Hey there weekday warrior,
No newsletter for the next few days. Back bright and early Monday morning.
In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy Thanksgiving with your friends and family (to everyone outside of the US, I’m sorry you have to go to work…).
Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 3 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.
Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,
PS, I am incredibly thankful that you tune in every morning. It’s not lost on me that you could spend your time doing literally anything, but you spend it reading TWC. I have the best job in the world because of you (yes, you). Thanks. A lot.
+ US stocks “shrugged off President-elect Donald Trump's threat to impose new tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico, with two major indexes securing fresh records.” (Yahoo! Finance)
+ The 10-year yield “advanced on Tuesday as investors analyzed the latest Federal Reserve meeting minutes and key economic data due this week.” (CNBC)
+ Oil “settled lower on Tuesday, extending Monday's losses in choppy trade after Israel agreed to a ceasefire deal with Lebanon, reducing oil's risk premium.” (Reuters)
+ Bitcoin “retreated further from the psychological $100,000 milestone, as investors booked profits from the cryptocurrency’s gains following the presidential election.” (CNBC)
+ The three most talked about stocks on WallStreetBets in the past 24 hours were: 1) MicroStrategy -12.3% 2) Archer Aviation -3.4% 3) Nvidia +0.6%
The market moves you need to know about…
– The good news is that CrowdStrike reported a top and bottom-line beat… and wasn’t responsible for any catastrophic global web outages in the most recent quarter. The bad news? Shares fell 5.8% after the company unveiled a pretty anemic Q4 outlook.
– Kohl’s outgoing CEO be like “Seems like a you problem.” Just hours after the official store of people who vacation on cruise ships announced Tom Kingsbury’s departure, the company reported earnings. Look on the bright side, Tom, you could have had to host this earnings call. Shares fell 17.0% after the company reported a top and bottom line miss and slashed its full-year forecast…
Your Access to Select Private Investments
Join a network of 500+ accredited investors accessing private companies like OpenAI, SpaceX, Neuralink, and ByteDance.
All investments have the risk of loss. UpMarket is not associated with or endorsed by the above-listed companies. Only available to eligible accredited investors. View important disclosures at www.upmarket.co
Fresh meat
Source: Giphy
“Let me just enjoy the one thing that makes me a little bit happy. This fresh, cold, delicious, turkey-filled... cold-cut combo from Subway!” - John Chidsey, probably
The tenure of Subway CEO John Chidsey is coming to an end a little over a year after the glorified deli sold to Roark Capital… which is more than most CEOs can say after a PE shop takes over.
He’ll be replaced in the interim by Carrie Walsh (not to be confused with the Olympic beach volleyball legend), Subway’s current president of EMEA.
Besides orchestrating the $9.5B Roark deal, Chidsey, who took over in 2019, helped navigate ‘rona boi and the stubborn inflation that forced chains to dig deep into their bag of tricks to boost sales…
By any means necessary…
Recently, the man who introduced the world to 12-inch cookies (even though nobody asked) tried to recapture the magic of the $5 Footlong deal and attract diners to Subway’s 37k franchises. Turns out people liked the $6.99 Footlong about as much as they liked Jared Fogle after the Feds got their hands on his hard drives…
This week, Subway quietly ended the deal after just a month due to lackluster sales… because charging $7 for the $5 Footlong is like Costco jacking up the MSRP of the $1.50 hot dog combo to $2.25.
Despite ruffling some feathers along the way (Chidsey also beefed with franchisees) the outgoing CEO did manage to grow sales by 2% from 2022 and 2023. So he’s got that going for him…
+ “I’ve always been more of a left of the decimal guy…” - J-Poww
If there was one takeaway from otherwise pretty underwhelming Fed minutes, it’s that the FOMC is just like us. They mail it in, too, you guys. Despite not actually achieving its 2% inflation mandate, Fed officials went all “close enough” in the most recent minutes.
In addition to inflation moving in the right direction, the Central Bankers seemed pretty comfortable with the employment situation in the US too… which is good news for J-Poww considering he’ll be on the job hunt sooner rather than later if Donny Politics has anything to do about it.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get any insight into if/when the Fed will cut rates again. The market still believes we’ll get another cut in December, but is starting to have second thoughts. The smartest guys in the room think Donny Politics tariffs could jack up inflation again, which could cause the Fed to pump the brakes on loosening monetary policy.
+ Being an AI player not named Nvidia in 2024 is like being one of those other guys on LeBron’s high school basketball team. Sure, you’re on the same court, but you’re not really playing the same game…
Exhibit A: Yesterday, Dell (-1.6% // -11.2% after hours) had the misfortune of being compared to the once-in-a-generation 6’ 7” 225-pound high school senior (think: Nvidia).
While the maker of PCs and AI servers managed to beat on the bottom line, revenue missed expectations, and its Q4 revenue forecast came in shy of the Street’s estimates.
It probably didn’t help that AI sales increased just 34% in the most recent quarter. Which is absolutely pathetic when you consider NVDA grew its top line by 94%…
+ Best Buy (-4.8%) out here doing its best Circuit City impression…
The electronics retailer that, inexplicably, still exists, posted a brutal quarter. Not only did it miss on the top and bottom lines, but it slashed its sales expectations for the full year. Has it considered blaming organized retail crime again?
+ 59% of Americans consider this the No. 1 sign of success — it’s not wealth. Spoiler: it’s owning a jet ski.
🔥 ‘Do I have a trust fund?’ Viral ‘teenager texts’ highlight how little some kids know about money. I text my mom this all the time, hoping she forgot or something…
FYI, TWC might be compensated if you click on the links above. So, what are you waiting for? Start clicking.
⏪ Yesterday, Best Buy, Abercrombie, Analog Devices, Macy's, Burlington Stores, and Dick's reported before the bell. And CrowdStrike, Dell, HP, Workday, and PagerDuty dropped earnings after the close.
Oh, and the Fed released the FOMC minutes.
⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…
+ The core PCE index (think: inflation) drops
Yesterday, I asked, “What's the GOATed Thanksgiving dessert?”
It appears pumpkin pie is the stuffing of dessert at Thanksgiving.
Here’s what some of you had to say (and my thoughts in italics)…
Other: “Sweet Potato pie. Been taking Pumpkin pie's lunch money for several years now.” The what pie?
Pecan pie: “I can already hear the "mOuTh BrEaThInG SeC fAn" remarks coming...” You said it. Not me.
Pecan: "Pumpkin is garbage. Pecan is for real men."
Pumpkin: “Pumpkin Pie one day a year and THEN you can go back to The Field for the other 364, because when is the last time you ate a pie outside of a holiday?”
Other: "No love for the cherries?"
Pecan: “I’d sell the naming rights to my future child for a good pecan pie right now.”
Other: "No love for sweet potato pie?" WTF is sweet potato pie?!
And here’s today’s question…
We talked Thanksgiving dinner and dessert. Now it's time to crown a champ. What's the absolute best thing about Thanksgiving?
Oh, and one more thing…
What did you think about today's newsletter?
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.