The floor price of StonkBrokers NFTs has surged from less than $400 a month ago to $13,000 today. The NFTs are represented by pixelated stock brokers and are now the second-most valuable NFTs on OpenSea (behind CryptoPunks and ahead of Bored Apes).

Each NFT is also a wallet that can hold crypto assets, including tokenized stocks. Each NFT receives a randomly selected tokenized stock when it's minted (SpaceX, Amazon, etc.). When it's "activated" (for a fee, paid in the StonkBroker token), it receives additional stocks that the protocol buys with the fees it earns. Holders can also send stocks they buy themselves to the NFT's wallet. When an NFT is sold, everything in the wallet moves with it.

0xResearch describes the mechanics as an attempt to connect "NFTs, tokenized equities, a liquid token, a launchpad and an exchange into one financial ecosystem."

fomo.family is a trading app that aims to become a social media platform by bringing people together over their love for memecoins. Despite launching in a brutal bear market, fomo has hosted over $4 billion in trading volume and attracted 1.3 million users in just over a year.

The app has reinvigorated memecoin trading by making it both social and competitive: everyone's trades are public and linked to their account, there's a leaderboard, and there's copy trading. Some of fomo's most successful traders have amassed over 100,000 followers each.

Fomo is currently a top-10 app in the "finance" category of the Apple App Store. The company recently raised $75 million in a Series B at a valuation of $550 million (there's no token).

However, data shows that only 6% of all traders on FOMO in the last 90 days were profitable. Of those profitable traders, 88% made under $100. Only 25 out of 292,531 wallets made more than $10,000. Collectively, fomo traders have lost an estimated $1.26 billion.

Bitcoin has gone from roughly $64,000 to $77,000 in less than 48 hours. If Bitcoin closes Sunday night above $74,200 it will mark the single biggest weekly gain in dollar terms in Bitcoin's history.

The main reason Bitcoin (and crypto) is ripping is the U.S. Treasury's bond buybacks. The initial move higher appears to have been driven by a squeeze. Now, spot buyers and ETF flows are starting to support the rally too.

Ethereum is doing even better than Bitcoin in the current rally.

The China-fueled economic upheaval that helped transform American politics is now hitting Europe.

Why it matters: The new strain on European industry is building pressure for the continent to embrace the type of China crackdown it has long resisted.

• It is the next big test of whether China's export boom will push other major economies toward the more protectionist approach that the U.S. embraced years ago.
• Europe is actively debating whether, and how far, to follow the U.S. playbook by erecting broader barriers against Chinese goods.

What they're saying: "The concept of the 'China shock' is becoming more international," former EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström tells Axios, referring to the surge of Chinese imports after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

• "What is happening to European industry, with tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs in Germany disappearing every month — it is forcing the politicians to reassess. We're at the beginning of this right now," says Noah Barkin, a senior adviser at the research firm Rhodium Group.
• "They would love to have a tool like Section 301 tariffs — and they would love to have a green light from the member states to use it," Barkin adds.

The big picture: China's factories churn out goods far faster than its sluggish domestic economy can absorb, unleashing a wave of exports that is putting historic pressure on Europe's critical industries.

• Chinese manufacturers can often undercut European rivals on price, aided in some industries by extensive state support.
• The pressure is especially acute in Germany, whose economy was built in part on selling cars, machinery and other high-end manufactured goods to China. Chinese rivals are now taking market share in many of the same industries that powered Germany's economic success.

Three stats help tell the story:

1. Europe is accumulating trade deficits with China at a record pace of roughly $1.15 billion per day.
2. Germany now buys more high-end machinery and factory equipment from China than it sells there, a reversal of a decadelong pattern. Its trade balance in those goods swung to a $600 million deficit from a $900 million surplus in less than one year.
3. EU imports of cars from China topped 1 million for the first time last year, an increase of roughly 30% from 2024.

Zoom out: Europe is already pushing back, with tariffs on Chinese EVs and new barriers in industries from steel to medical devices. Officials are considering going further, including new powers to quickly impose tariffs or quotas on Chinese goods, akin to tools used by the U.S.

• Volkswagen, which opposed the EU tariffs on Chinese EVs two years ago, is now pressing European policymakers to move faster to protect the industry from Chinese competition.
• "We have no time to lose," CEO Oliver Blume told investors last month.

The bottom line: The U.S. responded to China's economic rise by erecting increasingly broad trade barriers. Europe is now confronting the same question, but it is far from clear that it is willing to go as far.

Situational awareness: U.S. business activity grew at the fastest pace since 2022 in August, according to S&P Global's flash PMI.

• A jump in services offset slower manufacturing growth. Price pressures cooled and hiring picked up to the fastest pace since January 2025.

As Europe grapples with its own China shock, the U.S. has largely given up on trying to persuade Beijing to change the export-heavy economic model that's helping fuel it.

• It's a sharp break from years of U.S. economic diplomacy aimed at convincing China to rebalance its economy toward domestic consumption rather than exports.

South Korean chipmaker Samsung Electronics has announced a $78.9 billion buyback, following SK Hynix's $28.8 billion repurchase announcement the previous day.

The Treasury Department's unusual bond market intervention Wednesday is prompting questions about its commitment to a longstanding cornerstone of American economic statecraft: the strong dollar policy.

Why it matters: The "strong dollar policy" is shorthand for the U.S. government's commitment to policies guided by economic orthodoxy — concern over debt and deficits, non-intervention in markets and central bank independence, among them — that have for the most part characterized both parties' management of the economy for decades.

Yes, but: As the department's move in the U.S. Treasury market Wednesday showed, the current administration appears willing to jettison such niceties to achieve its goals.

• Other examples include purchasing stakes in multiple private companies, providing U.S. dollar swap lines to Argentina, intervening in currency markets and putting pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.

The latest: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared on CNBC yesterday morning emphasizing that the Treasury could buy back more than the $4 billion in long-term U.S. government bonds, the headline number it cited Wednesday in announcing plans to double the size of the auctions it uses to repurchase bonds from market participants.

How it works: The stated justification for the buyback program is to remove illiquid long-end bonds from the market in order to improve trading conditions.

Context: The program also effectively reduces supply of long-term government debt. All else being equal, lower supply in the face of steady demand raises the price of those bonds. Because bond prices and yields move in opposite directions, that reduces the yields on those Treasury bonds, which serve as key foundations for borrowing costs throughout the economy.

What they're saying: Wall Street thinks lower rates were clearly the goal of the Treasury move.

• "We see a through-line here across a number of policy actions from Treasury in recent weeks, and believe Treasury is uncomfortable with the rise in long-term yields, as it runs against the Secretary's stated goal," JPMorgan bond market analysts wrote.
• "In our view, Treasury increased these operations to limit the long-end selloff. This was not done for market functioning purposes," Citigroup bond market analysts added.

Between the lines: The consensus takeaway on Wall Street seems to be that the "debasement trade" — a bet on a weakening U.S. dollar — is back on, with several analysts advocating boosting bets against the greenback and on hard assets like gold.

• "Expressions of debasement fears are a weaker USD and long gold," Citi analysts wrote. "We do not doubt the ability of the U.S. Treasury to keep yields contained for quite some time. The main price to pay for lowering rates in such a way is a weaker currency."
• "Budget deficits remain high, this will be a growing issue, which will either force the U.S. to tighten fiscal policy, accept higher borrowing costs, or let the dollar weaken," Société Générale's currency analysts wrote in a note entitled "Scott Bessent is the Strong Dollar's Nemesis."
• "Markets are primed for dollar debasement to resume," wrote Robin Brooks, a Brookings Institution fellow who formerly headed up foreign-exchange strategy at Goldman Sachs. "As Japan shows, it can be next to impossible to stabilize a currency once it enters a devaluation spiral. The U.S. is playing with fire with this buyback."

The apparent goal of the Treasury Department's announcement on Wednesday — at least in Wall Street's estimation — was lowering long-term bond yields. It worked, but not for long.

The latest: Long-term Treasury securities again sold off yesterday, pushing prices down and yields — which move in the opposite direction — higher.

• Shortly before 5pm ET, the yield on the 30-year bond was hovering around 5.25%.
• For comparison, the yield on the long bond was around 5.28% ahead of the Treasury's announcement.

Our thought bubble: Three basis points, or 0.03 percentage points, on the bond doesn't seem like a huge payoff for putting the credibility of the U.S. Treasury on the line.

Hui Ka Yan's $42 billion net worth made him the richest man in Asia in 2017. On Thursday, the 67-year-old founder of property giant Evergrande learned all his assets are being confiscated and that he will spend the rest of his life in prison. The Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court handed him the sentence for embezzlement of assets and corporate bribery, five years after Evergrande defaulted on most of its $300 billion in liabilities.

The court also fined companies with ties to Hui $2.3 billion for concealing debt and falsifying records. Evergrande's failure exposed investors, stressed parts of China's banking system, and sparked an ongoing, nationwide real estate crisis.

While data centers may have become Wall Street's wizard of alts, there are other, perhaps more mundane, infrastructure opportunities that might deserve a closer look. Demand for energy infrastructure, which was flat for decades, is now growing again amidst the needs of artificial intelligence and the shift toward renewable energy. Unfortunately, the current grid is straining to keep up.

"We believe data centers are, at least today, somewhat overhyped," said Irina Zilbergleyt, managing director at I Squared Capital. "They are attracting a tremendous amount of attention, which means a lot of capital is bidding for the same assets and driving up prices. If you win an asset in that environment, there is real risk you have overpaid."

Developed countries have underinvested in infrastructure for decades, and it's starting to catch up with them. "We're seeing a tremendous investment again, somewhat tied to AI, but also because of the lack of upgrade of the infrastructure for a long time," said Eric Gerster, CIO at AlphaCore Wealth Advisory. Transitioning to renewable energy like wind, solar, and hydropower requires costly grid upgrades, and while traditional US infrastructure often runs through government-bid contracts, private investors still have an opening. Abroad, it's more direct: international governments are selling assets like toll roads outright to private firms, guaranteeing investors a healthy return.

Phil Blancato, chief market strategist at Osaic, broke down how he's approaching exposure across client types:

• For standard Main Street clients who need full liquidity, Blancato favors commodities funds over infrastructure funds. The two are closely linked (infrastructure can't be built without commodities), but he says that infrastructure funds are often too broad and carry too much oil exposure, which he called a "fading commodity."
• Higher net worth clients should consider private equity or private credit funds, in order to invest directly in a physical product.
• Mass affluent clients can get similar direct access through interval funds, which provide more liquidity, and which offer a level of access that wasn't available during the last infrastructure boom.

Slow and Steady. Advisors shouldn't think of infrastructure as a total return play, and should make sure the product they're in generates income, Blancato cautioned. "You do have periods of lackluster returns," he said. "When you're not seeing the boom happen immediately or [you're in] the spheres where it ebbs and flows, having that income strand is key … You want to look at this as a long-term hold."

Bitcoin has surged past $75,000 and reclaimed its 200-day SMA for the first time since November 2025, breaking out with volume while recovering its long-term trendline. Spot Bitcoin ETFs just posted $606 million in inflows on August 20, the strongest single day in four months. On-chain demand has flipped positive in both spot and perpetual futures for the first time since October 2025, high-conviction buyers continue accumulating at a larger supply share than the 2022 cycle, and taker buy volume sits in a historical exhaustion zone.

Treasury Secretary Bessent's move to at least double longer-dated bond buybacks to $4 billion is injecting a liquidity tailwind that echoes the March 2023 regime shift, while a softer DXY and heavy short liquidations have amplified the advance. The next real test is the ETF cost-basis zone; if it holds, this looks less like a bounce and more like the exit from bear-market conditions.

The 77-day market consolidation has officially broken to the upside. Bitcoin printed its biggest daily expansion candle in ten months, punching through key structural hurdles. This aggressive expansion makes a nonsense of the persistent summer chop.

Global capital allocators are buying risk assets again. Traders are repositioning for renewed central bank accommodation, and geopolitical risk premiums are narrowing. Crypto Market spot Demand Turns Aggressive Positive on Centralized Exchanges Macro trading desks anticipate a significant easing in global financial conditions.

This momentum is nothing like the low-volume bounces seen in recent months. Our research suggests a confirmed regime shift in equities and credit markets.

Stocks stepped on a rake yesterday as investors were unmoved by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's attempt to intervene in the bond market crisis. Nasdaq fell 1.00%, S&P 500 dropped 0.87%, and Dow declined 1.32%.

SpaceX sank for the third straight day as approximately 319 million more shares became eligible for early investors to sell, pushing the stock down 4.05%.

Walmart posted its worst U.S. same-store sales growth in more than six years, raising questions about the health of the American consumer, even as the company raised its outlook for the full fiscal year.

By the numbers: The retail giant recorded U.S. comparable sales growth of 2.6% in the second quarter when excluding fuel, trailing Wall Street's expectation of about 3.5%, according to TD Cowen analysts.

• Overall revenue increased 5.9%, to $187.9 billion, compared with a year earlier.

⚠️ State of play: Walmart raised its fiscal year net sales outlook from a range of 3.5%–4.5% to a range of 4%–5%, but investors were expecting a bigger boost, according to Goldman Sachs analyst Kate McShane.

• Walmart CFO John David Rainey said the "modest" guidance bump partly reflects what he called "arguably a softer consumer environment than in February when we introduced our initial outlook."
• He noted that higher fuel prices put added pressure on consumers, saying Walmart has seen shoppers make trade-offs as fuel prices rose.

💸 Follow the money: That pressure on consumers, Rainey said, is why the company is continuing to focus on price reductions.

• Walmart said it is reinvesting tariff refunds in prices, which might've irked investors who were hoping they would bolster margins.

📉 The impact: Walmart shares plunged 9.2%.

Advance Auto Parts (-24.6%) reported a surprise drop in same-store sales for the second quarter, saying "tighter household budgets constrained spending" especially in the last four weeks of the period.

Deere shares jumped today after the company reported a surge in demand for construction equipment, overcoming an ongoing slump in the farming economy.

🤖 The big picture: The AI data center boom is igniting sales of construction equipment for the likes of Deere and Caterpillar, as developers snap up bulldozers, excavators, loaders and other machines.

🚧 Zoom in: Sales last quarter jumped 18% in Deere's construction and forestry segment from a year earlier to $3.62 billion.

• Operating profit in the segment also soared 84%, while operating margin spiked from 7.7% to 12.1%.
• 🚜 That helped offset the 6% decline in sales in Deere's production and precision agriculture division, which fell to $4 billion.

What they're saying: "Large-scale infrastructure projects, data center construction and pipeline activity continue to support robust customer demand," investor relations director Christopher Seibert said on an earnings call.

What's next: Customer backlogs reach "well into" the next fiscal year in the construction division, Seibert added.

• The company also said it believes 2026 marks the bottom of the cycle for the agricultural sector.

📈 The impact: Deere shares closed up 6.9%.

Anthropic expects to match or beat the size of SpaceX's record $75 billion IPO. It could make its public filing by the end of this month.

Hyundai is considering increasing U.S. production at its new Georgia plant, part of the Korean automaker's plan to invest $26 billion in the country through 2028.