Live Pillar Leads Gains as CE 100 Index Bucks Broader Markets

The CE 100 Index ended the last few days of 2024 and the first few days of the new year with a slight gain, adding 0.3%, while broader markets fell across the board.

The Live Pillar pulled ahead by 2.3%, buoyed by iRobot, a volatile name that was up more than 24% through the week, though without any company-specific news, by Porch Group, which gained 7.5% and by Zillow, up 2.1%.

The Eat segment was 2.2% higher; restaurant tech Olo advanced by 6.3% and DoorDash was 3.3% higher. Olo shares moved on the news, as reported by Yahoo Finance, that RBC Capital analyst Matthew Hedberg increased the sell-side firm’s price target on Olo to $9 from $8, while maintaining an “outperform” rating on the name.

But the Work segment countered those gains, sliding 2.2%. Xerox gave up 9.6%, giving back some of the gains that had been seen after the company struck a deal to buy Lexmark for $1.5 billion.

Workday’s stock was off by 5%. In a December announcement, Workday and Guardian Life Insurance Company of America announced an expanded partnership, with the insurance firm becoming one of its strategic Workday Wellness partners.

According to the announcement, Workday Wellness, an AI-powered solution, will give Guardian customers real-time insights into how their employees are using their benefits, leading to tailored benefits programs within Workday and improved overall employee experience. Guardian will introduce new application programming interface (API) connections with Workday as part of the expanded pact.

Apple’s stock slipped 4.8%. As reported this past week, the tech juggernaut has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a privacy lawsuit centered on its voice assistant, Siri. The plaintiffs had argued that when Siri was activated unintentionally, the voice-activated assistant shared private discussions it overheard, and Apple allegedly shared those discussions with third parties — whereupon ads were sent to plaintiffs after mentioning various products.

A preliminary settlement was filed on Dec. 31 but must be approved by a U.S. district judge. The proposed settlement requires Apple to address alleged privacy violations outlined in the lawsuit by confirming it has permanently deleted Siri audio recordings obtained before October 2019.

FedEx Divests FedEx Freight

FedEx’s shares gave up 2.2%, helping lead the Move pillar down by 0.2%.

The shares lost ground as the company noted toward the end of December that its latest quarterly results saw revenues slip by 1% to $22 billion and it is streamlining operations by focusing on its DRIVE program and separating FedEx Freight into a standalone, publicly traded company.

This move aims to unlock value for shareholders while allowing the two businesses to remain strategically aligned, management said during the call with analysts to discuss results. Management also noted during the call the challenges faced by FedEx during the quarter included a soft global industrial economy and competitive pricing pressures.

Also within the Move segment, Tesla’s stock was 4.9% lower. Data from Tesla’s latest delivery report noted that the company had delivered a bit more than 495,900 vehicles on a global basis, up from 484,500 last year but below consensus analyst estimates on Wall Street of around 510,000 vehicles. For the year, the 1.78 million vehicles delivered marked a slight decline from 2023 levels — the first annual decline for Tesla.

The company has stated in the past that growth rates might be lower than had been seen in 2023, as the firm set its sights on its next generation vehicles, as detailed by sites such as Yahoo Finance.

Microsoft said that it plans to invest $80 billion to build data centers in fiscal 2025, aiming to use them to power the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI). The company is doing so amid a “golden opportunity for American AI,” Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith wrote in a blog post that debuted on Friday. More than half of this investment in AI infrastructure will be deployed in the United States, according to the post. Microsoft plans to train 2.5 million Americans with AI skills.

“AI, like all new technologies, will disrupt the economy and displace some jobs,” Smith wrote. “But as we’ve working on skilling initiatives during the past few years, our confidence has grown that AI will create new opportunities that will outweigh many of the challenges ahead.”

The company’s stock was down 1.7% through the week, though the overall Enablers vertical, as tracked by PYMNTS, was 0.7% higher.

In other AI related-news, Meta is looking toward a future where AI characters generate content on its social media platforms Instagram and Facebook. These AI characters will exist alongside existing accounts on the platforms, Connor Hayes, vice president of product for generative AI at Meta, told the Financial Times. Meta shares gained 0.8%, which helped the overall performance of the Enablers.

“They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform … that’s where we see all of this going,” Hayes said.