Want to feel bad about yourself this morning? Bill Ackman made $610M last year by parking clients’ money in stocks like Chipotle and Google.

Here’s what else we’re getting into today…

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 2 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

- tyler

+ US stocks “fell Tuesday as Nvidia led a broader tech decline ahead of the chipmaker’s earnings report.” (CNBC)

+ The 10-year Treasury yield “turned mostly lower Tuesday as uncertainty about the outlook for the economy and interest rates lingered." (CNBC)

+ Oil prices “settled lower Tuesday, as investors weighed worries about weaker demand against rising geopolitical conditions in the Middle East that threaten to potentially disrupt supplies.” (Reuters)

+ Bitcoin “spikes to $53K, but resistance catches up with Bitcoin bulls.” (Cointelegraph)

+ The three most talked about stocks on WallStreetBets in the past 24 hours were: 1) Super Micro Computer -1.9% 2) Nvidia -4.3% 3) C3.ai -5.8%

The market moves you need to know about…

+ Barclays jumped 12.0% yesterday after promising to get its sh*t together by slashing $2.5B in costs. The $12.6B of buybacks through 2026 probably didn’t hurt.

– SolarEdge dropped 11.6% after delivering piss-poor earnings and even worse guidance.

+ Intuitive Machines is mooning. Literally. The space company hopes its unmanned lunar lander will touch down on the moon on Thursday. Shares of LUNR rose 50.1% yesterday.

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After years of being one of the biggest sellers of the most mediocre TVs in the game, Walmart said f*ck it and made it official. Walmart announced it’s buying Vizio for $2.3B on Tuesday. Rumors about the deal began swirling last week.

But it isn’t the poorly-made TV sets that have WMT leadership all horned up.

The Bentonville boys want to get their hands on Vizio’s SmartCast Operating System. Think: RokuOS, but worse.

SmartCast boasts more than 18M users, which Walmart hopes to serve ads to. Friendly reminder: SmartCast offers a bunch of free ad-supported content (you know, the kinda stuff that Quibi probably passed on…).

Turns out, advertising is a whole lot more profitable than selling alcohol to pregnant ladies and cigarettes to minors at brick-and-mortar stores. The move will help Wally World grow its advertising biz called Connect. Maybe. And more importantly, keep up with Amazon’s growing advertising business. Maybe.

Earnin’ and burnin’

Walmart announced the takeover during its earnings call on Tuesday. And, shocker, it beat easily on the top and bottom lines in the holiday quarter. Thanks, bargain hunters.

And since Americans have a fever and the only prescription is more consumption, the good times are expected to continue. Sales are forecast to climb between 3% and 4% during Walmart’s fiscal ‘25.

Why should I care? Welcome to 2024 where retailers identify as ad networks. What a time to be alive. Walmart may have started its transition a little later than Amazon, but its ad biz is growing without regard for human life. Walmart Connect’s sales grew 22% last quarter. The sudden interest isn’t exactly surprising, given the (much) wider margin on digital advertising compared to retail.

+ Are You Richer Than You Think? A Surprising Number Of People Consider Themselves 'Poor' But They're Actually In The Top 10% Of Earners (Read)

+ Jim Chanos discusses his legendary Enron short bet more than two decades later (Read)

+ Your Résumé Might Be Getting Tossed by AI. How to Push Back. (Read)

~ ICYMI... We’ve coached 25,000 Navy SEALs, Google employees and Olympic athletes—what makes them highly successful (Read)

+ American Airlines looked at Spirit’s customer reviews and said “challenge accepted.”

AA announced it’s raising prices on checked bag fees for the first time since 2018. A first checked bag will now cost $35 (up from $30) online. And you’ll have to cough up $45 (up from $40) for your second bag.

Why? According to American Air, it’s expensive af to transport bags.

Why should I care? If you’ve got plans to visit Del Boca Vista this winter, prepare to get bent over and shown the 50 states by airlines. American is just the latest airline to jack up baggage fees. Airlines have been dealing with higher employer costs (thanks unions) and bigger fuel bills. Not to mention all those Boeing repairs.

+ Things you hate to see: that. Cybersecurity player Palo Alto Networks got put in a body bag after updating its full-year guidance yesterday.

A top and bottom line beat in the most recent quarter wasn’t enough to overcome slashing its annual billing and sales forecast. Ok, but did they try mentioning AI more?

Shares fell more than 21% after hours and dragged the rest of the cybersecurity sector down with it. Jon McAfee would never…

+ Today, in things that don’t actually matter all that much… Amazon is joining the Dow Jones. The cloud computing company with an e-commerce side hustle will replace Walgreens, which checks out if you’ve been in a Walgreens lately. AMZN was up ~1% on the news. Joining the Dow isn’t as big of a deal as say getting the invite to the S&P 500 because it isn’t as closely tracked by funds. (Read)

+ FuboTV must be fun at parties…

To no one’s surprise, a smaller streaming platform is suing ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery, to block their new JV. FuboTV claims that “horizontal competitors are colluding to create a JV that will cause substantial harm to competition and consumers.” Read: it’s butt hurt it didn’t get an invite. (Read)

+ Bad day to be a garage beer. Dads across the US gathered to celebrate the holiest of days: Home Depot earnings. The hardware store on steroids, where I never fail to feel emasculated, beat on the top and bottom lines. And despite offering up a fairly weak outlook, shares were roughly flat on the day. (Read)

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

+ Analog Devices, Nvidia, Etsy, Rio Tinto, Marathon Oil, Rivian, and Lucid report… but the only thing anyone actually cares about is Nvidia

+ The Fed will release minutes from its most recent meeting… and everyone will pore over it for the slightest clue about when J-Poww might cut

Yesterday I asked, “How would you do in prison?”

72.3% of you said you wouldn’t do well. The rest of you are liars (except the few guys who said they have been to jail or are Marines). Even the corrections officer said he wouldn’t do well…

Here’s today’s question…

Go call your parents. They might be “Temu victims.”

Oh, and one more thing…

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