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Good morning. This is the final day to be entered to win a MacBook Pro, the most precious piece of hardware this side of an Olympic gold medal.
To recap, we’re giving away three new laptops to readers who’ve shared the Brew this week. 1 referral gets you 1 ticket entered into a raffle, meaning the more you share, the better the chance you have of winning a computer.
Warning: The raffle is being held tonight, so click here to share now.
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Nasdaq
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14,762.58
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S&P
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4,400.64
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Dow
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34,930.93
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Bitcoin
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$40,142.88
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10-Year
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1.234%
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Boeing
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$231.57
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*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:00pm ET.
Here's what these numbers mean.
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Markets: Like you after a 15-minute run, stocks spent roughly eight hours barely moving. Boeing, though, did gain after posting its first profit in nearly two years.
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Economy: The Senate voted to move forward with a nearly $1 trillion infrastructure package after a bipartisan group of senators agreed to the key aspects of the plan. “This deal signals to the world that our democracy can function,” President Biden said.
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Giphy
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Google employees hung up their business hoodies and put on their home hoodies after CEO Sundar Pichai postponed the company’s return to the office by a month-and-a-half, to mid-October.
Google's one of a number of companies rethinking their workplace plans due to the—okay fine we’ll go there—fourth wave of Covid-19.
Many companies had pegged their office reopenings to Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer and 18 months to the week after the WHO declared Covid-19 a global pandemic. Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman said he’d be “very disappointed if people haven’t found their way into the office” by Labor Day. The Delta variant said, “You’re about to be disappointed, Mr. Gorman.”
- Last week, Apple pushed its return-to-office date back until at least October, and yesterday restored mask requirements in most of its US stores for staff and customers.
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While other major companies haven’t publicly updated their timelines, spokespeople for tech giants like Facebook have said that health data, not a date, would decide when offices would be back to full capacity.
Are vaccine mandates the fastest route back?
In its announcement yesterday, Google said that anyone coming into the office would need to be vaccinated. Facebook, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and United Airlines have all made similar moves. And after Monday’s mandate madness from NYC and California, it tracks that today President Biden is expected to announce all federal employees will need to get the Covid vaccine or take regular tests.
Zoom out: It’s not just some senior execs who are desperate for employees to return to business districts. The Ultas, Sweetgreens, and transit systems of the world are counting on you to spend money during the workday like you did in 2019. Returning to the office is an economy-wide issue that influences everything from real estate to e-commerce.
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Trading app Robinhood is set to IPO this morning under the ticker symbol HOOD in one of the most unusual public offerings ever. Are you going to invest?
The bear case
Those who don’t think Robinhood will charge into the green on its opening day are concerned about the app’s seemingly endless run-ins with regulators—leading to penalties like a recent $70 million fine. Both the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the SEC have investigated Robinhood this year...
- Most notably for how it restricted trading activity during the GameStop frenzy in January
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Most recently (Tuesday) for CEO Vlad Tenev’s nonexistent FINRA license and employee trading
Other doubters think that when the pandemic ends, app downloads and trading activity will slow and the meme stock craze won’t reignite.
The bull case
The obvious reason to feel bullish about $HOOD? The fast-growing company paved the way for Average Joe traders to feel like Ferragamo-wearing Wall Streeters. Proponents think it’ll continue to be the app of choice for a growing army of individual investors that Robinhood empowered with its zero-commission model and sleek interface.
As for regulatory scrutiny, Robinhood says it has room to grow into far less sketchy spaces, like retirement accounts.
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If you think Co-star notifications thrive on chaos, check out Pfizer. The drugmaker projected that Covid-19 vaccine sales would hit $33.5 billion this year, a 29% bump from previous estimates. That would make the vaccine the world’s best-selling drug of all time, easily topping current leaders AbbVie’s Humira and Merck’s Keytruda.
Why the rosy outlook? This pandemic ain’t over. With Delta fueling surges across the globe, the company thinks that a third booster shot will be needed for extra protection. It plans to ask the US for regulatory approval for its booster next month.
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Plus, it’s charging more. The US recently paid $24/dose for an order of 200 million doses, up from the $19.50/dose it paid Pfizer for previous orders.
Zoom out: Just because you’ve developed a lifesaving vaccine doesn’t automatically make you rich. J&J, whose one-shot vax has been stymied by side effect concerns and manufacturing errors, is projecting only $2.5 billion in sales from its vaccine this year. Moderna will report its earnings Aug. 5.
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Listen, the stock market can be great. Sometimes it’s stable, everything’s in the green, and you put “investing genius” in all your dating profiles.
But the stock market can also be unpredictable. And when you wake up to see all your highly considered positions in the red, you should give yourself some peace of mind by diversifying your portfolio.
Here’s where Fundrise comes in.
They make it easy to invest in private market real estate, an alternative to the stock market, but one that used to only be accessible to the ultra-wealthy. Fundrise has changed that. Now you can access real estate’s historically strong, consistent, and reliable returns.
No need to feel all that stock market stress, reader. Start diversifying with Fundrise today.
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EIA
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Stat: Renewables became the second-most prevalent energy source in the US last year, behind only natural gas. Accounting for 21% of all electricity generation, renewables topped nuclear and coal for the first time.
Quote: “So first things first, instead of waking up at 8:20 and join a useless meeting at 8:30, be on mute, and proceed to go make my breakfast and take my dog for a walk, I now have to wake up at 7, get properly dressed (no more comfortable clothes), make sure I have lunch and breakfast prepped, get on the highway, drive, get there at 8:15, mindless chit chat till 8:30, join the same useless meeting on zoom (with coworkers from around the globe, what's the f. point?) and now I HAVE to/MUST pretend to pay attention to something that has no relation to what I work with because well, I got no more flexibility on my surrounding environment.”
One Reddit user wrote about going back to the office for the first time since the pandemic started...and why they [bleeping] hated it.
Read: Why is so much American bureaucracy left to average citizens? (The Atlantic)
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CNBC
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McDonald’s said that its BTS meal and its highly original, never-been-done-before fried chicken sandwich helped boost same-store sales nearly 26% last quarter.
By collabing with the K-pop superstars on a special meal (10 McNuggets, fries, Coke, and fun sauces), McDonald’s was revisiting similar promotions it ran with artists J Balvin and Travis Scott. We’re expecting more considering BTS’s dynamite success.
Anything else you should know? Drive-thru times increased by three seconds due to the labor shortage, but CEO Chris Kempczinski said more job applications were flowing in and that dining rooms should be 100% open by Labor Day.
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Facebook posted its fastest sales growth since 2016 in Q2. But shares dropped when it said that growth would slow over the next few quarters.
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52% of Wharton’s incoming MBA class is female, the first time a Top 7 business school has admitted more women than men.
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Here are some charts showing vaccination status across demographics.
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Arthur, the longest-running kids animated series, is coming to an end in 2022 after 25 years.
Olympics links
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Heroes in headsets. SimpliSafe’s advanced home security technology is paired with 24/7 human-powered monitoring—actual people who will spring into action and send help to your door, if things take a turn for the worse. Try SimpliSafe risk-free here.*
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Best essays: This site dives deep into the belly of the internet and serves you five piping hot essays at a time. Not interested? Swap ’em out for five more.
Non-Olympics video of the week: Young Thug’s Tiny Desk concert for NPR.
*This is sponsored advertising content
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Brew Mini: You know what they say—good things come in small puzzles. Play the Mini here.
Three headlines and a lie
If you need an Olympics news break, we’ve got the perfect distraction: Us lying to you. Try to guess which headline is fake and which three are wild, but very real:
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Robert Downey Jr. says this vegan cheese startup puts the “eco in queso”
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Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin to be paid in ether for role as monocle-wearing Lord Catsington in Mila Kunis's NFT animated series 'Stoner Cats'
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Justice Department seizes rare, ancient tablet illegally auctioned to Hobby Lobby
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Bakersfield man banned from Walgreens after duping workers into getting his ninth Moderna dose
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No one got nine doses of the vaccine as far as we know
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✢ A Note From Fundrise
(Here's all the legal jargon we know you love reading.)
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