision engine to make a real-time underwriting decision and provide consumers with optimized bi-weekly and monthly installment options side by side. As reported, businesses using Stripe can quickly integrate Affirm’s technology and eligible shoppers can split the cost of purchases ranging from $50 to $30,000, with a maximum credit limit of $17,500.

Additionally, Peloton dropped by 13.6%, continuing its volatile trading in the wake of earnings posted three weeks ago, along with a $750 million loss and a markedly slowing pace of new subscriber growth, which declined by 50% last quarter.

See also: Peloton’s ‘Exhausting’ Turnaround Faces Uphill Shift From Bikes and Treadmills to App

CEO Barry McCarthy wrote in a shareholder letter that “turnarounds are hard work,” adding that the initiative is “intellectually challenging, emotionally draining, physically exhausting, and all consuming.”

Total membership rose by 29% from a year ago with 195,000 net subscriptions added for the three months that ended March 31. That figure was only about half the 414,000 net new users it added a year ago.