Turns out, the only way I know you’re real is if you respond to an email or click a link. So, do me a solid and prove you’re real by clicking below…

Now, here’s what’s on the agenda today…

Larry Ellison had a much better day than you, Klarna’s IPO went exactly like you thought it would, and Potbelly has a new owner.

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 29 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 should grab Potbelly for lunch with you today. If you CC me ([email protected]), I’ll send you both something.

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

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak poor.” - Larry Ellison to Elon Musk

Larry Ellison just dethroned Elon as the richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg. The founder of Oracle’s $ORCL ( ▼ 4.38% ) net worth soared more than $100B in a day (that is not a typo).

The stock closed up 36%. That was its best day since 1992… the same year the original Dream Team made USA Basketball great again. Friendly reminder: ORCL also had some pretty epic days in the run-up to the dot-com bubble bursting.

The most mind-boggling part?

Oracle reported a top and bottom line miss on Tuesday after the close. I sh*t you not.

Turns out it’s all about the future. You see, Oracle is sitting on approximately 1.16 Larry Ellisons of backlog (read: $455B). Its “remaining performance obligations” (read: products or services it has contracted for but not delivered yet) jumped 359% in the quarter. Is that good?

The company expects its cloud infrastructure (the important one that gives big tech players access to Nvidia GPUs) to grow with reckless abandon: $18B in fiscal 2026, $32B in ‘27, $73B in ‘28, $114B in ‘29, and $144B in ‘30.

Pretty much no one could believe their eyes, including analysts who said stuff like “I’m sort of blown away” (John DiFucci, an analyst at Guggenheim).

One Deutsche Bank analyst basically had to be stopped from grabbing a bottle of lube and his happy sock: “In our near 20 years covering Oracle and for that matter the entire Software industry, there are few quarterly results that match F1Q both in terms of magnitude of revision and clarity of the moment.” I think the kids call that glazing.

WTF does it mean for us?

Oracle’s massive backlog, courtesy of Silicon Valley, is a friendly reminder of just how much big (and some not-so-big) tech has earmarked for AI. It’s also probably a good opportunity to remember that at some point, investors are going to expect a return on this massive AI investment (we see you, Meta Superintelligence team).

Spoiler: using a credit card.

Here’s EXACTLY how to do it…

No interest means you could pay off the debt faster.

Now it’s time to find the right card…

Some of the top credit card experts identified one of their favorites that puts interest on ice until nearly 2027 AND offers up to 5% cash back on qualifying purchases.

Start paying down debt faster with this top pick.

+ “You gotta pump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers in this racket.” - Figma to Klarna

Sure, by most standards, Klarna had a pretty good first day as a publicly traded company. But this is the Summer of 2025. Shares of the buy now, pay later stock jumped 15% in their Nasdaq debut after pricing above the estimated range.

Next up: Via Transportation IPOs on Friday, and StubHub goes public next week.

+ Criminally underrated sandwich chain Potbelly $POTB was just sold for $566M… and I think I speak for all the Pot-heads out there in saying, “that’s it?!”

Convenience store operator RaceTrac will be the proud new owner of the home of the Sweet Heat Pork BBQ Sandwich (w/ extra BBQ sauce and pickles). Hate to be the bearer of bad news for everyone that lives within driving distance of a RaceTrac, but the companies don’t plan to “put a Potbelly in every RaceTrac.”

+ Checkmate…

+ Do you think the Novo $NVO ( ▲ 0.07% ) HR manager kicked off the layoff meeting Zoom with “We do not take this sort of belt-tightening lightly, but the sad reality is that our company has become bloated, and it is time to trim some fat.”

The maker of Ozempic and Wegovy is laying off more than 9k people. The GLP-1 slinger is hoping that the move can stop the bleeding while management figures out how to stop losing market share at an alarming rate.

+ Amazon after seeing the Apple Vision Pro…

Although it’s not entirely clear why, Amazon $AMZN ( ▲ 0.11% ) is reportedly developing AR smart glasses that will feature built in mics, cameras, and a full color display. If that sounds familiar, that’s because it’s exactly like Meta’s Ray-Bans.

Ok, now make Alexa suck less…

+ US stocks “mostly edged higher on Wednesday as Oracle's (ORCL) blowout revenue forecast lifted AI hopes, as its shares had their best day in over three decades. Meanwhile, wholesale inflation unexpectedly declined last month, bolstering the case for the Federal Reserve to cut rates next week.” (Yahoo! Finance)

+ The 10-year yield “edged lower on Wednesday thanks to new inflation data that may reinforce the case for Federal Reserve rate cuts and government sale of U.S. debt that was met with strong demand.” (CNBC)

+ Oil “settled higher on Wednesday by more than $1 a barrel as investors worried about possible supply disruptions after Poland downed drones in its airspace and the U.S. pushed for new sanctions on buyers of Russian oil the day after an Israeli attack in Qatar, but a report showing swelling U.S. supplies capped gains.” (Reuters)

+ Bitcoin “rose slightly on Wednesday, boosted by a surprise decline in wholesale inflation that bolsters the odds of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut next week. Still, gains remained limited, with the world’s largest cryptocurrency continuing to trade in a range seen in the past few weeks.” (Investing.com)

+ The “smart” money (prediction markets) thinks there’s a 74% chance Nvidia ends 2025 as the largest company in the world. (Polymarket)

⏪ Yesterday…

+ Chewy reported before the bell

+ Quantum Corp reported after hours

+ Tapestry held its Investor Day

⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…

+ Kroger reports before hours

+ Adobe and RH report after the bell

+ The European Central Bank will release its monetary policy statement. ECB officials will also hold a press conference

+ The Consumer Price Index report for August will drop

Yesterday, I asked, “Do aliens exist?”

70.2% of you said “Yessir.”

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

Here’s today’s question…

Let’s keep it simple…

Oh, and one more thing…

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.