Good Morning! As promised, find v2 of the Wall Street Firm Feedback deck here.

Bed Bath & Beyond is back from the dead. Overstock, who acquired them, rebranded itself to Bed Bath & Beyond and dropped a brand new website. Despite talk of a breakup between Apple and Goldman Sachs - both companies announced their high-yield savings account reached over $10 billion in deposits.

Employers are souring on weight-loss drugs and cutting off insurance coverage - some of the injections can cost over $1000/month per user. And turns out Taylor Swift’s crew members got a bigger bonus than investment bankers in 2023 - Swift dished out a $100k bonus to each truck driver for their help with the tour. (anyone know how to get in on this???)

_{SQUEEZ OF THE DAY}

What The Fitch

Just when everyone thought the stock market rally was unstoppable - turns out Fitch Ratings had something to say about that. They downgraded the U.S.’ credit rating for just the second time in history. And stocks had their worst day since February as the downgrade ignited a sell-off.

Most experts are left feeling really confused. The key reasons seemed political rather than economic - Fitch referenced January 6th. And the agency thinks the U.S. might decide not to pay its debt because of political gridlock.

Jamie Dimon called the news “ridiculous”. And he has a fair point. It doesn’t make sense that some countries like Canada, which depend on stability created by the U.S., have higher credit ratings than America. And as long as U.S. Treasuries are the bedrock of the global economy, concerns about instability are probably a little overblown.

Takeaway: Most experts don’t really think the downgrade matters that much. After all, it’s the market, not rating agencies, that determine borrowing costs. Maybe it’s just Fitch trying to stay relevant but it’s also a good heads up for investors to stay humble.

_{CAPITAL PULSE}

Markets Rundown

Stocks sank after a historic U.S. credit rating downgrade.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) CVS Health ($CVS) +3% after the pharmacy chain posted strong earnings.

• (–) Robinhood ($HOOD) -3% before the company reported earnings after the bell.

• (–) Generac ($GNRC) -24% after the generator company posted an earnings miss.

Private Dealmaking

• Whitehorse raised $5.3 billion for its liquidity solutions fund for private equity portfolios

• Micro Connect, a microfinance platform, raised $458 million

• Wex bought Acensus’ employee health and benefits unit for $180 million 

• DoubleVerify bought Scibids, an ad tech firm, for $125 million

• CG Oncology, an immunotherapies for bladder cancer developer, raised $105 million

• Healthmap Solutions, a health management company focused on kidney disease, raised $100 million

_{EXCEL COURSE}

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A Message From Our Instructor

_HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Inside the $6.5 billion buyout of New Relic (Axios)

• Private sector added 324k jobs in July, well above expectations (CNBC)

• Hedge funds target closed-end funds with arbitrage plays (WSJ)

• Vista puts up $1B in equity in struggling Finastra deal (BB)

• Maybe the most anticipated recession won’t come after all (YF)

• How ESPN went from Disney’s financial engine to its problem (NYT)

• The new platform giving big hedge funds a run for their money (SM)

• Ares aims to collect $2B for its new infrastructure secondaries fund (WSJ)

• U.S. employers are stuck in hiring Catch-22 (TH)

_{BOOK OF THE DAY}

Beyond The Divine

What are we before our birth? A genetic probability. Just that? Yes, and we will continue to be until our number is up and our existence is realized, which does not just depend on us as individuals.

We are beholden to the survival of our species. What is the beyond before our birth like? Fair. We all have the same chance of becoming emperors or paupers, beautiful or ugly, geniuses or borderline; in short, the genetic roulette has no bias or limit in time or space, unless as a species we cross into extinction.

And after our death? A genetic probability. We are the concrete appearance of an abstract probability. Awareness of the future is what make us humans.

In time and the logic of change the author points out that nature’s adaptive randomness is time consuming while human adaptive creativity is time busting churning technological innovations at an ever-faster pace.

New emergent technologies are providing us new avenues of survival. The control of nuclear fusion will end our solar dependency, and like the control of fire of yore will bring us closer to reaching escape velocity.

A technological jump that will provide a real chance of escaping our birth planet and attain interplanetary, and with time, interstellar mobility. A survival feat of our own.

“Explore the intricate dance of genetics, culture, and technology, asserting that our survival as a species, hinges on our ability to adapt, innovate, and ultimately, transcend our planetary confines."

_{ENLIGHTENMENT}

Short Squeez Picks

• How embracing a growth mindset changes how your brain functions

• 3 tips for leaders to create boundaries

• The New Haven-style pizza chain challenging NY-style on its own turf

• 10 must-see NYC art installations this month

• Is an Ivy League degree worth it?

_{DAILY VISUAL}

Heat Wave Driving Up Gas Prices

US average gas price

_{DAILY ACUMEN}

Reversal Patterns

We, as humans, love to extrapolate. Like, when things are going great, we think they'll last forever, and when they're terrible, we see no end in sight.

Ever wondered what turns a trend around? It's usually not some external force. It's a side effect, something that chips away at the very thing that made the trend powerful in the first place.

No recessions? Confidence shoots up, risks pile on, and bingo, a recession strikes. Sky-high valuations? Market's prone to crash. And a crisis? Well, it motivates us to hustle, solve problems, and voila, crisis ends.

See, good times sow seeds of downfall through complacency, while bad times prepare the ground for recovery. We see that clearly, don't we? But only in hindsight, usually.

Why's that? Because we're wired to predict based on patterns, and drawing a straight line is way simpler than figuring out how folks might change and adapt.

Take alcohol fermentation for instance. The yeast that starts the process eventually dies when alcohol levels get too high. Powerful trends are similar. And figuring that out isn't always intuitive.

It requires thinking about not just the impact of a trend, but how that impact might alter behavior, possibly ending the trend itself.

_{MEME-A-PALOOZA}

Memes of the Day