We're among those who are eagerly awaiting tonight's season finale of "Severance" on Apple TV+, but apparently not enough Outies are watching the streaming service or its big-ticket gambles: new (macro)data shows that the company is losing over $1 billion a year on it, making it the only money-loser among Apple's otherwise lucrative Services business. The S&P 500 dipped 0.2%, the Nasdaq 100 fell 0.3%, and the Russell 2000 gave back 0.6% on Thursday. Utilities, energy, financials, and healthcare were the S&P 500 sector ETFs that gained on the day; tech, materials, and industrials led the way down. And it was nice to see Nvidia rally, but less nice to see the stock suffer from its first "dark cross" since 2022. Let's get down to quizness — test your knowledge of recent newsletters with our Snacks Seven Quiz: |
- Every time Tesla declines $2.43, how much money does CEO Elon Musk personally lose?
Check your answer.
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Tesla needs a big win to break out of a slump. Is this it? |
No bones about it, it's been a rough stretch for Tesla. As of yesterday, shares of the Elon Musk-led auto company were down 17.1% over the past 12 trading days. These have spanned a series of news that's been hard to watch, including: |
Then, yesterday saw the announcement that Tesla would be recalling over 46,000 Cybertrucks. It's bad, and bad enough that small-fry rival electric vehicle makers like Lucid and Polestar are shamelessly circling the ailing company and hoping to vulture some customers, with Lucid offering a $4,000 trade-in discount for Tesla owners buying the Lucid Air and Polestar offering $5,000 off leases for Tesla owners. Caught in the crossfire are retail investors, who've been getting smoked over the past several days by buying the dip in the hopes of a stock price jump that's proved elusive. This has been pretty painful; JPMorgan estimated that retail investors' performance is down 7% year-to-date, double that of the S&P 500. Rough stuff. It's simple enough: Tesla needs a win, and badly. With yesterday's session pretty much flat for Tesla, one report that the carmaker plans to introduce a coveted new piece of battery tech into the Cybertruck could've come as some crucially positive news. Your standard battery is made with expensive, toxic wet solvents and large drying ovens. "Dry cathodes" are seen by the industry as a pivotal innovation that can bring down the cost of batteries significantly, a production change that Tesla itself said could save it $1 billion a year in manufacturing costs. |
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The dry electrode technology introduced by Tesla in 2022 prompted an industry sprint into the new battery tech, but pulling off the production of a dry cathode at scale has been challenging. If Tesla pulls it off, well, maybe that sales slump isn't that big of a worry. |
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The $20B deal between Apple and Google that should concern all iPhone users... |
Google paid Apple $20B in 2022 to be the default search engine on iPhones — and both companies hoped to shield it from the public. The deal continues to fuel Google's ad revenue engine, which made an eye-popping +$250B in 2024. Mode Mobile wants smartphone users to get their piece of that money. They're flipping the data industry on its head, splitting the profits with their users by turning smartphones into an income-generating asset. Here's what that looks like: |
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Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what's the most expensive AI model of them all? No, this isn't a line from the new live-action "Snow White" movie, but if it were, the mirror would have to answer "OpenAI's o1-pro." The new model uses an insane amount of computing power to employ multistep reasoning to better answer prompts. This model isn't meant for mere mortals like you and I, but aims its sights on giant corporate accounts, companies that would hook up their services and operations to an API for a model like this. That's where the money is — and where the costs add up. How the AI "charges" for use is via a measure called tokens. A small job could cost just a few tokens, while asking it to analyze a 1,300-page book could take 1 million tokens. And it costs more for an output of that size than the input. For instance, DeepSeek's Reasoner model costs $0.55 per a million-token input, and $2.19 for a million-token output. Our table shows just how much more expensive OpenAI's new model is. |
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Pricing is a huge issue for OpenAI as it struggles to find a viable business model to cover the enormous costs of running these services — CEO Sam Altman recently confirmed the company is losing money on ChatGPT Pro. The company's recent pivot to release only "reasoning" models like o1-pro going forward also means much higher computing costs. For instance, it cost OpenAI's o3 model $3,400 to solve one hard puzzle. Last year, OpenAI reportedly lost about $5 billion after bringing in only $3.7 billion in revenue. It doesn't take the most expensive AI ever to figure out those numbers don't equal a successful business. |
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Over the last two years, the small-cap fintech firm's shares have soared roughly 1,000% as it turned the corner on profitability. |
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Meet the founder who's revolutionizing smartphones |
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Yesterday's Big Daily Movers |
- Despite better-than-expected quarterly results, Accenture dipped. The problem? DOGE
- Gartner also got put in the DOGE pound after the US defense secretary named it in a post on X
- Darden Restaurants, parent of Olive Garden, climbed as its CEO said consumers aren't ready to give up pasta and breadsticks just yet
- Consumers also love Mediterranean food: Cava shares sizzled after JPMorgan called the chain a long-term buy
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- Even CEOs get FOMO: Nvidia's Jensen Huang said he "wasn't invited" to the Intel-buying "party"
- Lack of vision: Apple keeps moving important execs off its wearable headset team and into roles to help fix Siri
- After two friends found a long-lost treasure, they thought their lives would change forever. They were right, but it didn't turn out how they hoped
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- Earnings expected from NIO and Carnival
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Advertiser's disclosures:
1 The rankings are based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their fiscal-year revenue growth percentage over a three-year period. 2 Mode Mobile recently received their ticker reservation with Nasdaq ($MODE), indicating an intent to IPO in the next 24 months. An intent to IPO is no guarantee that an actual IPO will occur. 3 The minimum investment is $999.96. 4 Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile's Regulation A+ Offering. 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. 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. 5 A minimum investment of $1,000 is required to receive bonus shares. 100% bonus shares are offered on investments of $9,950+. 6 The return of the VC Backed IPO Index was compared to the return of the S&P 500 Index for the period of January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024. You cannot invest in an index. |
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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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