Robinhood Snacks - ✋ 🛑 Pause the market

When you're not blaming coronavirus... blame oil. Oil prices plunged 24% Monday, hitting multi-year lows and notching their worst daily drop since 1991. US prices fell as much as 34% (that won't translate to lower gas prices as fast as we'd all like). The drama starts with OPEC, the powerhouse org of 14 oil-exporting countries:

• Because of its oil producing dominance, OPEC can change oil prices by cutting/increasing output — in 2018, almost 80% of the world's oil reserves were in OPEC countries.
• It's led by Saudi Arabia, OPEC's big dog and also the world's largest oil exporter.
• Since 2017, OPEC and its ally Russia (also a huge oil-producer) have been keeping supply lower to boost prices.

But oil prices have been falling... because coronavirus has dented economic growth globally, causing the world to need less oil. So OPEC proposed a plan this weekend to cut production further in order to keep prices high. Now Russia and Saudi Arabia are the stars of a crude drama, worthy of its own reality show (Oiled and Spoiled? Sassy and Gassy?):

• Russia said "nah, I'm good" and refused to participate in OPEC's production cuts — it's reportedly doing this to hurt US oil producers (who've been gaining market share) with lower prices for their key product.
• Saudi wasn't feeling Russia's response, and in a #savage move, jacked up production to increase oil supplies, thereby cutting oil prices.
• Since Friday's drama, oil stocks have plummeted: Occidental Petroleum sunk 53%, Chevron fell 15%, and Exxon is down 12%.

15-minute meditation break sponsored by... the NYSE. On Monday morning, panicked investors — with coronavirus and plunging oil prices on their minds — unleashed a flood of stocks on the market. Just 5 little minutes into the trading day, the S&P 500 fell a stunning 7% on the selling frenzy. Then, there was silence: the drop triggered a circuit breaker that automatically halted trading across the entire market — for 15 minutes.

• Investors get 'time-out' because circuit breakers are meant to prevent a market debacle — they give investors time to calm down, absorb info, and slow the freak-out cycle.
• When investors returned from their 15-min breaks, indexes bounced up a tad from their lows.

3 strikes, you're out... There are 3 levels of breakers, each with a different severity (think grade-school punishments):

• S&P 500 falls 7% from previous day's close?: The only one we experienced yesterday and the "least bad" one. That triggers a 15-minute time-out.
• Falls 13% before 3:25 PM?: 2nd warning — another 15-minutes to get it together (this time, facing the classroom wall).
• Falls 20%: Final trigger that shuts down the market for the rest of the day (go home and think about what you've done).

It happened quietly... But it happened. We just found out that last year, Comcast-owned NBCUniversal sold its entire stake in Snap Inc — the Hollywood Reporter found the break-up note tucked away in a Comcast financial filing.

• When Snap went public 3 years ago, NBC revealed it had invested $500M.
• The OG content king wanted an in with the digital (non-cable) world of entertainment — Snap was that in. But now...

NBC has a new love interest... Streaming. And it's not just a fling. NBC has devoted over $2B to develop/launch its own streaming service, known as "Peacock". By dipping out of its Snap investment, NBC can splurge more on its own Millennial-friendly service. This drop the side-hustle, DIY-move could be a trend among content OGs:

• Last week, ViacomCBS hinted that it could be selling its Simon & Schuster publishing biz (to focus on its own streaming service).
• Disney sold off its FoxNet video game studio and went in hard pouring billions into its own Disney+ and Hulu.