Hey there weekday warriors,

Today we’re taking a look at Walmart’s earnings, overthinking Take Two’s GTA 6 status update & and a whole lot more.

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 10 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

- tyler

+ US stocks “could not reach new records on Thursday, despite the Dow Jones Industrial Average touching 40,000 for the first time ever.” (CNBC)

+ The 10-year Treasury yield “ticked higher on Thursday as investors weighed the latest economic data and considered the implications it may have for Federal Reserve monetary policy." (CNBC)

+ Oil “settled higher Thursday, as rising hopes for U.S. rate cuts following data showing a cooling job market and weaker inflation boosted bets on firmer crude demand.” (Reuters)

+ Bitcoin fell along with stocks following Wednesday’s bump from CPI.

+ The three most talked about stocks on WallStreetBets in the past 24 hours were: 1) GameStop -30.0% 2) AMC -15.3% 3) Nvidia -0.3%

The market moves you need to know about…

+ The AdvisorShares Pure Cannabis ETF jumped 2.4% on news that the DOJ has officially proposed reclassifying cannabis to a Schedule I drug. And if it feels like you’ve seen this movie before, that’s because you have.

– The official uniform of guys who just kinda gave up (Under Armour), fell 1.3% after the company announced it would be doing more layoffs and expects sales to fall as much as 10% this year.

+ EV maker Faraday Future Intelligent Electric soared 134.0% on Thursday. It’s now up over 4,000% on the week and has clawed its way back from the dead (read: penny stock territory). And, apparently, it’s got a short squeeze to thank.

Putting the big in big box

Average Americans: “I want to fill my body with overprocessed foods full of ingredients that I can’t pronounce… but fast food is getting too damn expensive.”

Walmart: “Hold my beer.”

Walmart’s (+6.9%) CFO attributed some of the sales growth in its most recent quarter to consumers choosing to eat at home vs. choosing fast food.

He said, “It’s roughly 4.3 times more expensive to eat out than it is to eat at home. And that’s benefiting our business.” Translation? “Thanks for charging $18 for a Big Mac, McDonald’s…”

That wasn’t the only reason WMT hit an ATH yesterday…

‘Target for people who wear Harrison Butker jerseys’ put on a masterclass in big box retail quarters. It beat easily on the top and bottom lines thanks to bargain hunters, especially those higher on the socioeconomic ladder.

The retailer has been attracting more affluent shoppers with a new “high-end private label grocery brand” (read: Trader Joe’s knockoff), renovated stores, and new brands from fashion designers and SoulCycle instructors.

Ain’t no one-trick pony…

But Walmart is showing its chops outside the brick-and-mortar world. Online sales jumped 22% in the quarter as Walmart continues to get its sh*t together and begin to chip away at Amazon’s insurmountable lead.

And what it lacks in health clinics (RIP Walmart Health), Walmart more than makes up for with its high-margin advertising biz. Its ad arm grew 24% during the quarter. Keep in mind that it still hasn't closed its $2.4B deal to acquire Vizio…

+ The only thing investors read more closely than Fed statements are Take-Two Interactive’s (-1.3% // -2.4% after hours) earnings reports…

Investors (and gamers) couldn’t help but notice Take Two updated the estimated release date of the new Grand Theft Auto installment from “Calendar 2025” to “Fall 2025.” The company spun it as a “narrowing” of the timeline. Investors interpreted it as a delay… probably because it is.

It probably didn’t help that the company shared light guidance and a massive loss (to be fair, the company cited a yuge goodwill impairment).

+ Remember the Wayfair (-3.3%) human trafficking conspiracy theory? Well, this has nothing to do with that, but consider this your weekly reminder of what a wild place the internet is…

The online retailer, which peddles furniture (not people) has plans to open its first large-scale brick-and-mortar store. The 150k square foot outlet will open outside of Chicago.

And in-person shopping is so back. For the past three years, brick-and-mortar openings have outpaced closings. During the five years before that, there were more going-out-of-business sales than grand openings.

+ Who’s going to tell Sam Altman that he can just get Reddit’s content for free on the internet?

Shares of Reddit (-5.4% // +11.0%) popped on the news that it entered into a wide-ranging AI agreement with OpenAI. Friendly reminder: Google is already paying $60M per year for rights to train its LLM on Reddit’s content.

OpenAI will get similar access. Plus, Reddit will integrate ChatGPT features into the platform.

It’s actually kinda shocking that it took Reddit and OpenAI this long to cut a deal. You might recall Sam Altman sat on Reddit’s board in a past life and owns nearly $750M worth of RDDT stock.

+ Sure, the nice round number doesn’t really matter, but DOW 40,000 certainly looks better on a hat than DOW 39,999.

The Dow officially broke through the 40k level in intraday trading for the first time ever. It failed to close above the threshold, though.

It’s a pretty astonishing feat when you consider that the DJIA was below 20k during the pandemic in 2020. Oh, and most of these gains have come while the Fed was hiking rates.

+ A Milwaukee Couple Wants to Retire at 60. A Financial Adviser Gives Them a Road Map. (Read)

+ The salary you need to be considered middle class in every U.S. state—it’s close to $200,000 in 2 of them (Read)

Yesterday, we were keeping an eye on earnings from Walmart and Under Armour. Plus, we were checking in on weekly jobless claims.

+ Check out a full breakdown of Walmart’s and Under Armour’s reports above.

+ Weekly jobless claims are back on their bullsh*t. A week after spiking, the figure dipped again, indicating the number of layoffs remains low.

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

+ Pretty quiet day. Happy Friday, ya filthy animals.

Yesterday, I asked, “You're CEO of Netflix... what's your next move into sports?”

Listen, I get it, you guys like football. NCAA Football took 37.9% of the vote. Keep in mind, there were nine options (plus a write-in). Soccer came in second.

Here’s today’s question…

Adidas said it plans to lower prices on some of its most iconic shoes, like the Sambas.

Before you go…

We should all aspire to be as confident as this 2nd-year analyst going around telling everyone he was Head of Macro at Greenlight Capital (Tweet)

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