The Rundown - Musk Mulls $5,000 'DOGE Dividend' for Americans, Nikola Motors Files for Bankruptcy

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Stock market update for February 19, 2025.

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in five minutes. My name is Zaid Admani, and today is Wednesday, February 19th. In today's episode, we talk about Nike's newest partnership that they hope will help turn around the company. We also tell you about another EV company that is filing for bankruptcy. This company had a lot of hype at one point. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out Elon Musk's plans to send every American taxpayer a $5,000. check. All right. Let's go. We are back to all-time highs, baby. The S&P 500 was up 0.2% on Tuesday,

thanks to a late-day surge, which was enough to push the index to a record close. The NASDAQ and Dow were mostly flat for the day, but are within 1% of all-time highs as well. And it's not just U.S. stocks. European stocks are also hitting all-time highs. The Eurostock 600 index hit a record high this week. So investors all over the world are feeling great right now. You know, all these talks of tariffs and trade wars are being totally ignored by the markets. So pretty great start to the week. It was kind of bittersweet though because meta's win streak did officially come to an end on Tuesday. The stock had gone up for 20 straight days in a row, but their stock dropped more than 2% on Tuesday putting an end to the win streak. Kind of a bummer, but hey, the stock is up more than 20% for the

year. So it's hard to complain. Now, I've talked a lot about Meadow over the last couple weeks. James can't be said about Bitcoin. And that's because there hasn't been much to talk about. The price of Bitcoin has been trading sideways for most of this month. You know, it's been hovering around the $95,000 to $98,000 range. There hasn't been any major news. We're still waiting on some sort of official Bitcoin Reserve announcement from the Trump administration. You know, it's funny.

I feel like actual physical gold has stolen Bitcoin's thunder a bit this year. Gold continues to make all-time highs that's currently trading at just under $3,000 per ounce. The price of gold has gotten up more than 10% this year. compared that to Bitcoin, which has gone up around 2%. Maybe gold is the new gold. Let's run through some headlines. Starting with Nike. Nike is teaming up with Kim Kardashian on a new fitness brand called Nike Skims.

And this is a pretty big deal for Nike. It's a first-of-a-kind deal for the company. They've never launched a new brand in collaboration with an existing outside company. And what's shocking is that it's not even an athlete they're doing this. with. But look, this move kind of makes sense for Nike right now. They are desperate to become cool again. And they see Kim K as a way to do that specifically with women. Kim Kardashian co-founded skims back in 2019, the shapewear brand that sells underwear and loungeware. And the company has now grown to a $4 billion valuation as of last summer. And they've rapidly

integrated themselves with the sports community. They have partnerships with the NBA, WNBA, and USA basketball. Now, Nike skims will focus on women's apparel. with plans to add footwear and accessories in the future. And Nike is hoping that Nike skims becomes the Air Jordan for women. Nike first became cool back in the 80s with their partnership with Michael Jordan and the launch of their iconic Air Jordan brand. So we'll have to see if Nike Skims ends up being that. I mean, investors were hyped on this news.

Nike stock was up more than 5% yesterday in reaction to this news. Now, unlike Kim Kardashian, who's been on a two-decade run at this point, the same can't be sad about Nikola Motors. The EV company has officially filed for bankruptcy. I'm low-key surprise it took him this long. Nikola Motors was founded back in 2015, and they became kind of a household name in 2020 after they went public via a SPAC.

I mean, at one point, the company was worth more than $30 billion, giving them a higher valuation than Ford at the time. The company specialized in making electric semi-trucks, and the hype was massive. They were signing deals with GM, their CEO, Trevor Milton, was this fast-talking media-obsessed dude. but the business itself never really took off.

Things started blowing up in late 2020 after the short seller Hindenberg research published a report claiming that Nikola lied to investors about all the progress that they've been making on their trucks. They specifically point to this promotional video that Nikola Motors put out, showing their electric semi-truck driving on a road when in fact they were just rolling this truck down a hill.

So yeah, things got pretty bad over at Nikola Motors. In fact, their CEO Trevor Milton had to resign. He ended up getting convicted for fraud and spent three years in jail. So the company was never really able to recover from all that drama. Their stock dropped more than 99% from all-time highs that they set back in the summer of 2020. The company was starting to deliver some trucks, but they just weren't making enough progress or enough money, and that's why they had to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

And Nikola Motors says they're trying to find a buyer, someone to take them over, so we'll see if anyone steps up. But this also continues a trend of a hot EV company filing for bankruptcy. Back in 2023, Lortstown Motors filed for bankruptcy. Then last year we had Fisker filed for bankruptcy. Now we got Nikola Motors. Still can't believe this company was worth more than Ford at one point. I think people forget the crazy mania that we had back in 2020 and 2021. It was wild.

Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of the renewable energy company's solar edge are up nearly 30% this morning after beating revenue estimates and guidance. The company reported a wider than expected loss, but investors are keeping an eye on the that Solar Edge returned to a positive free cash flow generation, which the company's CEO called the first step in its turnaround strategy. Considering the stock trades at around $22 a share after P can get nearly $270 a share in 2021, it looks like they have many more steps to take before truly turning things around. But hey, it's a good start. Now, the same can't be said for Bumble. Their shares are tumbling after the company delivered a weak guidance for Q1 revenue.

It's a sign that the dating app's turnaround plan isn't doing enough to court paying users. The midpoint of the forecast range signals an 8.5% drop in sales, and the Bumble app payers are expected to fall by about 100 to 120,000 as the company works to implement new product features. I mean, Bumble is facing a number of challenges right now, including online dating fatigue from people that are single who are growing tired of just endlessly swiping and the talking stage that leads to nowhere. And also the dating app space is very competitive. Hinge and Raya are making moves in this space. And I think that's why investors are nervous about Bumble's future. The stock is down more than 25% this morning. And the company has lost more than half its value from a year ago.

Let's wrap the show with the fun fact. Elon Musk is considering a doge dividend that would put $5,000 in your pocket. Musk says that he will consult with President Trump on a radical proposal that would send every American taxpayer a $5,000 refund check. Now, in order to pay for this Doge dividend, Elon wants to use a portion of the total savings uncovered by the Department of Government Efficiency, you know, Doge. Now, in order to dish out that much money to the 78 million households that are paying taxes, Doge will need to hit its goals of saving $2 trillion.

Doge claims it already has saved around $55 billion in federal spending. That has already been contested by news outlets like Bloomberg, which says the actual number is under $9 billion. So we'll see how it all shakes out. I mean, the bromance between Musk and Trump has been. and controversial to say the least. And sending out checks based on Doge savings is likely to draw criticism,

not just from Democrats, but also Republicans who have said these savings should go towards reducing the national debt. Now, Elon is known to making big promises, but not necessarily sticking to a schedule. So who knows if this actually ends up happening? But the last time the government wrote checks to the public, it kicked off this whole wave of meme stocks and NFT craze.

You guys remember all the stimmy memes that we had back in 2021? So if we start getting checks in the mail again from the government, I mean, you think that meme coins are crazy now. Just buckle up because it could get even crazier. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's show. If you did and you have like 12 extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify.

Leave us a comment on Spotify, vote in today's Spotify poll. All that engagement really does help us out and it helps other people find the show. I appreciate everyone that took the time to comment on yesterday's show. For those of you asking, yes, I did have slightly lower energy on yesterday's show than usual. That was recording in the hallway of the resort. Right next is some sort of conference that was happening,

and I just didn't want to be super loud. So you guys were on point with your comments. Thank you guys again for all the support. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the help behind the scenes, and 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 the show reflect the opinions of the guests.

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