Dave Lutz Jones Trading Insiders at just 151 S&P 500 companies bought their own stocks last month, the fewest since at least 2018, according to data compiled by the Washington Service. And while July’s selling by corporate insiders slowed from June’s pace, purchases dropped even more, pushing the ratio of buying-to-selling to the lowest level in a year, the data shows.
5. Tokenization Market Value.
Charts tell stories. Hockey-stick charts tell big stories.
One of the biggest stories today is that tokenization — the idea of moving stocks, bonds, and other real-world assets over blockchains instead of traditional networks — is having a moment.
Venture Investors Warm to Public-Safety and Law-Enforcement Tech
Startups are selling software to help solve crimes or free 911 dispatchers from nonemergency calls, among other things. This year they’ve raised $990 million, nearly double 2024’s total.
A crime scene unit in Brooklyn. Venture investors are increasingly backing startups whose software can help in government services, including law enforcement. Photo: Kyle Mazza/Zuma Press
Venture capitalists have made a flurry of bets on public-safety and law-enforcement technology startups this year, the latest sign of a shifting appetite toward companies that rely on government revenue.
Venture firms, including industry leaders Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, have invested in tech ranging from artificial-intelligence voice chatbots that handle nonemergency 911 calls to analytics software that helps detectives solve cold cases. The deals propelled the sector’s overall U.S. funding haul to $990 million this year through July 9, nearly double the amount raised for all of last year, according to data firm Crunchbase.
Venture Capital
Venture Capital news, analysis and insights from WSJ’s global team of reporters and editors.
Investors and entrepreneurs have long viewed plodding government sales cycles as incompatible with the hypergrowth many startups seek. But that’s changing. As AI supercharges the startups’ tech and lowers the cost of developing new products, founders say public-safety agencies are more eager and amenable to doing business with them.
Investors, in turn, are warming to young companies that rely on government sales. The recent success of defense-tech startups—many of them powered by AI—has demonstrated that startups with government-reliant revenue models can make it.
“The ‘Why now’ is AI,” said Nihal Mehta, co-founder and general partner of Eniac Ventures.
Eniac Ventures invested in San Francisco-based Hyper, which launched publicly this month and offers voice AI technology for nonemergency 911 calls. Voice AI has improved to the point where it can be used by police departments, Mehta said, which could save them money and free up human dispatchers to handle more critical calls.
“Historically this sector has had antiquated technology, and police departments were hard to sell into,” said David George, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “That has tipped relatively fast.”
2. A New Addition to Speculative Economy….56% Year Over Year Increase in Retail Investors Trading Futures
Barrons-During the second quarter, CME reported that more than 90,000 retail traders, a 56% year-over-year increase, traded futures for the first time. It was the fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. This development suggests CME is creating a new class of customers, an incredible feat for any business but especially for an established exchange. Major bourses tend to rely on market volatility and well-established customers for growth.
Barrons
3. S&P Tech Sector Short-Term Overbought for 56 Trading Days
Bespoke
4. Capex at META Doubles in One-Year
Irrelevant Investor
5. Spotify Increased Free Cash Flow 100X in 2 Years
6. American Fast Food Managers Make More than European Developers
The promise of midday golf games and spending three hours drinking one cup of coffee at a McDonald’s is not enough to keep older Americans retired. As of last year, workers over the age of 75 are the fastest-growing group in the workforce.
Baby boomers (anyone in the 61–79 age range) are either refusing to retire or, increasingly, reentering the workforce. In some cases, they need to, as the cost of living increases and the Social Security eligibility age creeps higher. Additionally, only about 24% of boomers have defined pension benefits, and only half of private sector workers have access to employer 401(k) plans.
But some, especially white-collar workers, are choosing to spend their golden years in an office:
Industries like nuclear energy are desperate for seasoned experts as the country starts to bring plants back online.
Less labor-intensive jobs mean older people can work longer with more flexible schedules. Doing a desk job for extra money might be more attractive if you’re doing it from a nice office with central air.
Older Americans are also becoming entrepreneurs: As of 2023, nearly a third of new founders are 45+, and the percentage of businesses founded by people 55–64 is rising
Looking ahead…nearly 11 million older workers are employed right now, and that number is expected to jump by ~97% in the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.—MM
8. Ozempic and MAHA Hitting Snack Sales
9. American People Trust in Mainstream Media Trust Closing in on Single Digits But Still Above Congress
1. Capital Expenditures on AI Already Passed Peak Telecom Highs.
PROF G MARKETS NEWSLETTER–Big Tech is pouring money into them. Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Google combined are on pace to spend roughly $340 billion on capex this year — more than the GDP of Finland.
The AI boom has become an infrastructure boom. Case in point: Capital expenditures on AI data centers are already more than the peak in telecom spending during the dot-com bubble and the buildout of 5G networksas a percentage of GDP.
Dr. Kurt Hong researches how what a person eats affects how they age.
Hong follows the Mediterranean diet, which has been deemed the healthiest eating plan for years.
His top tip is to eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, and wholegrains but not to overeat.
As an obesity doctor, a nutrition researcher, and a professor of medicine and aging, Kurt Hong has dedicated his life to understanding the link between our diets and longevity and helping patients avoid diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cancer.
But his career isn’t entirely selfless, he told Business Insider.
“I always joke with my wife that I also do this for selfish reasons,” Hong said, “I’m always looking for ways to stay young.”
To the 52-year-old father of three, age is just a number thanks to lifestyle choices we can make.
“Your body may tell you you’re 52 years old, but you can behave or you can feel like a 35-year-old,” he said. “And it can be the other way around as well.”
He added, “A lot of the age-related chronic diseases are directly related to what you eat and your weight.”
Hong’s approach to harnessing our diets to age well is simple and centered on the Mediterranean diet. It consists mainly of fresh produce, whole grains, healthy fats, and lean proteins and has been voted the healthiest way to eat eight years running by the US News and World Report.
Hong, who’s the chief medical officer of Lifeforce, a concierge preventive medicine company, and a professor at the University of Southern California, shared the four simple dietary rules he follows to stay healthy for as long as possible.
Eat your veggies
Hong’s No. 1 piece of advice is simply to eat your fruits and vegetables. He prioritizes getting enough plants, including whole grains, in his diet because they contain fiber.Diets high in fiber are associated with a lower risk of multiple types of cancer, lower cholesterol levels, a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, and a healthy gut microbiome — the community of microbes that live in the colon lining and are thought to affect overall health.
“The other part of it is that by getting your fruits and vegetables, you also get a lot of the vitamins,” Hong said.Plenty of evidence suggests that people who eat more plants are likely to be healthier than those who don’t. In a 2019 study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, which followed more than 12,000 people for 29 years, those who reported eating about four to five servings of plants a day, and little to no processed or red meat, were 18 to 25% less likely to die prematurelythan those who relied more on meat and other animal products.
Eat a lot of fish
Hong’s main source of animal protein is fish, because it’s rich in vitamins, antioxidants, and protein. “I eat a lot of fish,” he said.Wild-caught salmon, albacore tuna, and halibut are his favorites, and he mostly bakes or poaches them.Fish contains omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential for brain health. A 2024 meta-analysis published in the journal Aging Clinical and Experimental Research found that eating fish was associated with a lower risk of cognitive impairment, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease. The vitamins and minerals in fish, as well as omega-3, are thought to be brain-boosting, the authors said.
“Even if you don’t eat fish daily, try for just two, three times a week,” Hong said.
Don’t overeat
Hong also pays attention to how much he’s eating.
“You can eat all the right things, but if you still carry that extra weight, there’s still a level of systemic inflammation that’s contributing to your risk of chronic disease,” he said. “If your body’s burning 2,000 calories, but you’re eating 6,000 calories of fruits and vegetables, guess what? You’re still going to gain weight.”
Though it’s contested whether a person’s size is an indicator of their health, being overweight or obese is linked to a greater risk of several health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain types of cancer.To meet his nutritional goals — which are to eat enough protein, plants, and healthy fats, while maintaining a healthy weight — Hong eats higher-calorie foods in moderation.
For example, he may grab three hard-boiled eggs for breakfast, eat the higher-protein whites, and remove the higher-calorie yolks from two.
“It allows me to hit my calorie goals a little bit easier but still allows me to make sure that I get to my protein goal as well,” he said.
“So it’s the right volume and also the right type of food,” Hong said.
Meal prep to avoid ultra-processed foods
Ultra-processed foods are typically packaged and contain ingredients you wouldn’t find in a regular kitchen. They’re generally convenient and cheap, but eating lots of them has been linked to a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, depression, and dying early from any cause.
Hong understands that it’s nearly impossible to eliminate ultra-processed foods entirely because they’re “everywhere.” But to eat fewer UPFs, he meal preps as much as possible.
“I do still have business meetings out where I have to grab dinners and other things. But you do the best you can,” he said.
For people who are time-strapped, he suggested trying out a meal delivery service.
“They’ll ship it to your home, where you have to put everything together within about 20, 30 minutes. That can take away the ultra-processed component,” he said.
Corporate momentum. “Corporate Activities [are] firming up: S&P 500 revenue per employee hits new highs; Capex to sales is rising across sectors and leverage is at its lowest since 2014; Buybacks are up 16%, and dividends up 6% over 12 months; M&A and IPO value up +23% over last 12 months.”
8. Demographics are Destiny—China Closes 20,000 Kindergartens Last Year.
WSJ Kiki Wang, 28, a teacher from Jiangsu, was laid off last month. “It’s not that you are not a good teacher, it’s just we don’t have enough kids,” she recalls her principal telling her. She says she doesn’t know what to do next and is posting on social media for advice. More than 20,000 kindergartens closed last year in China, with nearly 250,000 teachers losing their jobs, government data show. In China, kindergartens are akin to preschools in the U.S., serving children ages 3 to 5.
9. Single Family Homes for Sale in South Above 2008 Levels.
In the South, dominated by Texas and Florida, inventories of new houses for sale spiked to a record of 312,000 in June, up by 6.5% from the already above-Housing-Bust-peak level a year ago, and up by 78% from June 2019.
The Census region accounted for 61% of total US new-home inventory, and also for 61% of total US new-home sales (a map of the four Census regions is below the article at the top of the comments).
Sales dropped by 6% year-over-year to 33,000 new homes, and by 15% from June 2019, despite the massive incentives by homebuilders.
Right or wrong, our economic system invariably creates haves and have-nots.
It’s a feature not a bug.
This feature has always been more prevalent in the stock market than the housing market:
The bottom 90% owns just 12.8% of the stock market1 but 56% of the housing market. The top 1% owns 50% of the stock market and less than 14% of the housing market.
The largest financial asset for the majority of middle-class households is their home.
My worry about the current housing situation is that it’s going to make it much harder for people in the middle class to keep up.
This is already starting to show up in the data.
Baby boomers make up by far the largest share of home purchases and sales:
Older people are responsible for nearly 60% of all housing sales and close to half of all purchases. This makes sense when you consider 40% of all homeowners have no mortgage.
Boomers have tons of equity to play around with, so high prices and mortgage rates don’t matter to them as much as they do to young people.
