🇳🇴 Norway shifts electric

While Elon Musk’s Tesla saw deliveries drop in key regions over the year — not least in Europe, its “weakest market,” per the CEO — there was one major bright spot on the continent for the company: Tesla sold more cars in Norway last year than any other automaker in history.

• According to the latest numbers from the Norwegian Road Federation, or OFV, electric vehicles took a 97.6% share of new vehicle registrations in the last month of 2025, bringing their share to a whopping 95.9% for the year all told. 

• Plug-in and gas hybrids, meanwhile, took a collective share of about 3%, while diesel vehicles made up just 1% of the market. 

• Most of the late-year surge is likely linked to the government’s announcement that it would pull back on some of the major tax benefits it’s used to incentivize EV uptake, before cutting them entirely by 2027.

The Scandi nation being a standout for the car company will come as little surprise to anyone who’s kept an eye on the global electrification movement, given that Norway has raced ahead on EV adoption for years now and hit a staggering new record last year, per new national data released on Friday.

The Takeaway

So, is Norway now an EV utopia? Interestingly, despite electric cars dominating new car sales, the stock of cars on the road is still predominantly gas-guzzling due to the life cycle of vehicles, with figures compiled by Our World In Data estimating that only about one-third of Norway’s vehicles were electric in 2024. Naturally, that figure will continue to move higher, but it’s a good reminder of just how long a full electric transition could take.

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Bank of America analysts broke with the consensus and gave a solid endorsement to the beleaguered language-learning app Duolingo on Monday. The stock finished up around 5% on the day. 

• Duolingo shares are down over 60% since hitting their peak last May, as slowing quarterly growth in key metrics like daily active users prompted analysts to sharply cut their long-term estimates for the company’s growth potential.

• “We disagree,” Bank of America analysts wrote in a note Monday upgrading the stock to “buy” — from “neutral” — and slapping a $250 target on the stock.

• They wrote: “Why? Because Duolingo’s value proposition extends beyond education into entertainment — a market investors have largely ignored. With gamified mechanics that rival top casual games and a growing portfolio of fun-first courses like Chess and Music, Duolingo taps into the large audience of mobile users seeking engaging ways to fill idle time.”

In other words, they think the addictiveness of the app has more in common with platforms like Roblox or the various iterations of Microsoft’s “Candy Crush” saga than the market currently understands. And that means that Duolingo can, perhaps, sustain higher long-term growth than investors seem to grok. In short, they argued that Duolingo deserves a more game-like valuation, which it will get as it surprises on growth in the coming years.

The Takeaway

“We note that Duolingo’s financial forecast is similar to Roblox, but its multiple is significantly lower, despite its high mix of annual subscription customers,” the analysts said. Bank of America’s target for the shares is 30% higher than where the stock was trading Monday morning, despite the fact that Duolingo shares were having their best day in about three months. But even if it were to hit $250, the stock will still be more than 50% below its record closing high of $540.68 set last year on May 14.

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James Cameron notches new box office record

Just over two weeks after its release, the third movie in James Cameron’s blockbuster “Avatar” franchise has officially reached $1 billion at the global box office. And while he’s still bested at the box office by legendary director Steven Spielberg’s lifetime haul, Cameron was still the first to hit a billion with “Titanic” and has kept passing that mark ever since.

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• 🎬 Oscars: Sunday night was great for the Timothée Chalamet Oscar campaign, with the win at the Critics Choice Awards making him the 71% favorite* to win Best Actor at the Oscars as of Monday evening, according to traders on Kalshi. 

• 🚘 Tesla: Prediction markets are pricing in a median of 350,000 Tesla deliveries for Q1 2026. There’s an implied 24% chance of the automaker clearing at least 370,000 deliveries, though the market is pricing in an 85% chance of at least 320,000. For perspective, Tesla delivered 336,000 vehicles in the same quarter of last year.

*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.