Viral Stories of the Week: September 4

Vonetta Logan's recap of the big business, news, markets, political, cultural and viral trending stories featured this week on Daily Dose

What’s up tastynation! Welcome to this week’s edition of Weekly Dose! Each week, I recap the top stories that I covered on Daily Dose. If you missed any eps of Daily Dose you can catch up on them here. 

I love short weeks! Even though this next week will feel twice as long. 

Tuesday 

• Wall Street raises quarterly profit forecasts for first time in two years: After nearly two years of wearing a giant sign reading “recession imminent” and ringing a large bell in your local town square, Wall Street’s expectations for individual companies’ quarterly results have turned upbeat. Analysts are optimistic about corporate profit in the months ahead. Whew, I wouldn't want those billion, and now trillion-dollar companies to have to start an OnlyFans to get by once their student loan payments start again … oh, wait. 
• Robinhood buys back SBF shares: Robinhood (HOOD) said in a regulatory filing that it bought more than 55 million of its own shares that were seized by the Justice Department in January. The shares were originally acquired by Emergent Fidelity Technologies, a holding company majority-owned by Sam Bankman-Fried that went bankrupt shortly after trading platform FTX and the rest of his sprawling crypto empire collapsed last fall. Bankman-Fried is awaiting trial in a Brooklyn jail. SBF’s FTX trial is supposed to start Oct. 3. But that date is now in limbo. You can read about Sam’s time in the clink here. 
• Oil prices rise on supply cuts from Saudi Arabia and Russia: Crude Oil (/CL) prices rose a dollar a barrel on Tuesday to their highest since November, after Saudi Arabia and Russia extended their voluntary supply cuts to the end of the year, worrying investors about potential shortages during peak winter demand. Read more about oil and other futures in the wonderful Five Futures series here. 
• Charter vs. Disney: Charter communications is not happy with Disney (DIS). The House of the Mouse owns popular cable channels like ESPN and ABC, and those channels went dark, or were blacked out, for Charter’s 14.7 million subscribers. Disney wants higher carrier rates and pay-TV distributors like Charter balk at paying up. Usually, the demand for sports events like the U.S. Open, which is in full swing, or the upcoming NFL season, help to prevent channels going dark for customers. Disney is in the fight of its life as the stock has hit new lows and the company looks for new ways to reinvigorate their media business. Charter’s CEO says the current model for TV is broken. I have like 25 subscription services. There literally aren’t enough buttons on my remote for all the extra streaming services. 

Wednesday 

• Goldman cuts recession odds and JP Morgan raises risk of crisis. Hahaha. I love it when analysts don’t confer with each other on their Bloomberg terminals. Goldman Sachs (GS) is out here saying “the vibes are immaculate, fam”. Goldman is increasingly confident that the US economy will stick the soft landing that many thought was nearly impossible to pull off. In a newly published research report, Goldman Sachs lowered its estimated chance of a US recession over the next 12 months to just 15%. Meanwhile, over at JP Morgan (JPM) the outlook isn’t as rosy. JPM’s analyst states that the combination of high interest rates and a strong year-to-date stock market rally means the economy is ripe for crisis, turmoil, and maybe a fake pregnancy scare to get you to really focus and commit, Travis. 
• Airbnb and Blackrock rise on S&P invite: Airbnb (ABNB) and Blackstone (BX) will join the S&P 500 before the open on Sept. 18 as part of a quarterly rebalance for the S&P index. Both stocks ticked up on the news, which was ironic because the same day the S&P news came out, Airbnb found out that they were under strict limits in New York City. You can see all the S&P reconfigurations at the link above. 
• Visa taps Solana to widen USDC capabilities: Visa (V) has rolled out support for USD Coin (USDC) payments settled on the Solana (SOL) blockchain as its stablecoin offering begins to expand. The deal should improve the speed of cross-border settlements. Now I’m just waiting for some company to roll out stable USM, that's a stable US male. Hurry up! 
• Manchester United shares plunge on deal uncertainty: Shares of the Premier League team Manchester United (MANU) plunged a record amount on news the Glazer family will take the club off the market after failing to receive offers that matched their asking price. Manchester saw its market cap cut by around $700 million, now valuing the franchise at a paltry $3.2B. Maybe they should just try to get Ryan Reynolds involved. He can turn anything around. 

Thursday

• EU confirms tech giants are subject to new Digital Markets Act: The European Union has named six tech giants whose market power it hopes to rein in by applying a new set of proactive, pro-competition rules on how these gatekeepers can operate designated “core platform services”. The six so-called “gatekeepers'' are: Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), ByteDance, Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT). Key provisions of the DMA include a ban on self-preferencing or gatekeepers requiring business users to make use of their own services and a ban on app stores preventing the installation of rival stores. Gatekeepers also cannot ban business users from offering and promoting competing services and they have an obligation to share with them information that their platform usage generates. Idk why the EU is so good at reining in tech companies and we’re over here in North America twiddling our thumbs. Look, the EU got Apple to switch to USB-C. Those are superpowers in my book. 
• Monthly mortgage prices triple: Everyone loves to make fun of the ridiculous jobs listed as occupations for the yuppie couples on HGTV’s House Hunters, but being able to currently afford housing right now is a struggle, no matter how well your artisanal umbrella designing business is doing. Data released by mortgage data and analytics firm Black Knight shows roughly 51% of homebuyers face monthly mortgage payments of $2,000 or more, up from 18% just two years ago. Not only that, but nearly a quarter of homebuyers have payments above $3,000 — up from 5% in 2021. Y’all it’s getting crazy, you can rent this place for $2500 a month…but it doesn’t include a sink. Fun times! 
• Tom Brady signs new partnership deal with Delta Airlines: Delta Airlines (DAL) announced a new strategic partnership deal with seven-time Superbowl champion, Tom Brady. Brady will partner with Delta to develop and advise on “teamwork tools” for the airline’s more than 90,000 employees and take part in select marketing campaigns, the company said. Nothing about this press release makes any sense. You’re going to pay Tom Brady millions of dollars to make corporate training videos? Am I the only one who remembers this SNL skit that he did? Are we sure he’s just not using the new flight attendant hires as a “farm team” for him to find a new Mrs. Brady? I’d also be super upset if Delta decides to roll out new fees and charges because they gotta pay this guy somehow. Sorry your flight to Atlanta was $3500 and you weren’t allowed a carry-on, but we got Brady in the breakroom celebrating September birthdays and Taco Tuesday. HBD Cheryl in HR I guess. 
• Elon Musk borrows money from SpaceX during Twitter deal timeline: Elon Musk took out a $1 billion loan from his privately held company, SpaceX last October. It was the same month he took over Twitter, now known as X. The loan was backed by some of Musk’s shares in X and was paid back with interest. I guess it’s okay to rob SpaceX to pay Twitter. My favorite Musk story of the week though, must go to these bumper stickers that are starting to pop up on shiny new Teslas (TSLA). 

Friday 

• Mention AI in your earnings if you want your stock to rise: If you’ve hopped on o tan earnings call recently (Why? Go outside, man) you’ve probably heard the phrase “AI” mentioned numerous times. A new analysis by Wall Street Zen found the number of mentions of "AI" and related terms (machine learning, automation, robots, etc.) in S&P 500 earnings calls skyrocketed over the past year and a half. AI mentions in the first quarter of 2022 totaled 1,156. During this year's second quarter, which ballooned to 7,358 — a 366% increase compared to the start of the year. That’s great news for the companies that cashed in, but the trend could be on the decline as user numbers for OpenAI’s ChatGPT continue to fall.
• Apple’s big trouble in little China: Shares of Apple (AAPL) fell by 2.9% on Thursday following reports that China plans to expand a ban on the use of iPhones to government-backed agencies and companies. Apple notched its largest daily fall in over a month on Wednesday. The company lost about $200 billion in two days, and its stock is currently the worst performer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Apple is set to release the latest iteration of the iPhone at its global event on Sep. 12.
• SEC probes Ryan Cohen’s sale of Bed, Bath & Beyond shares: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating billionaire Ryan Cohen's ownership and surprise sale of Bed Bath & Beyond (OSTK) shares. The SEC has requested information from Cohen about his trades and his communications with officers or directors at the home goods retailer. Cohen is the founder of pet supply company Chewy (CHWY) and is currently the chairman of GameStop (GME). 

Will Tom Eat It?

The Philadelphia Eagles are out here trying to murder us all. Check out this delicious calorie-bomb that will be served at Eagle home games. If you’d like to make your own at-home Frosted Flake Fried Chicken you can use this recipe from TikTok. 

That’s it for this week! See ya next week!

Vonetta Logan has more than a decade of markets experience and has been a trader for five years. She is an on-air personality, creative writer and news correspondent at tastylive, She appears Monday-Friday on Daily Dose and contributes to Luckbox Magazine. @vonettalogan

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