The Rundown - WallStreetBets Rallies Behind Wendy’s, Cerebras Flops in First Earnings Since IPO

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Market update for Wednesday June 24, 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, Zaid covers:The global tech selloff rattling markets, and where investors are running for safetyWhy Cerebras dropped in its first earnings report since going publicWhy FedEx beat expectations but still got hitWhy Reddit is suddenly piling into Wendy's, and why Hertz is getting crushedGoogle is finally joining the Dow Jones (I still don’t care about the Dow)

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in 10 minutes. My name is Zad Admani, and today is Wednesday, June 24th. In today's episode, we'll recap the earnings from Cerebris and FedEx. We'll also tell you about the latest meme stock emerging from Wall Street bets. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why Google being added to the Dow Jones is making me nervous. We got a great show for you today. Let's go.

Stocks continued to drop on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 falling 1.4%, while the NASDAQ tanked 2.2%. And just like Monday, this sell-off was mostly concentrated around the tech and AI names. The tech sector fell 3.6%, while the SOX semiconductor index fell nearly 8%. But outside of tech, it wasn't too bad. in fact, six of the 11 S&P sectors were up yesterday, with consumer staples and healthcare being the best performers. So we're continuing to see that rotation out of tech and AI and into safer corners of the market as investors continued to worry about the AI trade. And by the way, this is happening all over the world. South Korea's Kaspi Index, which is like their version of the S&P 500, tanked nearly 10% yesterday.

This index is heavily tied to tech and chip giants like Samsung and S.K. Hynakes, so it's become a pretty good baron. of the global AI trade. And as these high-risk tech stocks sell off, investors are pouring some of that money into the U.S. dollar as a safe haven investment. The U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the U.S. dollar against the basket of other currencies, just hit a 13-month high. Now, it also helps the market as increasingly expecting the Fed to hike rates this year. And as interest rates go up, the U.S. Treasury bonds pay more interest, which increases the demand for the U.S. dollar as investors try to buy more treasuries. And by the way, the expectation of the Fed is going to raise interest rates is also dragging down the price of gold, which doesn't pay a

yield. Gold is now down 10% over the last month and hovering near $4,000 an ounce. Now, the other big macro mover is oil, which just keeps falling. Rent crude prices drop below $76 a barrel this morning, which is the lowest level since the day before the Iran war started in late February. More oil tankers are starting to cross the Strait of Hormuz as the U.S. and Iran continue to hash out a final peace deal. And you know, with oil, prices coming down that should help cool inflation, which could give the Fed room to hold off on rate hikes. So the market is kind of in a weird spot right now. On one hand, you have AI stocks getting hit and the dollar ripping as the odds of a rate hike are rising. But then on the other hand,

oil prices are starting to fall, which could help inflation cool off and maybe give the Fed a reason to chill out on rate hikes. Now, the next big thing the market is going to be paying close attention to is the micron earnings, which dropped tonight. That should give us a better idea of what's going on with AI demand. We'll cover those earnings on tomorrow's episode, along with the PCE inflation report, which comes out tomorrow morning. So if you're new here, definitely get subscribed for the podcast and tune in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines, starting with Cerebrus. Cerebris reported earnings last night for the first time since their blockbuster IPO back in May, and the market did not love it. Quick reminder here, Cerebris is an AI chip

company. Their chips are built specifically for speed and inference workloads. They also rent out computing power as a cloud service. And the demand for their stuff is clearly there. Revenues last quarter jumped 94% from a year ago to $193 million, beating estimates on Wall Street. Their net losses also narrowed to 14 million from nearly 24 million a year ago. And then the cherry on top, they even guided their four year revenues above what Wall Street was expecting. But despite that, the stock is still down more than 10% this morning because investors are worried about margins. Cerebra is told investors that it expects their operating margins to be between negative 28 to negative 32% because they're spending enormous amounts of money to build out capacity.

And I think the bigger concern is that their gross margins, which is basically profit after production costs, is set to shrink to 37% next quarter down from the 46.5% last quarter. For context here, Nvidia's gross margins, are north of 70%. So, you know, with investors already jittery about the AI trade this week, any whiff of bad news is getting amplified right now, which I think is the reason why Cereber's stock is selling off this morning.

And by the way, looking back at Cereber's IPO, they priced their shares at $185 a share, and then on day one, the stock jumped to above $300 a share. Well, today, the stock is trading right around $200. So if you got it at the IPO at $185, you're still up, but if you bought after the first day pop, you're likely in the red. So just be careful with those IPOs out there. Let's shift gears and talk about FedEx because they also reported earnings last night

and the stock is down around 6%. Now, the numbers themselves came in decent. Revenues came in at $25 billion and profits came in at $1.6 billion, both beating Wall Street estimates. But, you know, the stock is still down. I think it's partially because FedEx stock was already up more than 30% this year heading into the earnings, so expectations were even more elevated. And look, investors like to pay close attention to FedEx earnings because they're like an economic barometer. Now, this company ships packages for pretty much every industry on the planet, so when their business is doing well,

it's an overall good sign for the health of the economy. And like I said, the overall news is good. The company said that domestic shipping volumes were up 3%, U.S. priority volumes were up 3%, and they said that revenue should grow 11% this year. Now, FedEx did flag some things when it comes to cost. The company said that inflation-related expenses like wages, fuel, and other operating costs are expected to increase by $2.6 billion this year compared to 2025. But overall, I'd say the takeaway is pretty positive, despite the stock being down today. By the way, this was the last earnings report where FedEx will include FedEx freight. They're spinning off the freight business into a separate company.

As part of the spin-off shareholders will get one share of FedEx freight for every two shares of FedEx stock they owned. And moving forward, FedEx will be more focused on just. Just parcel delivery. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Wendy's stock is surging this morning after a viral post on Wall Street bets called for investors to buy up the stock of the struggling burger chain to trigger a short squeeze. So we are looking at another potential meme stock situation here. Now, a quick refresher on how this works.

A short squeeze happens when a heavily shorted stock starts rising, which forces short sellers to buy back shares to limit their losses. That buying pressure pushes the stock even higher, which forces more short sellers to buy back even more shares, causing the price to go even higher. And look, the ingredients are there for a short squeeze because Wendy's is a heavily short of stock with about 30% of the shares being sold short by investors. So Wall Street Betts is now trying to squeeze them. Wendy's stock is up around 25% in pre-market trading as of this morning, and more than 14 million shares have traded hands before the bell, making it more actively traded in the pre-market than Micron and Intel. So I'll be keeping my eye on Wendy's

today. I mean, the company has been struggling lately with shares down 50% in the last year. Now, the company is trying to turn things around. They announced a new CFO and a chief strategy officer yesterday, and they also have Reddit traders on their side now. So we'll see how this one ends up playing out. Now, moving on, let's talk about a former meme stock, Hertz. Hertz is getting crushed this morning after the rental car company cut its second quarter profit outlook and announced plans to raise money through stock and debt offerings. Hertz is blaming the drop in profit outlook on the weakness in the used car market, which matters to Hertz because Hertz buys cars, they rent them out for a couple years, and then they

sell their cars. So when used car prices drop, they tend to make less money. And then on top of all that, Hertz is selling $300 million in bonds, plus doing a $100 million. in stock offerings, which dilutes existing shareholders. So when you combine a weaker outlook and a capital raise in the same morning, that's not a great combo and shares are down more than 20% at the time of this recording. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Google is getting added to the Dow Jones. The company behind the Dow Jones Industrial Average announced yesterday that Alphabet,

which is Google's parent company, would replace Verizon in the index, effective before the open on Monday of next week. Google joins other mega-cap tech names already in the Dow like Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft. Now, long-time listeners know that I am a certified Dow hater. I think the index is extremely flawed because it's only 30 stocks and it's price-weighted and not market-cap-weighted. Just to give you an example, Goldman Sachs and Caterpillar each have more influence on the Dow Jones Index than Nvidia and Apple combined, which are two of the biggest companies on the planet. So yeah, the Dow Jones to me is just a silly index. And the fact that they waited this long to add Google to the index is just a joke. Also, the timing of this is kind of hilarious.

Google is joining the Dow right as AI stocks are starting to get shaky and investors are worrying about a potential AI bubble. It also doesn't help that the Dow selection committee has a habit of adding tech stocks at exactly the wrong time. A good example of this is back in 2020, they added Salesforce to the Dow and kicked out Exxon Mobile. At the time, it looked like a very modern, very forward-thinking move because, you know, cloud software was the future and oil companies were like these dead dinosaurs, no pun intended. It's not really a pun, but you know what I mean. Well, since Exxon got kicked out and Salesforce was added, Exxon mobile stock has gone up 375% if you include dividends, while Salesforce stock is down around 40%. So yeah, the Dow selection committee, not the best when it comes to

adding stocks of the index. But hey, congrats to Google for finally joining the Dow, but I'll continue to be a Dow hater. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did, and you have like five extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to your podcast, all that engagement really does help us out and it helps other people find the show. Thank you guys so much for listening, watching and commenting. Shout out to Mike for all the work behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.