(Odd Andersen/Getty Images) |
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Officials in Bend, Oregon, had their eyes peeled for pranksters after the city spent $1.5K to remove googly eyes stuck to statues around town. Blink, and you missed 'em. Major US indexes struggled through a New Year's Day hangover, ticking down on the first trading day of the year. Bitcoin ETFs boomed as traders bet that President-elect Trump would follow through on his campaign pledge to create a BTC stockpile. |
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Back to the driving board… It's a season of goal setting, and Tesla's were a bit lofty. The EV icon said that it sold 495K vehicles last quarter, falling several thousand deliveries short of estimates. Its annual sales came in at 1.79M EVs, about 1% shy of its 2023 figure — for its first yearly sales decline. While some analysts think Tesla's recent #s are less relevant to its success than CEO Elon Musk's connection to President-elect Trump, Tesla's shares were down 6% on the day. |
- Warning lights: Tesla's navigating the end of German EV subsidies, a US consumer shift from EVs toward hybrids, and tougher competition from lower-cost Chinese automakers like BYD.
- Tailgating: BYD outsold Tesla last quarter and closed the gap on the year, selling 1.76M EVs in 2024. The company, which also sells hybrids, recorded a combined sales surge of 40%+. Other Chinese EV makers, like Li Auto, XPeng, and Nio, also saw strong sales.
- Trump bump: Tesla shares saw a postelection surge and ended the year up 63%.
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Traffic from China… Tesla isn't the only automaker struggling to fend off Chinese rivals. Recently Honda and Nissan reportedly discussed merging to better compete with China's growing carmakers. That competition was one factor in the struggles at Stellantis (its China sales fell 30% in Q3). Automakers took a hit despite help from the US and EU, both of which imposed substantial tariffs on Chinese EVs. |
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Tesla faces a hazy road… Some analysts are bullish on Tesla, expecting that Trump will loosen regulations on self-driving tech, which Musk has said is key to the company's future. Still, Trump has also promised to dismantle EV-production subsidies and a $7.5K tax credit for buyers. Both programs have given Tesla a boost. |
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TikTok Turmoil: Investors Turn to Fanbase Amid Media Uncertainty |
With a potential TikTok ban in the US looming as early as January 2025, millions of creators and audiences are searching for a new home. Fanbase is positioned to capture this migration with its creator-first platform and cutting-edge tools. 📊 Impressive Growth Metrics: Fanbase is gaining momentum. In Q4 alone, monthly active users2 grew 45% on mobile and 80% on the web, while creator earnings increased by 119%3 thanks to enhanced monetization features. ⏳ $4M+ Already Raised for This Offering: With over $13M raised to date and an addressable creator market that could potentially be $480 Billion by 2027, Fanbase is exploring new possibilities for the future of social media. Now is the time to own a stake in the platform designed for the creator economy. 👉 Invest in Fanbase Today.1 |
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TikTok Turmoil: Investors Turn to Fanbase Amid Media Uncertainty |
With a potential TikTok ban in the US looming as early as January 2025, millions of creators and audiences are searching for a new home. Fanbase is positioned to capture this migration with its creator-first platform and cutting-edge tools. 📊 Impressive Growth Metrics: Fanbase is gaining momentum. In Q4 alone, monthly active users2 grew 45% on mobile and 80% on the web, while creator earnings increased by 119%3 thanks to enhanced monetization features. ⏳ $4M+ Already Raised for This Offering: With over $13M raised to date and an addressable creator market that could potentially be $480 Billion by 2027, Fanbase is exploring new possibilities for the future of social media. Now is the time to own a stake in the platform designed for the creator economy. 👉 Invest in Fanbase Today.1 |
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Happy Public Domain Day… Every year, January 1 pops open a (spinach) can of thousands of creative works whose copyrights have expired, and on Wednesday intellectual property from 1929 became free and legal to use. It includes characters like Popeye the Sailor and Tintin, plus books by William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf. 1929 was also the year films went from silent to sound, so Alfred Hitchcock's first talkie could get a remake. (For trivia night, the flick's called "Blackmail.") |
- In the past few years, intellectual property from Hollywood's Golden Age has started trickling into the public sphere, and the copyright crackup has been a goldmine.
- Shock value: A horror film featuring 2022's freshly public IP character Winnie the Pooh went viral and made $7.7M globally on a piglet-sized budget of less than $100K. Horror flicks featuring Popeye are already in the works.
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20-year delay… Copyright holders have pushed to protect their IP (and probably aren't stoked about the slashers). In the '90s, Disney and other groups lobbied to extend copyright protections to 95 years, up from 75. After the unofficially named "Mickey Mouse Protection Act" passed in 1998, no new creative works entered the public domain until 2019. Critics argued that strengthened copyright law stifled cultural progress, while proponents said it encouraged original works. Disney's known for filing hundreds of copyright suits and sending thousands of online takedown notices to protect its IP. |
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IP is precious… but spinoffs can also become classics (as Disney knows). Most recently the film "Wicked," which pulls from the 1900 book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," is breaking box-office records. You won't see any ruby slippers on the big screen, though: those fall under MGM's 1939 movie copyright, which won't expire for another decade. |
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Business spending on AI, the precarious US housing market, crypto's growing power, mega-cap tech's unique market structure, and the Federal Reserve outlook. Read more. |
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- Gazprom is expected to lose $5B in sales after Ukraine ended a deal allowing the Russian gov't-owned gas giant to move gas through its territory.
- The Labor Department said the # of Americans filing for new unemployment dropped to an eight-month low.
- Amazon's 5-day/week RTO was supposed to go into effect yesterday, but the company is said to have struggled to find desks for some employees.
- Terraform Labs cofounder Do Kwon pleaded not guilty to fraud charges after being extradited to the US. The 2022 crash of his algo stablecoin wiped out $40B in investor value.
- Spot ethereum ETFs drew in a record $2B+ last month as investors sought exposure to the crypto without having to own it.
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- ISM manufacturing and auto-sales data
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Authors of this Snacks own bitcoin and ethereum and shares of: Amazon and Disney |
Advertiser's disclosures:
1 Please read the offering circular and related risks at startengine.com/offering/fanbase. This is a paid advertisement for Fanbase's Regulation A+ Offering. 2 Current active monthly users is 630K+ global users in 190 countries 3 Fanbase paid content creators $78,000 in the past year. 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. This was a paid for ad. Sherwood Media has been compensated for this ad by the Fanbase Regulation A+ Campaign hosted on StartEngine. |
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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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