Hi! Tesla has proposed an unprecedented, roughly $1 trillion pay package for CEO Elon Musk. Go ask for that pay rise you’ve been thinking about. Today we’re exploring: |
- Ticker trouble: Wall Street’s most enviable stock ticker isn’t cashing in on AI.
- Old tricks: Meta is bringing back Facebook’s “poke” feature to court younger users.
- Buried treasure: The world’s biggest illegal sports streamer just got shut down.
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The company with the world’s most enviable stock ticker isn’t cashing in on AI |
Executives in corporate America are bending over backwards to describe their products as “AI-powered" or "AI-driven,” desperate to join the hype train. Weirdly, the stock with the enviable “AI” ticker is going backwards. C3.ai, a 16-year-old enterprise software firm that develops AI tools for businesses and the government, has fallen 34% in the past month — initially dropping after a weak preliminary forecast in August, followed by actual quarterly results on Wednesday, which founder Tom Siebel called “completely unacceptable.” |
For the quarter ended July 31 in 2025, revenue fell 19% year-over-year to ~$70 million, while net losses almost doubled from a year earlier, reaching $117 million. Indeed, the company has remained in the red since its 2020 IPO, with losses continuing to widen. C3.ai has reinvented itself several times since its founding in 2009: first as C3, focusing on carbon tracking, then rebranding as C3 IoT in 2016, and finally as C3.ai in 2019, after pivoting to artificial intelligence. Shares popped following its IPO, but are now down ~90% from their peak, seriously missing the AI rally that’s defined the last two years. |
Siebel blamed the weak quarter on the company’s disruptive sales overhaul, while also citing his own health issues. This week, the company appointed Stephen Ehikian as CEO, with Siebel staying on as executive chairman. Despite the miss, Siebel emphasized C3.ai has a “superlative product offering” and “exceptional levels of customer satisfaction.” Of course, AI isn’t a magic word that turns hype into profit. While the frenzy has produced big winners, with Nvidia recently surpassing $4 trillion in market cap and Palantir transforming into a retail favorite, other names like Marvell, Adobe, and Salesforce are slumping as their AI push has yet to meaningfully lift earnings. |
Meta is reviving the nostalgic “poke” feature to win back young users |
Meta has a youth problem that it keeps trying to fix using old stuff. This time, it’s trying to bring back “pokes” on Facebook — a feature from yesteryear that the social media company had buried, which allows users to digitally nudge others without having to say a word. Originally launched in 2004, the company is planning to make the finger-prodding feature shiny and new by also including “counts,” along with a dedicated poke button and page, so users can keep track of who they poked, who they were poked by, and, crucially, how many times. |
Meta is hoping the updated feature will lead to more usage from young people, who’ve already started to adopt the practice thanks to the tech behemoth’s previous pushes. Social media companies, like Snapchat and TikTok, have previously gotten into hot water before for similar gamification elements like “streaks” that critics have said are addictive. |
According to the latest data from Pew Research Center, released last winter, teens were way less inclined to use Facebook than TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat — with just 32% of US 13-to-17 year-olds reporting ever using the social media. Indeed, the average age of Facebook users has been ticking up for years, as the company loses young people to newer services, including Instagram, which Meta bought more than a decade ago (back when it was still called Facebook). |
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An ETF investment for indirect Bitcoin exposure — and potential income. |
Bitcoin’s expansion has been hard to ignore. In just the past 5 years, the monthly market cap of Bitcoin has broadened 13x to $2.1 trillion (as of June 2025). But for those who aren’t familiar with crypto trading, the volatility of Bitcoin is often a barrier to adoption. |
Fortunately, there are ways to get Bitcoin exposure1 without buying the coin — like the newly-launched Bitcoin Covered Call ETF (BCCC) from Global X. The actively-managed fund provides exposure to Bitcoin Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) with a partial covered call strategy. That means the fund seeks to capture a portion of Bitcoin's capital appreciation1 while aiming to manage its inherent volatility through the pursuit of option premiums and distributions. The benefit? Income potential (with weekly payouts) and exposure to a portion of Bitcoin’s growth potential — in an efficient and familiar ETF wrapper. 1 The Fund does not invest directly in Bitcoin. |
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The world’s biggest illegal sports streaming platform just got shut down |
Just as some of the world’s biggest sporting competitions are starting back up after summer breaks, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) said it’s teamed up with Egyptian authorities to shut down Streameast, the world’s biggest illegal sports streamer, with two men arrested and detained. The platform, which clocked a whopping 1.6 billion site visits over the past year and (infamously) counted LeBron James among its vast user base, was taken offline in what ACE chairman Charles Rivkin described as a “resounding victory” in the authority’s battle against online piracy. Still, an analyst at Midia Research said that governing bodies might be playing a “game of whack-a-mole” in their fight to stop subscription dodgers streaming sports online for free; if the wider, ever-expanding world of internet piracy is anything to go by, they might have a point. |
Indeed, search interest in content piracy sites, while intense, is often fleeting — Streameast is no exception. According to data from Google Trends, interest in Streameast peaked just under a year ago, around the start of the NFL season and the final games of the MLB calendar. Predictably, a flood of other illegal sites and platforms are already filling Streameast’s place. |
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- The US economy added just 22,000 jobs in August — well below the 76,500 economists had predicted, according to new BLS data.
- Zero-sum game: Whilst Broadcom is flying up double digits this morning on its reported $10 billion order from OpenAI, rivals Nvidia and AMD are tumbling.
- A PwC survey expects 84% of US consumers to curb holiday spending in the next six months, marking the steepest drop since the pandemic.
- That’s no moon… Lego has launched its most expensive set yet: a two-foot tall Death Star from “Star Wars”, costing $1,000.
- E-scooter injuries in the US rose 80% to nearly 116,000 in 2024, including nearly 18,000 kids under 15, per ERideHero data compiled by Axios.
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- Where do America’s coffee, wine, laptops, and more come from? Reuters' interactive chart explains.
- US states where auto debt weighs the most — and least — on incomes.
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Off the charts: Which social media company squeezes the most money from its user base? [Answer below]. |
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Important Information: 2 Bitcoin and bitcoin futures are a relatively new asset class. They are subject to unique and substantial risks, and historically, have been subject to significant price volatility. The value of an investment in the Fund could decline significantly and without warning, including to zero. You should be prepared to lose your entire investment. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. BCCC is actively managed and invests in options contracts on one or more bitcoin exchange-traded product (ETP) that invests principally in bitcoin futures contracts or invests directly in bitcoin. BCCC does not invest directly in or hold bitcoin. The price and performance of bitcoin futures should be expected to differ from the current “spot” price of bitcoin. These differences could be significant. Bitcoin futures are subject to margin requirements, collateral requirements and other limits that may prevent the ETF from achieving its objective. Margin requirements for futures and costs associated with rolling (buying and selling) futures may have a negative impact on the fund's performance and its ability to achieve its investment objective. Bitcoin is largely unregulated and bitcoin investments may be more susceptible to fraud and manipulation than more regulated investments. Bitcoin and bitcoin futures are subject to rapid price swings, including as a result of actions and statements by influencers and the media, changes in the supply of and demand for bitcoin and bitcoin futures contracts and other factors. BCCC's concentration will subject it to loss due to adverse occurrences that may affect that sector. Investors in BCCC should be willing to accept a high degree of volatility in the price of the fund’s shares and the possibility of significant losses. BCCC engages in options trading. An option is a contract sold by one party to another that gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy (call) or sell (put) a stock at an agreed upon price within a certain period or on a specific date. A covered call option involves holding a long position in a particular asset and writing a call option on that same asset with the goal of realizing additional income from the option premium. BCCC establishes its "long" position through the combination of purchasing call options and selling put options on the Bitcoin ETPs. As a buyer of call options, the Fund pays a premium to the seller of the options. The fund then also sells call options to establish the "covered call". By selling covered call options, the fund limits its opportunity to profit from an increase in the price of the underlying asset above the exercise price, but continues to bear the risk of a decline in the asset. A liquid market may not exist for options held by the fund. While the fund receives premiums for writing the call options, the price it realizes from the exercise of an option could be substantially below the asset's current market price. BCCC is non-diversified. Carefully consider the Fund’s investment objectives, risks, and charges and expenses before investing. This and other information can be found in the Fund’s summary or full prospectuses, which may be obtained at globalxetfs.com. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing. Global X Management Company LLC serves as an advisor to Global X Funds. The Funds are distributed by SEI Investments Distribution Co. (SIDCO), which is not affiliated with Global X Management Company LLC or Mirae Asset Global Investments. |
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