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The Rundown
Trump Threatens New Trade War Over Greenland, Netflix Switches to All Cash for WBD Deal
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Public.com presents the rundown, your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zaidad Mani and Today is Tuesday, January 20th. In today's episode, we'll tell you how the markets are reacting to Trump's latest tariff threats regarding Greenland. We'll also dive into the latest EV deal that Canada made with China and why Tesla could be an early winner. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why Tokenized stocks and ETFs might be coming to the New York Stock Exchange very soon. We got a great show for you today. Let's go. Markets are coming off a down week. The S P 500 fell by 0.4% last week while the Nasdaq dropped 0.7%. The Russell 2000 though, which tracks small cap stocks, was up 2% last week and closed at record highs. So we continue to see a strong rotation into small caps. The Russell 2000 has gone up nearly 8% this year while the S P and Nasdaq are up less than. I gotta say though, overall stocks are holding up pretty well given the non stop headlines to start the year. You know, there was Venezuela, then escalations with Iran. Then last weekend Jerome Powell shocked everyone when he said the DOJ was investigating the Federal Reserve. Well, we got one more shocking headline this weekend. This time it's about Greenland. President Trump escalated tensions with the European Union by threatening new tariffs on eight European countries if Greenland isn't sold to the U.S. trump says the U.S. needs to own Greenland for national security reasons. Now, Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark, which is a NATO ally and Denmark has already said that Greenland is not for sale. European officials are now reportedly discussing counter tariffs to the US If Trump follows through with his threats. So we might be headed for another transatlantic trade war. The markets were caught off guard by all of this. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures are down more than 1% in pre market trading at the time of this recording. Volatility is also picking up the VIX spike to its highest levels since November. Meanwhile, gold and silver are also ripping higher, both hitting fresh record highs as investors look for safe haven assets. So we'll see what happens. This week. World leaders are headed to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, including President Trump. So I'm sure they're going to be talking about this. Maybe they can come to an agreement and de escalate the whole situation. But we'll see. Now as all this is happening, we're also in the middle of earnings season. Netflix and United Airlines report later today. And then later this week we're going to be hearing from intel. And then next week is going to be the big one. We're going to be hearing from Tesla, Microsoft, Meta and Apple. So if corporate earnings come in strong, it could shift the focus back to fundamentals instead of geopolitics. So yeah, we'll have a lot to cover over the next few weeks. So if you're new here, it's a great time to get subscribed to the podcast and tune in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines, starting with Tesla. Tesla is shaping up to be an early winner from a surprising new EV truce between China and Canada. Canada's prime Mark Carney announced the country is scrapping its 100% tariff on Chinese made EVs and reopening the door to imports. Moving forward, Canada will apply a much lower 6.1% tariff on Chinese EVS in exchange for China easing restrictions on Canadian canola exports. Under this deal, Canada will allow up to 49,000 Chinese built EVs per year, and within five years that quota could rise to 70,000 cars. Now, the reason that Tesla has an advantage here is because they already build a Canada specific version of its Model Y at its plant in Shanghai. In fact, in 2023, the year before the 100% tariff imposed by Canada, Tesla brought in more than 44,000 EVs to Canada from China. Tesla also has 39 stores in Canada, while Chinese competitors including BYD and NIO, have no sales presence in Canada right now. So Tesla has an advantage. But this advantage won't last forever. For one, Canada is fast tracking the certification for Chinese EVs. But the bigger issue for Tesla is the price clause. Half of the import quota is reserved for vehicles priced under 25,000 dol, and every Tesla currently sold in Canada is priced above that level. Meanwhile, some Chinese EVs from BYD and NIO fall well below the $25,000 mark. So Tesla could see a short term sales bump in Canada because of this new tariff. Overall though, Tesla could see a short term sales bump in Canada. I think the bigger story here though is that Canada, which has historically been one of the US's closest allies, is moving closer to China. This is one of the outcomes that some economists had warned could happen because of President Trump's aggressive and sometimes erratic trade EVs to Canada last year. So we'll see what happens moving forward and if other US allies increase their economic ties to China now, White House officials were quick to respond to this, they warned that Canada will regret allowing Chinese evs into their market. And they made it clear that these cars would not be allowed in the US let's shift gears and talk about Netflix. Netflix has officially sweetened its bid for Warner Brothers. According to an SEC filing this morning, Netflix amended its previous deal to be all cash at $27.75 per share for Warner's studio and streaming business, which includes HBO Max. Previous offer was a mix of cash and Netflix stock. But now if the Warner shareholders approve this deal, they'll receive straight cash from Netflix. Warner shareholders will vote on this deal in April. You know, I guess Netflix felt the pressure from Paramount and their hostile bid of $30 a share, all cash for the entire company. And Netflix decided to improve their offer to remove any objections and speed up the sale. The Warner board has rejected Paramount's offer multiple times. I think Netflix offer is better. We'll see what Paramount does next. Maybe they'll offer even more money for Warners to convince shareholders to go with their offer. But low key. I'm kind of getting sick of this story. You know, I just want one of them to win, close the deal, combine it with their existing streaming service so I have one less streaming service I have to pay for. I know that's wishful thinking. This story is probably going to drag on for another year as it faces regulatory hurdles to get approved. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of Wrapped Therapeutics are absolutely ripping higher this morning after the pharma giant GSA agreed to buy the company for $58 per share in cash, valuing the deal at $2.2 billion. Now, RAP makes a key drug called Ozu Rep Rhubart, which targets the immune response behind allergic reactions. So GSX, which is a 100 billion dollar company, will add this drug to their portfolio, which already includes asthma treatments, Shingle vaccines and HIV therapies. As a result, Wrapped shares are up more than 60% on this news, and I feel like that's pretty typical in any pharmaceutical buyout. By the way, Pharma M and a man, they are heating up right now. Now, on the flip side, shares of 3M are sliding this morning despite the company reporting solid earnings. 3M beat expectations on both profits and revenues in Q4, and management forecast 3 to 4% revenue growth in 2026, which was pretty much in line with what analysts were expecting. Now, a 3% growth might not sound exciting, but this is a company that's been publicly traded since the early 80s. This isn't a hyper growth tech stock. It's a mature industrial company and they products like industrial adhesives and things like post it notes and Scotch tape. At this stage, the pitch for 3M isn't explosive growth, it's stability, cash flow and dividends. In fact, 3M is a staple holding in dividend ETFs and income portfolios. But the stock is down more than 4% today and I don't think it's because of earnings. It's just there's a broader market sell off right now happening due to the Greenland headlines and tariff threats by Trump and the eu. So kind of a bad morning to report earnings, I gotta say day let's wrap the show with the fun fact the New York Stock Exchange is developing a platform for trading tokenized securities. Parent company of the New York Stock Exchange called Intercontinental Exchange said they are working on a new system that would let people trade digital versions of stocks and ETFs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And these tokenized stocks would settle instantly on a private blockchain so traders won't have to wait for days for trades to settle. And it would happen instantly, which is something that happens in crypto. Clearly the New York Stock Exchange has been inspired by how crypto works. Crypto trades 24 7. It settles almost instantly. So it makes sense to bring this blockchain tech and tokenization to the stock market. Now this platform still needs approval from the sec, but I think it'll happen. I mean I do like the fact that we have a market open and close time right now, but you got to admit it is pretty archaic in today's world. 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. And if you are listening on Spotify, don't forget to 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. And we're already off to a wild start this week and we haven't even talked about earnings yet, so it's gearing up to be a very interesting week. By the way, if you guys want some bonus content, go check out our deep dive that we did over the weekend about the Federal Reserve. And also check out our interview that we did with Bloomberg reporter Ashley Carmen. We talked about Spotify, the future of podcasting, YouTube and Netflix. It was a great conversation. So highly recommend checking that out. 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.