Chime rises up to 66% after $864M IPO

Chime Financial jumped as much as 66% in its trading debut after raising $864 million in an initial public offering priced above the marketed range.

The financial technology firm’s shares opened trading Thursday at $43 after selling for $27 in the IPO. The shares rose as high as $44.94 at 12:50 p.m. in New York trading, giving it a market value of $16.4 billion.

Accounting for employee stock options and restricted stock units, Chime has a fully diluted value of $19.1 billion based on its filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. That fully diluted value is a sharp drop from Chime’s $25 billion valuation in a 2021 funding round.

“We don’t focus on short-term fluctuation of the stock — even if it goes up today, I’m sure there’s going to be other days that won’t be as great,” Chime CEO Chris Britt said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “We remain focused on the long-term.”

Oracle soars to record on cloud sales

Oracle shares soared to a record high after the software maker projected a 70% gain in cloud infrastructure sales this fiscal year, giving a bullish outlook for the closely watched business.

The company, long known for its database software, has been gaining traction in its effort to become a major player in the business of cloud computing renting out computing power and storage by targeting clients focused on artificial intelligence work. Earlier this year, it announced a joint venture dubbed Stargate to provide OpenAI with massive sums of computing power.

The shares gained as much as 15% to $201.99 in New York trading on Thursday, marking the biggest intraday increase since September. Oracle had already climbed 17% in the last month.

Powell’s job safe; Trump wants rate cut

President Donald Trump reiterated Thursday he did not plan to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, days after saying he would “soon” pick his nominee to lead the central bank next.

“The fake news is saying, ‘Oh, if you fired him, it would be so bad, it would be so bad.’ I don’t know why it would be so bad, but I’m not going to fire him,” Trump said at a White House event on Thursday.

Trump went on to repeat his complaints that the Fed has not moved quickly enough to cut interest rates, as more evidence emerged of cooling inflation. Powell’s term as chair expires in May 2026.

Recurring jobless claims jump

Recurring applications for US unemployment benefits rose to the highest since the end of 2021, adding to evidence that it is taking unemployed Americans longer to find a new job.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, advanced to 1.96 million in the week ended May 31, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. That was above all estimates in a Bloomberg survey.

Meanwhile, a measure of new filings that smooths volatility climbed to the highest since August 2023.

The spike in recurring claims coincides with a slowdown in hiring, suggesting that out-of-work people are struggling to find employment. However, the report covers periods which tend to make the data more volatile.

Compiled from Bloomberg reports.