Markets
Denver Broncos, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, south park,
South Park (Photo by Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
You Bastards!

Did South Park mark the top for weight-loss stocks?

Once a company or product is featured on the show, things tend to go badly.

Luke Kawa

South Park doesn’t just kill Kenny. It may also kill stock market trends.

In the May 24 television special “End of Obesity,” writer Trey Parker directly name-checks Ozempic, the weight-loss drug made by Novo Nordisk, as well as Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro. 

Brent Donnelly, president of Spectra Markets, did the leg work and found that once a company or its product is featured prominently on an episode of the animated comedy series, its stock tends to underperform the S&P 500 by 7 percent over the following 12 months.

The rationale behind South Park as a contrarian indicator: if the subject matter is accessible enough that we can laugh at the absurdity of its high place in society, well, it probably can’t command much more mind-share or wallet-share going forward.

“South Park has a 20+-year history of capturing the cultural zeitgeist and it’s impossible to argue that anything that is lampooned on South Park is not priced in,” he wrote in a note to clients.

Or, as James van Geelen, CEO of Citrini Research, puts it:


Here are the stats:

South Park Market Track Record
Source: Brent Donnelly, Spectra Markets

Granted, there’s extremely large variance: Netflix went on to beat the S&P 500 by more than 100% over the following 12 months; cannabis company MedMen, which filed for bankruptcy in late April, underperformed by almost 100%.

Separately, Donnelly noted that new themed exchange-traded fund launches can also serve as a contrarian indicator that strength in a popular pocket of the market is getting long in the tooth. To that end, two firms, Roundhill Investments and Amplify ETFs, recently launched two new products (OZEM and THNR, respectively) that provide exposure to companies offering GLP-1 treatments.

Donnelly’s conclusion: “Not a bad time to lighten up on the GLP-1 basket. It’s all priced in.”

More Markets

See all Markets
Southwest Airlines At Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport

Southwest’s first full quarter charging for checked bags drives it to record Q3 revenue

Southwest became the third major airline to report its third-quarter earnings when it dropped its results after the bell Wednesday.

markets

Moderna drops after reporting trial for birth defect vaccine failed

Moderna dropped in after-hours trading Wednesday after it reported that its experimental vaccine for cytomegalovirus (CMV), which can cause birth defects, failed in a late-stage trial.

The company is perhaps best known for being tapped by the government to quickly develop a vaccine for COVID-19 in 2020, which remains its single source of revenue. Investors have been eager for signs that it will add more vaccines to its portfolio soon.

The CMV vaccine was the main product in Modernas pipeline prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the most recent results, the vaccine was only between 6% and 23% effective in blocking infection, which was “well below” the company’s target of at least 49%, the company said in a statement.

In statements announcing the results, Modernas leaders described the results at “disappointing.” The company fell more than 5% after-hours and is down more than 35% this year.

markets

Carvana plunges as investors respond to another subprime lender’s bankruptcy filing

Used car retailer Carvana is plunging on Wednesday, with the stock on pace for its worst day since auto tariffs took effect in April.

Likely spooking investors is a fresh bankruptcy filing by PrimaLend, which specializes in financing for dealerships focused on subprime borrowers (customers with lower credit scores, typically below 600, as defined by Experian). The news follows last month’s bankruptcy filing by another subprime auto lender, Tricolor Holdings.

Carvana doesn’t appear to work directly with PrimaLend, but it does likely have significant exposure to subprime loans. According to a January report by Hindenburg Research, which was shorting Carvana, 44% of the loans Carvana packages into asset-backed securities (ABS) are classified as nonprime (601-660 credit scores). More than 80% of its recent nonprime ABS deals had average FICO scores in the “deep subprime” range, or the riskiest levels, according to the report. Carvana at the time called the report “intentionally misleading and inaccurate.”

Carvana has massive growth goals, saying earlier this year that it aims to sell 3 million retail units per year within 5 to 10 years. (Wall Street expects it to sell about 580,000 units this year.) Lower-income buyers could be a significant part of that growth.

Following Tricolor’s implosion last month, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said: “When you see one cockroach, there are probably more. Everyone should be forewarned on this one.” With investors pouring out of Carvana on Tuesday, it seems Wall Street isn’t taking that warning lightly.

There is likely also some momentum pullback baked into Carvana’s drop: the stock, which has been a favorite among retail traders, is still up 58% this year, even after Wednesday’s drop.

Latest Stories

Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate, including Robinhood Markets, Inc., Robinhood Financial LLC, Robinhood Securities, LLC, Robinhood Crypto, LLC, or Robinhood Money, LLC.