Markets & Finance

Investing

Heard on the Street

The Wearable Boom Is Real. The Investment Case Is Murkier.
Oura and Whoop are eyeing IPOs at heady valuations
https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/the-wearable-boom-is-real-the-investment-case-is-murkier-516466b3?st=Fr9TvJ&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

From sleep scores to heart rate, our biology now arrives packaged as a dashboard.

For investors, it is tempting to bet wearable companies like Oura and Whoop have cracked the code on turning self-optimization into a durable, fast-growing business. The history of consumer health hardware suggests otherwise.

Oura’s roughly $400 smart ring has spread from Wall Street to Silicon Valley and drawn praise from celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow. Whoop’s screenless wristband has locked millions of fitness-minded users into a subscription model and counts backing from sports superstars such as LeBron James and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Both companies are growing quickly and are seeking to go public in the near future. Both have recently raised capital at private-market valuations of roughly $10 billion to $11 billion, around 10 times revenue.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-11/elon-musk-s-spacex-set-to-make-history-with-record-breaking-ipo

The Trump Mobile T1 phone, originally marketed as “Made in the USA,” is nearly identical to the two-year-old HTC U24 Pro, a phone made by the Taiwanese company HTC using Chinese parts, according to a technical analysis iFixit conducted in partnership with NBC News.

“We were looking at potentially it being a Taiwanese phone, but even the Taiwanese don’t have the ability to manufacture everything from the ground up. The only thing that makes sense is for it to be a Chinese phone,” the expert said.

Within days of launching the phone, Trump Mobile quietly scrubbed “made in the USA” language from its website, replacing it with phrases like “designed with American values in mind.” The device that finally arrived carried an “assembled in the USA” sticker on the box.

Read more: nbcnews.to/4xoUaw1

Data Centers in Texas
Abbott recommends sweeping data center regulation, including eliminating sales tax exemption
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/06/10/texas-greg-abbott-data-centers-regulation-sales-tax/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-10/xbox-plans-significant-layoffs-as-it-transforms-under-new-ceo-asha-sharma?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc4MTEyNDkwOCwiZXhwIjoxNzgxNzI5NzA4LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUR0ZPUU5LSVAzUlYwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.cjHY4m0BuOULFpdYUKt2jmNBt-PDLWE6Vy-JsYLWvwI&leadSource=uverify%20wall

The Verge:
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and CCO Matt Booty warn of an “Xbox reset” in the next 100 days, citing challenges like annual revenue down ~$500M over the past five years
https://www.theverge.com/games/948142/microsoft-xbox-layoffs-reset-asha-sharma