FYI, Elon was not arrested. And Apple will NEVER make an iPhone in the US.

Happy April Fool’s Day. Keep your head on a swivel today and prepare for some major f*ckery from brands.

Here’s what we’re getting into today…

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 28 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

- tyler

[Friendly reminder: markets were closed Friday, so the data below is from Thursday]

+ US stocks “ended Thursday little changed, but all major indexes managed to mark their fifth consecutive winning month.” (CNN)

+The 10-year Treasury yield “ticked higher Thursday as investors considered the path ahead for interest rates following comments from a Federal Reserve official and prepared for key inflation data.” (CNBC)

+ Oil “settled higher Thursday to wrap the first quarter with strong gains as bets on lower Russia output eased worries about a global supply surplus.” (Reuters)

+ Bitcoin “returned to $70,000 after the March 29 daily close as traders counted down the final hours of a roaring Q1.” (Cointelegraph)

+ The three most talked about stocks on WallStreetBets in the past 24 hours were: 1) Trump Media & Technology Group -6.4% 2) Nvidia +0.1% 3) Reddit -14.6%

The market moves you need to know about…

[These moves are from Thursday]

– Shares of Reddit fell 14.6% during trading Thursday. It ended the week below its first-day closing price after a downward spiral.

– AMC is its own worst enemy The movie theater chain announced plans to sell another $250M worth of shares. The stock plummeted 14.2%. Because of course it did.

(Yes, I realize this happened on Thursday. But there was no newsletter on Friday. And don’t think I was about to miss the opportunity to make SBF prison s*x jokes.)

On the bright side, Sam, the shower orgies will remind you of home in the Bahamas…

On Thursday, Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison. To be fair, that should come as a relief to Sam. Prosecutors were seeking up to 50 years, and the charges carried a maximum sentence of more than 100.

The 32-year-old will be nearly 60 when he’s released… assuming he doesn’t get shanked for giving some bad crypto tips before then.

He was also ordered to repay $11B in forfeiture to the US government. Oof.

I want to buy the judge a beer…

Probably one of my favorite things about the US justice system is that judges try to keep order for like 99% of the trial… then at the very end, they go full Judge Judy. They get the chance to just rip into the defendant whose life is basically over.

Judge Lewis Kaplan said, “There is a risk that this man will be in position to do something very bad in the future. And it’s not a trivial risk at all.” According to sources in the courtroom, at one point when SBF was apologizing, the judge just kinda stopped listening, which aggravated Sammy Rug Pull.

Before he was sentenced, SBF had the chance to speak. And how did this motherf*cker use his last few minutes of freedom? Trying to convince everyone that FTX lost money because of a “liquidity crisis.” Gotta give it to him, he’s really embracing the whole villain thing…

Tyler’s take… In the words of Dave Chappelle… “night, night, keep ya butthole tight.”

+ The day Mark Cuban became a millionaire, he took off his watch and threw it away—here’s why (Read)

+ 34% of millennials say they're behind on saving for retirement - getting the help of the right financial advisor could be the next money move to make (Take the quiz)

+ Ending 6% commissions could create a ‘Venus flytrap situation’ for home buyers, economist says (Read)

+ Hands Down Some of the Best Credit Cards for Balance Transfers (Read)

BTW, some of these are affiliate partnerships.

+ What a waste of a decent inflation read…

On Friday, we got a Core PCE report that indicated prices rose by 2.8% in February vs. a year earlier. That was in line with expectations and the same as January’s figure.

Oh, and presumably because of a scheduling error that will cost his admin their job, J-Poww had a speaking engagement on Good Friday. That meant we got Jay’s (near) real-time reaction to the inflation print.

He said it was “not as low as most of the good readings we got in the second half of last year, but it’s definitely more along the lines of what we want to see.”

All of this had investors pumped that the Fed was still on the path to lowering in the back half of this year. Just one problem… markets were closed for the holiday.

+ Sam Altman’s sugar daddy is at it again. Microsoft and OpenAI are working on a $100B AI data center project… which MSFT will pay for. The multi-phase project will culminate with the build-out of a supercomputer called Stargate. And honestly, guys, if you want the public to buy into AI, can we quit it with the sci-fi references?

+ Go call your mom. Tupperware warned on Friday that it might not be able to meet all of its obligations in the near term (read: it’s going to go out of business). It’s not entirely surprising considering last year it hired bankers to restructure its debt.

+ Absolute veteran move by AT&T to announce a massive breach over the weekend. On Saturday, AT&T said that millions of current and former customers’ data was published on the dark web a few weeks ago. The data included “names, home addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and Social Security numbers.” No word on whether mother’s maiden names were available.

+ [This story was from Thursday, but is a BFD] Home Depot just made its biggest acquisition to date. It’s buying SRS Distribution for $18.25B. SRS focuses on pros (so, not you and I). The deal makes sense given that the DIY boom during COVID is coming to an end/everyone needs professionals to fix the projects they botched.

Here's what I'm keeping an eye on today...

+ We should start getting Q1 delivery numbers from carmakers… like, say, Tesla

Thursday, I asked, “Should I buy or lease a new car?”

The top answer was “buy a used car” and it was not particularly close.

Here’s today’s question…

Let’s stick with the personal finance theme for a minute.

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.