The Rundown - Trump Targets Netflix Amid DOJ Probe; Slaps New 15% Tariffs

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

Market update for Monday February 23, 2026Check out the Public app for incredible investing tools and to support the show (LINK)Follow us on Instagram (@TheRundownDaily) for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode:Trump’s slaps 15% tariffs after Supreme Court rulingDOJ probes Netflix, James Cameron pushes back on $72B Warner Bros. dealNovo Nordisk falls further behind Eli Lilly in the GLP-1 obesity drug race as new trial data disappointsDomino’s beats on U.S. sales as value deals win over consumersGilead buys cancer biotech Arcellx for $7.8BFun Fact: Olympic gold medals only have 6g of gold

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Monday, February 23rd. In today's episode, we'll get you ready for this upcoming week, including an update on the tariff situation. We'll also tell you the latest on the Netflix Warner Brothers merger and why Novo Nortis is taking another L. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out how much an Olympic gold medal is actually worked. Not as much as you might think. We got a great show for you today.

Let's go. Markets are coming off a winning week, thanks to a rally on Friday, after the Supreme Court struck down some of President Trump's tariffs. The S&P was up 1.1% last week, while the NASDAG jumped 1.5% snapping a five-week losing streak. So the initial reaction of the tariffs being struck down has been positive, but we are facing more uncertainty moving forward. Going back to the Supreme Court ruling,

the 6-3 decision ruled that President Trump exceeded his authority by using the 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act or AEPA to impose his reciprocal tariffs. The court basically said that you can't just declare an emergency and start slapping tariffs on countries. So the Aipa tariffs were ruled illegal, which was about 60% of all the tariffs that were active.

Now, the other 40% are still very much in effect. And here's where the uncertainty comes because President Trump isn't backing down. He's responding by slapping 15% tariffs across the board on all countries. This time he's using Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, which lets the president impose tariffs immediately for up to 150 days. Now, after 150 days, he'd need to get Congress to extend them. But in the meantime, the administration plans to use those 150 days to build cases against each country under Section 301 and Section 232,

which lets the president impose tariffs for national security reasons or unfair trade practices. So the tariff story isn't over. In fact, it adds more uncertainty to the markets. So we might have some more volatility moving forward. I'm sure we're going to be talking about this over the next few weeks and months. In fact, we're going to try to bring on a tariff expert on the podcast here soon to further explain this stuff. Now, looking beyond just tariffs, we're also keeping an eye on earnings. We have a stacked week coming up.

We're getting reports from Nvidia, Salesforce, Snowflake, Rocket Lab, Dell, Circle, Home Depot, Hymns. I mean, it's going to be a big week of earning, so it's a great time to subscribe to the podcast if you're not already, and tune in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines, starting with Nova Nordus. The Danish pharma giant Nova Nordus just took a big L today after their next generation obesity shot just failed to deliver in a head-to-head trial against Eli Lilly. Novo's next-gen obesity drug is called Kagrisema, and in the trial, it helped patients lose 20.2% of their body weight after 84 weeks. That sounds impressive, but Eli Lilly Zepbound, which is already on the market,

delivered a 23.6% weight loss in the same time frame. I mean, this is a worst case scenario for Nova Nordus, because Kagri Semma was supposed to be Nova Nortis's attempt to come back in the GLP wars. Investors were really counting on this drug to outperform Zepbound, but these results were very disappointing, and as a result, shares of the amount. of Novo Nordus are down more than 10% this morning. And if you zoom out, Novo's stock is getting crushed. It's now down more than 60% over the past year,

and their market cap is now near $130 billion after topping $600 billion in 2024. Now, the company is still optimistic about their trial coming up later in the year, where patients will take the highest dose of Kagrisema rather than staying at the lower dose. Novo says that this drug will be more representative of the drug's true potential. But the thing is, in the GLP one race, is money and every month that Novanortis spends waiting on the next trial is another month that Eli Lilly is pulling further ahead. In fact, today Eli Lilly launched a new version of Zepound, which is a single pen called QuickPen that holds a full month of doses starting at $299 a month

through their direct consumer site. So Eli Lilly is firing on all cylinders. They're winning on effectiveness and they're making their drugs more convenient. And then don't forget, they're also launching a GLP1 pill soon. And that's why. investors are more bullish on Eli Lilly. The stock is up nearly 20% in the last 12 months and up another 3% this morning. Let's shift gears and talk about the Netflix Warner Brothers Paramount Mergers saga. I know, I know, but there are a lot of big updates, okay? For one, today is the deadline for Paramount Skydance to submit its best and final offer for Warner Brothers Discovery. Remember last week, Netflix allowed Warner's to enter a seven-day negotiating window with Paramount

that ends today. So we'll see what offer Paramount ends up submitting. Their last offer was $30 a share for the entire company. Netflix's offer is $27.75 per share for the movie and streaming business. Netflix thinks that their deal is better because they think they'll get regulatory approval. But that might not be so easy because the DOJ is taking this pretty seriously. They are looking into whether Netflix uses its market power to squeeze independent filmmakers and content creators in negotiations.

So the DOJ is checking to see if Netflix is, already a monopoly even before they merge with Warner's. And beyond that, President Trump is now getting involved. Over the weekend, President Trump posted on Truth Social demanding that Netflix fire one of its board members, Susan Rice, who is a former Obama and Biden official, or face the consequences. Rice has made some anti-Trump comments recently that he obviously didn't like, and that could end up playing a factor in all of this.

As I record, this Netflix stock is down more than 4% this morning. So we'll see how this all ends up shaken out. By the way, director James Cameron is also getting involved. He wrote a letter to Congress saying that a Netflix acquisition of Warner Brothers would be disastrous for the theater motion picture business. Netflix has historically talked down the movie theater business, but for this merger, they said they do plan to keep the Warner's movies in theaters, but clearly people in Hollywood don't seem to believe that. So yeah, a lot going on with this deal. Netflix is facing some real resistance here, so we'll see what ends up happening. I'd say it's probably 50-50 now on who ends up buying Warner's.

Netflix or Paramount. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Domino's stock is having a good morning after posting a solid quarter. U.S. same store sales rose 3.7% in Q4, beating Wall Street estimates and marking that the third straight quarter of growth. Overall, revenues came in at $1.5 billion, which was up 6.4% from a year ago and ahead of estimates. The company also raised its quarterly dividend by 15%.

So overall, good quarter. Domino's said that their focus on value brought back customers. Domino's brought back the best deal ever at $9.99. And they launched a new menu item, the Parmesan Stuff crust pizza, which I've tried it. It's really good. So investors were loving the results, and Domino's stock is up around 3% this morning at the time of this recording. Zooming out, though, is just great to see more food places focus on lowering prices.

McDonald's did that, and they saw some solid growth. Yum's brand, which owns Taco Bell, is also. doing that, their value boxes are great. But on the other hand, you have these slot bowl places like Chipotle, Kava, and Sweet Queen, they're continuing to struggle. Consumers are finally pushing back on spending 17, 20 bucks on a mediocre slot bowl these days. So hopefully they start lowering their prices soon because I would love to pay like 10 bucks for a Chipotle bowl again. Now, on the flip side, shares of the biopharmac company, Gilead, is down this morning after announcing that it's acquiring a biotech company called Arcelix for 7.8B.

billion dollars. Gilead and Arcelix were already co-developing this drug called a Nito Cell, which is a cell therapy designed to treat multiple myeloma, which is a type of blood cancer. Gilead is now buying the company because they see this drug as a potential foundation treatment for this blood cancer across earlier stages of the disease. So this is great news for Arcelix shareholders. Their stock is up 78% this morning, but Gilead shares are down more than 1%. Let's wrap the show with the fun. In fact, the gold medals given to the athletes at the Olympics only have six grams of gold and 500 grams of silver.

Essentially, the gold medal is a silver medal with gold plating. Now, gold and silver prices have been up a lot recently, and with today's prices, the value of the metal is around $2,500. So I guess it's not bad, but I think most people thought that they were worth a lot more. Now, U.S. athletes that medal at the Olympics get an additional prize from the U.S. Olympic committee, $37,500 for gold, $22,500 for silver, and $15,000 for bronze, which is a nice bonus. There are some countries, though, like Singapore, that pay their athletes nearly $800,000 for winning gold.

Anyways, the Winter Olympics have come to an end, and I really enjoyed it. The U.S. Canada gold medal hockey game yesterday was absolutely insane. I'm not even a big hockey fan, but I was fully locked in, edge of my seat, and it was a great way to end the Olympics. The next Olympics will be in L.A. in 2028, so getting ready for that. That should be a fun one. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode.

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