The Week in Cheek: business news that's 100% Trump-free

Am on vacation this week, therefore I thought that making the Week in Cheek 100% Trump-free would be a great way to reduce my workload and lower the likelihood of triggering PTSD (post-trumpmatic stress disorder) in readers. There are only a few business news items that were untouched by the President of the United States.

Snap Inc. filed documents this week for its impending $3 billion IPO (initial public offering) valuing the company at $25 billion and giving us a first glimpse into this secretive organization and its plans for the future. Snap looks more like a pre-IPO Twitter than a pre-IPO Facebook, and with 300 million daily active users to Snap's 100 million, Facebook's Instagram is eating Snap's lunch. Snap lost half a billion dollars last year and will give CEO Evan Spiegel stock valued at $750 million for taking his company public because apparently giving a billionaire worth an estimated $5.5 billion an extra partial billion is motivating.

Quote of the Week:

Our board of directors approved the award to Mr. Spiegel in July 2015 to motivate him to continue growing our business and improving our financial results. ~ Quote from Snap's S-1 filing

Who knows what motivates billionaires besides having enough money to build a bunker in New Zealand? Would you make a SNAP decision and buy into the camera company disguised as a messaging app knowing that every smart move Snap makes is immediately copied by Facebook? Your shares come with no voting rights to influence the direction of the company and the CEO's security detail costs $900,000 per year, but SNAP is really really cool, and unicorns going public are so rare.

Cheekily Briefly:

• The unicorn called Spotify disappeared back into the enchanted forest to shine its coat and prepare for an IPO that could value the company between $11 and $13 billion some time in 2018.
• It's earnings season and Snap's arch rival Facebook once again impressed with ad revenue up 53%. Amazon, with its disappointing holiday sales, did not impress. GoPro the roving camera company with drones that fall from the sky is looking like a NoGo, and Fitbit is falling apart bit by bit as it may be nearing market saturation of people like me who enjoy meter reading their bodies. Apple, which is taking a bite out of Fitbit's wearables market, exceeded expectations on earnings and iPhone sales and the market rejoiced.
• Wells Fargo quants predict that the Atlanta Falcons will win the Super Bowl based on their superior ability to run fake plays.
• Another week, another Deutsche Bank fine as the company continues to pay multi-billions for past sins, including $7.2 billion for toxic mortgages. This time Deutsche was fined $630 million for Russian money laundering, a crime that sounds clean but it's dirty.

This week in Jamie Dimon, the JPMorgan CEO met with someone in Washington who said, “There is nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie. So he has to tell me about it, but we expect to be cutting a lot from Dodd-Frank because, frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine, that have nice businesses, they can’t borrow money.”

Like the trace of peanut in a cookie, I was almost able to make this post 100% Trump-free.

Will head out for a bike ride now and leave you with these words from a sidewalk on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive...

Have a dream.