Here’s what’s on the agenda today…

Sydney Sweeney has still got it (read: the ability to sell jeans), Apple’s latest AI Hail Mary, and brutal jobs data.

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 31 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 thinks Sydney Sweeney has good jeans. If you CC me ([email protected]), I’ll send you both something.

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Aeropostale’s marketing team be like, “Ok, hear me out… Scarlett Johansson.”

American Eagle $AEO ( ▲ 0.11% ) has got itself two yuge assets that are helping boost sales: Sydney Sweeney and Travis Kelce. Did you think I was going to say something else? Get your mind out of the gutter…

The meme stock went parabolic (again) after the back-to-school shopping destination sandwiched between an Orange Julius and Scientology Recruitment Center at your local mall said its Sydney Sweeney campaign was its “best” ever.

The “Great Jean” campaign starring Scooter Braun’s new girlfriend (which gives all men hope that if we get rich enough, we too have a shot with the biggest celeb in the game) and Mr. Taylor Swift’s collab with AE have reportedly driven 700k brand new customers. And the endorsements are expected to account for single-digit % sales growth in the current quarter.

Friendly reminder: Syd’s (cool if I call you that?) eugenics-inspired campaign didn’t launch until the last week of the company’s fiscal Q2. And the Chiefs’ TE (who is only a Hall of Famer because of Patrick Mahomes) just launched his collection last week. That means we won’t see the real impact of the collabs until the end of (their) Q3…

But American Eagle is already expecting big numbers. During its earnings call, it predicted top line growth for the quarter in the low single digits vs. a 0.9% guesstimate from the Street.

And management, which has stuffed those dweebs from Hollister in a locker, now expects sales to be flat year over year. Analyst consensus was down slightly. Imagine betting against Sydney Sweeney.

WTF does it mean for us?

For starters, I’d bet my firstborn that we’ll get a Super Bowl ad featuring Sydney Sweeney. And it’ll be the kind that racks up FCC complaints for indecency, courtesy of all the Karens and Buzz Killingtons out there.

From an investment perspective, it’s probably worth noting that the first ingredient of a meme stock is a dogsh*t company. Prior to the July pop, shares of the store were down nearly 40% YTD…

Pretty much everything that could go wrong, did: AE took a huge inventory writedown after mismanagement of epic proportions, it pissed off consumers by reversing course on its “body positivity” branding, and dealt with the macro headwinds that pretty much every retailer is dealing with. It probably doesn’t help that it’s a mall retailer…

A new trend in real estate is making the most expensive properties obtainable. It’s called co-ownership, and it’s revolutionizing the $1.3T vacation home market.

The company leading the trend? Pacaso. Created by the founder behind a $120M prior exit, Pacaso turns underutilized luxury properties into fully-managed assets and makes them accessible to the broadest possible market.

The result? More than $1B in transactions and service fees, 2,000+ happy homeowners, and over $110m in gross profit to date for Pacaso.

With rapid international growth and 41% gross profit growth last year alone, Pacaso is hitting their stride. They even recently reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.

The same VCs that backed Uber, eBay, and Venmo also backed Pacaso. Join them as a Pacaso shareholder before the opportunity ends September 18.

Invest While You Still Can

_{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.}

+ Just when you thought Apple’s AI efforts couldn’t be harder to watch…

Rumor has it that Apple $AAPL ( ▼ 0.04% ) is working on a new AI-powered “answer engine” that’s being called “World Knowledge Answers” internally (why does it sound so much like an Instagram account that exclusively shares poorly created AI videos about historic events… but is actually just an affiliate play for some offshore crypto gambling platform?). Oh, so Apple invented the search engine?

WKA would be built to power Siri, but could also roll out to Safari. That, of course, assumes Apple actually launches its upgraded voice assistant that has been plagued with more delays than GTA 6.

+ During the company’s first-ever earnings call, Figma $FIG ( ▲ 0.55% ) CEO Dylan Field reminded everyone, “We’re not trying to be Michael Saylor here. This is not, like, a Bitcoin holding company. It’s a design company, but I think there’s a place for it in the balance sheet and as part of a diversified treasury strategy.” (Friendly reminder: Figma holds just shy of $100M of its liquid assets in a Bitcoin ETF)

But maybe it should be?

Shares got rocked despite a 41% jump in revenue and a top line beat. Oh, and its estimates for Q3 topped the Street’s consensus. To be fair, the Canva for people who live in Williamsburg had almost no chance of living up to sky-high expectations…

At one point during its first day of trading (last month), the stonk was changing hands at 4x its IPO price. Even after heavy selling over the past month, shares are still nearly double the IPO price.

+ In case you needed a reminder to work harder today, WSJ analyzed America’s 1,135 billionaires…

+ “Look how they massacred my boy.” - me, after realizing that the PELOSI (Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments) Act just got rolled into The Restore Trust in Congress Act

A bipartisan group of lawmakers (who probably suck at trading) has introduced a new bill that will ban members of Congress and their families (looking at you, Paul Pelosi) from investing in individual stocks. The proposed law would combine a handful of other bills that have been floated over the past few years.

+ Nothing to see here, just the United States’ third-largest oil producer (think: ConocoPhillips $COP ( ▼ 2.95% )) laying off 25% of its workforce amid a decline in oil prices. Are you happy now, alt-energy, nerds?

+ The prediction market wars are upon us… and as someone who owns an ad-supported business, I am here for it. The CFTC has officially cleared Polymarket to begin operations in the US after it bought its way back into the market via an acquisition.

+ If the July Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report is correct (a big if), there are now fewer job openings than unemployed people in the US. That’s the first time we’ve seen those two data points flip in 4 years. Woof.

WTF does it mean for us?

You probably shouldn’t expect that money you lent to your deadbeat buddy who is always “between jobs.” Oh, and get ready for a rate cut, my friends…

+ US stocks “turned decidedly mixed on Wednesday after Google was spared the worst in an antitrust ruling and a fresh update on job openings added to September rate-cut bets but sparked further concerns about the labor market.” (Yahoo! Finance)

+ The 10-year yield “fell on Wednesday after the latest job openings data came in lighter than expected.” (CNBC)

+ Oil “prices fell by more than 2% on Wednesday ahead of a weekend meeting of OPEC+ producers that is expected to consider another increase in production targets in October.” (Reuters)

+ The “smart” money (prediction markets) thinks there’s a 67% chance the ADP jobs report that drops today indicates the US economy added more than 50k jobs. (Kalshi)

⏪ Yesterday…

+ Dollar Tree and Macy’s reported before the bell

+ Salesforce.com, C3.ai, Gitlab, Credo, Hewlett Packard, Asana, Figma, and ChargePoint reported after the bell

⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…

+ Broadcom, Lululemon, DocuSign, Uipath, Samsara, and Copart report after the close

+ Samsung will hold its Galaxy Unpacked event. They’ll unveil the Galaxy S25 FE smartphone and the Galaxy Tab S11 series.

+ Happy start of the NFL season to all who celebrate. The season will kick off with my Dallas Cowboys playing the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.

Yesterday, I asked, “Would you rather be able to control the weather for the rest of your life (for the entire world) or control the stock market for 2 weeks?”

77.3% of you said “Stock market.“

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

Here’s today’s question…

We haven’t done a hypothetical in a minute. 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.