Amazon CEO Swings for the Fences

Today is Thursday, September 2, 2021.

Amazon CEO Swings for the Fences With 55,000 Job Push

Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) plans to hire 55,000 people in the coming months, newly-named CEO Andy Jassy told Reuters yesterday.

Background: The new roles are in engineering, research, and robotic, and a majority of them will be in the United States. Jassy said the expansion was needed to keep up with demand in retail, the cloud and advertising.

Stock Price: Shares of Amazon were up 0.24% Wednesday. The stock is up 4.43% in the past 30 days and up 9.17% year to date. However, share growth has slowed in the past year as the company has tried to deal with new challenges such as a union push in one warehouse and a CEO change.

Driving: Separately, Amazon is also making a play to recruit pot smokers to fill vacant driver roles.

Data: Also on Thursday, ADP reported that private payrolls grew by 374,000 last month, falling way behind the estimate of 600,000.

Final Thoughts: The decision to hire 55,000 is a bold move for Amazon’s new CEO. It sends a strong message for Amazon as it tries to enable new growth as the overall job hiring picture looks bleak.

Notables

Notable Earnings Today: Signet Jewelers (NYSE: SIG), American Eagle Outfitters (NYSE: AEO), Broadcom (Nasdaq: AVGO), Duluth Holdings (Nasdaq: DLTH), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE), Hormel Foods (NYSE: HRL), Kirkland’s (Nasdaq: KIRK), MongoDB (Nasdaq: MDB).

Notable IPOs Today: DTRT Health Acquisition Corp. Unit (Nasdaq: DTRTU), OMNIQ Corp. Common Stock (NASDAQ: OMQS), Generation Income Properties Inc Unit (Nasdaq: GIPRU).

Notable Equity Crowdfunding Campaigns Ending Today: Super Belly Ferments (SMBX 2021), Revelation Ale Works (Wefunder), Planted Recovery Telehealth (Wefunder).

Notable Economic Events Today: Unemployment Rate (8:30 a.m. ET), Nonfarm payrolls (8:30 a.m. ET), Average Hourly Earnings (8:30 a.m. ET), Markit Composite PMI (9:45 a.m. ET), ISM Services Index (10:00 a.m. ET).

Penny Stocks Soar In 2021

When it comes to penny stocks, are retail investors making the right moves?

Definition: Penny stocks are like regular stocks, but the price per share is very low and usually under a dollar. Many of these stocks are traded over the counter, which means they are not listed on an exchange.

Penny Stock Companies: These aren’t the large companies that dominate the S&P 500. Some of them are pre-revenue, and a few could grow in the future.

Pros: The cost of a penny stock is really low. Due to the volatility in penny stocks, there’s a possibility to get a quick win. If a penny stock increases in price, there could be an incredible return on investment.

Cons: There’s a reason why these stocks are so cheap - because they are usually unproven companies. These stocks lose money all of the time. Plus, there are a ton of scams and fraudulent activity tied to penny stocks.

Final Thoughts: If you want to pursue a penny stock, do your due diligence and thoroughly research before investing.

How The Semiconductor Shortage Impacts Stocks

The current global shortage of semiconductors is impacting technology and automobile companies, but how is the shortage impacting stocks in the sector?

Driving the Shortage: The reasons behind the shortage of semiconductors includes a slow down in supply from the pandemic, increased demand from gaming, and the trade war with China.

Bigger Picture: While many companies tout using semiconductors, the truth is the actual production of chips is done by just a handful of companies

The Good: Several semiconductor stocks have thrived in 2021 under these economic conditions, such as NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA), Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), and Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM).

The Bad: However, others in the sector have struggled this year and lost value, including Micron Technology (Nasdaq: MU) and Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM).

Final Thoughts: How will these stocks perform next year if the shortage ends?

Trends to Watch

McDonald's Solves Its Labor Shortage: Oregon McDonald’s asks 14-year-olds to apply amid labor shortage (Fox Business)

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