Sam won last week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ with this beauty about Binance struggling to recover $6bn in crypto that was lost in a heist:

Here’s how Sam compared to the competition:

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Shut your mouth Elon, Six billion 'tis but a scratch. Not even real dough. ~RB (15)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ How can fake money, Hiding inside computers, Be safe for ever? ~Susan Weinstein (53)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Seed phrase on Post-it, Binance does full clown-car scramble, Thieves wave from their yachts. ~Vic Lindenmeyer (12)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Crypto’s largest heist, World shock, 6 bil. gone, Musk laughs. There goes my bonus… ~David C. Perry (10)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Six point three billion, twenty minutes, one laptop. Pyongyang says thank you. ~Kristin Lanham (36)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Binance is dancing, Waltz? Moonwalk? I’d disagree. Skirting Rings of Fire. ~Macreggie (5)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Irony: con men, losing money to two-bit…hackers. Full circle. ~Sam (116)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Binance hacked, Billions, Gone! Supposedly safe? No…One told Kim Jong Un. ~Scott Bauer (13)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Crypto's Eleven, Dramatic heist at Binance. Clooney was better ~Stephen R. Balzac (16)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Massive crypto heist, makes me feel sad for Binance. But really, just — Duh! ~Margaret Lea (10)
286 Votes via @beehiiv polls

This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how Tesla will stop making Cybertrucks amid slow sales. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers.

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Table of Contents

• Stocks Bounce Back To End Wild Week

• Tesla Will Stop Making Cybertrucks

• Wall Street Braces for Warren’s New Influence

• Salon Dot Com to Shut Down After 31 Years

• Links for a Bad Case of the Mondays

• Poll of the Day: Will You Miss The Cybertruck?

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▲ 0.31% )  $DJI ( ▼ 0.46% )  $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

 $SPX ( ▲ 0.31% )   $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  $NVDA ( ▲ 2.78% )  $TSLA ( ▲ 4.23% )  $JPM ( ▼ 0.85% )  $GS ( ▼ 0.36% )  $AAPL ( ▼ 0.52% )  $ADBE ( ▼ 2.9% )  

Stocks Bounce Back To End Wild Week

If your portfolio felt like a high-speed tilt-a-whirl last week, you aren't alone. After Wall Street suffered its worst day in nearly two years over runaway artificial intelligence spending and midterm election jitters, Friday decided to flip the script again with a bit of a rebound. The S&P 500 $SPX ( ▲ 0.31% )  rose 1%, while the Nasdaq $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  climbed 2%, propelled by Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 2.78% ) soaring more than 6% as tech investors scrambled to buy the dip.

Markets in Asia took a brutal beating first — Japan’s Nikkei 225 plummeted 6% into a bear market and South Korea's KOSPI suffered a 20-minute trading halt. But by the time New York opened, traders decided that maybe the sky wasn't falling, after all. Addressing the post-election anxiety, Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, told the New York Times that “while we could see a period of market indigestion following the election results, we do not think fundamentals justify a prolonged downturn.”

Meanwhile, political shifts in Congress raised fears of tighter data-center regulation slowing AI growth. Phillip Wool, head of research at Rayliant, weighed in on Washington's political dynamic, saying “at best, this is probably a stalemate, and it’s just going to bring more attention to some of the risks of AI.” Yet, optimists like Jefferies strategist Mohit Kumar argued that “one could argue that having more guardrails makes AI investment more sustainable in the medium term.”

Fancy that! To top off the whiplash, strong U.S. jobs data fueled fresh fears of interest rate hikes. Matthew Martin, senior U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, told the Times that “the latest jobs data suggest labor market conditions are tightening, and with inflation well above target, that adds to the case for a December rate hike.”

In short: Grab some antacids. Market "indigestion" appears to be the new normal.

Quote of the Day

Tesla Will Stop Making Cybertrucks

Kiss goodbye to the IncEl Camino. The Deplorean. The Minecraft Mistake. Because I’m afraid the world’s most recognizable stainless-steel pickup is getting retired. Tesla $TSLA ( ▲ 4.23% ) announced it will wind down Cybertruck production at its Texas gigafactory next year, bringing an end to the polarizing EV that promised to disrupt the truck market but mostly…didn’t.

When Elon Musk first unveiled the prototype back in 2019, expectations were sky-high. He boldly told investors it would be Tesla’s “best product ever.” Of course, that was right before his head of design threw a metal ball at the vehicle's supposedly armored window and infamously cracked it live on stage.

Unfortunately for Tesla, the hiccups didn't stop at the launch. Between a spate of recalls, manufacturing issues, and polarizing looks, initial hype faded fast. The sales figures tell a brutal story: In October, just 1,914 Cybertrucks were registered in the U.S. By comparison, Ford sold more than 70,000 F-Series trucks in that same month.

In a post on X, Musk explained that ending production is meant to “make room” for increased production of the self-driving Cybercab. This shift underlines Tesla's new core thesis that its future lies in autonomous vehicles and robotics rather than selling traditional consumer cars. Until it develops another new core thesis, of course.

Having already discontinued its luxury Model S and Model X vehicles earlier this year, dropping the Cybertruck leaves Tesla with its smallest lineup in over a decade. As a result, the company's automotive revenues now rest almost entirely on the Model Y crossover and Model 3 sedan.

Wall Street Braces for Warren’s New Influence

Wall Street executives are sweating at the prospect of Senator Elizabeth Warren taking charge of the Senate Banking Committee. After nearly two decades of calling private equity “legal looting” and demanding criminal probes for banking blowups, the Massachusetts Democrat is about to flex her subpoena power and drive the legislative train.

Financial giants JPMorgan Chase $JPM ( ▼ 0.85% ) and Goldman Sachs $GS ( ▼ 0.36% ) each dropped more than 4% last week as investors braced for tighter oversight. Assessing the mood, former Republican Senator Pat Toomey told the Wall Street Jounal, “It’s hard to imagine it’s good news for these industries,” pointing to Senator Warren’s long record of attacking big banks.

Warren’s upcoming priority list includes private equity via her subtly named "Stop Wall Street Looting Act," insider trading in prediction markets, and crypto consumer protections. Outlining her core focus in an opinion piece for Time, Warren wrote, “Democrats won this election by claiming we are on the side of working people, and working people are counting on us to deliver.”

Yet, Wall Street might be most alarmed by her potential bipartisan synergy with President Trump on credit-card fee caps and de-banking probes. Toomey highlighted this risk, asking, “The big question is: Are there areas of overlap between populist Republicans and Democrats that could result in what I would consider very anti-free market legislation?” 

Song of the Day: Claud, ‘Gay Witchcraft’

"Gay Witchcraft" serves as the melancholic yet hook-laden opening track of Claud’s third studio album, Me and the Music, released last month. Co-produced by Claud alongside Grammy-winner John Congleton, the track strikes a delicate balance between vulnerability and pop-rock buoyancy. So, it’s just like this newsletter.

Salon Dot Com to Shut Down After 31 Years

I wrote a savage piece for Salon back in 2010 about gentrifiers in post-Katrina New Orleans. Given that my freelance journalism is generally the kiss of death for any publication it’s perhaps surprising that it took a whole 16 years for Salon to finally announce it’s shutting down!

Founded back in 1995 by journalist David Talbot when the web was a lawless wilderness (as opposed to now, when of course it’s a perfectly regulated utopia), the pioneer of digital journalism has signed off after more than 30 years.

In an unsigned farewell message posted to its site, the publication admitted that the “business realities of independent digital journalism” had shifted, concluding that “our publishing model is no longer sustainable.” Reflecting on its trailblazing legacy, the announcement added, “Salon was never just a website. It was an idea about what journalism could be, born at a moment when the internet was still a largely unexplored frontier.”

Back when it was launched with financial backing from Apple $AAPL ( ▼ 0.52% ) , Adobe $ADBE ( ▼ 2.9% ) , and the now-defunct Borders bookstore chain, Salon served as the launching pad for iconic media figures — from NBC’s data nerd Steve Kornacki to CNN’s Jake Tapper, alongside progressive heavyweights like Joan Walsh, Glenn Greenwald, and Michelle Goldberg.

Yet even three decades of intellectual swagger couldn’t protect it from the brutal economics of digital publishing. After changing hands over the years — including a 2019 sale for $5 million and a 2023 acquisition by Find.co, a Malta-based "performance marketing ecosystem" for crypto brands — the end arrived abruptly. Chief Content Officer Erin Keane revealed on Bluesky that staff were informed Thursday morning that “the publication was closed, effective immediately.”

For now, a company spokesperson offered one small consolation, noting “there are no plans to take the archive down at this time.” So, you can go read my freelance piece. I’m sure you’re thrilled.

Free Yourself From Advertising Forever!

Links for a Bad Case of the Mondays

Wake up somewhere worth waking up in: Brooklinen. There is a specific kind of Monday misery that starts with bad sheets. Brooklinen is the opposite of that: proper percale and linen bedding, the kind hotels use to trick you into thinking you're the kind of person who has their life together.

A win by 9 a.m.: Babbel. Nothing cures the Sunday scaries like waking up marginally more interesting than you were on Friday. Babbel is language learning in 15-minute sessions — Spanish, French, German, Italian, the lot — built around actual conversation rather than parrot drills.

Fix Monday by actually sleeping: Casper. Most Monday misery is just Sunday-night sleep debt wearing a tie. Casper is the bed-in-a-box that started the whole category — a proper mattress, delivered in a box the size of a small fridge. I’ve had mine for eight years and counting, now.

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️ 

I’d say you’re best off just ignoring it for a few weeks, mate.

Poll of the Day: Will You Miss The Cybertruck?

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P.S. So, you remember the cheese puns that used to open this newsletter? Suffice to say, they were divisive. Now, thanks to a thing called “dynamic content options,” I can offer you the option to see cheese puns again, if you’re one of the thousands who got in touch bemoaning their departure six months ago. All you need to do is answer “true” on this survey, and submit it. If you never want to see cheese puns in this newsletter again, don’t click that link, don’t fill out the survey, don’t submit it. Just keep reading and pretend this conversation never happened. Mmmkay? Thank you.