CE 100 Index Loses 1.9% as BNPL Names Lead Payments Pillar Lower

Most of the CE 100 Index components traded lower this past week, sending the overall index 1.9% lower as seven of the 11 pillars lost ground, ahead of the earnings season kickoff that begins with the big banks.

Only the Move sector posted a gain of more than 1%, barely breaking above that level.

Delta was the standout here, up 11.4%. The company reported Thursday that it earned record revenue in the June quarter and restored its full-year financial guidance as demand for air travel stabilized. Quarterly revenue rose 1% year over year, and Delta saw its international business perform well, with revenue up 2%, and saw demand for corporate travel remain steady, with sales making low-single-digit gains.

The Pay and be Paid segment slipped 5.7%. Within that pillar, Sezzle slipped 26% and Affirm gave up 6.5%. The Sezzle downdraft came in the wake of news at the end of last month where the buy now, pay later player introduced Sezzle Balance, designed to simplify the repayment process for consumers through a pre-loadable digital wallet.

There are two additional products in beta: “Express Checkout,” described as a “streamlined flow that reduces friction for returning shoppers,” and Browser Extension, a tool that automatically prompts shoppers to earn Sezzle Spend and save with available coupons.

Elsewhere within the payments space, embedded finance company Weavr launched a partnership with Visa in Europe. The collaboration will allow Weavr to help software-as-a-service companies integrate Visa-powered financial products into their platforms, the companies said, and the effort will initially focus on the employee benefits space.  Visa shares declined 3%.

Visa’s decline was paced by Mastercard’s 3% retreat. The decreases came despite the news that the payment networks saw the antitrust suit that had been filed against them dismissed.

Work-related names dove 5.2% this past week, and Xerox lost 10.5%, having completed its acquisition of Lexmark, followed by Workday, down 7.6%.

Parsing the Prime Day Data

In the Shop pillar, which was off by 1.4%, market research company Numerator said Friday that the average household spend during Amazon’s first four-day Prime Day sales event reached $156.37. The average order size during the event was $53.34, and nearly two-thirds of the households that shopped during Prime Day placed two or more orders. Amazon’s stock added 0.7%, but Walmart dipped 4%.

The Enablers vertical was 1.2% lower. Fastly lost 4.6%. Verizon ended the week down by 4.4%.

Meta reportedly bought a roughly 3% stake in eyewear maker EssilorLuxottica, which is the maker of Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses and one of Meta’s partners in the smart glasses business.

The stake is worth about €3 billion (about $3.5 billion). The two companies have been partners in the development of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered smart glasses for several years.

Meta’s stock declined 0.2%.