United States of America eSeries: Breaking point 📦

Breaking point 📦

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I'm back and ready for the weekend. Let's get into it.

By Allison Morrow

🍿 TO THE MOON?

AMC's shares are up more than 2,000% this year, thanks to a cadre of investors on Reddit and some legit optimism about people feeling safe enough to go back to theaters and stuff their faces with $20 buckets of oversalted popcorn (God, I miss it).

That's good news for the world's largest theater chain, but the industry is far from in the clear, my colleague Frank Pallotta writes. In 2020, AMC was worried it would run out of cash by the end of the year. The stock, which is currently slightly above $50 a share, hit a low of $1.91 just five months ago. Big congrats to those 💎 🙌 who bought the dip...

WHAT'S GOING ON

AMC announced Thursday that it sold 11.5 million shares, bringing in a whopping $587.4 million. That's quite a change from this past December, when the whole company was valued at just $347 million.

Even AMC recognizes how strange this situation is. On Thursday it issued an unusual warning to investors against investing in its Class A common stock, "unless you are prepared to incur the risk of losing all or a substantial portion of your investment."

In other words: Don't expect this party to rage forever. The theater biz has a tough road ahead, because the pandemic didn't just shut down its business, it upended the whole concept of movie distribution. Now, AMC isn't just competing against other cineplexes, it's also contending with Netflix, Disney+ and about a dozen other streaming services.

LOOKING AHEAD

Summer is Hollywood's most crucial season, and this one is no exception. It's early, but theaters are hopeful that the rise in vaccinations will help rekindle the public's love of overpriced candy, fountain drinks the size of footballs, and dark theaters so cold you have to bring a parka in the middle of July… God, I really miss it.

💰 NUMBER OF THE DAY

$13.7 billion

The Federal Reserve is winding down a buying program that saved the economy from the worst of the pandemic recession. The Fed currently holds $13.7 billion worth of corporate assets. That's a huge amount of money to unwind, so the Fed said it would sell off those assets over time to keep markets functioning properly and to reduce any resulting shock to the system.

📦 A STEEP PRICE

Last year, as we all hunkered down during the worst of the pandemic, many of us turned to Amazon for, well, just about everything, including an unreasonably large supply of toilet paper none of us needed, home gym equipment that's now collecting dust in your closet, and a whole bunch of other potentially vital but often useless stuff. Because, capitalism!

Amazon delivered 2.3 billion more of its own packages in 2020 compared with 2019. Its revenue grew last year by 38%. Seven months into the pandemic, CEO Jeff Bezos's net worth surpassed $200 billion. Meanwhile, many of the drivers making those deliveries possible say they were being pushed to their breaking point.

THE DRIVERS' STRUGGLE

Amazon-branded trucks are everywhere. But many of those drivers don't technically work for Amazon. They work for independent businesses known as "delivery service partners," or DSPs.

Drivers who spoke to CNN Business' Matt McFarland had a litany of complaints about Amazon's system, including:

Massive turnover rates: Several DSPs said that their average turnover is about 90 days. "It's kinda like a revolving door," Juan Ramos, an Amazon DSP driver, told CNN Business.
Relatively low pay: Drivers for Amazon's delivery partners start at $15 an hour, lower than other delivery companies like UPS, where it starts at $21 an hour.
Smelly vehicles: Some vans reek of urine because drivers rarely have time to stop or have access to toilets, forcing them to pee in bottles.
Buggy app: Amazon's routing and navigation is inefficient and frustrating, drivers said. They describe being sent on round-about routes and directed to drive through fences, fields, or on impassable roads.
Injuries: One poster on a private Amazon forum for DSP owners said a driver who was averaging 36 stops an hour got hurt because they were trying to walk too fast, missed a step and fell. "My drivers are barely making it. Knee braces, air casts, back issues, mental health struggles," said another poster. "The actual deterioration of 100+ human minds and bodies is not something I can abide by much longer."

For its part, Amazon said the comments in this story do not reflect the experiences of the vast majority of its DSP drivers.

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

📱Walmart is giving nearly half of its US workforce — about 740,000 employees — a free Samsung smartphone.

✈️ United Airlines has agreed to buy 15 supersonic jets, with plans to carry passengers on the ultra-fast planes by 2029. These could be the first commercial supersonic flights since the Concorde was grounded.

🚲Peloton is discounting the monthly price of its workout app for students, health care workers and military members.

🔄 Twitter is rolling out an "undo tweet" function that, for a fee, allows users to preview their message and set a timer for up to 30 seconds — a moment to pause and say, you sure 'bout this one? (Here's a 🔥take for ya, Twitter: Just 👏 give 👏 us 👏 an 👏 edit 👏 button )