The Rundown - Ethereum Rallies on ETF Optimism, Hims & Hers Launches Ozempic Copycat

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

Stock market update for May 21, 2024.

Public.com presents the rundown, your daily market update in five minutes. My name is Zadmani, and today is Tuesday, May 21st. In today's episode, we discussed a company behind the new weight loss drug that is 80% cheaper than OZempic and Manjaro. Competition is really starting to heat up in the space. And then Ethereum had a massive spike to start the week. We tell you why and what the SEC has to do with this. And then stick around to the end of the show to learn some fun facts about Nintendo. All right, let's go.

Well, stocks had a mixed day to start the week. The Dow dropped below 40,000. The S&P was up slightly, but the NASDAQ really stole the show, making record highs. In fact, it's the ninth record closed for the NASDAQ this year. So stocks keep chugging along. By the way, one of the worst performing stocks yesterday was J.P. Morgan Chase. Not because of any earnings or anything. The stock dropped more than 4% yesterday because their CEO, Jamie Diamond, said he expects to retire in less than five years.

Now, look, Jamie is an absolute legend. on Wall Street. He's been the CEO of J.P. Morgan since 2006, and he turned J.P. Morgan into the largest bank in the world. So him leaving has investors a bit nervous. We still haven't heard concrete plans and who will take over the bank once Jamie steps down. Why does it feel like no company has a good succession plan? We saw what happened with Disney the last couple of years, and now we still don't have any clarity on what's going to happen with J.P. Morgan. They've got to figure this out. It would make for a pretty good TV show, though. Let's run through some headlines. Starting with weight loss drugs.

OZempic has some new competition. Him and her is a telehealth company known for their generic brand hair loss and ED medication is rolling out their own weight loss injections. Now, Hymns says the treatment has the same active ingredient as GLP, which is found in blockbuster medications like OZempic and Wigovey. But it's being sold at a more affordable starting price of $199 a month. So compare that to the $1,300 price tag at WeGovie. If you don't have insurance, it's a significantly cheaper option.

Now, Hymns is using a tactic called Compounding, which essentially allows a company to copy an existing brand's drug with experiencing a shortage in supply. There's no secret, but there's a huge shortage in supply right now for these weight loss medications. Nova Nordus, which makes Wegovianosemic and Eli Lilly, which makes the weight loss drug Zepbound and diabetes medication Manjaro have dominated this market, but haven't been able to keep up with demand. Just to give you an idea of how many people are scrambling to get their hands on these drugs, Nova Nordis says at least 25,000 new U.S. patients, start taking WeGovie every week. That's four times more than what it was back in December of 2023. So people want these weight loss drugs and Hymns is able to offer a more affordable option. Not a big surprise here, but Hymn stock jumped more than 27% on Monday off the backs of this news,

and it's up another 2% in the pre-market today. Let's shift gears and talk about Nintendo. Nintendo is acquiring gaming company Shiver. Shiver was founded 11 years ago, so a pretty young company, and it's a porting specialist, meaning it adapts, games that were made for one platform and makes them compatible for another. Like, for example, Shiver has made ports for Nintendo already, porting Mortal Kombat One and Hogwarts Legacy for the Switch. Both those games weren't originally made for the Switch. By acquiring Shiver,

Nintendo is hoping to diversify and expand the number of games that they offer on their consoles beyond just their first party in-house games. I think it's an important strategy for Nintendo. They also recently did a 10-year deal with Microsoft to bring Call of Duty to the Switch. And right now, Nintendo could use the help because their next console keeps getting delayed. the new Switch 2 is now being pushed to 2025. And that's making some investors kind of nervous. The original Switch came out seven years ago, and it was a huge hit, but sales for the console peaked back in 2021.

Nobody wants to buy an old Switch console because they're worried that Nintendo won't push out new releases for its biggest games until the Switch 2 comes out. So this has been a big drag on Nintendo's sales recently. By the way, Nintendo is a Japanese company, but you can't invest in it on the public app. Go check out ticker symbol NT-D-O-Y on the public app. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Not a stock, but Ethereum is a big winner. The price of the cryptocurrency jumped more than 20% on Monday

because of some last-minute optimism that the SEC will approve an Ethereum spot ETF, similar to how they approved a Bitcoin spot ETF earlier this year. The SEC is making their decision this week, and leading up to it, I think most people thought that it would be rejected, but all of a sudden rumors started circulating that the SEC might end up approving it. And that was enough to get Ethereum to take off like a rocket. and jumped to over $3,600. Don't look now, but Ethereum is starting to creep back to its all-time highs of $4,800

that had set back in November of 2021. On the flip side, a stock not doing so great is Palo Alto Networks. Shares of the cybersecurity company are falling after reporting earnings and a disappointing guidance for their upcoming quarter. In the first quarter, revenues for Palo Alto rose by 15% in $1.98 billion, making that the slowest growth since the start of 2020. Their net income came in at $278 million or about $0.79 per. share, which did beat estimates, but investors were concerned about the guidance the company issued

for the business moving forward. Palo Alto expects the revenues in their current quarter will be around 2.15 and 2.17 billion. Analysts had expected a higher number, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. And as a result, Palo Alto's stock is down more than 8% in the pre-market. This is back-to-back disappointing earnings for Palo Alto. If you guys remember back in February when they reported their last earnings, the earnings were so bad that the stock suffered the worst one-day drop in their history. It was down more than 27%. So I guess on the bright side, the 8% drop today isn't as bad as the 27% drop back in February. All right, let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Today's fun fact is about Nintendo. We talked about them earlier in the show. Today,

we know Nintendo as a gaming company. Well, they were originally founded back in 1889 as a playing card manufacturer, like normal playing cards. And they didn't start making games until 74 years later in 1963. Talk about a company pivot. Now, Nintendo has been at the heart of gaming innovation and console since then. They've sold more than 5.5 billion video games and 800 million hardware units globally. I mean, some parents today still refer to any video game as a Nintendo. So they have a very well-known brand all over the world. And over the past 30 years, Nintendo has been an absolute hit machine by creating franchises like Mario, Pokemon, Donkey Kong, the Legend of Zelda, just to name a few. I mean, Mario is the best-selling video game franchise of all time,

with over 830 million copies sold across the titles, including Super Mario Kart, which is my personal favorite, and Mario Party. So Nintendo, absolute juggernaut in the video game space. I have a lot of great memories playing my Game Boy Advance back in the day. And I just can't wait for my kids to get a little bit older so I can dominate them in Mario Kart. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did, please consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple and Spotify.

And don't forget to vote in today's Spotify poll. We put up a poll on Spotify every day. and honestly, the results of the polls are very interesting. Like yesterday, more than 50% of people have voted in the polls say they're considering adding gold to their portfolio. That's a bit higher than I thought. Thank you guys so much for listening. Shout out to Connor and Mike for all the hard work behind the scenes.

We'll see you guys back here tomorrow. This is the rundown, your real-time resource for news events and trends in the markets. All views presented in this show reflect the opinions of the guests. You should not take any mention of a publicly traded security as recommendation to buy, sell, or hold that security. Run-down guests are not financial advisors and are not affiliated with public holdings or its subsidiaries. You should make your own financial and investment decisions or consult, respective professionals. Learn more at public.com disclosures. In partnership with Zayidamani, brokerage services for U.S. listed, registered securities are offered by Open to the Public Investing Incorporated, member FINRA and SIPC.