Raphael Stevens

In this articleBBYA shopper checks out appliances for sale at the Best Buy store in Miami, Florida.Joe Raedle | Getty ImagesAs Americans move into new houses, remodel homes and watch real estate values rise, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said they are buying appliances and big-screen TVs and hiring the company to set up new technology.The strong housing market is one of the key reasons why the consumer electronics retailer exceeded analysts’ expectations for fiscal first-quarter earnings, according to Barry. She said stimulus checks also fueled spending on home theaters, appliances and computing.”Even with the elevated demand we have seen throughout the pandemic, we believe the nesting phenomenon will continue to drive demand for products and services that help customers improve their home experience,” she said on an earnings call.Home prices have been rising for months, as housing supply falls to near-record lows and interested buyers make competitive bids. Home prices in March saw the biggest gain in over 15 years, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index. The pandemic has intensified those trends by nudging some consumers to move out of dense cities and into suburban or rural areas where they can have bigger yards or a home office.That has buoyed demand for several pandemic beneficiaries, including Home Depot and Lowe’s. Other retailers have also stepped up investments in home goods. For instance, Walmart has teamed up with Gap to launch an exclusive brand of bedding, bath and other home accessories.For Best Buy, the hot housing market is a boon that has extended across services and merchandise, Barry said. She said it has been a sales driver, particularly as people settle into new homes. Sales online and at stores open at least 14 months grew by 37.2% compared with the year-ago period.”If you think about a moving experience right now, it’s not just that you want new appliances, you want all of your connected devices to work for you in a new environment,” she said on a call with reporters. “And that may look like new TVs. It may look like a new home theater setup. It might look like a new office setup now, for many of us, or a new learn-from-home setup.”She said Best Buy has a “unique advantage” by selling products and offering services such as home installations or tech consultations.”We all know that there’s nothing more frustrating than when you move in and your wireless network doesn’t work on day one — especially in the life that we’re living,” she said.The company has seen new customers trend younger, with millennials becoming Best Buy’s largest cohort of customers over the past 12 months, Barry said. Millennials, who range in age from 25 to 40, according to the definition of the Pew Research Center, have also been the generation that’s driving home sales as they get married, adopt pets and have children.Real estate trends could help Best Buy as it faces tough comparisons in the quarters ahead. It had particularly high sales of technology during the pandemic — such as laptops and computer monitors — as more people worked, cooked and attended school at home.Some analysts have warned that the pandemic may have pulled forward purchases, which could dampen demand. For instance, analysts at Wedbush downgraded the company’s stock in late April to neutral, saying home improvement and home furnishing retailers will see bigger gains than Best Buy this year. The equity research firm lowered Best Buy’s price target to $125, about 5% higher than where shares are currently trading.The retailer raised its forecast for the first half of the year, citing “extraordinarily high” demand in the first quarter that has continued into the second. Yet Chief Financial Officer Matt Bilunas acknowledged uncertainty in the second half of the year on an earnings call Thursday. He said consumers may spend less on consumer electronics as they spend more on eating out or taking vacations. More

Relativity Space is pushing the boundaries of 3D-printing to build rockets but CEO Tim Ellis sees the company’s influence reaching beyond the space industry.”We’re reinventing the underpinnings of not just building rockets, but the whole stack of how you actually design, develop, build and scale a company,” Ellis said.”3D-printing is actually an entirely new tech stack for aerospace that we really haven’t changed the paradigm of in the last 60 years – building products one at a time by hand with hundreds of thousands to millions of individual piece parts in a factory, full of fixed tooling and a very complicated supply chain,” Ellis said.The Long Beach, California, company has grown rapidly since its founding five years ago. Verifying the 3D-printing approach was strong enough to build its Terran 1 rocket. It moved into “the factory of the future” last year and raised a $500 million “war chest” of capital. Investors, including Tiger Global Management, Fidelity, Baillie Gifford, Jared Leto and Mark Cuban, now value the company at $2.3 billion.The company’s push to create the next-generation of manufacturing landed Relativity Space at No. 23 on this year’s CNBC Disruptor 50 list.More coverage of the 2021 CNBC Disruptor 50Meet the 2021 CNBC Disruptor 50 companiesWhy Robinhood is the No. 1 companyA look back at the CNBC Disruptor 50: 9 years, 233 companiesWhen disruption becomes a force for good — and badCybereason CEO told world about DarkSide from a bomb shelterRipple on the future of cryptocurrencies as international bans increaseHow Relativity Space is reinventing the rocket, and building a multiplanetary futureDiscord lays out its game theory on the virtual ‘space’ of the futureIt’s not a vaccine passport, but more people travel ‘CLEAR’Patreon CEO on the ‘incredible leverage” creators now possessClubhouse has ‘millions more’ waiting to join its audio appHow we choose Disruptor companiesNow the company is completing work on the first rocket it plans to launch to orbit by the end of this year. The company remains on schedule for the launch from its Cape Canaveral launch site later this year, Ellis said in an interview on CNBC’s “TechCheck” on Thursday.Additionally, Relativity in February unveiled plans to build a bigger and reusable rocket called Terran R, designed to take on the Falcon 9 rocket that has become the workhorse of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.Relativity already has the world’s largest 3D printers, capable of manufacturing a single piece of metal up to 32 feet tall. About 95% of the parts for its Terran 1 rocket are 3D-printed, a process which Ellis touts as making the rocket many times less complex compared to traditional rockets. Additionally, Relativity says its simpler process will eventually be capable of turning raw material into a rocket on the launchpad in under 60 days.”While Relativity has invented our own 3D-printers … that’s not the most innovative thing, actually,” Ellis said. “I think the most innovative thing that Relativity is doing is that we’re the world’s first end product 3D-printing company. We’re not just building the printer and selling it, and we’re not just designing the product and buying someone else’s printers – we’re actually integrating both of those together.”CEO Tim Ellis sits in front of the 3D-printer bays in the company’s Long Beach, California factory.Relativity SpaceEllis believes that companies which build 3D-printers aren’t selling customers a machine: “You’re selling an entirely new philosophy” about manufacturing.”You’re telling your customer: ‘Go throw away all of your existing factory, all of your existing designs and development, let go of half your team and hire a new team that understands how to build a 3D-printing factory,'” Ellis said.As both the creator of the 3D-printers and the user of its products, Ellis sees Relativity as taking 3D-printing from its infancy to what he says will be “the most disruptive technology in our lifetime for aerospace and potentially for other manufacturing industries.”Ellis, like Musk, keeps Relativity focused on building “humanity’s multiplanetary future.””We need to inspire dozens to hundreds of companies to go after making [a continuous human presence on] Mars a reality,” Ellis said. “We’re talking about replicating an entire planet – this is a monumental undertaking.”To Ellis, additive manufacturing is “inevitably required to build an industrial base on Mars.””That future was never going to happen unless some company actually created it,” Ellis said, adding that Relativity is now “on the bleeding edge of what is building the future of humanity.”SIGN UP for our weekly, original newsletter that goes beyond the list, offering a closer look at CNBC Disruptor 50 companies, and the founders who continue to innovate across every sector of the economy. More

Average daily Covid case counts in the U.S. are at less than half of the level recorded at the start of May, data compiled by Johns Hopkins University shows.The country is seeing an average of 23,407 new infections per day over the past week, down from about 49,600 on May 1, a 53% drop.Federal data shows the U.S. is reporting an average of 1.7 million daily vaccinations, and nearly 50% of the U.S. population has received one dose or more.U.S. Covid casesThe seven-day average of daily U.S. Covid cases is 23,407 as of Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins data, down 23% from a week ago and 53% from the start of the month.Case counts have not been this low since June 2020.Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwardsAverage daily case counts have fallen by 5% or more in 44 states and the District of Columbia over the past week, a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins data shows.Elsewhere, outbreaks are worsening. India is currently the epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic, but other countries from Argentina in Latin America to Nepal in Asia have also reported record increases in Covid cases in the last few weeks.U.S. Covid deathsThe country is reporting an average of 571 daily Covid deaths over the past seven days, according to Johns Hopkins data.Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwardsWednesday’s figures include 373 deaths reported for Oklahoma, which the state announced is part of an “ongoing effort to investigate and reconcile backlog of COVID-19 related deaths.” In some situations, state health departments will attribute a batch of previously unreported cases or deaths to a single day, even if those may have occurred previously.While this reporting issue makes the latest trend more difficult to interpret, the pace of daily nationwide Covid deaths has been on the decline for weeks.U.S. vaccine shots administeredAbout 1.7 million vaccine shots have been reported administered each day on average over the past week, CDC data shows, down 5% from one week ago.Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwardsDaily vaccinations have been on a mostly downward trend since peaking at 3.4 million shots per day in mid-April, though the average has hovered between 1.7 million and 2 million for nearly two weeks.U.S. share of the population vaccinatedNearly half of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of a vaccine with 40% fully vaccinated, CDC data shows.Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwardsOn Wednesday, Pennsylvania became the 10th state to report that 70% of its adult population is at least partially vaccinated. The other nine states are Vermont, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New Mexico.CNBC Health & Science Read CNBC’s latest coverage of the Covid pandemic:Russia shies away from forcing Covid vaccines on people but skepticism remains a problem Australia’s Victoria state to enter Covid-19 lockdown after ‘highly-infectious’ outbreakRepublicans call for Fauci’s termination over shifting position on Wuhan lab fundingBiden orders closer review of Covid origins as U.S. intel weighs Wuhan lab leak theory CDC is working on new Covid guidance for summer camps now that teens can get vaccineWhite House officials say China hasn’t been ‘completely transparent’ in Covid origin investigation More

People enter a Forever 21 store at a shopping mall in Montebello, California on September 30, 2019 a day after the fashion retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty ImagesThe retail conglomerate Authentic Brands Group is preparing for an initial public offering that could come as soon as this summer, according to a person familiar with the matter.Authentic Brands — which owns businesses including Juicy Couture, Brooks Brothers, Aeropostale and Forever 21 — is targeting a valuation of about $10 billion in its IPO, said the person, who requested anonymity because the discussions remain private. At $10 billion, that would mean Authentic Brands’ market value would surpass that of Under Armour, Kohl’s, Ralph Lauren and Dick’s Sporting Goods. However, the size of the deal could change since it isn’t finalized.Authentic Brands was valued at more than $4 billion, inclusive of debt, when BlackRock invested in the business in 2019.The official registration statement for the public offering is expected to be filed by Authentic Brands in early July, the person said, and shares could begin trading by the end of that month.A spokesperson from Authentic Brands declined to comment.Since the company’s inception, Authentic Brands’ founder and CEO, Jamie Salter, has accumulated more than two dozen retail brands, including the bankrupt department store chain Barneys New York, Nautica and Nine West.The business currently does more than $10 billion in retail sales annually, according to its website.Authentic Brands’ strategy in recent years has entailed working with two of the biggest publicly traded mall owners in the United States, Simon Property Group and Brookfield Property Partners. The trio came together in 2016 to purchase the teen apparel retailer Aeropostale out of bankruptcy. They did it again with Forever 21 last year.With Simon, Authentic Brands has separately created a joint venture known as Sparc Group, which currently runs the operations of Brooks Brothers, Nautica, Aeropostale, Forever 21 and Lucky Brand.Authentic Brands and Sparc recently announced they will be acquiring Eddie Bauer from private equity firm Golden Gate Capital.In addition to BlackRock, Authentic Brands is backed by investors including General Atlantic and Leonard Green & Partners. BlackRock and General Atlantic declined to comment, while Leonard Green & Partners didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.”I’m in the first inning,” Salter told CNBC in an interview last year. “People are asking me, ‘Jamie. Mall-based retail? I don’t get it.’ … What I am going to say to you is, we need bricks and mortar. Retail really needs it.”Bloomberg first reported on Authentic Brands’ plans to go public. More