🏋🏻 The Deadlift ETF

Plus, crypto investors hate this potential Treasury Secretary nomination.

August 24, 2024

Happy Saturday, and welcome back to our super skimmable Street Tweets newsletter.

Back in May, the Department of Justice launched an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation, the Ticketmaster parent company, alleging that it illegally squashes competition across the live entertainment industry.

Thirty state and district attorneys general joined that original suit, and even more piled on this week. The Justice Department announced on Monday that an additional ten states have joined the federal government’s bid to break up Live Nation’s monopoly.

While Live Nation’s stock didn’t move much in response to this news, a successful DOJ antitrust suit would have cataclysmic consequences for the company’s integrated revenue model of ticket sales, event promotion, and venue ownership.

Plus, today’s partner will help you become an AI-powered investor to get 10X ROI on your money.

TOGETHER WITH GROWTHSCHOOL

It’s 2024 and if you are not using AI to make investing strategies & projections for your finances, you’re making a HUGE mistake. 

It’s high time you change that & use AI to become a better investor! And you have nothing to lose – not even a single $$

Rated at 9.8/10, this masterclass will teach how you to:

  • Do market trend analysis & projections with AI in seconds

  • Solve complex problems, research 10x faster & make your simpler & easier

  • Generate intensive financial reports with AI in less than 5 minutes 

  • Build AI assistants & custom bots in minutes

MARKET REVIEW

TL;DR: This week, U.S. stocks posted solid gains, with all three major indexes finishing higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly 1.3%, the Nasdaq added 1.4%, and the S&P 500 advanced 1.45%.

The rally was fueled by Friday's surge after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hinted at upcoming interest rate cuts during his speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. However, he stopped short of providing specific details. Investors were particularly optimistic about the potential benefits of a lower-rate environment for technology stocks, with Tesla and Nvidia leading the charge. The positive sentiment also lifted small-cap stocks as the market embraced the shift toward an easing cycle.

MARKET PREVIEW

TL;DR: Next week begins with Monday's July Durable Goods Orders, where the previous report showed a 3.3% decline, but the figure excluding transportation had a slight increase of 0.5%, providing clues about underlying demand in manufacturing. On Tuesday, the June S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which previously rose by 6.8%, and the August Consumer Confidence, last reported at 100.3, will offer a look at housing market trends and consumer sentiment.

Wednesday features a speech from Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic, which could give insights into the Fed's outlook. Thursday will be busy with Initial Jobless Claims, the advanced trade balance, and GDP revisions for Q2, which previously reported a growth rate of 2.8%. Also on the agenda are July’s pending home sales. Finally, Friday's focus will be on July’s Personal Income and Spending data, along with the PCE inflation index, where the Core PCE previously showed a 2.6% year-over-year increase. The Chicago PMI and final Consumer Sentiment readings for August will wrap up the week.

Bad news for Tinder and Bumble

Between 2020 and 2023, global downloads of dating apps declined by 17%. Tinder and Bumble, two of the leading dating apps, have seen their financial results suffer as a result.

Bumble’s revenue growth slowed to just 3% in Q2 2024, and Tinder has seen a notable decline in paid users for seven consecutive quarters.

We see two primary drivers behind the decline in dating apps. First, younger users are expressing frustration with the superficial and exhausting nature of these apps. Second, with the worst of the pandemic behind us, singles are gravitating back towards in-person events, bars, and clubs.

Match Group, Tinder’s parent company, has seen its stock decline 18% over the past year. Bumble’s stock has faired even worse, plummeting 61% over the same time period.

However, AI tech could provide a glimmer of hope for these struggling apps — Bumble is exploring the use of AI concierges that act as your digital avatar, going on dates with countless other digitized potential partners to find the perfect match.

Are you bullish or bearish on dating app stocks?

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Lifting weights=📈?

Some notable companies on the Deadlift ETF with CEOs confirmed to lift weights regularly include Meta, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, and Nvidia.

At the core of the debate around the Deadlift ETF is causation versus correlation.

Stefan Rottler, head of business development at SEDA, believes that the Deadlift ETF's impressive performance is due to its composition, which is mostly of booming tech companies whose CEOs are, on average, younger and more likely to work out.

Pieter Levels, who created the ETF, acknowledges that this is a big part of it, but Google’s stock is only up 20% YTD while Meta’s is up 55%. This caused many online to link lifting heavy weights with a tough mindset that is ideal for tackling the business world.

So, maybe shareholders' meetings should ask the most important question to CEOs: “Do you even lift, bro?”

Is the Deadlift ETF's success the result of causation or correlation?

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REITs come to mind…

While this home price heat map could certainly help home buyers looking for a good deal, it can also shed some light on macro trends impacting residential REITs.

For instance, REITs with substantial exposure to Southern California, such as AvalonBay Communities (AVB), could benefit from a strengthening rental market as homeownership becomes less affordable. AvalonBay has a track record of acquiring, developing, and managing apartment communities in California.

On the flip side, Equity Residential (EQR) and other REITs with a strong presence in Florida could face challenges from declining home prices. As home prices become more affordable, the demand for Equity Residential’s apartment rentals could weaken.

Crypto bros are mad…

In case you aren’t aware, Gary Gensler is the Chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and throughout his tenure, he’s kept the cryptocurrency industry in his crosshairs.

Politico has described Gensler's opposition to these digital assets as “unwavering” as he’s led the SEC in a string of legal victories against some of crypto’s biggest players.

Under Gensler, the SEC has been so active that cryptocurrency groups are suing the agency before they get sued themselves. This includes suits from Coinbase, Consensys, and the Blockchain Association.

If you’re a concerned crypto investor, you can take some solace in the fact that the reports of a potential Gensler nomination are unverified… but it’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

TOGETHER WITH GROWTHSCHOOL

It’s 2024 and if you are not using AI to make investing strategies & projections for your finances, you’re making a HUGE mistake. 

It’s high time you change that & use AI to become a better investor! And you have nothing to lose – not even a single $$

Rated at 9.8/10, this masterclass will teach how you to:

  • Do market trend analysis & projections with AI in seconds

  • Solve complex problems, research 10x faster & make your simpler & easier

  • Generate intensive financial reports with AI in less than 5 minutes 

  • Build AI assistants & custom bots in minutes

The stocks powering the military innovation.

It doesn’t take an international affairs expert to see that things are heating up. To rattle a few conflicts off the top of my head, we have Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s increased military exercises outside of Taiwan, the Israel-Palestine conflict, Iran’s missile strikes, etc.

All of this comes at a time when the future of military operations looks set to change dramatically — and yes, all thanks to AI.

After reporting strong Q2 results, Palantir announced an expanded partnership with Microsoft to sell its AI services to various US government defense and intelligence agencies.

We’ve also seen the Department of Defense use Amazon’s AI and cloud computing services, IBM deploy its military logistics Watson AI, and Northrop Gruman partner with Nvidia to develop advanced defense systems.

Military experts believe AI has the potential to shape nearly every facet of warfare, and that entails big paydays in the form of military contracts for both tech and defense sector stocks.

TRIVIA

Last week, we asked: Which stock exchange operates entirely electronically?

The correct answer was the Nasdaq Composite.

This week’s question…

Which of the following companies had the largest IPO in history, raising over $25 billion?

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