CE 100 Index Gives Up 1.2%, Led by Zillow’s Share Slide

The CE 100 Index lost 1.2% as the end of earnings season is in sight. Year to date, the Index has trailed several of the broader indices, as seen in the chart below.

Zillow shares sank 17.6%, leading the Live segment 1.6% lower. As reported by Yahoo Finance, real estate stocks were negatively impacted after news that the National Association of Realtors reached a legal settlement effectively lowering the commissions paid throughout the industry.  

As has been widely reported, the Association has agreed to a settlement with groups of home sellers over a spate of antitrust lawsuits — and will pay $418 million in damages while cutting commissions paid to brokers.

In its most recent 10-K, Zillow observed that “If agent commissions are meaningfully impacted, it could reduce the marketing budgets of real estate partners or reduce the number of real estate partners participating in the industry, which could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.”

AI Drives Several Names 

Adobe shares slipped 10.7%, as the Work segment gave up 1.2%. Towards the end of the week, as detailed here, and in a nod to the appeal and demand for AI, Adobe continues to roll out generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) features across its digital media, digital experience, and publishing and advertising product lines.

The company saw strong demand for these features across all customer segments in the first quarter and will add new AI solutions in the coming months, Adobe executives said during the company’s quarterly earnings call.

The company added GenAI features to its Photoshop, Illustrator and Express products, both desktop and mobile. Its Firefly creative, generative AI model, which was introduced in 2023, has helped users generate more than 6.5 billion images, vectors, designs, and text effects.

In its Experience Cloud business, which includes marketing and commerce applications, Adobe offers a GenAI solution called GenStudio that helps marketers plan, create, store, deliver, and measure marketing content, Anil Chakravarthy, president of digital business experience at Adobe, said during the call. The latest earnings release noted that revenues grew by 11% to $5.2 billion.

PDD Holdings, which owns Pinduoduo, saw its shares gain 12.1% and push the lone pillar to gain ground, the Shop segment, up 3%. As noted by sites such as Yahoo Finance,  the shares rose as Jefferies analysts upgraded their rating and price target and said that PDD was gaining market share. The rating got a boost from “buy” to “hold,” and the price target was increased to $157 from $117.

Oracle shares were up 11.7%, helping offset at least some of Adobe’s slide.

Oracle’s latest report notched a 7% gain in revenues to $13.3 billion. The latest fiscal quarter saw cloud infrastructure revenue of $1.8 billion, up 49%.

As noted here this past week, it announced generative AI capabilities added to its Fusion Cloud Applications Suite. The rollout also includes expanding the Oracle Guided Journeys’ extensibility framework to let customers and partners incorporate more generative AI capabilities, as the company announced.

PayPal shares added 6.5%. 

PPRO, which PayPal backs, has raised 85 million euros ($93 million) to expand and enhance its local payments platform. The company will use the new funding to grow in key markets and enhance its global network of local payment methods, PPRO announced. Separately, earlier in the month PayPal expanded its Tap to Pay on iPhone offering in the U.S.  

The service is now available for all U.S. Venmo business profiles and PayPal Zettle users. It allows them to accept contactless card and digital wallet payments on their iPhones with no additional cost or hardware. The service lets Venmo business profiles and PayPal Zettle users in the U.S. accept payments, add taxes, accept tips, send receipts and issue refunds.