What's News in Markets: Cautious Consumers, Dollar Retailers, Media Megadeal

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Francesca Fontana (0:18)

Hey, listeners. It's Saturday, December 6th. I'm Francesca Fontana for The Wall Street Journal, and this is What's News in Markets, our look at the biggest stock moves of the week, and the news that drove them. Let's get to it. Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving last week, for those who observe. This week, we got our first full trading week of December, starting with a cryptocurrency slump and peppered with earnings reports and other corporate updates throughout, including retailers and consumer companies. More on which ones were the winners and losers, so to speak, in a minute. And Friday brought us a nice big M&A surprise. The winner of the rounds of bidding for Warner Brothers Discovery was, drumroll please, Netflix. But before I talk about how shares of all the players reacted, let's see how the indexes fared. For this week, the first of the month, the Dow ended up half a percent, the S&P added 0.3 percent, and the NASDAQ gained 0.9 percent. Like I said, we got a bunch of updates from companies revolving around the increasingly cautious American consumer, including supermarkets and the companies behind grocery brands. Let's start with Procter & Gamble, maker of things like Pampers and Gillette razors. On Tuesday, the finance chief of P&G gave a warning about its US business. The company's sales this quarter are being affected as cautious consumers pull back spending. The government shutdown and the temporary loss of SNAP food assistance benefits also impacted sales. That sent P&G shares falling Tuesday. Ultimately, they dropped 1.1% for the day. And on a weekly basis, the stock notched a 3.2% loss. Then on Thursday, supermarket chain Kroger swung to a quarterly loss and said it was working to cut costs. As it tries to manage consumer sensitivity to rising prices, while also addressing its own rising expenses. Kroger shares dropped 4.6% Thursday, and on a weekly basis fell 6.8%.

So price-weary shoppers are taking a toll on those stores. But discount chains like Dollar Tree and Dollar General said this week that their sales are still going strong. In a nutshell, more higher-income shoppers are looking for bargains at the dollar store, in addition to lower-earning ones. Both Dollars General and Tree saw the trend as their new customers skewed more affluent. Some numbers to give you an idea of the scale. Dollar Tree said roughly 3 million more households shopped at its stores this last quarter versus a year ago. And of those shoppers, approximately 60% came from higher-income households, aka those earning over $100,000 annually. So unlike Kroger and P&G, investors were cheering their updates. Dollar Tree shares rose 3.6% Wednesday, while Dollar General shares surged 14% on Thursday. On the week, Dollar Tree gained 10.5%, while Dollar General jumped 21%.

Last but not least, Netflix struck a $72 billion deal to buy Warner Bros. once it splits from Discovery, beating out Paramount Skydance and Comcast, and shocking Hollywood. It's a deal that stands to reshape the entertainment and media industry. And it's Netflix's largest acquisition, and one of the biggest in M&A so far this year. How were the entertainment giants reacting to the news? Warner was the big winner of the four, gaining 6.3% Friday and 8.7% on the week. Its buyer, Netflix, on the other hand, fell 2.9% Friday, notching a weekly loss of 6.8%. Like Netflix, Comcast was pursuing the studios and HBO Max business, while Paramount had sought to buy the entire company, including cable networks such as CNN, TNT and TBS. Paramount sank 9.8% on the day and about 17% on the week. But Comcast ended Friday up 0.4 and added 2.3% on the week. And now you know What's News in Markets this week. You can read about more stocks that moved on the week's news in The Score, My Column and Wall Street Journal's Exchange section. Today's show was produced by Michael Lavelle with supervising producer Jana Heron. I'm Francesca Fontana. Have a great weekend and see you next Saturday.

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