Here’s what’s on the agenda today…

Donny Politics vs. Lisa Cook is about to get good, Cracker Barrel’s old logo is back, and Taylor Swift moves markets.

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 14 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

– tyler

PS, loving The Water Coolest? Forward it to someone who makes Taylor Swift their entire personality. If you CC me ([email protected]), I’ll send you both something.

PPS, did someone with great taste forward this to you? Subscribe here.

POTUS’ advisors on Monday before he fired Fed Governor Lisa Cook: “Ok, but pinky promise you won’t make it super obvious that you’re just doing this to stack the Fed.”

POTUS on Tuesday: “We’ll have a [Fed] majority very shortly. So that’ll be great. Once we have a majority, housing is going to swing, and it’s going to be great. People are paying too high an interest rate. That’s the only problem with us. We have to get the rates down a little bit.”

ICYMI, Donny Interest Rates fired Fed Governor Lisa Cook on Monday night via a strongly worded letter. And all hell has since broken loose.

Last week, FHFA director Bill Pulte accused Cook of mortgage fraud. Lisa cooked up a sticky situation for herself by indicating that two separate properties would be her primary residence during the same time period. And, turns out, unlike m*sturbating on an airplane (…which is frowned upon), that is actually pretty illegal.

The President reminded her of this when he fired her “for cause.”

What now?

The Central Bank admitted yesterday that Governors “may be removed by the president only ‘for cause.’” Of course, the Federal Reserve Act doesn’t actually define “cause.”

Noticeably absent from the Fed’s statement? Any real defense of Lisa or criticism of the President’s decision. In case you were wondering just how few f*cks J-Poww gives about his underlings, Cook will lawyer up… with her own personal attorney.

Lisa vowed to fight the case, and pretty much everyone expects this to end in the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, POTUS is crafting a shortlist of replacements for Cook who are presumably open to lowering rates (see: “majority” comment).

Speaking of which…

Since investors (looking at you) care more about girthy gainz than the sanctity of the Federal Reserve’s independence, markets rose on hopes that rate cuts are inbound.

+ Bah gawd, that’s Uncle Herschel’s music…

Perhaps it was the White House memeing its rebrand to death. Or maybe it was this viral AI video. But Cracker Barrel $CBRL ( ▼ 0.62% ) has reversed course on sanitizing its logo. The restaurant will bring back its old logo, thus ensuring that no brand will dare overhaul its identity until the end of time for fear of being canceled.

Shares popped after hours on the news.

+ Your move, Sydney Sweeney…

On Tuesday afternoon, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announced that they got engaged. And I think I speak on behalf of all the weekday warriors when I say, congrats, you two crazy kids.

Almost immediately after the news broke, internet sleuths (read: grown women that are entirely too invested in someone they have never met) pointed out that Taylor’s engagement ring was a “cushion cut.” The news sent shares of Signet Jewelers $SIG ( ▼ 1.84% ) up. It appears the thesis is that the same people who would sell a kidney to attend the Eras Tour are about to force their own Travis to buy a much smaller, but similar ring.

+ “Yeah, I’m on the spectrum.” - AT&T CEO John Stankey

AT&T $T ( ▲ 1.19% ) is buying a f*ck ton of wireless spectrum licenses ($23B worth to be exact) from EchoStar $SATS ( ▲ 6.08% ), which sounds like a planet-destroying space station prototype commissioned by Emperor Palpatine prior to the Death Star.

The wireless provider that introduced all your horn dogs to Lily Adams will add more than 50 megahertz of mid-band and low-band spectrum (whatever the f*ck that actually means) across 400 US markets.

Not that EchoStar really had a choice…

You see, it was getting probed (presumably the full cavity variety) by the FCC. The Commish was kicking the tires on whether EchoStar was compliant with federal requirements for building a 5G network. Side note: how are we still on 5G in the year of our lord 2025?

And you’ll never guess who snitched on EchoStar. The founder of SpaceX lodged a complaint with the FCC about EchoStar’s valuable mid-band spectrum being “chronically underused.” Elon said he believes they should consider allowing “new satellite entrants” to put it to use. And since money talks, the FCC listened.

+ “F*ck my life.” - Warren Buffett

Remember that time the Oracle of Omaha and pretty much every other hedgie bought the f*cking dip on UnitedHealth $UNH ( ▲ 1.84% )? Welp, turns out the dip might still have some legs.

You see, the DOJ criminal investigation into UNH is a bit more wide-ranging than Medicare practices, according to those narcs over at Bloomberg. Luigi Mangione can rest easy knowing the US government is also looking into UnitedHealth’s OptumRx, as well as how it reimburses doctors.

+ US stocks “closed higher on Tuesday as Wall Street looked beyond President Donald Trump’s removal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook from the central bank’s board and awaited quarterly figures from chip giant Nvidia.” (CNBC)

+ The 10-year yield was “lagging the market and retained modest losses as President Donald Trump intensified efforts to oust Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, deepening concerns his attacks on the central bank’s independence and lobbying for lower interest rates will fan inflation.” (Yahoo! Finance)

+ Oil “fell 2% on Tuesday, erasing gains from the previous session, as investors watched developments around U.S. tariffs, the war in Ukraine and the potential disruption of Russian fuel supplies.” (Reuters)

+ The “smart” money (prediction markets) thinks there’s a 13% chance Lisa Cook will resign as a Fed governor by September 30th. (Polymarket)

⏪ Yesterday…

+ Okta and MongoDB reported after the bell

+ Starbucks kicked off Pumpkin Spice Latte season, which means a basic millennial woman must have not seen her shadow…

⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…

+ Abercrombie & Fitch, Williams-Sonoma, Royal Bank of Canada, Kohl's, and J.M. Smuckers report before the bell

+ Nvidia, Crowdstrike, Snowflake, HP, Veeva, Pure Storage, NetApp, Trip.com, Bill.com, and Five Below report after the bell

+ The US will begin to apply a 50% duty rate on certain Indian imports unless an extension or deal is worked out

Yesterday, I asked, “My oldest starts Kindergarten today… any advice for a first-timer (me, not my son)?”

61.9% of you said “No, stop crowdsourcing fatherhood, you deadbeat.“

Here’s what some of you guys had to say…

Here’s today’s question…

There are two types of people in this world: the ones who think they’ll get sent to Gitmo for not putting their phone on Airplane Mode during a flight, and those of us who will stay connected to the network through the initial ascent and descent. So…

Oh, and one more thing…

Sent from my Amazon Fire Phone. Please excuse any mistakes and typos.

Does this look like the face of a guy you should take financial advice from?

No, it’s the face of an individual who is financially irresponsible/dumb enough to be talked into spending money on a family photo shoot that he could have just done with his iPhone. So, act accordingly...

This is not financial advice. Nothing in this newsletter is an investment recommendation. All content is created for entertainment, educational, or informational purposes only. Do your own research, or do yourself a favor and hire a professional.