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Your Daily Dose of Market & Career Clarity

📬 Delivered to 150,000+ ambitious readers

🎯 In this issue:

• Banana Bits: Finance headlines that actually matter

• Market Recap: Bull market stalls in light of more inflation data 

• Technical Trip: Interview Q&A from Morgan Stanley

• What’s Ripe / Rotten: The tastiest and most disgusting stocks 

• Deal Dispatch: M&A, IPOs, and other transactions 

• The Daily Poll: See how you stack up

Market Snapshot

📉 Banana Bits

• Warren Buffett purchased $1.5 billion worth of struggling UnitedHealth stock.

• PPI data came in a tad hot at 0.9% but markets quickly shrugged it off.

• Japan’s GDP expanded 1.2% year-over-year, beating forecasts despite tariffs.

• Activist investor Starboard doubled down on its Salesforce investment.

• Intel surged after reports that the U.S. will potentially take a stake in the company.

• Bitcoin hit a record high before briefly pulling back later in the day.

• Mortgage rates just hit their lowest level since last year at 6.58%.

Market Recap

Record Run Stalls Out

Markets were meh today with the S&P and NASDAQ both essentially closing flat (S&P +0.03%, NASDAQ -0.01%). To be fair, equities have been on a tear the past week, hitting a new high after better-than-expected CPI data earlier in the week. 

So, this is more of a cooling-down, profit-taking opportunity, which is normal after quick run-ups in the market. Investors actually shook off the sour PPI report released in the morning, which showed prices rising 0.9% versus the 0.2% forecast. 

If you were to tell me that inflation came in a whole 0.7% higher than expectations and markets were flat to end the day, I’d say that is a clear signal that investors are buying the hell out of every dip. 

In other news, markets are still pricing in a 93% probability of a September rate cut despite the hot inflation number. While we’re on the topic of economic news, Japan’s GDP grew 1.2% year-over-year, far more than expected despite tariffs. 

Outside of that, not much happened yesterday. Intel shares rose again after the Trump administration teased a potential U.S. investment in the chipmaker and Warren Buffett took a $1.5 billion position in UnitedHealth Insurance. Mortgage rates are dropping and just hit a 1-year low at 6.57%, while Bitcoin hit a record high before pulling back. 

What's Ripe

Intel (INTC) 7.4%  

• Intel is back on the list for the second time this week after President Trump announced that the U.S. might invest in the chipmaker.

• Trump and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan have come full circle, from Trump publicly bashing to then praising Tan all in the span of a week.

Eli Lilly (LLY) 3.6%  

• Eli Lilly’s stock got a boost after the company announced it was hiking the price of its obesity shot, Mounjaro, by 170%.

• The move comes as the Trump administration is ramping up public pressure on Big Pharma.

What's Rotten

Tapestry (TPR) 15.7% 

• Tapestry reported record Q4 revenue of $1.7 billion, an 8% year‑over‑year increase, with its Coach brand leading growth at 14%.

• Despite this, the stock fell as the company expects a $160 million hit from tariffs and lowered the full-year guide.

Deere & Co (DE) 6.8%  

• Deere posted Q3 revenue of approximately $12.0 billion, down 9% year-over-year, and net income dropped sharply to $1.2 billion (–26% year‑over‑year).

• The drop was largely due to declining demand, tariff pressures, and lower commodity prices, and to make matters worse, the company is forecasting a $600 million full-year hit from tariffs.

🧠 Technical Trip

Interview Q&A from Morgan Stanley

👉 Want 1-on-1 recruiting help from Morgan Stanley bankers & 2,000+ top mentors? Apply to WSO Academy

🦈 Deal Dispatch

M&A, IPOs, And Other Notable Transactions

• Warren Buffett purchased $1.6 billion worth of the struggling company, UnitedHealth, and sold T-Mobile.

• Australian fuel retailer Ampol rose after reports came out that it agreed to purchase EG Group’s local gas stations for A$1.1 billion.

• Nvidia-backed company, Lambda, is raising another round of funding that could value it up to $5 billion.

• Centerbridge took out $1.4 billion in debt from Goldman, Blackstone, Ares, and others to fund its acquisition of Meridianlink.

• Exchange operator MIAX jumped 34% on day 1 after completing a $345 million IPO.

• Klarna is selling up to $26 billion in “BNPL” loans to student loan operator Nelnet.

• Liberty Mutual and RXR are reportedly targeting $1 billion of Property Credit Deals.

📊The Daily Poll

Previous Poll:

U.S.–China 90-day trade extension is a

Market win: 23.9% // Temporary band-aid: 49.4% // Doesn’t matter: 15.5% // Chaos incoming: 11.2%

Student Success Corner

👉 Are you next? Find out with WSO Academy

Banana Brain Teaser

Previous

A tank contains 10,000 gallons of a solution that is 5% sodium chloride by volume. If 2,5000 gallons of water evaporate from the tank, the remaining solution will be approximately what percent sodium chloride?

Answer: 6.67%

Today

A positive number x is multiplied by 2, and this product is then divided by 3. If the positive square root of the result of these two operations equals x, what is the value of x?

How Would You Rate Today's Peel?

Happy Investing,
Chris, Vyom, Ankit, Colin, & Patrick

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