"Now I drive alone past your street"... Sad. Spotify shares plunged after it reported quarterly earnings last week. Investors were bummed about a wider-than-expected loss, though sales and user growth were solid. The real bright spot: podcasts. 25% of Spotify's 345M users listened to pods last quarter, and listening hours nearly doubled from 2019. Joe Rogan went Spotify-exclusive, driving new pod-heads to the platform. With music, Spotify has to pay record labels for streams. With pods, it gets more bang for its subscription buck. And with original pods, it can "double dip" by running its own ads.
Exx-on, exx-off... Gas legend Exxon lost a ginormous $20.1B last quarter, its fourth-straight losing quarter. For the full year, Exxon lost more than $22B — compared with a $14.3B profit in 2019. The pandemic crushed oil demand, but prices have been rising since the pandemic plunge. Exxon shares actually jumped for the week since investors think the WOAT is over.