🤯🇺🇸 U.S. Downgraded from AAA to AA+

Happy Wednesday,

I’ve been spending time writing YouTube scripts again, and I’m trying a challenge where I spend at least a minimum of 100 minutes per day writing. This is Alex Hormozi’s “Rule of 100” that I was recently inspired by.

The Rule of 100 is simple:

Pick one primary action, do 100 of them per day for 100 days, and the results will follow. For example, 100 sales emails/calls, 100 minutes of writing, spending $100 per day on advertising and learning from the results, etc.

The idea is that volume + consistency increases your skills over time. Sufficient volume is important especially early on when acquiring a new skill. In the beginning when I was creating videos, I made one video a day every day for 260+ straight days, and I credit that period of time to figuring out what made a good short video. I don’t know if I spent 100 minutes on content creation per day back then, but the mere act of consistency improved my skills a lot.

Take that rule and try to apply it to your life! It doesn’t have to be 100 of anything, it could be 50… the idea is more about consistency.

Enjoy this week’s Hump Days!

- Humphrey, Rickie & Tim

👀 Eye-Catching Headlines

🔥 Tinder is testing AI photo selection to help users build profiles (TC)

⚾️ New York Mets dismantle the most expensive team in baseball history (WSJ)

🐦 X, formerly Twitter, officially retires famous blue and white bird logo (CNBC)

🤖 AMD plans to debut AI chip this year, sees China AI opportunity (RT)

🔋 Exxon discussing supplying lithium to Tesla, Ford, VW (RT)

🥡 DoorDash working on AI to speed up food ordering (BBG)

🍿 Barbenheimer box offices continue to roll into 2nd weekend (RT)

The Weekly Brief

Fitch Downgrades U.S. Long-Term Rating to AA+ from AAA (CNBC)

• On Tuesday, Fitch downgraded the U.S. long-term foreign currency issuer default rating to AA+ from AAA after citing “expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years,” an erosion of governance, and a growing general debt burden. Fitch referenced the June bipartisan agreement to suspend the debt limit until January 2025 as a deterioration in the standard of governance. The White House disagreed with Fitch’s downgrade, saying that President Biden delivered the strongest recovery of any major economy in the world.

Hump Days Take

U.S. stock futures opened lower and Dow futures slid 100 pts after the downgrade. Rate-sensitive megacap stocks including TSLA, NVDA, META, and AAPL all tumbled as the yields on 10-yr treasury notes soared to its highest in 9 months at 4.1%. 

Uber’s Business Is Finally Making Money After Years of Losses (WSJ)

• Uber posted its first-ever operating profit in Q2, driven by growth in both of Uber’s core businesses: ride-hailing and food delivery. The company posted a $394M profit in Q2, compared with a $2.6B loss a year earlier. Uber expanded advertising on its app over the past year and became more disciplined about spending on discounts to consumers/incentives to drivers. Uber also said it became better at combining deliveries and reducing errors, which improved its operational efficiency.

Hump Days Take

From 2016 to Q1 of this year, Uber racked up a bill of $30B in operating losses, according to S&P. The company has since projected continued growth into Q3 as well which would be the start to a positive streak of profitability in a company that was once believed as one to never crack a profit.

Apple Heads for Largest Q3 Revenue Drop in a Long Time as iPhone Sales Slow (Reuters)

• Apple is expected to announce earnings on Thursday with an expected 1.6% drop in quarterly revenue, according to Refinitiv, marking its steepest drop in Q3 revenue since 2016. iPhone sales were predicted to have fallen more than 2% as shoppers held out for a new model in a slow economy. Analysts expect the company to elaborate on its plans to use AI to improve its upcoming products.

Hump Days Take

The company has avoided talking about AI at its events in contrast to its tech giant neighbors Alphabet and Microsoft. However, last month, Bloomberg reported that Apple had been quietly building out its own framework behind a large language model known as "Ajax". Wells Fargo predicts that any commentary around AI could boost the stock, should Apple choose to discuss it. 

You’ll Find This Interesting

Source: Getty Images

Tupperware Brands Corp has been warning of bankruptcy for months, but retail traders have since piled in, lifting the stock over 700% in the past two weeks in another meme-stock short-squeeze. This is reminiscent of when retail traders rallied behind heavily shorted companies like GameStop and Bed Bath & Beyond.

Tupperware stock shot up, although shortlived, during the pandemic as people were forced to eat at home. The stock has dropped 97% in the 2.5 years following its Jan 2021 peak.

Wall Street is signaling that it does not expect the rally to continue as the surge is only increasing short interest (~30% of the shares available for trading are currently sold short).

In Case You Missed It

Partnerships

If you are a brand looking to reach thousands of business leaders and investors through our two weekly newsletters, we would love to hear from you!