Hey there weekday warriors,

Today we’re breaking down Target’s newest partnership. Plus, Shein appears to be pumping the brakes on its US IPO.

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

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

- tyler

+ US stocks “diverged Monday as chip heavyweight Nvidia's (NVDA) continued slide dragged on the Nasdaq to start the final week of another rip-roaring quarter on Wall Street.” (Yahoo! Finance)

+ The 10-year Treasury yield was “muted as the final week of June began, with investors set to zero in on Friday’s key inflation report." (CNBC)

+ Oil “rose about 1% on Monday, spurred by the prospect of strong summer driving demand and as tensions in the Middle East and drone attacks on Russian refineries led to concerns about supply.” (Reuters)

+ Bitcoin “fell Monday to its lowest 4 p.m. level since early May. Other cryptocurrencies also retreated.” (WSJ)

+ The three most talked about stocks on WallStreetBets in the past 24 hours were: 1) Nvidia -6.6% 2) C3.ai +2.0% 3) Apple +0.3%

The market moves you need to know about…

+ Trump Media is so f*cking back. Shares rocketed 21.1%. Why? The same reason they’ve been plummeting. Stay with me here. On Friday, the company said all those stock warrants (which had investors worried about dilution) would actually result in a huge influx of cash.

– Go call your friend who went all in on Nvidia. Shares fell 6.7%, marking the third straight day of decline. The chipmaker has erased nearly half a trillion dollars in market cap since passing Microsoft to (briefly) become the most valuable company in the world.

+ Shares of Teladoc jumped 6.6% after it announced its AI-powered predictive modeling can help diabetics control their blood sugar.

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Can someone please show Target’s management team Amazon.com?

The retailer that waited until the year of our lord 2024 to launch an Amazon Prime competitor has decided to copy Jeff Bezos’ homework again. This time nearly a quarter-century too late…

Technically, Target (+2.4%) has an online 3rd party marketplace. But it only features about 1.2k vendors. For context, Amazon has more than 2M and Walmart boasts ~135k sellers.

But Target just inked a deal that should help it make up some ground (or, at the very least, suck a little less). It’ll partner with Shopify, the GOAT of the third-party online commerce game.

Companies that build their storefront on Shopify (so, everyone) can apply to be part of the Target Plus ecosystem. It isn’t entirely clear how many brands Target hopes to partner with.

But there are some obvious benefits for both sides…

On the Shopify vendor side, a storefront in Target’s (relatively small) virtual shopping mall could be better than landing on Oprah’s favorite things. Plus, Target management indicated it could put some Shopify retailer’s goods on shelves in-store.

It could prove equally (if not more) beneficial for Target…

TGT’s third-party marketplace accounts for less than 2% of total sales at the moment. That’s a number it hopes to grow via the partnership.

It could also help ‘Walmart for upper-middle-class people’ get back to sales growth, both overall and online. The company is eyeing flat to slightly positive sales growth this year as consumers pump the brakes on the more discretionary items found on Target’s shelves.

Probably doesn’t hurt that the marketplace biz is high-margin with relatively low financial risk.

Oh, and added bonus: Shopify store owners would be ideal customers for Target’s fast-growing advertising business.

+ It appears the Shein will be attending its safety school…

The Chinese fast-fashion brand, which was testing the waters in the US, has filed confidentially for a UK IPO.

Shein has been taking a lot of heat in the US. Not only has it been scrutinized for the environmental impact of its clothing... but it has caught the eye of lawmakers.

Not only does it have ties to Beijing, but it’s been accused of using forced labor and having a supply chain that could best be described as sketchy af.

+ Name a better place to mainline weight loss drugs directly into the population than the American South. You can’t (*takes cover from the butt hurt southerners*).

Novo Nordisk (+0.2%) said it’s building a $4.1B plant in North Carolina that will produce, you guessed it… Wegovy and Ozempic. The facility will fill and package the syringes that will thin out Americans.

It makes sense given how fat and disgusting we are that 35k new patients start Wegovy every week in the US alone, which has led to severe shortages of the lowest dosages.

Ok, now do Adderall and Zyn factories…

+ With its acquisition drama as an ominous backdrop, Paramount (+1.3%) has decided to hike the price of its streaming service(s). The Paramount+ with Showtime and Paramount+ Essential options will increase by $1 and $2, respectively. And all 17 subscribers are presumably going to pen angry letters.

+ I wouldn’t exactly consider it “news” that a big tech is building a ChatGPT competitor. Then again, I wouldn’t exactly consider Business Insider a “news” organization…

BI is reporting that Amazon (-1.8%) is working on a ChatGPT killer called Metis. And that CEO Andy Jassy is directly involved (which kinda makes sense since he’s the CEO and all). This is allegedly a separate project from Q, which was released in November.

+ How couples answer one question shows whether they communicate well about money, Cornell research finds (Read)

+ The No. 1 trait that sets highly successful people apart, says Harvard expert: ‘It’s rare to find’ (Read) Shoutout to everyone who called me out the wrong link yesterday… you passed the test.

⏪ Yesterday there wasn’t a whole lot on the docket…

⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…

+ Carnival Cruise Lines reports before the bell

+ FedEx earnings drop this evening

+ Datadog holds its Dash event

+ The Footwear News Summit gets underway in NYC'

+ We hear from two Fed governors

Yesterday, I asked, “What's the better use of $5? (McDonald’s $5 meal OR a month of AI-enabled Alexa)”

The weekday warrior who answered, “Alexa, but only because I’m too fat for McDonald’s” should tell you all you need to know. McDonald’s won with 92.8% of the vote.

Here’s today’s question…

Let’s keep this competition going since Starbucks is getting its $5 combo on too…

Before you go…

Last Hawk Tuah girl post, I promise…

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.