LikeFolio Weekly Roundup: Tesla’s Big October Starts Now

Nike Flashed Three Warnings Before Hitting a 13-Year Low

A stock down 80% from its peak looks like a bargain.

Sometimes it is. But many times it is not.

Before you buy one, check an important element a stock chart leaves out, and that LikeFolio has special insight into: word on Main Street.

Namely demand, sentiment and macro consumer trends.

If you checked those yesterday for Nike, you would have successfully avoided a dangerous trap for traders: catching a falling knife.

Here’s how it works:

NKE Shares Sink on Earnings (as Predicted)

Nike hit its lowest price in 13 years today, after a weak quarter and an even weaker outlook.

The company failed all three of our Main Street checks.

Check 1: Demand – Are Shoppers Actually Buying (without discounts)?

 Here is the data we saw yesterday prior to earnings: while NKE said it was transitioning to be a premium brand, discounts were actually stacking up.

Traffic alone can fool you.

More people visited Nike online than a year ago, and at first glance that looked like a turnaround.

But dig deeper.

Nearly a third of Nike’s US catalog sat on sale this summer, up from about a fifth a year earlier.

Shoppers who come for markdowns cost a company its margin.

Nike’s chief financial officer said on its earnings call that Nike is “taking discounts and resetting the marketplace, which is dampening gross margins.”

Check 2: Sentiment – What Are Shoppers Saying?

We read what people post about Nike.

Before Nike reported, we told Schwab Network viewers: “we’re seeing a lot of value hunting and discounting.”

Not only did value hunting dominate, but sentiment at large surrounding the brand was declining.

At Wimbledon, defending champion Jannik Sinner bled through his white Nike shoe on Centre Court…and tennis fans noticed.

We also noted Nike’s lifestyle sneakers and Jordan Brand were “still really, really struggling, not really resonating with consumers.”

On its earnings call, Nike said sales of its sportswear line, just under half of its business, fell by a low double-digit percentage last quarter. Jordan Brand sales fell by a mid-teens percentage.

Check 3: Trends – What is driving purchase decisions at a high level?

Mentions and demand data showed shoppers want new shoes from newer brands.

Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS) told investors that athletes are “increasingly responding to newness, innovation and a broader set of brands,” and that “legacy footwear silhouettes” are piling up.

We tied those shoes to Nike when Dick’s reported months ago.

Nike’s chief executive, Elliott Hill, confirmed it on Nike’s call. He said Nike has been “oversupplying our iconic retro product.”

Athletes are moving too. Nike let soccer star Kylian Mbappé go, and he signed with Swiss running brand On (ONON).

Shoppers followed him. In the three days after Mbappé signed, searches for On ran more than three times their usual pace in Italy, France, Spain and Brazil.

Bottom Line: Check in on Main Street Before Buying a Cheap Stock

A cheap stock can always get cheaper.

We called out a bearish position heading into earnings, and we were right.

Nike’s finance chief expects its cleanup to “probably bleed in a little bit into fiscal ’28.”

Read here for our outlook on NKE from here…

Infinite Hold Updates

Tesla (TSLA) delivered a nice surprise this week.

Q3 deliveries came in more than 24,000 vehicles above the analyst consensus Tesla tracks – just two weeks before the Roadster finally gets its moment.

Meanwhile, Amazon (AMZN) is thinking decades ahead, locking up nuclear power for the Google (GOOGL) is already putting its newest AI model to work inside the company. And after three straight losing quarters, Bitcoin (BTC) came roaring back with a 44% gain in Q3.

Here’s what you need to know.

Tesla (TSLA) Beats Delivery Expectations – Roadster Is Next

Tesla just answered some of the doubts around demand with 486,532 Q3 deliveries.

There’s still ground to make up. Deliveries fell about 2% from last year’s record Q3 of 497,099 vehicles. But Tesla cleared expectations at a time when investors have been questioning the strength of its core auto business.

Now attention turns to Oct. 15, when Tesla plans to unveil the long-awaited next-generation Roadster.

The Roadster is Tesla’s high-performance electric sports car. Tesla first showed off the new version nearly nine years ago, promising performance that would push the limits of what an EV can do.

After years of delays, we’re finally about to see how much of that vision Tesla can deliver. The Roadster won’t need to become a mass-market seller to make an impact. It gives Tesla a chance to show consumers just how far its EV technology can go.

CEO Elon Musk has set expectations sky-high. Tesla has advertised a 1.9-second 0-to-60 time and 620 miles of range.

That makes the Oct. 15 reveal a fresh read on consumer excitement around the Tesla brand. Current interest is extremely high.

We’ll be watching that response closely. Our data continues to show strong enthusiasm around Tesla’s vehicles and autonomous-driving technology, which remains a key reason we’re bullish on the company.

Tesla reports Q3 earnings on Oct. 21, giving us another hard look at the business just six days later.

The delivery numbers gave Tesla a solid start to October. Now we’ll see whether the Roadster can turn years of waiting into a fresh wave of consumer interest.

Amazon (AMZN) Locks Up 20 Years of Nuclear Power

Amazon just signed a long-term power deal with Constellation Energy (CEG) for 690 megawatts of nuclear power from Maryland’s Calvert Cliffs plant. The agreement will support more than $3 billion in investment at the site and help add roughly 190 megawatts of new generating capacity.

Calvert Cliffs already produces enough electricity to serve more than 1.3 million homes.

Amazon wants a big piece of that power locked down for the next two decades.

AI companies are pouring billions into bigger data centers packed with more chips. But every new server rack adds to the power bill.

We’ve been tracking this shift closely.

Power Demand has become one of the major themes in our AI infrastructure thesis, as the buildout moves beyond chips and into the enormous amount of electricity required to keep them running.

Amazon is already moving aggressively. It has another nuclear power agreement tied to Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna plant and has backed small modular reactor development in Washington state.

Now it’s helping finance more output from an existing nuclear plant.

A 20-year nuclear deal gives you some idea of the scale Amazon is preparing for. The company is securing the power today for an AI buildout it expects to run for decades.

For us, that reinforces the long-term opportunity behind our Infinite Hold in Amazon. As AI drives more business to AWS, Amazon is making sure a shortage of electricity doesn’t stand in the way.

Google’s (GOOGL) New AI Model Is Starting to Do the Work

Google gave us a glimpse this week of what its next generation of AI can do.

Its new Gemini 4 Argon model is already tackling some serious work inside Google.

One team turned Argon loose on Google’s data centers to find ways they were wasting computer memory. The model found changes that could eventually free up hundreds of thousands of gigabytes of capacity.

In another project, Argon helped rewrite 32,000 lines of code for Google’s video decoder. The result ran 2.7 times faster than the previous Rust version.

Those examples show how quickly AI is moving beyond the chatbot.

We’ve been tracking the rise of agentic AI – software that can take on longer jobs with less human direction. Argon pushes further in that direction. Google expanded its output limit from 64,000 tokens to 1 million, giving the model room to work through much longer and more complex tasks.

Google is starting with its own engineers. The larger opportunity comes as it puts these tools in the hands of paying customers.

Argon will eventually roll out to developers, businesses, and consumers, starting with paid API customers and Google AI Ultra subscribers. Google has set introductory pricing at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens.

As agentic AI takes on more real work, Google has a growing opportunity to sell the intelligence behind it.

Bitcoin (BTC) Breaks the Drought

Bitcoin often tests your patience before it moves.

Q3 delivered the move.

After dipping below $60,000 and logging three straight losing quarters, Bitcoin closed September near $84,000 – up roughly 42% in three months and marking its best quarter since 2024.

October brings another stat worth watching. Bitcoin has finished higher in 10 of the 13 Octobers from 2013 through 2025, earning the month its “Uptober” nickname.

Our playbook hasn’t changed. Don’t try to trade every swing. Keep building the position over time and let the long-term thesis work.

Bitcoin can look boring for months. Then the move comes fast.