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☕️ GM Munchers! My wife was hoping I’d take some time off for the holidays but here I am, Sunday night, writing this email so we can all collectively lose money together. You’re welcome.

On today’s menu:

• 📉 Prediction Markets, Holidays & Nike’s Crash

• 🛢️ Trump Just Blockaded Venezuela's Oil (RIP $2 Gas)

• 💊 9 Pharma Companies Make A White House Deal

• 🤑 This Stock Has A 5-Year Return of 1,269%

• 👀 Bitcoin Whales Are Buying Again

Friday’s numbers:

BREAKING NEWS

🎲 Everything's a Prediction Market Now (And It's Actually Genius)

DraftKings, Coinbase, Robinhood, and Fanatics all just launched prediction markets. You can now bet on literally anything—sports, elections, whether your favorite celebrity stays married past 2026. Welcome to the new gold rush.

Here's the insane part: Monthly bets on Kalshi and Polymarket went from less than $100 million in early 2024 to $13+ billion in November. Robinhood's stock is up 200%+ this year largely because prediction markets became their fastest-growing business. Polymarket's expected to go public next year.

The Munch Take: This is an entirely new trading vertical that's exploding right now. One headline can spike the odds of countless events in seconds. Trump tweets about tariffs? Boom—dozens of prediction markets move instantly. Fed hints at rate cuts? Another wave of volatility. If you're not following the news obsessively, you're already behind. This isn't passive investing—it's real-time sentiment trading on steroids. The opportunity is massive, but so is the risk of getting caught flat-footed.

🎄 Markets Are Basically Closed This Week (Don't Fight It)

Markets close Thursday for Christmas and close early at 1 PM EST on Wednesday. Translation? Liquidity is going to be thinner than your patience after explaining Bitcoin to your uncle at Christmas dinner.

Thin liquidity = boring trading or random volatile spikes for absolutely no reason. Neither is fun.

The Munch Take: If there's a solid setup Monday or Tuesday, take it. Otherwise? Step away. Go read some 10-K forms (riveting, we know) or spend time with family. The market will still be here next week, and you won't accidentally blow up your account chasing ghost volume on Christmas Eve.

👟 Nike Just Remembered What "Falling Knife" Means

Nike crashed 10.54% Friday—its worst day since April—and here's the kicker: they actually beat earnings expectations. Revenue hit $12.4B, up 1%. EPS came in at $0.53, ahead of estimates.

So why the bloodbath?

The guidance was terrible. Nike's in the "middle innings" of their comeback, which is CEO-speak for "this is taking way longer than we hoped." China's still struggling, gross margins got crushed 300 basis points by tariffs, and net income dropped 32% year-over-year.

Translation? Nike beat expectations, then immediately told investors not to get excited. The market responded by hitting the sell button harder than we hit refresh on our portfolios during Fed announcements.

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COMMODITES

🛢️ Trump Just Blockaded Venezuela's Oil (RIP $2 Gas)

Crude oil jumped 0.93% to $56.52 after Trump ordered a complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela. U.S. forces have already intercepted multiple vessels off Venezuela's coast.

This is a major escalation against President Maduro. China buys roughly 4% of its oil from Venezuela (600,000+ barrels per day), and now millions of barrels are stuck on tankers waiting off China's coast.

The Munch Take: If this escalates and oil spikes hard, it's bad for risk sentiment across the board. Higher oil = higher inflation = less room for Fed cuts = pressure on growth stocks. Watch crude closely—if it breaks above $60, expect broader market volatility. Also, Trump's $2/gallon gas promise? Yeah, this doesn't help.

MARKET OVERVIEW

🍿 Tasty Movers & Shakers

$TSLA – Elon just won a 7-year legal battle in Delaware's Supreme Court, securing his $140 billion pay package. He earned it by making Tesla the most valuable automaker on the planet. The fight got intense enough that he moved Tesla's incorporation to Texas for a fresh start.

$GILD – Gilead Sciences and 8 other pharma giants cut a deal with the White House: lower drug prices in exchange for a 3-year tariff holiday. It's basically "make insulin affordable and we won't tax you into the Stone Age." A rare win for consumers, which naturally makes us suspicious that something worse is coming. When Big Pharma voluntarily plays nice, check your blind spots.

$CCL – Carnival exploded 10% Friday after crushing Q4 earnings and issuing guidance so optimistic it could power motivational seminars. Up 25% YTD. Apparently people are desperate to pay thousands of dollars to be trapped on a floating buffet with strangers. The market doesn't care about our personal travel preferences—it just wants those booking numbers, and Carnival's delivering them like room service at 2 AM.

$CRWV – CoreWeave, the AI company from New Jersey (yes, New Jersey does tech now), ripped 22.64% Friday after Citi slapped a "Buy/High Risk" rating on it. Translation: "We think this will moon, but also maybe explode. Good luck." Stock's up 100%+ YTD because AI demand is hotter than a GPU farm in summer. When analysts use "high risk" and "buy" in the same sentence, buckle up.

$TGT – Target's app and website crashed during peak holiday shopping, and the stock fell 1%. To recap: your infrastructure fails when people are panic-buying last-minute gifts, and you only drop 1%? That's almost impressive restraint from the market. Still down 30% YTD though, so maybe invest in servers instead of trendy designer collabs. Just a thought.

$BBW – Build-A-Bear is up 23% YTD, which sounds cute until you zoom out to the 5-year return: 1,269%. Not a typo. Apparently stuffing teddy bears is more profitable than whatever the hell we've been trading. Even with an $11 million tariff hit coming in 2025, they're thriving. The lesson? Sometimes the best trades are the ones that make you question your entire strategy. Maybe we should've been long plush toys this whole time.

TRADING SUCCESS

🤑 Monday Motivation

🚀 Pre-Market Fuel

1. 👀 Bitcoin whales are spending billions of dollars.

2. 😥 In less than 2 weeks, Buffett is stepping down.

3. ❌ Trump suspended the green-card lottery.

4. 🇺🇲 The US conducted strikes in Syria.

5. 🥚Egg prices are down 77%.

🍪 Munchy Memes

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