Happy Valentine's Day to those who celebrate! For those who are looking for love, the numbers are in, and while dating apps are in decline, many of us are still swiping right. That said, it turns out adding AI to your dating app maybe isn't something users love. Sorry not sorry, Tinder. Stocks rallied on Thursday on a string of strong quarterly results and some fresh data on prices that took the sting out of Wednesday's disturbingly high CPI report. The S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100, and the Russell 2000 all advanced more than 1%. 🇺🇸 President's Day: US stock markets will be closed Monday. We'll be back in your inbox Tuesday. Hugs & quizzes: Before you pop the Veuve, see how you do on our pop quiz. Here's the first q: |
- Which brand, whose collabs and partnerships include KFC, Hidden Valley Ranch, Justin Bieber, Barbie, and Bad Bunny, saw a 24% boost in its stock price yesterday after an earnings beat?
Check your answer.
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Strange Big Tech bedfellows |
Tech companies: are they bitter rivals or close companions? It's getting trickier to tell. Take Reddit and Google for example. A brief overview of their relationship: |
- Google, perhaps noticing that increasingly, when people are searching on Google, they append the word "reddit" to the end of their query, pays Reddit for access to its data so it can train its AI models. It didn't seem to bother Reddit much that this deal effectively made their search relationship exclusive.
- But Reddit knows Google's history of fickle algorithm changes. Perhaps worried about being algorithm-dumped as others have been, it launched "Reddit Answers," an AI-powered, on-platform search tool, in late 2024.
- And so it came to pass: on Wednesday, Reddit blamed a tweak to Google's search algorithm for its disappointing growth in daily active users when it reported fourth-quarter results, sparking a slide in its shares.
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It's not just Google and Reddit. Apple, which is playing the AI field in China, is working with both Baidu and Alibaba. Apple's also been playing the field at home, offloading some of its Apple Intelligence capabilities to OpenAI's ChatGPT rather than keeping its AI exclusively in-house. Apple has also discussed partnering with other AI companies… like Google. And just this week, Apple said it was getting back together with Elon Musk's X and resumed advertising on the social media platform. |
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Everyone wants to have the best AI functionality now and in the future. Reconciling those different time frames is causing Big Tech megacaps to develop tricky relationships that demand they sometimes behave as fierce competitors and other times as the closest of companions. |
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3M Baskets Fried? Yes, Chef! |
Carmy's tattooed arms may no longer be the most distinctive ones in the kitchen. With fast food brands facing 150% annual turnover rates, they're turning to Miso's AI-powered kitchen robot, Flippy, to boost profits up to 4X and curb labor shortages. Miso is already a leading force in kitchen AI and automation, with 150K+ hours of experience for brands like Jack in the Box. Now, they're manufacturing Flippy Fry Station – a robot 50% smaller and 2X faster than its predecessor. Its first small-scale production run sold out in seven days. And that sellout's just the start. In 2025, Miso's ready to scale and targeting 170+ U.S. fast food brands in need – a potential $4B annual revenue opportunity. Invest1 in Miso today (and secure limited bonus shares).2 |
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3M Baskets Fried? Yes, Chef! |
Carmy's tattooed arms may no longer be the most distinctive ones in the kitchen. With fast food brands facing 150% annual turnover rates, they're turning to Miso's AI-powered kitchen robot, Flippy, to boost profits up to 4X and curb labor shortages. Miso is already a leading force in kitchen AI and automation, with 150K+ hours of experience for brands like Jack in the Box. Now, they're manufacturing Flippy Fry Station – a robot 50% smaller and 2X faster than its predecessor. Its first small-scale production run sold out in seven days. And that sellout's just the start. In 2025, Miso's ready to scale and targeting 170+ U.S. fast food brands in need – a potential $4B annual revenue opportunity. Invest1 in Miso today (and secure limited bonus shares).2 |
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The console is very far from dead |
Sony stunned yesterday, sending the stock up over 5% after the release of an earnings report that revealed the PlayStation 5 has hit 75 million total sales, showing that fears may be misplaced about the end of the era of console domination. Sony moved 9.5 million PlayStation 5 units in the holiday season, and while that's still behind the pace set by its predecessor, the PlayStation 4, it's not all that far behind. At the same point in its product life cycle, the PS4 had sold 76.7 million units, so we're talking about a little over 2% more. Console skeptics need only look at the sales data from last year to see that the narrative may be less about the future of console gaming in general than about the future of one console specifically: |
- Sony sold an excellent 20.2 million units of the PS5 in 2024.
- Nintendo sold a solid 11.5 million units of the Switch in 2024.
- Microsoft also participated, selling something like 5 million units, ish, in 2024. Not great.
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It's also worth noting that at least in the US, the Nintendo Switch is usually someone's second console. 71% of Switch owners have another gaming system, meaning it's tough to say that Sony is in head-to-head competition with Nintendo in the console wars — though Sony is developing a handheld console, too. |
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Sony's strong fourth quarter — 16% better than the same holiday season a year before, even — delivered a pretty decisive rebuke to skeptics of the health of the console business. That success, if anything, puts a spotlight on the state of Microsoft's Xbox business. |
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Finally, hard data on a real-world AI business use case: It's huge for customer service |
Researchers measured gains and trade-offs from human customer service reps using an AI assistant and found one big win. Read more. |
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Should You Cancel Your Car Insurance? |
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Should You Cancel Your Car Insurance? |
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- January Retail Sales
- January Industrial Production
- Earnings expected from Air Canada and Moderna
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Authors of this Snacks own shares of: XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, XXXXX |
Advertiser's disclosures:
1 This is a paid advertisement for Miso Robotics' Regulation CF offering. Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.misorobotics.com. 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. DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck. 2 The bonus shares are available to existing and new investors who make the minimum investment of $1003.91 before the deadline. See website for further details. |
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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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