WORD ON THE STREET 

• Wake Up Babe, The Meme Stock Is Acting Up Again – AMC was up more than 30% during the trading day after a plan to covert APE preferred units into stock was blocked by a Delaware judge. It was down in after-hours – after all, the CEO has said the company may face bankruptcy if it can’t raise more capital.

• This Is Just The Way Things Are Now – Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) argued that allegations of corruption against President Joe Biden and his family (especially son Hunter) are “rising to the level of an impeachment inquiry.” The Speaker said that if the president had a business that was run for foreign countries, it was a problem if he didn’t get money from friendly, wealthy countries but instead did business with countries like China that have “real challenges and real problems.”

  

   

• F5 Laughs At Your Earnings Expectations – Tech company F5 (FFIV) was up more than 10.5% in after-hours trading. Earnings were $3.21 a share (excluding one-time items). “We are delivering the gross margin improvement and operating leverage we committed to,” said CEO Francois Locoh-Donou, and we are confident in our ability to achieve our target of double-digit non-GAAP earnings growth for fiscal year 2023.”

• “Honey, Wake Up, The IRS Is Here” – You may find this incredible, but people don’t like it when the IRS makes unannounced visits to homes and businesses. IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel explained that IRS officers feel increasingly unsafe making such visits and has ended them. “The change reverses a long-standing practice by IRS revenue officers that goes back decades,” he said. Well, I’m still not answering the door if I don’t know who it is.

HOT SPOTS: What’s Going on in Geopolitics

• Political Showdown In Israel – The Knesset passed part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed legislation to reform the judicial system, prompting protests by political opponents and the Biden Administration. The White House called it “unfortunate” but the Administration was unwilling to say if it would tie foreign aid to the Netanyahu government backing down on the legislation.
  

• Ukraine Claims To Have Gained Ground Near Bakhmut – Ukraine claims to have retaken about 35 square kilometers of ground near the Russian-occupied city of Bakhmut. Bakhmut was famously taken by the Wagner paramilitary company – but the mercenaries are now in Belarus after launching an abortive coup and then backing down.

• Japan Backs Chip Controls Against China – Japan has aligned with American-led export controls on chipmaking tools to keep this advanced equipment out of the hands of China. Japan is restricting 23 types of equipment. However, unlike the United States, it is banning exports of the equipment entirely, rather than calling out China by name.

CUTTING EDGE: What‘s Happening In Tech

• Apple Hit With Class Action Lawsuit In UK – A professor of competition policy in the UK is bringing a lawsuit against Apple on behalf of more than 1,500 British developers, alleging “anticompetitive” policies. The suit specifically calls out the company’s steep 30% fee on in-app sales and seeks compensation of about $1 billion.

• NXP Semiconductors Beats Expectations – NXPI was up almost 2% in after-hours trading. It reported quarterly earnings of $3.43 per share with $3.3 billion in sales, topping estimates of $3.28 per share and $3.21 billion in sales.  Just $100 million here and $100 million there and eventually you are talking real money.

• New Retirement Plan: Find Meteorite – The Maine Mineral and Gem Museum is offering $25,000 to anyone who can recover at least one kilogram of a meteorite that fell near the Maine-Canada border earlier this year. The Wall Street Journal reports that a kind of gold rush, or meteorite-rush, has hit the Maine woods as fortune-seekers look for the extraterrestrial treasure.

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