Chapter 1: The Pelosi Phenomenon

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Now, let’s dive into the exciting topics of the week: The Pelosis are excelling in the stock market, Meta is having a challenging time, and we’ve got five bite-sized updates along with some weekend memes!

Chapter 2: The Pelosis' Stock Market Success

Imagine being stuck in rush-hour traffic, barely moving. To your left, a police car zooms by in the carpool lane with just one officer inside. Before you can question its legality, the officer has already made his way to the front of the line at the Cheesecake Factory, indulging in a delicious chocolate Oreo cheesecake.

Well, it seems that Nancy Pelosi and her husband, Paul, are the only ones savoring that cheesecake these days. They are raking in profits in the stock market while the rest of us worry about whether to fill our tanks with premium or regular gas.

To put things into perspective, there are no restrictions on politicians and their spouses trading stocks, and Paul Pelosi has been making some very timely trades. Here are a few examples:

• In January, he purchased $1M in Tesla call options right before President Biden announced plans to incentivize electric vehicle production.
• In March, he exercised $2M in Microsoft call options just two weeks before the company secured a $22 billion contract to provide augmented reality headsets to the U.S. Army.
• Recently, he has drawn scrutiny for acquiring millions in Nvidia stocks just weeks ahead of a House vote on a $52 billion semiconductor subsidy to enhance chip manufacturing. Coincidentally, Nancy Pelosi publicly supported the bill this week, leading to a surge in Nvidia's stock.

In just one month, their Nvidia trade has resulted in $600K in unrealized gains, three times Nancy's annual salary of $210K. It raises the question: how does one’s net worth surpass $100M on a $200K salary?

While Paul Pelosi may have a knack for stock trading, it’s intriguing how his investments align with sectors his wife has influence over. Meanwhile, Nancy asserts that she doesn't own any stocks since Paul handles the trading.

The age-old question remains: Do couples who’ve been together for approximately 60 years communicate?

Chapter 3: Meta’s Trials This Week

This week has been quite rough for Meta.

Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian expressed their discontent with Instagram's new feed format, which prioritizes video content similar to TikTok. Users are now required to swipe up to view posts, disrupting the traditional scrolling experience. It’s been confirmed—this change is not well-received.

The backlash was so significant that Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, felt compelled to respond. His comments were more of a firm statement than an apology. He acknowledged that while they will continue to support photos as part of Instagram's heritage, the platform will increasingly shift towards video content.

Meta recently reported its first-ever revenue decline of 1% and a staggering 36% drop in profits during its Q2 earnings call. In contrast, back in 2019, quarterly revenue growth was around 30%.

The decline can be attributed to several factors:

• Weaker advertising demand due to economic pressures.
• A $3B loss in FB’s Reality Labs division last quarter.
• Challenges in monetizing Instagram Reels compared to other ad formats.

Furthermore, the FTC has initiated legal action to block Meta's acquisition of a VR studio that develops fitness applications, hinting at looming antitrust issues.

Despite these challenges, there was a silver lining: Meta's monthly active users increased by 4% year-over-year, reaching 3.65 billion—an encouraging sign for a company nearly out of new users to engage.

Chapter 4: Five Quick Updates

Here are five quick updates to chew on:

• A former product manager at Coinbase was arrested in the first-ever crypto insider trading case, allegedly profiting $1.1M. The twist? He booked a one-way flight to India upon suspecting he was under investigation, only to be apprehended before boarding.
• The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by another 0.75% to combat inflation, making borrowing even costlier.
• Both Google and Microsoft stocks saw a jump after falling short of earnings expectations, with Google experiencing its best day of the year (+7.6%).
• The Q2 GDP numbers will be released today, and the White House insists we are not in a recession, despite declining GDP—challenging traditional definitions.
• Lastly, the ultimate ranking of ways to reheat pizza is on the way. Perfect timing for the weekend!

Chapter 5: Weekend Memes to Kick Off the Fun

Here are some memes to kickstart your weekend!

That’s all for now! See you next week.

Review of the Week

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