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Public.com presents the rundown, your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadod Mani and Today is Tuesday, March 24th. In today's episode, we'll tell you about the latest release from Anthropic and the shift happening in the AI space. We'll also break down Nintendo's struggles with the Switch 2 and the latest drama in private credit. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why Apple is embracing ads. We got a great show for you today. Let's go. The markets ripped higher on Monday to start the week with the S P 500 jumping 1.1% while the NASDAQ climbed 1.3%. You know, it was a rare day for stocks. We haven't seen a rally like that since early February. The catalyst of course, was a true social post from President Trump on Monday morning where he said the US And Iran have have had very good and productive conversations about a resolution and that he ordered a five day pause on strikes against Iran. So the markets finally got the taco rally that it was hoping to get. Now what's funny here is that Iran denied any talks were happening with the US but then at the same time, there are reports that the two sides are meeting in Pakistan today to kick off negotiations. So we have a bit of a he said he says situation, but the market is choosing to be a bit optimistic for now. We also saw this with oil prices. They tanked yesterday with brent crude dropping 10% to $99 a barrel. It was the first time that prices have been under $100 in two weeks. Now we'll have to see how long this optimism lasts. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised to see oil prices stay elevated until the street of Hormuz is back to being fully open. Now, moving beyond oil, let's talk about gold real quick because it's something that I get asked about the most in real life day to day conversation. Gold prices are down 20% since peaking at $5,600 an ounce back in January. Now this might be kind of confusing because most people thought that a breaking out and a higher inflation risk would cause gold prices to go up because of gold's reputation for being a safe haven asset. Well, the thing is, gold is also heavily influenced by interest rates. Higher interest rates makes gold a less attractive investment. And right now the market is a bit worried that the Federal Reserve might be forced to raise interest rates because of a potential resurgence of inflation due to higher oil prices. So that's one reason why gold is in a bear market right now. This could just be a temporary pullback, but I'm definitely keeping my eye on it. Big picture, I think we're going to continue to see volatile trading until there is a concrete resolution to the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz is fully open. Maybe that happens this week, but it's impossible to know. In the meantime, the S P and Nasdaq are still down 4% for the year. My screen time, on the other hand, is hovering near record high levels these days. You know, we're staying on top of everything that's happening in the markets and recapping it for you guys here every single day. So it's a great time to get subscribed to the podcast if you haven't already. Let's run through some headlines, starting with Claude. Anthropic just announced that Claude can now take over your computer and complete tasks for you. With this new feature, you can message Claude from your phone and it will take over your computer and open apps and navigate your browser or fill out spreadsheets, analyze data, maybe even do your taxes for you while you're out and about. And this is part of a bigger trend happening in AI right now where the industry is pivoting to AI agents. Most people think of AI as like a chat bot that you get answers from. Well now AI agents can actually do stuff for you. We actually broke this down in detail in our deep dive from a few days ago and what it means for companies like Nvidia. So go check that out if you missed it now, we're still in the early innings of the AI agent stuff. Outside of super techie people, I don't know many people using AI agents. Me personally, I'm just starting to expect experiment with it and I'm not really sure what I'm doing just yet. So I'm excited to try this latest release by Anthropic where Claude can control my computer. You know, it seems to be Anthropic's response to Open Claw, which went super viral earlier this year in the AI nerd community. In fact, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called Open Claw a major step forward in how people interact with AI. It got so popular that OpenAI ended up buying OpenClaw. So there's a land grab happening right now for the next phase of AI. I think Anthropic is making a big push to take market share from OpenAI. Like me personally, I use Claude like 70% of the time these days. Let's shift gears and talk about Nintendo. According to Bloomberg Nintendo is cutting the production of their Switch 2 console by more than 30% after a disappointing holiday season. The company now plans to produce about 4 million units this quarter, down from the 6 million it originally expected. Now here's the thing. The Switch 2 had an incredible launch when it came out back in June of last year. IT sold over 17 million units in its first year, making it the most successful hardware debut in Nintendo's history. But that momentum didn't carry into the holiday season, especially in the U.S. you know, a part of the problem is the price tag. The Switch 2 is pretty expensive at $450, but also there hasn't been any must own games. Like for example, Metroid Prime 4, which came out in December, was a disappointment, selling less than a million copies in its launch month. So investors have taken notice. Nintendo stock has lost about 28% of its value since the Switch 2 came out back in June, and the stock lost another 6% Tokyo after reports of the production cutbacks. So the hype might be gone. But I should bring up Nintendo stock did see a bounce back a couple weeks ago after the launch of Pokemon pacopia, which sold 2 million copies in just four days. So that game is a massive hit. It might help boost Nintendo sales a little bit, but obviously Nintendo's management doesn't think it's going to be a long term solution to the biggest takeaway for me is that Pokemon is still just insane, insanely popular these days. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Let's start with the investment bank Jeffries. Shares of the company are popping this morning after reports that Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group is exploring a possible takeover. SMFG is Japan's second largest lender and they've been slowly building a position in Jeffries for years. They first bought a 5% stake back in 2021 and then just last September they agreed to increase that stake to 20%. SMFG's is to break into the top tier of global investment banks and Jeffries is a pretty recognizable name now. The timing here is pretty interesting because Jeffrey stock has gotten crushed lately. It's down 40% since September, largely because of concerns around its exposure to the collapsed auto parts company First Brands and questions about its underwriting standards. So SMFG is ready to move in and take advantage of this depressed share price. What's funny is that the report of their possible takeover is causing Jeffrey's stock price to shoot up as much as 10% this morning before giving back some of those gains. Now, sticking with banks, let's talk about Apollo. Shares of the finance giant are under pressure this morning after they cap investor withdrawals from one of their flagship private credit funds. You know, we've been talking about the stress in the private credit space for weeks now. And this is just the latest example. Investors in the Apollo Debt Solutions fund, which is a $15 billion private credit fund, tried to pull out $1.6 billion this quarter. That's 11% of the fund's net assets. But the Fund has a 5% quarterly cap on red, so Apollo only honored just half of the withdrawal requests. And look, this isn't just an Apollo problem. A lot of other banks like Morgan Stanley, BlackRock and several others have done similar things. This is one of the risks that investors take when investing in these private credit funds. They get access to higher returns, but the trade off is less liquidity. And that liquidity problem has a spotlight on it right now. So we'll see how the private credit story plays out over the next few weeks and months. Apollo stock is down around 4% this morning at the time of this recording and down nearly 25% for the year. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Apple is about to put ads in Apple Maps. According to Bloomberg reporter and friend of the show Mark Gurman, Apple is planning to monetize Maps as soon as this summer. So you know, like how in Google Maps if you search for something like dry cleaners nearby, sometimes the first few results are sponsored. That's because businesses are paying to be shown as a top search results in Maps. Well now that same thing is going to be happening on Apple Maps. Now it's funny, you would think that company like Apple would be beneath showing ads in their products, right? But now Apple is actually expected to make about eight and a half billion dollars from ads this year. This is all part of Apple's push to grow their services revenue, which currently brings in about $100 billion a year, making more than a quarter of their total revenue. Now a lot of that is Apple taking a 30% cut from the App Store, which is now under threat from regulators. Apple is trying to diversify their services revenue in case they have to reduce the cut that they can collect from the App Store. And they're doing what every big tech company does, which is turn everything into a billboard. And by the way, this isn't just maps. Apple's been quietly adding ads across their entire ecosystem, including the App Store news and even Apple tv. On a side note, I gotta say Apple Maps is actually pretty solid these days. I know it used to be a laughing stock. Now I'm still a Google Maps guy in most cases, but if I'm connected to a car with CarPlay, I use Apple Maps most of the time because it just looks better. That might be a conversation controversial take. Let me know what you guys think in the comments on Spotify and YouTube. 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 and Connor for all the work behind the scenes and we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.
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