$Disney (DIS.US)$ Chapek is a manager who knows how to extract profit, not someone with vision. I saw his interview on CNBC after their most recent earnings. He just spewed out gobidlygook about the Omniverse. Silly thing that won’t be going anywhere.
Speaking of managing/vision, it will be interesting if he can come up with a creative option to deal with plummeting ESPN subs while maintaining the expensive sports contracts. Will it be a pivot to ESPN+? Will it be a forced bundle of Disney+/ESPN+ like we have with our TV packages (and the cause of their demise)
Also interested in how he’ll deal with Comcast and Hulu.
We already know he’s raising prices on everything at the parks while cutting niceties. No more Magic Express, free Flash Passes, trams from the parking lots etc.
Of course the parks are still very crowded. They need to build two more US parks, but while they’re spending all their money on streaming content, they’re happy to jack up their park prices.

$Moderna (MRNA.US)$ Winning a judgement to not invalidate patents based on standing is a long way from winning a judgement to enforce a patent infringement. This seems overstated here. Royalties could happen but we are not close to that point right now.

$General Motors (GM.US)$ So we go from a low range of $10.5 B to 14 B for a quarter and we state that chip shortage is getting better and that is only good for 19 cents today. I know Covid news but if COVID really bad just means less public transportation and more private vehicle overhead.
Market makes no sense so I sold shares of several companies including GM this morning and I bought them back right before close today.

$Pfizer (PFE.US)$ Wake up, people!
Omicron is NO BIG DEAL!
When guys on CNBC talk about it, they make it sound like a doomsday event (Omicron, the Planet Killer), or like its a new and disruptive chip stock that Kathy Wood just bought for $ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK.US)$.

$PayPal (PYPL.US)$ stock gains 1.6% in premarket trading after CEO Dan Schulman said the company's "Buy Now, Pay Later" option surged almost 400% Y/Y on Black Friday in an interview on CNBC's "Mad Money" program.
"That's been one of the stars of the holiday season for us," Schulman said after the close on Tuesday.
Keep in mind that the company has only been in BNPL for about a year or year and a half, which means the base from a year ago was very small.
"We did some 750,000 transactions alone in one day on Black Friday," he told Jim Cramer referring to the Friday after Thanksgiving. And the company had more than $1B of process volume through its BNPL option in November. "We did over 1M first-time users for the first time ever in a month," he added.
When asked if PayPal is a "second fiddle" in BNPL, Schulman said the company has grown to one of the top three or four BNPL players in the world.
He also said the company is on track for 55M net new actives.
BNPL rival $Affirm Holdings (AFRM.US)$ rises 1.6% in premarket. $Block (SQ.US)$, which is buying BNPL firm $Afterpay Ltd. (AFTPF.US)$, rises 0.6%. $MasterCard (MA.US)$ gains 1.8% and $Visa (V.US)$ is up 1.4%; both are involved in BNPL.
In the past year, PayPal's stock decline of 14% contrasts with Square's 1.3% decline, Affirm's 159% surge, and the S&P 500's 28% increase as seen in the graph below.
Previously (Nov. 28), Affirm Holdings and $Adyen N.V. Unsponsored ADR (ADYEY.US)$ stocks extend gains as PayPal, Visa, other peers slip.

$Tesla (TSLA.US)$ Sure go buy a new car when you are struggling with higher gas and food prices. Buttigieg is such an elitist moron.

$Twitter (Delisted) (TWTR.US)$ Another rule Twitter can choose to enforce or not enforce at its discretion.

$Apple (AAPL.US)$ is reportedly getting ready to unveil the third-generation of its iPhone SE in the first quarter of 2022, Taiwanese research firm TrendForce says.
Apple shares are up 1.6% to $162.76 on the day, bucking the decline in the broader equity markets.
The third-generation iPhone SE is likely to be a "major instrument" for the tech giant to establish a presence for mid-range 5G smartphones, TrendForce added.
Apple and its manufacturing partners are expected to produce between 25 million and 30 million units of the iPhone SE.
In addition to the new iPhone SE, Apple will unveil four iPhone models in the second half of 2022, TrendForce says, similar to what it has done in the past several years, after having continued success with the iPad in recent months.
The current iPhone SE, which starts at $399, is available in 64GB or 128GB storage models and has a 4.7-inch display. It also has Apple's A13 Bionic chip, Touch ID home button, a 12 MP back camera and a 7 MP front camera.

$Lucid Group (LCID.US)$ I think it should be noted that Rawlinson has been very vocal that he doesn't think Tesla is going to achieve real level 5 driving anytime in this decade.
It is interesting that Rawlinson seems to be openly inviting the big tech companies to enter into some kind of partnership. However, the fact that no partnership has been announced I find revealing. Surely Lucid and $Apple (AAPL.US)$ have had discussions. I imagine Apple is demanding too much from Lucid.

$Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI.US)$ Last wk it was the market goes up ignoring the new strain. Next day it went down because of the strain. Now back up because of the strain. But if it wasn’t the strain it would be inflation..