Here’s what’s on the agenda today…

The UFC has a new home, Nvidia and AMD get the green light to sell semiconductors in China (but there’s a catch), and RIP dial-up internet.

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 23 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

– tyler

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Define “irony”: the nepo baby who hasn’t had to fight for anything in his life (sup, David Ellison, son of Larry Ellison) will become the proud owner of the UFC’s broadcast rights…

The media giant that just KOed Colbert is paying a f*ck ton for the opportunity to steal the UFC from ESPN. Paramount $PSKY ( ▼ 0.62% ) will pony up $7.7B over the next 7 years to get access to 43 live UFC events per year. That’s a massive jump from the roughly $500M annually ESPN had been paying.

Every single event will be available on Paramount+. No more “pay-per-views.” In fact, TKO’s chairman called PPV “a thing of the past.” Wait til he finds out people still pay for tasteful n*des on the internet.

Desperate times call for desperate measures…

If it feels like Paramount might have overpaid, that’s because they probably did. You see, it was a perfect storm for UFC (and TKO). The Paramount-Skydance “merger” officially closed late last week, so David Ellison was undoubtedly excited to step out of his father’s shadow by making a splash.

It probably didn’t hurt that nearly all major sports rights are spoken for through the 2030s. So for PSKY, it was either jump on UFC or hitch your streaming wagon to Taylor Sheridan Yellowstone spinoffs.

Oh, and ESPN undoubtedly had something to do with Paramount’s willingness to make it rain on Dana White’s combat sports league. The Worldwide Leader has been hoovering up sports rights, and inked a huge deal with UFC’s sister company, WWE, last week.

Imagine paying that much for the UFC when the Savannah Bananas don’t have a broadcast deal yet…

The top companies target big markets. Like Nvidia growing ~200% in 2024 on AI’s $214B tailwind. That’s why the same VCs behind Uber and Venmo also backed Pacaso. Created by a former Zillow exec, Pacaso’s co-ownership tech transforms a $1.3 trillion market. With $110M+ in gross profit to date, Pacaso just reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.

Invest for $2.90/Share

_{Paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.}

+ Donny Politics really just hit Nvidia and AMD with this meme…

The White House has set up a unique “licensing deal” with Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 0.63% ) and AMD $AMD ( ▼ 0.95% ). Under the arrangement, the two chipmakers get to sell their most powerful chips to China (well, the most powerful ones China is trusted with)… in return for 15% of the total revenue generated in the People’s Republic being paid directly to the US Government.

The haters are saying, “the mafia called, and they would like their racket back,” while the President’s supporters are pitching this as another form of tariffs. Surprisingly, the news that Nvidia and AMD could play ball in China didn’t exactly have investors ready to run through a brick wall. Shares for both companies fell on the day.

+ Let’s play a game… what do we get first: A) TikTok sale B) China tariffs C) GTA 6?

As expected, POTUS inked an exec order extending China’s tariff deadline for another 90 days as negotiations continue.

+ Warner Bros. Discovery $WBD ( ▼ 0.08% ) punching air right now. Just months after a judge killed Venu, a streaming app combining the sports rights of WBD, Fox, and ESPN/Disney, the latter two companies have found a workaround: they’ll just bundle their new sports streaming offerings together for one monthly fee ($39.99 for those of you wondering).

+ Remember C3.ai $AI ( ▲ 2.89% )? You know, the company that owes like 2/3 of its market cap to it being the first stock that pops up when you Google “AI stock” (see: ticker symbol “AI”). Well, it’s making headlines again. And I mean that in the worst possible way…

Shares fell nearly 26% after the company dropped preliminary results that show sales fell off a cliff vs. the same period last year. And in what has to be the cockiest move of all time, CEO Thomas Siebel said he only has himself to blame: “Health issues prevented me from participating in the sales process as actively as I have in the past. With the benefit of hindsight, it is now apparent that my active participation in the sales process may have had a greater impact than I previously thought.”

It appears that Tommy Sales is a better closer than Mariano Rivera in his prime…

+ The perfect ETF ticker symbol doesn’t exi—

Rex Shares just dropped CCUP, an ETF that looks to give you 2X daily long exposure to (newly public) stablecoin issuer Circle $CRCL ( ▼ 2.57% ).

+ RIP to this sound…

AOL is officially shutting down its dial-up internet offering. And if any of you are reading this newsletter on dial up, please let me know… so I can report you to the proper authorities. According to the US Census, in 2023, there were still 163k Americans using dial up…

+ GM $GM ( 0.0% ) be like, “is it too late now to say sorry?”

Remember that time GM shut down its autonomous vehicle development project Cruise? Well, it’s having second thoughts. Apparently, GM is trying to lure back some of its former employees like a desperate ex and restart the project with a focus on personal-use vehicles.

+ US stocks “slipped on Monday as President Trump reportedly granted another 90-day extension for steeper China tariffs and as traders eyed a key inflation reading on Tuesday.” (Yahoo! Finance)

+ The 10-year yield “inched lower Monday as investors look ahead to key inflation data due this week which will offer fresh insights about the state of the U.S. economy.” (CNBC)

+ Oil “settled flat on Monday after falling more than 4% last week, as investors looked towards talks this week between the U.S. and Russia over the war in Ukraine.” (Reuters)

+ The “smart” money (prediction markets) thinks there’s a 23% chance CPI comes in above 2.8% today. (Kalshi)

⏪ Yesterday…

+ Monday.com, Barrick Mining, and Rumble reported before the bell

+ Oklo, Archer Aviation, Ast Spacemobile, BigBear, Plug Power, AMC, Microvast, and Fluence Energy reported after the bell

+ Bullish priced its IPO

⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…

+ On, Circle, Sea, Pony AI, and Bitfarms drop earnings before the bell

+ CoreWeave and Cava report after the bell

+ July CPI drops

Yesterday, I asked, “Is ‘M’ or ‘mm’ the shorthand for ‘million’?”

74.6% of you said “M.”

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

Here’s today’s question…

On the bright side, you won’t have to hear your friends complaining about RTO mandates anymore (spoiler: AI is going to take their job)…

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.