The e-commerce giant used to be a fortress, but that's not the case anymore.
Amazon (AMZN) has just taken a hit in its standoff to avoid the formation of unions within the company.
Workers at an Amazon warehouse in New York just voted to join a union, an historic victory for organized labor. But in doing so, they inflicted a defeat on Amazon, which did everything to block their efforts.
This vote is the first entry of unions at Amazon in the United States and it is likely an encouraging message and a positive signal for workers seeking to organize themselves at other companies like Apple (AAPL).
The vote took place in the Amazon warehouse on Staten Island in New York, known as JFK8. Besides the defeat, what is also worrying for the e-commerce giant is that the result was decisive.
The vote count gave 2,654 "Yes" to join the union and 2,131 "No." There were 67 challenged ballots, which means that even by classifying them in the No group, the vote in favor of unionization prevails. Approximately 8,325 workers were eligible to vote on whether to become part of the Amazon Labor Union. The results still need to be formally certified by the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB).
By voting in the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), Staten Island workers could challenge the company’s current labor model, which is the backbone of its Prime two-day shipping promise, according to CNBC. Unions stand to disrupt the level of control that Amazon exerts over its warehouse and delivery employees, such as its ability to unilaterally set the pace of work and hourly wages.
Unless the company can get the result overturned, Amazon will have to start contract negotiations that potentially could affect the organization of work. The company has until April 8 to dispute the results.
The union victory at Amazon Staten Island could galvanize workers at other big companies because the e-commerce giant has fought so hard to block union organizing efforts so far.
Groups in at least two Apple retail stores are backed by major national unions and are preparing to file paperwork with NLRB in the near future.
Amazon has a New Device
Can a costly entertainment system play with your kids from miles away be a success for Amazon? Amazon has a new device that allows kids and adults to play board games, sketch and read together even when they aren't with each other in the same apartment or room. The Seattle tech giant's latest device, "Glow," is similar in size to an old-fashioned payphone, the ones installed in phone booths, and is designed to make video calling more enjoyable for kids.
Glow is a countertop entertainment device that comes with a projector that creates a 19-inch, touch-sensitive space in front of the child, and the adult on the other end of the video call can interact with the game or activity using their Glow app. Glow is designed so that each person has a clear view of the other as they simultaneously engage in real-time activities, the company said.
TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Amazon as a Buy with a rating score of B-.
Here's a breakdown list of more technology stocks to watch right now based on their performance over the past week:
Facebook has made a lot of changes since the Covid-19 pandemic. The most important of these is undoubtedly the change in the name of the company. Since October, Facebook is now called Meta Platforms (MVRS). The decision is aimed at two things: trying to put behind the incessant controversies and scandals linked to its practices both in terms of user data management and content moderation. The other objective displayed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg is to make it clear that the future of the company rests on the metaverse. Despite the mockery and financial losses linked to the metaverse, Zuckerberg continues to defend this strategic shift.
Brian Boland, who worked at the Menlo Park, Calif., company for 11 years as vice president for partnerships, said that Meta resorted to "PR tactics" when it dealt with its problems. Boland, who quit Facebook in 2020, recently tweeted that "Meta handles problems through PR [public relations] tactics rather than focusing on studying and fixing the broken parts that cause real-world harm and undermine societies and communities. Time to regulate. Facebook paid GOP firm to malign TikTok." Boland tweeted in response to new documents showing that Meta paid a political strategy firm to run a smear campaign against rival TikTok.
TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) as a Buy with a rating score of B+.
Apple
Banks and fintech companies will have to get used to it: Apple should soon become their competitor. The tech brand has made services one of its most important growth areas. "We continue to invest in innovation across our services business, which set another all-time revenue record last quarter and performed even better than we had anticipated," CEO Tim Cook told analysts during its earnings call in January.
Apple posted record revenues of $124 billion for the three months ending in December. Services revenues, which include payments, rose 24% to a record $19.5 billion. Services gross margin was 72.4%. It seems that Apple is determined to attract this money. The iPhone maker is in the process of developing a project called "Breakout", which aims at replacing its Fintech partners, according to Bloomberg.
TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Apple as a Buy with a rating score of A.
Twitter (TWTR) users have been asking for an edit button since 2016. The company decided to use that to troll its customers on April Fools Day. The social media giant tweeted on April 1 that the San Francisco-based company was working on an edit button, a request avid Twitter users have made since 2016. The company did not give away its official position but punned on editing its tweet later, a company spokesperson said.
"We cannot confirm or deny but we may edit our statement later," a Twitter spokesperson said in response to a query from TheStreet. But those who can read between the lines may have already found an answer there, given the nature of pretty much any announcement made on April Fools' Day. This recent edit button tweet has generated more than 556,000 retweets and 221,600 likes at the time this story was published.
TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Twitter as a Hold with a rating score of C-.
Dell
Dell Technologies (DELL) shares moved lower this past week after analysts at Goldman Sachs (GS) lowered their rating and price target on the PC maker, citing weakness in key markets and broader inflation pressures. Goldman analyst Rod Hall said value from the group's spin-off of its cloud computing division VMWare last year has already been unlocked, and weakness in PC markets, as well as a slowdown in corporate IT spending, were enough to remove Dell from Goldman's "conviction" buy list. Hall cut his rating on Dell to neutral and lowered his price target by $7, to $61 per share.
"We continue to believe Dell remains inexpensive compared to its peers, but we see increasing fundamental headwinds hindering this value unlock," Hall said. "We note that PC demand has already moderated for low-end consumers, and we expect higher end demand to inflect by the end of this year." Dell said earlier this year that it sees current quarter revenues slowing to between $24.5 billion and $25.7 billion, with earnings in the region of $1.25 to $1.5 per share, as supply-chain disruptions and chip shortages continue to extend completion times for PC making and deliveries.
TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Dell as a Hold with a rating score of C+.
Microsoft
Tech giants and firms from the crypto, metaverse and web3 galaxy are in extreme competition to attract the best talent. Binance, the largest crypto platform in terms of trading volume, has managed to poach great talent from Microsoft (MSFT). Rohit Wad has been Binance’s new chief technology officer (CTO) for four weeks, according to a blog post released on Friday by the company. This is a big catch for the crypto sphere. Wad was until this announcement "Corporate Vice President (Product and Engineering)" at Microsoft.
While American audiences took to the Xbox well, Asian markets wanted nothing to do with it, leaving Microsoft with the frustrating problem of being unable to capture the interest -- and the revenue -- of a major sector of the market. Microsoft's recent announcement that it intends to acquire video game publisher Activision Blizzard (ATVI) is an elegant solution to that problem. By combining Activision Blizzard's assets with its own, Microsoft can boost its ranking without solving the Japan problem, making it the third-biggest video game company alongside Tencent and Sony. But there are some who oppose the deal.
TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Microsoft as a buy with a rating score of B+.
Keeping a low profile: this is how Google's (GOOGL) position can be summed up since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. And above all not to make waves. It's as if the internet giant is not one of the platforms millions of people around the world search to discover the geography of Ukraine or Russia. It has not escaped observers that Google, which has a power of penetration equal to Facebook, has still not suffered the wrath of Moscow, which seeks at all costs to win the communication war against Kyiv.
Unlike its rivals, Google, whose parent company is Alphabet, chose not to take a stand in this Russian invasion of Ukraine. One of the priorities of the group is to avoid being criticized. Google has thus announced actions such as ceasing selling online ads in Russia. Like Facebook and Twitter, Google has restricted new content and payments around this war and has thus blocked Russian state media RT and Sputnik in Europe. More recently, the Sundar Pichai-led group said the company will not help websites, apps and YouTube channels sell ads alongside content the company believes exploits, denies, and condones the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
TheStreet Quant Ratings rates Google as a Buy with a rating score of A.
Advanced Micro Devices
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) said Monday it has agreed to a $1.9 billion takeover of enterprise services start-up group Pensando as the chipmaker pushes deeper into the lucrative data center market. AMD will pay $1.9 billion -- fewer adjustments for working capital -- for the Milpitas, Calif.-based group, which includes blue-chip clients such as Goldman Sachs, IBM (IBM), Microsoft and Oracle (ORCL) as part of its customer base.
Datacenter revenues comprised around a quarter of AMD's 2021 topline, with the group forecasting "another year of significant growth based on the strong customer demand signals for our current and next-generation products." AMD said last month that 2022 revenues should come in north of $21.5 billion, a 30% increase from last that that is also well ahead of the Refinitiv forecast of $19.25 billion, thanks to surging demand for its data center chips.
TheStreet Quant Ratings rates AMD as a Buy with a rating score of B.
