🧠 Mixed autos, travel, BNPL earning results show signs US consumers cracking from trade war

In partnership with

🕊️ No paywalled articles.

📊 US Markets

• S&P 500 $SPY ( ▲ 0.66% ) 📊 US stocks closed mixed at the end of an unusually quiet week – MarketWatch: The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% Friday and wound up with a loss of 0.5% for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite was little changed.

• Dow Jones 🏭 Dow drops more than 100 points Friday as investors await U.S.-China trade talks – CNBC: The talks with Chinese officials follow the U.S. and United Kingdom reaching a preliminary trade deal. Investors hope this will lead to more agreements being reached quickly. That said, a 10% tariff rate on the U.K. appears to be the baseline for the globe.

• Investing 📈 For exhausted stock market pros the choice is buy or stay home – Bloomberg via Yahoo! Finance: The stock market’s stunning rebound over the last month has largely been driven by Main Street investors buying the dip in everything in sight while professional money managers ditched US stocks, spooked by mounting fears of slowing economic growth and trade war disruptions.

• 🧠 Upgrade your PortfolioGPT account for access to OpenAI O3 mini reasoning model to generate portfolios!

🏛️ Financials & Private Equity

• Technology $AFRM ( ▲ 0.37% ) 💱 Affirm shares sink as the buy now, pay later giant posts surprise profit but disappointing guidance – Sherwood by Robinhood: Affirm shares were down 13% after the payment installment company posted a surprise Q3 profit, but gave a chillier revenue outlook.

• Holding Company $BRK.B ( ▼ 0.47% ) 🚂 Berkshire Hathaway Q1 Earnings Decrease Y/Y on Higher Expenses – Zacks via Yahoo! Finance: Berkshire Hathaway missed Q1 operating earnings estimates as profits fell 14% on a 49% drop in insurance underwriting amid tariff and geopolitical uncertainty; their cash pile hit a record $347B after selling stocks for a tenth-straight quarter.

• Crypto Brokerage $COIN ( ▲ 23.98% )🏛️ Coinbase revenue falls 10% in Q1, missing industry estimates – CoinTelegraph: Coinbase missed Q1 revenue estimates as consumer and institutional trading volumes fell 17% and 9% QoQ respectively, despite stablecoin revenue growth and rising derivatives market share as the firm warned of weaker blockchain rewards ahead.

🏛️ Staples & Discretionary

• Travel $EXPE ( ▲ 1.27% ) 🧳 Expedia sinks as soft US travel demand weighs on the online travel giant’s Q1 results – Sherwood by Robinhood: The travel booking company’s shares were down after missing Q1 expectations, hit by slowing US booking demand across the brand portfolio, including Hotels-com and vacation rental platform VRBO.

• Food Delivery $DASH ( ▲ 2.97% ) 🥡 Doordash announces $1.2B SevenRooms deal, misses revenue expectations – Yahoo! FInance: The company missed Q1 revenue estimates, beat on earnings amid resilient consumer demand and engagement, but warned of geopolitical and currency risks; the firm also announced the acquisitions of UK’s Deliveroo and restaurant booking platform SevenRooms.

• Technology $SHOP ( ▲ 3.2% ) 💱 Shopify’s B2B ecommerce sales surge 109% in Q1 – DigitalCommerce: The software and ecommerce platform provider reported mixed Q1 results and issued soft Q2 guidance amid tariff uncertainty and potential impacts from shifting trade policies. Shopify’s B2B momentum is backed by its expanding feature set and merchant wins.

• Autos $F ( ▲ 0.47% ) 🚙 Ford stock choppy after automaker pulls guidance, citing $1.5B tariff impact – Yahoo! FInance: Ford beat Q1 earnings and revenue estimates but suspended FY guidance amid a $2.5B tariff hit, potential supply chain disruptions, and further trade uncertainty.

• Dealerships $CVNA ( ▲ 4.81% ) 🚗 Carvana’s record quarterly results top Wall Street expectations – CNBC: Carvana beat Q1 earnings and revenue estimates on a 46% YoY sales surge driven by heightened demand amid fears of tariff-driven price hikes.

• Technology $UBER ( ▲ 4.11% ) 🚕 Uber misses revenue expectations with trips up 18% over last year – CNBC: Uber beat Q1 earnings estimates but missed on revenue and gross bookings amid headwinds from lower US inbound travel. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that autonomous vehicle tech is “the single greatest opportunity ahead for Uber.”

• Technology $LYFT ( ▼ 1.05% )  🚕 Lyft surges after beating earnings estimates and boosting stock buybacks – Sherwood by Robinhood: The pure-play ride-hailing app’s Q1 earnings beat estimates, netting a record number of bookings and boosting its share buyback plan to $750M thanks to “financial strength.”

Get Over $6K of Notion Free with Unlimited AI

Startups move fast. That's why thousands of startups worldwide trust Notion as their connected, customizable workspace. In one place, you can organize, plan, and execute—whether you're managing investor outreach, documenting key decisions, or scaling operations.

Apply now to get up to 6 months of Notion with unlimited AI free, a $6,000+ value. Access AI's limitless potential right inside Notion and build your company with one powerful tool.

Get Unlimited Notion AI Now

🏛️ Media & Communications

• Advertising 🎯 Tech’s strong ad sales are showing signs of cracking from Trump’s trade war – CNBC: Wall Street cheered the first-quarter earnings results from tech giants like Meta and Alphabet, which both reported strong online advertising revenue. Chinese retailers like Temu and Shein are already rolling back ad spend.

• Studio $DIS ( ▲ 0.81% ) 🎪 Disney shares climb 10% on surprise uptick in streaming subscribers, earnings beat – CNBC: Walt Disney beat Q2 earnings and revenue estimates as a surprise 1.4M gain in Disney+ subscribers boosted its global base to 126M; revenue rose across all segments, with strong growth in parks, ESPN, and consumer products driving upward revisions to guidance.

• Studio $WBD ( ▼ 0.54% )🎬 Warner Bros. Discovery Q1 Earnings Miss, Revenues Decline Y/Y – Yahoo! FInance: Warner Bros missed Q1 earnings and revenue estimates on an 18% decline in studio revenue, a 7% drop in cable TV revenue, and cord-cutting pressures, despite strong streaming subscriber growth; the firm is moving towards a potential breakup.

• Studio $PARA ( ▲ 0.34% )🎬 Paramount's strong quarterly results boosted by originals, streaming growth – Reuters: Paramount Global's Q1 revenue and profit beat estimates, helped by originals and post-theatrical releases at its direct-to-consumer business, which includes streaming.

• Technology $DKNG ( ▼ 0.66% ) 🏈 A gambler-friendly March Madness crimps DraftKings earnings – Sherwood by Robinhood: The company blamed some of its revenue miss on “customer-friendly sport outcomes,” likely a reference to the lack of upsets in the March Madness men’s NCAA basketball tournament, which FanDuel parent Flutter Entertainment also blamed for its own less-than-stellar results.

• 🧠 Upgrade your PortfolioGPT account for an ad-free experience with unlimited portfolio generations!

🌐 Technology & Magnificent 7

• Technology $AAPL ( ▲ 1.02% ) 🍎 Apple's plan to offer AI search options on Safari a blow to Google dominance – CNBC: Apple plans to add AI-powered search options to its Safari browser in a big blow to Google, whose lucrative advertising business relies significantly on iPhone customers using its search engine. The news slammed shares of Google-parent Alphabet, wiping off roughly $150B from its market value.

  • CNBC: Google agrees to pay Texas $1.4B data privacy

• Data & Analytics $PLTR ( ▲ 8.14% ) 🦉 Palantir Q1 revenue beats estimates, emphasizes AI demand – Yahoo! FInance: Palantir issued a Q1 beat and raise as strong US commercial growth and AI platform adoption drove a 21% YoY revenue increase, though shares fell 8% on lagging international growth and concerns over elevated valuations.

• Security $CRWD ( ▲ 2.51% )🛡️ CrowdStrike to cut 500 jobs in plan to scale business – Cybersecurity Dive: The cybersecurity firm has faced increasing market pressures amid a scramble by rivals to consolidate enterprise customers on unified platforms, however, analysts add the workforce cuts not indication of slow down in demand.

• Cloud Services $NET ( ▲ 5.62% ) 🌐 Cloudflare Stock Jumps as Revenue Soars on Record-Setting Contracts – Yahoo! Finance: The cloud services provider beat revenue estimates as it signed two record deals, its largest contracts by size and longest-term secure access service edge (SASE) services.

🦾 Artificial Intelligence

• LLM’s 🤖 OpenAI hires Instacart CEO Fidji Simo, former head of the Facebook app, reporting to Altman – CNBC: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a blog post that the company had named Fidji Simo, Instacart’s CEO, as its head of applications. Fidji Simo joined OpenAI’s board last year and had spent more than a decade at Facebook and currently serves as the CEO of Instacart.

• Compute $TSM ( ▲ 3.75% )  ⚡ TSMC April Sales Surge After US Tariffs Spur Device Rush Orders – Reuters via Yahoo! Finance: The main chipmaker for Apple and Nvidia Corp. reported monthly sales of $11.6B, a 48% jump in April, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect.

• Compute $AMD ( ▲ 4.01% ) 🧇 AMD beats on earnings but will take $1.5B hit to revenue from chip restrictions to China – CNBC: AMD beat Q1 earnings and revenue estimates on a 36% YoY sales increase driven by strong chip demand growth and a 57% rise in data center sales, though trade tensions and valuation concerns linger; the firm forecasted a $1.5B revenue hit from US curbs on China chip exports.

• Hardware $SMCI ( ▲ 16.02% ) 🗄️ Super Micro issues weak guidance, cites ‘economic uncertainty and tariff impacts’ – CNBC: Supermicro missed Q1 earnings estimates and delivered weak guidance citing macroeconomic uncertainty, tariff impacts, and delayed customer purchases of data center tech.

• AI Investing 🦾 30 AI stocks that could surge up to 73%, and are loved by a bullish tech analyst – MarketWatch: Nvidia and Apple make the cut, along with a host of software stocks.

• 📧 Subscribe to Unprompted Invest beyond Nvidia in the $15T global AI market, from infrastructure, ingest & training, and inference (Coming soon)

👛 Personal Finance

• Wealth Transfer 🤝 Bill Gates announces plan to give ‘virtually all’ his money away and end the Gates Foundation in 20 years – CNN: When Bill and Melinda French Gates created the Gates Foundation in 2000, they had planned for the organization to continue its work, using their remaining fortune, for several decades after they died. But now, the billionaire Microsoft founder says he doesn’t want to wait that long to give away most of his wealth.

• 🏫 Trump administration to garnish wages of 5.3M defaulted student loan borrowers this summer – CNBC: The Trump administration began to alert around 195,000 defaulted borrowers that their federal benefits will be subject to garnishment in 30 days.

• 📧 Subscribe to Great Wealth Xfer Covering the global $84T wealth transfer from Boomers to Millennials and Gen Z. (Coming Soon)

We’ll be back next Saturday morning to recap the week’s financial news.

Thanks to Notion for sponsoring.

✨ Happy Unprompting,

Rawee
[email protected]

_{PortfolioGPT may earn commission or revenue on some items through the affiliate links in this newsletter.}