Hey there weekday warriors,

I’ve got some bad news for those of you trading on Vanguard. Not only has the asset manager decided against creating its own Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund, but it won’t even offer BTC ETFs on its trading platform. These guys must be fun at parties…

Here’s what else we’re getting into today…

• Hertz pumps the brakes on EVs

• Inflation refuses to die

• More big tech layoffs

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 14 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

- tyler

PS, no newsletter on Monday. Markets are closed for MLK Day. See you on Tuesday.

+ US stocks “closed little changed on Thursday as news of hotter-than-expected inflation and signs of labor market strength dampened hopes for early interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve this year, but a fall in Treasury yields kept declines in check.” (Reuters)

+ The 10-year Treasury yield “posted steep losses on Thursday after the latest inflation reading came in hotter-than-expected, pushing expectations for an interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve further out." (CNBC)

+ Oil “gained about 1% on Thursday after Iran seized an oil tanker off the coast of Oman, raising the prospect of escalating conflict in the Middle East.” (Reuters)

+ Bitcoin “rose in volatile trading Thursday after the Securities and Exchange Commission gave the green light for the first-ever spot bitcoin ETFs to trade in the U.S., as expected.” (CNBC)

+ The three most talked about stocks on WallStreetBets in the past 24 hours were: 1) Nvidia +0.87% 2) Visa -0.17% 3) Marathon Digital -12.60%.

Hertz Unplugged

Big fossil fuel scored a huge win on Thursday.

Hertz just went all “I don’t want to play with you anymore” to EVs. It plans to sell nearly 20k Teslas in its fleet. And in the process give up on its goal of converting its rental inventory to 25% EVs by the end of this year.

That’s a bfd considering Hertz and Tesla made a yugeee deal about the EV maker selling 100k cars to the rental company back in 2021. Just how big of a deal was it? Well, the $4.2B Hertz order (spoiler: rental companies usually get bulk discounts) was the catalyst that pushed Tesla above a $1T market cap…

But that was then, and this is now…

Hertz has plenty of excuses for pumping the brakes on its plans to go electric.

Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr pointed to high costs related to EV damage and collisions. Because apparently, Americans become Dominic Toretto and start saying things like “I live my life a quarter mile at a time” as soon as they step inside a Tesla. To be fair, the torque and speed of EVs can take some getting used to.

Confusion and anxiety around charging also haven’t helped with getting more traditional drivers to warm up to EVs at Hertz (and more broadly).

And, you see, all of the above makes for fewer EV requests, which directly impacts the bottom line.

The worst part for Hertz?

EV sales are plateauing, which has sent the price of used Teslas plummeting. Spoiler: Hertz is about to sell 20k cars at a huge loss.

Surprisingly, HTZ was only down 4.2% on the day. Tesla fell 2.8%, but that probably had more to do with the company indicating it is about to pay factory workers more in an effort to delay the inevitable (see: unionization).

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+ Costco makes big food court change with new cookies (Read)

+ How Long Will My Money Last? The Question All Retirement Seekers Must Ask (Read)

+ ICYMI... Are You Rich? Here's What Americans Think You Need To Be Considered Wealthy (Read)

+ “I’m tired of this grandpa.” - me

“That’s too damn bad.” - J-Poww

Our long national nightmare continues. Just when it seems like interest rates are about to be cut and cheap money will start to flow like wine, an ugly CPI report drops. Yesterday, both core and traditional CPI came in above expectations… on a monthly and year-over-year basis.

Core CPI was up 3.9% vs. last year and +0.3% on the month. If you’re more of a glass-half-full person… that was the best print since May 2021. So we’ve got that going for us.

Now, the Fed doesn’t like to point fingers, but if it did, it would certainly blame shelter prices. The price of housing jumped 6.2% and accounted for a yuge chunk of overall price increases. On the bright side, it appears we are getting some relief on that front.

Markets didn’t take the news as poorly as you might have expected. All three major indices ended the day roughly flat. (Read)

+ Pretty sure the last time this many tech workers were laid off Rahul Ligma was one of them…

Just a day after hundreds of layoffs at Amazon, the big tech “right-sizing” continued. Google laid off hundreds of workers across divisions. Some reports say thousands. Rumors began swirling late Wednesday about layoffs in hardware groups (think: Fitbit, Nest, and Pixel). And by Thursday AM Google confirmed it was parting ways with employees in engineering as well.

Part of the Fitbit changes include the entire leadership team (including the co-founders) going all “f*ck this noise.” All signs point towards Google looking to offload or shut down Fitbit entirely. (Read)

+ BONUS: Discord also announced layoffs today. The glorified message board will cut 17% of its workforce. Hopefully that includes the team that let Discord trading channels become a thing… (Read)

+ If you thought you had a bad Thursday, just remember that not only did Gary Gensler have to deal with the fallout from the SEC Twitter hack. But he had to sit around and watch Bitcoin ETFs put on a clinic…

More than $4.6B worth of shares traded hands across the 11 Bitcoin ETFs that got approval on Tuesday… and Wednesday. In case you were wondering, that’s a f*ck ton. The Grayscale Bitcoin ETF handled about half of those trades.

At one point Thursday, Bitcoin nearly topped $49k, but was trading closer to $46k last night. (Read)

Here's what I'm keeping an eye on today...

+ Earnings season kicks off: UnitedHealth, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Delta Air Lines, and Bank of New York Mellon report

+ The producer price index drops

Yesterday I asked When’s the last time you bought a trading card?

My two favorite answers:

1) “Clinton administration (pre BJ)”

2) “Before I had pubes”

And this is why I love you guys.

Also, say a 35-year-old man wanted to get back into collecting baseball cards after being out of the game for ~20 years. Where’s a good place to start?

Here’s today’s question…

In honor of the NFL Playoffs (and because this was one of the most popular questions ever)…

Name a random NFL player.

Reply directly to this email and I’ll share the results Tuesday.

Oh, and one more thing…

Does this look like the face of a guy you should take financial advice from?

No, it’s the face of an individual who is financially irresponsible/dumb enough to be talked into spending money on a family photo shoot that he could have just done with his iPhone. So, act accordingly...

This is not financial advice. Nothing in this newsletter is an investment recommendation. All content is created for entertainment, educational, or informational purposes only. Do your own research, or do yourself a favor and hire a professional