📈Affirmation at Jackson Hole: Jerome Powell delivered his highly anticipated Jackson Hole speech Friday, offering the most clarity he has in a while. The typically dovish Fed Chair said “the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance”. Translation: a rate cut is probs coming September.

📈Bubblewrapped AI: Sam Altman warned of an AI “bubble,” an MIT study found 95% of AI pilots failed to boost revenue, and Meta froze hiring after splurging on 50+ researchers. Even still, OpenAI is pledging trillions on data centers and Meta literally just poached Apple exec Frank Chu. Classic AI whiplash only Aespa could match.

📈Softbank Gives Intel a Boost: Fresh off a 80% rally this year, Masayoshi Son and Softbank is buying $2B of intel stock at $23 a share, just before Trump revealed his $8.9B stake. The combo of moves sent $INTC ( ▲ 8.87% )  stock up nearly 6% after Friday’s market close.

📈Country Store→Corporate Bore: Cracker Barrel lost ~$100M in market value after unveiling a new “modernized” logo that ditches Uncle Herschel and his barrel. The rebrand is part of a wider push to refresh menus and redesign stores. Critics called it woke, marketers called it generic, and investors punished it with a 7% stock slide.

🌎 Trump’s Working Hard for his Nobel Peace Prize: According to German Chancellor Merz, Zelenskiy and Putin are set to meet in two weeks. Though Russia’s top diplomat says the agenda is not yet finalized. This spells trouble for the trilateral meeting Trump has been pushing.

🌎 Gaza Offensive Continues: With the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) calling up 60,000 reservists on Wednesday it is expected that the war to occupy all of Gaza CIty will soon begin, and following that, the fight for the whole of the Gaza strip.

🌎 Economic Reform Roundtable: Drop the Kids: This week the economic bigwigs met in Canberra to discuss ways to reduce government spending and increase productivity. One solution? Remove autistic children from the NDIS, currently costing $42 billion.

🌎 I Wanna Be An ICE Agent When I Grow Up: By the end of the year ICE plans on increasing its active staff by 10,000 (representing a 3x of its current workforce). With nearly 3000 arrests expected a day and millions of projected deportations they sure are busy.

👔Pop Mart Rides Overseas Wave: Pop Mart’s profits soared nearly 400% as foreigners went crazy for the monster dolls. Higher margins excited investors, but the company’s long-term success depends on sustaining (and continuing) the Labubu craze.

👔Designed in California, Made in India: Apple has decided to move iPhone 17 production to India with industry giant Tata and Chinese heavyweight Foxconn, reducing geographical reliance on China. Why the move? Tariffs.

👔Valorant Goes Mobile: Valorant, originally a popular PC game has now launched on mobile in China, the outcome: 170,000 downloads and $1M revenue on day one. Tencent has found another infinite money glitch.

👔Hertz Cars Hit Amazon: Hertz, a leading US rental car company, is now selling its used rental vehicles directly on Amazon (US). Buyers can browse, buy online, and pick up at select locations, padding out Hertz’s profits.

🤪♋️-rous Content: Starting Aug. 23, Netflix will begin recommending content based on astrological signs. Users won’t have to tell the company their birthday. Instead, a recommendation list is generated monthly to reflect the astrological in effect. Astrolohaters can opt to ignore the list completely.

🤪Surrogacy Via Sibling: As surrogacy fees have soared (sometimes costing up to $200k) some parents-to-be have turned to alternatives, one of which is asking your sister to carry the baby (only costing one family $50k). Yeah, no comment or judgement casted.

🤪Hope! That’s If You Landed an I*ternship: Target named company OG Michael Fiddelker as its new CEO. Michael first joined the retailer as an intern in 2003. His promotion comes as Target battles weak discretionary spending and an uptick in retail crime.

🤪Nuclear Shrimp: The FDA in the US added several new brands of cooked and raw shrimp products to a mass recall because of possible contamination with Cesium-137, a radioactive isotope used in radiotherapy.