Poppin' collas, losin' dollas

QUOTE OF THE DAY

We want to reinvent home music“ –– Tim Cook on stage at the WWDC yesterday. Let’s see what you got, Tim.

Ticker

MARKET CORNER

Market Snapshot

U.S. indexes fell only slightly in the wake of the London attacks and other geopolitical uncertainties.
First quarter economic output rose higher than expectations to 1.7%, while factory orders snapped a four-month winning streak, falling 0.2% in April.
Google followed in Amazon’s footsteps, passing $1,000 a share for the first time ever (more on that below).
Oil fell 1.1% to $47.15 per barrel as major oil producers sever relationships with Qatar—a country they accused of backing terrorism activities.

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"What Would Cook Do"

Didn’t drop $1,599 on a ticket to the WWDC conference in San Jose yesterday? Don’t worry, the Brew’s got your back (and your wallet).

Every year, about 5,300 developers file into Apple’s (-0.98%) flagship event, the Worldwide Developers Conference.

Suffice to say, Silicon Valley’s king of tech did not disappoint.

Here’s everything you need to know:

Software:

iOS11: Your iPhone and iPad just got a whole lot better. A redesigned control center, a "do not disturb while driving" feature and a fully souped up App Store, just to name a few of the highlights.

Our favorite, though? A Venmo competitor that lets you make payments right through Messages.

tvOS: Say hello Amazon Prime video

watchOS 4: Siri’s getting smarter and adapting to your daily routine

macOS High Sierra: Virtual reality’s new best friend

Hardware:

iPad Pro: Let’s give a warm welcome to the newest 10.5" model—the new edition to the Pro family will host a brighter screen and a faster processor for gaming.

Macbook & iMac: Faster processors? Sure. The Touch Bar Macbook Pro dropping to $1300? Love it. The Air (finally) getting a small upgrade? Tell me more.

And if you like all that—the iMac got some fresh improvements as well.

But it was the new iMac Pro that sent jaws to the floor. At 27", boasting a dark-gray finish, 18 core processors and up to 4TB’s of storage, this $5,000 model is only built for users that mean serious business. Even Tim Cook said it’s "pretty badass”.

HomePod: Apple went back to its musical roots with a fresh competitor to the Amazon Echo and Google Home. But rather than calling it a regular smart-home hub, Apple is looking to ambitiously "reinvent home music".

The HomePod sends vocals into the center of the room, while strategically bouncing the bass off surrounding walls—and if you’ve got $349 to spare, music’s never sounded so good.

If that’s not enough, here’s for the rest for all you Apple nuts.

Crushing Box Offices in a Single Bound

DC’s Wonder Woman took the box office crown this weekend, raking in $103.1 million. A tip of the hat to Patty Jenkins for the highest grossing opening of all time by a female director.

And doing so in style—the patriotic warrior fought through opening weekend ahead of other Marvel classics like Thor: The Dark World ($85 million), The Winter Soldier ($94 million), and Guardians of the Galaxy ($94 million).

Better yet? Patty’s blockbuster still has a ways to go, with DC Comics looking to take in $285m in domestic sales alone. Not too bad, for a $150 million investment...

Poppin’ Collas, Losin’ Dollas

Wall Street’s classiest CEO, Mickey Drexler, is hanging up his perfectly-pleated khakis at J.Crew after fourteen years with the retailer.

In 2003, TPG recruited Big Mick to run the show after taking Gap (and Old Navy) out of tackyville. Eight years and an $11 million investment later, Drexler was sitting on a cribs-style closet worth $301 million—probably explaining the quaint NYC abode…

The past two years haven’t treated ol’ Mickey quite as nicely.

Fighting ten straight quarters of declining same-store sales and $2 billion in debt, the once "King of Retail" isn’t feeling very kingly now.

Enter James Brett, President of furniture-retailer West Elm (and former Chief Merchandising Officer of Urban Outfitters). With Mickey still in the picture (as Chairman and part-owner), Brett will likely focus on lower prices, digital marketing and brand accessibility to repop J.Crew’s collar.

Welcome to The $1,000 Club

Step aside Amazon (+0.46%), you’re not the only one breaking $1,000 these days. After a 25% run since the beginning of this year, Alphabet’s (+0.78%) Class A stock breached the fabled four-digit mark Monday morning.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page’s $690 billion brainchild has benefited from the dominance of Google’s search engine advertising business, which brings in about 81% of annual revenue.

The sky seems to be the limit as Alphabet looks to diversify away from its bread-and-butter, placing even bigger bets on things like smart contact lenses, internet hot air balloons and get this…a pill that can detect cancer.

What Else Is Happening…

Apple gets downgraded by analysts at Pacific Crest, citing too much optimism over the iPhone 8.
It looks like Apple and Amazon will team up with Foxconn to bid on Toshiba’s chip business.
The NFL will allow 30-second liquor ads during games this season.
San Francisco has issued a subpoena to Uber and Lyft to determine if the ride-hailing giants have become a public nuisance.

Economic Calendar

Friday (June 2): May Jobs Report
Monday: Factory Orders (-), Productivity (+)
Tuesday: Dave & Buster’s Earnings, Michaels Earnings; Job Openings
Wednesday: Consumer Credit
Thursday: Cloudera, Dell Technologies Earnings
Friday: Straight Path Communications Earnings

WATER COOLER

(NBA Finals) By The Numbers

If you missed it last week, the goal is simple: break down an industry, individual or innovation that has an intriguing story to tell. This week, as the Cavs battle it out against the Warriors in the NBA Finals for the third straight year, we had a thought: is the lack of parity(i.e. blowout games) hurting the NBA’s ratings?

…and the answer is (drumroll please) ...surprisingly not.

12.6: The Nielsen metered market rating through the first two games, up from 12.5 last year.

12.7: The rating in Game 2 still rose after a whooping in Game 1—up 7% from last year’s Game 2 rating of 11.9.

21,997,875: Total attendance the NBA saw throughout the season—Last year? 25,000 fewer.

435,800: Average viewership per minute, a record for NBA Finals Game 2, and up from 350,000 last year.

19.6 million: Average viewership for the finals through Game 2, 5% higher than last year at this point.

20.1 million: Number of people that tuned in just for Game 2, the most since 1998.

So let’s take a step back: The same finals three years in a row, a 2-0 blowout to start the series and the viewership-ratings combo is better than ever. What gives?

Perhaps it’s the epic Lebron vs. Durant matchup or maybe Kyrie and Steph are doin’ it. Better yet, maybe every good trilogy needs some closure.

But, there’s one thing we do know. The numbers speak for themselves...

THE BREAKROOM

Interview Question of the Day

You are in a dark room where a table is kept. There are 50 coins placed on the table, out of which 10 coins are showing tails and 40 coins are showing heads. The task is to divide this set of 50 coins into 2 groups (not necessarily same size) such that both groups have same number of coins showing the tails.

(Still don't know?)

Who Am I?

I was listed on Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People In The World" in 2007 and 2008.
I lead a company that generates about $66 billion in revenue.
I was named the 3rd Most Powerful Woman in Business by Fortune in 2014.
I’m the 5th CEO of my consumer-focused company in its 44-year history.

Can you guess who I am

Stat of the Day

189,000

That’s how many people sat down to take one of the CFA exams this past weekend. The Chartered Financial Analyst is an absolutely rigorous, three-level exam with each level taking about 300 hours of preparation. Further, only 1 in 5 people that sit down for the Level 1 actually make it all the way through Level 3.