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The buzz on Bumble
Good morning, debonair bachelors. This is your Stock Market Rundown for November 15th, 2023. Thank you once again for reading. Let’s get into it:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: LOVE AT FIRST SWIPE 📲
Online dating apps can be the spark for a magical romance. Or, they can be a nightmare of churning through dud first dates and getting ghosted.
Whatever your luck, with around 40% of couples now meeting online, online dating is a multi-billion-dollar industry.
Whitney Wolfe Herd has been on the cutting edge of it. She was on the founding team of Tinder, but quit (and sued) when things went sour. Soon after, she jumped back into the dating game by launching Bumble with a simple concept: a “feminist” dating app where women were required to make the first move.
When the ladies arrived in droves, the dudes soon followed, and today Bumble has 42 million monthly users. That’s a lot of awkward “what do you do for fun?” conversations over Starbucks lattes.
Bumble raised $2 billion in an IPO two years ago. But the stock has cratered since then. The online dating industry is as cutthroat as sorority rush at a party school, with competing apps from ChristianMingle to FarmersOnly vying for daters’ attention.
Now, another setback for the stock: Wolfe Herd just announced she plans to step down as CEO. Even though she’s swiping left on the CEO role, she exits as one America’s few female self-made billionaires. (Before you get any ideas, fellas: she’s taken.)
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Trouble at the Sphere: Las Vegas’ latest showstopper landmark reported a $98 million loss for the quarter, and the financial chief quit. Maybe management can top up the cash register by adding a few monster truck rallies to the venue’s schedule when Bono isn’t performing.
The SEC is considering “eight to ten” applications for Bitcoin ETFs, which has sent the price of Bitcoin to a two-year high as speculators front-run the expected influx of Boomers clamoring to get exposure to crypto in their Charles Schwab retirement accounts.
Media stocks were up as the Hollywood actors’ strike ended and the world’s most beautiful people returned to their on-set trailers. The deal gives actors more protection for their “digital likenesses”, so it’ll be a while before Zendaya and Tom Holland are replaced by AI versions of themselves.
Good news for your grandma’s annual pilgrimage to spend your inheritance on the slots at the Wynn: a strike by Vegas casino workers has been averted. We certainly wouldn’t want the bottle girls from the Encore Beach Club walking a picket line… not in those heels.
That's the end of today's briefing, pals; let’s reconvene bright and early tomorrow. Yours in capitalism, The Axe