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https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-8c0c7b23
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Edmonton soccer darling Alphonso Davies has been crowned the most influential Canadian sport star, based on Instagram statistics, including number of followers and engagement.
Davies plays for Bayern Munich and the Canadian national team.
The study, conducted by online gambling company PlayOJO, ranked the top 10 Canadian sports stars.
Davies, 22, has over 5.4 million Instagram followers, a 3.2 per cent engagement rate and 173,000 average likes per post.
“Phonsie, especially, is a wonderful news story, both in terms of his upbringing — coming in as a refugee — growing, in terms of the Canadian soccer community, and going and playing for Bayern, is awesome,” said Gilles Prefontaine, a marketing instructor at NAIT’s JR Shaw School of Business.
“His success draws in a whole bunch of young athletes that want to share in that and be part of that with him.”
Prefontaine says soccer has a more global reach than some other sports.
“Being Canadian, we often think of hockey, and that’s because it’s part of our culture, it’s part of our DNA. But we also have to remember that many of these athletes are going to draw from international groups. And so many of the sports that have much larger international volumes will naturally have a bigger impact in terms of that number of followers.”
The study estimates Davies also has the highest potential earnings per sponsored post — an estimated $87,176 per post and $113,424 per reel.
With that power, Prefontaine says, comes responsibility.
“When someone with that kind of notoriety can change behaviour and turn around and influence potentially whole generations of individuals to consume something or do something very different, there is a certain amount of accountability,” he said.
Retired MMA fighter Georges St-Pierre, 42, is ranked second, with over 4.4 million followers, but a lower — 0.6 per cent — engagement rate.
In third place is Ontario’s Tristan Thompson, who has played 12 seasons in the NBA. Thompson has over 3.9 million followers and gets an average of 170,000 likes per post.
Rounding out the top 10 are Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (basketball), Genie Bouchard (tennis), Andrew Wiggins (basketball), Adam Copeland (WWE), Jamal Murray (basketball), Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (baseball) and RJ Barrett (basketball).
Davies’ story is well known. Born in a refugee camp in Ghana to parents who had fled the civil war in Liberia, Davies came to Canada when he was five.
In July 2016, a 15-year-old Davies left his home in Edmonton to pursue a professional soccer career.
He signed with the Vancouver Whitecaps, becoming the third-youngest in history to sign an MLS deal. Two years later, the Whitecaps agreed to sell Davies to Bayern Munich in a then-record MLS deal, worth possibly in excess of US$22 million.
Davies, then 17, finished out the season with Vancouver before officially joining Bayern in January 2019.
When it comes to Team Canada, he was just 16 when he made his senior debut for the country in June 2017 against Curacao, becoming the youngest men’s player in Canadian team history. He had obtained his Canadian citizenship the week before.
Davies has since become the face of Canadian men’s soccer, on and off the field. In June 2018, he opened Canada’s presentation to the FIFA Council in Moscow as part the joint North American bid, along with the U.S. and Mexico, to host the 2026 World Cup.
His social media accounts are followed by a legion of fans. He has 6.6 million followers on TikTok, 5.1 million on Instagram and 472,800 on Twitter.
“If we’re really thinking about a social media influencer, we’re thinking about someone who is using their platform, their notoriety to change other people’s behaviour,” Prefontaine said.
“A lot of deals with — or should, at least, deal with — the athlete’s or the person’s values.”
He says a successful influencer draws back the curtain of their life and creates a sense of belonging.
“We think about the realms of influence,” Prefontaine said. “Having someone, like a phenom like Phonsie, come from Edmonton, has already done amazing things — for example, for the Edmonton soccer community, where others look at this Edmonton area and realize we’re not a wasteland.
“Because in Canada, we have the Whitecaps and Toronto FC and it’s kind of feeling like everything in between, there’s nothing.”
Davies has endeared himself to many off the field as well. He serves as a global goodwill ambassador for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.
“He’s also been very genuine in terms of sharing some of that influence with his local community,” Prefontaine said.
“I’ve seen him flipping burgers and doing a variety of things to promote some local businesses, some different outreach with soccer clubs and soccer communities and that creates a sense of authenticity, but brings Edmonton and what’s going on in Edmonton, to a much higher level at the global stage.”
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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Emily Mertz
Source link
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/6-beaten-down-food-stocks-buy-c93ad194
Food stocks are worth a nibble after their worst showing relative to the
S&P 500
in …
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Usually, the announcement of a CEO change at a struggling company brings optimism and maybe even a stock pop. Not for
Walgreens Boots Alliance
Its shares have tumbled since Rosalind Brewer announced on Sept. 1 that she was stepping down. That could present a buying opportunity if the company makes the “right” choice…
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-3fac9192
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
For decades, identifying the next big consumer trends and products was an imprecise art dominated by guesswork. Companies would spend millions on market research, only to be caught off guard by sudden shifts in public taste. It was like throwing darts blindfolded. But artificial intelligence has transformed trend forecasting from a fuzzy guessing game into a data-driven science. Artificial intelligence algorithms can now predict hot consumer products by analyzing massive datasets — articles, reviews, social media and search trends, for example — that humans can’t process.
This monumental shift is on par with the discovery of electricity. Companies now have predictive insights once reserved for giants like P&G or Apple. For entrepreneurs, it’s like being handed the answer key before the test. Consumer trends that used to appear out of the blue can now be detected months in advance, allowing startups to launch the right products at the right time. AI turns elusive market intelligence into an actionable advantage open to businesses of any size.
Related: AI Is Poised to Change How We Shop: Here’s What You Need to Know
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Ari Goldberg
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The numbers: The index of U.S. consumer confidence dipped to 106.1 in August from a revised 114 in the prior month, the Conference Board said Tuesday.
Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a modest pullback to 116 from the initial reading of 117, which was the highest level in two years.
The revised July reading was the highest since December 2021.
Key details: Part of the survey that tracks how consumers feel about current economic conditions fell to 114.8 this month from 153 in July.
A gauge that assesses what Americans expect over the next six months dropped to 80.2 from 88. The August reading is just above to 80 level that historically signals a recession within the next year.
Big picture: The tight labor market had bolstered confidence in June and July. The decline in August reverses all of those gains. The index is still 10.8 points above the recent cycle low in July 2022.
Economists think that higher gasoline prices were behind some of the decline in August. The price of a gallon of unleaded gasoline is up 19.6% from the start of the year and over 2% from last month.
What the Conference Board said: The organization said it still expects a recession before the end of the year.
“Write-in responses showed that consumers were once again preoccupied with rising prices in general, and for groceries and gasoline in particular,” said Dana Peterson, chief economist at The Conference Board.
What are they saying? “The August drop does not definitively end the upward trend in place since last summer, and the expectations index still points to faster growth in real consumption spending. We are not convinced, however, in part because some of the strength in July retail sales was due to boost from Amazon Prime Day, which won’t continue, and because near-real-time indicators of discretionary services spending paint a much less upbeat picture,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
Robert Frick, corporate economist with Navy Federal Credit Union, said he didn’t think confidence would rise significantly until inflation falls further.
Market reaction: Stocks
DJIA
SPX
were trading higher on Tuesday. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
fell to 4.16%.
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Foot Locker
stock plunged on Wednesday as investors kicked around a bevy of bad news. The shoe and sportswear retailer missed expectations for second-quarter sales, slashed its full-year outlook again, and paused its dividend.
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Johnson & Johnson
$35 billion exchange offer for
Kenvue
that expired last Friday was substantially oversubscribed. The result is that participating J&J holders will be able to convert only a fraction of their shares for Kenvue stock.
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Buying a Home Is Getting Out of Reach. How Much 7% Mortgage Rates Need to Fall.
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The numbers: The University of Michigan’s gauge of consumer sentiment inched down to a preliminary August reading of 71.2 after hitting a 22-month high of 71.6 in the prior month.
Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had expected sentiment to inch up to a 71.7 reading in August.
Another key part of the report is the U. of M. measure of inflation expectations.
According to the report, Americans’ expectations for overall inflation over the next year slipped to 3.3% in August from 3.4% in the prior month, while expectations for inflation over the next 5 years inched down to 2.9% from 3%.
Key details: According to the Michigan report, a gauge of U.S. consumers’ views on current conditions rose to to 77.4 in August from 76.6 in the prior month, while a barometer of their future expectations fell to 67.3 from 68.3.
Big picture: Sentiment has been boosted by waning recession fears and disinflation in grocery store prices.
What the University of Michigan said: “Consumer sentiment was essentially unchanged from July, with small offsetting increases and decreases within the index. In general, consumers perceived few material differences in the economic environment from last month, but they saw substantial improvements relative to just three months ago,” said Joanne Hsu, the director of University of Michigan consumer surveys.
Market reaction: Stocks
DJIA
SPX
were mixed in early trading Friday while the yield on the 10-year Treasury note
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
rose to 4.12%, the highest level since the spike last week after Fitch Ratings downgraded the U.S. credit rating.
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/solaredge-stock-guidanceprice-solar-e54cc9fb
SolarEdge Technologies
was falling sharply Wednesday after issuing disappointing third-quarter guidance, the latest solar company to do so.
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-9cc9fac3
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-2b3602a5
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It’s a classic holiday film tale: small towns, snowflakes and star-crossed lovers.
But this year’s queue of beloved holiday movies may be considerably smaller due to the worldwide shut-down of productions caused by current Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes.
Glitch SPFX is an Ottawa-based special effects company responsible for simulating most of the artificial snow in holiday films produced in the province in the last five years — the majority of those films for American studios and networks.
Now, Glitch SPFX founder Ben Belanger said the company is completely out of work.
“It went from us working on literally three films at the same time in June … and then it was the writers’ strike that seemed like it was going to be nice and short.”
“But now with the actors’ strike jumping on top of that, it makes things a little more uncertain,” Belanger told Global News in an interview, referring to the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and Writers Guild of America (WGA) strikes.
Glitch has been in business for 10 years, but Belanger said the last five have been especially lucrative due to deals with American networks such as the Hallmark Channel, known for pumping out some of the most talked about holiday films each year.
Many of those films have been produced in Canada, with small-town locations in Ontario and British Columbia as well as the nation’s capital Ottawa flourishing with business the past few years.
But due to the strikes this year, the number of holiday films produced in Canada for Hallmark and similar networks will be greatly reduced, experts say — not because of the crews, but actors.
1Development Entertainment Services is an Ottawa-based production company with a focus on holiday, made-for-TV movies. Like Glitch, almost all of the studio’s projects are in collaboration with American unions and networks due to having a larger market and audience size.
Founder of 1Development, Shane Boucher, said it’s a big deal for networks to have at least one American star in a holiday film. That’s why many companies will likely choose to wait out the actors’ strike instead of working on new projects with an entirely Canadian cast.
“The SAG requirement is usually pretty high. There’s either a level of a Hallmark-known star … that’s going to help drive the viewership, or it’s just an American star that has a really high social media presence. Normally they’re higher than some of your top-level Canadians just because of the reach and the audience.”
Canadian studios will typically opt to hire domestic crews for tax credit purposes, which is more cost-effective.
Boucher said 1Development will not be one of the companies waiting out the strike and will work with networks to develop their own intellectual property (IP) in the meantime.
“We’re usually busy servicing production, so that’s kind of the silver lining. It gives us an opportunity,” he said.
Boucher said his goal has always been to grow the film industry in Ottawa since joining 20 years ago. Since work with American unions and networks is currently off the board, he’ll be focusing on smaller projects to fill the gaps.
“My job over the next few weeks to a month is to … work on getting some sort of projects so that we can keep everybody working … regardless of where it comes from.”
ACTRA Toronto executive director Alistair Hepburn said there is a small chance that some holiday film productions will be able to secure an American actor.
SAG-AFTRA is working on an agreement in which independent producers — those not affiliated with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) — will be able to engage the services of a SAG member through a waiver system for the duration of the strike.
“That may be something that we see maybe even more of because they will be filling that gap,” Hepburn said in an interview with Global News.
Hepburn noted that even if Canadian productions are able to hire SAG-AFTRA actors, those projects cannot be distributed by AMPTP companies, such as Netflix or Disney. Instead, independent producers can sell their project’s wares to unaffiliated networks like Hallmark.
“That is a very clear direction from SAG,” he said.
Belanger said that he’s fortunate to feel financially secure enough during Glitch’s uncertainty, but that he worries about many of his employees.
“I’m more worried about the guys whose pay cheques I sign. The guys that work for me are looking for whatever other income they can get right now.”
Belanger said that what his company is currently experiencing is similar to the strain felt in the industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which also saw an industry-wide shut-down. A number of Glitch employees left at the time to supplement their income elsewhere, and not all returned.
However, Belanger said many of his staff are enjoying having a break. Though the holidays are still some time away, the summer season is typically the busiest for filming.
“It’s a bit of an abnormality. They don’t seem to be too worried about it, but we also don’t know when we’re coming back,” he said.
SAG-AFTRA is entering its second week of striking. Hepburn said that he doesn’t know how long the strikes will go on and that doesn’t see a resolution coming soon.
“This is going to have an impact for months, absolutely months,” Hepburn said. “On not just performance, but the entire industry as a whole.”
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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Naomi Barghiel
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/uber-doordash-stocks-court-victory-drivers-519061c6
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The numbers: The University of Michigan’s gauge of consumer sentiment rose to a preliminary July reading of 72.6 from a June reading of 64.4. It is the largest gain since December 2005. Sentiment is at its highest level since September 2021.
Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had expected a June reading of 65.5.
However, Americans’ expectations for overall inflation over the next year rose to 3.4% in July from 3.3% in the prior month. Expectations for inflation over the next 5 years ticked up to 3.1% from 3% in June.
Key details: According to the UMich report, a gauge of consumers’ views on current conditions jumped to 77.5 in July from 69 in the prior month, while a barometer of their expectations rose to 69.4 from 61.5.
Big picture: Sentiment is improving as gasoline prices have held steady this summer. Low unemployment is also playing a role.
What are they saying? “The good news is that sentiment has roughly retraced half of its fall from pre-pandemic levels. For most Americans, a modest gain in income is expected. Still, durable goods buying conditions remain far off their recent levels. The rise in confidence seems restrained, and clouds concern about the forecasted economic downturn which continues to linger,” said Scott Murray, economist at Nationwide, in a note to clients.
Market reaction: Stocks
DJIA,
SPX,
opened higher on Friday while the yield on the 10-year Treasury note
TMUBMUSD10Y,
rose to 3.81%.
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-3beb512f
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/constellation-stock-price-earnings-bud-light-a7957686
Constellation Brands‘ earnings beat Wall Street’s expectations as the company reported strong beer sales for the latest quarter on Friday. The stock fell anyway.
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