Donald Trump was on the verge of winning the 270 electoral votes needed to be reelected president of the US, the title he held from 2017 to 2021.

As of 4am ET, Trump secured 267 electoral votes after defeating Democrat Kamala Harris in key swing states, including Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina, according to the Associated Press. He leads in some of the other battleground states yet to be called, such as Michigan and Wisconsin.

Before the race was called, Trump gave a victory speech in Palm Beach, FL, where he pledged “to fix everything about our country.” He also effusively praised his supporter Elon Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla CEO who is poised to have a prominent role in a second Trump administration.

How markets reacted

The “Trump trades” all spurred into action when it became clear the former president was on a path to victory.

• Bitcoin surged to a record of more than $75,300. On the campaign trail, Trump embraced the crypto community and promised to appoint regulators who would be friendly to the asset class.
• Treasury yields spiked. It’s a bet that Trump’s policies in a second term, including tariffs and tax cuts, would reignite inflation, keep borrowing costs high, and widen the deficit.
• The dollar hit its highest level in a year for the same reasons.
• Shares in Trump Media, the company that has been considered a proxy for Trump’s reelection chances, were volatile throughout the night but settled up about 10%.

GOP takes back the Senate, House still up for grabs

Whether Trump could implement his policy agenda in a second term depends on the makeup of Congress. Republicans got good news there last night as well. They will regain control of the Senate after picking up at least two Democratic seats in Ohio and West Virginia. Democrats have controlled the Senate for the last four years.

The House is still too close to call, with dozens of tight races yet to be decided as of this morning. Democrats are hoping to flip the chamber that is currently in GOP hands by a slim margin.

More analysis coming tomorrow…—NF

Other notable results from Election Day: Florida voters rejected a measure that would legalize recreational marijuana in the state, a victory for Gov. Ron DeSantis and billionaire Ken Griffin, who opposed it. Ten states were voting on measures that would protect abortion rights; as of early this morning, six passed, and Florida’s, South Dakota’s, and Nebraska’s were projected to fail. California voters approved an initiative backed by retailers that reinstates harsher penalties for shoplifters, rolling back parts of a criminal justice law passed by voters in 2014.

Apple is looking into smart glasses to compete with Meta. Using on-the-DL employee focus groups, Apple is soliciting staff feedback on potential features for a lightweight alternative to its Vision Pro AR headset, Bloomberg reported. The face computer hasn’t been a bestseller due to its size and $3,499 price tag. Now, Apple might be eyeing the domain of Meta—which collaborates with Ray-Ban on specs that enable video recording and voice-activated calls—by reportedly toying with a similar product that could come with built-in Siri, camera capabilities, and sound. But the real AR holy grail for both companies would be a mass-market, smartphone-killing wearable that displays information for users to interact with.—SK

Netanyahu fired Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was a “crisis of trust” between them when he announced the surprise sacking yesterday. The popular defense minister—whose dismissal sparked mass protests across the country—oversaw Israel’s war effort in Gaza and Lebanon. He had long been at odds with Netanyahu and the far-right members of the PM’s coalition government over Israel’s war aims. Gallant spoke in favor of promoting an alternative to Hamas to govern postwar Gaza and recently called for at least a temporary diplomatic deal to return the hostages. His firing came shortly after the defense ministry sent conscription notices to ultra-Orthodox men, another political flashpoint. Israel’s current foreign minister, the Netanyahu loyalist Israel Katz, will become the new defense minister.—SK

Welcome to the salt scrub economy. Increased awareness of holistic health and wellness has caused a seismic shift in the health industry, according to a new report that estimates wellness is now worth over $6 trillion, surpassing the pharmaceutical industry.

The analysis completed by the trade group Global Wellness Institute (GWI) claims that the wellness industry grew 26% since 2019 to $6.3 trillion. That figure is substantially higher than the $1.8 trillion value McKinsey assigned to the wellness industry, which is giving some analysts pause (GWI and McKinsey define wellness differently). But the report provides some unquestionable insights into how different types of businesses are capitalizing on the wellness movement. According to the report:

• People care what the mirror has to say. “Personal care and beauty” is the largest category in the industry, valued at $1.2 trillion.
• It’s followed by “healthy eating, nutrition, and weight loss,” valued at $1.09 trillion. The third-biggest category is “physical activity,” worth an estimated $1.06 trillion.

Zoom out: The “wellness real estate sector” grew the fastest, at a rate of 18.1% from 2019 to 2023 and to $438.2 billion. That encompasses everything from offices with air filtration systems to gyms with too many amenities (looking at you, Equinox).—CC

Instead of freeing your dandruff shampoo and teeth whitening strips, stores are doubling down on their little cages by giving customers the power to open them. Well, eventually.

Walmart is testing new tech that will empower shoppers to unlock pestiferous security locks with their phones. Employees are already using it in a few hundred stores, but now the retailer has discussed rolling it out to Walmart+ loyalty members, Bloomberg reported. CVS is also piloting a system that lets shoppers unlock Tide Pods with its app.

• A company called Indyme says 26 retailers are using its “Freedom Case,” which lets customers enter their phone numbers into a touchscreen device to receive a code that unlocks the case guarding the family-size box of Cheez-Its.
• Indyme doesn’t specify which big-name stores use its product—and most retailers are being cagey on details—but CNN reported that earlier this year, Safeway and Lowe’s were among the stores listed on Indyme’s website as testing the unlocking feature.

Big picture: Stores are scrambling to fix the universally despised shopping experience they created in response to theft. Following the pandemic, big retailers claimed that organized retail theft was skyrocketing, so they locked up all their merch. And while some experts say the cases have deterred shoplifting, they’ve also curbed impulse purchases, annoyed already stretched-thin staff, and pushed shoppers toward online shopping.—MM

You can only release so many Mario and Zelda games before gamers get kinda bored. Nintendo reported yesterday that its profit plummeted a not-so-nice 69% in the first half of its fiscal year, in part because the Switch isn’t selling like it used to. The Japanese gaming giant said that it had to revise its annual sales forecast for the console down from 13.5 million to 12.5 million as demand peters out.

Though it’s still Nintendo’s second-best-selling console ever behind the DS, lots of shiny new toys have debuted since the Switch came out in 2017 (like Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X/S)—and fans are eager for the company to announce a successor. Nintendo said it plans to unveil a new Switch by March 2025. Until then, Switch users can continue to tell their friends that they simply must play Breath of the Wild.—AE