🎟️ Ticketmaster’s split-up suit

…and Canva goes corporate

Bad blood boils (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

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Yesterday's Market Moves   Dow Jones 39,065 (-1.53%) S&P 500 5,268 (-0.74%) Nasdaq 16,736 (-0.39%) Bitcoin $67,945 (-1.69%) Dow Jones 39,065 (-1.53%) S&P 500 5,268 (-0.74%) Nasdaq 16,736 (-0.39%) Bitcoin $67,945 (-1.69%)

Hey Snackers, The hot new pizza ingredient is… glue? So said Google's AI search, which churned out the questionable result after the biz trained its model on Reddit posts. Makes sense now. Stocks slipped yesterday as traders parsed new data showing skyrocketing business activity. The concern: a still hot economy could lead the Fed to delay rate cuts even longer. Markets are closed on Monday for Memorial Day, so we'll be back in your inbox on Tuesday. ☕ Quizzpresso: Caffeinate Sabrina Carpenter style, and then take the Snacks Seven quiz. Here's the first sip: The French post office unveiled a new scratch-and-sniff stamp that smells like what? (Check your answer.)

BREAKUP

The DOJ sues to split up Ticketmaster and Live Nation as concert beef boils over Better than revenge… Yesterday, the US Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster parent Live Nation, aiming to break up the country's largest concert promoter. The DOJ launched an investigation into the concert colossus in 2022, and the probe heated up in November of that year when Ticketmaster crashed after millions of Swifties tried to snag Eras Tour tix. Now the DOJ has accused Live Nation of running an illegal live-events monopoly. The DOJ says: Ticketmaster controls at least 80% of primary ticket sales at major concert venues and uses its dominance to lock out rivals and drive up ticket prices with obscure fees (the DOJ calls it "the Ticketmaster tax"). Live Nation says: The DOJ's monopoly allegations are "absurd" and don't take into account "24/7 scalpers" and fans' willingness to pay way over primary prices. FYI: Last year, stars like Beyoncé and T. Swift helped drive Live Nation's record attendance and ticket sales, pushing its revenue up 36% to nearly $23B. Live domination… The US gov't approved the Ticketmaster and Live Nation merger in 2010, on the condition that it licensed its ticket software to rivals and didn't retaliate against venues that didn't use Ticketmaster. But in 2019 the DOJ said it had violated those terms by pressuring venues to use Ticketmaster as a condition for using Live Nation performers. Under pressure from the Biden admin, last year Live Nation and SeatGeek said they would start showing customers the full price of shows before checkout. ICYMI: concert ticket fees can often add up to over 30% of the total order. THE TAKEAWAY Breaking up is hard to do… Live Nation's long benefited from what it calls its flywheel — its ability to use its concert, ticketing, and sponsorship ecosystem to continually drive growth. But this flywheel effect is also a reason regulators, lawmakers, and fans have taken issue with its biz. A Ticketmaster-Live Nation breakup could boost competition and cool prices, but would be a massive hit to Live Nation's biz.

Sponsored by GraniteShares The long and short of it… Green with NV… One tech company got seriously ahead of the competition on the AI market. For some time, Nvidia has been one investors are watching — and with the release of this week's Q1 2025 earnings report, many investors will be considering whether NVDA stock should be part of their next move. Exposed: Nvidia's announcement opens the window on key metrics… and high-conviction investors can magnify their exposure to the probable stock price moves that follow. GraniteShares' suite of Short and Leveraged single stock ETFs* are short-term investment vehicles that offer a way to do just that: NVDL seeks +2X the daily variations of underlying NVDA stock. NVD seeks -2X the daily variations of underlying NVDA stock. NVDL and NVD are accessible through a traditional brokerage account, with no need to borrow stock or maintain collateral, and no margin calls.* Go long or short on NVDA with GraniteShares Single Stock ETFs.** *An investment in these ETFs involve significant risks. Click each fund for more information.

CREATE

Canva, a staple of the creator economy, comes for the enterprise economy Adding to the Canva(s)…. Sydney-based startup Canva racked up 185M monthly users by making graphic design accessible to non-design pros. You might've used its free version to create Insta carousels or quick slide decks. Snacks was on the ground at the Canva Create event yesterday, where the privately held company showed how it's expanding beyond its DIY creator roots with AI-infused products for corporations. Meet Canva Enterprise: Canva's workplace tools aren't just for making external comms (like ads and social posts) but for internal work too (like onboarding modules, trainings, and brainstorm boards). Canva's pitching it as an all-in-one hub for teams like sales, creative, and HR. Brand templates let team members create and collab on content like sales-pitch decks. Early users at Workday and Expedia said their teams have saved thousands of hours. AI magic: Building off its AI design tools, Canva added genAI enterprise features like a tool that can churn out copy in the brand's voice and a video editor that can remove backgrounds and clean up sound. Risky business: Canva's moved fast to stay ahead of AI, launching integrations with partners like OpenAI, but there's still a risk of bigger tools squeezing it out or making it less relevant. An enterprising endeavor… Canva already expanded beyond amateur designers to pros with its acquisition of Adobe competitor Affinity last month. Now it's not just coming for Adobe, but for Google, Microsoft, and other makers of workplace tools. With Enterprise, employees at big companies can make Google Docs-style suggestions in Canva docs. Canva's chief marketing officer, Zach Kitschke, told Snacks that the top reason people use Canva is for presentations and that many already use individual accounts to support their daily work.  There's a reason to go after corporate: Canva's revenue from orgs grew nearly 50% last year, and the company reportedly expects it to grow another 60% this year — nearly 20% faster than individual account sales. THE TAKEAWAY Start at the roots, then take the tree…. Canva grew a base of loyal users with its free DIY design tools for individuals. Canva told Snacks that a major driver of growth for its corporate products has been people who already use the platform individually. It makes $2.2B in annual revenue, but its growth opportunity becomes much larger if it can carve out a slice of the cash-flush enterprise market.

ETH-TF

The Crypto Catch-Up… 🏛️ Votey… The US House passed a bill that'd make the CFTC the primary regulator overseeing crypto, as opposed to the Gary Gensler-led SEC. The bipartisan measure was supported by the industry, which has criticized the SEC's crypto crackdown. 💰 Spendy… Solana Labs said its newest crypto-first smartphone had $65M in preorders. Traders chased down its first mobile last year when they realized it came with access to meme coins (think: bonk) that were worth more than the phone cost. 📜 Policy… The price of ethereum ticked up after the SEC took the first step in approving applications for eight spot ethereum ETFs. Institutional investors could pour up to $500M over the next week into the second-largest crypto, according to exchange OKX.

What else we're Snackin' NewsTech: OpenAI struck what's likely its largest news-licensing deal with Wall Street Journal owner News Corp. The deal, said to be worth $250M+, could let OpenAI use News Corp content in ChatGPT's answers. GRWM: E.l.f. Beauty posted $1B in annual revenue for the first time, as the Gen Alpha fave's sales glowed up 77%. Still, it expects growth to slow, mirroring Ulta's recent statement that makeup demand's losing its shine. TD: Warner Bros. Discovery reportedly signed a licensing deal with Disney's ESPN to broadcast college-football playoff games. The move's just the latest market shift as streamers spend billions to lock up live sports. McChurch: Franchise-style churches are spreading across the US, boosted by the Association of Related Churches (which takes a revenue cut). ARC has started 1K+ churches, while competitor Acts 29 has 644 locations. Stale: US home sales fell in April for the second month straight as higher interest rates weighed on buyers. Meantime, few entry-level homes hit the market as "golden handcuff" rates kept would-be sellers in place.

Snack Fact Of the Day The median pay for AI engineers in the US last month was $290K Read more

Friday F1 Monaco Grand Prix weekend begins Earnings expected from Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. Authors of this Snacks own ethereum and shares of: Disney, Google, Microsoft, Reddit, and Ulta Advertiser's disclosures: **Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. For a prospectus or summary prospectus with this and other information about the Funds, please call (844) 476 8747 or click here for NVD and click here for NVDL. Read the prospectus or summary prospectus carefully before investing. The Fund is not suitable for all investors. The investment program of the funds is speculative, entails substantial risks and includes asset classes and investment techniques not employed by most other ETFs and mutual funds. Investments in the ETFs are not bank deposits and are not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government agency. The Fund is designed to be utilized only by knowledgeable investors who understand the potential consequences of seeking daily inverse (-2 X) investment results, understand the risks associated with the use of inverse exposure and are willing to monitor their portfolios frequently. For periods longer than a single day, the Fund will lose money if the Underlying Stock's performance is flat, and it is possible that the Fund will lose money even if the Underlying Stock's performance decreases over a period longer than a single day. An investor could lose the full principal value of his/her investment within a single day. The Fund seeks daily leveraged investment results and is intended to be used as short-term trading vehicles. This Fund attempts to provide daily investment results that correspond to the respective inverse of the performance of its underlying stock (an inverse Fund). Investors should note that the fund pursues daily leveraged investment objectives, which means that the fund is riskier than alternatives that do not use leverage because the fund magnifies the performance of their underlying security. The volatility of the underlying security may affect a Fund's return as much as, or more than, the return of the underlying security. Because of daily rebalancing and the compounding of each day's return over time, the return of the Fund for periods longer than a single day will be the result of each day's returns compounded over the period, which will very likely differ from -200% of the return of the Underlying Stock over the same period. The Fund will lose money if the Underlying Stock's performance is flat over time, and as a result of daily rebalancing, the Underlying Stock volatility and the effects of compounding, it is even possible that the Fund will lose money over time while the Underlying Stock's performance decreases over a period longer than a single day. THE FUNDS ARE DISTRIBUTED BY ALPS DISTRIBUTORS, INC. GRANITESHARES IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH ALPS DISTRIBUTORS, INC.

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