Hey there weekday warriors,

Today we’ll deep dive into Netflix’s foray into (real) live sports, say goodbye to meme stonks & and a whole lot more.

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 11 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

- tyler

PS, I finally got through all your suggestions for improving TWC. You’ll start to see some tweaks and new stuff rolling out in the coming weeks.

+ US stocks “rallied on Wednesday, with all three major indexes closing at record highs as a soft reading on consumer prices fueled hopes that the Federal Reserve could cut interest rates sooner than expected.” (CNBC)

+ The 10-year Treasury yield “retreated on Wednesday after monthly consumer inflation data came in softer than anticipated." (CNBC)

+ Oil “settled higher Wednesday, as a much larger-than-expected draw in U.S. weekly inventories and a slump in the dollar offset the IEA's weaker forecast for demand growth this year.” (Reuters)

+ Bitcoin “bulls received a boost from the latest United States Consumer Price Index (CPI) print, which beat expectations in a win for risk assets.” (Cointelegraph)

+ The three most talked about stocks on WallStreetBets in the past 24 hours were: 1) GameStop -18.8% 2) AMC -20.0% 3) BlackBerry -6.9%

The market moves you need to know about…

+ Looks like somebody’s got a case of the Mondays. Monday.com rocketed 21.3% higher after reporting a beat and raising its guidance for the year.

– Virgin Galactic fell 16.5% on the day as meme stocks took a breather. SPCE has been caught up in the mania thanks to its relatively high short interest.

Netflix audible

Netflix before 2018: “Sports are gross. Let’s order more terrible Adam Sandler movies.”

Netflix in 2019: “OK, maybe a show that follows around race car drivers. But no real sports.”

Netflix between 2019 and 2023: “Now copy and paste that F1 show for every other sport… and maybe some weird exhibition matches too.”

Netflix in early 2024: “Well, maybe real, but also kinda fake, sports. Let’s cut a deal with the WWE to air RAW. Oh, and let’s have a YouTuber and a washed-up boxer fight too.”

After years of playing just the tip with live sports, Netflix (-0.02%) finally said f*ck it and pulled the trigger.

The company that could have been a Blockbuster subsidiary bought the rights to Christmas Day NFL games for the next 3 seasons. Also, today I learned we’re getting NFL games on Christmas… no matter what day it falls on (it’s a Wednesday this year, for the record).

The deal will include two games this year, and at least one in ‘25 and ‘26.

It won’t be totally exclusive, like that Peacock Wild Card game last season that had people ready to storm 30 Rock. Local markets and NFL+ will also carry it.

The two sides didn’t announce how much money is changing hands, but sources say the streamer probably ponied up ~$75M per game.

Makes sense…

It’s not hard to see why NFLX changed its tune. You see, the company also said yesterday it now has more than 40M subscribers on its ad-supported plan. That’s a lot of eyeballs to sell ads against. Did I mention the NFL Christmas Day games have been insanely popular?

And, if nothing else, it’ll be a good trial run ahead of WWE RAW coming to the platform in 2025.

+ “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” - therapists to meme stock investors

GameStop and AMC both fell ~20% yesterday. And, get this, Vlad Tenev didn’t even need to step in and pull the plug on buying. Diamond hands turned to paper hands as the 2-day meme stock rally faded.

There’s probably not just one reason why the run-up stalled. Profit-taking could be to blame. Or, maybe, just maybe, this time it’s different. Let’s not forget that the 2021 meme stonk phenomenon was a perfect storm of stimmy checks, lockdown boredom, blind optimism, and the mother of all short squeezes.

All that said, I would not be surprised if GME has doubled by the time you’re reading this…

+ “So I got that goin’ for me which is nice…”

Inflation slowed its roll in April. And not a moment too soon, considering the “r” word was starting to get thrown around (read: raising rates). Wednesday’s CPI print came in mostly in line with the Street’s estimates. And the reading that didn’t match forecasts actually came in below expectations (month-over-month CPI came in at 0.3% vs. 0.4% expected). There is a God (and his name is Jerome Powell).

Core CPI (measured on an annual basis) was the lowest since early 2021. Probably nothing. Investors loved the news (obviously). And futures markets showed the probability of rate cuts beginning in September increasing.

+ The results are in…

We finally know the “secret” position Warren Buffett has been building at Berkshire. You might recall that for the past two quarters, the SEC has granted Berkshire an exemption to keep confidential one (or more) of its holdings. That allowed it to keep the stonk off of its 13F filing. To be clear, this isn’t uncommon.

And it’s exactly the kinda stock you’d expect. Berkshire has bought nearly 26M worth of Chubb (-0.07% // +8.3% after hours). The stake is valued at $6.7B. That makes it BH’s 9th largest holding (… which is a pretty wild stat).

+ Did you really think Uber (+2.0%) was going to sit around and let Lyft catch up?

The OG rideshare platform rolled out a bunch of new products and perks yesterday. Like Uber Shuttle, which is exactly what it sounds like. Users can reserve seats on a shuttle or bus that goes to common dropoff locations like airports.

It is also launching Uber Caregiver. Users who need support (think: your nana with the bad hip like a fanny pack) can add their caregivers in the app.

Oh, and UberEats is expanding its partnership with Costco (think: more discounts).

+ Apple co-founder shares the best strategy his parents used while raising him: I’m ‘the same way with my own kids’ (Read)

+ Child Care Is More Expensive Than Rent for the Average American Family (Read)

+ BTW, if you want more real estate news & insights, check out The Pocket List. It’s a brand-new newsletter I’ve been working on. It’ll keep you up to date on the industry and help you make more money. Check out last week’s newsletter and subscribe for free with one click (Read & subscribe)

Yesterday, we were keeping an eye on earnings from Cisco. Plus, CPI and monthly retail sales.

+ Cisco (+1.4% // +4.9% after hours) reported its biggest drop in earnings since 2009… and literally no one cared. Probably had something to do with its beat and guidance hike.

+ It appears that Americans are finally starting to reel in spending. Retail sales were flat month over month, below analysts’ expectations of +0.4%.

+ Check out details on the CPI print above.

Here's what we’re keeping an eye on today...

+ Walmart, Deere, JD.com, Baidu, and Under Armour report before the bell

+ Applied Materials’ earnings drop after the close

+ AMC hosts two days of "listening parties" for Billie Eilish's new album. What a time to be alive.

+ We’ll hear from a bunch of Fed speakers… which means someone is bound to say something stupid

+ Weekly initial jobless claims drop

Yesterday, I asked, “Hypothetical last meal: surf (lobster, fish, shrimp, oysters etc.) or turf (steak, burger etc.)?”

55.1% of you are team turf. Not gonna lie, thought it would be a landslide victory for meat with feet.

Here’s today’s question…

Before you go…

Not sure how I missed TechCrunch’s A+ troll job Tuesday (Twitter Video)

Oh, and…

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