Will The Real Drug Dealer Please Stand Up?

Tale of the Tape

Good evening, y’all. The major market indices were mixed on this quiet winter day. 

The Russell 2000 and Nasdaq finished green while the Dow and S&P 500 both fell.

Technology and real estate were the strongest performing sectors, and $XLK closed at a new all-time high. 

Tesla has fallen ~ 8% from its high close last Friday. Can the EV stock stage a late week rally? Place your bets…

Google and Facebook broke down 0.83% and 2.09% respectively after news broke that the social media behemoths allegedly struck a deal not to compete in 2018. See more on this below.  

Gamestop galloped 25%, $PTON popped 11.65%, and $FUBO flew $25%. These stocks all closed at 52-week highs. 💪

Here are the closing prints: 

S&P 5003,687-0.21%
Nasdaq12,807+0.51%
Russell 20001,989+0.99%
Dow Jones30,015-0.67%

Time For Vimeo To Leave The Nest

IAC announced today that Vimeo would spin off as its own independent public company in Q2 2021.

This move comes as Vimeo emerges a stronger company than before the pandemic. It now has 200M users, currently seeing more live streams than the last three years combined.

IAC CEO Joey Levin said this:

It’s time for Vimeo to spread its wings and become a great independent public company.

If Vimeo is a baby bird, that makes YouTube a Boeing 747. We’ll see if Vimeo can invade $GOOG’s airspace.

Gamestop Galloped 🤠

Former Chewy CEO Ryan Cohen upped his position in GameStop, $GME. RC Ventures (managed by Ryan) increased its stake to 12.9%, a cool 9,001,000 shares… you do the math. 💰

$GME galloped 25.3% today and closed at prices not seen since 2018.

Here’s the daily chart of $GME. It’s up 220% YTD:

Save Money, L̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶Be̶t̶t̶e̶r̶, Buy Drugs

Who knew the best drug dealer was actually Walmart, all along?

Earlier today, the Trump administration sued Walmart for its role in fueling the opioid epidemic.

The lawsuit accuses Walmart of inadequately checking suspicious prescriptions by purposefully understaffing its pharmacies. The superstore also put pressure on employees to fill prescriptions quickly.

Walmart responded to the public filing, saying the case is: 

. . . riddled with factual inaccuracies and cherry-picked documents taken out of context.

We just hope justice takes its course. 🤷

Antitrust Drama

Turns out, Facebook and Google made a pact in 2018 not to compete with each other’s online advertising. The tech giants also agreed to team up together in the event of a future antitrust suit.

Uh oh. 🤭

According to prosecutors, Facebook and Google knew their deal could result in antitrust action. But in a CNBC interview, a Google spokesperson said: 

The idea that this was a secret deal is just wrong. We’ve been public about this partnership for years.

US publishers aren’t very happy with Google, atm. Here’s the WSJ with more on the latest tech antitrust drama. 

Earnings Round-Up

Earnings This Week

Be sure to know when your stocks report earnings. Here’s the earnings calendar.

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