Zaid Admani

So the hype might be gone, but I should bring up a Nintendo stock did see a bounce back a couple of weeks ago after the launch of Pokemon Pocopia, which sold 2 million copies in just four days.

So that game is a massive hit.

It might help boost Nintendo sales a little bit, but obviously Nintendo's management doesn't think it's going to be a long-term solution.

And so the biggest takeaway for me is that Pokemon is still just insanely popular these days.

Let's talk about some stocks making moves today.

Let's start with the investment bank, Jefferies.

Shares of the company are popping this morning after reports that Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group is exploring a possible takeover.

SMFG is Japan's second largest lender, and they've been slowly building a position in Jefferies for years.

They first bought a 5% stake back in 2021, and then just last September, they agreed to increase that stake to 20%.

SMFG's plan is to break into the top tier of global investment banks, and Jefferies is a pretty recognizable name.

Now, the timing here is pretty interesting because Jefferies stock has gotten crushed lately.

It's down 40% since September, largely because of concerns around its exposure to the collapsed auto parts company First Brands and questions about its underwriting standards.

So SMFG is ready to move in and take advantage of this depressed share price.

What's funny is that the report of their possible takeover is causing Jeffrey's stock price to shoot up as much as 10% this morning before giving back some of those gains.

Now, sticking with banks, let's talk about Apollo.

Shares of the finance giant are under pressure this morning after they capped investor withdrawals from one of their flagship private credit funds.

You know, we've been talking about the stress in the private credit space for weeks now, and this is just the latest example.

Investors in the Apollo Debt Solutions Fund, which is a $15 billion private credit fund, tried to pull out $1.6 billion this quarter.

That's 11% of the fund's net assets, but the fund has a 5% quarterly cap on redemptions.

So Apollo only honored just half of the withdrawal requests.