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Max Knoblauch

Disney posts better-than-expected sales and earnings

Disney, the Stitch merch company that also operates a streaming service and several global theme parks, reported its fiscal first-quarter earnings on Monday. Its shares initially climbed in premarket trading before turning negative.

The company reported adjusted earnings of $1.63 per share in its first quarter, down 7% from last year but above Wall Street’s estimate of $1.57 per share. Its total revenue of $25.98 billion was ahead of the $25.7 billion consensus estimate, driven by a 7% rise in overall entertainment segment revenue.

Management reaffirmed its full-year guidance for double-digit adjusted EPS growth, and said the company is on track for its $7 billion stock buyback. Disney warned of “international visitation headwinds” at its US theme parks for the current quarter.

Disney posted an 11% hike in streaming revenue, while operating income for the division surged 72% from last year to $450 million, ahead of Wall Street estimates. The entertainment juggernaut forecast $500 million in Q2 streaming profit. The ad-free tier price hike on Disney+ last year was its fourth in four years.

Disney’s board is reportedly closing in on promoting the head of its theme park division, Josh D’Amaro, to CEO — with a vote coming this week. On Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that current CEO Bob Iger had told associates he will step down before the end of 2026.

In December, Disney became the first major content licensing partner with OpenAI, granting more than 200 of its licensed characters to the tech giant’s generative-AI tools. Last month, the company said it would introduce TikTok-esque vertical video to Disney+ this year — a move seen across the streaming industry as competition for attention grows beyond traditional content forms.

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Claire Yubin Oh
Elon 🤝 Elon 
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SpaceX’s planned $1.5 trillion IPO is on track to be gargantuan enough

But a potential merger with xAI or Tesla would create a Musk-centric megaplanet.

US-SPACE-AEROSPACE-SPACEX-STARSHIP
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Luke Kawa

Rare earth stocks surge on report the US will launch a $12 billion critical minerals stockpile

Rare earth and critical minerals stocks are soaring as Bloomberg reports that President Donald Trump will soon launch a $12 billion initiative to stockpile critical minerals.

Think the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but for the likes of gallium, cobalt, and lanthanum.

MP Materials, USA Rare Earth, Critical Metals, NioCorp, and United States Antimony Corp. are all soaring in premarket trading on this report.

The purpose of this project, reportedly dubbed “Project Vault,” is to secure a sufficient domestic supply of these strategically important materials for the private sector. Three commodities trading houses and more than a dozen companies (including Google, General Motors, and GE Vernova) are said to be participating in this venture.

Here’s how the mechanics would reportedly work:

“Under the arrangement, companies that make an initial commitment to purchase materials at a specified inventory price later — and pay some up-front fees — will be able to present Project Vault with a shopping list of preferred materials they need.

The project, in turn, will seek to procure and store the materials, with the manufacturers charged a carrying cost for the expenses associated with interest on the loan and holding the elements.

Manufacturers will be allowed to draw down their material stash as long as the firms replenish them. In the case of a major supply disruption, they will be able to access all of it, the officials said.”

The Trump administration has invested in many critical minerals stocks, most recently USA Rare Earth, in a bid to bolster North American output. China currently dominates the production and processing of many strategically important minerals, which are used in everything from fluorescent lights and EV batteries to semiconductors. Access to rare earths was a particularly contentious issue as the US and China ironed out a trade agreement late last year.

Hyunsoo Rim, David Crowther
SHIFTING SANDS 🥇🥈
1h
Gold and silver resume their sell-off after Friday’s meltdown

Last week’s historic wipeout came after Trump's Fed chair pick spooked markets, reversing part of a yearlong rally that had pushed prices to record highs.

Gold and silver glitter paint
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Luke Kawa

GameStop rallies as Ryan Cohen’s M&A media blitz spurs buying

GameStop is trading higher again on Monday, up 2% in the premarket, as CEO Ryan Cohen continues his media blitz to tease potential M&A.

Late Friday afternoon, CNBC reported that Cohen wants to buy a company much bigger than itself, and that if his play works, it has the “potential to make [GameStop] worth several hundreds of billions of dollars.”

That came on the heels of Cohen telling the Wall Street Journal that he was on the hunt for a “big” acquisition that would either “be genius, or totally totally foolish.” Shares rose nearly 5% on Friday.

The CEO was slated to appear on Fox Business for a TV interview at 2 p.m. ET on Monday. Michael Burry — of “The Big Short” fame, who recently revealed that he’s long GameStop — said he’d be publishing a list of suggested targets that the company could potentially acquire ahead of this appearance. However, per Fox Business anchor Charles Payne, the appearance has been canceled because “Ryan is working on something moneumental, and he would not be able to say much.”

This press push marks a big shift for the executive, whose media appearances have been scarce during his time running the retailer. But Cohen needs both GameStop’s market value and EBITDA to rise significantly if he’s going to make any money from running the company. He recently agreed to a package that would tie his pay completely to those metrics, and only see him start to receive stock options in the event that GameStop’s market capitalization exceeds $20 billion while also booking $2 billion in cumulative EBITDA from Q1 2026 onward.

On a closing basis, GameStop has exceeded this $20 billion threshold only during its 2021 meme stock mania. And, due to heavy losses from 2019 through early 2022, it’s taken GameStop a full decade to generate its latest $2 billion in cumulative EBITDA.

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Luke Kawa

Strategy’s bitcoin purchases briefly underwater as cryptocurrency tests April 2025 lows

Bitcoin’s tumble has brought about the return of an inauspicious milestone for Michael Saylor’s leveraged bitcoin-buying vehicle, Strategy.

At the cryptocurrency’s lows on Monday, the value of the bitcoin held by Strategy was less than its cost basis for the first time in more than two years.

Strategy’s 8-K filing released Monday morning shows the company held 713,502 bitcoin purchased at an average price of $76,052 as of February 1.

The crypto asset fell as low as $74,540 overnight, just shy of its 2025 low of $74,425, before rebounding to trade higher in early action on Monday.

In December, Strategy unveiled a US dollar reserve of $1.44 billion so that it could cover its interest and dividend payments, helping the firm avoid the prospect of selling bitcoin to meet those obligations.

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