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Amazon.com
held a gadget-fest this past week, introducing a grab bag of new and updated consumer and smart-home products, including a new Amazon Smart Thermostat, a Blink Video Doorbell, and new Ring home-security devices and services.
But the headliner was Astro, a shin-high mobile robot powered by Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant. “Amazon Astro uses advanced navigation technology to find its way around your home and go where you need it. When you’re not using Astro, it will hang out close by at the ready,” Amazon says on its Astro website. Astro isn’t cheap: The introductory price is $999.99, before rising to $1,449.99.
Amazon Glow, at $249.99, is a new videoconferencing device with an eight-inch display and a 19-inch “touch-sensitive projected space” for sharing games and stories. The Echo Show 15, also at $249.99, extends Amazon’s Alexa-compatible screens and is meant to help families track calendars, to-do lists, and reminders, while providing access to entertainment. And there are Alexa upgrades, like Hey Disney!, which allows people to interact with Disney, Pixar, and Star Wars characters, and Alexa Together, to keep track of older family members.
The Halo View is a new $79.99 fitness tracker that includes a one-year subscription to Amazon’s Halo Fitness and Nutrition apps. A new version of Halo Fitness provides hundreds of what Amazon calls studio-quality workouts—taking on
Apple
’s
Fitness+ service and
Peloton Interactive
.
After the announcement, Peloton stock closed down 4.6%. Amazon declined 4.2% for the week.
Last Week
Blame September
Oil and natural-gas prices and Treasury yields surged and indexes opened the week mixed, with value stocks outpacing techs. Mixed turned into a rout after the Federal Reserve warned that inflation could persist until 2022 and jobless claims unexpectedly rose. Thursday tipped September into a loss. Friday, Oct. 1, saw a rally. On the week, the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
fell 1.35% to 34,327.45; the
S&P 500
was off 2.21% to 4357.09; and the
Nasdaq Composite
shed 3.2% to 14,566.70.
The Debt-Ceiling Dance
Congress passed a stopgap funding measure on Thursday to avoid an immediate shutdown of the government. The threat of a debt default remains, however. Meanwhile, the two infrastructure bills remain in limbo. House Democrats canceled a planned vote on the first $1.2 billion bill, already passed by the Senate, on Thursday to resolve aspects of the $3.5 billion bill.
Openings at the Fed
The president of the Dallas Fed, Robert Kaplan, and the Boston Fed, Eric Rosengren, resigned. The pair had been swept up in charges that they traded stocks while engaged in Fed business. Kaplan said the trading furor had become a distraction; Rosengren cited health reasons. Both were hawkish on monetary policy.
Reading Evergrande
China Evergrande’s electric-vehicle company scrapped a public offering in Shanghai, saying it was suffering from “a serious shortage of funds.” Evergrande itself failed to make a second offshore bond payment, though it did announce it would sell a bank stake for $1.5 billion to a state-owned bank. Distressed investors are buying Evergrande bonds, betting on a bailout. Separately, two big crypto exchanges, Huobi Global and Binance, closed accounts of Chinese customers after China declared the currency illegal.
After Merkel
After 16 years as Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel stepped down, and her party, the Christian Democrats, struggled at the polls. The highest vote-getter—the Social Democrats, led by Olaf Scholz—has the best chance to form a government, possibly with the Greens.
Annals of Deal Making
Merck agreed to buy Acceleron Pharma for $11.5 billion…SPAC Gores G uggenheim agreed to a deal for Swedish electric-vehicle maker Polestar that valued it at $21 billion. Polestar is owned by China’s Zhejiang Geely Holdings…In its most profitable property deal ever, Blackstone sold Las Vegas’ Cosmopolitan casino and hotel for $5.65 billion to several investment groups, including MGM Resorts…Hollywood’s Creative Artists Agency agreed to acquire rival ICM…Another CAA rival, Endeavour Group Holdings, is paying $1.2 billion for sports-betting firm OpenBet…Warby Parker went public in a direct listing at a $6 billion market value…Zoom Video’s $14.7 billion deal for cloud contact center Five9 collapsed after regulatory and shareholder concerns.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at eric.savitz@barrons.com
