Hey there weekday warrior,

Quick programming note before we get into tariffs (again)… no email Friday. See you jabronis Monday. Happy Easter to all who celebrate.

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 17 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

– tyler

The chips are down

Ah sh*t, here we go again…

After two relatively quiet trading days, markets got their Bonnie Blue on (read: went down in public).

The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq lost 1.7%, 2.2%, and 3%, respectively, on Wednesday. And, listen, I don’t like to point fingers, but if I did, I’d definitely blame the Magnificent 7 for performing worse than the 1993 Chicago Cubs (before Henry Rowengartner slipped on that ball).

So WTF happened?

Well… Tuesday night, Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 4.3% ) said that the White House had implemented new guidelines that required signoff to send its H20 chips to China. You might recall that these were the slightly-more-sh*tty chips Nvidia created to circumvent rules put in place by Joey Politics that aimed to keep Obi Huang’s most powerful chips in the US.

This might come as a shock… but AMD $AMD ( ▲ 2.3% ) (and others that don’t matter quite as much) are also subject to getting permission slips signed before they ship product around the globe.

Turns out the company whose earnings became must-see TV (seriously, NYC bars were hosting NVDA watch parties) has some pull around here. NVDA dragged down the whole damn market.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse…

During a speech and Q&A, J-Poww didn’t exactly instill confidence, indicating that tariffs are “likely to move us further away from our goals... probably for the balance of this year.” He indicated that the Fed might find itself in a monetary policy pickle where it’s facing high inflation and slowing growth…

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Jerry Interest Rates didn’t offer up any guidance on what the Fed’s next move will be.

+ The “shop like a billionaire” era is canceled…

Temu $PDD ( ▲ 0.72% ) just yeeted its US ad budget off a cliff as Donny Tariff’s 145% Chinese import tariffs kneecapped its entire business model. And remember that de minimis loophole that was supposed to save the cheap-crap-from-China industry? Well, it’s set to disappear on May 2. Now, Temu and its sl*tty sister Shein are raising prices and slashing ad spending. Temu app downloads are down 62%. And no one is more thrilled than Amazon $AMZN ( ▲ 1.31% ) Haul…

+ “Daddy, chill.” - all the scam bois to Jamie Dimon

JPMorgan Chase $JPM ( ▼ 0.45% ) isn’t a fan of TikTok trends that involve committing check fraud like some kind of modern day Frank Abagnale, Jr. The big swingin’ bank is suing customers in both federal and state courts who allegedly stole up to $75k each from the bank via the viral infinite money glitch. Pour one out for the ~1k people who just got served.

+ The only thing Bill Ackman likes more than dropping hot takes on Twitter is making his investors immediately regret their decision. Hertz $HTZ ( ▼ 4.05% ) share price jumped on news that Pershing Square has acquired a yuge stake (think: 20%) in the OG rental car company (12.7M shares purchased for $46.5M). To be fair… last time it went bankrupt, investors actually made money…

Speaking of car rentals… Turo just laid off 150 people, about 15% of its workforce. Friendly reminder, Turo went “sike” on its planned IPO back in February. Even before it totally made sense to…

+ Chili’s just went scorched Earth on McDonald’s $MCD ( ▲ 0.16% ). It installed a pop-up next to a Golden Arches location, throwing shade at how expensive the OG fast food joint has become… and also launching the “Big QP” burger. Well played. No notes.

+ Tens of thousands of Zoom $ZM ( ▲ 0.72% ) users found out what it feels like to be on a free plan after 40 minutes. A massive outage almost forced Skype out of retirement.

+ OpenAI is on the prowl to wife up that hot, nerdy AI coding tool Windsurf for a respectable $3B to try to stay ahead in the AI wars. And you know right about now is when Elon calls Windsurf with a counteroffer.

+ European taxi app Free Now is getting acquired by Lyft $LYFT ( ▲ 1.24% ) in a $199M deal to expand Cheap-Pink-Uber overseas to 9 countries.

+ US stocks “tumbled on Wednesday with tariff fears returning to Wall Street in earnest, as Nvidia (NVDA) revealed costly new curbs on chip exports to China and Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned of the "challenging" impacts to come from the uncertainty around President Trump's trade policy.” (Yahoo! Finance)

+ The 10-year yield “inched lower on Wednesday after stronger-than-expected retail sales data and comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on tariff policy.” (CNBC)

+ Oil “prices rose nearly 2% on Wednesday to a two-week high on concerns about global supplies after Washington issued new sanctions targeting Chinese importers of Iranian oil.” (Reuters)

⏪ Yesterday…

+ ASML, Abbott Laboratories, Progressive, U.S. Bancorp, and PROLOGIS reported before the bell

+ Kinder Morgan reported after hours

+ The U.S. Census Bureau released the March Retail Sales report (ah, so that’s what they do for the other 9.5 years)

⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…

+ TSMC, American Express, UnitedHealth, Charles Schwab, Blackstone, D.R. Horton, Ally Financial, and Truist Financial report before the bell

+ Netflix reports after hours

Yesterday, I asked, “What minor convenience would you rather have on all flights for the rest of your life?”

40.8% of you chose No plus-sized next door neighbors.

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

• No plus-sized next door neighbors: “If you're gonna weigh my bag, weigh the fat sacks of sh*t to my left and right. (Disclaimer: we're all sacks of sh*t...they're just fat ones)”

• Free, reliable wi-fi: “I can let a lot of other stuff slide if I can be distracted by my phone”

• Person in front of you never reclines: “When your nickname is the Jolly Green Giant, you don't want the person in front of you to recline.”

• 1 free alcoholic beverage per flight: “the bevvy makes all the other annoyances less of an issue”

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.