Hey there weekday warrior,

Robinhood just put the ‘bet’ in WallStreetBets.

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 21 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

– tyler

One shining moment

Robinhood: “Ok, fine, we’ll stop gamifying stock trading with confetti.”

Also Robinhood: “You can gamble on sports and stonks in the same app now!”

That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for absolute degenerates. On Monday, Robinhood $HOOD ( ▼ 11.25% )  announced a new “prediction markets hub” in its app that isn’t unlike everyone’s other favorite “Hub” in that you’ll just be f*cking yourself…

The new feature will allow Robinhood “investors” to run train on their P&L via contracts that will let them bet on the outcome of events. That includes everything from “Will the Fed hike rates?” to “Who will win the 2025 Men’s D1 NCAA championship?”

If you’re thinking “that sounds a lot like gambling”… first off, quit being such a narc, and second… that’s kinda the idea. Starting this week you can bet on (far) out-of-the-money options and sports in the same app. What a time to be alive…

Robinhood attempted to let users gamble on choose the outcome of the Super Bowl via the recently legalized derivatives, but the CFTC applied regulatory pressure and HOOD almost immediately caved. Would you expect anything less from that spineless jellyfish, Vlad Tenev?

The brokerage found a loophole, though: pass the risk on to another company. Kalshi, a pioneer in the space (and the reason betting on outcomes in the US is even possible) will power the markets for Robinhood (for now). You might recall that Kalshi sued the CFTC claiming that it overstepped when banning election contracts… and actually won.

But, Kalshi’s hard-fought victory is currently pending appeal, meaning the Feds could go all Jon Taffer (“Shut it down!”) on our a**es at any moment.

+ Forever, forever ever? Forever ever?

Forever 21 just got its Chapter 11 on (again) and is expected to cease all US operations and liquidate. That’s right, the one store in the mall that poors the income-impaired can afford is cooked for real this time. F21 held discussions with more than 200 bidders over the last few months to see if it could land a deal that would save its sorry a**. Narrator: “It did not.”

Co-Chief Restructuring Officer Stephen Coulombe blamed Shein and Temu $PDD ( ▼ 4.28% ) for making use of the de minimus exemption and undercutting Forever Bankrupt’s prices. In other words, “we sell the same cheap crap, but we have to buy it in bulk.” Now, XXI is starting to liquidate at over 350 locations to pay down its $1.5B in loans and $100M in debt to Chinese and Korean clothing manufacturers. 

+ Engaged Capital has no chill.

Activist investor Engaged Capital just ended its cold war with Yeti $YETI ( ▼ 12.18% ) . The $2.7B cooler brand has agreed to expand its board by two additional seats, thanks to Engaged’s 2% ownership flex. The hedge fund whose name (and actions) just screams “activist” will appoint Magnus Welander, former CEO of Thule, and Arne Arens, former CEO of Boardriders to its previously insulated board. They will presumably wear wetsuits and puka shell necklaces to board meetings…

Yeti’s been on a chilly run lately (think: tariffs heating up, China production cooling down), but shares jumped Monday on news of the shakeup. Igloo for upper-middle-class people has already been making moves to overhaul drinkware production, with a goal of moving 80% of manufacturing outside of China by the end of the year. The Stanley Cup girls are punching air right now.

+ Rippling is suing its competitor in the HR tech space for “corporate espionage.” And this 10-part docuseries is going to be a must-see. According to the accusations, Deel had a mole at Rippling who was hoovering up competitive data… in internal Slack channels. The best part? The spy was outed when Rippling set up a honeypot trap in the form of a Slack channel filled with the exec team.

+ You’ll (ok, all of us) will get nothing and like it. Google $GOOGL ( ▼ 3.4% ) and Reddit $RDDT ( ▼ 13.67% ) are expanding their partnership. Google gets to rip source Reddit content to fuel AI, and Reddit gets more traffic from search results.

+ Retail sales increased 0.2% in February. That’s better than January, but not enough to beat analyst expectations. My wife be like “I can fix her” as she orders more stuff on Amazon.

+ PepsiCo $PEP ( ▲ 3.17% ) made it official: Poppi is theirs for $1.9B with $300M of anticipated cash tax benefits (read: net purchase price of $1.6B).

+ Pre-IPO Klarna just put on its big-boy pants and locked in exclusive rights as Walmart’s $WMT ( ▼ 0.95% ) layaway provider, conveniently ahead of its IPO.

+ US stocks “climbed on Monday, with focus on more mixed economic data ahead of this week's Federal Reserve policy meeting.” (CNBC)

+ The 10-year yield “rose on Monday as investors studied the latest retail sales report to gauge the state of consumer spending, and looked ahead to a big week.” (CNBC)

+ Oil “rose slightly on Monday after the United States vowed to keep attacking Yemen's Houthis until the Iran-aligned group ends its assaults on shipping, while Chinese economic data buoyed hopes for higher demand.” (Reuters)

+ The three most talked about stocks on WallStreetBets in the past 24 hours were: 1) Visa +0.8% 2) Nvidia -1.7% 3) Hims & Hers Health +4.6%

⏪ Yesterday…

+ The February Retail Sales report dropped

⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…

+ Xpeng reports in the AM

+ Adobe hosts an Investor Meeting at the Adobe Summit and Box holds its Financial Analyst Day

+ Jensen Huang gives a keynote at Nvidia's GTC event

Yesterday, I asked, “Have you ever used buy now, pay later?”

57.8% of you said you use a credit card like a normal person.

Here’s what some of you guys had to say…

• Yes: "Who doesn't like 0% interest when money markets are making 4+%”

• Yes: "Zero percent interest is free money, be stupid not to take that."

• I use a credit card: “I do rent my furniture though”

• Yes: "Dumbest thing I ever did, right after I first got married. Almost forgot to make the payment at the end of the term and cost myself double. Never did it again."

• No: "I buy sh*t I can afford to pay for.”

And here’s today’s question…

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.