Oil Prices Pull Back, Live Nation Settles Major Antitrust Case

public.com presents the rundown your daily market update in under 10 minutes.

My name is Zeyda Dmoni and today is Tuesday March 10.

In today's episode we'll take a look at why oil prices are coming down. We'll also

explain the ticket master antitrust settlement and why the company might still get broken up.

Then stick around to the end of the show to learn more about Amazon's Robotaxi expansion.

We got a great show for you today. Let's go.

Well the markets had an epic comeback to start the week. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq

opened Monday down about 1.5% as investors were still reacting to the chaos in the oil markets.

But as the day went on buyers stepped in and stocks ripped higher into the close.

By the market closed the S&P 500 have finished up 0.8% and the Nasdaq jumped 1.4%.

That turned around marked one of the biggest intraday reversals we've seen in nearly a year.

And a big reason for that comeback was oil prices finally cooled off.

In fact it was a pretty dramatic reversal. At one point crude oil briefly surged to around

$119 a barrel which sparked fears that energy prices could spiral out of control.

But then prices started suddenly pulling back and oil is now trading around the mid 80s range.

The sell off in oil yesterday was sparked by comments from President Trump who told reporters

that the conflict involving Iran was very complete. That's a direct quote right there.

Markets interpreted that as a signal that the worst of the oil supply disruption might be over

and that oil tankers would start sailing through the trade of Hormuz again. In fact there were

reports that a few tankers actually made it to the trade which is a positive development and likely

led to the oil prices selling off. At this point the price of oil is basically dictating the

direction of the stock market right now. When oil spikes investors worry about inflation and

economic slowdown and higher cost for businesses. But then when oil pulls back it's like a pressure

valve releasing across the entire market. And right now the market is being pretty optimistic

about the situation. Personally I still think there's a lot of uncertainty. So we might be in

for a volatile stretch in the markets over the next couple days. I can't imagine with oil traders

are going through right now seeing oil trade like a meme stock of the last 24 hours. I mean that

is not normal. So in the near term I think every headline about the war the straight up Hormuz or

a potential ceasefire is going to move stocks. We're staying on top of it all so make sure you

guys are subscribed to the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through

some headlines starting with live nation. Live nation is the parent company of ticket master and

they have reached a tentative settlement with the Department of Justice in a high profile antitrust case.

This is a lawsuit that the government filed back in May of 2024. The accused live nation of running

an illegal monopoly across the live music industry. The government said that live nation was

pressuring venues into exclusive ticket master deals and threatening to pull concerts from arenas

that used a rival ticketing company and also drive up prices for fans. So just to give you a sense

of how dominant the company is live nation put on 55,000 events last year they sold 646 million

tickets and they pulled in 25 billion dollars in revenue. That is more revenue than Spotify and

universal music groups. All in all ticket master controls about 80% of ticketing at major concert

venues in the US. So at one point the DOJ was even pushing for a breakup of live nation and ticket

master altogether which merged back in 2010 with the government's approval. Well that breakup

is not happening instead the company settled. Under this settlement live nation will allow venues

to use multiple ticket providers instead of being locked into ticket master exclusively. On top of

that some of the exclusive venue agreements that ticket master has will be unwound or limited.

Ticket master is also capping service fees at 15% and they're paying around $280 million in

civil penalties as part of the settlement. Now this deal still needs to get approval from the court

and from several states that were also part of the lawsuit and some state attorney generals are

already saying this deal doesn't go far enough. These attorney generals want a full breakup and

not a slap on the wrist. So live nation and ticket master are not completely out of the woods yet.

Also they're facing a separate investigation by the FTC into ticket resale practices.

Now live nation stock was up like 5% on Monday following the settlement news but I wouldn't be

surprised if the stock gives that back. There's still a lot of regulatory uncertainty here.

Personally I would love it if we had cheaper ticket prices and I wouldn't have to pay 25-30%

on random fees just to buy a concert ticket. Let's shift gears and talk about SpaceX.

The SpaceX IPO is right around the corner and according to a report from Reuters,

the company is targeting a valuation of around $1.75 trillion which would be the biggest

IPO ever. Now according to the same report from Reuters, SpaceX is leaning towards listing its

shares on the NASDAQ exchange but as the condition of listing they want early inclusion in the

NASDAQ 100 index which includes companies like Apple, Nvidia and Amazon. This would be pretty

unusual because normally newly public companies have to wait up to a year before they can join

a major index. But NASDAQ is proposing a new rule that would allow mega cap IPOs like SpaceX to

enter the index in just a few weeks if they're large enough. And that's a big deal because once a

company gets added to a major index every index fund that tracks it has to automatically buy the stock.

That means a massive wave of institutional money flowing in automatically which could be a boost

to the stock price. And that could help SpaceX avoid the classic post IPO hype sell-off that we've

seen with other high profile IPOs. So yeah, the anticipation for the SpaceX IPO is building. They're

targeting a June IPO so I'm sure we're going to be talking a lot more about it as we get closer

to the debut. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of Rivian are moving higher

this morning after the EV maker got an upgrade from TD Cohen. This upgrade is largely about the

company's next vehicle, the Rivian R2 which is expected to launch this summer. The R2 is a smaller,

more affordable electric SUV with a starting price of around $45,000 which is a huge discount from

Rivian's current flagship SUV, the R1S that starts at closer to $80,000. TD Cohen thinks this lower

price point will be a big boost for the company. They're projecting a long-term demand of

$212,000 to $335,000 units for the R2. To put that in perspective, Rivian only delivered about

42,000 vehicles in total in all of 2025. So if these numbers are even close to being right,

it would be a big boost for the company. Cohen slapped a $20 price target on the stock,

which is about 25% upside from where it closed yesterday. As of right now, Rivian shares are

up more than 5% this morning and trading around $16 a share. Now on the flip side,

Coles is getting hammered this morning after the retailer reported yet another quarter of

falling sales. Comparable sales dropped 2.8% in the fourth quarter,

worse than the 1.5% decline that Wall Street was expecting, and that marks 16 straight quarters of

year-over-year decline for Coles. I mean, that is wild when you think about it. The company

hasn't grown revenue in four plus years. Now net income and earnings did beat estimates,

but investors don't care about profits when the top line keeps shrinking. And look,

the outlook isn't getting much better. Coles expect sales in 2026 to be either down 2% to flat.

So that's not very encouraging. The reality is people just aren't shopping at Coles anymore.

Myself included. Now I think with more and more people working from home,

there's just less demand for people to buy the generic dress shirts that Coles is known for.

That's why the stock has lost more than 75% of its value in the past five years,

and shares are down more than 8% this morning in reaction to the earnings. Actually,

quick correction. I just checked Coles stock again. It was down like 8% this morning,

and now it's up like 5% at the open. So I guess someone came in and bought the dip.

Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Amazon's Robotaxi Service Zooks is expanding to Phoenix

and Dallas. Zooks currently only operates in San Francisco in Las Vegas, but they're expanding

quickly. They're now testing in 10 different cities. The reason they picked Dallas and Phoenix

is pretty interesting. They want to test their sensors and batteries against extreme heat.

Then you add in the dust and the wide open sprawling highways. It's a very different

environment from the tight city streets of San Francisco. Now, during the testing phase,

they're going to be sending out a small fleet of retrofitted Toyota Highlanders with a safety

driver behind the wheel to map the roads. Once that's done, they'll bring in their custom built

Robotaxis, which look way different than the Waymo, by the way. These Zooks cars don't have a steering

wheel or anything. It's literally a box on four wheels. You know, Zooks doesn't get the same

level of buzz as a Waymo or a Tesla does. Amazon bought the company for $1.3 billion back in 2020,

and they've served more than 300,000 riders since launching in Las Vegas in San Francisco.

Now, to be fair, that's a fraction of the 20 million that Waymo has done,

but Amazon is expanding quickly. In fact, they're building a massive factory in the Bay area

that could eventually pump out 10,000 Robotaxis a year. So the Robotaxi wars are

heating up, and I think that Amazon could be a sleeping giant here. Well, all right, guys,

that's the rundown for today. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did, and you have

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