---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Morning Brew <crew@morningbrew.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 7, 2019, 6:46 AM
Subject: ☕️ Don't cry
To: <joaoa.dsilva2019@gmail.com>

AUTOBLOG

August 7, 2019

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Good morning. There's no other way to start today's newsletter than with wisdom from Toni Morrison, the groundbreaking author who died Monday night at age 88.

What she told her students: "When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else."

Join the EmpowermentNet.... $500 free "Thoughts are things...choose the good ones!" Freedom, Freedom+, Freedom Premium...

Empir.us/elinx/?5106

MARKETS

S&P

2,881.77

+1.30%

NASDAQ

7,833.27

+1.39%

DJIA

26,029.52

+1.21%

10-YR

1.708%

-0.5 bps

GOLD

1,486.50

+0.68%

OIL

53.46

-2.25%

*As of market close

U.S. markets: Just as Alfred Pennyworth said in this very section on Monday, we fall so that we can learn to pick ourselves up. China stabilized its currency and stocks rebounded from their worst day of the year.

FINTECH

A Busy Day in Fintech Land

please turn your images on

Apple

If fintech can be a mashup of two words, then our top story can be a mashup of three fintech developments.

Apple, by Goldman

Apple (+1.89%) previewed its highly anticipated credit card Tuesday with a group of randomly picked users who didn't even have to camp outside the Apple Store for it.

What it is: A Goldman Sachs (+2.14%) credit card with Apple's user-friendly interface on top.
What it's not: Apple becoming a financial services company.

More details? Signup that takes minutes and real-time approval. iMessage-based customer support. Optional physical card. No crypto purchases.

The play: iPhone sales are slowing, and Apple's focusing on wearables and services to regain its crown as the most valuable company in the world. The credit card, subscription services, wellness, and more make up the plan to slap Apple's logo on every part of your life.

Masterpayments

Next up, Mastercard (+3.03%) announced its biggest-ever acquisition yesterday. It's paying $3.2 billion for a platform from Nets, a Denmark-based payments company.

Like its customers, Mastercard wants to diversify its portfolio. The company's taking a cue from other banks working together on The Clearing House's existing real-time payments system.

Mastercard's spent $1.1 billion this year on investments and acquisitions in financial services companies specializing in fraud detection, point-of-sale payments, cross-border money flows, and billing, per Bloomberg.

Zoom out: Lightning-quick payments have even caught the eye of the Fed, which announced plans for a speedier, 24/7 service where consumers and businesses can transfer up to $25,000. It'll take until 2023 or 2024 before it's up and running.

Klarna wants your basket full

Continuing the Scandinavian theme, we turn to Sweden, a country that's produced the second most unicorns globally and, this week, the No. 8 most valuable private fintech company.

Klarna raised $460 million at a $5.5 billion valuation. The company lets you indulge in retail therapy today and pay in installments tomorrow. It's processed nearly $29 billion of transactions.

With extra $ in tow, Klarna plans on expanding to the U.S., where consumers have shopping problems. The company has been adding 6 million Americans annually to its platform—a stat that should make one U.S. investor, a Mr. Snoop Dogg, happy.

MEDIA

Disney: Endgame

Disney (-3.12% after hours) reported earnings for the first full quarter it's owned the bulk of 21st Century Fox.

Revenue increased 33% to $20.3 billion, but those X-Men...they just never really fit in, do they? Profit missed estimates as Disney worked to integrate Fox's entertainment assets into its ecosystem.

That whiff shouldn't overshadow a magical year so far for Disney, which has adopted a golfer's attitude to the global box office: The only game is against yourself.

Avengers: Endgame recently passed Avatar as the highest-grossing movie ever. But Disney now owns the Avatar franchise following that Fox acquisition.
With over $8 billion in movie ticket sales already in 2019, Disney broke the record for highest-grossing year for a studio ever. Second place is Disney in 2016.

Looking ahead...while Disney's already dominating the big screen, its next frontier is TV. It announced that a powerhouse bundle of Disney+, ESPN+, and ad-supported Hulu will cost only $12.99/month. Disney+, its big bet on direct-to-consumer streaming, will launch Nov. 12.

AGRICULTURE

China Isn't Buying It

please turn your images on

Image by 1778011 from Pixabay

The Chinese Commerce Ministry confirmed Tuesday it's pausing U.S. agricultural imports in response to President Trump's new tariffs. The move could hobble an already stumbling U.S. farm sector.

Zoom out: China is the fourth largest export destination for U.S. farms. China spent $9.1 billion on U.S. farm products in 2018, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

The trade war has already stung: U.S. soybean exports to China dropped 70% from September 2017 to May 2018, while dairy exports are down 54% so far this year.

It's not like U.S. farmers don't have enough to worry about. Crop prices are lower than usual and the spring's heavy rains delayed planting. The USDA has begun handing out $14.5 billion to farmers to offset the costs of the trade war and bad weather, but it may not be enough as Chinese buyers find alternatives.

Bottom line: This isn't just bad news for farmers; it could take a chunk out of GDP and ripple into adjacent industries like farm supply.

Smarter Is Better

You might be good with your money, but why settle for good?

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How do they help you feel… smarter?

Aggregating your outside accounts and investments helps Betterment give you advice on how to lower fees and invest for your big life moments (and those small-to-medium moments, too).

Based on what you want to check off your to-do list, like taking that Eurotrip you keep putting off "until next year" or replenishing the safety net that was drained after your last move, Betterment can help you get there.

Ready to start investing? Get started with Betterment.

AUTO

Workhorse's Q2 Was Just Filly

$6,000 in quarterly sales. Impressive for a lemonade stand, less impressive for electric truck maker Workhorse, which reported earnings yesterday.

If that name rings a bell, it's because just a few months ago President Trump tweeted that GM would be selling its idled Lordstown, Ohio, plant to tiny Workhorse.

Flashback: Last November, GM said it was closing five North American facilities, including Lordstown, and reducing its salaried workforce by 15%.

So how could Workhorse, which lost $37 million last quarter, afford to revive Lordstown?

The plan is for Workhorse founder and ex-CEO Steve Burns to form a private entity to buy the plant from GM. Workhorse will have close to a 10% stake in the new venture, which will license Workhorse technology to build an electric pickup truck.

Even if that doesn't happen (Burns is still looking for $300 million to back the effort), there is another potential lifeline. Workhorse is bidding on a $6.3 billion contract for the U.S. Postal Service to build 180,000 electric delivery trucks.

FOOD

No Use Crying Over Spilled Earnings

Yesterday, Dean Foods echoed people around the world with damp spots on their crotches: "It's water!"

The largest milk processor in the U.S. reported an earnings miss that dropped shares 36.5%. CFO Jody Macedonio partially attributed the result to consumers opting to buy water over milk.

Zoom out: U.S. dairy milk consumption is declining dramatically while alternatives like almond milk, coconut milk, and good old-fashioned H2O are on the rise. Walmart, formerly one of Dean's biggest customers, also recently brought milk processing in-house, cutting off a calcium-rich revenue stream for the milk processor.

Looking ahead...Dean's brand-new CEO, Eric Beringause, said the sector is still "target-rich" for private-label and branded products. Beringause would know—on the earnings call the industry vet explained, "Many of my friends say I must have milk flowing through my veins."

That's increasingly not the case for Americans, though.

^Statista

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

Walgreens (-0.81%) said it will close about 200 U.S. stores as part of its "transformational cost management program."
Three opioid distributors proposed a $10 billion settlement to resolve over 35 states' lawsuits against them, per Bloomberg. The states countered with $45 billion.
Tencent (+1.09%) is in talks with French conglomerate Vivendi to buy 10% of Universal Music Group, the label behind Drake and Ariana Grande.
Snap (-1.03%) is raising $1 billion in short-term debt to invest in the media content and augmented reality features that've fueled its turnaround.
Nike (+2.95%) acquired Celect, a predictive analytics company, to help it become the best direct-to-consumer brand it can be.

BREAKROOM

Brew's Bets

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We'll never come close to the literary heights of Toni Morrison, but we can all work each day to improve our writing. There's no better place to start than to soak up the wisdom of Morrison herself.

^{*This is a sponsored post}

From the Crew

Our inbox was quite the party yesterday, with thousands of readers guessing the origin of the letters HSBC. If you didn't scroll to the bottom of yesterday's newsletter, the answer is "The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited," but that's not as exciting as these responses from Brew readers: