00:00 Speaker A
It’s ti time now for today’s trending tickers. Toys, travel and chips are all on our radar today.
00:07 Speaker A
We start in Hong Kong, where the Labubu craze has, well, taken a bit of a hit today. Shares of Popmart, the Chinese toy maker behind the Labubu dolls are down sharply after online backlash against its quote overpriced blind boxes.
00:21 Speaker A
Today’s negative buzz was sparked by two employees spontaneous comments during a company live stream.
00:27 Speaker A
That’s according to media reports. One of them said, quote, this is a bit expensive at around $11 and the colleagues replied, quote, someone will still buy it.
00:33 Speaker A
Well, the exchange went viral on Chinese social media with users discussing how cheap the dolls are to produce and how expensive they are to buy.
00:41 Speaker A
Well, the stock has lost about 1/4 of its value in three months. So, I think it’s fair to ask whether the peak has passed.
00:48 Speaker A
Well, shifting to the housing and travel sectors now, where we have two distinct story post earnings.
00:54 Speaker A
First, Opendoor shares are sinking sharply in the pre-market, down more than 23% after a major third quarter miss on earnings.
01:03 Speaker A
And despite a slight beat on revenue sitting at $915 million, above Wall Street’s expectations for $882 million.
01:10 Speaker A
And crucially, its new CEO Caz Najatian pitched a turnaround plan for Opendoor as a quote AI and software company.
01:18 Speaker A
Well, it looks like investors didn’t fully buy into that idea. In the past month, the very volatile stock has lost about a third of its value.
01:27 Speaker A
It’s a very different story for Airbnb, enjoying some pre-market tail wins after its own earnings print.
01:32 Speaker A
Goldman Sachs this morning raised their price target on Airbnb to $140 after reviewing the travel giant’s strong third quarter revenue, which hit the high end of their guidance.
01:43 Speaker A
Now, Goldman highlights management’s focus on geographic expansion and investment in AI integration as key drivers.
01:50 Speaker A
So, despite a mixed earnings report, Goldman is bullish on the long-term prospects for Airbnb.
01:58 Speaker A
Now, here’s a little media story close to my heart, one that connects Britain and America. In the UK, shares of ITV are surging up as much as 14% right now on reports it’s in talks to sell its media and entertainment unit to Comcast owned by Sky for about $2 billion.
02:11 Speaker A
The deal would give Comcast a bigger foothold in European broadcasting and certainly shake up the UK media landscape.
02:16 Speaker A
But I’d say expect some regulatory scrutiny on this one if talks continue.
02:22 Speaker A
And finally, we can’t talk about trending stocks this week without talking about chips.
02:27 Speaker A
Nvidia edging lower, continuing its slide back to where it was a few weeks ago before the excitement around a US-China trade deal.
02:34 Speaker A
And we got some new reports overnight confirming that the Trump administration doesn’t want Nvidia to sell those advanced Blackwell chips to China.