Executive privilege
Playing office politics
Good morning, diligent analysts. This is your Stock Market Rundown for September 6th, 2024. Thanks for joining me. Let’s dig in:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: OFFICE POWER PLAY
All over corporate America, ever since the pandemic ended, bosses have been trying to drag their employees back to the office. But the rules for the peons in the rank-and-file, are never quite the same as the rules for guys with the keys to the executive bathrooms.
Case in point: Starbucks’ recently-appointed CEO, Brian Nicol. Nicol’s last job was heading up Chipotle, where he was hired to fix operations after the burrito chain was responsible for more than a thousand cases of food poisoning.
It’s thanks to Nicol that the public no longer automatically associates “Chipotle” with “vomiting and cramping”. Chipotle doubled its sales during Nicol’s tenure as CEO. Now Starbucks’ board is betting he can do the same thing for their sales of lattes and lemonades.
One clause in Nicol’s employment contract raised a few eyebrows on Wall Street: he lives in California, but for his new role, he’ll be working in Seattle three days a week. The next time I’m sucking iced coffee through a mushy paper straw for “the environment”, I’ll definitely think of the CEO of Starbucks enjoying his 1,000-mile commute in the comfort of Starbucks’ corporate jet.
Nicol isn’t the only employee hitting the road. With businesses pulling back on hiring and layoffs tripling, more workers will have an incentive to make the sweaty trek to the office, rather than just checking in via Zoom.
And with the number of listed job openings dropping by a third from its peak in 2022, they might be also thinking about how to get more popular with their colleagues. How about showing up to the morning meeting with a box of donuts? You know how your boss loves apple fritters.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
A whistleblower is alleging that Bank of America illegally shared nonpublic information with clients. Having your investment banker leak information to you before the rest of the market hears it? It’s like a cheat code for profits.
Those Doordash avocado toast orders and trips to the salon for eyebrow waxes really add up. Recent data shows US consumer spending on the rise.
Some big institutional investors are pressuring Nike to fix working conditions at its factories in Cambodia and Thailand. When your sneakers cost $200 per pair, you really have no excuse for underpaying the people stringing the shoelaces.
Despite the federal government’s efforts to negotiate, Americans are still paying prices for prescription drugs that are more than double what the rest of the world pays. Guess you can always try curing what ails you with herbal tea and positive thinking.
That’s all I’ve got for now, wonderful readers; let’s circle back for more next week. Yours in capitalism, The Axe
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