TechCheck

Shares of Opendoor plunging 30% since the company reported a steep revenue decline despite managing to turn a profit. Deirdre Bosa speaks with CEO Carrie Wheeler in her first broadcast interview since assuming the position about the quarter, the state of the iBuying business model in today’s market, and more.

Disney posting mixed Q3 results, as CEO Bob Iger laid out a plan to make streaming a key growth driver, including a new focus on its ad-supported tier and announcing price hikes on ad-free versions of Disney+ and Hulu. Plus, newly-appointed CEO of “X” Linda Yaccarino claimed today that the company is soon to be cash flow positive, creating a safe brand, seeing advertisers return and – perhaps the point of giving an interview 8 weeks after becoming CEO – that she’s a stable, steady hand with full autonomy from Elon Musk.

Duolingo is one of the biggest earnings movers of the day after reporting a 62% year-over-year growth in daily active users. Its CEO Luis von Ahn joined to discuss what’s driving the price action, innovations in education technology, and the company’s expansion plans. Plus, Disney is set to report third quarter results after the bell. Investors are keeping an eye on its streaming division, growth in parks, and clues about a bombshell sports betting deal announced yesterday. In a big move for ESPN and Disney, it’s set to rebrand casino company Penn Entertainment’s sportsbook as ESPN BET in a 10-year, $2 billion deal. 

: Shares of Paramount are lower today despite topping revenue expectations in its Q2 results. The beat raises the bar for Disney, which reports after the bell today amid a host of industry-wide challenges, including an ad contraction, pressure to cut streaming costs and a strike. And then there are the company-specific issues that Disney faces, including the performance of its franchise films, attendance issues at parks, and more. Plus, the $53 billion CHIPS Act aimed to jump-start the production of leading-edge semis in America - but a year later, funds have yet to be dispersed -- and firms have already spent billions of dollars. We report from a soon-to-be Wolfspeed chip plant in Siler City, NC.

Artificial intelligence is now disrupting one of the biggest headaches in healthcare – paperwork. Medical notes take doctors and nurses hours every day, and cut into time with patients. The National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that using AI for administrative tasks could save the U.S. health system $200 billion to $300 billion a year. Plus, Eric Hippeau, one of the leading venture capital investors in the healthcare industry, says there's a huge use case for AI, including opening access to primary care - but estimates we're still in the second inning and warns we're not at a stage yet where AI can reliably replace workers. 

Shares of Amazon are rocketing today, on pace for its best day since November after reporting a blowout second quarter and issuing upbeat guidance. It beat on the top line and notched its biggest bottom line beat since 2020, boosted by CEO Andy Jassy’s aggressive cost-cutting efforts. Shares of Opendoor though, headed the other direction – plummeting more than 20% on a steep revenue decline despite managing to turn a profit. We asked CEO Carrie Wheeler in her first broadcast interview since assuming the position about the quarter, the state of the iBuying business model in today’s market, and more. 

Amazon reports after the bell - and investors' eyes are on the cloud. Over the last 6 quarters, growth in its cloud business AWS has slowed significantly, to an expected 10% in tonight's report, and investors are anxious to know whether the slowdown has bottomed... or could head even lower. Another data point to keep an eye on – capex. Big tech companies that have already reported including Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta have all mentioned that big investments in AI have pushed up spending. Investors will be watching closely how Amazon’s plays out. 

Softbank-backed Arm is reportedly targeting a $60B-$70B September IPO - one of the biggest in tech history. The company licenses out chip designing to tech giants including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Intel. Softbank founder Masa Son couldn't have timed it better as the need for computing power and AI chips booms. But there are still risks, including a slowdown in smartphone sales, and faces competition from an open source chip design architecture firm called RISC-V.  

Uber just reported its first-ever profitable quarter - but just how sustainable is it? GAAP net income was $394 million, but nearly all of that was due to a pre-tax benefit related to unrealized gains on Uber's equity investments. It holds stakes in self-driving tech companies Aurora, electric scooter startup Lime, ridesharing companies DiDi and Grab, and electric aircraft company Jovy. Its advertising business though is seeing new growth. It launched video ads on Uber, Uber Eats, Drizly and in-car tablets, reporting ad revenue run rate of over $650 million, and more than 400,000 active advertising merchants for the quarter. 

The funding and valuation environment for startups remains challenged, but Tiger Global has notched one big, multi-billion dollar exit recently. After a rough 2022, Tiger told investors today it net a total of $3.5 billion from selling its remaining stake in Indian e-commerce startup Flipkart; a much-needed win for Tiger. Plus, Morgan Stanley analyst Keith Weiss has two big calls out today – upgrading Adobe to overweight on its roadmap to AI monetization, and downgrading Salesforce to equal weight on a lack of near-term catalysts.