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☕️ GM Munchers! Iran dropped scary headlines yesterday and the market didn't even flinch. Meanwhile I mentioned a weekend golf trip to my wife and the reaction registered on the Richter scale.

On today’s menu:

• 🛢️ Iran Says It'll Wait Out Trump Until 2029

• 📊 Earnings Season Recap: Great Numbers, One Big Catch

• 👀 Berkshire & eBay Make Headlines

• 🥇 What Are The Odds Gold Hits $5,000 This Year?

Yesterday’s numbers:

BREAKING NEWS

🛢️ Iran Says It'll Wait Out Trump Until 2029

Yesterday’s big story out of the Middle East had some teeth. Iran declared that the country has ruled out any negotiations with the Trump administration and will simply wait out his term until January 2029. The stated strategy? "Neither war nor peace," keeping the Strait of Hormuz, the route for 20% of the world's oil, effectively closed until then unless the US meets a list of demands including $300 billion in compensation.

Sounds terrifying. So why did the market barely blink?

Two reasons. First, consider the source. That "wait until 2029" line came from an advisor, not Iran's actual government. The official foreign minister struck a much softer tone this weekend, saying a deal with Oman to reopen the strait is "very close." When the tough talk comes from an aide and the calm talk comes from the actual negotiator, markets tend to trust the negotiator.

Second, we've seen this movie. Since February, this conflict has cycled through ultimatums, ceasefires, and "deals are close" headlines over and over, and each one dissolved. Traders have learned to tune out the noise. Oil sits around $82, well below its $101 July panic peak.

• 🎭 Is it a bluff? Very possibly. Prediction markets still put the odds of Hormuz traffic returning to normal by December 31st at about 47%, meaning even the betting crowd sees this as a coin flip, not a lock for a multi-year shutdown.

• 📉 The market's verdict: A near-zero reaction yesterday says Wall Street is treating this as posturing, not policy.

The Munch Take: The market didn’t reacted because it’s learning to take every Iran headline with a massive grain of salt and we think that’s the right move. Iran and the US have played negotiation chicken for six months, and hardliner quotes about waiting until 2029 read a lot more like a bargaining posture than a signed-in-blood plan. Nobody actually benefits from oil staying choked off for three years, least of all Iran, whose own economy is getting strangled by it. Could this be real? Sure, and if the strait genuinely stays shut, oil spikes and inflation roars back, which is why that 47% prediction-market number is worth watching. But the smart read is that this is one voice talking tough while the actual negotiators keep quietly working. Watch oil, not the tweets. If crude stays calm, the bluff is holding.

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STORY OF THE DAY

📊 Earnings Season Recap: Great Numbers, One Big Catch

With about 88% of the S&P 500 now reported, earnings season is about to wrap up and we can step back and grade the quarter. The headline verdict: this was one of the best earnings seasons in years. But there's a catch worth understanding before you celebrate.

First, the good news, and it's genuinely good:

• ✅ Almost everyone beat: 86% of companies topped earnings expectations, the highest beat rate since 2021.

• 📈 Fastest growth in years: Earnings grew more than 30% from a year ago, the best pace since Q2 2021.

• 💵 Revenue delivered too: Sales growth is tracking toward its strongest showing since 2021.

• 🤑 Free Bonus: 3 AI stocks to buy before December 2026 (via Oxford Club)

That combination is a big reason the market punched to record highs. Now the catch: a huge chunk of that growth came from a tiny handful of AI giants.

• 🤖 The AI split: AI-related companies grew earnings around 28%, while everyone else managed about 12%.

• 🔍 Remove two names and it shrinks: Strip out just Alphabet and Amazon, and the S&P's earnings-surprise number drops sharply.

• ⚠️ The worry ahead: Wall Street expects AI earnings growth to cool to roughly 16% next quarter. Still solid, but slowing, right as these companies commit over a trillion dollars to future data centers.

The Munch Take: This is the whole market in a nutshell. The results were excellent, but the market's health leans heavily on a few AI titans continuing to knock it out of the park. We saw this play out stock by stock: Apple, Alphabet, and Intel all posted strong numbers and still got punished, because "great" wasn't "spectacular." The encouraging counter-signal was Friday, when blenders, bolts, and printers hit new highs alongside the AI names, a sign the rally is finally broadening beyond the giants. That broadening is exactly what this market needs, because a rally resting on five stocks is one disappointing quarter away from a scare. Earnings season proved the economy is strong. The open question is whether the AI titans can keep clearing an ever-higher bar.

MARKET OVERVIEW

🍿 Tasty Movers & Shakers

🥇 Free Report from Vincere Trading: Still Checking the Brokerage App at 11 PM to See How Bad the Day Was?

💰 $BRK.B Berkshire Hathaway rose 1.46% after quarterly profit more than doubled, helped by fresh investments under new CEO Greg Abel. When the most patient money on Earth starts buying again, it's worth a look.

🛥️ $HZO MarineMax exploded 46.08% after agreeing to a $1.5 billion all-cash buyout from Blackstone's Safe Harbor Marinas. They say the two best days of a boat owner's life are the day they buy it and the day they sell it. For MarineMax shareholders, yesterday just became a third.

🍎 $AAPL Apple slipped 1.53% after a Jefferies downgrade over fears that the long-awaited iPhone redesign might not show up. When the whole growth story leans on one new phone, any doubt about that phone gets punished.

🔧 $INTC Intel fell 4.06% on plans to raise $15 billion by selling new stock. Raising cash is smart, but issuing a pile of new shares waters down everyone who already owns it, and the market noticed.

📦 $EBAY eBay dropped 3.81% on reports that GameStop is thinking about walking away from its takeover bid.

TRADING SUCCESS

🤑 Tuesday Motivation

🚀 Pre-Market Fuel

1. 🥇 What are the odds gold hits $5,000 this year?

2. ❌ Michael Burry doesn’t like this stock.

3. 🤔 Trump recently called Warsh?

🍪 Munchy Memes

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