Wall Street climbs, jobless claims fall, and a cereal maker gets devoured by a chocolatier…
It’s not every day the markets hit record highs and somehow manage to feel… well, polite about it.
But yesterday, everything that could have gone right did. Stocks crept up like a courteous stalker—unobtrusive, but determined—as jobless claims came in lower than expected, a 30-year Treasury auction drew strong demand, and Delta Air Lines gave a quietly solid start to earnings season.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq both notched fresh record highs.
Thursday’s surprise darling? WK Kellogg, which soared after Italian chocolate giant Ferrero announced a $3.1 billion acquisition. It’s official: if Ferrero Rocher chocolates ever fell from the sky, they’d be cannonballing into Frosted Flakes right now.
The chocolate-meets-cornflakes merger gives Ferrero a seat at the breakfast table, just in time for Americans to start swapping sugary boxes for store-brand bargains—or skipping breakfast entirely while nervously checking their brokerage accounts.
Crypto and Coffee: An Expensive Morning
Bitcoin climbed for the second straight day to an all-time high of $113,863.31, staying above $100K for a 60-day stretch that’s now making gold bugs wonder if they bet on the wrong shiny thing. (We’re preparing a major research project on crypto, stablecoins and this strangely enthusiastic stock market. Give us a few days and we’ll send it your way.)
Meanwhile, coffee futures jumped 3.5%, reacting to Trump’s latest tariff threats on Brazil. Brazil grows the world’s best arabica beans—and now those beans may be coming with a hefty 50% markup. Your morning cup of joe just got a little more… geopolitical.
Rare Earths, Real Power
The Pentagon made a loud statement in a quiet market yesterday, announcing a $400 million investment in MP Materials, the only rare earth mine in the United States. The deal gives the Defense Department a 15% stake in the company—making Uncle Sam MP’s largest shareholder.
MP’s stock surged 50.6% on the news.
The move is more than just patriotic portfolio padding. Rare earth elements are critical to everything from fighter jets to smartphones. And for decades, China has had a near-monopoly on both the mining and processing of these metals—controlling about 90% of the global supply chain.
The Pentagon’s new deal includes buying all the magnets produced by MP’s forthcoming California factory—starting in 2028—for at least a decade. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are kicking in $1 billion to build the plant. Yes, you read that right: Wall Street and the Defense Department just got into bed together to mine rocks.
Why? Because in a world where semiconductors and surveillance tech drive both war and wealth, rare earths are the new oil. And the US wants its own spigot.
Zuckerberg’s $200 Million Draft Pick
Mark Zuckerberg is now playing GM, and the AI draft is in full swing. Amid the dry air of Idaho, Meta released some lurid details of their acquisition of Apple’s top AI engineer.
Ruoming Pang, with a compensation package reportedly north of $200 million, is now making more money annually than Apple CEO Tim Cook. It’s part of Zuck’s push to build a “superintelligence” team. Zuck is clearly tired of watching OpenAI and Google eat his lunch.
Meta’s pay packages now rival Wall Street’s C-suite. But here’s the rub: most of the money’s tied to hitting performance targets. So it’s not quite “Here’s $200 million.” It’s more like “Welcome to the Thunderdome. Win.”
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OpenAI vs. Google Chrome
More on the digital turf wars.
OpenAI is preparing to launch an AI-powered web browser—yes, a direct challenge to Google Chrome. With 400 million ChatGPT users to feed into the funnel, OpenAI is now coming for both Google’s search traffic and its ad data empire.
If this thing catches on, Google’s business model might start to look more like Yahoo circa 2005.
Tariff Diplomacy (Or Lack Thereof)
Never one to be out-headlined, Donald Trump slapped a 35% levy threat on Canada, blindsided Vietnam with an unconfirmed 20%, and teased a major announcement on Russia for Monday. He’s very annoyed with Vladamir Putin, apparently.
Meanwhile, Senator Marco Rubio met with Chinese officials in Malaysia, hinting that a Trump–Xi Jinping summit might finally materialize. Let’s hope it’s less dramatic than the G7 photo ops and doesn’t result in another mid-speech tariff tweet.
Citadel Gobbles Morgan Stanley’s Options Desk
We’ve been ogling Citadel’s business model for year. In the intense heat of a feverish market, Citadel take a tiny sliver of every trade you make when you trade an option.
It’s good work if you can get it.
High-frequency behemoth Citadel Securities bought Morgan Stanley’s US equity options market-making unit, officially ending Wall Street’s traditional role in the options business. Now, the machines really do run the casino.
Ken Griffin’s firm now commands even more of the options universe—on the floor and in the ether.
Harmonic AI: Math Is Hard, Let’s Buy a Company
Among Griffin’s clients? Robinhood.
Vlad Tenev, the Robinhood co-founder, just raised $100 million for his new venture: Harmonic AI, which aims to crack the toughest nut in the AI world—math.
Valued at $875 million, the company wants to build models that can solve complex equations, not just parrot Wikipedia. If successful, this could make future AI systems less like chatty interns and more like Nobel-caliber problem solvers.
Or at least finally help us balance the federal budget…
Budget Bomb Incoming?
The monthly federal budget report drops at 2PM today. And after Trump’s enormous tax cut bill, it’s already expected to be a bloodbath.
May’s interest payments on the $36.2 trillion national debt? $92 billion.
That’s more than “we” spend on veterans, education, or defense—outside of Medicare and Social Security. At this point, the Treasury is mostly a pass-through for creditors.
North Carolina: Still the Top State for Business
Amid all this chaos, the Tar Heel State just keeps quietly winning. North Carolina ranked #1 again in CNBC’s “Top States for Business,” edging out long-time rival Virginia.
With a strong workforce, corporate hospitality, and a mild regulatory climate, North Carolina is where businesses go when they’re sick of tech bros and tax codes.
It’s Friday. As we knock off for the week approaching mid-summer, it strikes us how hard it is to distinguish signal from noise. Markets defying gravity gives us pause.
Don’t buy in at elevated prices.
Keep your asset allocation in full view.
Buy cheap.
Sell dear.
It’s a funny old world, isn’t it?
AI is buying engineers like they’re first-round picks. The military is investing in rare earths like it’s the 1950s space race. Tariffs are flying, cocoa’s getting scarce, and your cereal may soon come with a luxury markup.
None of it, likely, concerns your portfolio.
~ Addison
P.S. Thank you, if you joined us for Grey Swan Live! yesterday with Matt Milner. “I must say, Matt” we wrote to him after the recording, “you are quite articulate about private equity… both the opportunity side and the hidden risks.”
We went deep on Elon Musk’s private ventures, startups in AI infrastructure and medical supplies. We learned there is now a working prototype of a bionic pancreas which could be a game changer in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. If you missed it, the replay will be posted soon in the video archive on the Grey Swan Investment Fraternity website. But you have to be a member to tune in.
