What’s moving markets today: April 18, 2019

US stocks climbed at the open after some better-than-expected economic data showed falling jobless claims and rising retail sales.

Investors are awaiting the release of a redacted version of the Mueller report this morning. Attorney General William Barr began a press conference at the time of the market open.

Samsung (SSNLF) stock will be watched closely after the Korean telecommunications company’s new foldable phone reportedly didn’t have a very long life span. Its shares were down 3%.

Elsewhere, asset management firm Blackstone (BX) announced it was moving from a partnership model to a corporation, which boosted its stock. The shares were up more than 9% at the open on the news.

Pinterest will start trading in today’s session, having priced its IPO at $19 per share, above its intended price range, yesterday. Zoom will also hit the market, having price at $36 per share.

Asset manager Blackstone (BX) is changing business models, moving from a partnership to a corporation.

The action was designed to boost its shares, as some investors, like mutual funds, are restricted from holding stock of listed partnerships. Its shares were up more than 7% on the the news.

The firm is following into the footsteps of its peers KKR (KKR) and Ares (ARES), which switched last year.

Under the new model, Blackstone’s taxation will also change, and all of its revenues will be taxed as corporate profits. While this will increase the company’s tax burden, it comes at a good time, as the US corporate tax rate was slashed to 21% from 35%.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel

Shares of Snap (SNAP) are sliding. The reason? A downgrade from an analyst over its current stock price. The stock opened about 3% lower.

The stock is having a fairytale year: It’s up 110% for the year. But that astronomical rise is a concern to Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter, who wrote in a note that its “current valuation appears to leave little room for multiple expansion.”

Pachter downgraded the stock to “neutral” from “outperform.” He expects Snap’s earnings report next week to be in-line with consensus.

Stock futures turned positive after better-than-expected economic data pointed to further strength in the US economy.

Retail sales for March rose 1.6%, beating estimates of 0.8%, and rising at the fastest pace since late 2017. Sales excluding autos rose 1.2%

Jobless claims for the week ending April 13 fell to 192,000, which was lower than estimates for about 206,000 job seekers. It’s the lowest level since September 1969.

Futures are now pointing at a slightly higher open, with the major benchmarks hovering near year-to-date highs. Today will be the de facto week-end, as markets are closed tomorrow for Good Friday.

Do markets care about the Mueller report? No.

Investors have already digested stories about a chaotic White House. They know the president lashes out on Twitter and there’s no secret about his style of governing. They know Washington is a mess.

Unless there is some bombshell that threatens his presidency and unless the Barr summary has dramatically underplayed the Mueller report concerns, the redacted Mueller report is a non-event.

Removing the uncertainty about the Russia probe could actually be a positive for stocks. Besides the report, it is earnings season as usual, with banks reporting this week and tech companies rolling out next week.

Tech stocks are on fire this year: Facebook (FB) is up more than 30%, Amazon (AMZN) is up 25% and Microsoft (MSFT) is up 20%.

The United States and China are still working toward a trade deal with new in-person talks scheduled, moving trade concerns to the back burner for now.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are criticized almost weekly for spreading misinformation, broadcasting live shootings and promoting other controversial content. Pinterest is not. In fact, Pinterest’s CMO has pitched the service as “one of the truly positive corners of the Internet.”

That reputation was burnished in February by its bold attempt to combat vaccine misinformation on its platform. Pinterest blocked searches on the platform related to vaccinations in order to curb the spread of anti-vaxx content. Other social media sites have since stumbled to tackle the problem.

The perception of Pinterest as a safe haven could help the company as it goes public. Marketers and users are eagerly searching for a less toxic alternative to the Facebook-Google duopoly that dominates digital media.

Pinterest is the latest tech unicorn to race to Wall Street in one of the most high-profile public offerings of the year so far. Here are the key numbers to know:

Ben Silbermann, Pinterest’s CEO, grew up in Iowa, raised by parents who were doctors, with visions of becoming a doctor himself. 

When he took a job in San Francisco, it wasn’t a technical role but rather handling customer support issues at Google 

In 2010, he launched Pinterest with two co-founders, Evan Sharp and Paul Sciarra. Most former Pinterest employees describe Silbermann with the same mix of words: thoughtful, modest, shy.

Under his leadership, Pinterest chose to move slowly and deliberately by startup standards, in stark contrast to Facebook’s move fast and break things mantra. The next few months may test whether this approach can work on Wall Street.

In August 2017, less than two years after it went public, Twitter fell below its IPO price. Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, slipped below its IPO price after just four months. Both companies faced investor concerns about slowing growth and an audience size that paled in comparison to Facebook.

Pinterest has long insisted it is not, in fact, a social media company, but the ad-based platform could still face pressure to prove its audience can keep growing. Pinterest has more than 250 million monthly users, barely a tenth of Facebook’s user base.

Unlike Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter, Pinterest chose not to disclose its number of daily active users and said that it does “not anticipate that most of our users” will use the service on a daily basis.

Pier 1 Imports (PIR) shares are sinking 25% in early trading following a dismal earnings report.

The struggling retailer said its revenue came in lower than expected and its same-store sales plummeted nearly 14% in the fourth quarter. As part of its turnaround plan, Pier 1 said its closing up to 45 stores over the next few months.

Pier 1 also warned that it close even more stores if its “unable to achieve performance goals, sales targets, and reductions in occupancy and other costs.”