• The bad news: The July jobs report was terrible (more on that later).
• The good news: Stocks soared on the hope that a weaker-than-expected labor market means the Fed’s not going to cut rates in September. The S&P 500 ended the day at record highs, and the Nasdaq enjoyed its strongest weekly gain since April.
• Everything else: Bond yields sank as investors anticipated a less hawkish Fed, oil prices wavered while traders awaited word of a peace deal, and gold wrapped up its best week since January—with some analysts confident it can keep climbing.

AI

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Getty Images

You may not have heard of it before today, but Doximity just became the hottest new AI play on the market.

Shares exploded as high as 130% in premarket trading, though they settled for a meager 32.82% gain today. Before this trading session, shares had slumped 50% this year.

The digital medical company didn’t announce it had cured a rare disease or constructed a rocketship destined for Mars. All the ruckus was caused by a comment from its CEO during the earnings call yesterday afternoon about Doximity Ask, the company’s AI search tool and assistant for medical professionals. And, like everything else in the land of AI, the frenzy is all about speculation.

“It’s early days on our AI search product, but I can tell you we’re earning more than 10 times per search in revenue than it costs,” CEO Jeff Tangney said yesterday on the earnings call. Tangney also referenced a study from researchers at Harvard and Stanford that showed Doximity’s clinical AI model beat a version from Anthropic, which predictably excited retail investors even further.

Reality check: The company’s Q1 was not exactly a home run. Doximity raised its full-year revenue guidance from between $664 million and $676 million to between $671 million and $681 million. But the company slightly missed adjusted earnings per share projections, which came in at $0.29, compared to the $0.30 analysts projected.

However, analysts also believe that forecast doesn’t even factor in Doximity’s AI search aspirations—which is, of course, the prospective cash cow traders are betting on.

The bears vs the bulls

While there’s no question that Tangney’s comments signal serious AI ambitions, some analysts are pouring cold water on retail investors’ exuberance.

“The market’s excitement around enterprise AI contracts is out of step with current revenue contribution (there is none), and from potential revenue contributions for the remainder of the year,” wrote Bank of America equity analyst Allen Lutz in a note today. “We expect the addition of an AI offering could cannibalize the core business, which would drive weaker returns on invested capital,” he added in a note reiterating his Underperform rating for Doximity.

Long story short: Another factor driving up Doximity’s price today is the unwinding of a sizable number of short bets on the business, which represented about 17% of its free float going into earnings, according to CNBC.

In some ways, the story of Doximity’s meteoric rise is representative of the larger AI narrative as a whole: Are the bulls going to ride their gains all the way to the top, or are the bears right to believe that anything that soars this fast has to crash at some point? Only time will tell.—LB

      

From The Crew

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Stocks

🟢 What’s up

• SpaceX popped 15.83% as investors absorbed a wave of newly unlocked shares following the expiration of lock-up restrictions.
• Software platform DoubleVerify surged 12.71% after agreeing to a $2.15 billion buyout by media measurement firm Nielsen.
• Wendy’s jumped 4.06% despite pulling its full-year outlook and cutting its dividend, with investors cheering signs of a turnaround under its new CEO.
• Coherent, Lumentum Holdings, and Marvell Technology climbed 13.44%, 6.22%, and 3.89%, respectively, boosted by reports that the Trump administration is considering restrictions on Chinese datacenter imports.
• Airbnb rose 17.43% to a four-year high on an earnings beat and stronger-than-expected guidance, supported by broad travel demand.
• Software firms jumped after posting strong quarterly results and lifting their growth outlooks. Cloudflare added 5.57%, Atlassian climbed 35.31%, and Twilio rallied 24.89%.

🔴 What’s down

• The Trade Desk tumbled 21.90% on an earnings miss and weaker-than-expected revenue guidance.
• Akamai Technologies slipped 6.76% despite landing a $600 million cloud contract and topping earnings estimates.
• Fintech company Sezzle dropped 33.89% despite beating quarterly expectations and raising its full-year outlook, with investors focusing on higher operating expenses.
• Under Armour fell 4.53% after lowering its annual revenue outlook amid soft consumer demand.

Stock of the day

Oscar the Grouch's favorite investment

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Adobe Stock

One investor’s trash is another’s treasure—but in this case, the true prize might be garbage disposal.

Bank of America analysts recently noticed a trend developing in the wild world of hazardous waste management. A combination of stringent regulations, recent incinerator closures, and the fact that no new greenfield hazardous waste landfills have been permitted in the US since 1996 means the country’s capacity for disposing of hazardous waste is dwindling. At the same time, demand for hazardous waste disposal is rising due to “reshoring of hazardous-waste-intensive manufacturing, PFAS remediation, environmental cleanups, semiconductor and pharmaceutical investment, and data center development,” BofA analysts wrote.

Low supply + increasing demand = big profits for hazardous waste management stocks like Clean Harbors. The number of captive incinerators in North America has shrunk from over 120 in the 1990s to about 40 today, and Clean Harbors controls two-thirds of the facilities that remain in service. The company has also enjoyed 17 straight quarters of expanding margins, “demonstrating that scarce disposal capacity & increasingly complex waste streams continue to support pricing power and further margin expansion.”

You might not think of waste management infrastructure as an investment opportunity—but the lack of investment in waste management infrastructure is precisely why you shouldn’t toss trash stocks into the bin just yet.—MR

Macro

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Adobe Stock

The US economy has weathered everything from tariffs to an oil shock this year. Today, we got a jobs report that economists would call a “big kick in the gut.”

• Nonfarm payrolls fell by a seasonally adjusted 23,000 in July, missing expectations for gains of 83,000.
• The decline was driven by a loss of 50,000 local government education jobs and 19,000 fewer retail positions, though healthcare and construction continued to add jobs.
• The unemployment rate, meanwhile, fell to 4.1% from 4.2%, but only because fewer Americans are looking for work. The labor force participation rate dropped to 61.4%, a five-year low—and its lowest rate in 50 years if you exclude the Covid-era decline.

That’s bad enough on its own, but then came the revisions: The government slashed its May and June payroll estimates by a combined 103,000 jobs, suggesting the labor market is much weaker than previously thought.

One bright spot: Layoffs remain low. Initial jobless claims came in at just 199,000 on Thursday, marking a third straight week below 200,000—the first such streak since 1969. Layoffs so far this year are also 41% below the same period in 2025. That’s not necessarily a sign of a healthy labor market—it’s simply another indicator of a “low-hire, low-fire” environment.

The Fed’s next move

While the economy suffers, Wall Street is cheering after today’s weak jobs report makes another Fed rate hike look increasingly unlikely.

The Fed has been weighing two competing risks. On one hand, raising interest rates would help keep inflation in check: In June, consumer prices posted their biggest month over month decline in six years as energy prices fell, but renewed geopolitical tensions have since raised concerns that inflation could accelerate again. On the other hand, raising rates could further weaken an already softening labor market.

Today’s disappointing jobs report may have made that decision a little easier. Kalshi now puts the odds of the Fed holding rates steady in September at 65%, up from roughly 50% before the report. Meanwhile, CME’s FedWatch tool now shows 58.1% odds of a pause, versus 45% yesterday.

The next major test comes on August 12, when fresh CPI data will be released. That report should offer a clearer picture of whether inflation is cooling enough for the Fed to keep rates on hold after its next FOMC meeting in September.—SY

      

News

• Private equity firms are eyeing European budget airlines after Apollo Global Management bought EasyJet.
• Boeing’s woes persist: The FAA ordered inspections of hundreds of Boeing 737 Max jets for cracks in the aircrafts.
• The US’s move to sell euros to prop up the yen last week blindsided the European Central Bank.
• President Trump is once again trying to fire Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook.
• Higher bond yields are the new normal, according to one analyst.
• Burger King just overtook Wendy’s as the second-largest burger chain in the US.

Calendar

Monday: Hims & Hers Health, Rocket Lab, AST SpaceMobile, USA Rare Earth, Archer Aviation, Plug Power, Barrick Mining, and many more lead off a quieter (though still potent) week of earnings announcements.

Tuesday: Lumentum, CoreWeave, Constellation Software, Venture Global, Super Micro Computer, On Holding, eToro, and Cava keep the earnings momentum alive. Meanwhile, the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index and the July report on Existing Home Sales will kick off a week of economic data.

Wednesday: Earnings from Tencent, Cisco, Coherent, Nebius Group, WeRide, Cerebras Systems, Vestas, and StubHub are sure to catch some attention. But really, all eyes will be on the July CPI reading.

Thursday: Applied Materials, Lenovo, Pandora, dLocal, and Intuitive Machines wrap up the week of earnings news, while PPI and weekly initial jobless claims will snag headlines on the economic front.

Friday: No major earnings announcements to close out the week, though we do get two looks at the state of US consumers: July retail sales, and a preliminary consumer sentiment survey for August from the University of Michigan.

recs

🧮 Dividend stocks have been the go-to investment for retirees for ages. But a soaring stock market is quickly changing the math.

😅 Warren Buffett described it as “the worst deal that I’ve made.” But it might be the best thing that’s ever happened to the state of Maine.

🧠 This one weird mental trick makes you better with money.

🤠 There’s a new Wild West being born in Texas, driven by an experiment in unchecked capitalism that could make or break the Lone Star State.

🔋 The future of energy: Sodium-ion batteries could one day replace lithium batteries, reduce US dependence on China, and cut the need for fossil fuels.