The Rundown - Opendoor Enters Meme Stock Territory, JPMorgan Explores Crypto As Collateral

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

Stock market update for July 22, 2025.Listen to the 7-Eleven deep dive hereThis 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 Zaid Admani and today is Tuesday, July 22nd. In today's episode, we'll tell you about the latest drama between the White House and Fed Chair Jerome Powell. We'll also tell you about Netflix's use of AI to produce content and the latest meme stock dominating Wall Street bets. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out the big. biggest difference between 7-Elevens in Japan versus the U.S. We got a great show for you today.

Let's go. Markets got off to a decent start this week with both the S&P 500 and NASDAQ closing at record highs on Monday with the S&P 500 jumping 0.1%. The NASDAQ was up 0.4% as tech stocks continue to power this rally. It's been a steady climb for the markets lately. That's despite some potential speed bumps ahead. The Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik said that the August 1st deadline for the reciprocal tariff pause is firm. So that means that if last minute trade deals don't get signed, we're looking at major tariff hikes next month. But Wall Street doesn't seem to care about that at this point.

I think unless these tariffs start hitting inflation again or corporate profits, the markets are just going to ignore all the tariff drama. It's kind of like ignoring the check engine light on your car. You just keep driving until the car breaks down. Sometimes it never breaks down. My wife had her check engine. light on for like a year before something bad happened. Now the other drama to keep an eye on is the White House versus the Federal Reserve. President Trump has not so subtly been pushing Jerome Powell to cut interest rates. He even floated the idea of firing him. Now the president

has walked that back, but now Treasury Secretary Scott Besson is calling for a full review of the Federal Reserve. So it looks like the story isn't going away anytime soon. And all eyes are going to be on Jerome Powell at next week's Fed meeting on July 30th to see if he addresses all this political So yeah, despite the market rally, there's still plenty of uncertainty under the hood. But for now, the markets are still enjoying the summer sunshine and cruising to new highs. Let's run through some headlines. Starting with Netflix. Netflix is officially using AI to help produce content.

According to Bloomberg, Netflix has started working with runway AI, which is a startup that's been making waves in the generative video space. Netflix's CEO Ted Sarandis said the company used AI tools for the first, time to create special effects for an Argentinian sci-fi series called El Atronaut. I might be butchering that name. Sources say that Netflix is now actively testing its tools for other projects. Runway has been making waves. Their newest model called Act 2 makes motion capture way easier and cheaper. They can essentially map human movement onto animated characters.

So with this technology, actors don't have to wear those funny looking green suits with hundreds of ping pong balls on them. And that way studios can now use AI to save millions of dollars on special effects. And that's why every major studio in Hollywood is looking to use these AI tools. Even Disney. They're reportedly testing runway AI and they've held discussions with the company, though they say they're not planning to use it for actual production just yet. And by the way, runway is not the only AI player trying to make waves in Hollywood. Open AI has been pitching their own video tool called SORA to studios, including Disney. Sora did have a lot of hype

a few months ago when it launched. But I feel like that hype's been replaced by Google's V-O-3 model. that was released a couple months ago, there are now dedicated YouTube channels and TikTok accounts of AI generated content from V-O-3, like vlogs of Bigfoot and animals doing Olympic diving. There was even a commercial during the NBA finals that was fully generated from V-O-3. So all that being said,

AI tools are getting better and better when it comes to video, and they're only going to continue to improve. And I expect every major studio in Hollywood is going to be using AI pretty soon to save money on production costs. And I imagine that's going to be great for their profits, margins and shareholders, but we'll have to see what kind of impact this has on jobs in the industry

as a whole. It's definitely something to keep an eye on and a great example of AI potentially replacing people's jobs. Let's shift gears and talk about J.P. Morgan, the biggest bank in the world, they are preparing to let their clients borrow money using their crypto assets as collateral. Essentially, J.P. Morgan would treat Bitcoin and Ethereum the same way as they treat stocks or real estate when someone applies for a loan. Banks would hold these assets in exchange for lending you money. Now, they're starting off with just crypto ETFs right now, but according to the financial times, their plan is to eventually lend against actual crypto assets as early as next year.

And this is a big deal, not just because it brings crypto deeper into traditional financial systems, but because this is coming from J.P. Morgan, whose CEO Jamie Diamond is not a fan of crypto. He's been pretty vocal about it through the years. He once called Bitcoin a fraud and compared trading crypto to the same. smoking cigarettes. But to be feared of Jamie Diamond, he also said that he respects people's right to smoke cigarettes. And in this case, his bank seems to be fully embracing crypto. I think it's safe to say at this point that Bitcoin has gone mainstream. And that's why the price of Bitcoin,

Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies are near record highs. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. There is a new meme stock in town and it's been on a wild ride this past week. The stock I'm talking about is Open Door. It's gone from $1 to over $4 in a week without any significant news or changes to their business. And all that has gotten the attention of Wall Street bets in the retail crowd with trading volumes up a thousand percent. Yesterday was one of the biggest days for Open Door. The stock jumped over 100 percent at one point. And I don't know how much steam is left in this meme rally, but it's up another 15 percent this morning at the time of this recording. Now Open Door is interesting because they're an online home buying and

selling platform that got really popular during the pandemic. I actually know someone who sold their home to Open Door at a ridiculous price. So shout out to them. The company went public by a SPAC in 2020, but they've struggled recently with the housing market being frozen. And I imagine all the houses they overpaid for when they were buying them up back in 2021. And that's why the stock has been trading in the $1 to $2 range over the last year. Even with this recent rally, the stock is down more than 90% from the all-time highs of over $30 that it's set back in 2021. But yeah, crazy that we still got meme stocks happening at 6% interest rates. Now, on the flip side, shares of GM are down this morning because the automaker is taking

a hit from tariffs. The company reported a 35% drop in net income for Q2, and they warned that things might get even worse next quarter. Tariffs added about $1.1 billion in costs in the recent quarter, with their operating income dropping from $2.9 billion last year to $1.8 billion. Now, despite the tariff pressure, GM did keep its full year guidance, kind of. They already trimmed their 2025 forecast back in May from $15.7 billion down to the $10 to $12 billion range, and they attributed most of that from the impact of tariffs.

Now, there was a bit of good news, though. GM did beat revenue estimates and saw solid U.S. sales, and they also posted their second straight profitable quarter in China. But Wall Street didn't seem to care about the good stuff. They are mostly focused on the impact of tariffs and shares are down around 3% this morning at the time of this recording. And finally, we have Lockheed Martin. Shares of the weapons and defense contractor are taking a hit after the company got hit

with a $1.6 billion charge related to a classified project and their Sikorsky helicopter business. And the company says their classified project is an aeronautical program and their Sikorski helicopter project is related to production for the Canadian and Turkish government. But yeah, overall, not a great quarter for Lockheed. Their operating profits dropped by 65% coming in around $750 million. Wall Street was expecting operating profits north of $2 billion. So that's a pretty big miss. The company's also cutting their full year guidance.

And that's why shares are down more than 7% this morning on this news. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Less than 1% of 711 stores in Japan have gas pumps, while nearly two-thirds of North American 7-Elevens do. And that stat right there really highlights the difference in how 7-Elevens operate in the U.S. versus Japan. See, over here in the States, people are pulling into a 7-Eleven off a busy road,

filling up their gas tank, and maybe going inside to grab a slurpy and a questionable hot dog. But in Japan, 7-Elevens are a part of daily neighborhood life. They're more like corner stores nestled into apartment blocks and train stations. There's typically no gas, but they'll sell bento boxes and they'll have a kiosk for paying bills. We actually did a deep dive episode on how 7-Elevens went from an American company to taking over Japan and becoming a part of daily life over there.

If you want to learn more about that and the corporate drama behind a failed takeover of the Japanese parent company that owns 7-Eleven, I highly recommend checking out our latest deep dive episode. I learned a lot about Japan and their corporate culture while researching for that video, and we've gotten some great feedback on it as well. So if you want to check that out, we'll put a link in the description. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did, and you have like nine extra seconds,

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We see you, all right? So keep commenting. Thank you guys again for listening and watching. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the help behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.