Trump Media & Technology Group — trading under the ticker symbol DJT — is America's newest meme stock, boasting a market capitalization, at the close of trade yesterday, of $7.9 billion, Felix writes.

The big picture: That's astonishingly high for a company that brought in a mere $3.4 million in revenue over the first nine months of 2023, losing a total of $49 million.

• Meme stocks don't trade on fundamentals, however, and by meme-stock standards, DJT could rise much further yet.

Zoom in: In snagging the DJT ticker symbol — Donald Trump's initials — TMTG effectively ensured that it would trade more on Trump-related sentiment than on fundamentals.

Zoom out: The height of the meme-stock craziness was probably Jan. 27, 2021. On that day...

• BBBY (Bed, Bath & Beyond) closed at a valuation of $6.4 billion. Since then, it filed for bankruptcy, and the shares went to zero.
• BB (BlackBerry) was worth $14.1 billion; today it is worth $1.6 billion.
• GME (GameStop) was worth $22.6 billion. Its current market cap is $4.7 billion.

Between the lines: Other meme stocks rose even further in valuation, with Upstart and AMC peaking at more than $31 billion and Robinhood maxing out at just shy of $60 billion.

The bottom line: If we learned one thing in January 2021, it's dangerous to bet against a meme stock that's going up.

• DJT stock might seem as though it's exorbitantly priced today, but that doesn't mean it can't rise even further tomorrow.

The cost of providing child care benefits to employees — like stipends and onsite day care — is an investment with outsized returns, finds an intriguing new study from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and nonprofit Moms First, Emily writes.

Why it matters: The increasing cost of child care in the U.S., along with a shortage of providers, keeps parents out of the workforce — a drag on the economy overall and a hit to employers in a tight labor market.

The big picture: These benefits are gaining more attention, particularly in the wake of the pullback of pandemic-era child care funding — but they're still pretty rare.

• 12% of workers in the U.S. have access to child care benefits from an employer — a number that falls to 6% for part-timers and those in the lowest income quartile, per BCG.
• Yet those are the workers who typically lose out on pay because of a child care emergency.

What they found: For every $1 spent on child care benefits, employers saw a net gain of between $0.90 and $4.25 through reduced absenteeism, less lateness, and lower rates of attrition.

• The study debunks the idea that child care is a cost center. "These benefits pay for themselves," the authors write.

Zoom in: Researchers looked at five companies of varying sizes, across a range of sectors, employing both salaried and hourly workers.

• UPS: The shipper piloted an onsite emergency day care for hourly workers at a warehouse in Northern California. In place for three months, the benefit led to three fewer employee absences a day, according to UPS data. It plans on expanding this to eight more sites by year's end.
• Etsy: The e-commerce company offers $4,000 for backup child care and a $1,000 annual work-life stipend. 79% of employees there said they're more likely to stay with the company because of these benefits.
• Steamboat: The Colorado ski resort, started a child care center — with funding from the state — in the wake of the pandemic. Employees, who pay a subsidized rate, reported an average of 13 avoided absences per year.
• Fast Retailing: The global company that operates Uniqlo and Theory, gives a monthly $1,000 child care stipend to hourly management track employees — these folks avoided 11 absences a year on average.

Reality check: This is a limited study, conducted in part by a group that advocates for these types of benefits. More research needs to be done.

One part of financial literacy banks don't usually push is the ability to notice when banking products are unattractively priced, Felix writes.

Driving the news: Varo Bank announced yesterday a new product called "Varo Line of Credit," which is advertised in the neobank's app as giving customers the opportunity to borrow up to $2,000 instantly for an "affordable fee" and "0% APR."

Reality check: This is like no line of credit you have ever seen before.

• Rather than being able to make draws on the line whenever they need to, Varo customers have to take the full amount up front — and they have to pay all the interest up front, too.
• The repayment schedule is then fixed rather than flexible. That means borrowers can't repay the loan early to reduce its cost.

By the numbers: This "0% APR" product looks a lot like a term loan. If you calculate the APR as though it were a term loan, it comes out to 34.6%.

• That's significantly higher than the average interest rate on credit cards, which is 21.5%.

How it works: Charging a $400 fee on a one-year $2,000 loan looks like an interest rate of 20%, not 35%. But when the $2,400 is paid down at the rate of $200 per month for 12 months, then the average amount outstanding over the course of the year is not $2,000 but rather $1,100. That makes the $400 paid in interest more expensive.

• For the record: Varo CEO Colin Walsh says the appeal of the loan is its simple and transparent fee structure; and that the product will provide borrowers who are often overlooked by banks with access to credit.

Fun fact: It's not just folks living paycheck-to-paycheck who can get tripped up by bank fees. Variety notes that The Will And Jada Smith Family Foundation ended up paying $3,304 in bank overdraft fees in 2022.