Hey Snackers,
Sydney Sweeney is now moving the stock market: shares of American Eagle have continued to climb since the actress’s ad campaign was launched on Wednesday. That day, 13x more call options changed hands than the stock’s 20-day average, as r/WallStreetBets subredditors conducted their “due diligence” on the stock. Watch her ad campaign here.
The S&P 500 just barely managed to eke out another record close. The Nasdaq 100 also cinched a record close, while the Russell 2000 sank 1.4%. Consumer discretionary was the worst-performing sector, weighed down by Tesla, which fell 8% after CEO Elon Musk pondered the company’s challenges on its Q2 earnings call.
🧠Test your business knowledge with our Snacks Seven Quiz. Here’s a sample question:
Based on its price-to-earnings ratio, what is the second-most expensive stock in the S&P 500 after Palantir?
Axon Enterprise
Boeing
CrowdStrike
Tesla
Perks of membership in the 500 club
It’s not unusual to see shares pop when a company is set to join the S&P 500, an index now linked to a staggering $20 trillion in global assets. Just last Friday, Block soared 10% after its inclusion was announced, while Datadog spiked 15% on similar news earlier this month.Â
Known as the “S&P 500 Index Effect,” this short-lived bump is fueled in part by fresh demand from $13 trillion worth of passive funds and ETFs tracking the benchmark, which are required to buy shares of newly added companies. But over the past decade, this effect had been losing steam.
According to a 2023 Harvard study, the average announcement-day return for S&P 500 additions dropped from 9.4% in the 1990s to just 0.8% by the late 2010s — partially because markets got better at absorbing these shocks and traders got better at predicting inclusions.
Now, though, a new Goldman Sachs analysis suggests the inclusion effect may be staging a comeback.
Since 2021, stocks newly added to the S&P 500 have outperformed the equal-weighted index by an average of 4 percentage points on the announcement day — with nearly three-quarters of those stocks beating the benchmark.
Retail hype may also be adding fuel, with recent entrants like Coinbase, Super Micro Computer, Palantir, and Datadog already beloved by traders ahead of their debut — and tied to popular themes like AI or crypto.
The Takeaway
One factor driving the revival? Fewer companies are migrating from the S&P MidCap 400 Index. Per Goldman’s estimate, stocks added from outside the S&P 400 have seen average relative gains of 5.3 percentage points since 2013, while those graduating from the midcap index actually dipped 0.4 pp.
Here’s Your Chance To Invest in Worksport’s Unlisted Preferred Stock for $3.50
Common stock shares of Worksport (Nasdaq: WKSP) reached a high of $4.77 in July (with a 7/23 closing price of $3.81)1 after they reported a 50% production increase and 2X margin growth.2
But there’s a way to invest for just $3.25 today that you won’t find on the Nasdaq.Â
This special unit offering includes one unlisted preferred share convertible to common stock anytime, plus one warrant to buy an additional share and an 8% cash dividend yield for two years. All for $3.25 per unit.3Â
Worksport will continue to scale with the fall 2025 launch of their solar + battery mobile power system — an on-the-go source to power everything from off-grid camping to construction sites.
Invest in Worksport’s preferred stock now at $3.25/unit.3
1 The 52-week range for WKSP is $2.44 to $12.00 as of 7/23/25.
Artificial intelligence will help save souls, ServiceNow CEO kind of says
ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott isn’t saying that artificial intelligence will save your soul, but he’s not not saying it.
“We’re slowing down the hiring in jobs that are — quite frankly — soul-crushing jobs,” he said in an interview on Bloomberg TV that followed the release of the cloud software company’s impressive quarterly earnings.
“The supporting cast of the soul-crushing work is now being done by agents,” he said. “They work hard 24 by 7, you don’t have to pay ’em, and they don’t need any lunch, and they don’t have any healthcare benefits, so they’re very affordable and that really complements our workforce.”
He highlighted fields like IT and customer support as well as security and risk management as areas where AI was reducing ServiceNow’s need for labor.
ServiceNow is still hiring, but hiring less for these functions, McDermott clarified, saying that he expects this approach to be adopted by “all well-run companies.”
“For those people in the procurement team, we can give them a new interface with AI agents that’s going to automatically do a lot of their soul-crushing manual work,” Josh Kahn, senior vice president and general manager of core business workflows, said back in May. “So instead of spending four days prioritizing potential sourcing events, they’re going to spend five days executing on real high-value sourcing opportunities.”
The Takeaway
It’s not controversial to assess the state of AI and surmise that it’s going to cause a lot of job loss, and understandably people are getting skittish about their job getting the axe. The data out of ServiceNow, if anything, is an indication that at least some of the work that’s getting automated away is indeed boring, tedious, and unpleasant.Â
The Best Thing We Read Today
You’re thinking about short squeezes all wrong
A question is: are you making money off of a short seller, or another trader trying to make money off of a short seller?
Yesterday's Big Daily Movers
Despite beating estimates, IBM’s important software division saw weaker-than-expected growth that weighed on investor enthusiasm
Mattel sank after the toy maker posted mixed second-quarter estimates. Their hot toys? Hot Wheels, action figures, building sets, and gamesÂ
West Pharmaceutical, a company that sells a tiny rubber component of GLP-1 pens, crushed Wall Street earnings estimates thanks to soaring demand for the weight-loss drugs
Automotive scrapyard owner LKQ tumbled, partly due to sky-high US auto insurance pricesÂ
American Airlines took a nosedive after its annual guidance forecast rougher skies ahead
T-Mobile leapt after better-than-expected Q2 earnings results after the bell Wednesday, reporting a surge in subscriber growth and a fresh guidance boost
What Else We're Snackin'
How the new Coca-Cola could signal a change in attitudes surrounding ultra-processed food products
Tesla’s energy business has been juicing its top line for years — but now it’s starting to slow down
Why Kohl’s and Rocket Cos are different from GameStop’s 2021 meme stock rally
Meanwhile, house prices have dropped in the UK. The bad news? They’re still not affordable
CoreWeave announced its Q2 earnings date. Here’s why that matters to short sellers
Southwest said it expects to make more than $350 million from bag fees for the full year
Snack Fact Of The Day
Crypto hacks have already stolen $3.1 billion in 2025.
Today's Events
Earnings expected from Aon, Phillips 66, Centene, and HCA Healthcare
2 See NASDAQ article for further details on the production increase and margin growth.Â
3 The minimum investment is $650 (200 units). A unit includes 1 Convertible Preferred Share, 1 Common Stock Warrant, and an 8% annual cash dividend for two years on the preferred share (paid quarterly). The warrant share is convertible to a publicly traded common stock for a fixed price of $4.50. Â See prospectus for further details.Â
This is a paid advertisement for Worksport Regulation A offering of Series C Preferred Stock and a Warrant. Please read the offering circular and related risks at the Worksport website. Before making any investment, you are urged to read the prospectus carefully for a more complete understanding of the issuer and the offering.Â
The securities offered by Worksport are highly speculative. Investing in these securities involves significant risks. The investment is suitable only for persons who can afford to lose their entire investment. Investors must understand that such investment could be illiquid for an indefinite period of time. There is no existing public trading market for the Series C Preferred Stock. Worksport does not intend to apply for listing of the Series C Preferred Stock or the common stock purchase warrants on a national securities exchange or quoted on an over the counter market. Â