Dropbox on Thursday night raised $756 million in its IPO, pricing shares at $21 (above its upwardly-revised range). This would give the file storage and sharing company a fully-diluted market value of around $9.23 billion, which is lower than where it was last valued by private-market investors.
Dropbox will begin trading on the NASDAQ tomorrow under ticker symbol DBX.
Why it matters: This is the highest-profile consumer tech listing since Snap early last year, although we'll also be getting Spotify in early April.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer gave rare praise to the president on Thursday, saying he is "doing the right thing" with his proposed tariffs on China.
"I don't agree with President Trump on a whole lot, but today I want to give him a big pat on the back...I have called for such action for years and been disappointed by the inactions of both President Bush and Obama. I'm very pleased that this administration is taking strong action to get a better deal on China."
CNN president Jeff Zucker said on Thursday that while Fox News has done "incredibly well" at owning the conservative media space, it's a "pure propaganda machine," per the Hollywood Reporter.
Why it matters: Zucker acknowledged that the station has "a handful of good journalists," but said they're lost to the opinion side of the network. This is a point one of Fox's star anchors, Shepard Smith, has repeatedly made. Fox News is also President Trump's favorite network, who regularly watches the morning show, Fox & Friends, and Sean Hannity's evening program.
Trump's anti-China tariffs, which push back at the country's intellectual property practices, will include a potential list of 1,300 products and a hopeful tag of $60 billion, the president said today. Trump said he's asked China to immediately reduce the trade deficit by $100 billion. The tariffs include a 30-day public comment period before taking effect.
Go deeper: Jonathan Swan explains the coming trade war.
African countries launched a historic free trade agreement at the African Union Summit in Rwanda on Wednesday, establishing the largest free trade market since the formation of the World Trade Organization.
Why it matters: Encompassing 1.2 billion people and a GDP of more than $2 trillion, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) promises to increase intraregional commerce and attract new investors to a single African market.
The Dow is down more than 400 points, as the tech sector continues to struggle and investors gear up for what is expected to be an aggressive tariff package to be unveiled by President Trump today.
Why it matters: Per CNBC's Patti Domm, financial markets are not prepared for a "dangerous trade war."
Judy Woodruff will remain as the sole anchor on "PBS NewsHour" broadcast, reports CNN. She was formally granted the title more than a year and a half after the death of her co-anchor, Gwen Ifill — together, the first all-female team on a major nightly news broadcast.
The big picture: Woodruff officially securing the top spot at "NewsHour" follows a television newsindustry trend of granting more high-visibility positions to women in the wake of the #MeToo movement, which saw a numberof prominent menin the industry fall from grace after allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct.
Just months after it announced the acquisition of Time Inc., Meredith Corporation, the Des Moines-based lifestyle magazine company, will lay off more than 1200 people, the company announced Wednesday.
Why it matters: With mergers of this size usually comes cost-cutting "synergies," which usually translate to layoffs. The company says positions are being eliminated in part to de-duplicate roles and to move more staff from Time Inc.'s former NYC headquarters to Meredith's Iowa headquarters, where operational costs are cheaper.
Amid a retail bloodbath last year and the first two months of 2018, the U.S. still has far too many shops, and their numbers need to shrink — 1 out of 5 need to close to reach the historical average, according to Costar, a research firm.
By the numbers: Ryan McCullough, senior real estate economist with Costar, said the U.S. has 18% too much retail space when compared with the historical average.
Meredith Corp. CEO Tom Harty today held meetings with the respective staffs of several magazines recently acquired in the Time Inc. merger, including Time, Fortune, Money and Sports Illustrated. Axios spoke with a source at Fortune.
Harty's basic message: We're trying to sell you, but won't shut you down if we fail.
For decades, western companies have griped that Beijing is forcing them to hand over tech secrets and source code as a price of access to the Chinese market. Now they have a White House prepared to act forcefully to stop it — starting tomorrow, Axios' Jonathan Swan reports — but the fear is a costly tit-for-tat trade war.
President Trump plans to unveil his aggressive package of tariffs against China tomorrow, with a charge led by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer that will use Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to target Beijing.
The big picture: Two sources with direct knowledge tell me Kevin Hassett has been crunching the numbers, and the dollar value of the tariffs will likely be around $50 billion per year — or slightly less. The administration has used an algorithm to select a batch of Chinese products and then apply tariff rates to those products in a way that will hopefully limit the harm to American consumers.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström released a joint statement saying they are looking for "mutually acceptable outcomes" for President Trump's recently announced steel and aluminum tariffs.
"We have agreed to launch immediately a process of discussion with President Trump and the Trump Administration on trade issues of common concern, including steel and aluminum, with a view to identifying mutually acceptable outcomes as rapidly as possible."
Why it matters: The EU threatened to strike back against President Trump's tariffs, which risked sparking a trade war with one of the United States' closest allies and trading partners.
"'Special Council [sic] is told to find crimes, wether [sic] crimes exist or not. I was opposed the the [sic] selection of Mueller to be Special Council [sic], I still am opposed to it. I think President Trump was right when he said there never should have been a Special Council [sic] appointed because there was no probable cause of believing that there was any crime, collusion or otherwise, or obstruction of justice!' So stated by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz"
