Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Wall Street Roundup: Robinhood's Tokenized Stocks, Paramount’s Power Moves, and a Reality Check on Inflation

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

It’s time for Nicole's weekly roundup of the biggest headlines on Wall Street and how they will affect your wallet. Nicole breaks down Robinhood’s buzzy new launch of tokenized stocks in Europe—what that actually means, why it might matter for the future of investing, and what private companies like OpenAI and SpaceX have to do with it. Then, she dives into the Paramount-Skydance merger saga, which has it all: nepo babies, political drama, and regulatory power plays. Finally, we cut through the headlines about rising inflation and explain what really matters for your wallet. All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank. Cryptocurrency trading services are offered by Bakkt Crypto Solutions, LLC (NMLS ID 1890144), which is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the NYSDFS. Cryptocurrency is highly speculative, involves a high degree of risk, and has the potential for loss of the entire amount of an investment. Cryptocurrency holdings are not protected by the FDIC or SIPC.  *APY as of 6/30/25, offered by Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Rate subject to change. See terms of IRA Match Program here: public.com/disclosures/ira-match.

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All right, it is time for a roundup of the biggest stories on Wall Street and how they're going to affect you and your wallet. First up, Robinhood is launching tokenized stocks in Europe. So what does that actually mean? Well, there are a whole lot of words in investing that are a whole lot of fugazi. With my team, I refer to these terms as fairy dust. Entrepreneurs, for example, will just sprinkle some fairy dust into their pitch decks to investors to sound good. And for a while, the big buzzwords were metaverse and NFTs and AI. And tokenized stocks kind of sound like fairy dust. But it isn't. Once you scrape off the

crypto gloss, this is a development with big potential, especially if it performs as promised. So these tokens aren't shares of a company in the traditional sense. They're derivatives. And that just refers to a class of investments that get their value from another asset. They're derived from another asset. If you're familiar with options or futures, these are all derivatives. But if this is new to you, all you need to know is that derivatives are like bets or side deals based on how the original thing, what we call the underlying asset, performs. The Robinhood tokenized assets are a little bit weird, so stick with me. I'll describe what these assets are first, and then I'll unpack the meaning.

So if you buy a tokenized stock on Robinhood, say a tokenized share of Apple, you're not going to get a share of Apple, you're going to get this token, which is a thing that mirrors the value of Apple and lives on the blockchain. I know, very targeting. So now for the unpacking. Think about it this way. Robinhood is essentially saying to investors, on our platform, you can either buy a share of Apple or a tokenized share of Apple. If you buy a share of Apple, you own a share of Apple. Period. The end. If you buy a tokenized share of Apple, you're buying something that I created that I promise will track the price of Apple. So if you buy a tokenized share of Apple at say $200 a share and the price of Apple goes

up 100%, your tokenized share will also go up 100% and you can sell your tokenized share for a profit just like you would a real-life traditional share. And on the blockchain of it all, in order to understand tokenized shares, you don't need to be an expert in the blockchain. For our purposes here, you can think of the blockchain as digital storage. So for this explanation,

when you hear blockchain, just think storage. So you might be thinking, why the heck would I do that instead of just buying a real share? Well, there are three main reasons, and I'll start with the least juicy and then get juicier. Number one, when you buy a traditional share of Apple, you don't receive the share itself. Shocker, I know. Your brokerage actually holds the share under what's known as street name registration. That means you're the beneficial owner, but they are the legal owner in the records. You don't technically

have custody of the asset. With tokenized shares, that changes. You do have custody. The token is yours. That might not matter much today, but if tokenization takes off, this could redefine what ownership really means in a brokerage account. So if you're a nerd like me, this is really, really interesting. But if you are not interested in financial product innovation at all, I hear you, but this next part will still definitely apply to you. Number two, trading hours. The stock market operates from 9.30 in the morning to 4 o'clock in the afternoon Eastern time, meaning all buying and selling of stocks needs to happen within those hours. You can place an order, let's say for Disney, at 3 o'clock in the morning on a Sunday, but it's not going to execute

until pre-market trading begins at 4 a.m. Eastern time on Monday. But here's the thing. Between placing the order and the execution of the order, a whole lot can happen. A movie they release could be a smash hit or a theme park could have a malfunction with one of their rides and a bunch of people could die. Because a lot can happen, the stock price could shift dramatically by the time your order gets placed. Tokenized shares remove that time gap. Because the blockchain does not close, remember blockchain equals digital storage, trades can happen 24 hours a day,

Monday through Friday, and the long-term goal is 24-7 trading. That's not even the boldest part of this rollout. Which brings me to number three. Robinhood has started offering tokens tied to the valuation of private companies, specifically OpenAI and SpaceX. Here's the problem they're trying to solve. You can't buy shares of OpenAI or SpaceX because they are private companies. You just't buy shares of OpenAI or SpaceX because they are private companies. You just heard me talk about this with Ed Elson the other day, and here's a snippet from that conversation.

I would love to invest in OpenAI. That is the number one AI company. I want a piece of the pie. I believe in AI. I think it is providing tremendous value. I use ChatGPT many times a day. It's a huge part of my life. I want to own a piece of that.

But it hasn't gone public. It has an IPO. I want to own a little bit of SpaceX. SpaceX, I think, is going to be transformative to our economy. I'm not a huge fan of Elon Musk personally, but I can set that aside and recognize that Starlink is a huge development in technology.

I want to own that, but I can't because they haven't gone public. And what is basically happening is that because there is so much money in the startup world, in venture world, these companies don't need to go to the public for money anymore. They don't need the money from you and I Because they can get it from Sequoia. They can get it from Andreessen and they can keep on raising these venture rounds to infinity So my view I'm not going to build generational wealth on circle, which is a shell company for US treasuries I might build it with open AI I might build it with bite dance

But I can't do it right now because they're not public. So as much as we'd want to invest in these companies, their shares are closely held by founders, employees, and major investors. These companies don't have to disclose financials like public companies, and they can include strict clauses that prevent secondary trading without their approval. Meaning, if you're an OpenAI employee that gets stock in the company, there are a lot of rules around selling your shares to other private buyers. That's what secondary means here. This setup can be really frustrating for employees. Imagine being a SpaceX employee who joined

early and accumulated hundreds of shares. On paper, you are wealthy. But if you have an emergency, God forbid, and you need cash, you're basically sitting on a bunch of digital monopoly money unable to liquidate it. Robinhood, which holds equity in both OpenAI and SpaceX, is now offering tokens tied to those valuations. They're even giving away $5 worth of these tokens to users who open new accounts. Robinhood has equity in both of these companies companies and it's committed at least a million bucks worth of OpenAI and 500 grand in SpaceX to back these tokens. But I cannot stress this enough. These are

not actual shares. Again, we are just talking tokens here. OpenAI does not love that Robinhood is doing this and has made it very, very clear. These tokens do not grant ownership. Not even employees can sell their shares without company approval. Still, this workaround lets European investors speculate on the value of companies like OpenAI and SpaceX, something that's traditionally been off limits. Why did Robinhood though roll this out only in Europe

and not in the United States? Well, because the regulatory environment in the United States is far more restrictive. and while today's SEC has taken a harder line on crypto, the EU remains more flexible, at least for now. So will this be US-bound? Maybe. Today's SEC has a very different stance on crypto and blockchain than the SEC of a year ago. And there is a crypto czar in the White House now. But at the same time, Sam Altman has Donald Trump's ear, as does Elon Musk, sometimes. So they could shut down the idea of trading tokens for private companies.

But this is definitely not going to be the last time you're going to hear about this story in a weekly roundup. So stay tuned. Alright, next story. WTF is going on with Paramount. Paramount, the media conglomerate behind companies like CBS and Nickelodeon, is a publicly traded company with two classes of shares, one with voting rights and one without. The majority of voting power is controlled by National Amusements, which is a holding company that's in essence one person, Sherry Redstone. Sherry Redstone is the daughter of Sumner Redstone, the late media mogul.

Paramount has been grappling with debt. Skydance Media, the Hollywood studio behind franchises like Top Gun, stepped in with an $8 billion offer that included taking on much of that debt. In June of 2024, Redstone initially approved the deal. Then she backed out, reportedly unhappy with revised terms that left her with less cash and more legal risk. The rest of the board and many shareholders were still interested, but they didn't have the voting rights. She did. And while other offers were on the table, including bids from Sony and the P.E. firm Apollo Global Management, Redstone eventually circled back to Skydance. Almost

exactly a year ago, in early July of 2024, she approved a reworked deal with Skydance. That deal values the merged entity Paramount Skydance Corporation at roughly $28 billion. David Ellison, the current Skydance CEO, will become the CEO and Chairman. And just to take a step back here, Sherry Redstone's dad was worth an estimated $2.6 billion when he passed away. The guy behind Skydance Media, David Ellison, is the son of Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle. Larry is worth an estimated $270 billion. So a side plot to this juicy story is an epic battle of the business NEPO babies. Which must be really nice.

Anyway, a deal this big can't go forward without the sign-off of a few regulatory watchdogs. The SEC and the European Commission gave their approval earlier this year, but the FCC has been dragging its feet. As of July of 2025, the merger is still under review. Now it's in its second 90-day extension window. And against this backdrop, enter Paramount versus the President of the United States. Last year, you might remember, President Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against Paramount, claiming that one of their properties, 60 Minutes, on CBS deceptively edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris to make her sound more articulate, specifically with comments she made about Israel.

Media and legal experts expected the lawsuit to get tossed out, but instead, Paramount decided to settle for $16 million and agreed to release full transcripts of future presidential candidate interviews to prevent allegations like this in the future. Some people, like Paramount's very own Stephen Colbert, are calling this settlement a bribe, implying that Paramount is settling only because they're concerned that if they don't, the FCC will block the merger. Now this is just a theory, but when Paramount settled, they did not admit any wrongdoing or offer an apology. So if they don't think they're in the wrong,

why are they settling? Last story on deck, a vibe check on the economy. You probably saw the big headline, bold and underlined. Inflation rose this month, and now everyone on Wall Street is all hot and bothered. Okay, let's cut through the BS here. Yes, inflation rose. But how much did it rise?

Well, it rose from 2.4% to 2.7%. That is 0.3%. On Wall Street, I will say every little change matters, no matter how small it sounds. So 0.3% or 30 basis points could mean a lot for the economy. But in this context, we're talking about 2.7% inflation right now. The Fed's target is between 2% and 3%. So you guys, this is pretty good. Let's not be hot and bothered about this. I know it's disappointing because in May, inflation only increased 0.1%, so we had a bigger increase this month. But it sure as hell is better than deflation. That's a fear

I actually chatted about with investor Tim Seymour, who I interviewed for the pod this week. You didn't hear this part in the episode, but here it is. I think a little heat in the inflation here is to me a little better than I don't want to see deflation. I can tell you that. And I know the other side of inflation is seemingly deflation. Explain that. Deflation to me from a market's term is one of the worst things you can have. The worst thing you can have is stagflation where the economy is stagnant yet prices are going higher Deflation means prices are going lower and and deflation from a market's perspective to me is a market that is Not growing as some structural issues that are driving prices lower and that's not good for companies

No, but so explains so the prices are going lower, but people are not feeling like they're cheaper or they have more money in their pocket. No, it's just no more because there's also disinflation, right? There's so many inflations. Right. And great point. Disinflation is relative because it's disinflation is less inflation than there was. So it means that there's still inflation, but it's less inflationary.

It's disinflationary. Whereas deflation means it's actually going lower. And deflation is not a great thing unless, like deflation for oil prices is pretty good for the consumer. Deflation in housing prices is pretty good for the consumer except for most people own a home. And I don't wanna see that go lower. I just think that the, you asked about today's slightly hot inflation numbers, should

we be getting worked up and in a lather over that? I don't think so. I think the general trend on inflation is okay. I do think we are watching very closely the inflationary impact of tariffs. And there's no question what was at least a Fed focused on and getting closer to their mandate. And we've talked a bit about the Fed here. The Fed, remember, has two things they think about every day. One is the job market and full employment, because that seemingly supports a stronger economy, but their mandate is to support inflation. And the other one is to keep inflation below a target, which in their case is 2% on PCE, which is a different measure of inflation. And we don't have enough time to get into all that, but I would just say the Fed's job is to watch inflation and

to watch the job market. Today's number, I don't think changes the Fed's job at all. I think today's number means that people that may have been thinking that the Fed was a little more dovish after Jerome Powell's last Fed meeting and his Q&A afterwards, but I don't think this really changes what the Fed does. I do think that tariffs and the concern around the inflationary impact of tariffs is something that the Fed has to watch. And if anything, we'll wait even a step too long to make sure they know what's going on with inflation. Net-net, let's not lose the forest for the trees here. Inflation is lower now than it

was last year. J-Pow is doing great. And honestly, that's that. One thing that could make inflation uptick more seriously is Trump's tariffs. And yes, they are back. This month, July 2025, the Trump administration announced a fresh wave of tariffs impacting 14 countries. Myanmar and Laos were hit with some of the steepest 44 and 48 percent respectively. Also on the list, long-standing US trade partners South Korea and Japan. The administration has floated an additional 10 percent tariff on countries it deems to be anti-American, including India, Brazil, China, and Russia.

The market response was swift and unsurprising. The S&P 500 dropped nearly a full percentage point. We've seen this pattern before. Tariffs trigger a sell-off, followed by a short recovery. This time, the market had just finished crawling back from the last big tariff scare, so a little pullback was all but inevitable. And while it's not comforting, it is predictable. Markets go up and markets go down. That's why long-term investing, time in the market beats trying to time the market. Always has, always will.

For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. Just because you can trade 24-7 doesn't mean you should. If you're buying or selling, you have two main options. A market order or a limit order. A market order gets you the best available price at the moment. A limit order, on the other hand, lets you specify the price you are willing to accept. Limit orders help protect you, especially in volatile markets, because they ensure you only buy or sell at a price that makes sense for you. And in a world where the

markets may soon never sleep, a little control can go a long way. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lapin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some Money Rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered

on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at Money News and TikTok at Money News Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.