The Rundown - TikTok Ban Upheld by Supreme Court, Bumble CEO Resigns

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

Stock market update for January 17, 2025.

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in five minutes. My name is Zadmani, and today is Friday, January 17th. In today's episode, we have a big update on the TikTok band. We'll tell you what it means and what I think will end up happening. We also tell you why OZembek might become cheaper and why investors aren't loving that. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why there's been a huge surge in Americans learning Mandarin this week. And yes, it has to do with TikTok.

All right, let's go. Well, the stock market couldn't keep the good vibes going yesterday. Both the S&P and NASDAQ were in the red. The S&P you dropped 0.2%, and the NASDAQ lost 0.9%. Overall, though, pretty solid week for stocks and crypto. Stock market is on track to have its best week since the election, thanks to some solid inflation data and earnings reports we got this week. And that's also helping Bitcoin, which has been surging all week.

It hit $100,000 last night, and it's currently trading around $103,000 this morning. It's crazy to think that Bitcoin was trading at $90,000 on Monday, and now we're getting close to all-time highs again. Now, as a reminder, next week is going to be another short week. The stock market is closed on Monday for MLK Day. And coincidentally, that happens to be inauguration day as well. So no show for us on Monday. The next time you hear my voice on this podcast, there's going to be a new president and potentially no TikTok. Let's talk more about TikTok because we have a big update.

Let's run through some headlines. And we're starting with TikTok today. The Supreme Court has unanimously voted to uphold the law that would ban TikTok on January 19th. In a 90 vote, which when's the last time that's happened, the high courts that Congress acted constitutionally when it required bite dance, the parent company of TikTok, to divest or face a ban. This announcement came literally just a few minutes ago as I was recording this show. So I don't know what's going to happen next because under this law, Apple, and Google would have to remove TikTok from the app store or they could face massive fines. So it probably means that TikTok's going to disappear from the app store on Sunday.

Despite the Biden administration saying they aren't going to enforce this law because it goes into effect one day before Trump gets inaugurated. And President-elect Trump has vowed to save TikTok. In fact, he's invited the CEO of TikTok to the inauguration. So that's why I feel like something's going to get worked out. Maybe TikTok disappears from the app store for a few days, then Trump gets into office, works out a deal, and then things will be back to. to normal because it's not just Trump that doesn't want to ban TikTok anymore. In fact,

democratic lawmakers are also pushing a bill to extend the TikTok ban deadline. So there seems to be a huge surge all of a sudden to not ban TikTok anymore. So I guess we'll see. I feel like the story isn't over yet. By the way, speaking of Trump's inauguration, pretty much every tech CEO is going to be there. Elon's going to be there. Obviously, Zuck's going to be there. Bezos is going to be there. Google CEO Sundar Pichai is going to be there. Apple CEO, Tim Cook, is going to be there. I think the only one that's not going to be there is Jensen Huang, the CEO of video. Now, speaking of the U.S. government, the White House is targeting 15 prescription drugs that will be subject to price negotiations between drug makers and Medicare. Included on this list

are OZempic and WeGovie. Those are the blockbuster diabetes and weight loss drugs from Nova Nordisk. It'll be only the second time the federal government faces off with the pharmaceutical industry in an effort to make medications more affordable for older Americans. And that's because it's a newly established process that was born out of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. In the first round, of the government was able to push down prices for 10 popular drugs between 38 to 79%. So a pretty significant reduction in price. That goes into effect in 2026. And this year's changes will go into effect in 2027. So this is good news for Medicare patients. Not so much for drug makers, though, especially Novo Nordisk, which is turned into a powerhouse because of the popularity of Ozempic

and Wegovi. If they have to cut prices for those drugs, they're going to make less money. The shares of the company are down following this news. In fact, their stock has dropped so much that they have lost the top spot as Europe's most valuable company to LVMH, the luxury company behind brands like Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Fendi, and many others that I don't know. And finally, I wanted to mention two huge mining companies are in talks to merge. The company Rio Tinto, the world's second largest mining company, and Glencore have started early discussions about a potential deal. Rio has been focused on mining metals like copper and lithium, while Glencore has made

moves in the coal business, which is an area that Rio had fully exited. So a merger here could potentially make sense. Glancor is worth around $50 billion, while Rio Tinto is valued at around $100 billion. So these are pretty big companies here. It'll be a massive merger if it happens. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of Rivian are rising this morning after the EV maker announced a loan agreement with the Department of Energy for more than $6 billion.

The money will be used for Rivian's new factory in Georgia, which is supposed to help them expand production of the company's EV. and at around 7,500 jobs. The construction for that factory is expected to start in 2026, and EV production is expected to start in 2028. The news of this loan sent Rivian stock up more than 5% this morning. Also, Bumble stock is surging after their current CEO resigned, and their founder and former CEO, Whitney Wolf Hurd,

is coming back. Whitney Wolf Hurd founded this dating app back in 2014, and she was a CEO until last year when she stepped down from that position. But she's coming back to kind of save the company. Since she stepped down last year, Bumble's stock has dropped more than 40%. So let's see if she can turn things around. I mean, the stock is down close to 90% since it went public back in 2021. So there's a lot of work to do.

Investors seem to be somewhat optimistic. Shares of Bumble are up more than 9% this morning on this news. Wait, I just looked at the chart again and shares are now up only 2%. So that enthusiasm wore off pretty quick. And speaking of shares that are struggling, J.B. Hunt shares are down after the trucking logistics company missed on earnings expectations for the quarter. Their operating revenues fell on the quarter due to declining revenue per load and decreasing fleet sizes and load volumes in certain divisions.

Now, JAB has been around for a long time to the sixth largest trucking company in the U.S. based on their total fleet, according to CSA, but shares are down close to 6% on this news. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Duolingo has seen a 200% jump in Mandarin learners in the U.S. And it's because of the TikTok ban. See, because TikTok is facing a ban, TikTok users have downloaded another Chinese social media app called Xiaohung Shu. I might have butchered that pronunciation, but it also means red note.

The app has been number one on the app store all week. And this app is in Chinese, like the menus, comments, everything is in Chinese. And most users on the app are in mainland China. So I guess American users have been flocking to do a lingo to learn Mandarin to better communicate with other Chinese users on the app. It's been very interesting, honestly. Some of the memes coming out of that app have been very funny. So it looks like the early winners of this potential TikTok ban

have been Xiaohung-shu and Duolingo. Don't think anyone saw that coming. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. That's the rundown for this week. No, it was nice to have a full week after three short weeks in a row, but we are going to have a short week again next week with the markets being closed on Monday for MLK Day. So no show for us on Monday.

But we are going to have a deep dive episode this weekend. So keep an eye on your podcast feed for that. actually recorded last weekend's deep-dep episode with video, and we uploaded that video on Spotify. So if you want to watch a video version of that episode, go check out Spotify. It has graphics and charts and things like that that might be helpful. You can also find it on YouTube for all you Apple people out there. And if you guys enjoyed the show and have like 15 extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple and Spotify, vote in today's Spotify poll, leave us a comment on Spotify, follow our Instagram account for bonus content and clips of the show.

All that engagement really does help us out and 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 on Tuesday. 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. 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.

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