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Good morning
and welcome to fall. Today is National Voter Registration Day, and if
there's one thing we don't mind you leaving this newsletter to do, it's
checking your registration status and/or registering to vote. Check out
our page, Brew Votes, to help you do just that.
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Added bonus: Because of course
there's a swag component, when you share Brew Votes on social media
we'll send you an exclusive Brew sticker sheet.
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NASDAQ
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10,778.80
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- 0.13%
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S&P
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3,281.10
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- 1.16%
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DJIA
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27,146.58
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- 1.85%
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GOLD
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1,916.30
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- 2.33%
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10-YR
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0.673%
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- 2.80 bps
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OIL
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39.50
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- 3.92%
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*As of market close
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Economy: Into congressional testimonies? Soak it all in today. Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin will face questions from a House committee over the government’s response to the coronavirus-induced recession.
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Also in D.C...President Trump said he’ll announce
his pick to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, which opened following the
death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, by Saturday. Meanwhile, the two
parties are bickering about a spending plan to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month.
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Francis Scialabba
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Before reading, take a quick glance back at the markets section. We regret to inform you that red = bad.
U.S. stocks succumbed to peer pressure yesterday and followed their international counterparts in logging steep losses.
Oil took a dive and yields on 10-year Treasury notes also fell as
investors craving stability hopped into the safe-haven asset.
What’s dragging the market down
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Pandemic. The U.S. is about to pass 200,000 coronavirus-related deaths. In Europe, where cases are also rising in several countries, the UK is on track to log almost 50,000 new cases per day by mid-October if the current trend continues. As the British government weighs stricter measures like a second lockdown, spooked investors sent travel and bank stocks sinking.
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China. Over the weekend, Beijing released penalties
for its “unreliable entities” list, which will target foreign
individuals and companies whose actions are viewed as a threat to
Chinese interests. Penalties could include fines or restrictions on work
permits, investments, and trade.
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Politics: The U.S. is 42 days out from the election, but investors are prepping for a drawn-out result that could take months.
And with renewed partisan fighting over the late RBG’s open Supreme
Court seat, a congressional compromise on another round of pandemic
relief looks quite unlikely before Nov. 3.
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Scandal: Sunday’s bombshell report
that major banks continued to move large sums of dirty money despite
red flags was another blow for financial stocks already bruised by
falling bond yields and near-zero interest rates for the foreseeable
future. HSBC shares hit a 25-year low.
Zoom out: Now
entering their fourth consecutive week of declines, the S&P is down
over 6%, the Dow 4.5%, and the Nasdaq 8.5% for the month of September.
The S&P, which had its best August since 1986, is now on track for
its worst September in nine years.
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Francis Scialabba
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Yesterday, Microsoft announced plans to acquire ZeniMax, the parent company of videogame studio Bethesda Softworks, for $7.5 billion.
It’s not quite TikTok
But it comes with a lot fewer headaches...and popular gaming titles like Elder Scrolls, Doom, Fallout, Dishonored, and Starfield.
The
acquisition highlights Microsoft’s shift toward a subscription-based
gaming model ahead of the November 10 release of its two new Xbox
consoles.
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Before...Microsoft valued exclusivity. It made its biggest games, like the Halo series, playable only for people who owned an Xbox.
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Now...Microsoft doesn’t care as much about where you play its games, the Verge writes.
What’s important is that subscribers to Microsoft’s subscription
service, Game Pass, get first access to the most popular games.
Bottom line:
Buying Bethesda allows Microsoft to cut down on costly licensing fees
and revenue sharing agreements with other studios. Its new recipe for
success? Feeding its 15 million Xbox Game Pass subscribers a healthy diet of popular games made in-house.
+ While we’re here: Go deeper into Microsoft’s plans for dominating cloud videogaming with our breakdown of all the major players.
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Well, mostly the fall. Nikola founder and Executive Chairman Trevor Milton stepped down
from the electric automaker yesterday because battling an onslaught of
fraud accusations makes work feel a lot more like...work.
The backstory: In
the spring, Nikola went public via reverse merger and its shares surged
despite never having sold a vehicle. It received another stamp of
approval when GM announced a $2 billion investment to co-develop
Nikola’s electric trucks.
But on
September 10, short-seller Hindenburg Research wrote a scathing report
attacking Nikola and Milton for misleading investors. The SEC and DOJ
are now investigating.
Big picture: This isn’t a Theranos-style collapse...yet. GM is sticking with
Nikola, and even though the electric automaker's shares dropped 19%
yesterday, its market capitalization remains over $10 billion.
Still,
Hindenburg’s founder Nathan Anderson is watching Nikola’s descent into
chaos like the Joker. Milton leaving is “only the beginning of Nikola’s
unraveling,” he said yesterday.
- Don’t forget: Hindenburg stands to make money from a drop in Nikola’s share price.
Looking ahead...former GM vice chairman and Nikola board member Steve Girsky will take over immediately. Good luck, sir.
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Ian McKinnon
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*Together with all other U.S. households. In Q2, the net worth of American families rose 7% to an all-time high, according to Fed data released yesterday.
- Household wealth = money
in your bank accounts + assets (like stocks and real estate) -
liabilities (loans or credit card debt).
That record jump follows a record crash in Q1 because of the pandemic. Sounds like good news for the economic recovery...right?
It's complicated
As stock
indexes rebounded in Q2, wealth held in stocks saw the biggest gains,
padding household portfolios by $5.7 trillion. But not everyone shared
in the returns.
- While over a third of the richest 1% own corporate equities, only 7% of the middle 50%–90% and just 2% of the bottom half do.
- Households in the bottom
half are more likely to own real estate (54%) than other asset classes.
But home values only increased $500 billion in Q2 compared to the
trillions gained in the stock market.
Bottom line: This data underscores fears of a K-shaped recovery—where the “haves” bounce back but things get worse for the “have-nots.”
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Toby Howell
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You’re not in Groundhog Day, but another short-form video app could be up for sale. Quibi is weighing “strategic options” after falling well short of its subscriber targets, the WSJ reports.
To figure out where a company backed by nearly $1.8 billion in funding stumbled, we asked our Twitter followers...
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Confusing branding: “The name. It doesn't convey what the service, you know, actually does”—Chris Cillizza
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Misjudged the market: “It solved a problem nobody had”—Matt Gibbons
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Didn’t leverage its users: “Failed to democratize content creation for a generation of content creators”—Edgar Rodriguez
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Bad content: “Its slate of shows resembled a list of rejected 30 Rock one-liners”—Maura Johnston
Bottom line: Everything
is on the table, per the WSJ, from going public through a SPAC to being
acquired by a media/tech giant like Disney or Amazon.
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Tesla’s Battery Day is finally here. We know we’ll get an awkward Elon speech, but...what else?
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The CDC removed guidance it had just posted about the airborne spread of the coronavirus, saying it was a mistake.
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Oracle and ByteDance aren’t seeing eye-to-eye about a TikTok deal, raising fresh doubts about an agreement.
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Roku shares jumped to a 52-week high after NBCUniversal’s streaming service Peacock launched on the platform.
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The student debt crisis: Is there any sensible solution? In her latest Sunday column, Business Casual host Kinsey Grant says there's one thing we shouldn't do: cancel it all. Read it here.
Tech Tip Tuesday: Here’s how to change your font in Slack, because feedback lands softer in Comic Sans.
National Voter Registration Day resources, to make it all a little less confusing:
*This is sponsored advertising content
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To celebrate the autumnal equinox, today’s
trivia is all about the Earth's journey around the Sun. Can you
identify what each number represents? Numbers 5–8 are seasons while 1–4
are the specific days that mark the beginning/end of those seasons in
the Northern Hemisphere.
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Neal Freyman/Timeanddate.com
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1. March (vernal) equinox
2. December (winter) solstice
3. September (autumnal) equinox
4. June (summer) solstice
5. Spring
6. Winter
7. Autumn
8. Summer
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| FOX 29 FOX
29 · 27 mins ·. LAST DAY OF SUMMER: The final day of summer will be
feeling like fall. Oddly enough, after the official start of fall
temperatures ... |
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September 22
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| FEATURED BIOGRAPHY
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| Michael Faraday
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| FEATURED EVENT
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BREAKING: PELOSI WON’T RULE OUT NEW IMPEACHMENT TO DELAY SCOTUS VOTE
Wow.
The Left will stop at NOTHING to try and impeach me. Did they learn NOTHING last time?
TELL ME NANCY: HOW CAN YOU IMPEACH A PRESIDENT THAT DID NOTHING WRONG?
Nancy and her corrupt party have proven that there is no line they won’t cross to obstruct our nation’s incredible progress. They’re threatening to IMPEACH ME AGAIN because I’m doing my job as your President by filling the vacancy on the Supreme Court.| BREAKING: PELOSI WON’T RULE OUT NEW IMPEACHMENT TO DELAY SCOTUS VOTE | | | | | |
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Hillary Clinton Just Contradicted Her Previous Stance on Voting
Go Ahead With SCOTUS Confirmaton Now, Democrats Will Blow Up Senate Anyway
BLM Agitators Surround Truck, Demand Passenger To Chant ‘Black Lives Matter’
NYPD Officer Arrested, Charged With Spying For China
| | The Brief Podcast: How Trump Can Win The Ugly War Over His Supreme Court Nominee | | President Trump will nominate a replacement as the presidential election looms. It already has Democrats and their medi [...] | | | |
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| | | If Biden Comes In, So Do 50+ Million Immigrants | | Read More | | | | Trump SCOTUS Confirmation Historically Justified: 29 Times Presidents Have Made Nominations In Election Years | | Read More | | | | Gregg Jarrett weighs in on potential Trump nominees for Supreme Court vacancy | | Read More | | | | | |
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