Hey there weekday warriors,

Here’s what we’re getting into today…

• More concerning inflation data

• Paramount CEO Bob Bakish is a dead man walking

• Anglo turns down BHP’s advances

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 8 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

- tyler

+ US stocks “bounced back on Friday as Alphabet and Microsoft earnings revived hopes for a sustained Big Tech-led rally, even as a reading on the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge showed price pressures remain sticky.” (Yahoo! Finance)

+ The 10-year Treasury yield “fell Friday as traders parsed the closely watched inflation data released earlier in the day." (CNBC)

+ Oil “settled higher on Friday, garnering support from tensions in the Middle East, but a strong dollar and U.S. inflation data quashed hopes that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates soon, giving prices a ceiling.” (Reuters)

+ Bitcoin was mostly flat over the weekend.

+ The three most talked about stocks on WallStreetBets in the past 24 hours were: 1) Nvidia +6.1%  2) C3.ai +3.0% 3) AMD +2.3%

The market moves you need to know about…

– Mobileye fell 5.5% on Friday. And it’s got Morgan Stanley to thank. MS analysts downgraded the autonomous driving tech maker, citing a slowdown in EV adoption.

+ Snap is so f*cking back. Shares mooned 27.6% after sharing impressive quarterly results and telling investors they better get used to it. It was the stock’s best day since 2022.

– Shares of Abbvie dropped 4.5% on news that Cigna has plans to start selling a cheaper biosimilar to Humira (spoiler: Abbvie’s cash cow).

It’s personal

“It certainly can’t get any worse, right?” - everyone after seeing Thursday’s disappointing quarterly GDP print and inflation data

Welp, on Friday, the March core personal consumption expenditures price index jumped by 2.8% vs. the same period last year. That’s the same as February… and above the Street’s estimates of 2.7%.

On a month-over-month basis, core PCE jumped 0.3%. That was in line with expectations... so we’ve got that going for us.

Blowin money fast

We also found out that Americans continue to spend without regard for human life. Personal spending jumped 0.8% last month… above consensus of 0.7%.

And since fiscal responsibility is for communists, Americans weren’t afraid to turn tricks under bridges dip into savings to fuel their appetite for more stuff. The personal savings rate fell by 3.2% in March. That’s down from 3.6% in February.

Ok, what does it all mean?

Last week would have been brutal if you had taken the over on 1.5 rate cuts this year…

If the quarterly PCE and GDP data on Thursday was a trainwreck, then the March PCE data on Friday was that Norfolk Southern derailment in Ohio.

Oh, and it probably didn’t help that we had Jamie Dimon dropping the “s” word (read: stagflation).

All signs are pointing towards the Fed holding off on rate cuts until the fall at the earliest. Some think we won’t see any rate cuts until 2025. And there’s a small (and growing) minority that believes we’re more likely to get rate hikes this year…

So investors freaked out, right?

Nope, they largely shrugged off the news.

Markets actually rose on the day… probably because investors had already accepted their fate. Plus, everyone was too excited about what they saw from big tech earnings.

+ By the time you’re reading this, Paramount (-2.2%) CEO Bob Bakish may be enjoying his first day of funemployment. It appears that it’s only a matter of time until he’s asked politely to gtfo out of Paramount’s office and leave his badge with security.

After decades of loyal service, he stands accused of… having a spine. Bob has been vocal about his stance on Skydance’s proposed acquisition of Paramount (spoiler: he is against it). This allegedly rubbed controlling shareholder and exec chairman Shari Redstone the wrong way.

So what’s an exec chair to do? Install a puppet government. Bakish is likely to be replaced by a “Committee” of CEOs, consisting of the heads of the major Paramount divisions. And how could that possibly go wrong?

+ “Hard pass.” - Anglo American

Anglo-American (+2.9%) hit BHP (-1.3%) with the “it’s not me, it’s you”, rejecting the mining giant’s $39B takeover bid. It didn’t come as a huge shock as analysts believe the offer was kinda pathetic.

Rumor has it that Anglo is already preparing a new bid that presumably starts with a 4.

Of course, Anglo might be feeling some pressure to make a move. On Friday news dropped that activist fund Elliott Management has built a nearly 2.5% stake in the miner…

+ “tHis FeeLs LiKE OuR LehMAN momENt…” - VP of the University of Phoenix Investment Club

Don’t freak out… but we just had the biggest bank collapse of the year of our lord 2024. Sorry to everyone who was betting against New York Community Bank…

It was Philly-based Republic First Bancorp that was seized by the FDIC on Friday. Fulton Bank will take over, with branches opening under new management today.

+ Advice about 401(k) rollovers is poised for a big change. Here’s why (Read)

+ Jeff Bezos’ morning routine includes scrolling and dragging his feet: ‘I’m not as productive as you might think’ (Read)

Friday, earnings reports from Exxon and Chevron were on our radar. Here’s how they did…

+ Exxon shares fell 2.7% after reporting mixed earnings. The biggest of the big oils beat on the top line but missed on the bottom. Plummeting natural gas prices were to blame.

+ Meanwhile, Chevron shares rose slightly after missing on the top line and beating on the bottom line. Similar to Exxon, Chevron was pressured by natural gas prices.

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

+ ON Semiconductor, SoFi, and Domino's Pizza report this AM

+ NXP Semiconductors, MicroStrategy, and Paramount report after the close… which means Bob Bakish is currently fighting for his life.

Yesterday I asked… We're not getting rate cuts this year, are we?

49.8% of you think “No chance.” 22.4% of you think we’ll see a 25 basis point cut in 2024. I wonder how many of us would have changed our answer after the March PCE read Friday AM…

Here’s today’s question…

Venice, Italy started charging a “day trip fee” to tourists. And people are pretty butthurt about it. So…

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