Only one pillar lost ground — the Work segment, which sank 1.5% through the week.
Bankrupt WeWork plunged 27.8%. As reported, WeWork said it had commitments in place for up to $682.5 million in debtor-in-possession financing from several lenders. The financing, as part of Chapter 11 proceedings, includes banks such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, as noted in a SEC filing.
Elsewhere, the lingering impact of earnings announcements and partnership announcements from the past few weeks helped sustain some momentum. As of this writing, there’s a bit more than a month’s worth of trading days left in the year, as the CE 100 Index has posted a year-to-date gain of a bit more than 29% — impressive, to be sure, but still trailing the tech-heavy NASDAQ, which is up more than 47% over the same timeframe.
iRobot Soars on EU News
The Live pillar gained 6.3%.
iRobot led that segment higher, finishing the week up 36%, far and away the most impressive showing among names in our Index that posted positive returns for the week. Friday’s trading was responsible for most of the gains.
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As had been reported by Reuters, the European Union is on the verge of approving Amazon’s $1.7 billion to buy the company. The Reuters report noted that the EU’s approval will be unconditional — though it is still being reviewed by regulators here in the United States.
Porch Group’s 12% rally this past week also helped augment the Live pillar’s gains, where, as we noted amid the company’s earnings report earlier in the month, a 67% revenue gain was bolstered by 195% year-over-year growth in the insurance segment.
MercadoLibre’s 6% boost was at the top of the Shop pillar’s 0.8% bump. The company’s shares continued an upward trend seen since the early November announcement of results, where third-quarter earnings surpassed expectations. The company’s income from operations reached a record high of $685 million in the quarter, up 131% year over year.
During the earnings call, CFO Martin de los Santos attributed the strong showing to an uptick in revenue from Brazil and Mexico.
Vroom’s 9.5% decline offset these gains within the shopping segment, as the company announced that the Compensation Committee of Vroom’s Board of Directors approved the grant of inducement-restricted stock unit awards covering 96,925 shares of Vroom’s common stock to 11 individuals and employees “to induce them to join … Vroom and its affiliates.” Earlier in the month, the company’s own earnings results spotlighted that it had reduced its titling, registration and support costs by 15%, its marketing costs by 13% and its fixed costs by 15%.
In addition, CEO Tom Shortt said that Vroom’s automotive finance subsidiary, United Auto Credit Corp. (UACC), has changed its underwriting criteria to improve delinquency trends.
Sezzle shares slipped 6.3% blunting gains from Affirm, which gathered 5.8% and holding the Pay and be Paid segment to a 1.4% increase for the week. Sezzle company said mid-month that Sezzle has entered into partnerships to bring its buy now, pay later (BNPL) services to a sporting goods retailer and to hundreds of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms. This collaboration allows the retailer’s customers to make instant purchases, with the total being broken down into four interest-free payments.
