✌🏻Bye Bye Temu & Shein

Good afternoon! Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning identity project, World (formerly Worldcoin), has officially landed in the U.S. with shiny orbs and six new storefronts from Austin to San Francisco. The Orb scans your iris, generates a unique digital ID called an IrisCode, and rewards you with some free crypto—WLD—just for proving you're a real human. It’s like CAPTCHA with way more commitment.

World is trying to build a decentralized, global ID system for the AI age—where bots, deepfakes, and spam accounts are becoming impossible to tell apart from real people. The idea: your World ID becomes a plug-and-play way to verify you’re human online (without leaking personal info), and can be used to log into apps like Reddit or Shopify. Pay users now, scale later—because if World becomes the default identity layer of the internet, it could end up powering everything from voting to digital banking.

MARKETS

• The S&P 500 rose for a ninth straight day Friday, its longest winning streak since 2004, lifted by upbeat jobs data and a potential easing in US-China trade tensions. The Dow gained 564 points, and the Nasdaq wasn’t far behind, both closing up over 1.3%.

• Markets got an extra jolt midday after reports that China may act on US complaints about fentanyl exports.

STOCKS
Winners & Losers

What’s up 📈

• Wolfspeed exploded 23.89% higher as shareholders cheered the departure of its CFO and a short squeeze took traders by surprise. ($WOLF)

• Duolingo popped 21.61% after the language app issued strong revenue guidance for both Q2 and the full year. ($DUOL)

• Dexcom surged 16.17% after the glucose monitoring company beat Q1 revenue estimates and announced a $750 million share repurchase plan. ($DXCM)

• Maplebear (Instacart) rose 13.62% after missing earnings but providing upbeat guidance for Q2 EBITDA. ($CART)

• Five Below jumped 11.88% after the discount retailer raised Q1 net sales guidance to around $967 million. ($FIVE)

• Palantir Technologies climbed 6.95% after NATO finalized its acquisition of Palantir’s AI-enabled warfighting platform. ($PLTR)

• MicroStrategy advanced 3.35% despite a wider EPS loss, driven by investor optimism and bullish crypto-related commentary. ($MSTR)

• Shell rose 2.84% on better-than-expected earnings, helping lead a broader energy rally. ($SHEL)

What’s down 📉

• Block plummeted 20.43% after the company behind Square and Cash App missed Q1 revenue estimates and issued weak forward guidance due to macro uncertainty. ($XYZ)

• Atlassian sank 8.99% even after beating earnings expectations, as weak Q4 guidance spooked investors. ($TEAM)

• Roku fell 8.50% after posting a small revenue beat but forecasting disappointing EBITDA for the next quarter. ($ROKU)

• GoDaddy dropped 8.36% after the company projected Q2 revenue below analyst estimates. ($GDDY)

• Take-Two Interactive declined 6.66% after announcing Grand Theft Auto VI won’t arrive until May 2026, later than previously expected. ($TTWO)

• Apple slid 3.74% after its services revenue slightly missed expectations, despite beating on earnings and overall revenue. ($AAPL)

TRADE
Temu halts shipping direct from China as de minimis tariff loophole is cut off

Say goodbye to the $1 dirt-cheap TikTok gadgets and hello to tariff surcharges.

As of Friday, the U.S. has officially shut the door on the “de minimis” loophole—a decades-old rule that let Chinese goods under $800 slip through customs tariff-free. Now, packages from China and Hong Kong will face a 120% tax or a flat fee (starting at $100 and doubling to $200 in June), upending bargain shopping sprees on sites like Temu and Shein.

Temu's Sudden Pivot

Temu, once the poster child for direct-from-China discounts, is pulling a hard U-turn. The site now only shows “local” items shipped from U.S. warehouses, effectively ditching its China-based fulfillment model. While that shields consumers from tariff shock, the product variety—and rock-bottom prices—have taken a hit. Shein also quietly jacked up prices across categories, and Amazon dropped plans to show tariff costs up front after backlash from D.C.

Who’s Paying the Price?

Consumers, obviously. Trump defended the move by saying kids might have to settle for “two dolls instead of 30”—at a slightly higher price. But critics say the real damage could hit small businesses and sellers who rely on cheap imports, not to mention shoppers now watching hair clips double in price overnight.

Whether this rewrite of e-commerce rules leads to a domestic seller boom or just emptier carts remains to be seen. But one thing’s clear: Tariff season is here, and the shipping game just got a whole lot more expensive.

NEWS
Market Movements

• 🛒 Bezos to offload $4.8B in Amazon stock: Jeff Bezos plans to sell up to 25 million Amazon shares through May 2026, worth around $4.8 billion at current prices. The filing came just after Amazon’s Q1 earnings, which included a revenue beat but highlighted tariff-related uncertainty and White House tension ($AMZN).

• 🛰 Palantir rallies on record defense budget buzz: Palantir surged to near record highs as reports emerged that the White House will propose a $1.01 trillion national security budget. The move signals a reversal from February’s fears of defense spending cuts, sending the stock flying ($PLTR).

• 🤑 Nvidia CEO lands $344M payday: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s “compensation actually paid” for FY2025 hit $344.2 million, driven by the company’s 171% stock surge last year. The SEC-mandated disclosure dwarfs traditional CEO pay metrics and puts Huang’s haul above the revenues of hundreds of small-cap firms ($NVDA).

• 📈 Threads hits 350M users, but who’s posting?: Meta says its Twitter-like platform Threads now has 350 million monthly active users, growing fast but still struggling for mindshare. Despite the big milestone, external traffic data suggests user engagement remains soft compared to upstarts like Bluesky ($META)

• 💻 Consumer-facing tech feels tariffs first: Earnings season has revealed that ad-reliant tech companies like Meta and Alphabet are weathering tariffs better than consumer-facing firms. Apple warned of $900 million in tariff costs this quarter and is shifting production to India and Vietnam, while Amazon cited trade policies and weaker spending in its cautious outlook ($AAPL, $AMZN, $META, $GOOGL).

• 💼 Jobs beat expectations despite tariff headwinds: The U.S. added 177,000 jobs in April, beating forecasts even as blanket tariffs loom over the economy. Unemployment held at 4.2%, but wage growth slowed and revisions dragged prior months’ job totals down. Health care and logistics led the gains, while federal employment shrank amid ongoing cuts.

• 🤖 Nvidia clashes with Anthropic over AI chip claims: Nvidia rejected allegations made by Amazon-backed Anthropic that U.S. chips are being smuggled into China, calling the concerns exaggerated amid rising tension over export rules ($NVDA, $AMZN).

• 💔 Kohl’s fires CEO over undisclosed relationship: Kohl’s fired CEO Ashley Buchanan just 100 days into the role over a secret romantic link with a vendor. The stock jumped 8.4% on strong Q1 prelims but is still down 70% this year ($KSS).

• 🎧 Spotify update bypasses Apple’s payment cut: A new Spotify app update will let U.S. users pay directly, skirting Apple’s in-app payment system following a major legal loss for the iPhone maker ($SPOT, $AAPL).

•  🧠 Meta explores premium tier for AI app: Meta may roll out a premium version of its AI assistant and start showing ads to nearly 1 billion users as it looks to deepen monetization of its chatbot platform ($META).

• 🎉 Buffett marks 60 years at Berkshire helm: Warren Buffett is celebrating six decades leading Berkshire Hathaway. Shares are up 18% this year, with the company holding $334 billion in cash and delivering stable returns across its insurance and utility businesses ($BRK.B).

STOCK
Block sheds nearly one-quarter of its market cap after Q1 miss, now worth less than what it paid for Afterpay in 2022

Block just took a $6 billion gut punch and the bruises are showing.

Shares of Jack Dorsey’s fintech firm Block ($XYZ) plunged over 20% after a brutal Q1 earnings miss and slashed full-year guidance spooked Wall Street. Revenue came in at $5.77B (vs. $6.2B expected), and earnings per share dropped to $0.56 from the projected $0.88.

The stock is now trading below what Block paid for Afterpay in 2022—$29B for a company that’s now worth $27.7B.

The App That’s (Not) Cashing In

The biggest drag? Cash App. Monthly users have flatlined at 57M for five quarters, and the usual tax refund bump failed to deliver. Spending fell in travel and entertainment, leaving the company to admit it was “too narrow” in focus. Dorsey’s new game plan? Go after teens and families, and lean into Cash App Borrow—a lending feature greenlit by the FDIC in March.

But investors aren’t buying the comeback story just yet. Analysts downgraded the stock across the board, flagging weak engagement, disappointing user growth, and concerns over lending to lower-income users in a shaky economy.

Trying to Regain Square One

Despite the red ink, Block did post its most profitable quarter ever, with adjusted operating income hitting $466M. The company’s hoping a 50% jump in marketing spend, Bitcoin mining ambitions, and full rollout of Afterpay in Cash App can revive momentum in the second half.

Until then, the fintech darling of the 2020s is feeling more like a cautionary tale—caught between a weakening consumer and a vision that’s struggling to scale.

Calendar
On The Horizon

Next Week

The coming week might feel quieter, but it packs a punch. The Fed’s latest rate decision lands Wednesday, and after cooling inflation data and a solid labor print, investors are wondering if Jerome Powell is finally ready to ease up. Markets will be parsing every syllable of his post-meeting remarks like it’s Fed poetry night.

Monday kicks off with service-sector data, followed by trade figures and consumer credit midweek, and the usual jobless claims on Thursday. On the corporate side, earnings season is still throwing punches—there’s a final wave of household names yet to step into the ring.

Earnings:

• Monday kicks off with names like Palantir, Ford, Hims & Hers, ON Semiconductor, and BioNTech.

• Tuesday brings the heat with AMD, Super Micro, Marriott, and Ferrari, among others.

• On Wednesday, get ready for Disney, Uber, ARM, MercadoLibre, and even the New York Times.

• Thursday’s the real earnings circus: Shopify, Coinbase, DraftKings, Lyft, Peloton, and more than two dozen others report.

• Friday? Practically a ghost town. Consider it your well-deserved cool-down lap.

NEWS
The Daily Rundown

• 🍏 Apple warns tariffs could cost it $900M: Apple beat Q1 expectations with $95 billion in revenue—its best start to a year since 2022—but CEO Tim Cook warned that Trump’s new tariffs could slash up to $900 million from next quarter’s profits. China revenue disappointed, and Apple plans to shift some production to India and Vietnam, which may irk Beijing. Meanwhile, a judge ruled Apple defied a court order by inventing a new App Store fee, and even referred the company for possible criminal contempt.

• 🍟 McDonald’s sees biggest U.S. sales drop since 2020: U.S. same-store sales at McDonald’s fell 3.6% in Q1, its worst quarterly dip since Covid’s early days. The burger chain said budget-conscious customers are pulling back, a trend also seen at KFC, Domino’s, and Chipotle. McDonald’s is pinning hopes on a Minecraft movie collab and Snack Wrap revival to reignite appetite.

• 🎬 MoviePass tries again—this time with blockchain betting: MoviePass is back (again), this time with Mogul, a fantasy movie betting app where users wager on box office performance and awards. It’s currently free-to-play, with real-money betting to come. Over 400,000 people are reportedly on the waitlist, hoping this version of MoviePass doesn’t burn out like the last.

• 🍝 Chef Boyardee sold for $600 million: Conagra has sold Chef Boyardee to Hometown Food Company for $600 million in cash. The nearly 100-year-old canned pasta brand will now live under a private equity umbrella. Conagra is focusing on streamlining its portfolio.

• 🎮 Microsoft raises Xbox prices worldwide: Microsoft is increasing prices across its gaming products, including the Xbox Series X, now $599.99 in the U.S. First-party games will rise to $79.99 as the company cites higher development costs and tariffs. The hike reflects industry-wide pricing pressure as the console war heats up again.

• 🏭 U.S. manufacturing sinks as tariffs bite: Manufacturing activity in the U.S. fell sharply in April, with the PMI dropping to 48.7—its lowest since November. The decline was tied to input cost inflation and supply disruptions from new tariffs. Some manufacturers are already scaling back production and jobs.

• 🎭 ‘Death Becomes Her’ leads the Tonys: The stage adaptation of Death Becomes Her scored 10 Tony nominations, tying with Buena Vista Social Club and Maybe Happy Ending. The musical is up for Best Musical, Direction, and Choreography. The Tonys will be held on June 8 at Radio City Music Hall.

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