The market in action
- Workplace communication software company Slack entered the stock market with a direct offering opposed to the more traditional initial public offering (IPO). The listing was successful as share prices jumped nearly 50percent from the reference price of $26 per share. Had it been an IPO, it would have been the fourth largest from a U.S. company so far in 2019.
- Cloud-based software company Salesforce agreed to purchase the data visualization company Tableau for$15.3 billion. The move aims to increase its competitiveness with other large tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Following the announcement of the deal, shares of Tableau rose nearly 40 percent, while shares of Salesforce fell six percent.
- The crisis surrounding Boeing’s 737 Max airplane continued as more than 400 pilots filed a class-action law suit claiming that the manufacturer performed an “unprecedented cover-up” of “known design flaws” in the plane. Less than a week after the suit was filed, U.S. regulators found that Boeing outsourced work to low-paid temporary workers in countries with a shallow background in aerospace engineering. Since March of 2019 Boeing shares have fallen by as much as 26 percent.
- Just weeks after ending its express delivery contract with FedEx, Amazon announced a new Delivery Service Partners program for local entrepreneurs to run their own delivery networks to deliver Amazon packages. With an investment as little as $10,000 to enter, owners can build out a delivery network with up to 40 vans covered in Amazon branding. Shares of FedEx and UPS both dropped more than two percent following the news.