America’s favorite city is Nashville, bachelorette party capital of the US. We’ve charted the rankings of the 50 most populous US cities with a breakdown of how opinions diverge between city dwellers vs. people who live in suburban or rural areas. While Nashville was the unanimous favorite for both demographics, a Texas town is non-city dwellers’ next favorite city. Meanwhile, good news Washington, DC! When ranked among states, you’re the least favorite, but when compared to cities, there are eight cities that Americans like even less than the capital. A trade deal with Japan and reports that a similar agreement with the EU was near the finish line propelled the S&P 500 to fresh all-time and closing highs on Wednesday. The benchmark US stock index closed up 0.8%, the Nasdaq 100 rose 0.4%, and the Russell 2000 advanced 1.5%. After the bell, tech giant Alphabet reported stellar earnings and that it would boost capex for the year to $85 billion, while Tesla reported a 12% year-over-year sales dip… but at least the low-cost Tesla is still “on track”! |
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What do doughnut peddler Krispy Kreme, home buyer Opendoor Technologies, mortgage platform Rocket, and department store Kohl’s have in common? Not much, except each is a new target of a reinvigorated set of retail traders. While far from a comprehensive list, it’s if anything a sign: |
- In the last 72 hours, the following stocks have seen their trading volumes, mentions on Reddit’s infamous r/WallStreetBets, and stock prices soar: DNUT, OPEN, RKT, KSS.
- In the last two days, an average of 1.76 million call options have changed hands in OPEN. That’s up 12x from the average of the previous 20 sessions. In RKT, call volumes are up 6x, and they’re up 10x in KSS. In DNUT, call volumes went from close to zero to over 100,000, rising a whopping 33x.
- Opendoor traded a bonkers 298% of its market cap on Monday (some $7 billion, more than Meta). One bullish note from hedge fund manager Eric Jackson was enough to spark an options buying frenzy in the beleaguered tech company. As call volumes cracked 2 million on Monday, the resulting gamma squeeze sent the stock soaring.
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Now, let’s be realistic: any grouping of meme stocks is a, shall we say, fluid coalition. If anything, DORK may very well be dissolving just as quickly as it formed, as several of the stocks finished yesterday down. But it does show that the most interesting thing about this era of meme stocks and coins is, namely, the speed of it all. |
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Since the GameStop era of 2021 — when an army of traders took on hedge fund titans, choosing an ailing video game retailer as their battleground — market participants have tried hard to predict the next meme stock. Most candidates for retail love do share a few common characteristics: often the company has been struggling, heavily shorted by Wall Street, and sometimes comes with a hint of nostalgia about its product or service. But while those features remain, what seems to be changing about the meme stock landscape is the speed at which these moments coalesce and, for what it’s worth, dissipate. |
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America’s Building the Data Economy. Everyday Investors Can Own a Part of It. |
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One of the most salient crypto phenomena of 2025 is the mind-blowing rise in corporate bitcoin treasuries. Once considered fringe, undergoing a bitcoin pivot has become almost mainstream, whether companies have any affiliation with crypto or not. Coffee chains, gold miners, and a Norwegian deep-sea mining company are some of the seemingly random businesses jumping on the treasury bandwagon. As of writing, there are 148 public companies with corporate bitcoin treasuries, collectively holding 859,870 bitcoin, worth more than $100 billion. A year ago, public companies held just over 416,000 bitcoin. The biggest and most famous of these is Strategy, which pioneered the idea and, with 607,770 bitcoin, holds the lion’s share of that digital pile. But the more interesting moves come from the companies just below it in our ranking, which includes new entrants like Twenty One and the Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company, both of which didn’t exist last year and are hoping to leapfrog to the second-place spot. But just because you can pivot to bitcoin doesn’t mean you should. Case in point: a few of the new entrants who hoped it would help their stock pop include Semler Scientific, a medical technology company; Solarbank, a solar power company; and ECD Automotive Design, a company that restores luxury vehicles. Our charts show pretty plainly how that’s going for each of them. |
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Not everyone can be Strategy, and there’s no surefire formula that says a quick rebranding or merger + adding bitcoin = success. The companies with the best chance of success go all in and have conviction, transparency, and access to capital markets. If they don’t? As one CEO told us, “There could be blood in the streets for people who lack long-term focus.” |
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