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Peter Platzer, CEO of Spire, rings the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) during its listing in Manhattan, New York City, United States, on August 17, 2021.

Andrew Kelly | Reuters

Small satellite builder and data specialist Spire Global began trading on the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday and is the newest space company to complete a SPAC merger and go public.

“We are incredibly fortunate to be at the forefront of a long-term generation change,” Peter Platzer, founder and CEO of Spire, told CNBC. “The only equivalent I can think of in my lifetime is the late 90s, early 2000s, when we replaced the mainframe with the personal computer and this fast iteration began.”

His company merged with the special purpose vehicle NavSight, which valued Spire with equity of $ 1.6 billion.

Spire stock lost 5.2% in trading, closing at $ 9.41 per share. The company is the fourth pure space company to go public via a SPAC this year – after AST SpaceMobile, Astra and Momentus – and more are expected before the end of 2021.

A Spire Global engineer works on a satellite in a test chamber.

Spire Global

The company’s Lemur satellites are small and comparatively inexpensive, each housing a variety of instruments. Spire’s satellites help predict the weather, track ships at sea and aircraft in flight.

Spire has approximately $ 265 million in cash on its books upon completion of the transaction, up from the $ 408 million the company expected when the merger was announced in March. A Spire spokesperson noted that public shareholders have requested the redemption of approximately 90% of the company’s outstanding shares – a large amount for a company going public.

But Platzer is unimpressed by the redemptions, and states that the money the company is receiving is “more money than the Spire has ever had and has spent and used to this point in its nine-year history.”

“It is a very unusual position that we feel so exceptionally well capitalized,” said Platzer.

Specifically, Spire posted $ 36 million in revenue last year and expects to nearly double that to $ 70 million in 2021. However, the company needs to grow its customer base much more to reach $ 1.2 billion in revenue by 2025, as forecast in its investor presentation.

Spire founded

Peter Platzer, CEO of Spire, poses with a ceremonial bell on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) during its listing in Manhattan, New York City, USA, August 17, 2021.

Andrew Kelly | Reuters

The company currently has more than 110 satellites in orbit, in what Platzer calls the “largest multi-purpose constellation in the world”. Spire also has ground stations in 16 countries with more than 70 antennas to quickly receive the satellite data and enter it into its analysis platforms.

“The starting point for us is a fully established global infrastructure,” said Platzer. “Everything is ready, everything is operational to a very high degree – processing terabytes of data, shipping to hundreds of customers.”

Now Spire is focused on “monetizing that data,” he said, which it sells to customers as an annual subscription. Platzer said Spire’s annual subscriptions range anywhere from tens of thousands of dollars to “very high” millions.

Platzer cited the example of an oil-focused commodities trader on Wall Street who not only wants to know on the supply side “where the ships are, but where they will be,” but then uses Spire’s analytics platform to look at the demand side. which is driven by the weather. “

Spire does not expect to expand its constellation of Lemur satellites as they are updated over a three year hardware replacement cycle. The company has “made tens of thousands of software upgrades in the past few years so that orbiting facilities produce two to three times as much data,” said Platzer, and the company sees “no customer demand” from a larger constellation of satellites.

Growth strategy

Spire’s growth strategy is “land and expand,” said Platzer.

“You go into a specific use case, you get some customers, you grow those customers, and then you build around other customers,” added Platzer.

The company currently has offices in four countries – the US, UK, Luxembourg and Singapore – and customers in nearly 30 countries.

Platzer presented a four-pronged growth strategy for the future of Spire: recruitment, geographic expansion, new data streams and inorganic opportunities. Spire will focus on strengthening its sales, marketing and product teams in the near future. On the international side, Spire aims to attract customers in the Middle East and Asia, Platzer said, and as a “NYSE-listed company, opening doors carries a lot of weight”.

Ultimately, inorganic growth opportunities would include adding new technology or new capabilities to the Spire platform. One such capability the Spire hopes to add is optical links between satellites, which “would dramatically reduce data latency,” Platzer said. Spire has successfully tested radio frequency links in orbit, but inter-satellite optical links would take its capabilities a step further.

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Pedestrians sit in the outdoor dining section of a restaurant in the SoHo neighborhood of New York, U.S., on Wednesday, May 19, 2021. Photographer: Nina Westervelt/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

As the economy recovers and the market notches new highs, most people are ready to live it up.

Between dining out and taking trips, Americans are now spending an average of $765 more a month compared with last year when much of the country was shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the MassMutual Consumer Spending & Saving Index. 

Young adults, in particular, are determined to make up for lost time. Millennials and Gen Z, who reported feeling the financial impact from the rise in reopenings and social gatherings, said they are shelling out $1,016 more a month, on average, than they did during summer of 2020. MassMutual polled 1,000 U.S. adults from July 21 to 28.

“Spending that extra money is sometimes making a short-term decision,” said Paul LaPiana, a certified financial planner and senior executive at MassMutual in Park City, Utah.

Younger generations “seem to be rushing to the door to get out and start living their lives again instead of making more disciplined decisions, including putting some away, just because they’ve been missing out for the last year and a half,” he observed.

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Many Americans plan to spend even more in the weeks ahead as schools and offices reopen.

Largely due to commuting costs and new clothes, roughly one-third of office workers are concerned that a return to in-person or hybrid work settings will cause them a financial hit.

Nearly half of parents of children in kindergarten through grade 12 also anticipate spending more this back-to-school season compared with 2020, and almost as many plan to spend more on supplies than they did before the pandemic.

In fact, back-to-school sales in the U.S. are expected to grow 6.7% from 2019 and 5.5% from last year’s Covid days, according to a forecast by Mastercard SpendingPulse.

However, the recent surge in Covid cases fueled by the delta variant could upset these predictions. Already, in-person learning is in jeopardy at some schools, while many offices have delayed their return-to-work plans.

As consumer spending picks up, savings falls.

Nearly half, or 48%, of Americans said they saved less than $500 in the last three months, up from just 36% who said the same in April, MassMutual found.

The personal savings rate — how much people save as a percentage of their disposable income — hit a historic 33% last year but now stands at a bit more than 9%, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

No doubt, worries about the delta variant’s surge could cause consumers to reverse course once again. After all, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently called for vaccinated individuals to go back to wearing masks indoors to prevent Covid’s spread.

The new guidance has already prompted consumers to rethink decisions about dining out, traveling and making other purchases.

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NIH Director Ms. Francis Collins holds up a mockup of the coronavirus as he testifies before a hearing showing the budget estimates for the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the state of medical research on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on Jan. May 2021.

Sarah Silberner | AFP | Getty Images

New data from Israel on the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines over time are causing US health leaders to reconsider their position on booster vaccines in the US, said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, on Tuesday.

“The people who were vaccinated in January are the ones who have more groundbreaking cases now,” Collins said during an interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show, referring to Covid infections in fully vaccinated people. Israel on Monday released new data showing a reduction in the effectiveness of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine against serious illness in people 65 and over who were fully vaccinated in January or February.

Collins said the surge in so-called breakthrough cases in Israel was likely due to a combination of the highly contagious Delta variant and the decline in Covid vaccine protection over time.

“Most of the time, of course, these are symptomatic, but not severe,” he said. “But you are seeing a little trend towards some of those who need to be hospitalized.”

Collins’ comments come because federal health officials are expected to ensure that most people in the U.S. eligible for Covid vaccination should receive booster vaccinations eight months after their second dose.

The federal guideline, which would only apply to the two-shot vaccines Pfizer and Moderna, could go into effect as early as mid-September, according to NBC News, citing two unnamed sources familiar with the discussions.

The New York Times reported Monday that federal health officials are particularly concerned about data from Israel, where Covid vaccinations began before many other countries. The data reportedly showed that the Pfizer vaccine was less than 55% effective against serious illness and hospitalization in people aged 65 and over who were vaccinated in January.

Collins said Tuesday that federal officials see the same thing in US data.

“Although right now it’s still like our vaccine protection is working really well,” he said. “But we don’t want to wait until it’s too late. That’s why we look at the data. “

Until now, federal officials have not recommended booster doses for the general public. On Friday, they approved the administration of Covid booster shots of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to Americans with compromised immune systems, which include cancer and HIV patients, as well as people with organ transplants.

Covid vaccine makers, including Pfizer and Moderna, have repeatedly claimed that everyone will need a booster dose at some point and possibly additional doses each year, just like they did with seasonal flu.

The NIH, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a joint statement Tuesday saying they have a “rigorous process” to determine when refreshments are needed.

“This process takes into account laboratory data, clinical trial data, and cohort data – which may include data from certain pharmaceutical companies but not solely rely on that data,” the agencies said. “We will continue to review all new data as it becomes available and will keep the public informed.”

On Monday, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that they had submitted early-stage clinical trial data to the FDA as part of their U.S. filing for a Covid vaccine booster for anyone ages 16 and older. The companies said they would seek approval for a booster dose via an addition to their application once the agency gives the vaccine full approval.

If the booster is approved, the US would likely vaccinate nursing homes, health care providers and the elderly first, Collins said Tuesday. He said “ideally” people should stick with the same manufacturer that they took their first two doses from.

“But if for some reason you don’t have access to it, get the other one,” he said. “Again, as a scientist, I would be more comfortable fixing our plans on real dates, and that means sticking to the same type of vaccine that you had to start with.”

Walmart on Tuesday reported second-quarter earnings that exceeded Wall Street expectations as the retail giant gained ground in groceries and had a strong start to the back-to-school season.

Shares were roughly flat in premarket trading.

The discounter also sharpened its forecast for the year, saying it now anticipates that earnings per share will range from $6.20 to $6.35. It said it expects Walmart U.S. same-store sales to increase by 5% to 6%, excluding fuel.

Chief Financial Officer Brett Biggs said in an interview with CNBC that customers flocked to stores for items like luggage, party supplies and apparel as they were “coming out of hibernation.” Plus, he said, families have been buying backpacks and items for the classroom.

Biggs said the company is watching the delta variant closely as Covid cases rise, but it has not seen a change in customers’ shopping patterns.

“Mask wearing is back up again, but runs on supplies — things we saw in last March, April [of 2020] — we really haven’t seen again,” he said.

CEO Doug McMillon said in a news release that the company grabbed more market share in grocery, one of its core businesses. He said it has also made progress in new areas, adding thousands of online sellers to its third-party marketplace and nearly doubling advertising sales in Walmart U.S. in the quarter versus a year ago. 

Here’s what the company reported for the fiscal second quarter ended July 31, according to Refinitiv consensus estimates:

• Earnings per share: $1.78 adjusted vs. $1.57 expected
• Revenue: $141.05 billion vs. $137.17 billion expected

Walmart is lapping a year-ago quarter when stimulus checks lifted sales despite limited store hours and customers’ concerns about Covid-19. Last year, Walmart faced new competition as some customers chose to buy groceries at smaller or more convenient supermarkets during the pandemic. Walmart also saw a shift toward e-commerce, as other shoppers looked to avoid going inside stores.

Over the past two quarters, the discounter said it is gaining market share in grocery again as consumers return to old habits. Customers are also making more shopping trips. Walmart U.S. transactions rose by 6.1% but the average ticket fell nearly 1%.

Growth of sales at stores and online have slowed, however, when compared with a frenzied period of buying food and items for the home during the earlier part of the health crisis. Walmart’s same-store sales in the U.S. grew by 5.2%, higher than the increase of 3.3% expected by analysts, according to a StreetAccount survey, but lower than the 9.3% it saw in the same quarter a year ago. Over the past two years, the retailer said its same-store sales have increased by 14.5%.

E-commerce sales gains in the U.S. have dropped off significantly, too growing 6% in the second quarter versus 97% in the year-ago period. They had risen by 37% in the first quarter and 69% in the fourth quarter. Looking over the past two years, however, the retailer said e-commerce sales have doubled.

Walmart reported net income fell to $4.28 billion, or $1.52 per share, from $6.48 billion, or $2.27 per share, a year earlier. Excluding items, the company earned $1.78 per share. Analysts were expecting Walmart would earn $1.57 per share, according to Refinitiv.

Walmart reported its highest quarterly revenue ever for a three-month period outside of the holiday season. Total revenue rose by 2.4% to $141.05 billion from $137.74 billion a year earlier, exceeding Wall Street’s expectations of $137.17 billion.

Same-store sales for Walmart subsidiary Sam’s Club increased by 7.7% excluding fuel — more than the 3.7% growth expected by analysts.

The company said it anticipates that same-store sales at Sam’s Club will increase this year by 7.5% to 8.5%, excluding fuel and tobacco.

Walmart shares have trailed other pandemic beneficiaries in the retail industry. As of Monday’s close, Walmart shares were up about 5% this year compared with Target and Kroger, which have seen shares increase 49% and 37%, respectively, in 2021. It also lags behind the S&P 500’s 33% gain.

Read the company’s press release here.

—CNBC’s Courtney Reagan and Robert Hum contributed to this report.