The Rundown - Netflix Posts Earnings Beat & Raises Outlook, Congress Passes Historic Crypto Bill

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

Stock market update for July 18, 2025. This video is for informational purposes only and reflects the views of the host and guest, not Public Holdings or its subsidiaries. Mentions of assets are not recommendations. Investing involves risk, including loss. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For full disclosures, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Public.com/disclosures⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Friday, July 18th. In today's episode, we'll tell you why the markets keep rallying and why this summer rally might have some more fuel left in the tank. We'll also discuss Netflix's big earnings and why Crypto Week was a big hit in Washington, D.C. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out how much money

the Coldplay Tour has made so far. and some tips on what not to do when attending a pole play concert with your co-worker. If you're a CEO, you might want to listen to this one. We've got a great show for you today. Let's go. Markets picked up Steam on Thursday with both the S&P and NASDAQ closing at record highs. The S&P 500 rose 0.5% for its ninth record close of the year, and the NASDAQ climbed 0.7% for its 10th.

The rally yesterday was fueled by, the surprise pop in retail sales for the month of June. Data showed that retail sales jumped 0.6% in June, which was way above the 0.1% that economists were expecting. And it also reversed two straight months of decline, which had some investors wondering if consumers were finally pulling back. But according to the latest data, that doesn't seem to be the case. And this is very encouraging for Wall Street because the fact that people are increasing their spending is a good sign for the economy. Because consumers tend to tighten their belt when they're worried about the economy, or their job. But right now, the belts are loose and the wallets are open and people are spending

money. So that was a nice boost to the markets yesterday. Now, of course, there's still uncertainty around tariffs and trade policy and we're coming up to the August 1st deadline where the tariff pause is going to be expiring. But for now, stock market summer surge is alive and well. Since Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer, the S&P 500 is up 8% and the NASDAQ is up 11%. And right now, we're in the middle of earnings season. So if companies continue to put up big numbers and outperform expectations, this rally might have some more fuel left in the tank. So summer of 2025 is shaping up to be a memorable one for the markets.

Let's run through some headlines, starting with Netflix. Netflix released their quarterly earnings last night and once again showed everyone why they are the king of streaming. The company crushed their Q2 earnings, revenues grew by 16% year. over year. Net income was up 45% to $3.1 billion, and the company raised their full year forecast across the board. The streaming giant now expects up to $45.2 billion in revenue for the year and more than $10 billion in profit, which would be a new record for them. Netflix attributes this strong quarter to solid subscriber growth, rising ad revenue, and surprisingly a weak

dollar. The U.S. dollar just had its worst first half in 50 years, and since two-thirds of Netflix, Netflix's members are outside of the U.S., those international earnings are now worth more in dollar terms. As far as Netflix's content goes, they are firing on all cylinders right now. The third season of Squid Games was a massive hit. Adolescence got critical love. And even their live events like WWE Raw are keeping subscribers locked in. And just looking ahead a bit, they have a stacked content lineup for the second half of the year.

They're finally releasing the finale of Stranger Things. Season two of Wednesday is also coming out. and Happy Gilmore 2 is dropping, which I really hope they don't mess that up. Now, a couple other notable numbers to know about Netflix. Their growth in North America is back to being solid. It was up 15% in Q2, and their operating margin reached a record high of 34%.

An operating margin is a pretty key metric because it signals how efficiently Netflix is managing their business and how well content investment is converting into profits. The fact that that number is hitting record highs is a good sign. But not everything is perfect at Netflix right now. On the earnings call, analysts grilled Netflix about competition from YouTube. Netflix's shares of US streaming times stayed flat at 8.3% compared to last year, while YouTube's climbed to 12.8%, which is more than double what it was last year.

So at this point, Netflix isn't competing with other streamers anymore like HBO or Peacock. Their biggest competition is YouTube, and right now YouTube seems to be growing faster. And that might be one reason why Netflix stock is down around 2% this morning in reaction to the earnings. You know, I kind of wonder if Netflix will ever have completely free content like YouTube does. Or they might start partnering with more YouTube creators. Hey, Netflix, if you guys need someone to do a daily finance show, hey, drop us a DM. Let's shift gears and talk about crypto. You know, we started this week talking about how it was crypto week at Capitol Hill,

and it seems to have lived up to the hype. This week, Congress passed the Genius Act, which is the first standalone federal legislation to regulate crypto. It's a historic moment for the industry, and the bill had solid bipartisan support, passing the House with a 308 to 122 vote. The Genius Act focuses on regulating stable coins and sets up a formal framework for their use. This bill is now headed to President Trump's desk, and considering he's been one of the biggest cheerleaders of this bill, it's pretty much guaranteed that he's going to sign it into law.

But the Genius Act was just the beginning for this big week. The House also passed the Clarity Act, which would move some crypto oversight away from the SEC and transfer that power into the hands of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That bill would give more clarity around crypto regulation and it's now headed to the Senate. And the big bombshell came yesterday from the Financial Times, which reported that President Trump is considering signing an executive order that would allow 401Ks to invest in crypto. That would open up the $9 trillion retirement account. market to have access to Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and more.

Personally, I'm not really sure how I feel about that, but could be happening soon. So all this bullish news sparked a rally in the crypto markets this week, with the overall crypto market cap now exceeding $4 trillion. Some of the big winners this week was Ethereum, which was up 20%, and XRP, which was up 30%. So yeah, don't be surprised if you get an email from your work 401k provider talking about all the crypto options that you have to invest in soon. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. One crypto stock benefiting from the bullish legislation sweeping through Washington, D.C. this week might be off your radar. It's Bitmine immersion technologies. And the stock is up

9% this morning at the time of this recording. This company used to be your run-of-the-mill Bitcoin mining company, but recently pulled off a full pivot and rebranded itself as an Ethereum Treasury company. The company just buys and holds Ethereum. They're doing the micro strategy model, but instead of Bitcoin, they're doing it with Ethereum. And they have some big time investors, too, including Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, which owns a 9% stake in the company. And this pivot seems to be paying off big time. The stock was trading around $4 a share just a few weeks ago, but then it spiked to $135 a share on July 3rd. The stock has come back down to around the $40 range since, but that's still a 10x move over the last month.

which is pretty wild. The stock trades under ticker symbol BMNR, and you can find it on the public app. Now, on the flip side, shares of Surrepta therapeutics are plunging this morning down 25% after a patient died during a phase one gene therapy trial. The company confirmed that it was due

to acute liver toxicity. Now, sadly, this is the third death tied to Surrepta's gene therapy efforts, and investors are rattled. shares of the company are now down more than 80% year to date. You know, it's a tough situation, because gene therapy is one of the most promising,

but also one of the riskiest frontiers in biotech. And Sarepta just got a brutal reminder of that. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Coldplay's Music of the Spheres tour is the second highest grossing tour of all time, having generated over $1.2 billion since the tour started back in 2022. The only tour that's made more money than Coldplay's

is Taylor Swift's Erez tour, which grossed over $2 billion across 149 shows. Now, here's a bonus fun fact. Taylor Swift and Coldplay are the only two tours that have generated over a billion dollars. Now, I'm sure a lot of people on the internet learned yesterday that Coldplay's tour is still going on. They've done over 190 shows so far,

but the tour is wrapping up in September. So if you haven't seen Coldplay yet, you might want to grab your tickets soon. And look, if you do end up going and decide to take your coworker with you, Maybe don't hug them so passionately because you might end up on the kiss cam and the entire internet will start looking through your LinkedIn profile. Just saying. Oh, I can't believe that happened.

Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. That's the rundown for this week. I got to say, pretty good start to earning season so far and the markets continue to rally. Next week should be a good one because we're getting earnings from Tesla, Google, Chipotle, and more. So we'll have a lot to talk about over the next couple weeks. And don't forget, we have a Fed meeting at the end of the month as well to make sure you guys are locked into the podcast over the next few weeks as we get through the thick of earning season. By the way, if you guys are enjoying our show so far and you have like eight extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you are listening on Spotify, don't forget the vote in today's Spotify poll.

Leave us a comment on Spotify. All that engagement really does help us out and it helps other people find the show. Thank you guys so much for. listening shout out to Mike and Connor for all the help behind the scenes and we'll see you guys back here this weekend for the deep dive.