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☕️ GM Munchers! I'm boarding a cruise today, which my wife insists is for "relaxing." As I warned you back at the cottage, relaxing is not a skill I possess, so you'll still be hearing from me between buffet trips.

On today’s menu:

• 📉 Inflation Just Killed The Rate Cut

• 🍟 McDonald's Just Hit A Two-Year Low

• 🍎 The Market Likes Apple’s Flip Phone

• 💵 Trump Promised You $5,000, But There's A Catch

• 👀 Insider Buy Alert

Yesterday’s numbers:

BREAKING NEWS

📉 Inflation Just Killed The Rate Cut

The big number yesterday was PPI, the Producer Price Index, which tracks the prices businesses pay before those costs reach you at the store. It came in at 5.4% year over year, hotter than the 5.3% expected and a jump from 4.8% the month before. In plain terms, inflation is running warm at the wholesale level, and that tends to trickle down into consumer prices with a lag.

The culprit was energy. Diesel fuel alone spiked 24.1% in a single month, driven by the ongoing Iran conflict. That fed straight into oil, with Brent crude surging about 5% to $108 a barrel, its highest level since May. Higher energy costs make inflation stickier, which is exactly what the Fed doesn't want to see right now.

• 🎯 The rate-hike odds jumped: Prediction markets now show roughly a 66% chance the Fed raises rates by a quarter point at its September 15-16 meeting, flipping what was a coin flip just days ago.

• 📊 Friday's CPI is the real decider: Today's Consumer Price Index report matters even more than PPI, since it measures what you actually pay and could cement or cancel the hike.

• ⚡ Volatility clusters before the decision: Expect the biggest swings early next week as the meeting nears, since the closer the odds sit to 50/50, the wilder the reaction when the answer finally lands.

The Munch Take: Here's our honest position, same as always. If this fear crashes stocks, good. We'll treat it as a discount rack. The reality is simple: rates will come down eventually, whether that's next year, the year after, or the one after that. Nobody knows the exact timing, and nobody needs to. Any high-quality company that gets unfairly marked down because of short-term rate panic is exactly what we want to be buying. Most of the volatility hits early next week before the meeting, so keep your shopping list ready and your nerves steady.

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STOCK OF THE DAY

🍟 McDonald's Just Hit A Two-Year Low, And We're Paying Attention

$MCD McDonald's slid to its lowest price in more than two years, and it's now down about 16.5% year to date, badly trailing the S&P 500. For a company most people think of as recession-proof, that's a genuinely rough stretch. So what's eating the Golden Arches?

It comes down to traffic. U.S. foot traffic fell 4.6% in the second quarter, with May being the single worst month. Same-store sales barely budged at 0.8%, a multi-year low versus the fast-food competition. The culprits are familiar: customers are tired of high fast-food prices, lower-income diners are pulling back hard, and weight-loss drugs are quietly nibbling at demand. Even a splashy new drinks lineup aimed at Gen Z hasn't moved the needle. CEO Chris Kempczinski insists "we don't have a strategy problem," blaming execution instead.

• 💰 The valuation is genuinely cheap now: McDonald's trades at its lowest forward P/E in over a decade, meaning you're paying less for its earnings than at almost any point in ten years.

• 👑 The dividend is a fortress: McDonald's has raised its dividend for nearly 50 straight years, a streak that makes it a "Dividend Aristocrat" and rewards patient holders while they wait.

• 🌍 Global is still growing: International sales rose while the U.S. struggled, proving the brand's global machine isn't the problem, just its home market.

The Munch Take: We love this brand. Genuinely, nothing beats a $1 morning coffee, and a world-class business trading at a decade-low valuation with a bulletproof dividend is exactly the kind of setup that gets our attention. Here's our honest read, though: this is closer to a buy than most names we cover, but the traffic bleed needs to actually stop first. September has an investor event where management lays out its turnaround plan. We'd want to see real signs the U.S. business is stabilizing before backing up the truck. Great company on sale, but catch it once it stops falling, not while it's still sliding.

MARKET OVERVIEW

🍿 Tasty Movers & Shakers

💰️ Free Report from Good Morning Alerts: Want exposure to the space boom without SpaceX's price tag? 3 tickers plus entry guidance, free.

🍎 $AAPL Apple climbed 3.56% after finally showing off its long-awaited foldable iPhone Duo. Investors liked the reveal, even if Samsung got there seven years ago.

🚀 $SPCX SpaceX ticked up 0.43% ahead of a planned launch carrying a classified payload for the U.S. Space Force. Government contracts are exactly the kind of steady, high-trust business that keeps this stock grounded.

☁️ $ORCL Oracle fell 5.38% as investors got nervous ahead of its earnings report. Selling before the numbers drop usually says the crowd is bracing for something they won't like.

💻 $INTC Intel dropped 5.57% after Piper Sandler slapped a Neutral rating on it, arguing the stock got ahead of itself after a hot run. Even a good comeback story needs a breather when the price runs too far, too fast.

🧬 $BHVN Biohaven sank 14.76% after the FDA partially halted testing of its experimental epilepsy drug over a possible safety issue. Nothing spooks a biotech faster than regulators hitting pause on the very thing driving the stock.

NEWS OF THE DAY

💵 Trump Promised You $5,000, But There's A Catch

Well, we've officially reached the part of the movie where politicians stop even pretending. At the Republican midterm convention in Dallas on Wednesday night, Trump promised a $5,000 "dividend" to every adult American citizen, but only if Republicans win both the House and the Senate in November. His exact words: "If the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000."

Let's break down why this is a mess. First, the cost. The U.S. has roughly 240 million adult citizens, which puts the price tag around $1.2 trillion. For context, the entire federal deficit in 2025 was about $1.8 trillion. Adding another trillion-plus without cutting spending or raising revenue would blow a fresh hole in the budget and, more importantly for your wallet, likely fuel more inflation. Handing everyone a check sounds great until everyone bids up the same goods with that check, and prices simply rise to swallow it.

• ⚖️ This might actually be illegal: Legal experts pointed out that offering money in exchange for a voting outcome can run afoul of federal vote-buying laws, which carry real prison time.

• 🔁 We've seen this movie before: Trump floated a "DOGE dividend" and a $2,000 "tariff rebate" earlier, and neither one ever actually reached anyone's bank account.

• 💰 Even his own VP walked it back: Within an hour, JD Vance suggested the wealthy wouldn't qualify and floated funding it with tariff revenue, which quietly shrinks the whole promise.

The Munch Take: The odds of this actually happening are slim, and honestly, we're not sure it should. Free money sounds wonderful right up until you remember someone has to print it, and printed money is exactly how you get more inflation, the very thing quietly eating everyone's paycheck already. Dangling a check in front of voters weeks before an election isn't an economic policy. It's a sales pitch. Enjoy the fantasy, but don't spend that $5,000 in your head just yet.

🚀 Pre-Market Fuel

1. ✅ Here’s the stock symbol I promised (Ad)

2. 👀 Insider buy alert!

3. 🤑 This stock has gone absolutely parabolic.

4. 🚀 The 10-year yield is going crazy.

5. 😏 Coinbase CEO just made a wild prediction.

🍪 Munchy Memes

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