Viral Stories for the Week

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’m literally going on vacation after I write this, so this week’s Weekly Dose legit feels like the book report that is due before school is out for the summer. I don’t wanna! 

Let’s get to the recap! 

Monday 

• U.S. Steel rejects offer from Cleveland-Cliffs: U.S. Steel (X) kicked off the week by saying that it rejected a $7.3 billion buyout proposal from rival Cleveland Cliffs (CLF). U.S. Steel said it was reviewing “strategic alternatives” after receiving several unsolicited offers. If there’s one thing multi-billion-dollar corporations and single women have in common, it’s receiving unsolicited offers and having people expecting you to be excited about it. U.S. Steel was just minding its own business, feeling the vibes, staying moisturized and living its best life. And Cleveland Cliffs rolls up like, “Sup baby girl, lemme holla at you for a minute.” U.S. Steel was like “I’m just out trying to dance with my girls. No thanks.” Then Cliff gets all puffy chested and puts out a press release that U.S. Steel is a stuck up biotch and here we are. Mike Butler has an interesting theory about X’s potential winning suitor here. 
• Judge sends FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried to jail: Sam Bankman-Fried was sent to a dicey Brooklyn jail, after a judge sided with a request by federal prosecutors to revoke the FTX founder’s bail over alleged witness tampering. He is expected to remain in jail until his trial date of Oct. 2. Like how much privilege do you have to have to blatantly defy a judge's order? He was under house arrest at Stanford.  Like, just kickin it in the posh Palo Alto enjoying the Cali sun, his dog, video games and unlimited hot pockets from his mom. Now? He’s in Brooklyn and not in the fun hipster way. 
• Musk vs Zuck resolved? Our long national nightmare is finally over. Or is it? Zuckerberg dismissed Musk for allegedly delaying their anticipated showdown in the ring. “I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on,” the Facebook (META) co-founder wrote Sunday in a post on Threads, the text-based app Meta launched as a competitor to X, the company formerly known as Twitter.
  
  
  Then of course, because he has zero self-awareness, Musk started peacocking around that Zuckerberg has ended things because he was fearful of the outcome of the fight. Lord, please grant me the confidence of a narcissistic billionaire. Musk is what Southerners like to call “all hat, no cattle.” But congrats on your comeuppance. 

Tuesday 

• Chinese stock funds see huge inflows: Just four Chinese ETFs have attracted $4.4 billion in inflows over just eight trading days. Beijing’s “national team,” or state-affiliated institutions, could be intervening to prop up the market. Our very own Illya Spivak wrote his thoughts on China. You can read them here. 
• FDIC chair calls for tougher banking regulations: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) plans to propose a rule that would require banks with more than $50 billion in assets to provide information in the contingency plans they’re required to submit to regulators, which would outline what the banks would do in case their institutions ran into trouble. This is essentially a “living will” for banks to have a concrete plan in the event shit goes sideways. If you read the whole proposal it’s pretty funny. The FDIC wants banks to make a list of employees who are essential and then a list of people we hired because they’re related to the CEO. Okay, maybe not that exact verbiage but tomato, to-mah-to. 
• Nvidia gets upgraded…again: Nvidia (NVDA) reports earnings Aug. 23 and we’re all just suddenly realizing we live in a chip-based economy, and Nvidia (NVDA) is the foundation of that economy. Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note that the stock is the firm’s “Top Pick” coming off its most recent earnings report. Then, later in the week even more firms hopped on the already full Nvidia bandwagon and they also upgraded the stock. Mike Butler wrote a nice piece on what to expect when we’re expecting Nvidia’s earnings, here. 
• IL aims to protect “kidfluencers”: Illinois is the first state in the U.S. to ensure child social media influencers, or “kidfluencers” are compensated for their work instead of merely just living off the desire to fulfill their parents unrealized dreams of becoming famous. The bill was signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker and will go into effect on July 1, 2024. Look, making your kids perform for your family is one thing, making them perform for millions of social media viewers is a whole other ball game. It’s bad news all around making your child the driving force behind your content. I get it, you see that one kid who opens toys makes like $1 million dollars an hour and you’re like, “my stupid kid can do that.” Our state may not be great at things like not having governors go to jail, But, good job trying to protect kids, Illinois. 

Wednesday

• S&P 500 flashes a warning: On Tuesday, The S&P 500 (SPY) closed below its 50-day moving average for the first time since March. It could signal more losses for the index technical analysts said, suggesting that the summertime stock market sell-off isn’t finished. I love that technical analysis is the zodiac of trading. Oh man, the S&P is a total Gemini. Am I right, ladies? Look, no one knows anything but it’s nice to have some volatility back in the market. 
• Fitch threatens banks: A Fitch Ratings analyst warned that the U.S. banking industry has inched closer to another source of turbulence — the risk of sweeping rating downgrades on dozens of U.S. banks that could even include the likes of JPMorgan Chase (JPM). The ratings agency cut its assessment of the financial industry’s health in June, but, like no one noticed. So, Fitch ramped up the saber rattling this week. I’m not sure who hurt Fitch, but the agency has been on a tear lately. Downgrading China, Ecuador, the United States, and even its mom’s meatloaf. Savage. 
• Tesla launches lower-range models: Tesla (TSLA) rolled out cheaper versions of its Model S and Model X vehicles in the U.S. The lower-cost versions of both vehicles are $10,000 less than the regular model, according to Tesla’s website. The Model X Standard Range starts at $88,490 versus $98,490 for the Model X. The cheaper version has a driving range of 255 miles to 269 miles. The Model S Standard Range starts at a price of $78,490 versus $88,490 for the Model S. The cheaper version of the Model S has a driving range of 298 miles to 320 miles. Man, how mad would you be that you spent 89k on a car and it was the “budget” version. **insert crying laughing emoji**. Congrats on your “wealth”. 
• Vietnamese EV maker goes public via SPAC: VinFast (VFS), a Vietnamese electric-vehicle manufacturer that no one had ever heard of, made a splashy debut on the public markets this week and it's now magically worth more than Ford (F) and GM (GM). A SPAC deal with Black Spade valued VinFast at approximately $23 billion. The company began trading on the Nasdaq (QQQ) on Tuesday. By the end of the week, however, the shares were starting to lose their luster. If you can’t put all your funds into a Vietnamese EV maker that just appeared overnight, then I don’t even know what to believe in anymore. 

Thursday 

• Fed minutes recap: Federal Reserve officials expressed concern at the central bank's most recent meeting about the pace of inflation and said more rate hikes could be necessary in the future unless conditions change, minutes released Wednesday from the session indicated. Is it me, or do all their minutes sound the same? We’ll hike rates, unless we don’t hike rates, but rates and hiking or not hiking are things that will happen, or not happen. Good job, Fed. 
• Tech firms are slowing layoffs: In much-welcome economic news, job cuts in the tech industry appeared to slow in June and July and are on track to be even lower this month, according to an analysis by research firm Jefferies, citing proprietary data as well as that from job marketplace TrueUp. So far this year, there have been 342,671 layoffs in the tech industry, according to Jefferies and TrueUp, well ahead of the 243,075 for all of last year. Data from layoffs.fyi shows a similar trend. Tech companies are still threatening their employees for not coming into the office though. So maybe their “workaround” for more layoffs is to force an untenable return-to-work scenario on their staff and then those who don’t agree will voluntarily quit. 
• Coinbase gets approved for futures: Coinbase (COIN) said it's received regulatory approval to bring federally regulated crypto futures trading to eligible customers in the U.S., sending shares sharply higher before the opening bell Wednesday. Coinbase is in a protracted legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but the company received regulatory approval from the National Futures Association to operate as a futures commission merchant. Ryan Grace from tasty crypto got into an interesting discussion about the new approval with Tom and Tony during his segment Crypto Conversations. You can watch it here. 
• Aldi says the South will rise again!  Aldi ain’t just whistlin’ Winn Dixie. The German supermarket giant is acquiring Winn-Dixie and other grocery stores in the Southeast in a move to increase its presence in the region. Aldi will acquire nearly 400 Winn-Dixie locations. It’s part of Aldi’s long-term plan to expand across the U.S. The retailer previously announced it is opening 120 new stores with a goal of 2,400 stores by the end of 2024. I’ve never been to an Aldi. I can’t get over the fact that you have to “rent” a cart, but I hear good things. You can’t be mad at a grocery store that has its own line of merch. 

Friday 

• Household wealth declines for the first time since 2008: In 2022, The grand total of all the private wealth in the world fell 2.4% to $454.4 trillion, according to the annual Credit Suisse and UBS global wealth report. In short, the average Joe got a bit of a boost and a bunch of millionaires and billionaires took a bath—a phenomenon some refer to as a “rich-cession.” The United States alone lost 1.8 million people who qualified for “baller status”. So be careful with your swipes on the dating apps everyone! Make sure they’re still hella wealthy before you swipe right. 
• Mortgage rates are high: The average mortgage rate rose to 7.09%, its highest level in more than 20 years. That's the highest it's been since April 2002 and comes after the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates aggressively in a bid to fight inflation. Home buyers and home sellers are deadlocked. Homeowners don’t want to give up their favorable 3% mortgage rates, and home buyers can’t find anything reasonably priced. New home construction is ramping up, but it’s not enough. Just ask anyone over the age of 55 what mortgage rates used to be and they’ll tell you a tale that will frighten you to your core. They’ll also tell you how they walked uphill to school, both ways. 
• Bitcoin ends the week on a whimper: Bitcoin (BTC) dropped 7.2% to $26,634 on Thursday, losing $2,067 from its previous close. Bitcoin, the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, is down 16.3% from the year's high of $31,818 on July 13. Maybe there’s a rule that it can’t simultaneously be crypto season and pumpkin spice season. You can only choose one annoying thing to make your entire personality, and starting earlier each year, pumpkin spice is that bitch. 
• Looming auto strike could prove costly: A work stoppage by nearly 150,000 UAW workers at GM (GM), Ford (F) and Stellantis  (STLA) would result in an economic loss of more than $5 billion after 10 days, according to Anderson Economic Group. The summer has been rife with labor talks roiling the stocks of UPS (UPS), and United Airlines (UAL), but each of those companies reached deals with their respective unions. 

Will Tom Eat It? I love the innovation of the internet. I’m definitely gonna try this Crab Rangoon melt. Yum! 

That’s it for this week. I’m off the woods, so no Weekly Dose next week. Have a good week everyone! 

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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