• Stocks: The Dow was the big winner today, as investors fleeing the tech-stock selloff sought other options, though the Nasdaq was able to claw back early losses to end the day nearly flat.
• Commodities: US crude fell below $80 per barrel on reports that Iran is in negotiations with Oman and Saudi Arabia about the Strait of Hormuz.
• Economy: The FOMC began its two-day meeting today to decide what to do about interest rates. Fed head Kevin Warsh is playing it close to the vest, while President Trump made it clear he wants rates lowered—but economists expect him to be disappointed.

AI

Morning Brew Inc.

Apple is once again beating the ‘washed-up’ allegations.

Today, the maker of the laptop you’re probably reading this on became the second company ever to hit $5 trillion in market value during intraday trading, rising 0.94% and overtaking Nvidia as the biggest publicly traded company in the world.

The rally was spurred by reports that Apple is preparing a slew of new products, including a brand new Apple TV 4k streaming box and a HomePod mini. But the most anticipated upcoming release is a new Apple smart hub, which the company says will be ready to launch soon. It will connect to home appliances like lighting and thermostats, and use facial recognition to personalize the device for whoever is using it, according to Bloomberg.

Gizmos = growth: Right now, Apple makes far more money from its laptops, phones, and wearable devices than it does home products. The company is hoping this lineup of new contraptions, which Apple has been working to launch since 2024, could change that. These new products will compete with similar home devices from Amazon and Google.

Home improvement gadgets aren’t the only upgrade: Apple also announced a partnership with Klarna to allow customers to lease an iPhone for $17.99 per month.

Apples to oranges

Apple reaching the $5 trillion milestone is even more impressive considering how the rest of its Mag 7 peers are performing today amid a broad tech selloff.

Alphabet slid after upping its capex forecast last week, spooking investors about its gigantic spending bill. With Meta and Microsoft reporting earnings tomorrow, followed by Amazon and Apple on Thursday, investors are worried that they, too, will raise capex once again without anything to show for it.

But Apple has risen above the fray as investors applaud it for avoiding the spending spree that’s dragging the rest of the Mag 7 down. Apple’s capex this year is expected to be only $14 billion, a meager sum compared to the nearly $700 billion that Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are expected to spend over the same period.

Looking ahead: Tech earnings are just around the corner, and will be a key moment to see if Apple really is the new AI winner, or if hyperscalers still merit hyper-optimism.—LB

      

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🟢 What’s up

• Sherwin-Williams gained 8.25% after topping Wall Street’s second-quarter earnings and revenue estimates.
• Coca-Cola rose 5% after beating earnings expectations and raising its full-year outlook, helped by strong demand for low-calorie drinks like Coke Zero and Diet Coke.
• Boeing climbed 4.76% as stronger commercial aircraft deliveries drove revenue higher despite a wider-than-expected quarterly loss.
• Healthcare company IQVIA advanced 14.04% on better-than-expected quarterly results, higher full-year guidance, and record new bookings.
• PayPal jumped 1.06% thanks to a stronger-than-expected second-quarter report, as the company’s “strategic reorganization” begins to take shape.
• Lucid Group surged 21.54% after Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal disclosed a 5% stake in the EV maker.

🔴 What’s down

• Micron dropped 8.85% as a broad AI selloff accelerated on concerns over China’s advancing chipmaking capabilities and the IPO of memory-chip maker CXMT. Fellow tech stocks followed suit: SK Hynix lost 8.98%, Sandisk sank 14.25%, and Intel tumbled 5.86%.
• Corning fell 12.09% for its worst day of trading in over half a decade after third-quarter guidance disappointed investors.
• UPS slipped 6.54% despite beating earnings estimates, as flat domestic revenue guidance for the third quarter overshadowed results.
• Microchip testing company Amkor Technology plunged 24.74% after issuing weaker-than-expected third-quarter guidance.
• Hilton Worldwide Holdings lost 2.67% as weaker-than-expected current-quarter guidance outweighed an earnings and revenue beat.
• Semiconductor company Rambus slid 8.99% despite posting record quarterly revenue and better-than-expected second-quarter results.

Warning of the day

Leveraged lunacy

Morning Brew Inc

Exchange-traded funds charge lower fees and offer tax advantages over traditional funds, while giving investors an easy way to diversify their portfolios. It’s no wonder ETFs have become so popular lately, with investors increasingly demanding new options to play the market—but too much of a good thing can turn sour real quick.

According to the Financial Times, issuers have rolled out 1,084 new ETFs this year as of mid-July, putting them well on pace to outstrip the 1,161 ETFs that debuted through the entirety of 2025. Some of them have become humongous hits: The Roundhill Memory ETF, known by its ticker symbol DRAM, became the fastest-growing ETF in market history when it raked in $10 billion in assets during its first 50 days on the market.

Finding the next DRAM has sent issuers sprinting to roll out new funds, catering to investors with increasingly exotic options like leveraged, inverse, and single-stock ETFs that often use derivatives to increase their gains (and losses). In fact, nearly a quarter of the ETFs launched this year have been leveraged single-stock funds—up from 4% in 2024.

But with all that risk comes a higher chance of failure: 73 leveraged and inverse ETFs have shut down this year, compared to a total of just 22 ETF closures last year. Sometimes those funds are closed simply because they couldn’t draw in enough assets—but sometimes all that leverage comes back to bite an ETF when the stock it’s pegged to suddenly pops or drops, forcing issuers to de-list the fund and leaving investors holding the bag.

ETFs were once a quiet corner of the market, but they’ve been swept up in the gamification of all things finance. Just make sure you don’t get swept up with them.—MR

Macro

Morning Brew Inc, Photo: Getty Images

American workers are scared that AI is going to replace them. Now they’ve got both another reason to worry—and some positive hedge against that angst.

Visa said today that it plans to cut roughly 2,600 jobs (7% of its workforce) mostly across its tech and product teams, as part of a broader restructuring. The payments giant says it wants to slim down after tripling its headcount over the past decade and redirect spending toward faster-growing areas like cross-border payments, stablecoins, and international expansion.

AI, of course, is a big part of Visa’s reasoning. “To capture the opportunities ahead and best position Visa to lead this transformation, we must continue evolving how we work,” CEO Ryan McInerney wrote in his company memo. “AI is also helping to accelerate this evolution and shape the way work gets done at Visa.”

The cuts spread

The headlines certainly paint a bleak picture of the labor market, as company after company seemingly turns to AI to do jobs once belonging to human beings—and nowhere is that more prevalent than in the tech sector. Last Friday, the Financial Times calculated that tech companies have canned just under 140,000 employees since the beginning of this year.

Some of the heaviest hitters on the market account for the lion’s share of those cuts: Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Oracle have combined to fire some 50,000 workers in 2026, even as capex climbs and they throw money at AI advances. More recent cuts have come from smaller firms, like cloud-based work platform Monday.com, which announced last Wednesday that it’s laying off 20% of its workforce as part of its “AI-driven growth strategy.”

Don’t panic yet

It’s no wonder, then, that consumer confidence fell again in July, while perceptions of the job market weakened for a third straight month, according to The Conference Board.

But things may not be as bad as you think.

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that weekly initial jobless claims recently fell to their lowest level since 1969, and that many companies are hiring again after discovering that cutting workers isn’t a substitute for growth. Increasingly, employers want people who can work with AI, not simply be replaced by it: AI sales agents still need salespeople to close deals. Coding agents still need engineers to review and refine their work. And customer-service bots still need humans to step in when conversations go off the rails.

Tech companies like Alphabet are walking back their all-in-on-AI rhetoric, while blue-collar hiring is picking up, too. Companies from toolmaker Snap-on to railroad operator CSX are expanding their workforces; signs of a stronger and more resilient economy.

So if you’ve been doomscrolling layoff headlines and mindlessly refreshing the LinkedIn careers page, here’s to giving your F5 key a well-deserved break.—SY

      

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News

• Uh oh—your private Claude chats might be on Google.
• Shein is under investigation by the FTC ahead of its IPO.
• FIFA is courting outside investors for the first time for a new proposed media vehicle worth $20 billion.
• Ohio State University is set to announce a sponsorship agreement with JPMorgan Chase in one of the biggest sports marketing deals of all time.
• More companies are ditching younger talent to hire once-retired CEOs. But boomerang hires don’t always work out.
• eBay and a group of former execs are paying $56 million to a Massachusetts couple to settle a wild stalking case.

Calendar

Economic reports: The biggest day of the week arrives tomorrow, led by the next FOMC decision. Economists largely expect the Fed to keep interest rates steady, while the CME Fedwatch tool says there’s about a 70% chance that rates stay the same. But even if rates remain where they are, all eyes will still be trained on Kevin Warsh for his post-decision press conference as investors parse through his comments for clues about the future.

Earnings announcements: There’s plenty to talk about on the earnings front, with reports from Meta Platforms and Microsoft after the bell. Looking beyond the Mag 7, we’ll also hear from Arm Holdings, Qualcomm, SoFi Technologies, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, Chipotle, and Carvana, among others.

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