😰 Spirit Airlines going bankrupt?

Today’s market performance 🏆️

S&P 500: +0.02% 📈
Nasdaq 100: -0.16% 📉
Dow 30: +0.11% 📈
Russell 2000: -0.94% 📉

In partnership with

FROM OUR FRIENDS @ DECENTRALAND

New Decentraland desktop client for Mac and Windows

• Enhanced avatars and social interactions

• Improved performance and upgraded environments

• New features: badges, daily quests, and mini-games

Download Decentraland, a virtual social world, to start exploring to start exploring.

TOP STORY
😰 Spirit Airlines going bankrupt?

Up, up, and away. Spirit Airlines is on the brink of bankruptcy after a deal with Frontier Airlines went south, leaving the budget carrier scrambling to make ends meet.

A bankruptcy filing? 

• I knew Spirit was down bad, but they’re really that broke?

• It seems that way. Creditors are circling; they have a ton of debt, and passengers hate them.

• The last one wasn’t said, but I know it’s true.

Frontier didn’t want a piece of the expiring pie, eh?

Well, they had been in talks to revive a merger with Spirit as part of a restructuring.

But just when things seemed to be heading for a lifeline, Frontier backed out.

No reason was given, but the “no comment” from Frontier says plenty.

Is there anything Spirit can do now?

Well, they’ve been selling off planes, furloughing pilots, and slashing growth plans, but it hasn’t been enough. 

Their talks with bondholders might keep them afloat, but if no deal is reached, it seems bankruptcy might be their only option.

GAMBLING
🎲 Polymarket gambler pots $48M

The election results are in, but the biggest winner wasn’t even running.

A French trader, nicknamed Théo, bet on Donald Trump to win the election and ended up walking away with ~$48 million.

Robinhood pays out that much? No way! Nah, it wasn’t Robinhood. 

It was Polymarket, an offshore, crypto-driven prediction platform that became the DraftKings for election night.

What’s Polymarket?

Think of the Polymarket as the Wild West of betting, where crypto and predictions meet. 

With almost no regulatory oversight, people can bet on literally anything, from political outcomes to financial markets. 

It’s high-stakes, unfiltered, and definitely not your typical betting exchange. 

But now, as you'd expect, regulators are digging in.

ANJ, France’s gambling watchdog, is investigating Polymarket to see if it complies with French gambling laws, even though it’s not actually based there. 

• But if it’s not in France, what claim does the ANJ have? Théo.

• The ANJ's jurisdiction extends to any gambling activities accessible to French residents, regardless of the operator's location.

• So, if there are French users on Polymarket, like Théo, it’s fair game for ANJ to take action.

Seems like a cheat code to me, but even if they have to pay a fine, this whole election cycle has been an invaluable marketing campaign for Polymarket.

ECONOMICS
📉 China is Drowning

It seems we may have found someone who’s having a worse time than the Democratic Party…. China.

• Investors are pulling money out of China for the first time in over 30 years, and we’re talking billions.

• Year-to-date, investors have withdrawn a whopping $12.8 billion from China, the most since ~the late 1990s.

And this problem didn’t just pop up out of the blue.

• October 2023: Nearly $54 billion was sent overseas on behalf of Chinese banking clients, which was the largest monthly outflow since early 2016.

• Q2 2024: China saw more money leaving the country than coming in, resulting in a $4.84 billion shortfall in its financial accounts.

• Q3 2024: Investors withdrew $8.1 billion from China.

Investors are clearly not feeling too happy about putting their money in The Great Wall Nation at the moment.

What can be done? Money, duh.

Earlier this week, China announced a $1.4 trillion stimulus plan over the next five years to help local governments handle their hidden debt.

This plan includes swapping old debt for new, cheaper loans and issuing more bonds to support cash flow. 

The goal is to reduce local debt and free up money to boost the economy, but we’ll see if it helps; stimulus checks, as you may know, sometimes do more harm than good.