Hey there weekday warrior,
Here’s what’s on tap today… Apple enters the next era like a boss, PCE came in cooler than a backwards hat-wearing high school teacher, and you can now buy Jersey Mike’s without eating it.
Now, enjoy the next 3 minutes and 10 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.
Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,
PS… thanks in advance for doing your part in helping keep TWC like the Fed (think: free and independent) by checking out today’s advertising partner.
iMic drop
Steve Jobs: *sets precedent as the greatest Apple CEO ever*
Tim Cook: “Hold my beer”
All eyes were on Tim Apple’s final earnings call yesterday, and it turns out…
Tim went out like MJ (the first time).
Apple $AAPL ( ▼ 7.35% ) reported a yuge earnings beat after the close yesterday with EPS of $2.02 and revenue coming in at a whopping $109.4B…
But the biggest surprise came from the division responsible for the phone your broke friend can’t afford doesn’t want because the Android camera is great, bro, trust me, bro, it’s so much better to have an Android…
The iPhone brought in $54.2B in the quarter. Quick math: that’s a 22% increase in iPhone sales in time for Tim’s retirement.
The only bad news: Apple’s “services” dept. got caught lacking, missing estimates by $480M because AppleCare is a scam, probably…
Every other part of the company crushed estimates (yes, even the iPad).
However… on the earnings call, Tim and Silent John did present weak guidance between 9-11% for the quarter, lower than the expected 12% the big brains guessed...
Still, overall, a pretty solid final earnings call from Timmy Apple. TYFYS…
Oh, and Amazon $AMZN ( ▲ 15.32% ) reported a big swingin beat yesterday after hours too. And the stonk bump to go with it. But Andy Jassy is no Tim Cook, so…
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Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 3.02% ) and Meta $META ( ▲ 3.28% ) stonks experienced pretty, pretty different days yesterday despite doing roughly the same thing (think: yeeting big money at AI).
Good news first: Satya absolutely crushed earnings on Wednesday with a top and bottom line beat, thanks to a 43% growth in the Azure cloud business. Oh, and apparently over 30M NPCs people are actually paying for Copilot…
Meanwhile over in Menlo Park, The Facebook reported a slight beat on revenue but a yuge miss on earnings Wednesday. Markets went all “that don’t impress me much.” Friendly reminder: Meta’s free cash flow is down 91% YoY due to its massive AI spending bill.
So yeah… Microsoft shares mooned (+15.5%) while Meta did not (think: -7.9%)…
+ “So if June PCE is down, then inflation is changing for the better, right? Right?”
Inflation:
June PCE dropped yesterday, and things are honestly not looking too, too bad… until you remember that June was prime ceasefire timeline…
Missionary PCE rose only 3.7% in June, below May’s 4.1% (because, math), which is giving Billy Joel (think: hasn’t happened for the longest time). It’s been 84 6 years since PCE went and did that.
Meanwhile, the core variety of PCE increased 3.3%, up 0.1% from May.
ICYMI, K-Woww announced that interest rates wouldn’t be doing jack sh*t Wednesday, so our long national nightmare stubborn inflation is hodling harder than pre-2026 Michael Saylor.
+ A sub below (opening).
Finally, we can own a piece of Jersey Mike’s $JMKE ( ▲ 6.33% ), and you can bet your a** I’m having a #13 to celebrate.
Thing is… shares got sorta rekt on IPO day despite Danny DeVito and Eli Manning ringing the opening bell.
Shares opened 8.7% below IPO price, good for a $6.7B valuation in its debut. Still, Mike’s Way now means raising a cool $1B, so they’ve got that going for them, which is nice…
Shares closed down 5.9% on the day…
> AI investor Leopold Aschenbrenner forced to unwind all public stock positions after steep losses, sources say // Sucks to suck invest in Effective Altruist bros…
> OpenAI cuts prices for two of its GPT-5.6 AI models as companies grow sensitive to costs // Everything must go sale.
> (Wednesday) FTC sues Hims and Hers, stock falls // You’re telling me the shady prescription co. is also a shady data co.?
> (Wednesday) DoorDash launches in-house drone delivery program after FAA certification // Bro just put the fries in the tiny helicopter…
> (Tuesday) Boeing posts wider loss than expected as Air Force One costs weigh on results // Boeing shareholders be like “my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.”
> (Tuesday) Visa is cutting 7% of employees in efficiency push as AI reshapes work // Hold onto your butts…
> (Tuesday) Meta, BlackRock Plan to Invest in Giant Texas Data Center // Zuck thirsty again.
On Tuesday, I asked, “What’s worse than a Chipotle in Mexico?”
66% of you said, “Olive Garden in Italy.” Bad news, there’s an Olive Garden in Rome. (Rome, Georgia, but still…)
Here’s what some of you guys had to say (and my response in italics)…
Olive Garden in Italy: “Although now that I’m thinking about it, might be the once place you can get air conditioning in the summer.” Now this is a great point…
Other (write-in): “Starbucks in Italy” Don’t Google that…
Sbarro in NYC: “chipotle actually tastes fine. Sbarro tastes like a*s.” Rare Chipotle defense.
Other (write-in): “Denny’s anywhere” Harsh, but fair.
Olive Garden in Italy: “i dont think having mexicans cooking italian food in Italy would fly right.” Why not? They cook plenty of ’merican food here…
Here’s today’s question(s)…
Which one of these was actually worth the ticket price? (I have seen exactly zero...)
+ US stocks rose Tuesday (S&P 500: +0.2%) as Boeing and Coca-Cola offset more chip bleeding, tanked Wednesday (S&P 500: -1.5%) when the Fed held rates (but three members dissented), then ripped Thursday (S&P 500: +1.7%) on a monster Microsoft day as its AI spending finally showed up in the profits. Whiplash week.
+ The 10-year yield retreated Tuesday ahead of the Fed meeting, climbed Wednesday as traders questioned whether the Fed can tame inflation, then sat little changed Thursday, with the 30-year hovering near its highest since 2007.
+ Oil dropped about 5% Tuesday to a two-week low on US-Iran talk hopes, surged 7% Wednesday when airstrikes resumed, and crude inventories hit a multi-year low, then slipped back Thursday on a proposed Saudi-led Red Sea maritime coalition. It’s been interesting in the Strait lately…
+ The “smart” money (prediction markets) thinks there’s only a 10% chance Anthony Fauci gets arrested this year. (Polymarket)
Oh, and one more thing…
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