Francesca Fontana

speaker

586 appearances 22 recordings 1 series first heard Feb 2025 last heard 10 Jan

Francesca Fontana’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 9 in all, peaking in Dec 2025 with 3.

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WSJ What’s News · What’s News in Markets: Memory Chips, Corporate Drama, Mega IPO · 20 Dec 2025 podcast

There's a shortage of memory chips, thanks to the AI boom, and it doesn't look like it's ending anytime soon.

Demand for artificial intelligence has developers scrambling to buy enough of these essential chips, driving up price tags and giving sales a boost for companies like Micron.

And so Micron shares surged 10.2% Thursday, notching a weekly gain of 10.3%.

Next up, we've had two dramatic corporate sagas to keep up with on this podcast and the corresponding moves in the involved parties' share prices.

So I'll give you some quick hits on Warner Brothers Discovery and Lululemon Athletica.

Warner's drama is over its planned $72 billion deal with Netflix and the hostile bid valued at $77.9 billion from Paramount Skydance.

This week, Warner rejected Paramount's offer and recommended that shareholders do the same.

While Paramount has argued that its proposal to acquire all of Warner is a better deal for shareholders and more likely to pass regulatory muster, Warner raised concerns about the credibility of the, quote, illusory offer and its backing from the Ellison family.

Warner shares fell 2.4% Wednesday and on a weekly basis lost 7.4%.

Then we have Lululemon, the struggling yoga pants maker that, according to its estranged founder, has lost its cool.

Dedicated listeners will recall that the Journal reported that Chip Wilson has been privately taking steps to run a proxy fight.

And it seems like that's what's going down, because on Wednesday, we learned that activist investor Elliott has built a stake of over $1 billion in the struggling retailer,

and wants former Ralph Lauren executive Jane Nielsen to be its new chief executive.

In response, Lululemon shares gained 3.5% on Thursday and notched a weekly gain of 2.2%.

Finally, let's talk about the trading debut that made a big splash this week, that of medical supplies distributor Medline.

The stock jumped 41% on Wednesday, its first day of trading on the Nasdaq, raising over $6 billion, making it the biggest American IPO of the year.

It's the largest U.S.

initial public offering since Rivian's IPO in November 2021, according to Renaissance Capital, when the electric vehicle startup raised $11.9 billion.

Now, this could bode well for future IPOs coming down the pike from large companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX.

We'll have to wait and see.

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