The Rundown - Paramount Plans Bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, Gemini IPO on Deck

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Stock market update for September 12, 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, September 12th. In today's episode, we'll discuss why Wall Street thinks small cap stocks will continue to rally. We'll also preview the Gemini IPO and tell you about a potential merger between two Hollywood studios. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out which streaming platform is dominating the Emmys. We got a great show for you today. Let's go.

Markets made a big move up on Thursday with the S&P 500 and NASDAG jumping nearly 1% to clinched their 24th record close of 2025. And I want to give a shout out to the Russell 2000. It was up nearly 2%. You know, the Russell has been on a heater recently. It's up almost 10% since the end of July, doubling the S&P 500's performance over that same stretch. And Wall Street thinks that the rally could keep rolling through the rest of the year.

The thinking here is that with rate cuts coming next week, that will lower borrowing costs for the small cap companies in the Russell 2000, which should help boost profit margins. So I'm starting to keep an eye on the Russell 2000. Now, some quick follow-ups from yesterday's show. We talked about Open Door bringing on a new CEO. Well, their stock ended up surging nearly 80% yesterday from that news. Open Door stock is now sitting at 52-week highs. So the meme stock rally is still alive for Open Door.

Now also on yesterday's show, we preview the Figure Technology IPO, and it ended up having a solid debut with shares closing 24% above the IPO price. Now, we have one more IPO on deck today, which we're going to preview in just a second. But if you want to learn more about Figure, then keep an eye on your podcast feed this weekend because we are dropping a deep dive on the company. We're going to break down what the company does, how they make money, and if this blockchain stuff is actually worth the hype. So if you want to learn more about figure technology,

make sure you guys check out that episode. It's going to be dropping tomorrow morning. Let's run through some headlines. Starting with Paramount. Paramount Skydance is reportedly prepping a bid to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, and this deal could shake up Hollywood and put two of the largest studios under one roof.

Now, this comes just months after Skydance merged with Paramount. Paramount is now owned and being run by David Ellison. Now, I bring up his name because David Ellison is the only son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who also happens to be the second richest man in the world right now. Larry's net worth has shot up nearly $100 billion this year thanks to a big surge in Oracle stock. So I think David might be tapping that family war chest to help bankroll this buyout because Warner Brothers market cap is about $40 billion, which is more than double Paramount's current market cap. But if this deal does end up happening, I mean, it would really shake up Hollywood.

We'd see HBO Max and Paramount Plus under one roof. I'm assuming these streaming services would end up merging. We'd also see a ton of iconic franchises under one roof. Paramount has Star Trek, Transformers, Mission Impossible, and SpongeBob, just to name a few. And then Warner Brothers has Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and all the DC superheroes like Superman and Batman. And beyond just the scripted content, this would be a big shakeup for sports as well. Paramount recently locked up UFC rights in a 7.6. $7 billion deal earlier this month, and they also have rights to the NFL.

And then Warner's for their part owned broadcast rights to the MLB, March Madness, NHL, NASCAR, and the French Open. So combined, they could end up being a rival to ESPN when it comes to sports programming. Now, the timing of this acquisition is key because Warner's has been planning to split its struggling cable networks from its studio and streaming business. Skydance wants to buy Warner's before the split up because they want to avoid a bidding war from Apple or Amazon for Warner streaming and movie business, which is still considered an attractive asset. We'll see if this deal ends up happening. I'm sure this merger will get some pushback

from antitrust regulators. But you know what? I like this move by David Ellison. I don't see how Paramount or Warner's can take on giants like Disney, Netflix and the big tech companies on their own. So yeah, Hollywood might be going through a big shakeup soon. And it all might be because Oracle stock is surging right now. All right, let's keep it moving and talk about another company making their IPO debut today, Gemini. The crypto exchange Gemini will begin trading on the NASDAQ today, capping off a very busy week for IPOs. Gemini is pricing its IPO at $28 a share, which is above the expected range of $24 to $26. And the $28 price range would give the company a $3.3 billion valuation. Now, Gemini was co-founded by the Winkle Voss twins back in 2014. Yes, the same WinkleVos

twins from the social network movie. Today, Gemini runs a crypto exchange that holds about $21 billion in assets, and they even offer things like credit cards that pay out rewards in Bitcoin or Ripple. Now, as for the company's financial figures, well, it's still unprofitable. Last year, Gemini lost $159 million, and in just the past six months, it burned through another $283 million. So I think this IPO will really test the market's appetite for crypto-related companies. You know, the other crypto companies like Circle, Bullish, and Figure all had solid debuts. We'll see if the same thing happens for Gemini. In fact, what I found interesting is that Gemini is setting aside 30% of their shares reserved for retail investors,

which makes me wonder if there was soft domain from institutional investors. So I'm not sure if Gemini is going to have the same first day pop as the other crypto companies. But we'll have to see, Gemini will start trading sometime later today under ticker symbol GEMI. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Adobe shares are up this morning after the tech giant gave an upbeat revenue outlook for next quarter. Adobe has been investing a lot of money to integrate AI into their creative software products, and it's starting to pay off. The company says that their annual reoccurring revenue from AI-infused products within their apps like Photoshop was already up to $5 billion in annual reoccurring revenue, which is up from the $3.5 billion last year. So that's helping ease concerns from investors that these AI native competitors like Mid Journey or even Canva won't just end up eating Adobe's lunch.

Now, Adobe's stock is still down more than 20% this year, but today's reports show that Adobe could end up benefiting from AI, which is pushing their shares up more than 3% this morning. Now, on the flip side, the luxury furniture retailer, RH, is sliding after cutting its revenue outlook. The company now expects growth of 9 to 11% down from the prior 10 to 13% projection. RH is blaming their lower growth on tariffs. A big chunk of RHS furniture comes from Asia where tariffs run as high as 40% from China and 20% for Vietnam. To make matters worse, the Trump administration recently announced they were looking into adding more tariffs on furniture, which is adding more uncertainty.

Now, RH says they're trying to shift more manufacturing to the U.S., but for now these tariff costs are piling up. And then on top of the tariff issue, this current housing market has been terrible for RHS business. In fact, RH called it the worst housing market in 50 years. See, people tend to buy new furniture when they buy a house. So a frozen housing market isn't good for RH's business. As a result, shares of RH are down more than 7% this morning, and it's down more than 40% for the year.

Let's wrap the show with the fun fact. The Emmys are taking place this Sunday, and HBO Max has the most nominations with 142, followed by Netflix with 107, and then Apple coming in strong with 79 nominations. Now, Netflix was the first streaming service to win an Emmy back in 2013 with the House of Cards, which was a great show.

And now it seems like these streaming services dominate the Emmys. Netflix is either the most nominated or the second most nominated. I feel like Apple's entire marketing strategy for Apple TV Plus is to win these kind of awards to be the prestige streaming service. In fact, the most nominated show for the Emmys this year

was Severance, which is on Apple TV Plus. I still haven't watched it, by the way. I'm going to get to it eventually. I might wait for like three or four seasons so I can just binge all of it at once. Now, while winning these awards, it seems like a big deal. I think the Emmys are losing cultural relevance.

In fact, ratings for the Emmys fell to a record low 4.3 million viewers in 2023, down from more than 10 million back in 2018. Now, last year got a small bounce, but it's nowhere near the heydays. So we'll see what happens this weekend. Comedian Nate Bargotsie is the host. He's hilarious, so that might draw a crowd. and we'll see what streaming service ends up walking away with the most wins. If HBO has a big night,

David Ellison might have to write a bigger check to take over Warner Brothers. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. That's the rundown for this week. Hope you guys enjoyed all the shows this week. There was a lot going on with the Apple event and all the inflation reports and all the IPOs this week. And the next week, we got the Fed meeting. So there's a lot going on right now.

So make sure you guys are subscribed for the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop. And as a reminder, tomorrow we are dropping a deep dive episode about figure technology. So if you want to learn more about that company, make sure you guys check that out. And then on Sunday, we are posting an interview with Mark German. Mark German is an Apple insider. This man has all the scoops coming out of Cupertino. So I'm super excited to talk to him.

I highly recommend checking out that interview. It'll be dropping on Sunday morning. Thank you guys so much for listening and watching and commenting. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind you. the scenes and we'll see you guys back here tomorrow for the deep dive. Rosen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play. Feel the fun with Play Ojo.

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