Viral Stories of the Week

Vonetta Logan's recap of business, markets, political, cultural and viral 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.

Friendly reminder: Don’t leave your dime bag of drugs in the cubbies when you take the White House tour. 

Let’s get to the recap! (It’s a short week due to the holiday)

Wednesday 

• Tesla (TSLA) deliveries beat expectations: If Elon could do a Cher impression, I’m sure he wishes he would “turn back time” and bask in the glow of the news surrounding his companies at the start of the week compared to the end of the week. (Keep reading for more Musk news) But on Monday, Tesla’s share price rallied 7% on news the EV maker delivered 466,000 vehicles for the quarter ending June 30. Tesla deliveries were aided by price cuts, but the stock ended the week close to where it started. Fellow EV maker Rivian (RIVN) also got a nice boost in its price this week from their delivery results. 
• Goldman wants to fall far from the Apple: Goldman (GS) is in talks to offload its Apple (AAPL) credit card and savings account products to American Express. The big bank is the process of unwinding its largely unsuccessful consumer banking ventures. I mean it’s sort of hilarious that 1. Goldman is run by a CEO who moonlights as a DJ and 2. One of their consumer banking initiatives was named Marcus. I tried to tell them you can’t name banking products after Black dudes; it’ll scare your base clientele. They didn’t listen. 
• A flying EV gets FAA approval: To all the, “I thought we’d have flying cars by now” people, may I present: Alef! Alef Aeronautics, a California-based startup, has received FAA approval for test flights of their eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) model A vehicle which retails for $300,000. The company says they have already received $250 million worth of pre-orders from rich jerks who want to fly over traffic on the way to their luxury beach homes.  

Thursday 

• The Fed really wants you to stop drunk shopping on Amazon: Fed minutes released on Wednesday showed some disagreement among members about rate hikes. I hope it devolved into Real Housewives style table flipping. But alas, Fed officials at their June meeting decided to hold off on raising interest rates, opting for a pause to assess the impact of 10 previous hikes. But the real issue is, the Fed cannot figure out how much longer American consumers can keep spending money. Well gird your loins, Fed. Amazon Prime Day happens this week and all bets are off. 
• Instagram Threads makes its debut: Meta’s (META) new Twitter slayer Threads has exploded in growth in its first full day since its public debut Wednesday night, fueled by Instagram’s already massive user base. By the end of the week, the text-based social media product had reached 70 million sign-ups, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Friday. I wrote about the whole Musk vs Zuckerberg social media battle here. 
• A big change comes to Subway: Subway wants you to Eat Fresh. But like really, really, fresh. From the company that brought you “I can’t believe it’s tuna!*” (*sandwiches may not actually contain tuna), Subway is installing $6,000 meat slicers in most of their franchises. The slicers will be prominently displayed and will slice up fresh cuts of turkey, pepperoni, roast beef, ham and salami. 

Friday 

• Threads gets sued by Twitter: After firing Twitter engineers and dropping them through a trapdoor in the floor of his office, B-list sci-fi villain, Elon Musk complained that Zuckerberg and Threads had “poached” ex-Twits and used them for nefarious purposes to make a copycat app. Threads dominated the headlines and conversation at the end of the week and Meta (META) stock which started the week (Wednesday) around $285 got a nice bump in price to finish the week around $292. 
• FDA approves new drug for Alzheimer’s: The FDA has approved Eisai and Biogen’s (BIIB) Alzheimer’s treatment Leqembi. Leqembi, which costs $26,500 per year, slowed cognitive decline in a clinical trial, but the treatment is expensive and carries serious risks of brain swelling and bleeding. Medicare announced that they would offer broad coverage for the drug for seniors who qualify. Great news all around for a disease that affects so many. 
• "Stoneos" look too real, says FTC: This is my favorite story of the week. If you have the munchies, you’re gonna have to puff, puff, pass on these cookies. The FTC and FDA say these cannabis-infused cookies bear too striking a resemblance to Nabisco (MDLZ) manufactured Oreo cookies. The companies must immediately cease the marketing of “Stoneos”, “Jolly Rancher Gummies Sours", as well as "Cheetos Crunchy XXTRA Flamin' Hot." Way to harsh my mellow FTC. 

What I’m watching: This week I watched the Muscles and Mayhem doc on Netflix (NFLX). If you were a 90’s kid like me, there wasn’t a Saturday night that you weren’t glued to the screen to watch American Gladiators. The doc is an insightful look at how a ragtag group of athletes and some shady Hollywood TV producers built one of the most iconic franchises in American TV history. Also, a Lazer is a Zaddy and he can get it. 

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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