🕤 AI is the New Crypto

Overhyped

Sup. Zaid here. 

I consume a ton of finance content all week and filter through the best stuff, so you don’t have to. 

If you want to stay in the loop of all things stocks, crypto and corporate drama with a splash of humor, consider joining the 3,500+ other readers of “Money Minutes” and subscribe below.

I had to bust out this newsletter fast AF because my daughter’s 4th birthday party starts in 45 mins and my wife is giving me the “the look” for typing instead of hanging decorations. Thanks for putting up with my typos and incomplete sentences. 

Btw her BDay party is happening at Chuck-E-Cheese and since I try to turn every moment of my life into content (I know. It’s sad), I’m going to make a vlog about the finances of Chuck-E-Cheese (did you know they filed for bankruptcy at one point). Follow me on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube to stay in the loop.

This week’s newsletter is 1340 words and should take you 6.9 (nice) minutes to read. 

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Market Vibe Check 😁

Stocks: LFG! All indices in the green this week. Nasdaq acting like Shaq in his prime, putting up some crazy numbers each week. Fun fact: Nasdaq hasn’t had a down week all year and is on track to have the best month since July 2022. I’m still getting “bull trap" vibes. I might start selling some growth stocks on this rebound and get into some boring blue chips. 

Crypto: Boring week for crypto. No major news. Market kinda flat. Except for Aptos, which is up 30% this past week and 440% this month (wtf!). Did I buy any? Nope. Because if I buy, I know it’s immediately going to drop. I’m sitting this one out.

Business News Highlight Reel 📹

Chart is from the New York Times

GDP up 2.9%: Back to back quarters of positive GDP numbers! It means the economy is growing and the “Are we in a recession?” debate continues to heat up. I’m on team “nah not yet, but it’s possible in the future, but I’m not sure because there is a lot of confusing signals, so I don’t really know, but I hope we don’t” Hope that clears up my position (Read more: GDP and Jobs Show the Stock Market Bears Are Still Early)

The US Gov’t suing Google for winning at monopoly: The DOJ thinks Google has a monopoly on the US advertising market. I’m not a lawyer and unlike everyone on the internet, I’m not gonna pretend to be one. Google is an advertising BEHEMOTH. But Google’s dominance in the US Advertising market is getting smaller because Amazon and Apple are starting to take a larger piece of the pie. The DOJ is accusing Google of buying their competitors and shutting them down to protect their market share. That would be a “no. no.” in the eyes of antirust law. Is Google going to get broken up? Not sure. We probably won't’ find out anytime soon either. These cases take YEAR to hash out in court. We might found out in 2029 or something. (Read More: DOJ Suit to Break Up Google Was Years in the Making for Antitrust Chief)

Tesla making a comeback: I’m a self reported Tesla hater. Have been for a while. But even I have to admit, this bounce back from Tesla has been remarkable. Their stock is up 30% this year and they reported solid numbers in their earnings report this week. (Here’s a 58 second recap from me on TikTok, IG)

Microsoft biz is slowing, but they partnered with ChatGPT so they win: Microsoft reported earnings and it was “meh” to say the least. Business is slowing. They laid off 10,000 employees. But Microsoft has enough money to invest $10 billion into OpenAI, the company that made ChatGPT. Microsoft needs to start integrating ChatGPT into EVERYTHING and do it NOW. Imagine how fire BingGPT would be. I might stop using Google. ChatGPT’s integration into Microsoft Office (Outlook, Excel, Word, Powerpoint) would be even better. I can’t wait for ChatGPT to start writing all my work emails in Outlook and create all my spreadsheets for me. Every company is going to integrate AI soon. But maybe the AI hype is getting too crazy. Keep reading to see what happened to Buzzfeed this week.

Bed Bath and Beyond can’t pay their bills: This meme stock might be at the end of the road. They took out a multi billion dollar loan from JP Morgan and now they can’t pay it back. It might be time for a Chapter 11. 

Is AI Overhyped? 

Check out the weekly chart of Buzzfeed’s stock. Yes, Buzzfeed, the clickbait website that was popular in 2013. Their stock had been down 90% since they IPO’d. But this week, their stock rose from the dead. 

Why did this happen? Buzzfeed announced they will “use AI to make content.” THAT’S IT.

Look, I love ChatGPT and AI, but the hype is getting out of control. Of course Buzzfeed is going to use AI to make content. Every media company in the world is going to do that. Just because they use AI to make shitty click-baity content doesn’t mean the company should be worth 3x more. AI hype is quickly approaching the crypto level of insanity.  

At this point, every company in the world should announce they will “integrate AI” just for a quick stock pump. What am I missing? 

Billy of the Week: Gautam Adani

Tough week for Uncle Gautam. Richest man in Asia is less rich (but still really rich). Gautam lost $20 Billion in net worth (going from #3 to #9 on the “Rich Dude Ranking”) because his company, the Adani Group, TANKED after being accused of fraud by trading firm Hindenburg Research.

Hindenburg Research is a short selling firm. They make money when the stock price go down. They shorted the Adani’s Group stock, published a long ass report about the shady stuff happening with Adani’s company. I haven’t read the whole thing but Hindenburg has a history of being correct (even Bill Ackman is a fan). Remember that story of Nikola Motors rolling their trucks down a hill to dupe everyone into thinking they had a working product. Hindenburg Research uncovered that fraud. Nikola’s CEO is now facing criminal charges and could be sent to prison.

You can read the entire Hindenburg Research report here. I’ll try to make a TikTok skit about it soon. This Adani story is just getting started. 

Events to Put On Your Calendar 🗓️

Wednesday (Feb 1): FOMC Meeting. Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve make a decision on interest rates (likely hiking by 25 basis points). The best part is the 45min press conference by JPow. I live stream and instant react on TikTok. Be sure to join! 2pm eastern. 

Thursday (Feb 2): Earnings report from Apple, Amazon and Alphabet (aka Google). Tech is slowing. But by how much? We about to find out this week. This is going to be big time. I’ll be making content until 2am on Thursday

Friday (Feb 3): January Job Report. Did the economy add or lose jobs in January? Did the employment rate go up, down or sideways? This report will tell us. The unemployment rate is like the body temperature of the economy. If we see an uptick, people might start getting worried and looking through the medicine cabinet (the Fed?). Everyone will be keeping an eye on this. 

Thanks for reading! 

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Ps. For those who are wondering - who is this guy, and what is this email?

My name is Zaid. I started making funny (and cringy) TikToks back in 2019 about business and finance. Here’s my first viral TikTok about Snapchat vs Facebook. Fast forward 3 years and now I make videos on the internet for a living *cue Kevin Garnett “anything is possible” gif*

No content creator would be complete without a newsletter, so here we are. Btw this newsletter is in the “experimental” phase. Still making tweaks to find a format “that works”. If you have any recommendations on how I can make improvements, don’t be a stranger. Please reply and give it to me straight. You can send me an email at AdmaniExplains@gmail.com.