Hey Snackers,
What’s up, WhatsApp? Meta announced yesterday that the popular messaging app will start showing users ads for the first time. It’s been over a decade since Meta purchased WhatsApp for $19 billion, so it makes sense that it finally wants to make money off it. For now, your personal messages will stay ad-free and the ads will appear in only one tab.Â
US stocks rallied as some of the geopolitical risk premium built into markets late last week dissipated amid reports that Iran is seeking a de-escalation with Israel. The S&P 500 rose 0.9%, the Nasdaq 100 gained 1.4%, and the Russell 2000 ended 1.1% higher on Monday.
Communication services was the best-performing S&P sector ETF, with tech, financials, and consumer discretionary also up more than 1%.
The children yearn for the farms
An unbelievably simple gardening simulation game, said to be initially created in about three days by a 16-year-old, has Roblox shares trading at their highest level since late 2021.
The game, called “Grow a Garden,” has players plant seeds, sell their crops for in-game currency called sheckles, and then use that money to purchase more seeds and animals.
It has become one of the world’s most popular games.Â
A Roblox spokesperson confirmed to Sherwood News that the game smashed the concurrent player record held by “Fortnite,” with 16.5 million players gardening at once on Friday.
This silly little garden game has fostered an auspicious moment for Roblox, as the company’s shares have spiked 72% since March 31, when “Grow a Garden” first sprouted. That’s added slightly more than $28 billion to the company’s market cap, all because the children who spend their summers ambling in a blocky metaverse just love to farm.Â
The Takeaway
Oh, this is far from done growing. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter last week said “Grow a Garden” is “driving massive engagement growth” in the company’s current quarter as summer vacation begins. The game has led a 75% surge in concurrent users since December and “positioned Q2 2025 for a potential record-breaking quarter,” according to Pachter.
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How Nebius emerged from Russia and became Nvidia’s second-biggest investment
Nvidia’s investment in AI cloud computing startup (and customer) CoreWeave has gotten a lot of ink, but it isn’t the only data center business Nvidia’s invested in that’s showing big gains.
A much lesser-known AI firm, Nebius, is next in our list of Nvidia’s biggest investments. The AI cloud computing company is not like other startups — perhaps most importantly because it isn’t the kind of startup often mythologized involving a few guys in a garage, some scrappy coding, and a lucky break or two.Â
Instead, Nebius emerged from the Russian tech giant Yandex. Sherwood’s Jon Keegan has a succinct summary of how it went from Russian tech IPO darling to delisted to back in everyone’s good graces again.
Nebius’ business is focused on four key pillars: AI cloud computing infrastructure, autonomous vehicles and robotics, educational technology, and data training. That last one has the backing of a few other tech heavyweights, too. The company is positioning itself to serve the growing market for sovereign AI, especially in Europe, where, oh look at that, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was just doing a keynote on that topic.Â
Nvidia disclosed its investment in Nebius in February, worth about $33 million by the end of Q4 2024. That’s up 140% since Q1 2025.Â
The Takeaway
It remains to be seen if Nebius will follow the same meteoric rise as CoreWeave. But its close partnership with Nvidia gives Nebius a similar advantage: to get early access to Nvidia’s latest and most powerful GPUs. And the halo effect of any Nvidia involvement has given other companies’ stocks a glow-up before.
Gold is shiny, alluring, and mostly pointless — it’s also crushed the stock market
During uncertain times, such as war or economic turbulence, gold offers some downside protection. So it stands to reason that over a longer time frame, it will have lost ground to the innovation machine that is the American stock market. But that isn’t the case: the paradox of gold is that it has also crushed the US stock market over the last 25 years by more than you probably can guess.
Investment Offering Closing Soon: Stanford StartX Company Raises $14M to Disrupt $8.24B Cardiac Monitor Market
Fresh off clinical testing in the EU, Future Cardia is building an implantable cardiac monitor designed to transform how we detect and manage heart disease, the world’s #1 killer.
🚨 39 successful implants and 60,000+ hours of real-world heart data
⬜️ $14M+ raised from 10,000+ investors across all offering
⏳ Offering Closes Soon.
Future Cardia is targeting a $8.24B+ market1 with tech that could change lives. Invest now.2
Yesterday’s Big Daily Movers
AMD surged over 8% as traders hope that new AI chips will spur faster growthÂ
Palantir hit a new high amid Israel-Iran conflict
Roku powered up on a partnership with Amazon
MGM leapt after saying its BetMGM business is a good bet for future growth
What Else We’re Snackin’
Unusual: Bank of America more than doubled its price target on CoreWeave and... downgraded the stock
Amid close calls and safety concerns, Southwest is adding runway cockpit warnings to almost all of its jets
Former Estée Lauder CEO Leonard A. Lauder passed away, leaving a transformative beauty legacy
Justin Sun’s Tron plans to go public via a reverse merger with SRM Entertainment
Purpose Investment’s spot XRP ETF to begin trading this week
Snack Fact of the Day
Nearly a third of bitcoin’s circulating supply is held by centralized entities.
Tuesday
May retail sales and May industrial production
1 The Cardiac Monitoring Market was valued at $8.24 billion in 2024. See the article at Business Wire for more information.
This product is not yet available for purchase and requires review and clearance before being marketed or sold.
2 Please read the offering circular and related risks from the Terms section of their StartEngine page. This is a paid advertisement for Future Cardia’s Regulation CF Offering. This Reg CF offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. In addition, as described in the Offering Circular, the Company retains the right to continue the offering beyond the Termination Date, in its sole discretion.
Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities.