Here’s what’s on the agenda today…

Uncle Sam has a new stock on his watch list, Intel begs Apple for help, and Microsoft wants to see other people (in addition to OpenAI).

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 34 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

– tyler

PS, loving The Water Coolest? Forward it to someone who's as down bad as Intel. If you CC me ([email protected]), I’ll send you both something.

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“51st state” Truth Social rhetoric loading…

The White House has added Lithium Americas $LAC ( ▲ 22.63% ) to its watch list. But don’t let “Americas” fool you… the lithium miner is located in Vancouver (that’s Canada for all of us who weren’t geography majors).

The Exec Branch’s family office is seeking equity as part of a “renegotiation” of a $2.2B loan from the Department of Energy. Sound familiar? You might recall Uncle Sam shook down requested equity from Intel in exchange for cash originally handed over as part of the CHIPS Act.

Tell me more…

Lithium Americas operates a lithium mine in Thacker Pass (Nevada). Or at least it’s trying to…

Just one problem: it hasn’t actually produced any lithium yet. It plans to actually get lithium out of the ground in 2027-ish.

That should make its biggest fan/first client very happy. Fun fact: GM, which the US government used to hold a stake in, owns 38% of the company. Small world.

Why though?

Because national security, that’s why.

Turns out it’s much more difficult for a lithium miner to sell the critical mineral to US adversaries and/or negotiate less than favorable pricing when a sitting President, or, at the very least, a Treasury Secretary, is sitting on its board.

WTF does it mean for us?

I think it’s safe to assume Uncle Sam has got a type (spoiler: miners).

You might recall that the Federal Government recently took a 15% stake in US-based rare earth miner MP Materials $MP ( ▲ 8.28% ). And, now, it appears nobody is safe from being invested in by the most powerful entity to ever exist.

+ “Spare some change?” - Intel to Apple

Listen, it’s probably not a coincidence that Intel $INTC ( ▲ 8.87% ) is seeking an investment from a company sitting on one of the biggest piles of f*ck you money of all time. The chipmaker that’s half the man it used to be recently approached Tim Cook and Apple $AAPL ( ▲ 1.81% ) about an investment. To be fair, INTC’s cap table is pretty impressive. It added Nvidia, Softbank, and the US government in the last month alone.

In case you were wondering just how desperate Intel has gotten, Apple does little to no business with them anymore. Over the past few years, the iPhone maker has begun developing chips in-house and collabing with TSMC for manufacturing.

Just me, or does it feel like Intel is one bad quarter from turning tricks behind a dumpster to keep the lights on?

+ It’s called diversification… look it up.

Microsoft $MSFT ( ▼ 0.61% ) is finally taking advantage of its open relationship with OpenAI. Despite the potential repercussions, MSFT is getting in bed with Anthropic. The company that still hasn’t figured out how to make images work in Word will offer users access to Anthropic models in the Microsoft 365 Copilot assistant. Shots fired.

+ What could possibly go wrong?

It’s about to get a whole lot easier for anyone to day trade. Yes, even poors. Currently, SEC rules dictate that a day trader “must maintain a minimum account balance of $25,000 in a margin account to execute four or more day trades within a five-business-day period.” God willing, going forward, buying power will be based on the margin requirements of the positions a day trader takes.

FINRA has already signed off on the new rule. Now, the Shortseller Enrichment Commission will need to give the green light.

WTF does it mean for us?

From here on out (pending the SEC’s approval), the less economically gifted risk takers amongst us will be able to gamble just like the rest of us. Oh, and the move could be a major boon for entry-level brokerages like Robinhood $HOOD ( ▼ 3.27% ).

+ The OG meme stonk has still got it. Shares of Hertz $HTZ ( ▲ 0.86% ) popped more than 20% after announcing it’s about to offer up $250M in debt. Of course, it wasn’t the debt offering that had shares of the rental car provider mooning. The devil is in the details…

So what got the people going? It was probably a swap transaction (associated with the debt) that will give “Dollar” Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square ~$100M of additional HTZ equity exposure. You might recall that back in May, Bill announced a yuge stake in the company that inexplicably made shareholders money when it declared bankruptcy in 2020.

WTF does it mean for us?

The smart money (Bill Ackman… perhaps you’ve heard of him?) sees something he likes, you guys…

+ US stocks “fell on Wednesday as artificial intelligence giants Nvidia and Oracle came under pressure for a second day.” (CNBC)

+ The 10-year yield “ticked higher on Wednesday as investors awaited further economic data and weighed the possibility of a U.S. federal government shutdown next week.” (CNBC)

+ Oil “climbed about 3% to a seven-week high on Wednesday as a surprise drop in U.S. weekly crude inventories added to a sense in the market of tightening supplies amid export issues in Iraq, Venezuela and Russia.” (Reuters)

+ The “smart” money (prediction markets) thinks there’s a 35% chance Coscto says “hot dog” during its earnings call. (Kalshi)

⏪ Yesterday…

+ Cintas and Uranium Energy Corp reported before the bell

⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…

+ Accenture and Jabil Circuit report before the open

+ Costco reports after the bell

Yesterday, I asked, “You get $5k per day, but once an hour you freeze randomly for 2 seconds. Are you taking the deal?”

71.7% of you said “Hell yeah.“

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

Here’s today’s question…

It’s called KYC…

Oh, and one more thing…

Sent from my Amazon Fire Phone. Please excuse any mistakes and typos.

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.