Good Morning! Private equity lobbyists got a massive win yesterday. The SEC had been gearing up to make some of the biggest legal overhauls to the $20 trillion alternative asset management industry - but they watered down its proposals at the last minute.

The pumpkin spice economy is back - Starbucks will launch its fall menu lineup this week. And there’s reason for the coffee chain to be excited - last year when they launched their pumpkin menu items, it was the biggest week of sales in the company’s history. Amazon’s ordering its employees back to the office, but they’re seeing some employees quit rather than move. And new home sales climbed in July despite steep mortgage rates.

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_{SQUEEZ OF THE DAY}

$NVDA Crushed It

Has Nvidia become the new Tesla for markets? The stock has surged over 229% YTD (as of close yesterday) - but the company passed its own litmus test with flying colors.

The company reported earnings after the bell yesterday. And Nvidia crushed it.

Demand for the company’s GPU chips has been off the charts. And $NVDA topped earnings and project, on an annual basis, a 170% jump in sales this quarter. The company posted an 88% leap in revenue from the previous quarter.

Analysts were expecting about $11.04 billion in revenue. And Nvidia blew those expectations out of the water, reporting $13.51 billion in revenue. Earnings per share? Up 429% from last year.

Takeaway: Nvidia’s earnings were seen as a big moment for AI stocks as a whole. But it’s huge for Nvidia - they doubled their revenue thanks to off-the-chart demand. But, so far, Nvidia is really the only company that’s figured out how to cash in on the AI craze.

_{CAPITAL PULSE}

Markets Rundown

Stocks closed higher after a tech-led rally before Nvidia reported earnings.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Abercrombie & Fitch ($ANF) +24% after the retailer crushed earnings.

• (–) Peloton ($PTON) -23% after 20k members canceled subscriptions while waiting for recall.

• (–) Foot Locker ($FL) -28% after a dividend pause thanks to ‘consumer softness’.

Private Dealmaking

• Northvolt, a maker of lithium-ion batteries, raised $1.2 billion 

• Ramp, a corporate finance automation startup, raised $300 million

• Cellares, a cell therapy manufacturing platform, raised $255 million 

• Rapport Therapeutics, a developer of neuromedicines, raised $150 million

• Spycloud, an identity analytics firm, raised $110 million 

• Gympass, a corporate employee wellness platform, raised $85 million

Get access to private deal flow here.

_{SPONSORED BY SUPERSIDE}

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_HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Turnover is declining in business (Fox)

• Microsoft is playing the very long game with Activision (WSJ)

• Goldman Sachs is just as bullish on AI as big tech (YF)

• Juul to cut nearly a third of workforce (CNBC)

• Will SBF’s ‘blame the lawyers’ strategy work? (CD)

• Subway gets a new suitor in Goldman Sachs (Axios)

• Corporate venture investment arms wrestle with sagging values, sell assets (WSJ)

• WeWork tapping advisers for restructuring help (Reuters)

• BlackRock’s support for shareholder proposal wanes (Axios)

• Goldman, KKR, Blackstone join investor rush for Japan hotels (YF)

_{BOOK OF THE DAY}

Trust

Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end.

But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.

Hernan Diaz’s TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another—and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation.

At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.

“A glorious novel about empires and erasures, husbands and wives, staggering fortunes and unspeakable misery.”

_{ENLIGHTENMENT}

Short Squeez Picks

• Lessons learned from studying the herd mentality of venture capitalists

• 10 of the best books on growth mindset

• 5 tips for becoming a top competitor from Tom Brady’s coach

• How to overcome repetitive negative thinking through meditation

• Caffeine improves attention, but not complex thinking, after sleep deprivation

_{DAILY VISUAL}

Summer Heat Not Slowing Down Pumpkin Spice Season

Starbucks’ pumpkin spice latte release dates

_{DAILY ACUMEN}

Relax

“If you ever feel that the world is against you, you are not alone. We all have a tendency to assume that when anything goes wrong, the fault lies within some great conspiracy against us.

A co-worker fails to give you a report in time? They must be trying to derail your career and beat you to a promotion. Your child drops and breaks an expensive plate? They must be trying to annoy you and waste your time. WiFi in a coffee shop not working?

The staff must be lying about having it to lure you in and sample their crappy espresso. But the simple fact is that these explanations which we tend to jump to are rarely true."

Source: Farnam Street

_{JOB BOARD}

Featured Jobs

• Robinhood - Manager, Finance - New York, NY

• Citi - SVP - New York, NY

• Raymond James - Associate - New York, NY

_{MEME-A-PALOOZA}

Memes of the Day