The cutthroat race to dominate the multibillion-dollar GLP-1 market just got even more ruthless.

Today, shares of Novo Nordisk jumped 3.71% after the pharma giant snagged a much-needed win: Its star weight-loss drug Wegovy became the first GLP-1 medication to be greenlit by the FDA to treat MASH, a severe liver disease.

On top of that, the company announced today it plans to halve its hefty price tag for patients who pay for Ozempic in cash. Users can now get the drug for roughly $499 through NovoCare, a direct online pharmacy, as well as telemedicine platform GoodRx.

The move follows a playbook pharma companies have been increasingly deploying as a backdoor tactic to lower prices. Offering these drugs on a direct-to-consumer platform avoids costly and complex middlemen, which includes pharmacy-benefit managers.

Zoom out: To catch you up on the ongoing GLP-1 rollercoaster, Novo Nordisk boomed out of the gate when it debuted the first super-effective GLP-1 drug, Ozempic. Its market cap became so gargantuan that it surpassed the entire GDP of Denmark.

But the drugmaker has blown its lead due to production miscalculations and stiff competition from fellow pharma giant Eli Lilly, as well as a slew of telemedicine startups producing knockoff versions of the drug. Novo’s shares are down 60% over the past 12 months.

Now, it looks like Novo could be staging a comeback—one it desperately needs. At the same time that it’s cutting prices, arch-rival Eli Lilly hiked the price tag of its own GLP-1 meds by roughly 170% in the UK. President Trump has been pressuring US pharma companies to lower US prices, and raise them in Europe. Shares of Eli Lilly sank 0.45%.

A GoodRx deal?

While the pharma behemoths continue to duke it out, the real winner today nearly slipped under the radar: telemedicine platform GoodRx, which soared 37.27% on the news that Novo Nordisk would be offering its discounted Ozempic on the platform.

One party having a BadRx day right now? Hims & Hers, the beleaguered online pharma platform that previously struck a short-lived distribution deal with Novo before the partnership turned sour and imploded in June. Today, it's seeing just what it missed out on.—LB

🟢 What’s up

• A group of investors announced they will take social club Soho House private in a deal valued at around $2.7 billion. Shares rose 14.92%.
• Dayforce had quite a day, climbing 25.98% after Bloomberg reported that Thoma Bravo is in talks to acquire the HR software provider.
• SunRun continued its hot streak, gaining another 11.35% after RBC Capital Markets upgraded the solar power provider following last week’s new renewable energy guidance. Solar tracking tech maker Nextracker rose 11.75% and solar panel maker First Solar rose 9.69% on the clearer guidance as well.
• Terawulf popped 4.57% on the news that it’s expanding its Lake Mariner, New York data center campus with the help of a $1.4 billion backstop from Alphabet.
• Duolingo added 12.93% after several Wall Street analysts gave the language learning app a boost, noting that its recent AI-driven selloff was overblown.
• Starbucks rose 2.14% after the coffee giant announced it will give all North American salaried employees a 2% raise.

What’s down

• Meta Platforms just can’t get it right: Shares sank 2.27% on the news that the tech giant is overhauling its AI operations for the fourth time in six months.
• MP Materials and USA Rare Earth fell 3.76% and 8.67%, respectively, after China’s rare earth exports rose in July to their highest level since January.
• Joby Aviation lost 3.43% only a few days after the air taxi company conducted its first piloted flight between two airports.
• Tonix Pharmaceuticals tumbled 21.97% despite the FDA giving its drug Tonmya the green light to treat fibromyalgia.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: When it comes to smart investing, it’s all about the earnings.

Rallies can pop or fizzle at a moment’s notice, and some investors are beginning to worry that the S&P 500’s impressive climb from its April lows is showing signs of slowing down (see our story below). But overall, companies are actually pretty healthy: According to Goldman Sachs Chief Equity Strategist David Kostin, aggregate EPS grew 11% across the S&P 500 this quarter, well above forecasts of 4%.

To be fair, Kostin noted that a lot of the outperformance was due to lower analyst expectations this quarter in light of tariff uncertainty. But looking ahead, that hesitation has disappeared: Bloomberg noted that Citi’s index of analyst EPS upgrades versus downgrades is at its highest point since December 2021 as the Wall Street pros’ outlook takes on a rosy hue.

They aren’t the only ones who are optimistic: The New York Times reports that 40% of S&P 500 companies have raised their earnings outlook this quarter, compared to just 17% last quarter. Corporations and analysts alike now have a clearer picture of how tariffs will hit stocks—and looking ahead, they seem confident that the market can handle whatever else comes its way.—MR

It feels like everyone and their mother is pouring cash into the market as if the good times will last forever.

It’s not just stocks that are feeling the love—bonds, gold, and even crypto funds are getting huge swaths of inflows from eager investors. Just take spot ethereum and bitcoin ETFs, which saw a staggering combined volume of $11.5 billion in a single day last week, according to Bloomberg data. On top of that, nearly a quarter of all recorded inflows into spot ethereum ETFs happened in just the last week.

Zooming out, global ETFs saw their largest weekly inflows in six weeks last week, with investments in tech leading the way.

And it wasn’t just last week: Overall, nearly $700 billion has been added to US-listed ETFs this year so far, as investors brush off fears of tariffs, a consumer slowdown, and shaky jobs data, and embrace optimistic corporate earnings forecasts instead.

There’s good reason to be bullish: Banks are upping their S&P 500 forecasts at a rapid pace, and there’s no denying that the vibe is just strangely sunny these days.

“Tariffs and some upward pressure on prices did not stop corporate America from delivering solid second quarter numbers,” explained Chief Equity Strategist at LPL Financial Jeff Buchbinder, who pointed out that the rate of companies on the S&P 500 beating revenue forecasts (81%) was one of the highest on record.

The flip side

On the other hand, not everyone is quite as optimistic that the bull market that keeps defying the haters is really built on solid footing.

“With U.S. equities lazily grinding higher, the market’s recent behavior is showing a surprising level of complacency as the S&P 500 Index has seen a historic 29% rise since April 8,” wrote Chief Investment Officer of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Lisa Shalett in a note last week. She warned that, “Corporate earnings are uneven and weaker than they appear.”

Even portfolio managers who have raked in the profits as markets keep climbing are hedging their bets, and increasingly protecting their portfolios from losses. The pros are doing this by trimming equity exposure, investing in bonds, and adding options to provide some downside protection, noted Bloomberg.

Summer may be almost over, but it looks like the bears are coming out of hibernation.—LB

• Tesla says its new Model Y L is coming soon to the Chinese market (the “L” stands for “long-wheelend”).
• Alphabet announced that Tennessee will be home to the company’s first small modular nuclear reactor.
• Morgan Stanley estimates that AI could add up to $16 trillion in market value to the S&P 500.
• 7 Chinese micro-cap stocks plummeted 80% or more last week, wiping out $3.7 billion in market value in the latest example of widespread pump & dump scams.
• ‘It better be different this time’: Bank of America has a stark warning for anyone who thinks the market will keep running higher.
• The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund has excluded six companies with ties to the West Bank and Gaza.
• Here’s everything that Putin has offered to end the war in Ukraine.

A week of real estate data kicks off with housing starts & building permits. These surveys of new residential construction courtesy of the Census Bureau provide some insight into the state of housing market supply, which has been lagging behind demand for quite some time now.

As for earnings, there’s a handful of announcements to keep an eye on, including Medtronic, Toll Brothers, Xpeng, and La-Z-Boy Inc. But the big one to watch tomorrow is a consumer bellwether:

Before the open

• Home Depot is beholden to consumer opinion—nobody wants to fork over thousands of dollars to renovate their kitchen when the economy is on the fritz. We saw hints of this last quarter, as consumers closed up their wallets and Home Depot’s sales flatlined. The company is betting big on its pro business to shore up its finances, but with the housing market locked up and interest rates remaining high, there’s a chance that macroeconomic headwinds may be too much for even the leader in home improvement to handle. Consensus: $4.70 EPS, $45.39 billion in revenue.