Hey Snackers,
The giant checkers game sets, peg games, and rocking chairs live on. After the public reaction to Cracker Barrel’s new logo was so negative that the company reverted back to its original trademark, the chain has abandoned plans to update the decor of its restaurants.Â
The S&P 500 rose 0.3% to post a fresh record close thanks to most of the leading tech companies that have been key to its rally in recent years. The Magnificent 7 did more than twice as well as the benchmark US stock index today, with Alphabet up more than 2% and Meta, Nvidia, and Amazon all up at least 1%. But there was one bad Apple…
Apple rolled out a suite of new products. Are any of them winners?
At yesterday’s “Awe Dropping” Apple event, the company announced its yearly refresh of the iPhone lineup. The new iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max were joined by a brand-new addition: the iPhone Air, a super-thin model with tougher glass and a faster processor.
The company also announced an updated Apple Watch line — Series 11, SE3, and Ultra 3 — with new features like 5G, high blood pressure detection, 24-hour battery life, and satellite communication.Â
To go with, Apple launched new AirPods Pro 3 with AI-powered live language translation, a new heart rate sensor, eight hours of battery life, and improved active noise cancellation. Â
The iPhone 17 Pro’s $1,099 price tag is a $100 increase from its predecessor, but with double the iPhone 16 Pro’s base storage. The iPhone 17 starts at $799, the iPhone 17 Pro Max starts at $1,199, and the new iPhone Air takes the place of the now defunct iPhone Plus, starting at $999.
While Apple fans no doubt loved it, the market thought the event stunk. Apple shares dipped on the news and were down about 1.4% on the day in afternoon trading.
On average, the tech giant falls 0.4% on the release date of new iPhones and is negative more than 70% of the time, so finishing the day down 1.4% would put this in the bottom third of market receptions to a new iPhone.Â
The Takeaway
A potentially complicating factor to the aforementioned data is that Apple has often done quite well in the six months leading up to a new iPhone announcement, roughly 5 percentage points better than its typical six-month return. That’s not the case this time, with Apple shares up about 5% over the past six months compared to a typical near 20% advance in the prelude to a new iPhone drop.
The next big crypto play?
BNB is one of the top five largest cryptocurrencies in the world by market cap1— even bigger than solana. It runs its own smart contract ecosystem. It’s a deflationary asset.2
You can farm yields.3 And yet, almost no American brokerage account allows you to own it directly.
But your ability to access BNB is about to become a lot easier. One publicly traded company, CEA Industries (NASDAQ: BNC), is basing its treasury strategy on it,4 allowing everyday investors to gain direct exposure to one of the world’s largest and most widely used cryptocurrencies.
Learn more about how CEA Industries is giving everyday investors a backdoor into a multibillion-dollar asset Wall Street still ignores.5
Tesla could sell a record number of vehicles in the US this quarter
A popular analyst who goes by the name Troy Teslike currently expects Tesla to sell a record 178,000 vehicles in the US this quarter, which is two-thirds of the way through, up from 156,000 a year ago. (Tesla doesn’t break out vehicle deliveries by region, so Teslike backs up those numbers using Vehicle Identification Number data.)
The surge, he says, is due in part to pulled-forward demand from subsequent quarters, as buyers generally try to purchase vehicles before the government’s $7,500 EV tax credit ends on September 30.Â
Tesla is also trying to get ahead of the incentive deadline, since it’s expected to hurt both the company’s top and bottom lines, by offering steeper discounts than other EV makers. The effort appears to be working, as Tesla is running out of inventory in the US.
But while the US is Tesla’s biggest market, just one quarter of sales growth isn’t going to smooth out the declines from earlier this year, and presumably gains in Q3 will come at the expense of Q4 sales, after the incentive expires. Nor will it undo continued declining sales in Tesla’s other major markets, like China and Europe.
Globally, Teslike estimates Tesla sales will be 466,000 in the third quarter — less than a percentage point higher than Q3 2024 (though quite a bit higher than the FactSet analyst consensus of 433,000).
The Takeaway
For the full year, Teslike is estimating 1.6 million deliveries, a 9% drop in sales compared with last year and about the same number analysts anticipate.
“We’re in this weird transition period where we will lose a lot of incentives in the US,” CEO Elon Musk himself recently told investors, adding that Tesla “could have a few rough quarters” ahead.
Data storage is so hot right now
This data storage company has overtaken Palantir as the top performer in the S&P 500 this year, and another data storage competitor is close on Palantir’s heels.Â
Read about what propelled their turnaround in profitability.
Yesterday's Big Daily Movers
Fox and News Corp went red as investors digested the $3.3 billion succession settlement of Rupert Murdoch’s heirs
Artificial intelligence infrastructure group Nebius jumped nearly 50% after the company announced a five-year deal with MicrosoftÂ
CoreWeave also rose, as the Nebius-Microsoft deal showed continued demand for all parts of the AI data center ecosystem
UnitedHealth rose after preliminary data showed that most Medicare Advantage enrollees will be on more lucrative, top-rated plans next year
Investment opportunity: The new model disrupting the vacation home market
Pacaso’s co-ownership platform allows users to buy ⅛ to ½ of a luxury vacation home — providing the benefits of house ownership without the upfront cost.
Pacaso is tried and tested, to the tune of 2,000+ happy homeowners and $110M+ gross profits since inception.6
Don’t miss Pacaso’s investment offering at $2.90/share.7
Image Note: Pacaso is a private company.Â
What Else We're Snackin'
Microsoft is reportedly adding Anthropic alongside OpenAI in Office 365
A Senate draft bill would give AI companies a two-year pass from any federal regulation
Worse-than-expected US payroll revisions added to fears of a slowdown in consumer spendingÂ
Boeing delivered 57 commercial jets in August, its best total for the month in seven years
GameStop posted impressive Q2 results with a big sales beat
Oracle shot higher in after-hours trading as the company reported a growing backlog despite missing earnings estimatesÂ
Thanks to a partnership between Microsoft and LG, you’ll be able to stream Xbox in the car
Snack Fact of the Day
Two billion people around the world struggle with reading a single sentence.
Today's Events
August Producer Price IndexÂ
Earnings expected from Chewy
1 Please see website for further market cap information.
2 Please see article for further details.
3 The process of earning cryptocurrency profits/rewards by either staking, lending or pooling digital assets in a virtual ecosystem is known as yield farming. See article for further details.
4 Please see article for further details.
5 Stock markets are volatile and can fluctuate significantly in response to company, industry, political, regulatory, market, or economic developments. Investing in stock involves risks, including the loss of principal. This company is operating in a highly speculative industry where the underlying value/exchanges they process can be quite volatile (value-wise). Before investing, carefully assess whether a particular stock aligns with your investment objectives, risk tolerance, and financial situation.
6 Past performance is not indicative of future performance. The firm was founded in 2020. For more details on the gross profit for 2021-2023, please see management discussion of the financial condition section of the offering circular (p.41). For more details on the 2024 gross profit, please see the 1-K Financial Statements section (p.12).
7The minimum investment is $1,035.52 when including the 3.5% investor fee. This is a paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.pacaso.com.
Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities.