Out with the old and in with the new, as they say.
For the CE 100 Index, completing its first (shortened) week of trading, the initial trading days resulted in a 2.6% loss.
Only two of the 10 pillars — this time, the Be Well and Banking segments — were positive for the week, up 2.5% and 1.4%, respectively.
Peloton’s shares in the Be Well vertical leaped 10.3% through the past five sessions. As reported last week, Peloton and TikTok partnered to offer Peloton’s workout content to TikTok users. The initial rollouts for the joint efforts will be in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.
The partnership will create a new fitness hub on the short-form mobile video platform called #TikTokFitness. The companies said that Peloton will have a dedicated, co-branded hub housing its content.
Peloton’s hub, which is called #TikTokFitness Powered by Peloton, will include live Peloton classes with and without the required equipment. There will also be original instructor series, ongoing creator partnerships, Peloton class clips and celebrity collaborations.
In Banking, Citigroup shares were 5.6% higher. The Wall Steet Journal reported that Wells Fargo banking analyst Mike Mayo has issued a report projecting that Citi’s stock will double through the next three years.
There’s a $70 one-year target on the name, with a base case estimation that the stock will be worth $119 by 2026, and undervaluation is in part reflected by the fact that the stock is trading at about half its book value. There will be more details, of course, as earnings season kicks off later this month, and banking names — including Citi — will weigh in on consumer and commercial spending trends, loan performance, and other key metrics, including deposits.
But as for names that declined and nullified the gainers:
The Shopping pillar lost 4.6% as Vroom shares sank 15%. As noted by sites such as Seeking Alpha toward the end of the year, Vroom had received a notice from Nasdaq that the company was not in compliance with the minimum bid price requirement.
The company said in an announcement that it had filed with the SEC to pursue a reverse stock split for the company’s common stock at an exchange ratio between 1-for-35 to 1-for-80.
Pay and Be Paid names, overall, were down 2.6%.
Block, down 13.4%, led names in this segment to the downside.
Affirm’s stock slipped 12.4%, retracing at least some of the rallies that boosted the name to a more than 400% gain through 2023. It may be the case that investors were taking some gains off the table. Overall buy now, pay later trends remain intact, as evidenced by stats from Adobe Analytics showing that online holiday shopping via BNPL was up 14% to $16.6 billion, as measured during the period from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31.
The Adobe Analytics data dovetails with PYMNTS Intelligence’s own data that noted an upswing in BNPL’s use during the holidays. There’s room for more growth, according to the recent findings in the report “Embedded Payments and the Retail Innovation Agenda,” a PYMNTS Intelligence and Carat by Fiserv collaboration. The data show that 22% of marketplaces that do not offer BNPL plan to start doing so.