📦 Amazon’s Prime time

Didn’t need the facial steamer… but the influencers ship it. Amazon said its live streaming service, where you can shop along with influencers, helped make Prime Day 2022 its biggest yet. During the two-day event, Amazon Live streams racked up 100M views while shoppers snapped up 300M items — 50M more than last year. That’s nearly 100K items a minute.

• Top sellers: Apple Watch Series 7, Le Creuset cookware, Pampers diapers, LeapFrog toys, and Levi’s.
• Bottom dollar: Households spent $145 on Prime Day, on average, with most items costing less than $20.
• Top ’flation: Consumer prices are up 9% from last year, but price pain may’ve boosted Prime Day because shoppers flocked to discounts.

Post-Prime blues… Yesterday, Amazon tried to settle a years-long European antitrust lawsuit — and avoid billions in fines — by agreeing to stop collecting private merchant data (think: revenue, shipments, and inventory). That third-party data lets Amazon peek at rivals’ sales patterns, which regulators say helps it get ahead of competitors with products like Basics. If accepted, Amazon's settlement would apply only to its EU biz. But it could affect operations elsewhere if the Zon decides to streamline policies for potential data-privacy legislation in the US.

Time to plan that Eurotrip... Yesterday, one euro was worth exactly one US dollar, and briefly less than the USD. The euro had been more valuable than the dollar for two decades (almost its entire existence). But the currency has lost more than a tenth of its value this year, while the dollar has appreciated relative to other top currencies. What’s driving it:

• Higher interest: Investors have ditched euros as comparatively higher interest rates in the US strengthen the dollar (higher interest = $$ is more expensive to borrow).
• Higher growth: The euro selloff continued last week as Russia threatened to cut Germany’s gas supply, hurting Europe’s economy. While the US’s economic growth outlook isn’t great, Europe’s is worse.
• Higher confidence: The USD’s stable rep has long made it the world's reserve currency for international purchases, and demand is climbing.

Cheaper chianti in Kansas… pricier Pop-Tarts in Palermo. The euro’s drop has global implications. The discounted euro makes it cheaper for Americans to frolic around Rome and Paris ($1 buys you more euros). But it makes it pricier for Europeans to import US products — and less lucrative for Italians to export their prosciutto. A stronger dollar makes investing outside the US less appealing to Americans, since returns in other currencies translate to fewer $$.

• Broke: Crypto-lending company Celsius filed for bankruptcy as crypto prices continue to plummet. Last month Celsius froze withdrawals and transfers, leaving its 1.7M users unable to access their assets (update: they still can’t).
• Milk: Inventory of powdered baby formula fell to its lowest level of the year, even as domestic suppliers like Abbott have ramped up production to ease the crisis. Last week, 30% of US baby formula was out of stock.
• Vault: JPMorgan Chase shares sank after it reported a 28% profit drop last quarter and halted buybacks. The drop was largely thanks to $428M put aside for potential loan defaults, though consumers are still spending.
• Charge: US EV sales have doubled in the past year despite higher prices and longer delivery times. While only 5% of new-car sales are battery-powered, a quarter of Americans say they’re likely to go electric for their next whip.
• Jolt: Earth’s largest chipmaker, TSMC, raked in record quarterly profit as chip demand continued outpacing supply (blame the cloud). Still, the Apple supplier plans to curb spending to recession-prep.

• Earnings expected from UnitedHealth, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Citigroup, BNY Mellon, and State Street

Authors of this Snacks own: shares of Amazon and Apple

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