Hey Snackers,
Almost everyone loves pizza, and love is in the air ahead of Valentine’s Day, so Domino’s is taking it a step further by releasing a pizza perfume that lets you make the scent of a pepperoni slice your signature. Â
The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 all advanced to kick off the week. Both software and chips gained close to 2%, making tech the second-best-performing S&P 500 sector ETF. Energy held the top spot, helped along by a solid rise in the price of crude oil. Steel companies had strong gains after President Trump said he’d impose 25% tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.Â
GameStop pops after a tweet teasing a possible Strategy shift
Most companies move based on earnings. Many companies move based on news. GameStop, though, more than probably any other company, moves on enigmatic tweets, whether they’re from prominent stakeholders and fans like Roaring Kitty or from the CEO himself, Ryan Cohen.Â
Yesterday saw GameStop pop about 10% following one such tweet, and it appears that investors do judge people based on the company they keep, not just the company they lead. Cohen tweeted a photo of himself with none other than Michael Saylor, CEO and cofounder of Strategy, which until last week was known as MicroStrategy.Â
What does this mean? Who knows. The market sure seems to have a notion, though. If GameStop were to run the Strategy playbook, what would that look like? Well:
Strategy is the single-largest corporate holder of bitcoin and has seen its own stock rise with the recent spike in crypto prices. That’s the strategy: it just buys bitcoin.Â
It’s gone pretty well so far! The stock’s up 367% in the past year. Can it last forever? Unclear! But it seems to be going alright.
GameStop just so happens to have $4.6 billion in cash and cash-like securities. It’s a T-bill fund doing a remarkably uncanny impression of a video game store.Â
The Takeaway
Both GameStop and Strategy do not, in fact, make money from their actual business. This tends to mean they’re pretty good at identifying ways to make money from things that are somewhat ancillary to their business, like buying Treasuries or crypto. GameStop’s last foray into the crypto realm was largely a bust, with a brief dabble in NFTs just as it was losing steam. But now investors seem open to GameStop adopting a new crypto… strategy.
The Uber-sized Disruption of the $500 Billion Smartphone Industry
Imagine turning down investing early in Uber… only to watch it have one of the biggest IPOs of all time.
That’s exactly what happened to Mark Cuban.
And by the time we hear about industry-changing disruptions like these, it's usually too late... but right now there’s a tech-startup making waves behind the scenes, boasting a 32,481% 3-year revenue growth rate and 45M+ users.
They are doing to the $500 billion smartphone industry what Uber did to taxis. But instead of turning cars into income streams, Mode is turning phones into money-makers. With close to $28M already invested in their company, they are nearing 90% of their milestone goal.
The Penny Drops
On Sunday, Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he’s ordered the US Treasury to stop making new pennies. The DOGE agency had already targeted the penny for elimination for the simple reason that each penny costs a whopping 3.69 cents to make.Â
Make it make cents: America loses money while making pennies, a fact that’s been true for 19 years straight (see the chart). Most of the pennies minted each year are given as change and never reenter circulation and instead remain in change jars and junk drawers. The US has to keep minting them so we can get the penny back from that 99-cent Arizona. But it’s possible to ditch the penny, as Canada did over a decade ago. Our northern neighbor simply rounds cash transactions to the nearest five cents. Â
Penny for your thoughts: One question at hand is who has the authority to make this penny-pinching decision: Congress? The Treasury? The president? Journalist Caity Weaver highlighted a section in the US Code that seems to put the power with “the Secretary of the Treasury,” who can “mint and issue” coins “in amounts the Secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States.” Meaning, according to a lawyer she spoke with, there is no mandate for the secretary to issue any coin at all, let alone the penny.Â
The Takeaway
We collected pennies as children, so we have some nostalgia for the coin, but the arguments for keeping the penny — like its historical or educational value, or that it protects consumer prices — are currently falling flat. There is one knock-on effect that is worth noting, though: getting rid of the penny will increase the need for nickels, which, at 13.78 cents apiece, are even costlier to make and distribute.Â
Worth A Read
This tech company grew 32,481%...
No, it's not Nvidia... It's Mode Mobile, 2023’s fastest-growing software company according to Deloitte.5
Just as Uber turned vehicles into income-generating assets, Mode is turning smartphones into an easy passive income source, already helping 45M+ users earn $325M+ through simple, everyday use.
They’ve just been granted their stock ticker by the Nasdaq, and you can still invest4 in their pre-IPO3 offering at just $0.26/share.1
Yesterday’s Big Daily Movers
In a feat of nominative determinism, Monday.com had a phenomenal Monday, with shares up 27% following great earnings riding the AI wave.Â
Steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs was up 16% after Trump announced 25% tariffs on steel.
Alibaba was on a tear after teasing its own AI tech, a bullish filing from Appaloosa Management, and the continued perseverance of the “de minimis” exception.Â
What Else We're Snackin'
Is Philadelphia’s Super Bowl win good or bad for the stock market? No one agrees
One student’s relentless quest to save $350,000 and go to NYU for free
Study finds the more people use AI at work, the less critical thinking they use
VC investments in big data & AI surge by 80% YOY. But it's Mode Mobile who gives customers back a share of the data pie, already paying out $325M to their EarnPhone users. Invest in their pre-IPO offering3 at $0.26/share1 before they reach their milestone goal.4
Snack Fact of the Day
“Tetris” is the bestselling video game of all time.
Tuesday
Tuesday: Earnings expected from Coca-Cola, DuPont, Humana, Marriott, DoorDash, Lyft, and Zillow
Advertiser’s disclosures:
1 The investment minimum is $999.96.
2 A minimum investment of $1,950 is required to receive bonus shares. 100% bonus shares are offered on investments of $9,950+.
3 Mode Mobile recently received their ticker reservation with Nasdaq ($MODE), indicating an intent to IPO in the next 24 months. An intent to IPO is no guarantee that an actual IPO will occur.
4 Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile’s Regulation A+ Offering.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities.
DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck.
5 The Deloitte rankings are based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their fiscal-year revenue growth percentage over a three-year period.