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As the year winds down to a close, with just three weeks left on the calendar, Nextdoor may be the next, last, big meme stock of 2025. Here’s why. What happened? On Wednesday, Nextdoor Holdings Inc. (NXDR) shares rose 49% in early trading, the most in over four years, according to Bloomberg. The gains come on the heels of a series of posts on X on Wednesday morning by investor Eric Jackson, founder of EMJ Capital hedge fund, who described the neighborhood-focused site as one of the most misunderstood platforms in the market” and touted its AI potential: “Nextdoor isnt a social network. Its a neighborhood operating system with AI-native revenue,” as well as its large membership (100 million households in 10 countries). At the time of this writing, Nextdoor was holding steady, up over 17% in midday trading. What is a meme stock? A meme stock is when a company’s stock gains popularity in online forums, often on social media. This can happen when a discussion thread on, say, Reddit, X, or Facebook kicks off a conversation about a company, often leading to the buying, selling, or shorting of shares. A meme stock starts when investors gather on discussion boards and chat rooms, such as Reddit’s r/wallstreetbets, to swap tips and ideas of unconventional stocks they are going to “bet” on. And the efforts of those individuals, collectively, often end up influencing the stock’s share price, either up or down: “Meme stocks can become overvalued relative to fundamental technical analysis,” according to Investopedia, often causing large price swings in either direction. Is Nextdoor the next GameStop? GameStop (GME) is generally considered the first real meme stock. However, it remains unclear whether Nextdoor will be able to sustain today’s double-digit rise.
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Paired with high-deductible healthcare plans, health savings accounts help ease healthcare costs. HSAs are a triple tax-advantaged vehicle in the tax code, allowing for pretax contributions, tax-free compounding, and tax-free withdrawals for qualified medical expenses. However, few owners fund their HSAs to the maximum, and even fewer invest their HSA dollars outside a savings account. Most consumers likely dont fill their HSAs because they lack the financial means; critics note that the HDHP/HSA combination can be less beneficial for lower-income workers. But even wealthy consumers may decline to fully fund their HSAs. Many HSAs charge account-maintenance fees and extra costs for investing in long-term assets. Unlike 401(k)s, where participants are typically captive in employer plans, HSA savers can move money from one HSA to another via transfer or rollover. Below, how to know if your HSA is subpar, and what to do if it is. Valuable tax advantages may come at a price HSAs appear preferable to other tax-advantaged savings vehicles, especially for investors expecting out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. Even in a worst-case scenariousing HSA funds for non-healthcare expensesthe HSA is at least as good as a traditional tax-deferred 401(k) or IRA. Yet HSA expenses and/or investment shortcomings can erode their tax benefits, particularly for smaller HSA investors. Flat dollar-based account-maintenance fees (say, $45/year) hit smaller HSA investors harder, and interest rates for smaller HSAs may be lower. Its worthwhile to conduct due diligence on your HSA, assessing the following: 1. Setup Fees: A one-time fee imposed at account opening, sometimes covered by employers. 2. Account-Maintenance Fees: Monthly or annual fees for maintaining your account, also sometimes covered by employers. 3. Transaction Fees: Dollar-based fees that may be levied when paying for services using the HSA. 4. Interest Rate on Savings Accounts: For people using the HSA to fund out-of-pocket healthcare costs (or taking a hybrid approach), its particularly important to monitor your savings rate of return. Many HSAs offer higher interest rates on larger balances; that argues for building and maintaining critical mass in your HSA. 5. Investment-Related Expenses: Investors may face mutual fund or ETF expense ratios, sales charges, and dollar-based fees for maintaining investment accounts. 6. Investment Choices: Assess the investment lineup on offer to make sure it aligns with your investment philosophy. How to switch out of a poor HSA If your employer-provided HSA is lacking, you have three choices. Option 1: Contribute to an HSA on Your Own If youre enrolled in a HDHP, you can choose a different HSA provider and deduct your HSA contributions on your tax return. Thats more cumbersome and requires more discipline than payroll deductions, so forgoing payroll deductions is usually not the best option. Option 2: Transfer the Money from Your Employer-Provided HSA Into Another HSA Your HSA contribution comes directly from your paycheck and goes to your employer-provided HSA; you can then periodically transfer some or all of that balance into your preferred HSA provider. There are no tax consequences on HSA transfers, and you can conduct multiple transfers per year. You can have more than one HSA, so this approach can work well for employees whose captive HSAs feature decent savings but less-compelling investment options. Option 3: Roll Over the Money From Your Employer-Provided HSA Into Another HSA This is similar to option 2. You contribute to your employer-provided HSA via payroll deduction, then roll over the money to your preferred HSA provider. There are two key differences between a rollover and a transfer. In a transfer, two trustees handle the funds. In a rollover, you get a check that you must deposit into another HSA within 60 days, or it counts as an early withdrawal, and a 20% penalty will apply if youre not yet 65. Multiple transfers are permitted between HSAs, but only one HSA rollover is allowed every 12 months. ____ This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance. Christine Benz is director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar.
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E-Commerce
OpenAI said Tuesday it has picked Slack CEO Denise Dresser as its first chief of revenue, a message to wary investors that the ChatGPT maker is serious about making a profit from its artificial intelligence technology. OpenAI said Dresser will oversee global revenue strategy and help more businesses put AI to work in their day-to-day operations. Dresser had already spent more than a decade at Salesforce when the software pioneer announced in 2020 it was buying work-chatting service Slack for $27.7 billion. She helped integrate Slack into the software company before Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff picked her as CEO in 2023. Salesforce said in a statement that it was grateful for Denises leadership during her 14 years at Salesforce. Rob Seaman, Slack’s chief product officer, will take over her responsibilities on an interim basis. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman earlier this month set off a code red alert in an internal email to employees to improve its flagship product, ChatGPT, and delay other product developments. OpenAI first released ChatGPT just over three years ago, sparking global fascination and a commercial boom in generative AI technology and giving the San Francisco-based startup an early lead. But the company faces increased competition with rivals, including Google, which last month unleashed Gemini 3, the latest version of its own AI assistant. Altman has said ChatGPT now has more than 800 million weekly users. But the company, valued at $500 billion, doesnt make a profit and has committed more than $1 trillion in financial obligations to the cloud computing providers and chipmakers it relies on to power its AI systems. The risk that OpenAI wont make enough money to fulfill the expectations of backers like Oracle and Nvidia has amplified investor concerns about an AI bubble. OpenAI makes revenue from premium subscriptions to ChatGPT, but most users get the free version. OpenAI introduced its own web browser, Atlas, in October, an attempt to compete with Googles Chrome as more internet users rely on AI to answer their questions. But OpenAI hasnt yet tried to sell ads on ChatGPT, which is how Google makes money from its dominant search business.
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