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Your Daily Dose of Market & Career Clarity

📬 Delivered to 150,000+ ambitious readers

🎯 In this issue:

• Banana Bits: Finance headlines that actually matter

• Market Recap: The markets wavered ahead of the Economic Policy Symposium

• Technical Trip: Interview Q&A from Barclays

• What’s Ripe / Rotten: The tastiest and most disgusting stocks 

• Deal Dispatch: M&A, IPOs, and other transactions 

Market Snapshot

📉 Banana Bits

• The Trump Administration is in talks to take a 10% minority stake in Intel.

• Oil prices rose as President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are seemingly struggling to come to an agreement.

• A study conducted by Joseph Henry and Terry O’Brien shows that U.S IPOs are far less underpriced than commonly believed.  

• The Fed Bank of San Francisco is offering a new way to monitor recession risk: the Labor Market Stress Indicator.

• EU exports to the U.S have hit the lowest level since 2023 as a result of continued tariffs.

• Pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk offered cash-paying U.S patients Ozempic (a diabetes drug) for less than half price.

Market Recap

Waiting on Wyoming

The Markets were relatively calm yesterday, with the NASDAQ recording slight gains and the S&P 500 recording slight losses, with traders steering away from making big bets. Traders were reluctant to make bets ahead of the Economic Policy Symposium, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. 

Historically, previous Fed chairs have made significant announcements at the Economic Policy symposium, and traders are awaiting any drastic news to be given by Jerome Powell. 

The symposium kicks off on Thursday, and then on Friday, Jerome Powell is expected to give the Fed’s new strategy as far as maintaining inflation and unemployment through managing rates. 

Many traders are also betting that the weakness within the labor market will trump the risk of increasing inflation, which should be clearer after August’s CPI reports come out in September, a few days prior to the FOMC meeting. 

Although Powell has yet to give his speech, bond investors are seemingly already pricing in a 25 basis-point September rate cut as if it's set in stone. The yield of the two-year treasury has sharply declined this month as bond investors are making bets on a September rate cut. 

Additionally, interest rate swaps are showing approximately an 80% chance that the Fed will cut rates by 25 basis points in the September FOMC meeting. 

What's Ripe

Propanc Biopharma Inc. (PPCB) 103.8%  

• Propanc Biopharma uplisted to the NASDAQ from the OTC Pink tier (pink sheet stocks) at $4/share, and the stock surged upwards, now trading north of $10/share.

• This increase was not only the result of general IPO volatility, but also of increasing the visibility, liquidity, and overall credibility of the firm through the uplisting. 

Dayforce Inc. (DAY) 26.0%  

• Shares of Dayforce skyrocketed yesterday after reports emerged that they were in advanced talks of being bought out by a financial sponsor. 

• Despite no deal being officially announced, the HR software company’s share price continued to rise after hours. 

What's Rotten

Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp (TNXP) 22.0% 

• Tonix’s stock plunged yesterday as a primary result of profit-taking after their share price spiked last week.

• The pharmaceutical company’s share price spiked last week after getting FDA approval for its fibromyalgia treatment. 

Qfin Holdings Inc. (QFIN) 6.4%  

• Qfin’s shares sank yesterday after they narrowly missed EPS projections, but missed revenue projections by quite an immense margin. 

• The AI-powered credit tech platform announced $1.78 EPS vs $1.79 projected, and $728 million in revenue vs. $4.6 billion projected. 

🧠 Technical Trip

Interview Q&A from Barclays

👉 Want 1-on-1 recruiting help from Barclays bankers & 2,000+ top mentors? Apply to WSO Academy

🦈 Deal Dispatch

M&A, IPOs, And Other Notable Transactions

• MCR Group is set to take Soho House private in a $2.7 billion deal at $9/share. 

• Legence, a sustainability consultancy firm owned by Blackstone, filed for an IPO at a potential $5 billion valuation.

• Thoma Bravo is allegedly in advanced talks to buy HR software firm Dayforce. 

• Musinsa, a Korean fashion retailer owned by KKR, is currently debating an IPO.

• Anker Innovations Technology, a Chinese manufacturer of electronics, is considering an IPO on the Hong Kong markets. 

📊The Daily Poll

Previous Poll:

Buffett drops $1.5B on UnitedHealth, this is:

Classic Buffett move: 44.8% // Bargain hunting: 44.8% // Big pharma flex: 10.4%

Student Success Corner

👉 Are you next? Find out with WSO Academy

Banana Brain Teaser

Previous

An empty pool being filled with water at a constant rate takes 8 hours to fill to 3/5 of its capacity. How much more time will it take to finish filling the pool?

Answer: 5 hours 20 minutes

Today

Jack is now 14 years older than Bill. If in 10 years Jack will be twice as old as Bill, how old will Jack be in 5 years?

How Would You Rate Today's Peel?

Happy Investing,
Chris, Vyom, Ankit, Colin, & Patrick

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