TOGETHER WITH
Hey there weekday warrior,
Yesterday we got earnings reports from Meta, Microsoft, and Tesla… and if you took a sip every time someone mentioned DeepSeek on an earnings call, you’d be in a coma.
Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 21 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.
Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,
Stage five clinger
POV: you’re the President…
Zuck’s simping knows no bounds…
On the same day news broke that Zuck was eyeing a mansion in DC, the man who lives rent-free in the Winkelvoss’ heads used Meta’s Q4 earnings call to heap praise on the new President: “We now have a U.S. administration that is proud of American businesses and is focused on winning."
This comes after Meta’s about-face on DEI and fact-checking. And I think I speak for all of us when I say: “Do less, Mark…”
Let’s look at earnings…
Despite all the changes, the company formerly known as Facebook did what it does best: print ad money. Meta (+0.3%) beat easily on the top and bottom lines in Q4… which is good news since it owes the sitting President $25M.
Oh, and the suite of social media platforms boasted 3.35B daily active users (just me or is that number still mind-boggling no matter how many times we’ve seen it?). The Street was expecting just 3.32B.
Meanwhile, in the metaverse…
Meta achieved a new high score in Q4: it has officially surpassed a $60B loss on the metaverse since its inception in 2020. Losses for the biz that makes the Quest and Ray-Ban AR/VR hardware, and the software that drives it, totaled $17.7B in 2024.
And Zuck has no plans to surrender even a point of Meta’s 70% market share in the VR space. During the earnings call, he said 2025 is “going to be a pivotal year for the metaverse.” Translation? The spending will continue until morale improves.
Of course, the cash burn will be nothing compared to Meta’s AI spending. Zuck doubled down on his promise to spend up to $65B this year on AI infrastructure and development… despite DeepSeek (allegedly) being able to ball on a budget.
When asked about DeepSeek, Zuck went full spin zone, indicating its open-source approach proves that Meta had it right all along (friendly reminder: Meta’s Llama has gone the open source route).
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+ It’s earnings season, so… “sometimes may be good, sometimes may be sh*t…”
Tesla (-2.2%) and Microsoft (-1.0%) dropped earnings after hours and stocks did… the exact opposite of what makes sense. Tesla reported a miss on the top and bottom lines. And full-year deliveries for ‘24 dropped to 1.8M (friendly reminder: Tesla’s first annual decline). Elon promised (again) that unsupervised, full-self-driving cars would be launching in Austin in June. Shares were up after-hours because ‘eLoN mAkE rObOt.’
Meanwhile, Microsoft reported an earnings and revenue beat. Shares dropped after hours, despite Q4 revenue growth of 12.3% YOY. Turns out Microsoft is having some problems scaling Azure and AI, which explains the aggressive $80B data center capex they’re planning. Meanwhile, society if they spent even half that making Teams suck a little less.
The Fed (-0.8%) is holding the line on interest rates, despite pressure from Donny Politics to cut them like federal employees who won’t return to office. J-Poww disappointed POTUS immeasurably. But the Fed argues while low unemployment has stabilized, inflation remains stubborn, with PCE hovering around 2.4%. Of course, the move didn’t come as a shock to investors, and the expectation is now that we won’t get another rate cut until June.
+ X goes full finance platform mode.
Trump Media: hold my beer.
Trump Media (+6.7%) aka DJT is planning to expand into financial services. Shares popped on news that the “Truth.Fi” will enter the DeFi arena to offer crypto trading, ETFs, and other investment vehicles with the backing of Charles Schwab (+0.4%).
CEO & Chairman Devin Nunes pointed to the goal of developing an “American First” environment to protect patriots from “cancellation, censorship, debanking, and privacy violations.”
+ Investment Firm HG Vora is going full activist mode and hitting Penn Entertainment (+2.2%) with a proxy fight over its dubious record of ‘failed’ acquisitions. Surely, HG isn’t talking about Penn’s acquisition of a certain financial newsletter via their subsidiary Barstool Sports in 2021…
+ Robinhood (+3.5%) is about to launch futures trading for BTC, oil, gold, the S&P 500, and some currencies, and r/WallStreetBets is about to be full of devastating loss p*rn.
+ Spirit Airlines (+31.9%) turned down Frontier’s (+5.2%) merger bid, again… because they’d rather go Chapter 11 than sell to Frontier.
+ Uber (-1.9%) and Lyft (-3.8%) shares got rekt after Waymo announced that it’s expanding testing operations to 10 new cities in 2025.
🔥 29-year-old with a $700,000 net worth shares 5 money habits she avoids—one is like flushing money 'down the toilet'. #1: literally having any fun, ever.
FYI, TWC might be compensated if you click on the links above. So, what are you waiting for? Start clicking.
+ US stocks “closed lower Wednesday after the Federal Reserve left its influential interest rate unchanged amid persistent inflation, as investors prepared for a slew of earnings reports from major technology companies.” (Investopedia)
+ The 10-year yield “was unchanged on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged at 4.25% to 4.50% in its first interest rate decision of 2025.” (CNBC)
+ Oil “prices fell on Wednesday, with the U.S. benchmark settling at its lowest year to date, after domestic crude stockpiles in the world's top petroleum producer and consumer rose more than expected last week.” (Reuters)
+ Bitcoin’s “price declined alongside the S&P 500, DOW and QQQ before reversing course to hit an intra-day high near $104,782.” (Cointelegraph.com)
+ The three most talked about stocks on WallStreetBets in the past 24 hours were: 1) Nvidia -4.1% 2) Tesla -2.2% 3) C3.ai -4.0%
⏪ Yesterday, ASML, T-Mobile, ADP, Nasdaq, Progressive, and General Dynamics reported before the bell. And Tesla, Microsoft, Meta, ServiceNow, Waste Management, IBM, and Levi Strauss dropped earnings after the close. Plus, we got the Fed’s interest rate decision.
⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…
+ Mastercard, CAT, UPS, Shell, Altria, Blackstone, Thermo Fisher, Mobileye, L3Harris, Cigna, Northrop Grumman, Comcast, SiriusXM, and Southwest report before the bell
+ Apple, Visa, Intel, Atlassian, KLA, and Deckers drop earnings after the close
+ The ECB drops its interest rate decision
Yesterday, I asked, “Your boss asks for something at EOD. What time are they getting it?”
Before 5 PM won easily, followed by before midnight.
Here’s what some of you guys had to say…
Before midnight: “Really depends on boss's time zone and their individual quirks/work habits. I had a boss three time zones away who would fire off weird emails after midnight his time, so "EOD" is vague. If you want a hard deadline, give an exact time and I will have it to you, probably on the dot or just before then."
Other: “End of December...got it”
In their inbox before they sign in: "The trick in managing your boss is to test the limits, push the boundaries, and learn how much you get away with. Start early and play the long game."
Before 5 PM: "Translated EOD is finish it f*cking soon.”
Before midnight: “EOD = Before Midnight, COB = 5PM” THIS is the only right answer.
And here’s today’s question…
Hot topic in the Morin household…
Are we giving kids an allowance in 2025 or just making them ask for money when they need it?
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.