Tale of the Tape
Good evening, everyone, and Happy Hump Day!! 🐫
The market of stocks was a sea of red today as all four major indices closed lower.
Healthcare showed a pulse today. ❤️ $XLV gained a percent.
Clean Energy Fuels was the flavor of the day for retail traders, rivaled only by the $CLOV drama (more on this below). $CLNE climbed 31.5% and another +10% after hours. Check out the chart:
Bitcoin bounced back 8.25% to ~$36,200. Is this a dead cat bounce? Or is $BTC.X for real?? Time will tell…
The TikTok Saga lives on— President Biden reversed former President Trump’s executive order targeting TikTok and WeChat. The Biden Administration instead issued a new security inspection order.
GameStop reported earnings after the bell, and named its new CEO. 🎉 🔔 See more below.
Here are the closing prints:
| S&P 500 | 4,219 | -0.18% |
| Nasdaq | 13,911 | -0.09% |
| Russell 2000 | 2,327 | -0.71% |
| Dow Jones | 34,447 | -0.44% |
Earnings Roundup
Restoration Hardware reported killer Q1 earnings and revenue after the bell today. The high-end furniture chain grew revenue ~80%.
Here are the stats:
EPS: $4.89 vs $4.03 est
Revenue: $860.8M, +78% YoY
RH CEO Gary Friedman said:
A strong housing and renovation market, both with pent up demand and a long tail, a record stock market, low interest rates and the reopening of several large parts of our economy. Additionally, the un-masking of the general public could lead to a Roaring Twenties type of consumer exuberance. Town & Country captured that feeling perfectly on the recent cover of their magazine, titled, “Remember Fun? Get Ready for the Comeback!
$RH ripped 7% after hours.
GameStop topped earnings and sales estimates with ease. The company also announced new executives. 🚀 🎮
Here are the numbers:
EPS: ($0.45) vs ($0.82) est
Revenue: $1.28B, +25% YoY
$GME’s new CEO is Matt Furlong, and Mike Recupero will take over as CFO. Both executives previously worked at Amazon.
$GME gave up 9% after hours.
The Memestock Saga, June ‘21 Edition 🚀
This month’s episode of the Memestock Saga? Clover Health ($CLOV). ☘️
Over the last two weeks, Reddit users and retail traders have dumped $1.27B into Memestocks, rivaling January’s $GME action.
$CLOV swelled 86% yesterday as traders squeezed Clover Health bears, costing short sellers as much as $502M— 43.5% of $CLOV’s float shares sold short. One trending Reddit post commented:
This looks like the perfect setup for a combined short and gamma squeeze. I see no reason why CLOV couldn’t reach the same price point as AMC did last week (>$70). It might even go higher than that.
Despite the stock’s disappointing first quarter, Clover Health is buzzing on WSB. And the SEC says it’s watching. 😂 Here’s CNBC with more on the latest short squeeze.
$CLOV closed down 23.61%.
Welcome to the Future, BTC. 🇸🇻
It’s official!! El Salvador is the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender— the crypto is now legal currency alongside the US dollar. 🥳 🥳
On Wednesday, El Salvador’s Congress passed the Bitcoin Law with 62/84 of the legislature’s total vote. #LeyBitcoin buzzed on Twitter and the market cheered. $BTC.X flew ~10% while other altcoins also turned green. 💚
But the cherry on top was Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s tweet on the country’s green mining solution… volcanoes. 👀 🌋
Solana’s Big Sale
Solana, another self-proclaimed ‘‘Ethereum Killer,’’ just raised $314M in one of the largest-ever recent token sales. 🤑
Legendary VC firm Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain Capital (a crypto hedge fund) led the funding round. Solana’s sale involved a purchase of SOL digital tokens instead of traditional equity.
Solana aims for lower fees and faster processing times, a challenge for competitor Ethereum. With fresh capital, Solana intends to speed up its project development. 💪
Could Solana replace the Ethereum network one day?? Solana’s making moves, but still has a lot of ground to gain.
Chipotle’s Inflation Woes
Inflation has found its way to lumber, real estate, computer chips, etc, etc. But now, inflation’s getting personal: it’s coming for our burritos. Our Chipotle burritos. 🌯
The Mexican grill announced ~4% price increases to accommodate employee wage raises. Chipotle’s price hikes also counter rising ingredient costs.
Chipotle’s team expects store sales to increase with prices, but investors don’t seem to agree or disagree. 🤷 $CMG ticked -0.6% today.
There are, however, some unhappy Chipotle-goers. And no, they’re not upset because guac is still considered an ‘extra side.’ 😂
Chipotle’s CEO made $38M in 2020 (more than 3,000x the average store employee). Guac stans think a CEO pay cut could fund employee raises and maintain prices. 🤔
Links That Don’t Suck
💰 InteractiveBrokers Announces It Will Offer Crypto Trading
📈 SEC Pursuing Broad Review of Stock-Market Structure, Chairman Says
💉 US to Donate 500 Million Pfizer Vaccine Doses Globally
👋 Farewell, Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy
🤖 Google Launches Android 12 Beta 2
🚂 Zaha Hadid Architects Set to Design Italian Hyperloop System
🤩 A Hotel Chain Is Offering a Month Worth of Stays for $500
