Around The Horn-A Weekly Roundup of Target, Super Micro, Google Stuff, and Much More

In honor of one of my favorite background ESPN shows, we’ll go around around the horn and check on stuff about the market. Rest in peace Around The Horn *prayer emoji*.

First, Warner Bros Discovery’s David Zaslav famously/infamously once said that Warner Bros Discovery did not need the NBA. Then, the NBA rights contract came up again, and the NBA started the bidding process. WBD ended up bidding a smidgen less than Amazon, and they lost out. There was a small issue: WBD had matching rights, and they had practically matched a bid from a competitor. So, WBD launched a lawsuit. Everybody and their mother knew that this lawsuit was pretty much empty and that WBD was never going to get NBA rights back out of a lawsuit like this. Still, the NBA and WBD came to a settlement after a few months. They ended up settling because the discovery process was about to start, and I would assume, some stuff was about to come out about the negotiation process between Amazon and the NBA that was meant to be confidential.

In the settlement, WBD got the right to overseas NBA games in Europe and almost all of South America at no cost. WBD also licensed out their much-prized studio show, Inside the NBA, to ESPN, meaning they pick up some spare change from ESPN and get to keep their Turner fees from cable providers. This changes nothing, WBD is such a screaming sell.

Super Micro Computer shares were quite the hot commodity on Wall Street for much of early this year, with shares surging as high as 320% YTD. Then, Hindenburg Research released a report that eviscerated the legitimacy of their reports, and the DOJ opened a probe. All of this meant that Super Micro was about to get delisted from the NASDAQ for accounting irregularities after two separate auditors resigned back to back, refusing to associate their firms with Super Micro’s accounting flaws.

They did just submit a plan to NASDAQ that would allow them to stay listed, which sent shares firing up 84% over the following days. The NASDAQ still has to actually accept this plan, but things are looking up for Super Micro, making them a solid AI-hardware play if that is how you want to roll.

Nvidia’s earnings were great, destroying all analyst expectations with prejudice, but they still fell short of investor sentiment. All the news was great surrounding the Blackwell chips, which will start shipping out this quarter. These chips are already so popular that the chip will be pretty much impossible to get for the next year. The stock fell after hours, but I think the stock is still really solid.

Target’s earnings were…not great, with shares falling 23%. It’s funny; I remember when this company was equivalent, in some people’s minds, to Costco in quality. Now, it feels like Target is on the wrong side of the mountain. Profits missed, revenue missed, and all forecasts were lowered, which is especially bad because Target raised its predictions for all of these after the last quarter. Making this even worse is Walmart’s complete success. Target’s sales grew by 0.3% in the last quarter while Walmart’s, a much, much larger company, grew by 5.3%. I am so out on Target.

Google is facing a tough, tough antitrust battle. They were found guilty of monopolistic actions a few months ago, and the DOJ is requesting a breakup of their search engine and the practically free sharing of the data they have accrued through this search engine. Google would also be banned from paying companies to be the default search engine. You might be thinking, “Won’t Donald Trump just stop this when he takes over the DOJ?” The answer is no. Everything is in the court’s hands, I believe, and even if Google appeals past whatever this decision ends up being, the DOJ will still pursue punishments as they have up to this point.

Honestly, I am just sort of out on Google. Some people are like, “This is a screaming buy, like Meta a few years ago.” Meta was down 75% from all-time highs; Google is down 12%. I do not see this as a value play, and I just think there are better, safer, cheaper, and healthier long-term plays out there.

Okay, that was my weekly roundup. Plz wish me luck on this math quiz tomorrow because I am pretty sure that I am about to flunk it :(.