Hello, dear readers!

Stocks are down again after a nine day run-up, cartoonists who quit are getting prizes for it, we’re still trying to break up Google, and Skype is dead. Long live Skype!

Here's today's News You Need2Know:

—Matt Davis, Need2Know Chedditor

Companies mentioned in today’s newsletter

$SPX ( ▼ 0.77% ) . $PLTR ( ▼ 12.05% )   $CLX ( ▼ 2.41% )   $MAT ( ▲ 2.78% )   $F ( ▲ 2.66% )   $ADM ( ▲ 1.73% )   $GOOGL ( ▼ 0.6% )   $MSFT ( ▼ 0.66% )  

Stocks sink again on trade war damage

Another day, another series of bruises for U.S. stock markets yesterday courtesy of the recent tariff-driven trade wars with a bit of doubt about the future as a result. If you like volatility, uncertainty, and watching investors panic as companies cancel forecasts left, right, and center — 2025 might be your favorite year in the markets, yet.

The S&P 500 slipped by 0.6% $SPX ( ▼ 0.77% ) . Palantir Technologies $PLTR ( ▼ 12.05% ) fell 11.9% despite boasting robust profits and confidently hiking its revenue forecast for the year. When you leap from $20 to $110 per share in under 12 months, investors start clutching their pearls, worried that you might actually be doing too well.

Clorox $CLX ( ▼ 2.41% ) — once the pandemic MVP because, hey, you can drink it (don’t) — reported weaker-than-expected revenue and faltering profits, blaming shifting consumer habits and shrinking 2.6%. Mattel’s $MAT ( ▲ 2.78% ) quarterly numbers apparently thrilled investors enough to end on a 2.9% uptick, but let's not ignore Mattel’s dramatic decision to “pause” its full-year financial forecasts entirely because the “evolving U.S. tariff landscape” is making it difficult to predict how much U.S. shoppers will spend over the holiday season and the rest of this year.

Ford $F ( ▲ 2.66% ) , meanwhile, warned of taking a $1.5 billion hit from tariffs while joining the "We’re-Not-Giving-a-Forecast Club." Maybe they can save money by converting the F-150 into a Flintstones-style foot-powered car? Archer Daniels Midland $ADM ( ▲ 1.73% ) also lost 3.1% because agriculture doesn’t exactly thrive when tariffs send business costs skyrocketing. Markets will probably go up now. I’m done trying to predict their next move!

Cartoonist who quit Washington Post in protest wins Pulitzer

Ann Telnaes, a longtime editorial cartoonist for The Washington Post, picked up a Pulitzer Prize after quitting her job in protest.

Telnaes won for “delivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions with deftness, creativity — and a fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years,” according to the Pulitzer announcement on Monday.

Telnaes had the gall to draw a cartoon insinuating that Post owner Jeff Bezos and other media executives were cozying up to then-President-elect Donald Trump, bags of money in hand, at Mar-a-Lago. Apparently, Bezos didn’t appreciate being called out for the small matter of lucrative government contracts and million-dollar inauguration fund donations. The Post killed her sketch and sparked her exit. Here’s a draft of the cartoon.

Bezos later narrowed the Post’s opinion section topics to “personal liberties and the free market.”

Congratulations, Ann.

Today on the ‘gram: Met Gala