Hi from the farm in Willard, MO where the dogs are enjoying a ride after this morning’s run through the fields.  Happy faces all around – hope you are having a great Memorial weekend.  Market commentary and five topics that might be worth your attention are below.  Happy reading/ watching/ listening!

The Week That Was

May ended on a brighter note for the Fab Five, with a $110 billion weekly gain.  Four of the five gained this week (including Amazon, who managed to add more capitalization this week than their $8.45 billion MGM acquisition price).  Google continues to lead the pack on annual gains, bolstered this week by reports by the Wall Street Journal that they would be settling charges of self-preference with the French government (full article here).  For the four weeks ending May 28, the Fab Five lost $241 billion in market capitalization. 

The Telco Top Five recovered a portion of the previous week’s losses and ended May with a slight (less than $1 billion) gain.  Confidence in Comcast’s (or rather NBC Universal’s) value rebounded, with the Philadelphia powerhouse adding $11 billion this week at (near) record highs.  As of Friday, the difference in equity value between T-Mobile and AT&T dipped to $34 billion, the lowest level since July 2020. 

Memorial Day Reading/ Listening/ Viewing List

Many of you liked our last reading list so we have five very interesting topics from May that we think are worth some Holiday weekend time: 

1. All of Google I/O in 16 minutes.  If you want to know how software is eating the world, this is a good video to watch.  Also, at the end of the video, Google describes their newest video developments.  One more example where 5G speeds and latencies are needed.  If you want a long-form read, here is a deep dive from Android Authority into the implications of each announcement. 
2. Continued reaction to the WarnerMedia/Discovery merger.  This CNBC interview with Barry Diller is worth watching, as is Friday’s CNBC interview with Greycroft Cheirman Alan Patricof (if you have CNBC Pro, there’s a really good interview with John Malone from the week of May 17 as well). 
3. Speaking of AT&T, we thought it was worth reposting John Stankey’s October 2020 Wall Street Journal interview here.  One memorable quote from the article: “There’s nothing that’s sacred anywhere in the business.  WarnerMedia is no exception to that.”  An interesting compare/ contract comes from Stankey’s latest J.P. Morgan investor conference appearance – transcript here. 
4. In addition to the articles we linked to in last week’s discussion of the Apple v. Epic trial, here are summaries of closing arguments from The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. 
5. One of the “post-COVID” pieces of legislation drawing a lot of attention is New York State’s new broadband law which mandates lower prices for low-income households.  Most of the communications industry (except for NCTA, the larger cable lobbying arm) has sued to block the legislation, which is scheduled to go into effect on June 15.  A good summary of the legislation is available from Bloomberg here.