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☕️ GM Munchers! In a wild change of events, I was the moody one this weekend and not my wife. I sulked, I sighed loudly, I did the whole routine. She just handed me a coffee and let me marinate, which was annoyingly mature of her.

On today’s menu:

• 🛢️ Trump Just Made The Biggest Oil Deal In History

• 💸 PayPal’s Buyout Dream Just Died

• 📉 The Fed Crashed Bitcoin’s Party

• 📦️ Amazon, The Gap & Draftkings

• 🍎 Tim Cook’s Final Day At Apple

Friday’s numbers:

BREAKING NEWS

🛢️ Trump Just Made The Biggest Oil Deal In History

Uncle Sam went shopping for oil, and he came home with a lot of it. Trump announced Friday that the U.S. secured majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil reserves, calling it "the biggest oil deal in world history." The deal gives the U.S. an effective 55% share of Venezuela’s output plus the right to buy that oil at cost, all at no direct cost to taxpayers.

This is excellent news for stocks, your portfolio and especially the Fed. More oil supply generally means cheaper energy and that takes pressure off both gas prices and inflation. If this helps inflation finally drop, we may see fewer rate hikes and who knows, maybe even some cuts down the road.

What’s the catch? Timing. Venezuela's oil infrastructure is wrecked after years of neglect, the crude is heavy and hard to refine, and it'll take around $100 billion in investment before these barrels actually flow, so this is a multi-year story, not an overnight fix.

• 🛢️ The catalyst: The U.S. secured 55% of output from 17 Venezuelan oil fields holding over 65 billion barrels, more than doubling U.S. reserves.

• 📊 The numbers: WTI crude closed near $83.40 Friday, and U.S. proven reserves sit around 46 billion barrels, so this deal is genuinely massive by comparison.

• 🇨🇦 The risk: Cheaper oil down the road could seriously sting Canada, where oil and gas make up roughly 5% of GDP and the Canadian dollar closely tracks oil prices.

The Munch Take: Great for U.S. stocks and inflation eventually, rough for Canada, and years away from actually mattering, which is the most on-brand oil headline you could ask for. Once markets open today, we expect to see a rally on this good news. However, this headline hasn’t lowered the odds of a September rate hike which currently sits at 48%. So like my wife’s mood, this could go either way.

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STOCK OF THE DAY

💸 PayPal's Buyout Dream Just Died

PayPal $PYPL got taken to the woodshed on Friday. The stock cratered 12.71% to close below $54 after Stripe and Advent International walked away from their $53 billion takeover bid, which had valued PayPal at $60.50 a share. The entire rally that carried this stock up roughly 30% since July was built on that buyout hope, and on Friday that hope evaporated in a single headline.

Here's what makes this different from a normal bad day. This drop had almost nothing to do with PayPal's actual business, which is doing fine. Q2 total payment volume hit $486.4 billion, up 10%, and the company even raised its full-year adjusted earnings outlook to around $5.38 a share. The problem is simpler than that. The only reason the stock ran was the takeover, and with the buyers gone, the reason to own it went with them.

📈 The Bull Case:

• The core business is genuinely healthy, with payment volume up 10% and guidance raised.

• A future bid isn't impossible, since the buyers could circle back if conditions shift.

📉 The Bear Case:

• The catalyst is dead, and analysts are cutting targets, with Mizuho at $51 and Loop Capital at $50, both below Friday's close.

• The five-year chart is still a wreck, down about 81%, so "cheap" here has been a trap before.

The Munch Take: Do not buy this one. The trade was the bid, and the bid is dead, which means you'd be buying a stock that just lost the only thing holding it up. My wife once kept a coupon for a store that closed down two years ago, insisting it might still be worth something someday. That coupon and this stock have a lot in common right now. Cheap is not a catalyst, and a falling knife does not care how good the payment volume looks. Sit this one out.

MARKET OVERVIEW

🍿 Tasty Movers & Shakers

💰️ Bonus Alert: Confused by Options? Start Here Instead. (Via Base Camp Trading)

📦 $AMZN Amazon rose 3.97% after Evercore ISI lifted its price target, betting that new AI shopping tools could give retail sales a real lift. When analysts start pricing in AI as a sales driver, the stock tends to follow.

👖 $GAP Gap popped 12.80% after tapping Michael Francis to run Old Navy starting in November. Investors clearly liked the idea of fresh leadership at the company's biggest brand.

🎰 $DKNG DraftKings gained 4.29% and Flutter climbed 7.13% after a court ruling knocked prediction markets like Kalshi, easing a real competitive threat to the traditional sportsbooks. One legal win took a rival off the board and both stocks celebrated.

🔐 $RBRK Rubrik sank 13.05% even after posting 38% revenue growth and raising its full-year outlook. Sometimes strong numbers still aren't enough when the stock was already priced for perfection.

💻 $MRVL Marvell tumbled 10.28% after its fiscal 2028 outlook came up short of the sky-high hopes set by its recent Google deal. Big expectations cut both ways, and this time they cut hard.

BIG NEWS

📉 Bitcoin Got Cold Water Thrown On Its Party

Bitcoin was cruising until the new Fed chair grabbed the mic. Right after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh spoke at Jackson Hole on Friday, the odds of interest rates rising next month climbed to 49%. That’s up from 35% just a day earlier. That jump is basically the receipt for why stocks dropped and Bitcoin dumped.

Here's the plain-English version. Warsh went hawkish, meaning he made it clear inflation is still too hot and the Fed has "work to do" before it thinks about cutting rates. Higher rates are bad news for risk assets like Bitcoin, because when safe options like cash and government bonds pay more, investors have less reason to chase riskier bets. Bitcoin heard that message loud and clear and slid fast.

• 🎤 The catalyst: Warsh's hawkish speech pushed Fed rate-hike odds for next month up to 49%, spooking every risk asset at once.

• 📉 The numbers: Bitcoin swung from an overnight high near $81,455 down to about $76,877, closing near $77,557, a drop of roughly 3.4%.

• ⚠️ The risk: Around $481 million in crypto positions got liquidated, mostly bullish bets, and spot Bitcoin ETFs snapped a 9-day inflow streak with about $202 million heading out the door.

The Munch Take: We’re still bullish and like we said last week, if we get a retest of the $70,000 level, we would add to our position. Here’s what nobody is realizing: If you’re a long-term investor, none of this matters because eventually, rates will come down. Could that be in 12 months? 2 years? 3? Maybe. But eventually, it will happen. And when it does, just look at what stocks during the Covid boom. Be patient. These drops are opportunities.

🚀 Pre-Market Fuel

1. 👀 The chart Wall Street hopes you never see (Ad)

2. 🍎 Tim Cook steps down as Apple CEO today.

3. 🇺🇲 The U.S. and Iran just resumed strikes.

4. 🍺 The largest beer heist in history just happened.

5. 🇨🇦 Food inflation is getting bad in Canada.

🍪 Munchy Memes

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