(Serene Lee/Getty Images) |
Explain LLMs like we're 5 |
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Food-delivery apps have expanded to delivering almost everything, and DoorDash is taking it up a notch: it's teamed up with David's Bridal so that customers can DoorDash their wedding dresses. We have a feeling this offering will be especially popular in Vegas. Stocks pulled back from all-time highs yesterday. Nvidia fell 2.5% after China launched an antitrust investigation into the tech titan in the latest escalation of the US-China chip war. Shares of Palantir, the S&P 500's best performer so far this year, were volatile after an Elon Musk X post. |
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Am I The AI?… After 20 years Reddit seems to have realized that improving its search engine may actually be possible. It's testing a conversational AI chatbot called Reddit Answers that it says will provide users with summaries of threads and comments. As Google Search is dragged for getting worse, many users have begun adding "reddit" to the end of their queries for human-written answers. In fact, "Reddit" is the sixth-most-searched word on Google this year, as folks type in things like "weird mole on foot reddit." Now Reddit wants a piece of that traffic for itself. |
- Lurking: The chatbot is first rolling out to select US users, but Reddit plans to expand access. Reddit Answers is powered by AI models from Reddit, Google, and OpenAI.
- R/evenue: Reddit this year struck licensing deals worth $200M+ with Google and OpenAI that allow the companies' AI bots to crawl the Reddit-verse for answers.
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Coming in bot… Reddit joins a growing list of attention-economy companies that've built chatbots to keep their users from going elsewhere for answers. As ChatGPT racked up 250M weekly users, social platforms have launched their own chatty bots. Meta said its bot has 600M monthly users (it's been pushing folks to "ask Meta AI anything" on apps like Insta and WhatsApp). X recently made its Grok bot free for all users, and Microsoft has been sticking its Copilot tool in programs like 365. Meantime, industry leader OpenAI launched a $200/month pro version of CGPT. |
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Everyone's searching for relevance… in an AI world. Whether it's news publishers striking AI licensing deals or social platforms pushing their own bots, companies are adapting to not get left behind. They're searching for fresh revenue streams, and bots could be an answer: Google already rolled out ads for its AI search overviews, and OpenAI's said to be considering them for CGPT. |
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- ETF holders are investing less aggressively. In 2022, 37% of ETF holders said they were investing 'much more aggressively;' that dropped to 16% in 2024.
- Crypto ETFs divide the generations. 57% of Gen-Zers and Millennials expressed an interest in ETFs that hold cryptocurrencies, compared to 11% of Boomers.
- Younger investors are driving ETF demand. ETFs make up 49% of all buy trades made by advisers Gen Z, and 81% of Millennials reported holding ETFs in their retirement accounts.
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- ETF holders are investing less aggressively. In 2022, 37% of ETF holders said they were investing 'much more aggressively;' that dropped to 16% in 2024.
- Crypto ETFs divide the generations. 57% of Gen-Zers and Millennials expressed an interest in ETFs that hold cryptocurrencies, compared to 11% of Boomers.
- Younger investors are driving ETF demand. ETFs make up 49% of all buy trades made by advisers Gen Z, and 81% of Millennials reported holding ETFs in their retirement accounts.
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Got merger?... Yesterday, marketing giant Omnicom said it would acquire rival Interpublic in an all-stock deal, which would create the world's biggest advertising company (snatching the #1 spot from ad powerhouse WPP). Omnicom and Interpublic are the third- and fourth-largest ad companies and the brains behind iconic campaign slogans like "Got Milk?" and L'Oréal's "Because I'm Worth It." The combined company (which will go by Omnicom) is expected to earn more than $25B in annual revenue. |
- Stacked deck: The deal would unite thousands of ad clients under the Omnicom umbrella, including heavyweights like Disney, Pepsi, Johnson & Johnson, and AT&T.
- No click: Interpublic's struggled to grow after losing key clients like Verizon and BMW. The stock popped on the merger news, while Omnicom shares fell 10%.
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Ad-biz refresh… Traditional ad agencies have consolidated over the years, and more M&A's expected as competition from Big Tech heats up. More brands are ditching ad agencies and bringing operations in-house, turning to self-service ad platforms and AI tools from techies like Google and Meta. It's estimated that Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and Google will earn almost two-thirds of all US digital ad dollars this year. Meanwhile, companies including Kroger, Home Depot, Paramount, Uber, and Roku have launched their own ad platforms. Everyone's trying to get a slice of the pie as ad spending's expected to top $1T this year. |
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It's agencies vs. algorithms... The "Mad Men" era of advertising is long gone. Now, algorithms and AI are disrupting the industry by helping companies better personalize ads, predict performance, and run their own campaigns. A Bain study found that retailers using AI-powered targeting tools saw up to a 25% boost in ad returns. |
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Walgreens looks likely to take the crown as the S&P 500's worst-performing stock. Read more. |
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- Police identified 26-year-old Luigi Mangione as a person of interest in the killing of UnitedHealth exec Brian Thompson.
- Hershey's stock popped 11% after Bloomberg reported that snack giant Mondelez (Oreos, Ritz crackers) is considering buying the chocolate icon.
- Shares of Rent the Runway fell 22% after the designer-clothing rental company unboxed another unprofitable quarter of flat sales.
- MLB star Juan Soto will reportedly sign a record $765M contract with the NY Mets, beating Shohei Ohtani's $700M deal with the LA Dodgers.
- Volkswagen workers in Germany issued an ultimatum to the carmaker, saying they'll dramatically escalate strikes if a deal isn't reached.
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- Generation ETF… Nasdaq leads the way in investment intelligence. Their latest report turns to ETFs… and how they've won the favor of the newest entrants to the investment world: Gen Z.1
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- International Human Rights Day
- Earnings expected from GameStop, AutoZone, United Natural Foods, and Dave & Buster's
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Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Disney, Microsoft, Uber, Nvidia, Reddit, and Roku |
Advertiser's disclosures:
1 Nasdaq® is a registered trademark of Nasdaq, Inc. The information contained above is provided for informational and educational purposes only, and nothing contained herein should be construed as investment advice, either on behalf of a particular security, digital asset or an overall investment strategy. Neither Nasdaq, Inc. nor any of its affiliates makes any recommendation to buy or sell any security or digital asset or any representation about the financial condition of any company. Statements regarding Nasdaq-listed companies or Nasdaq proprietary indexes are not guarantees of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investors should undertake their own due diligence and carefully evaluate companies before investing. |
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Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate... See more |
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