The Rundown - Trump Announces Strategic Crypto Reserve, Nvidia and Broadcom Test Intel Chips

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

Stock market update for March 3, 2025.

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in five minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Monday, March 3rd. In today's episode, we tell you about Trump's plans for a strategic crypto reserve that has a lot of people upset. We also dive into Nvidia's potential partnership with Intel. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out how one bank accidentally sent someone $81 trillion, And it's not even their first time making this kind of mistake.

All right. Let's go. Well, the stock market had a nice rally on Friday to close out last week. The S&P 500 jumped 1.6%, which was the best day in six weeks. The NASDAQ also jumped 1.6%. I think Friday's PCE inflation report probably helps spark that rally because it showed that inflation was in line with expectations and not getting hotter. Now, overall, stock market had a pretty big. bad February. The S&P lost nearly 1.4% and the NASDAQ dropped nearly 4%, which was the worst

month since April of 2024. Consumers seem to be concerned about the overall health of the economy. Consumers sentiment has dropped over the last three months, according to the University of Michigan's survey. On top of that, consumers are cutting back on spending. In January, inflation adjusted spending was down by 0.5%, making that the biggest monthly decline in almost four years. So consumers are feeling nervous and cutting back to start the year. We are going to learn more about consumers this week because a ton of major retailers are reporting earnings. Target and Best Buy report earnings on Tuesday. And Macy's Kroger and Costco report on Thursday.

On top of that, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will be releasing the February jobs report on Friday of this week, which will tell us how many jobs were added to the economy last month. And don't forget all the drama surrounding tariffs. Trump's 25% tariffs against Mexico and Canada are expected to go into effect this week. So we got a big week ahead. We're going to be covering it all here on the rundown. So it's a great time to get subscribed to the podcast if you haven't already so you can stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines.

And it's official, everybody. Donald Trump is creating a U.S. Strategic Crypto Reserve. And boy, did this spark a debate on Twitter. Trump's post on True Social said the Strategic Reserve would include alt coins like XRP, Salana, and Cardano. In fact, he didn't even mention Bitcoin in his original post. He did follow up in a couple hours saying that Bitcoin and Ethereum would be at the heart of the reserve. And obviously this announcement sent the crypto markets flying.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana were all up double-digit percentage points. But not everyone in the crypto community is happy about this. Some are questioning whether buying cryptocurrencies, especially altcoins, is an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars. This move just gave crypto holders exit liquidity while American taxpayers are left holding the bag. Now, there have been talks and rumors of a Bitcoin strategic reserve for months now. But I think a lot of people were surprised to hear that the more volatile altcoins were going to be included as part of the strategic reserve. In fact, a lot of Bitcoin maxis were upset about that. But, hey, Trump did campaign on being a pro-crypto president.

And there was a lot of money coming from the crypto community towards Trump's campaign. In fact, not just for Trump's campaign, but for multiple congressional campaigns. The crypto industry's leading SuperPact plowed more than $130 million into congressional races. past election cycle to get crypto-friendly lawmakers into office. And these crypto companies were lining up to donate money to Trump's inauguration fund. Coinbase reportedly spent at least $10 million on Trump's inauguration fund. Ripple Labs, the company behind the XRP cryptocurrency, said in December they'd plan to donate $5 million to the inauguration fund. So it looks like Trump is just returning the favor by pumping their bags. I mean, the whole thing seems pretty shady to me. You know,

I think if it was just a Bitcoin reserve, most people probably would have been okay with it. Bitcoin is now seen as digital gold and, you know, the U.S. does have a gold reserve. So having a Bitcoin reserve, you can kind of make sense of that. The fact that there's old coins, I mean, what are we doing here? But hey, if the U.S. government's out here pumping bags, wouldn't mind if they started buying up Apple or Nvidia stock, you know? Oh, man. By the way, Trump will be making an investment announcement today at 1.30 p.m. Eastern time per the White House. Now, some people thought this might be crypto-related as well, but it looks like Trump is going to be announcing a $100 billion investment in the US from the chip manufacturer TSM.

So we'll give you the details on that on tomorrow's show once the official announcement is out. Actually, speaking of TSMC, they might have some competition soon. Nvidia and Broadcom are reportedly testing chips using Intel's manufacturing process, and that could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts for the struggling chip maker.

In an exclusive report from Reuters, Nvidia and Broadcom are testing a process known as 18A, and this process is capable of making advanced AI processors that competes with technology from TSM, which is the current dominant player in chip manufacturing right now. But just because Intel's techniques are being tested doesn't mean they're definitely going to win the contracts from Broadcom or Nvidia. In fact, Broadcom has already tried this.

They ran tests last year that ultimately delivered underwhelming results. Intel's 18A process has been plagued with setbacks, and it's currently delayed until the back half of 2026, which is like a lifetime in the tech industry. so they haven't made any official major announcements yet. But if they can figure out this process, that would be huge for Intel. This manufacturing part of Intel's business, also called the Foundry segment, has been at the center of Intel's turnaround plan, but so far they've fallen short.

Revenues there have fell 60% last year, and Intel says it won't break even until 2027. But if these tests by Nvidia and Broadcom proved to be successful, that could be a lifeline for Intel, who is currently in the middle of some corporate turmoil. Remember, they fired their CEO last. I mean, it's a pretty pivotal time right now because the U.S. has been trying to increase advanced to Mexican production of AI chips and not be reliant on Taiwan, where TSM does most of their manufacturing. We'll see what happens. Investors seem to be excited, though. Intel stock is up

around 3% this morning in reaction to this news. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. No surprise here, but crypto-related stocks are on the rise this morning in response to Trump's Strategic Reserve announcement. Some of the big winners, is micro strategy, now known as just strategy. They're one of the top beneficiaries. I mean, the stock was down 24% in February, so I'm pretty sure they were happy about the announcement from Trump. Their stock is up 6% today.

Another big winner is Coinbase. Their stock is up around 6% today. Coinbase has been on the side of some favorable news from the government. So investors seem to be pretty excited. Actually, it's only up like 3% now, so losing a little bit of steam, but still a positive day so far. On the flip side, shares of Southwest Airlines are down more than 2% this morning. after the struggling airline got a downgrade by J.P. Morgan with a price target of $25 a share.

Southwest stock is currently trading around $30 a share, so J.P. Morgan expects to drop another 15 to 16%. Now, the airline is in the middle of a turnaround plan because of pressures from activist investor Elliott management, but they got a lot of work to do before they get back on track. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. City Bank accidentally sent someone $81 trillion when they only meant to send $280. This happened back in April of last year, so it's been a while, and the bank did catch their mistake and reverse the transaction within 90 minutes. But man, could you imagine being the person that had $81 trillion in your bank account?

I probably would have put it all on Bitcoin. Now, Citibank does have a reputation and history of making fat-finger mistakes, but I just don't understand how you fat-finger $81 trillion when you meant to send $280. Like, how does that happen? Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. We got a pretty big week coming up. I know I say that almost every week, but it's true.

There's so much happening right now with tariffs and we still got some earnings and jobs report. We're going to break it all down here on the rundown. So make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast. And if you enjoyed today's episode, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. 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 again for listening. 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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