Meta Just Launched Its Most Important AI Product Yet

Public.com presents The Rundown, your daily market update in 10 minutes. My name is Zayd Admani and today is Wednesday, September 9th. In today's episode, we'll tell you about the latest development in the US-Canada trade war. We'll also tell you why Wall Street seems to love Meta's new personal AI agent app. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out the main reason why Hollywood just had its biggest summer ever, and it's not just because of Spider-Man. We've got a great show for you today, let's go. The stock market had a rough return from the long Labor Day weekend, with all three major indices finishing in the red on Tuesday. The S&P 500 dropped 0.6%, the Nasdaq was down 0.3%, and the Dow did the worst, dropping 1.2%. Still don't care about the Dow. Energy was the best-performing sector yesterday, and that's because oil prices are rising again. Brent Crude is now trading above $100 a barrel for the first time since July. We talked a bit about this yesterday, the Iran war is back in focus, with more fighting in the Middle East, and no signs of de-escalation or a peace deal. We're more than six months into this conflict now, and missiles are still flying, but the Strait of Hormuz is still choked. Before the war, roughly 20 million barrels of oil a day moved through Hormuz, and now oil flows are around 6 million barrels a day, according to estimates from the Wall Street Journal. And with fighting picking back up now, those numbers might start dropping, which is what's pushing oil prices higher. And higher oil prices have a cascading impact on the economy. It leads to higher transportation costs, an input cost for businesses, and it leads to overall higher inflation. So the overall macro picture is looking a bit shaky right now. Oil prices are rising, bond yields are surging, the Fed might hike interest rates next week, and there's also a trade war with Canada brewing, which we'll talk more about in a bit. So yeah, all this macro stuff could be a headwind for stocks the rest of the year. We'll learn more about inflation this week, the Wholesale PPI Inflation Report drops on Thursday morning, and the August CPI Inflation Report drops on Friday morning, so we'll recap those reports, along with everything else happening in the market. So definitely get subscribed to the podcast if you haven't already, and tune in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines, starting with Canada. The trade war between the U.S. and Canada continues to escalate. Quick recap on the situation. Two weeks ago, trade talks between the two countries fell apart, and the U.S. imposed 50% tariffs on around $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. Canada then responded by imposing retaliatory tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of U.S. products, ranging between 15 and 50%. The products include steel, dairy, farm equipment, electronics, and hundreds of other things. Well, now the Trump administration is hitting back again, and Trump is going beyond just tariffs. President Trump signed executive orders announcing outright import bans on certain Canadian products, including some beer, wine, liquor, dairy products, and motorcycles. The administration is also adding new tariffs on things like cheese, boats, golf carts, and mattresses. Trump is also threatening to raise tariffs on Canadian cars and auto parts to 50% starting January 1st, and he's moving to restrict Canadian companies from certain U.S. government contracts as well. So again, this is turning into a full-on trade war, and it could have a meaningful impact on both economies, especially in certain states here in the U.S. because of how intertwined the two economies are. For example, 39% of Michigan's exports go to Canada right now, while nearly half of exports from South Dakota and West Virginia go to Canada. There are still conversations happening between the U.S. and Canadian officials, so a deal is still possible, but right now, both sides are moving in the opposite direction. Let's shift gears and talk about Meta, because the company might have finally figured out how they plan to make money from AI. Meta just launched a new app called Muse, which is a personalized AI agent, and this app is already making a splash and is up to number four on the App Store. The way this AI agent is supposed to work is way beyond a normal AI chatbot. You can ask Muse to book appointments, fill out forms, make purchases, plan trips, build grocery lists, basically handle tasks for you instead of just answering questions. I've been using it since yesterday, and I gotta say, it is pretty fun to use. It's kind of addicting, honestly. I set it up to track Facebook Marketplace for some things that I want to buy, and yeah, it's been pretty useful for that. I also had to look through all my Instagram DMs of the reels of restaurant recommendations that my wife sent me. So it's been pretty useful so far, and the market seems to like it too. Meta stock is up more than 5% this morning at the time of this recording. One of the biggest advantages that Meta has over everyone else is their existing user base, distribution, and data. They have data on 3 billion users, so they can really personalize the AI experience. And once they have people using AI agents, that's another billboard for Meta to slap ads onto. So we'll see if this works. I mean, Meta is spending $140 billion on AI this year, so the market is really looking for some signs that Meta can make money from all that investment. And I think it's possible that Meta might end up winning the market for personal AI agents, while OpenAI and Enthropic just focus on the enterprise. Let me know in the comments on what you guys think. Have you tried out the Metamuse app, and do you think that Meta could be one of the winners of AI? Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Chime stock is booming this morning after the fintech company announced that they were buying a bank. Chime is one of these new-age fintech apps that pitches itself as a neobank. People use Chime to open up checking and savings accounts, and deposit paychecks, and pay with a debit card. But technically, Chime isn't a bank. Chime is just an app that partners with existing banks to hold their customer deposits. One of the banks they partner with is called Stride Bank, which is a 113-year-old bank in Oklahoma. Well now, Chime is buying Stride Bank for $590 million in cash. With this purchase, Chime can now use their own customer deposits to fund loans, save money on fees it was currently paying its partner banks, and expand their lending business. The company expects more than $100 million in net synergies from this deal. Now here's an interesting detail from this deal. Chime says they'll keep their bank under $10 billion in assets for the foreseeable future. The reason they're doing that is because that's the line where debit card fee caps kick in, and debit card fees is how Chime makes most of its money. Every time you swipe a credit card, Chime gets a cut, and Chime's debit card fees are higher than the bigger banks because the federal government regulates how much these big banks can charge for their swipe fees. But because Chime is still small, there's no regulation on what they can charge for their swipe fees. So Chime wants to become a real bank, but they don't want to become big enough for regulators to cap their swipe fees. Overall, though, the market seems to like this move by the company. By the way, Chime's other partner bank, Bancorp, their stock is down over 10% this morning, which shouldn't be that surprising because I imagine Chime won't be using them anymore. Moving on, let's talk about Service Titan. Their stock is getting smoked this morning after the software company reported earnings last night. Service Titan is a company that makes software for home service businesses like plumbers, electricians, and HVAC companies. They handle things like scheduling, dispatching, and invoicing. And the quarter itself was actually pretty solid. Revenues were up nearly 21% to $292 million, and earnings came in at $0.40 per share, both those metrics beating Wall Street estimates. But the reason the stock is down big this morning is because of Service Titan's guidance. Service Titan expects third quarter revenues to come in between $285 and $287 million. Wall Street analysts were looking for at least $288 million in revenue. The company slightly missed on guidance, and that was enough to send the stock down 20% in pre-market trading. Personally, it seems like a bit of an overreaction to me, especially since Service Titan's full year revenue guidance is still above Wall Street estimates. But it seems like investors might be getting nervous about software names again, and that might be contributing to the sell-off. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Hollywood just had their highest grossing summer box office ever. Movie theaters in the US and Canada brought in more than $4.7 billion between May 1st through Labor Day, which broke the previous record set all the way back in 2013. And for the first time ever, May, June, July, and August each made more than $1 billion. The box office was propped up by some huge movies this summer. Spider-Man Brand New Day was by far the biggest, making more than $920 million domestically and over $2.4 billion worldwide. The Odyssey also did over $1.6 billion globally. And Toy Story 5 was over a billion dollars. But look, it wasn't just sequels and Christopher Nolan movies making all the money. Five original movies made over $100 million each, which I think is great to see. That being said, there is a pretty big asterisk here on the box office number. Hollywood doesn't adjust these numbers or records for inflation. And movie ticket prices are way more expensive today than they were back in 2013, especially as people are paying up for premium screenings like IMAX and Dolby. If you look at the total numbers of tickets sold, it's not so hot. Through mid-August, about 568 million movie tickets have been sold this year, which is roughly 248 million fewer than during the same period in 2019. So less people overall are still going to the movies today compared to pre-pandemic, but the movie theaters are making more money. And I think that's just going to be the movie theater business model going forward. People will go less frequently but are willing to pay more for premium showings like IMAX and Dolby. If you look at the Odyssey, IMAX showings accounted for 30% of the Odyssey's box office. And I think we're going to see that trend continue in the future. If you're going to take the time to go to the movie theaters, you might as well spend a few bucks more and watch the movie on the biggest and best screens. And I guess that might explain why IMAX stock is up nearly 50% this year. Let me know in the comments on what you guys think. Do you think the box office is back or was this just a one-off summer? Well, alright guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. Thank you guys so much for listening, watching, and commenting. Shout out to Mike and V for all the work behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.