CE 100 Index Rallies 3.8% as ‘Live’ Segment Outperforms the Market

The banks fizzled this past week, marking the lone swath of red — measured in terms of declining stock prices — in the latest weekly reading of the CE 100 Index’s performance.

Yet, the overall performance was positive, as the index itself was 3.8% higher.

iRobot shares gathered 21.3%, while the Live segment of the CE 100 Index advanced by 6.6%. In terms of corporate news, the company said that it granted equity awards as a material inducement to the employment of the company’s newly-hired President and Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Engel.

Zillow shares surged 18%, also powering the Live segment higher. A  Zillow release noted that we may see a competitive homebuying market in the Fall as “lower mortgage rates and rising inventory are giving home buyers a window of opportunity at an unusual time of year.” That competition comes as the  U.S. median monthly mortgage payment in August had declined by more than $100 since a May 2024 peak.

“Late summer may be an opportunity for buyers who have been waiting in the wings for a monthly mortgage payment they can qualify for,” Zillow chief economist Skylar Olsen said in a statement in the release.

Sezzle was 18.7% higher in the Pay and Be Paid pillar, as the segment was 4.5% higher.  The company continues to ride a wave of positive sentiment on the announcement that the company had struck a pact with WebBank where the later will serve as the BNPL provider’s exclusive bank.

However, the gains in that segment were tempered as Tencent gave up 6.4%.  Earlier this month, the company debuted several product-suite upgrades to support the AI and digitalization goals of its partners and enterprises, including what it termed a “full suite of computing, storage, and networking solutions” known as AI Infra.

The Banks Fizzle

The lone declining segment of our CE 100 pantheon was the Bank segment, which gave up 3.6% in the week.  And if there was an overall theme here, it has been that for at least a few companies, credit metrics are facing some pressure.

Ally Financial shares were the key driving force here, as shares plunged 16.7%.  PYMNTS reported that the pressures faced by the company’s borrowers are leading to delinquencies and charge-offs rising across its loans.

“Our borrower is struggling with high inflation and cost of living, and now more recently, a weakening employment picture,” Chief Financial Officer Russell Hutchinson said at a financial conference on Tuesday.

According to the company’s second-quarter earnings review in July, total deposits were $152 billion, down from $155 billion in the first quarter, and roughly flat from a year ago.

In Ally’s retail auto loans business, the 30-day delinquency rate was 4.3%, up from 3.9% in the first quarter, and above the 3.6% rate seen in the year-ago June quarter.

Charge-offs will increase in the next few months, and delinquency and charge-off rates have been rising in July and August, Hutchinson said, per the Reuters report.

Goldman Sachs shares were slightly lower, down 0.1%. As reported this week, Goldman Sachs and Barclays are seeking a deal on Goldman’s $2 billion portfolio of loans made to General Motors customers.

The deal, if it goes through, will see Goldman Sachs sell the portfolio of loans to Barclays at a discount to the value of the outstanding balances.

The GM credit card program has had high charge-off rates, with the average charge-offs on the Goldman-originated accounts that account for about a third of the portfolio exceeding 10%. The annualized credit card charge-off rate of American commercial banks is 4.5%.

J.P. Morgan shares gave up 3.8%.  The company, according to reports, reportedly aims to use its blockchain services to boost its corporate banking market share in Switzerland.