Welcome to "#SocialStocks," The Fly's weekly recap of Wall Street's reactions to social media stock news.
TIKTOK, OTHER M&A NEWS: Oracle (ORCL) is working with U.S. venture capital companies to acquire TikTok's U.S., Canadian, Australian and New Zealand operations, CNBC's Alex Sherman reported on August 18, citing a person familiar with the matter. Oracle's interest challenges Microsoft (MSFT), which has been in talks to acquire the same TikTok assets for more than a month.
Facebook (FB) and Snap (SNAP) recently held discussions to purchase Dubsmash, a lip-syncing video app that has spiked in popularity alongside other TikTok rivals, The Information's Alex Heath reported on August 12. The app was approached by both the social media firms about a deal in recent weeks, Heath says, citing a person familiar with the matter. The deal talks progressed far enough to include negotiations of a price tag in the hundreds of millions of dollars, Heath noted.
PREVENTING SPREAD OF MISINFORMATION: Facebook, Google (GOOG, GOOGL) and Twitter (TWTR) held talks with federal officials on how the social-media platforms can prevent the spread of misinformation leading up to and after the election, Dustin Volz and Emily Glazer of the Wall Street Journal reported on August 13, citing people familiar with the matter. These discussions came as the U.S. intelligence community warned of foreign interference and President Trump questioned the vote's integrity. The FBI, Department of Homeland Security and intelligence agencies were all reportedly involved in the talks. With COVID-19 expected to result in a large increase of people voting by mail, the federal officials and companies are concerned that any delay or problems with mail-in voting could enable the circulation of fake stories about how the votes are being tallied.
JUSTICE DEPT. PROBES BIG TECH: The U.S. Justice Department is going forward with its antitrust probe of Google and other Big Tech companies at "full-tilt," a department official told Reuters, reported David Shepardson of Reuters on August 14. "We are going full-tilt. It's a major priority," said Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen, according to Reuters. "State attorneys general have separate probes of Google, and the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has ongoing investigations of Google, Amazon.com (AMZN) Facebook, and Apple (AAPL). Many states are likely to join a federal antitrust lawsuit against Google, Reuters reported in June," added the Reuters' story.
WHALE WATCHING: Hedge funds disclosed their positions as of the end of the second quarter to the SEC on Friday, August 14. Dan Loeb's Third Point disclosed a new stake in Facebook, while Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital increased its stake in Facebook during the quarter. Lone Pine, David Tepper's Appaloosa Management, and Chase Coleman's Tiger Global all listed Facebook as a top holding as of June 30. Additionally, Paul Singer's Elliott Management increased its stake in Twitter in the second quarter.
Apple
+5.5 (+1.19%)
Amazon.com
-6.79 (-0.21%)
+1.38 (+3.63%)
Alphabet
+5.65 (+0.36%)
Alphabet
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Snap
+0.605 (+2.78%)
Ticker changed to META
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Microsoft
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Oracle
+1.385 (+2.51%)