 |
|
|
|||||
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Last week, Zillow announced a new policy that bans home listings from appearing on the platform if they were first listed for sale in private networks more than 24 hours before appearing on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). Thats an attempt by Zillow to keep more inventory on the public housing market. If a listing is online, it should be online everywhere. . . . If a listing is marketed to any home shoppers, it should be marketed to all home shoppers, wrote Zillow. The announcement comes as some brokerages, most infamously Compass, are pushing for more “private exclusives”a strategy that allows sellers to market their properties privately within the brokerages network before or instead of listing them on public platforms like the MLS. Over the past year, Compass has seen its inventory of private exclusives climb from just over 2,000 to nearly 10,000 active off-market homes for sale. Zillow seemingly fears that the private listing market could soon gain momentum, so its using its massive influenceand the fact that its the go-to source for so many high-intent buyersto try and throw cold water on private listings before they absorb too large of a market share. On Saturday evening, CoStar CEO Andy Florance took a shot at the announcement, writing on LinkedIn that Zillows policy hurts home sellers. This week Zillow Executive Errol Samuelson announced that homes not listed on the MLS within 24 hours of public marketingwont be published on Zillow for the life of the listing. Simply put, if your listing is not on Zillow within 24 hours, Zillow will retaliate against you and your homeowner by turning off your ability to list on Zillow. It is an incredible move of audacity and a pure power play of epic proportion, wrote Florance. CoStar, which owns Homes.com, is in the midst of a feisty battle that has been called the portal wars with Zillow and Realtor.com. According to RISMedia, there is one loophole to Zillows ban: if the home seller fires their agent. “A seller who parts ways with their agent after using a private listing service and subsequently re-lists with a new agent or broker would be eligible again to have their property on Zillow, a Zillow spokesperson told RISMedia last week.
Category:
E-Commerce
China has ordered its airlines not to take any further deliveries of Boeing jets in response to the U.S. decision to impose 145% tariffs on Chinese goods, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Shares of Boeingwhich looks at China as one of its biggest growth markets and where rival Airbus holds a dominant positionwere down 3% in premarket trading. Beijing has also asked that Chinese carriers halt purchases of aircraft-related equipment and parts from U.S. companies, the Bloomberg report said. Chinas move to halt purchases of aircraft-related components is expected to raise maintenance costs for the jets flying in the country. The U.S. and China have been embroiled in a tariff war triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policies. China last week hiked levies on U.S. imports to 125% in retaliation against U.S. tariffs. The Chinese government is considering ways to provide assistance to airlines that lease Boeing jets and are facing higher costs, Bloomberg News reported. Boeing did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. A 125% duty would significantly raise the cost of Boeing jets bound for Chinese carriers, making them a financial burden and potentially prompting airlines to consider alternatives like Airbus and domestic player COMAC. China’s top three airlinesAir China, China Eastern Airlines, and China Southern Airlineshave plans to take delivery of 45, 53 and 81 Boeing planes, respectively, between 20252027. The escalating tit-for-tat tariffs between the world’s two biggest economies risk bringing goods trade between the worlds two largest economies to a standstill, according to analysts. That trade was valued at over $650 billion in 2024. Trump, who said on Friday that he was comfortable with the tariffs on China, also suggested that a deal with Beijing could be on the horizon, but no agreement has been reached yet. Shivansh Tiwary and Harshita Meenaktshi, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
One of the best performing stocks on the market yesterday was Webull Corporation (Nasdaq: BULL), which saw its shares surge nearly 375% in a single trading session to end the day at $62.90. The stock price surge in BULL occurred on its second trading day after the stock-trading platform merged with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) to go public. But in premarket trading today, BULL shares are down a significant amountabout 15% as of the time of this writing. Heres what to know about the stock and what could be next for Webull shares. What is Webull? Webull Corporation is the owner of the Webull trading platform. The online platform allows users to buy and sell stocks, cryptocurrencies, and other financial assets. As CNBC notes, Webull was founded in 2016 by Wang Anquan, a former manager at Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Xiaomi. Its U.S. operations were established a year later, and those are headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida. But while the U.S. trading platform launched in May 2018, the company didnt really start to gain traction until the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. During that period, many Americans turned to digital trading platforms to buy and sell stocks. Users can do so via the Webull app and website. In the company’s prospectus to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Webull Corporation said that its Webull app has been downloaded more than 50 million times and that it has 23.3 million registered users globally. It describes its customers as generally working professionals in their 30s with some prior experience in investing. Webulls primary competitors are other online trading platforms like Robinhood, E-trade, and Charles Schwab. What is a SPAC? Webull didnt go public via a standard initial public offering (IPO). Instead, the company used a vehicle known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, to go public. Where a traditional IPO sees shares in a company sold directly to the public, companies that go public via the SPAC model merge with an already publicly traded companythe SPACand thus become a publicly traded company themselves via the merger. SPACs were all the rage during the pandemic years, with major companies using them to go public, including transportation and food delivery company Grab and office space company WeWork. However, SPACs started to fall from favor as the pandemic years progressed, with some on Wall Street considering the vehicles a joke. To go public, Webull Corporation merged with a SPAC called SK Growth Opportunities Corp. last week. Webull shares surged yesterday, but are falling today Kicking off its first full week of trading yesterday, BULL shares surged on the Nasdaq. The company’s stock price jumped $49.65 per sharean increase of 374.72%. That share price surge saw Webulls market cap climb to over $29 billion. However, today, BULL shares are down significantly. The companys stock price is currently trading about 15% lower in premarket as of the time of this writing. Whats the reason for the steep fall? Nothing concrete, but its not uncommon for a stock that surged one dayespecially a newly public stockto see a bit of a pullback the next day. After surging nearly 375% yesterday, some investors may be deciding to sell some shares today to help lock in those gains. But it also should be noted that history hasnt been kind to many companies that have gone public via SPACs. SPAC minefield? Several notable companies that went public via SPAC mergers during the COVID-era boom have now gone bust. These include companies ranging from genomics firm 23andMe, EV car maker Nikola, and restaurant chain BurgerFiall of which have filed for bankruptcy. On a general leveland not specific to any one companySPACs tend to harbor more inherent risk, according to a 2024 report from the Michigan Journal of Economics. The report noted that SPACs, in general, may afford companies latitude in projections and reporting when compared to the more scrutinized IPO route. This latitude is one of the reasons SPACs have fallen out of favor in recent years, as investors have tended to shift away from riskier endeavors. As noted by CNBC, in the SPAC heyday of 2021, 613 companies went public via SPACs, but so far in 2025, just 23 have. Where does Webull go from here? Where Webull Corporation and its stock go from here is anyones guess. Its impossible to foresee the future of any individual company. Todays drop-off may not necessarily be a cause for concern considering how much the stock soared yesterday. In its prospectus, Webull noted that while its revenues were $389 million in 2022 and $390 million in 2023, they were only $305.6 million in 2023 and $282.5 million for the nine months in 2024. The company also noted that while it had a net income of $50.1 million in 2022 and $5.8 million in 2023, it had a net loss of $33.8 million for the first nine months of 2024 (compared to a net income of $19.4 million for the first nine months of 2023). However, Webull also believes that it is positioned to take advantage of generational opportunities that are arising in the United States. Global trading volume of the worlds top 30 stock exchanges has more than doubled since 2012, it points out. But that doubling has historically benefited institutional investors the most. Yet that may soon change. Webull notes that now retail investors, especially millennial and Gen-Z investors, represent a growing segment of the market and are set to benefit from income growth and generational wealth transfer in the coming years. The phenomenon that Webull is referring here to goes by the moniker the Great Wealth Transfera transfer of wealth from the baby boom generation to their offspring as boomers pass away. Americans in the baby boomer generation are expected to pass tens of trillion of dollars to their children over the next several decades, Webull notes in its prospectus. That wealth isnt expected to sit ideal, either. It is likely that many of its recipients will reinvest that wealthsomething that could create a lot of business for a company like Webull.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||