TOGETHER WITH

Hey there weekday warrior,

It’s a dark day for America.

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 23 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

– tyler

Krispy Kremed

Things the European mind cannot comprehend: this partnership.

You might remember last year that McDonald’s $MCD ( ▲ 2.27% ) and Krispy Kreme $DNUT ( ▲ 4.56% ) announced the only collab more American than Monster Energy and neck tattoos. The Golden Arches would begin selling KK donuts at all of its locations in the year of our lord 2025.

Well, now the two are pumping the brakes.

The donut chain rolled out distribution to ~2.5k of McD’s 13k US locations, before pausing to reassess the partnership. According to Krispy Kreme, sales were below projections. Are you happy now, RFK Jr.?

Where did we go wrong?

McDonald’s continues to struggle (see: 3.6% decrease in same-store sales in Q1). And fewer diners overall mean fewer diners pre-gaming their Angel Reese meal with a half dozen Krispy Kremes.

The donut shop shared the bad news during its own Q1 earnings call. And things haven’t been this bad since the FDA approved Ozempic for weight loss. Tim Horton’s American cousin has been mainlining capex into donut production facilities to meet McDonald’s (expected) demand…

The brutal sales combined with a spike in costs sent Krispy Kreme into the red for the quarter.

And the future is unclear for America’s #1 exporter of diabeetus. It pulled its guidance for 2025, citing “macro softness” (and by that, they mean McDonald’s being less reliable than a McFlurry machine). The company also announced it’d stop paying a dividend. Woof.

Shares are down more than 70% over the past year.

9 Amazon Prime perks you need to be using

Remember the days of making shopping lists and going from store to store? Then Amazon showed up!

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But if those haven't convinced you to sign up yet, get a load of these other cool, but not-so-obvious, Prime perks. Here are 9 of 'em.

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+ *white smoke emerges from White House signaling new trade deal*

It appears that the UK learned its lesson in 1776 and decided it was better off not f*cking around and finding out. Our frenemies across the pond were the first to agree to a trade deal with the US. In principle at least…

The deal, which the two sides will finalize in the coming weeks, will reduce US tariffs on UK steel and cars (great news if you like overpriced, unreliable vehicles), and the UK will lower its import taxes on ethanol, cars, machinery… and freedom.

There is one thing that Brits won’t get a pass on, though. And that’s the 10% baseline tariff on all goods making their way into the US. Because… “f*ck you, pay me…”

+ “Say ‘sike’ right now.” - Bill Gates’ kids

Good news, you guys… when Bill Gates dies, he’ll be worth about as much as you and me. He said his net worth will drop by roughly 99% over the next two decades (same…) as he plans to give away almost all of his $200B valuation.

+ Define “too soon.” A bunch of UnitedHealthcare $UNH ( ▼ 10.93% )  shareholders, with exactly zero chill, are suing the company, accusing it of misleading them after Luigi Mangione (allegedly) murdered CEO Brian Thompson. The class action suit claims UnitedHealth failed to update their guidance to reflect the impact of their CEO getting murcked. I’m pretty sure even Luigi would be like “not cool, guys…”

+ “Pinterest is where Gen Z goes to shop” might be the most batsh*t thing I’ve heard a CEO say on an earnings call since Jeff Skilling called an analyst an “a**hole.” But PINS $PINS ( ▼ 1.98% ) came with receipts. The social media platform reported mixed results (top line beat, bottom line miss), but shared Q2 sales expectations that were above the Street’s estimates. Shares went parabolic.

+ Heads up move by Vatican City…

+ US stocks “rose Thursday after President Donald Trump announced a trade deal framework between the U.S. and United Kingdom, the first major agreement hatched since the U.S. launched pre-emptive tariffs on most of the globe earlier this year.” (CNBC)

+ The 10-year yield “rose on Thursday as traders assessed the implications of a trade deal between the U.S. and the United Kingdom.” (CNBC)

+ Oil “prices rose around 3% on Thursday, buoyed by hopes of a breakthrough in looming trade talks between the U.S. and China, the world’s two largest oil consumers.” (Reuters)

⏪ Yesterday…

+ Shopify, D-Wave Quantum, Crocs, Brookfield, Peloton Interactive, Warner Bros, Hut 8, Jumia Technologies, YETI, ConocoPhillips, Aspen Aerogels, Talen Energy, Novavax, Papa John's, and Cheniere Energy reported before the bell

+ Coinbase, Rocket Lab, SoundHound AI, The Trade Desk, Cloudflare, DraftKings, TransMedics Group, MARA, Affirm, Lyft, Pinterest, Toast, Cleanspark, Hubspot, Monster, Serve Robotics, Dropbox, Wolfspeed, Texas Roadhouse, Main Street Capital, Bill, StoneCo, Rumble, Innodata, Paramount, Sweetgreen, and Microchip Technology dropped earnings after hours

⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…

+ TeraWulf and Enbridge report before the bell

+ Federal Reserve speakers are back on their BS after the end of the blackout period

Yesterday, I asked, “How often do you use an AI-powered search engine/bot (think: ChatGPT or Perplexity) vs. traditional search engine (think: Google or... well, that's pretty much it)?”

30.5% of you said “Never use AI.”

Here’s what some of you guys had to say…

• Never use AI: “I never use AI for anything, and I never will (until it takes over and I no longer have a choice)”

• Always use AI: “I have switched almost exclusively to Grok for my searches. I have very long conversations with Grok almost daily”

• Usually use AI: “This is a tough one since Google already provides me an AI answer as party of my traditional search results”

• Sometimes use AI: “I work in a technical field and the responses are often complete garbage, Google’s AI is better than ChatGPT because most of the time it just says, “I don’t know”, but ChatGPT always responds with something that looks legit even if it is completely made up, which if f*cking scary because people just believe anything it spews out. I’ve seen doctors use this sh*t…”

• Rarely use AI: “Curious to see the age breakdown here. The AI summaries at the top of Google searches have gotten better and, despite my better judgement, I find myself reading/trusting them more and more everyday.”

Here’s today’s question…

Oh, and one more thing…

Does this look like the face of a guy you should take financial advice from?

No, it’s the face of an individual who is financially irresponsible/dumb enough to be talked into spending money on a family photo shoot that he could have just done with his iPhone. So, act accordingly...

This is not financial advice. Nothing in this newsletter is an investment recommendation. All content is created for entertainment, educational, or informational purposes only. Do your own research, or do yourself a favor and hire a professional.