Hey Snackers,
Would you trust your investment strategy to ChatGPT? Well, there is currently a contest pitting some of the top AI models against one another in cryptocurrency trading and GPT-5 is doing very poorly compared to Grok, Gemini, and DeepSeek, with only Google’s Gemini underperforming the OpenAI model. But that may be changing as AI becomes more financially savvy. Bloomberg reported yesterday that OpenAI has hired over 100 former investment bankers to make financial models to train ChatGPT and paying them a pretty penny to do so.
US stocks went nowhere on Tuesday amid a big rotation out of gold and into fake meat.
It was the calmest session for the S&P 500 in over a month: the S&P 500 finished roughly flat, as did the Nasdaq 100. The Russell 2000, meanwhile, slumped about 0.5% on the session. Consumer discretionary was the best-performing S&P sector ETF, while utilities was at the bottom of the leaderboard.
Traders are getting more and more pessimistic about the government shutdown ending any time soon
As the government shutdown enters its fourth week, market pessimism about a speedy resolution to the impasse has grown substantially, based on the prevailing sentiment gleaned from prediction market data.
In particular, data from the “How long will the government shutdown last?” contract offered by Robinhood allows us to look at granular shifts in how traders perceive the negotiations to be going.
As it stands, based on pricing data current through Sunday, the median expected total length of the shutdown is now 44 days, bringing it to mid-November.
Prediction markets have become an increasingly monitored proxy to infer the percentage chance the market assigns to an event happening.
The priced-in chance of a shutdown lasting over 60 days has now hit 25%, which would mean the government is closed through at least the end of November.
Traders are somehow more pessimistic about the timeline for resolving the shutdown today than they were a little over a week ago.
On October 8, the median expected length of the shutdown in total was 23 days, implying traders expected the shutdown would continue for another 15 days. As of Sunday October 19, the median expected total length of the shutdown was 44 days, implying that traders are pricing in another 25 days of shutdown.
The Takeaway
If traders expected that a resolution to the negotiations was approaching, we would expect to see the number of days remaining in a shutdown decline. If traders price that negotiations are at a stalemate and conditions for a resolution are not moving, we would expect the number of days of the shutdown to increase at a rate of one day per day, and the days remaining to stay flat. Essentially, the market’s saying that we’re further away from a resolution to the shutdown than we were even a week ago, that the situation has deteriorated and not improved.
Wall Street Is Heating Up. StartEngine Wants You To Have a Seat at the Table.
Wall Street is buzzing again. According to EY, in Q3 2025 global IPO proceeds are up 89% YoY, as markets rebound and tech listings surge.1
But for most investors, much of the upside has already been claimed by the time a company rings the bell.
Enter StartEngine. The company provides investors like you with access to private market opportunities of all sizes, including pre-IPO companies like Databricks and xAI.2
That access has attracted strong investor interest — and record financials. StartEngine became profitable in H1 2025 with $4.9M GAAP ($11.9M adjusted EBITDA).3 After reaching $48M in annual revenue for 2024, they posted $70M revenue in the first half of 2025, up 3x YoY.4
Now you can invest directly in the platform powering this private market revolution. Join 50K+ shareholders who have invested $80M+ in StartEngine across all offerings.
Learn more about this opportunity.5
Kevin O’Leary is a paid spokesperson for StartEngine. See his 17(b) disclosure, here.
Netflix is investing just $0.40 into content for every $1 of revenue
Netflix posted its worst earnings miss in years after the bell yesterday and investors bailed out of the company’s stock faster than contestants were eliminated in the first round of “Squid Game.”
The company posted third-quarter earnings of $5.87 per share, below analyst expectations of $6.97, marking the biggest earnings miss since 2022. But there was some good news — it reported revenue of $11.51 billion, in line with expectations and up 17% from last year.
And here’s where things get interesting: while Netflix’s revenue base keeps growing, the streamer is reinvesting a lower percentage of that revenue back into content, as we’ve charted here.
When the first season of “Stranger Things” debuted on Netflix in the third quarter of 2016, for every $1 of revenue, Netflix put $1.07 into creating or acquiring new shows or movies.
Nine years later, with the fifth and final season of Netflix’s premier franchise set to debut, the streamer’s strategy has shifted. In Tuesday’s earnings report, for every $1 of revenue Netflix made in Q3, it invested only $0.40 into content.
That’s above the $0.35 it invested in the previous quarter, but significantly below the $0.73 it posted in the fourth quarter of 2021 before its “Black Tuesday” earnings report cratered the stock in 2022 and led to big shifts in the streamer’s content spending strategy.Â
Of course, the trend reflects a ratio of content spending to revenue. In absolute values, Netflix is spending more on content than it used to — it’s just making more. In 2016, the company spent about $8.7 billion on content. This year, it said it expects to spend around $18 billion.
The Takeaway
While it may be rough for Hollywood, Wall Street certainly enjoys the idea of spending less and making more. Netflix also reported it’s “using AI” to test formats on its ad tier, which analysts expect to drive higher revenue per user than the pricier ad-free subscription. Netflix has some big swings coming in its fourth quarter slate and expects to grow revenue 17% as “Stranger Things” ends and its two Christmas day NFL games stream.Â
The Best Thing We Read Today
Beyond Meat’s meme stock rally continues after breaking records for volumes, options traded, and one-day gains
The plant-based meat company’s trading activity is beyond any meme stock move we’ve seen this year.
What Else We're Snackin'
Amazon aims to automate 75% of its operations and avoid hiring 600K+ people
Warner Bros. Discovery said it’s gotten takeover interest from multiple parties and then quietly announced it’s raising prices on HBO Max
OpenAI released a Chrome-competitor browser “ChatGPT Atlas,” but it's the data that comes with it that really matters
Remember the Cracker Barrel logo backlash? The CEO explained the change
Snack Fact Of The Day
If you eat meat, your “hoofprint” depends on where in the US you reside
Today's Events
Earnings expected from AT&T, GE Vernova, Seagate Technology, IBM, Tesla, and Southwest Airlines
1 Source: George Chan, “EY Global IPO Trends Q3 2025,” EY, October 8, 2025
2 The underlying companies held by StartEngine Private Funds LLC, and StartEngine Private LLC (together, “StartEngine Private”) are not participating or involved in the offering. The availability of company information does not indicate that the company has endorsed, supports or otherwise participates with StartEngine Private or any of its affiliates. StartEngine Crowdfunding LLC purchases shares from current and former employees, early investors, and advisors of the companies and sells the shares to StartEngine Private for each offering. When you make an investment in a company on StartEngine Private, you are purchasing an interest in a series of StartEngine Private Funds LLC or StartEngine Private LLC, each a Delaware limited liability company (together the “Series LLCs”), which were created to hold shares of privately held companies. An investor will not directly own or hold shares of the private company but instead will own member interests in a series of the Series LLCs, which either directly or indirectly, will hold shares in the company. There may not be a one-to-one economic parity on the value of the Series LLCs interests and the underlying shares.
3 We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss) calculated in accordance with GAAP adjusted to exclude interest expense, interest income, income taxes, depreciation, and amortization, and stock based compensation. We present Adjusted EBITDA because it is a key measure used by our management team to evaluate our operating performance, generate future operating plans and make strategic decisions. We believe Adjusted EBITDA provides useful information to investors regarding our operational performance and our ability to generate cash flows. Non-GAAP information should be considered as supplemental in nature and is not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the related financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP. In addition, our non-GAAP financial measures may not be the same as or comparable to similar non-GAAP financial measures presented by other companies.
Please see the tables on page 4 and page 26 of our Q2 2025 Form 10-Q/A to reconcile net income (loss), the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measure, to Adjusted EBITDA for the periods presented.
There is no assurance that we will be consistently profitable in the next three years or generate sufficient annual revenues to pay dividends to the holders of our shares. We have not yet generated yearly profits, and may not do so in the near future.
4 Based on our Q2 2025 Form 10-Q/A. This revenue growth has been driven by StartEngine Private, a new product line that offers funds in late stage companies. This product line has driven over $34.1 million of the $39 million in revenue from Q2 2025. To understand the impact on margins, see financials. Past performance may not be indicative of future performance.
See page 4 of the Q2 2025 Form 10-Q for the H1 2025 and H1 2024 total revenues. See page 35 of the offering circular and Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations for 2024 annual revenues.
5 This is a paid advertisement for StartEngine’s Regulation A+ offering. For more information, please see the most recent Offering Circular and Risks related to this offering.
This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Crowdfunding, Inc. No broker-dealer or intermediary is involved in the offering. In addition, as described in the Offering Circular, the Company retains the right to continue the offering beyond the Termination Date, in its sole discretion.
Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors. This investment is highly speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. It should only be considered a long-term investment. There is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities.