Morning Brew - ☕ Another red flag

Uber ponders an Expedia acquisition...
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Morning Brew

Miso Robotics

Good morning. With Halloween just 13 days away (fitting), it’s time to actively start thinking about a costume. But if you’re going for originality, there are a few concepts you’ll want to avoid.

Thankfully, Google exists. The search engine released the top trending costumes for Halloween 2024, and here’s what the masses are looking up:

  • Pretty much any character from Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
  • Pretty much any character from Inside Out 2
  • Raygun (the breaker from the Olympics with the green and yellow tracksuit)
  • Pop star Sabrina Carpenter
  • Wolverine and Deadpool, for a duo costume

Of course, if you don’t care about being unique and just want to blend in at the party, these are some great ideas.

—Molly Liebergall, Neal Freyman, Matty Merritt, Adam Epstein

MARKETS

Nasdaq

18,373.61

S&P

5,841.47

Dow

43,239.05

10-Year

4.096%

Bitcoin

$67,072.67

TSMC

$205.84

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

  • Markets: Stocks were flatter than Kyrie Irving’s model of the Earth yesterday as robust retail sales data and an optimistic outlook from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) offset worries about the chip industry. TSMC soared after it posted a huge jump in quarterly profit and raised its revenue forecast for the year.
 

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ECONOMY

Another red flag raised on Trump’s tariff plan

Donald Trump and Janet Yellen Spencer Platt, Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is just like us: She called out a very specific behavior she disapproves of without shading the person by name.

Yellen denounced “sweeping, untargeted tariffs” as “deeply misguided” in a speech addressed to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York yesterday that was largely directed at former President Donald Trump’s tariff plan, which he claims would boost domestic growth. Yellen was the latest financial bigwig to throw cold water on the proposal.

Here’s why so many economists hate the tariffs

Trump has talked about stamping a 60% tariff on everything shipped in from China, plus a 10% to 20% blanket levy on all other imports. Though he claims that foreign countries will bear the added costs, tariffs are actually paid by the importer—in this case, American companies—which usually pass along those extra expenses to consumers via higher prices.

Last time he was in office, Trump’s 50% tariff on washing machine imports cost US consumers an estimated $1.5 billion per year, according to the BBC.

If he gets a second term, economists widely agree that Trump’s tariffs would make it more expensive to buy almost anything in America:

  • Gas prices could go up by 75 cents per gallon in the Midwest, according to GasBuddy, where most fuel comes from Canada.
  • Inflation could tick up almost 1%, per Morgan Stanley, and prices of products not mass-produced domestically would likely rise even higher.
  • Retailers, automakers, and industrial companies would be the worst-hit sectors, according to UBS.

Overall, the typical household could face an average of $2,600 in extra costs per year, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, or as much as $7,600, per the Yale Budget Lab. A 10% across-the-board tariff could shrink the stock market by 10%, UBS projects.

Zoom out: According to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Trump’s full budget plans would widen the deficit by $7.5 trillion over the next decade, while Kamala Harris’s proposals would widen the deficit by $3.5 trillion.—ML

   

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WORLD

Tour de headlines

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar Mahmud Hams/Getty Images

Israel confirmed it killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. The mastermind of the October 7 attacks that killed 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds of hostages back to Gaza, Sinwar was the top target of the Israeli military for more than a year. His body was discovered after a firefight in Gaza, and his identity was later confirmed with DNA testing. Sinwar was reportedly overseeing Hamas military operations while in hiding, in addition to serving as the group’s political leader following the July assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. Several US officials affirmed the news of Sinwar’s death, while some were hopeful that it could convince Israel to scale back its brutal war and end the suffering in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it marks the “beginning of the end” but that the war will continue.

Netflix beat earnings forecasts…again. As is becoming tradition, the streaming giant surpassed Wall Street expectations. It added 5 million customers in Q3, growing its global subscriber base to more than 282 million. It also generated nearly $10 billion in revenue in the quarter—significantly higher than in the same period last year. While Netflix is still growing, it’s not doing so as quickly as it used to, which has led many analysts to expect it to announce another price hike in the US, which it’s done periodically in recent years.

Meta laid off employees at Instagram and WhatsApp. According to The Verge, the social media giant made a series of cuts across various departments as part of a reorganization. A Meta spokesperson confirmed there were layoffs aligned with “long-term strategic goals and location strategy.” Meta also recently fired about two dozen employees for abusing $25 Uber Eats and Grubhub credits, the Financial Times reported. Staff members were allegedly using the company perk, which is meant for employees in locations without cafeterias, to buy household items like laundry detergent instead of food. The moves come about two years after Meta laid off tens of thousands of employees as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency.”—AE

TRAVEL

Would you book a hotel with Uber?

uber logo in black and white Anna Kim

It could soon be possible. Yesterday, the Financial Times reported that Uber has considered acquiring travel booking site Expedia.

With a market value of more than $20 billion, Expedia would be Uber’s biggest acquisition in its history and a bold, expensive move. But after a year of bulking up, the ride-hailing company is focused on hitting homers instead of singles: Its share price has surged (no pun intended) 85% in the past 12 months to give it a market cap of nearly $170 billion, and in February, it reported an annual profit for the first time ever.

Next stop: super app. Uber CEO Dara Khasrowshahi has ambitions to grow Uber into a “super app” similar to China’s WeChat. Uber is already much more than your ride to the airport, offering services such as food delivery, freight, and even yacht rides. Adding Expedia, the world’s fourth-largest online travel company and owner of Vrbo, Hotels.com, and Orbitz, would bring its super app vision closer.

For Khosrowshahi, it would be a reunion. He was the CEO of Expedia from 2005 to 2017 before leaving to turn a disorganized Uber into a mature company. Mission accomplished.

Looking ahead…the FT said that deal talk is in the early stages, so Uber could still cancel without paying a fee.—NF

   

Together With Herbtonics

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FOOD & BEV

Chocolate may be dethroned this Halloween

Gummy candy Israel Sebastian/Getty Images

You’ll probably still feel a little bilious after this year’s trick-or-treat haul, but it will likely come from all the sour dust you ingested. Rising cocoa prices and changes in consumer preference are pushing candymakers to introduce new, chocolate-free options this spooky season.

The main reason? Chocolate is expensive. Prices are at the mercy of cocoa plant yields, which have been damaged by bad weather in West Africa during the past two growing seasons. Prices dropped a little earlier this year but are still outpacing general food inflation. Since 2020, average unit prices for chocolate have jumped 40%, according to Nielsen IQ. Meanwhile, fruit and sour candies are cheaper to make and experiment with.

Even the chocolate heavyweights are getting creative with their confectionery. Hershey is releasing two new products for the Halloween season: Reese’s Werewolf Tracks, which have a vanilla crème top instead of traditional chocolate, and Kit Kat Ghost Toast with cinnamon toast crème coating. And from Ferrero, Butterfinger’s first new iteration in almost a decade will be a salted caramel-coated candy bar.

Big picture: It’s not just Halloween—gummy and sour candies seem always to be going viral, whether it’s the aesthetically pleasing scoops of Swedish candy store BonBon or peelable gummies.—MM

   

STAT

Prime number: 20% of the world’s steel

Neom NEOM

Neom, the Saudi megaproject that’s essentially what you’d get if someone gave Billy McFarland $1.5 trillion to make the Fyre Festival, requires a lot of metal. According to a Saudi official, construction of the gigacity is using one-fifth of the world’s steel. It also apparently accounts for 5% of the global logistics market. The crown jewel of Saudi Arabia’s economic development plans, Neom is supposed to feature luxury resorts, business hubs, and a 100-mile-long linear smart city called “The Line” by ~2045, but it’s been beset by delays and mismanagement. Neom execs have started to temper expectations, though the country’s economy minister denied that any plans were reduced in scope. That’s just about what Billy was saying right before he served people slices of cheese for dinner.—AE

QUIZ

Quizanthemum

New Friday quiz image

Getting a 5/5 on the Brew’s Weekly News Quiz has been compared to the feeling you get after finishing an enormous pile of laundry.

It’s that satisfying. Ace the quiz.

NEWS

What else is brewing

  • Prada, alongside Axiom Space, unveiled the design of the spacesuit that NASA astronauts will wear when they walk on the moon in 2026.
  • Google said it will block ads about the presidential election after Nov. 5 to prevent the spread of misinformation, like if a candidate prematurely declares victory, Axios reported.
  • Ferrari revealed its first supercar in 11 years: the $3.9 million F80, inspired by the aerospace industry.
  • Weight loss drugs like Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic can help to cut drug and alcohol abuse, according to a new study.
  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he has received intelligence that 10,000 North Korean troops are preparing to fight alongside Russians in Ukraine.

RECS

Friday to-do list

Watch: The songwriter who penned Rihanna’s “SOS” reveals a mind-blowing fact about the hit song.

Observe: The diminutive winners of Nikon’s annual microscope photography contest.

Travel the states: What every state capitol building in the US looks like.

Read: The Wall Street Journal put 12 strangers in a group chat to talk about the economy, and this is what happened.

Arouse the whole you: This FDA-registered vibrating ring for women adjusts to your unique shape for distributed external stimulation and magnified sensations everywhere you want them. Even better? Take 30% off today.*

*A message from our sponsor.

GAMES

The puzzle section

Decipher: In today’s puzzle, you’ll uncover a movie quote that will send chills up your spine. Play Decipher here.

Friday puzzle

What is longer: The height of the standard-issue Peroni glass or the circumference of its rim?

Peroni glassware is displayed at the Filmmaker Reception during the 2016 Los Angeles Film FestivalJerod Harris/WireImage

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ANSWER

The circumference of the rim, if you can believe it. The circumference of a Peroni glass is 238mm, compared to a height of 231mm.

Source

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: diminutive, meaning “extremely small.” Thanks to Kathi from Utah for the teensy-weensy suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.

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