Cold Comfort |
Comfort Cream, as we all know, is a camembert-style cheese produced by the Upper Canada Cheese company. Cold comfort, meanwhile, is a phrase meaning "inadequate consolation." For example, the stock market is down 6%, but we're not eating pigeons! At least the earth has an atmosphere! You know? |
Today's cheddlines are likely to provide similar comfort, I'm afraid, to those of you facing your own challenges. |
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Frankly I think Sir Michael Caine reading the Rudyard Kipling poem "If" is always genuinely comforting, and so here he is, doing that. |
 | IF by Rudyard Kipling, Recited by Sir Michael Caine |
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—Matt Davis, Need2Know Chedditor |
P.S. Is stagflation coming? Find out on our 'gram! |
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Quote of the Day |
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Should You Check Your 401(k) Today? |
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(nope) |
Stocks mentioned in today's stories: SPX ( ▼ 1.78% ) SCHW ( ▼ 1.54% ) BABA ( ▼ 0.77% ) RDDT ( ▼ 10.56% ) |
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Insert "don't panic" stock market story here |
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It's been a while since the media started running stories like this — in fact my most recent memory of them is during the pandemic when stocks went through the floor. We're happy to tell you once again that the stock market does tend to go through cycles of ups and downs, and the current down is quite normal in the grand scheme of things. #NotFinancialAdvice #ButObviouslyFactualInformationBasedOnExperience |
Sharp moves for the U.S. stock market, like its recent 6% drop in just a couple of weeks, happen regularly. Stomaching them is the price investors have to pay for the bigger returns that stocks can offer over other investments in the long term. This time doesn't look much different, experts say. |
The S&P 500 (SPX ( ▼ 1.78% ) ) has regularly seen declines bigger than this recent one, of 10% or more every year or so. Often, experts view them as a culling of optimism that can otherwise run overboard, driving stock prices too high. |
Before this recent stumble, many critics were already saying the U.S. stock market was too expensive after prices rose faster than corporate profits. They also pointed to how only a handful of companies was driving so much of the market's returns. |
Many investors are tempted to sell at times like this. Selling may offer some feeling of relief, but it also locks in losses and prevents the chance of making the money back over time. Historically, the S&P 500 has come back from every one of its downturns to eventually make investors whole again. This includes after the Great Depression, the dot-com bust and the 2020 COVID crash. |
"Data has shown, historically, that no one can time the market," said Odysseas Papadimitriou, CEO of WalletHub. "No one can consistently figure out the best time to buy and sell." |
No one knows how long this will last, of course, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. |
Do you know how I cope during times like this? I take long naps, I play squash, and when I notice myself ruminating, I refocus and tell my brain to think about something else. I definitely do not check my Charles Schwab (SCHW ( ▼ 1.54% ) ) account. |
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These are the video game hall of fame finalists |
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This year's finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame include trailblazers in esports, electronic pets, and portable gaming. Another finalist is Frogger, the arcade favorite brought to life in a 1998 episode of "Seinfeld," in which George navigates a Frogger-style arcade cabinet across a busy road, mimicking the game's frogs. |
 | George Tries To Preserve His Legacy | The Frogger | Seinfeld |
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The Hall of Fame revealed the 12 finalists up for induction on Thursday and opened a week of public voting. The winners will be enshrined May 8 at the hall's new space inside The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester. |
The 2025 finalists are: Age of Empires, Angry Birds, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Defender, Frogger, Golden Eye, Golden Tee, Harvest Moon, Mattel Football, Quake, NBA 2K and Tamagotchi. |
The World Video Game Hall of Fame gets thousands of nominations online each year for arcade, console, computer, and handheld games. Staff members choose the finalists based on the their longevity, geographical reach, and influence on both game design and pop culture. The inductees are then chosen in a ballot vote by an international committee of experts. Get your vote in now! |
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From @cheddar |
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Erratic trade moves are baffling businesses |
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Marc Rosenberg, founder and CEO of The Edge Desk in Deerfield, Illinois, is getting ready to introduce a fancy ergonomic chair designed to reduce customers' back pain and boost their productivity. He figures the most expensive one will sell for more than $1,000. However, he can't settle on a price, and he is reluctantly reducing the shipment he's bringing to the United States from China. |
There's a reason for his caution: the United States' ever-changing, on-again, off-again tariff war with America's three biggest trading partners — Mexico, Canada and China. |
Rosenberg and his ergonomic furniture are contending with a 20% tariff on imports from China — which President Donald Trump on Tuesday raised from 10% — but he's not sure where the tariff will actually land. |
"The misdirection is making it very tough to plan for the year,'' he said. |
"I've talked to multiple companies that are saying, 'We're not moving forward with any investment. We need this to be settled,'" said trade lawyer Gregory Husisian at the law firm Foley & Lardner. At least in Trump's first term "they knew what the ground rules were. Now they don't know if we're playing Monopoly or tic-tac-toe.'' |
Personally speaking I'd be delighted if we could improve things fairly quickly from an economic certainty perspective. How about you? |
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Alibaba releases AI bot to rival DeepSeek |
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Alibaba (BABA ( ▼ 0.77% ) ), the Chinese tech behemoth, has launched an AI bot that purportedly outperforms models from OpenAI and startup DeepSeek. The stock went up 8% after the announcement. |
What sets Alibaba's QwQ-32B AI apart is not just its high performance but its efficiency. With 32 billion parameters, the QwQ-32B model is smaller and ostensibly more efficient to train than DeepSeek's R1, which uses 671 billion parameters. |
DeepSeek had previously captured international attention in January, with its reasoning model R1 acclaimed for its high performance and cost-efficiency, boosting confidence in the innovation potential of Chinese tech companies amidst an intensifying tech rivalry with the United States. Alibaba's announcement not only adds fuel to this competitive fire but also highlights the rapid advancements being made in AI, a critical frontier in the ongoing U.S.–China tech contest. |
Alibaba's pledge to invest at least 380 billion yuan ($52.4 billion) in its AI and cloud computing infrastructure over the next three years — a figure surpassing its investments in the past decade — signals a new commitment to leading in these critical emerging industries. The main question, of course, is whether it recognizes Taiwan as an independent country (nope) and what it can tell us about Tiananmen Square (what's that?). |
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Reddit founder wants to buy TikTok |
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Reddit (RDDT ( ▼ 10.56% ) ) co-founder Alexis Ohanian has announced his participation in a bid to transform TikTok. By joining forces with billionaire Frank McCourt's initiative, Project Liberty, Ohanian steps into a consortium ambitiously named "The People's Bid for TikTok," with visions of leveraging blockchain technology. He envisions a new era for TikTok, one rooted in "privacy, security, and digital independence," as foundational pillars. |
The advent of blockchain technology serves for many as a beacon of hope for a freer internet, wherein users have more control over their online data. The proposed model, dubbed by Ohanian as "TikTok: Freedom Edition," suggests not just a rebranding but a radical rethinking of the platform. Right now, of course, the Chinese firm has access to all its customers' data through the app's algorithm. That's what prompted the bill mandating its sale to a U.S. company earlier this year. |
McCourt's consortium, a notable assembly that includes "Shark Tank" "star" Kevin O'Leary, is offering $20 billion cash for the app. Analysts are on the fence, estimating TikTok's value could soar well beyond that. |
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