Weekly Market Update

Entering the week, exceedingly few investors would have predicted that Tuesday’s consumer price index (CPI) could somehow be overshadowed, but Elon Musk seems to have had other intentions. Despite the CPI for March indicating a whopping 8.5% rise in inflation from a year ago, the highest since 1981, Elon Musk has managed to captivate financial media with his recent acquisition attempts of the social media platform Twitter.

Two weeks ago, Musk disclosed that he had acquired a 9.2% share position in Twitter, making him the company’s largest shareholder and Twitter reacted by offering the billionaire a board seat. On Monday, however, Musk rejected that offer and stoked speculation that perhaps he wanted to outright acquire the company since being on the board caps any member’s maximum stake in the company at 14.9%.

On Thursday, the other shoe dropped, and Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter at $54.20/sh. setting off a media firestorm. It appears very unlikely that the board accepts the offer, but with both the bond and stock markets closed on Friday for the Easter holiday weekend, it is anyone’s guess what sort of headlines Mr. Musk creates over the long weekend.

Next week the first quarter earnings season picks up steam and we expect investors to closely watch multiple housing market data releases, but we doubt this Twitter situation will stay out of the headlines for very long.

Happy Easter!

Ian G. Browning, CFA®
Managing Director, Investment Strategies | Shareholder