Shutdown Incoming

Today’s RIP: EA deal confirmed, Gov shutdown on the way, trending stocks across the market, and more. 📰

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Kevin Travers
September 29, 2025 • Reading Time: 14 minutes

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CLOSING BELL
Shutdown Incoming

The market climbed Monday, as lawmakers dragged their feet to agree on anything and the U.S. government teetered toward a shutdown.

After a meeting with Congressional leaders, VP JD Vance said all signs point to a shutdown starting on Wednesday.

As investors look for safe harbors, U.S. gold reserves broke the $1T mark, as prices climbed past $3,834/ounce Monday.

Today’s RIP: EA deal confirmed, Shutdown on the way, trending stocks across the market, and more. 📰

10 of 11 sectors closed green, with tech $XLK ( ▲ 0.53% ) leading and energy $XLE ( ▼ 1.84% ) lagging.

M&A
EA Set For Largest Deal Ever

It’s official. EA $EA ( ▲ 4.5% ) climbed slightly after agreeing to sell itself for $55B to the Saudi Arabian wealth fund and Silver Lake in the largest levered buyout ever.

The deal would see shareholders get about $210/share. JPMorgan Chase is providing $20 billion in financing for the deal, the largest debt commitment ever made for such a transaction.

Saudi Arabia is looking to transform itself into an international hub for gaming, according to Bloomberg, with the deal. It’s rolling its $5B stake over, and using the help of Silver Lake Management and Affinity partners to buy out public investors.

“Their overarching strategy is to bring jobs to Saudi Arabia — that’s a generational move over the next 20 years,” Wedbush Analyst Michael Pachter told Bloomberg.

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TRENDING
Robinhood, Applovin, Shopify, And Weed Stocks Climb 🍁 

Outside of the massive EA deal and the impending shutdown, the market was awash with trending stocks and industries, on analyst updates, product success, and test failures.

Robinhood $HOOD ( ▲ 12.27% ) was climbing after a social media post from Chief Vlad Tenev, showing off the new Robinhood prediction markets. Tenev said customers have transacted 4 billion event contracts, betting on elections and sports matches.

Applovin $APP ( ▲ 6.35% ) climbed Monday on a Morgan Stanley buy rating, as analyst Matthew Cost said share prices could climb to $750. It’s the eleventh analyst to raise price calls on the stock since August, and the stock is up 119% this year.

Shopify $SHOP ( ▲ 6.24% ) shares climbed after the company announced a partnership with OpenAI to let users instant checkout from Shopify merchants within ChatGPT.

MoonLake $MLTX ( ▼ 89.93% ) was tanking 90%, a small Swiss biotech company that reported its skin inflammation treatment failed to show significant results in a trial.

Carnival $CCL ( ▼ 3.98% ) was falling despite posting cruise line earnings Monday above estimates, and an order book for 2026 matching this year’s record sales. Barron's said the summer quarter is Carnival’s strongest, and investors might be taking the chance to sell after the stock climbed 16% this year.

One segment that was enjoying love on Monday was weed stocks. Names like Tilray $TLRY ( ▲ 60.87% ) led the way up, after the president posted a video that supports making hemp and CBD products more accessible to seniors.

Tilray Brands flew to the top of the Stocktwits trending charts

MACRO NEWS
Government Shutdown All But A Sure Thing 🔒️ 

Polymarket puts the odds at 80%, despite a last-minute meeting between dealmakers on both sides of the aisle in the White House tonight. The BLS stated that it would not release labor data at all during a shutdown, including Friday’s unemployment rate release.

Sending BLS workers home would make investors wait months for job market numbers

Republicans kicked out Kevin McCarthy a couple of years ago for exactly this problem: he tried to get them to pass Biden’s spending. Now, they want to keep spending where it is, to cut it later, and Dems are the ones pushing back, pushing for more spending. 🤔 

Russell Vaught, Office of Management and Budget, and Project 2025 architect, said if the Fed was closing, he would order executive branch agencies to get together lists of people to fire while the lights were out. 🕯️ 

According to Bloomberg, Fed agencies planned a list of 400k nonessential workers to send home this week. The shutdown is expected on Wednesday, according to VP Vance, a day after an unusual meeting between every U.S. military general and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

In other news, Trump said he was putting tariffs on “any country that does not make its furniture in the United States,” which makes zero sense; he must have meant companies? The prez also wants to tax movies made outside the U.S., a first-of-its-kind idea to tax services.

Tariffs are everywhere today, but most of the economy has been unaffected so far: The U.S. is a service-based economy. According to any source, the U.S. generates most of its world-dominating dollars by selling services, ranging from financial to big tech subscriptions.

Taxing the hell out of soybeans is annoying for farmers and Goya enjoyers, but it is a small piece of the pie. Taxing Hollywood, or even worse, big tech, would seriously throttle the economy and equity prices. Let’s hope this is another TACO. Trump mentioned Hollywood taxes back in May, and promptly forgot about it. 🌮 

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POPS & DROPS
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WHAT’S ON DECK
Tomorrow’s Top Things 📋

Economic data: S&P/CS HPI Composite - 20 MoM (9:00 AM), Chicago PMI (9:45 AM), CB Consumer Confidence (10:00 AM), JOLTS Job Openings (10:00 AM), API Weekly Crude Oil Stock (4:30 PM). 📊
Pre-Market Earnings: Nvni Group ($NVNI), United Natural Foods ($UNFI), Glimpse Group ($VRAR), and Paychex ($PAYX). 🛏️
After-Market Earnings: Nike ($NKE). 🌕️ 

Links That Don’t Suck 🌐

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