Good morning, shutterbugs. This is your Stock Market Rundown for January 17th, 2025. Thank you so much for reading. Let’s get into it:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: FRAMING THE FUTURE
Need a photo to illustrate your corporate website, or the brochures you’re handing out at your next trade show? Well, you could do a photo shoot with your employees. But Derek in HR isn’t that photogenic, even with his fresh zoomer perm.
A better answer: stock photography. The media and publishing industries have long relied on these generic ready-to-use images, available for use via paid license.
But now, the stock photography industry faces an existential threat: AI-generated visuals. Why pay a royalty fee when you can just type a prompt into AI tools like Midjourney or DALL-E, and get passable results for free?
Okay, AI images aren’t getting hung up in the Louvre, but neither are those stock-photo “Teamwork” posters your boss uses to decorate the break room.
Now, the two leading providers of stock photos are teaming up to beat the AI threat: Getty and Shutterstock just announced a $3.7 billion merger. The combined company will keep Getty’s name and CEO, sunsetting Shutterstock as an independent brand.
Shutterstock was launched back in 2003, when computer programmer Jon Oringer—tired of paying hundreds of dollars for stock photos—posted 30,000 images he’d personally taken with his Canon camera, charged a subscription fee for access, and opened it up for other photographers to contribute.
Now, the business he built will become part of Getty, in a deal that sent the stock prices of both companies soaring when it was announced. Apparently, shareholders are stoked to own a stock-photo giant that’ll boast a library of 1 billion visual assets.
Likely less stoked? The FTC. The US government’s competition watchdog is sure to scrutinize the deal, given the combined entity is cornering three-quarters of the market. This merger won’t be picture-perfect until it gets by Uncle Sam.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
That plastic bottle of water might have mountains on the label, but chances are it came out of somebody’s tap. A lawsuit charges that Nestle is defrauding customers by calling its water “Poland Springs” when it actually comes from man-made sources, not sparkling waterfalls.
Chinese government hackers breached the US Treasury Department’s cyber defenses in a recent hack aimed at stealing data and documents. No indication whether the Chinese got a peek at Janet Yellen’s Reddit account.
There’s only one GOAT. The CEO of a top asset manager predicted that the US stock market will continue to be the Tom Brady of global asset classes.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has just changed its moderation policies to allow more free speech on its platform. Why verify the truth when you can monetize the chaos?
That’s all I’ve got for now, amigos. Treat yourselves some well-deserved R&R this weekend, and I can’t wait to reconvene next week. Yours in capitalism, The Axe