WORD ON THE STREET 

• Abortion Restrictions Lose In Ohio – A GOP supported effort called Issue 1 which would have made it more difficult to amend the state constitution lost overwhelmingly yesterday. This means a constitutional amendment to protect abortion in Ohio will just need 50% of votes in November, which seems very likely.

• ESPN Bet Is Born – ESPN Bet is taking Penn Entertainment’s Barstool Sportsbook and will begin operations in 16 states where gambling is legal. Penn has the exclusive right to the ESPN Bet trademark for a decade, and the deal can be extended for another decade later.

• WE Down 23+% In After-Hours – WeWork fell off a cliff in after-hours trading even after losing 5.5% during the trading day. It lost $397 million in the second quarter and confessed there is “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue operating.  

• Hail To The New King Of Beer – Modelo Especial could become the top-selling American beer in 2023 as a customer boycott continues to eat away at Bud Light’s market share. Modelo beat Bud Light in sales for the third consecutive month in July and may soon catch up when it comes to annual sales.

HOT SPOTS: What’s Going on in Geopolitics

• Water Cannon Wars – A conflict between China and the Philippines over a grounded ship has gone hot – or at least gone to water cannons. China sprayed a Philippine vessel with a water cannon on August 5 as Beijing demanded the Philippines tow away a World War II ship from a shoal being used as a naval base. However, the Philippines says the Chinese action was excessive and claims the Second Thomas Shaol as within its economic zone. The warship Sierra Madre was deliberately grounded there in 1999 to buttress the Filipino claim to sovereignty.
  

• Wagner Boss Taunts US – “I am proud of the boys from Wagner,” said Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chef-turned-mercenary of the Wagner Corporation. He said that American diplomat Victoria Nuland’s complaints about the coup in Niger, backed by Russia, “brings joy.”

• Emptying Out The Storage Sheds – Use them or lose them. Russian media reports that the Vagzhanovo storage facility, home to 3,840 Soviet tanks and armored vehicles, as has been emptied since the war in Ukraine began. Russia has been stripping its reserve forces to keep the front supplied, even if it means an embarrassingly small Victory Day parade.

CUTTING EDGE: What‘s Happening In Tech

• Zoom Faces Fight Over AI Training – A newly noticed provision in Zoom’s Terms & Conditions that reportedly allows the company to use user data to train AI is getting the company in hot water. TechCrunch reports the provision could run afoul of European Union rules that aim to protect user privacy. It’s just one of many companies struggling to determine what they are and are not allowed to feed to data-hungry models for AI training.

• Fed Increases Crypto Oversight – The Federal Reserve is beefing up its supervision program for banks that use cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. The rules haven’t changed, but the “novel activities supervision program” (sounds ominous) will pair specially skilled experts in digital assets alongside conventional supervisors.

• Norway Fines Meta $99K A Day – Datatilsynet, Norway’s data regulator, is fining Meta about $98,500 per day for privacy breaches dating from August 4. It argued that behavioral advertising entailed “intrusive surveillance” of users.

The information in this email is intended for informational purposes only and does not guarantee specific results as there is a high degree of risk involved with trading. Also, our traders are real traders and may have financial interests in the companies discussed. Please see our Terms and Conditions for more information