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☕️ GM Munchers! Spent the weekend in the backyard pretending to be productive. This week I’ll do the same thing, except the bonfire gets swapped for a screen full of red tickers. Growth.

On today’s menu:

• 📊 U.S. Stocks Hit Records While Canada Sheds Jobs

• 🎙️ Spotify Just Paid $250 Million To Keep Joe Rogan Talking

• 🍿 Tasty Movers & Shakers

• 📡 Elon Just Destroyed Phone Carriers

• 🏦 Are The Largest US Banks in Trouble?

Friday’s numbers:

BREAKING NEWS

📊 U.S. Stocks Hit Records While Canada Sheds Jobs

Talk about a split screen. In the U.S, the party kept rolling on Friday with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both closing the week at the highest levels in history. This was all thanks to the unstoppable AI trade and a relief rally after trade tensions with China seem to be cooling off. But it looks like the party isn’t crossing the border as Canada’s job market just took a nasty tumble.

Friday’s Canadian jobs report was ugly. The economy lost 68,000 jobs in September, the second straight month of losses, and the unemployment rate climbed to 6.5%. To put that in perspective, economists were actually expecting a gain of about 9,200 jobs, so this was a massive miss. The losses hit young workers and the public sector hardest, and the drop basically wiped out the job gains Canada had built up earlier this year.

Here’s why this divergence matters so much for investors watching both sides of the border.

• 🇨🇦 The Bank of Canada is now in a bind: This was the last jobs report before its October 28 rate decision, and a weak labor market makes a case for cutting rates to help the economy, the opposite of what’s happening in the U.S.

• 🇺🇸 The U.S. is still fighting inflation: While Canada weakens, the U.S. Fed is leaning toward more rate hikes with the odds of another one this year sitting at 77%. That’s exactly why the loonie has been getting crushed against the U.S. dollar.

• 📅 This week decides a lot: U.S. bank earnings kick off Tuesday with JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo, while the big September U.S. inflation report lands Wednesday and could swing the whole market.

The Munch Take: This is a genuinely fascinating moment, because the two economies are heading in opposite directions. The U.S. is running hot, with record stocks and an inflation problem, while Canada is cooling off fast, with real job losses piling up. For investors, this split is the whole story: it’s a big reason the U.S. dollar keeps steamrolling the loonie, and it tells you a lot about where each central bank goes next. Our playbook doesn’t change for a noisy week. The U.S. inflation report Wednesday is the one we’re watching most closely, since it decides what the Fed does. If a hot number spooks the market and drags quality names lower, that’s our shopping cue, not our panic button. And for our Canadian readers, a weakening job market is a real reminder of why owning assets that aren’t tied to one country’s economy matters. Buckle up, keep your list ready, and let’s see what this week brings.

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NEWS OF THE DAY

🎙️ Spotify Just Paid $250 Million To Keep Joe Rogan Talking

Spotify really doesn’t want to lose its biggest star. The streaming giant re-signed Joe Rogan to a new multi-year deal reportedly worth an estimated $250 million, keeping the most popular podcast on the planet right where it is. The terms look similar to his last contract from 2024, and the show stays non-exclusive, meaning it still runs on YouTube and Apple too. $SPOT stock actually ticked up about 2.6% on the news.

So how does Spotify have this kind of money lying around? Simple: scale. The company now has a staggering 300 million premium subscribers, each paying a monthly fee. When you’ve got that many people paying every single month, a $250 million deal spread over several years becomes a very manageable bet, especially for a star who keeps people glued to the app.

And that’s exactly why Spotify keeps making these giant deals. Rogan creates what the company calls a “halo effect.” His millions of listeners don’t just tune in and leave. They stick around to explore music, audiobooks, and other podcasts, and they see ads while they do it. One megastar can pull in and keep far more than $250 million worth of subscribers and ad revenue over time.

• 📈 The 5-year run is the real story: Spotify stock is up a massive 113% over the past five years, as its podcast and advertising business exploded alongside its subscriber base.

• 📉 But 2026 has been a dud: The stock is down about 8% year to date, as investors worry about slowing growth and the hefty cost of content deals exactly like this one.

• 🎧 Rogan is the anchor: His show has been Spotify’s most-followed podcast since 2020, and it topped the charts across every major platform last year.

The Munch Take: Love him or hate him, Joe Rogan is a genuine business asset, and this deal makes sense for a company with 300 million paying mouths to feed. Here’s our honest read on the stock, though. Spotify has been a phenomenal long-term winner, up 113% over five years, but it’s having a rough 2026, and these expensive star deals are exactly what makes some investors nervous about profits. The bull case is that scale wins: more subscribers, more ad revenue, more reasons to never cancel. The bear case is that Spotify keeps spending big to stay on top in a brutally competitive space. We’re not buyers or sellers here, but we’ll say this: a company that can casually drop $250 million to keep its biggest draw clearly isn’t hurting for customers. Watch whether that spending actually turns into bigger profits, because that’s the whole ballgame for this stock.

MARKET OVERVIEW

🍿 Tasty Movers & Shakers

🤑 Free Report: Top 5 Physical AI Stocks For 2027 (via StockEarnings)

🏥 $HUM Humana jumped 11.02% after federal data showed more members signed up for its Medicare Advantage plans. More enrollees means more steady revenue, and investors ate it up.

💉 $MRNA Moderna rose 14.21% on reports of a new national push to develop cancer vaccines.

🍎 $AAPL Apple slipped 1.11% after reports that soft demand for its pricier iPhone 18 Pro models led it to trim component orders.

🧪 $AVNT Avient dropped 7.78% after CEO Ashish Khandpur stepped down, with Mike Frank taking the reins. A surprise leadership swap rarely sits well with nervous shareholders.

💊 $TEVA Teva gained 4.77% after the FDA approved its once-monthly injectable treatment for schizophrenia.

CHART OF THE DAY

📡 Elon Just Gave Phone Carriers Their Worst Day In Decades

Elon Musk just pointed his rocket company at your phone bill, and telecom investors ran for the exits. On Friday, SpaceX announced a deal to buy nationwide airwaves that it says will let Starlink become “a major mobile carrier in the US.” The carrier stocks got absolutely hammered. Verizon closed down 8.75%, its worst day since 2002. AT&T fell 9.81%, its worst since 2000. T-Mobile dropped a brutal 13.27%, its worst day since 2013. SpaceX stock, meanwhile, rose about 1%.

Here’s what happened in plain English. SpaceX agreed to buy “low-band spectrum,” the invisible radio airwaves that carry phone signals. Low-band is the good stuff, because it travels far and works well inside buildings. On top of that, the FCC approved SpaceX’s plan to launch 15,000 new satellites that beam service directly to regular phones, no special device needed. Combine satellites in the sky with airwaves on the ground, and you’ve got the recipe for a real phone network.

• 📶 The pitch is coverage everywhere: Starlink’s promise is a phone that works in dead zones, mountains, and the middle of nowhere, something no ground carrier can fully match.

• 🏢 The new airwaves fix the weak spot: That 800 MHz spectrum is meant to make Starlink work indoors, its biggest technical gap.

• ⚖️ Analysts think the selloff overshot: Several firms said Starlink’s long-term threat got “more credible,” but noted there’s limited near-term risk to the carriers’ actual customers.

The Munch Take: This is another classic example of Elon barging into a sleepy industry and flipping it upside down. Cars, rockets, payments, and now your phone bill. For SpaceX, it’s probably bullish long term, since it could unlock an entirely new business worth billions. But wanting to be a carrier isn’t the same as being one. This takes years, billions, and regulatory approval, and Musk always blows past his own timelines. We still think SpaceX is overpriced and too risky for us, so no buy call there. But we also wouldn’t want to own any of these carriers. Their one saving grace is that phone customers are “sticky” and rarely switch. Trouble is, I’m a lot more loyal to a low monthly bill than to the phone number I’ve had for 10 years. The threat is real but slow.

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🚀 Pre-Market Fuel

1. 🥇 The $15 Gold Fund That Pays Up to $1,152/Month (Ad)

2. 🏦 Are the largest US banks in trouble?

3. 🤑 This stock just hit a new record high.

4. 🍟 Trump bought this stock and it’s not doing well.

🍪 Munchy Memes

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