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Stocks & Stuff
The news, fully digested. Our published Stocks & Stuff stories, newest first.
MICROSOFT ASKS 60,000 EMPLOYEES TO PLEASE FIRE THEMSELVES BY DECEMBER 31
Microsoft emailed about 60,000 people a thing called the Voluntary Exit Offer, which is corporate for please leave on purpose. That's roughly 27% of the company, and the deadline to decide is early December. The joke writes itself when you see which teams were left off the list.
NETFLIX POSTS A $3.7 BILLION QUARTER, PROCEEDS TO CUT 1,000+ JOBS
Netflix laid off about 1,000 people, fired its content chief the next day, cleaned out seven more executives, then reported a $3.7 billion profit. The memo told staff it was on all of them to meet the moment. A thousand of them had already been excused from it.
NVIDIA AND APPLE EACH PUT $25 MILLION INTO TRUMP'S BALLROOM.
The Washington Post got hold of the leaked donor spreadsheet for Trump's White House ballroom, so we finally know who paid what. Nvidia and Apple went $25 million each, Microsoft and Palantir $10 million, and Google's chunk was really a lawsuit settlement. Trump, who said he was covering part of it himself, does not ap
CHIP STOCKS DOWN SIX DAYS STRAIGHT BECAUSE OPENAI ONLY MAKES $50 BILLION A YEAR
Chip stocks have closed red six sessions running, the worst stretch in about 16 months, after the FT reported OpenAI's revenue run rate is near $50 billion and not the $70 billion everybody had been repeating. Most of that gap turns out to be an accounting difference over cloud partner sales. Korea's market fell more t
MAN WHO SAID HE WAS DONE WITH POLITICS SPENDS $276 MILLION ON POLITICS
Elon Musk has put $276 million into Republican groups since July, which makes him the biggest known donor of the midterms. Last May he said he'd done enough political spending. His total for this cycle is now bigger than what he spent getting Trump elected.
OPENAI'S REVENUE IS $18 BILLION SMALLER THAN EVERYONE THOUGHT
OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue is about $50 billion, not the $68 billion number everybody repeated last month. Seven chip and cloud stocks got taken out back over it on Thursday. The explanation for the gap came from an anonymous person, which is a fun basis for a selloff.
TRUMP IS RAFFLING OFF DINNER TO THE 185 BIGGEST HOLDERS OF A COIN DOWN 97%
The $TRUMP memecoin team announced a third gala dinner, this one on Nov. 22 for the top 185 holders, with the leaderboard locking Nov. 12. The coin trades around two bucks after peaking above seventy-three, and a watchdog says Trump crypto investors are $4.7 billion underwater. The prize for finishing top four is a gol
PARAMOUNT IS BORROWING $44 BILLION TO BUY A COMPANY SIX TIMES ITS SIZE
Paramount Skydance is selling $44.4 billion in bonds to finance the Warner Bros. Discovery takeover, and its own market cap is about $11.5 billion. The junk portion is the biggest high-yield deal ever done. We get into the leverage numbers, the 9% yields, and the $7 million a day Paramount owes while it waits on a judg
REPORTER BET LIKE AN ADDICT FOR 10 STRAIGHT WEEKS AND DRAFTKINGS PROMOTED HIM
A ProPublica reporter opened a DraftKings account under his real name, told the app he was a journalist, and then spent ten weeks doing every single thing a gambling counselor would beg you not to do. DraftKings responded by inviting him into the VIP program. He lost about $10,000 of his employer's money and nobody eve
MORTGAGE RATES HIT 7.45% BECAUSE BOND TRADERS JUST FELT LIKE SELLING
The 30-year fixed jumped to 7.45% on Thursday, the highest in over two years, and the guy who runs the survey says there was no obvious reason for the afternoon bond dump. Some analysts are now floating 8%. We walk through what actually moved and what it does to your payment.
META MUSE OVERTAKES CHATGPT FOR KING OF THE APP STORE
Meta's new AI agent Muse is the top free app in the country, past ChatGPT, and Meta's stock added roughly $190 billion in a single day. Then Amazon blocked it from shopping on Amazon.com for being an unauthorized bot. We get into why the biggest store in America doesn't want your robot butler in the aisles.
AMD IS NOW WORTH A TRILLION DOLLARS BECAUSE PEOPLE DOWNLOADED A META APP
The Nasdaq hit its first record close since June, and the thing that set it off was Meta's new AI assistant climbing the App Store free chart. Wall Street took that as proof the world needs more chips and shoved AMD over a trillion dollars. Morgan Stanley picked the same day to warn everyone about a 7% drop.
SEC HANDS CRYPTO A FIVE-YEAR HALL PASS TO TRADE REAL STOCKS
The SEC approved a five-year exemption letting certain platforms trade tokenized U.S. stocks without registering as an exchange, and Coinbase closed up 11.5% on it. We go through the caps, the veto issuers get, and the Jersey debt securities Robinhood has been calling stock tokens. Also the roughly $104,000 of collater
TRUMP PICKED A FED CHAIR TO CUT RATES AND GOT A HIKE
The Fed raised rates for the first time since 2023, and the guy who did it is Trump's own pick for the job. Trump answered a few hours later by demanding 1% or less, in all caps, on Truth Social. The Dow ate 630 points and Warsh told reporters he is not a Wall Street newsletter.
CRYPTO'S DREAM BILL NEEDED 60 VOTES, GOT 49, AND THE MARKET PROCEEDED TO TANK
The Senate's big crypto bill needed 60 votes to move forward and got 49, with every Democrat and four Republicans voting it down. Coinbase and Circle handed back Monday's rally in about an hour and bitcoin slid under $76,000. We get into who actually killed it, and why the year 2030 keeps coming up.
BOND MARKET TOUCHES 5%, IMMEDIATELY PRETENDS IT DIDN'T
The 10-year Treasury yield hit 5% on Monday for the first time since October 2023, then backed off before anyone could get a screenshot. We get into why it happened, what the Fed is about to do Wednesday, and why the number shows up on your mortgage and not on some trader's problem list.
CALIFORNIA'S GAS PRICE BOARDS RUN OUT OF SPACE
GasBuddy says a handful of California stations hit $9.999 a gallon for diesel, which is the highest number the pump hardware can physically show. The count wobbled from five to six and then back down to three once some of the readings turned out to be out-of-fuel flags. Either way, national diesel just set an all-time
SAUDIS DECIDE THEY ARE BORED WITH GOLF, FILE FOR BANKRUPTCY
LIV Golf filed for Chapter 11 on Tuesday and wants to come back in 2027 majority owned by its players. The catch is that those same players are the biggest unsecured creditors, with Jon Rahm alone owed $7.47 million. Saudi Arabia's PIF walked away from a $5 billion project and left behind a $49.6 million loan.
NEW JERSEY IS TAKING KALSHI TO THE SCOTUS, FOR SOME REASON YOU CAN'T BET ON IT
New Jersey just asked the Supreme Court to decide whether a bet on a game turns into a federally regulated financial product if you place it on Kalshi. Two federal appeals courts have already answered and they answered opposite. The joke writes itself, and it is 332 pages long.