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📉 Stubborn Inflation
Pip Munch
January 14, 2026
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☕️ GM Munchers! Moderna popped 17% after projecting $1.9B in revenue. I tested positive for COVID on Christmas Eve—perfect timing to avoid my father-in-law's "financial advice" and mother-in-law asking about my “career plans”. Moderna made billions, I made excuses. Fair trade if you ask me.
On today’s menu:
📉 Stubborn Inflation & Iran Chaos
💩 Former NYC Mayor Becomes A Crypto Scammer
🏦 JPMorgan Crushes Earnings, Stock Tanks Anyway
🤑 The World’s Top 20 Billionaires
😬 The Japanese Yen Is Crashing
Yesterday’s numbers:
S&P 500 | 6,963 | -0.19% |
Nasdaq | 23,709 | -0.10% |
Dow Jones | 49,191 | -0.80% |
Bitcoin | $94,200 | +3.30% |
BREAKING NEWS
📈 Inflation at 2.7%: When "Meeting Expectations" Isn't Actually Good
December CPI came in at 2.7% year-over-year—unchanged from November and exactly in line with forecasts.
Here’s the deal: The headline number didn't get worse. However, grocery prices jumped 0.7% in December, marking the biggest monthly gain since August 2022. I guess I’m not the only one on the chickpeas and rice diet.
Why you shouldn't celebrate: The Fed's target is 2%. We're at 2.7%. That's 35% above target. If my wife spent 35% over our monthly budget, we'd have a serious conversation involving spreadsheets and disappointed looks.
What's keeping inflation sticky: Tariffs. Economists confirm they're pushing prices up. Supreme Court ruling on tariff legality could drop as soon as today—there's a 70%+ chance they rule them illegal, which creates a nightmare: Does the government refund trillions in collected tariffs? How? With what money?
All of this is impacting the odds of rate cuts in 2026:
2 cuts: 28% chance
3 cuts: 26% chance
The Munch Take: The market’s torn on what happens next. This could go either way. Inflation stays stuck and we get a recession? Possible. More rate cuts come, and markets rip for the next two years? Also possible.
🇮🇷 Iran Chaos Escalates: When Regime Change Becomes a Trading Catalyst
US ordered all citizens in Iran to leave immediately. Trump cancelled meetings with Iranian officials and encouraged protesters to "take over your institutions."
Odds Iran's Supreme Leader is out by end of 2026: 69% (all-time high)
Our first question: Who the hell is still voluntarily in Iran at this point? Second question: What does this mean for markets?
The scenarios:
Big escalation + US military involvement: Risk-off selloff, oil spikes, safe-haven flows to gold/bonds.
Minor skirmish that fades: Nothing burger, markets ignore it within two weeks.
The Munch Take: Watch this closely. Geopolitical uncertainty = volatility. If tensions escalate meaningfully, expect rotation into defensives and commodities. If it fizzles, business as usual.
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CRYPTO
💩 Eric Adams' $500M Crypto Rug Pull: A Masterclass in Scamming
Former NYC Mayor Eric Adams launched $NYC memecoin. It hit $500M market cap immediately, then Adams pulled liquidity and it crashed 80% to under $100M.
His take: Estimated $3.5 million profit from the scam.
The damage: Thousands of retail traders got obliterated chasing a politician's memecoin because apparently we've learned nothing from the last 47 crypto rug pulls.
The Munch Take: This is why people think all crypto is a scam. When a disgraced politician can launch a coin, pump it to half a billion, rug pull everyone, and walk away $3.5M richer in under 24 hours, maybe—just maybe—we should stop buying tokens launched by people whose last job performance involved federal indictments. Just a thought.
MARKET OVERVIEW
🍿 Tasty Movers & Shakers
📱 $NVDA – An Nvidia-backed company announced plans for the first moon hotel by 2032 at $416,667/night. Meanwhile, back on Earth, people are living in their cars because rent hit $3,000/month. Maybe solve homelessness before building lunar Airbnbs? Just a thought.
🧑✈️ $BA – Boeing climbed 1.98% after outselling Airbus in 2025—their first win since 2018. Congratulations on finally selling more planes than your primary competitor after seven years of trying. The bar for celebration has never been lower. Next headline: "Boeing plane lands successfully, investors euphoric."
💻️ $INTC – Intel surged 7.33% after KeyBanc upgraded the stock, citing strong server chip demand from AI infrastructure. After years of getting demolished by competitors, Intel's finally benefiting from the Federal government buying their stock.
📉 $WLFC – Wealthfront reported its first earnings as a public company and crashed 17% after revealing customer flows slowed in late 2025. Turns out people stop moving money to wealth management platforms when markets are volatile and everyone's nervous. Shocking discovery for a fintech company that just went public at the top.
⚖️ Musk vs OpenAI Trial – Court date set for April 27th. Musk's suing OpenAI for breach of contract, claiming they abandoned "AI for humanity" to chase profits. This will be a Netflix documentary within 6 months. We're already pre-ordering popcorn.
STOCKS
🏦 JPMorgan Crushes Earnings, Stock Tanks Anyway
JPMorgan reported monster Q4 results and got rewarded with a -4.19% haircut.
The numbers:
Earnings: $5.23/share (beat $5 estimate)
Revenue: $46.77B (beat $46.2B forecast)
Profit: $13.03B (down 7% but still $13 BILLION)
Equities trading revenue: $2.9B (+40%, crushed estimates by $350M)
Why it dropped: Investment banking fees fell 5% to $2.3B, missing estimates by $210M. So despite printing $13 billion in profit and demolishing trading expectations, one segment underperformed and the stock ate dirt.
The Munch Take: If you feel like you can't make money trading, JP Morgan's equities desk just made $2.9B in three months. Maybe the problem isn't the market—it's your strategy. Also, banks crushing earnings but dropping anyway? Classic late-cycle behavior. Proceed cautiously.
TRADING SUCCESS
🤑 Wednesday Motivation
🚀 Pre-Market Fuel
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