More Money For AI

Anthropic just revealed its Q2 numbers - showing a huge boost in revenue.

Its revenue hit $11.5B in Q2 - a 14x increase year over year.

Why? Businesses are paying for Claude to handle coding and daily work.

• Anthropic is currently private but could go public as early as this year.

$2 Million Missile

The Pentagon is tired of blasting cheap drones with its priciest missiles.

• Lockheed (LMT +1.78%) unveiled ACE, a new interceptor that costs around $2M.

The problem: Most affordable options that are cheaper than that are still years from production.

Word on the street is that U.S. weapon stockpiles are dwindling due to the war, so defense companies are boosting production to meet demand.

GLOBAL SCOOP

• STOXX 600 (E.U.): -0.21%
• CSI 300 (CHN): +0.04%
• FTSE 100 (U.K.): -0.21%

*Numbers as of 5:00 PM ET on August 14th

Top Of The (AI) World

China’s Alibaba (BABA +1.35%) is putting pressure on Google (GOOG -0.12%) and Meta (META -0.86%) in the AI race.

Alibaba just topped 3 3 billion downloads of its free Qwen models.

• Developers want free models they can tweak and build on.

Google recently crossed the 1 billion active users mark for its AI, Gemini.

Reminder: Alibaba reports earnings on 8/20 (this week).

Catching Them All

Nintendo's new Pokémon game is selling like crazy, and investors are taking notice.

5 million copies of the Switch 2 have sold since March.

• Nintendo shares rose 7% on friday on Japanese exchanges.

The company is not public in the U.S. and is down around 16% overall for the year.

Investors are hoping Pokémon kicks off a big comeback story for the brand.

ECONOMY

• US10YEAR: 4.68% (-0.00%)
• GOLD: $4,460 (+0.53%)
• BRENT CRUDE: $88.76 (+0.35%)

*Numbers as of 4:00 PM ET on August 14th

Slip 'N Slide

That’s a fun summer activity - but not so fun for the U.S. dollar…

The dollar just dropped to its weakest point since May, as Americans are starting to spend less money.

• The dollar index fell 0.4% Friday.

Breakdown. Less spending gives the Fed less reason to raise rates, undercutting the dollar.

EV Prices Turn Up

After months of discounts, new electric cars got pricier again.

The average EV price hit $56,126 in July, up 1.6% from last year.

Why? The $7,500 tax credit expired, and automakers are pulling back on deals.

• And with pump prices rising, used EVs have also gone up in price this year.

REAL ESTATE

• 30-year: 6.71%
• 15-year: 6.29%

Flippers Lose Confidence

Investors who buy and flip single-family homes are feeling worse about the market than ever.

Only 26% think conditions are better than a year ago, down from 35% last quarter.

• 45% actually think the market has gotten worse.

For regular buyers and renters, that means fewer flipped homes and less inventory, which could keep prices and rents high.

Upside Down

The housing market just turned a corner, and it's now leaning in the buyer's favor.

• High prices and mortgage rates pushed 967,000 buyers to the sidelines in July.

Sellers now outnumber buyers by 51%, giving shoppers the upper hand in negotiations.

Places seeing the biggest price drops: Miami and Houston.

CRYPTO

• BTC: $63,135 (+0.48%)
• ETH: $1,891 (+0.95%)
• XRP: $1.00 (+0.72%)

*Numbers as of 4:00 PM ET on August 14th

Stablecoin Bank

A Trump-linked crypto firm just got a conditional U.S. bank charter.

What does that mean? It’s one of the final steps a company needs to take if it wants to become a national bank.

• An entity tied to Trump and his family owns 38% of it.

The charter would let it issue stable coins itself, and could allow it to earn more from crypto.

Crypto Wallet Leak

Crypto wallet makers SafePal and Trezor both leaked costumer records this week.

• That's 53,487 records with names, home addresses, and order details.

How? The crypto code is safe on the blockchain, but companies holding addresses and other personal information can still get hacked.

Related: A crypto cold wallet was hacked after a data breach a week or so ago - with the user losing millions.

BRIEF BREAK

Fired By Robots

It’s not just your real boss watching the clock - your AI boss is watching it, too.

An AI manager just fired a real person for showing up late to work.

What we want to know: How do you fire an AI worker?