Morning Brew Daily - Fed Holds Rates Steady… Again & Wall St. Loves Meta's AI Vision

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

Episode 638: Neal and Toby talk about the latest Q2 GDP report that shows the US economy is groovin’ along. Then, the Fed holds rates steady despite President Trump’s pressure to lower interest rates. Also, Meta excites Wall Street with its big promise of assembling a ‘superintelligence’ AI team. Meanwhile,  Build your Range Rover Sport at RangeRover.com/US/Sport  Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note⁠⁠⁠  Watch Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Good morning brew daily. show. I'm Neil Fryman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, markets have kicked off the most consequential three days of the year. So far, so good. Then the surprising substance Brits are rubbing on their windows to stay cool in the summer. It's Thursday, July 31st. Let's ride. Hello there. Happy Thursday. Toby and I are recording this Wednesday evening and not early this morning because Morning Brew is having a disco party to celebrate the company's 10th anniversary, which means that we're going to talk about GDP, the Fed, and earnings, then head to Funky Town to dance with our co-workers in a professional manner. Toby, 10 years of morning brew, do you have a highlight from your time working here?

Yeah, my memory from the early years was how funny I thought the writers were. When I was just a regular reader of the newsletter, I thought you guys were celebs. I wanted to know everything about the process. When did the writers wake up? When do you finish the newsletter? How could you possibly be this on top of everything? And then I got to see behind the scenes. An answer was basically Neil doesn't sleep that much and now we do a podcast and you still don't sleep that much. But yes, very cool to go from a reader of the newsletter to a

writer of it to now a podcast here. But Neil, you've been here the longest of basically everyone at the company. What's a memory you have from the early years? Yeah, I think I've been here eight out of the 10 years. There were just four of us in a we work closet at the beginning. Very similar to what you were saying.

I do remember setting and writing and editing the newsletter from some very odd locations. We were going, for some reason, we went to a Rangers game and Madison Square Garden. I remember opening up my laptop and logging into the Madison Square Garden Wi-Fi to get some latest tidbit from whatever was going on in the business world into the newsletter. It's been an amazing ride. I'm so proud of this company from just, you know, a small newsletter PDF being sent to a couple of college kids now to a massive company over 200 people, podcasts, newsletters, events, you name it. We're a real media company.

it's been so enjoyable to be part of the ride. And now a word from our sponsor, Rangerover. Toby, can you remember a time where you rose to the occasion? Oh, absolutely. In high school, the football team was down 14 points with two minutes to spare. And I got them water. You're a real hero, Toby, just like the Ranger Rover Sport. Each Ranger Rover Sport model offers a dynamic, sophisticated take on sporting luxury.

With dynamic air suspension, you can achieve agility, control, and composure. Take it off road with adaptive. off-road cruise control that monitors ground conditions and acclimates to the present terrain. The adaptive dynamics reduces unwanted body movements to deliver smooth and composed handling. So rise to any occasion and build your Range Rover sport at Range Rover.com slash US slash sport. That's Rangerover.com slash US slash sport. Starting Wednesday, US markets entered a gauntlet so treacherous you'd think it was designed by Mr. Beast. The first hurdle, a GDP data drop. And unlike Neil's fifth grade,

card, it came in far above expectations. U.S. gross domestic product, which is the value of all the goods and services produced across the economy, rose at an inflation-adjusted 3% in the second quarter. That exceeds the 2.3% growth expected by economists and marks a return to growth after a first quarter where GDP actually shrank 0.5%. Added all up and the economy grew at a relatively modest 1.2% annual rate over the first half of the year as it navigated stop-start tariffs, worker deportations in shaky consumer confidence. A peak beneath the economic hood shows that the bounce back mostly came from a big drop in imports

which count against GDP. In Q1, businesses rushed to stock up on inventory to beat tariffs, but as they started to bite in Q2, imports pulled back dramatically, plunging by 30%, which subsequently boosted GDP. The economy also got a hearty tush push from the MVP of every GDP report, consumer spending, despite all the uncertainty swirling, marched upwards to the tune of 1.4%. Neil, this latest quarter began with Liberation Day and tons of uncertainty, but after multiple tariff delays, it seems like those import duties haven't had a massive economic impact so far.

The headline number shows we're not entering a recession, but the more granular data shows that it's not exactly boom times either. It's very hard to get a read on what's happening in the economy right now because this rise and fall, this dramatic rise and fall of imports. due to tariffs is really distorting the picture of what we can see that's happening under the hood. I mean, these things have huge impacts. The amount of the amount of imports has a huge impact on that headline GDP number. The fallen imports added 5.2 percentage points to the rate of change in GDP during this quarter. And then last quarter, 4.7, it provided a 4.7 percentage

point drag. So those are massive swings that are resulting from the upswing and down swing of imports. That it's really hard to get a sense of what's going on underneath everything. Yeah, the Wall Street Journal's editorial board called this the weirdest GDP report ever. Because again, that top line growth number looks really good. And of course, Trump in the White House seized on it. He said in a social media post way better than expected. He also renewed his call for drone Powell to lower interest rates. But if you dive into the details a little bit, there is a little bit of some concern under the surface. I mean, business investment also cooled because of all this trade uncertainty and these policies that have created uncertainty for businesses

trying to plan ahead. That has cooled down some of these big business investments that you do want to see in the signs of a healthy economy. And then just outside the GDP report to Procter & Gamble, which makes a wide variety of consumers' goods, says that it plans to raise prices on products in the U.S. because of tariffs. So even though you've got that big, shiny number up top, cracks simmering beneath the surface. And as economists, we're still pouring over the GDP report. The Federal Reserve released its latest interest rate decision. And just like a conservative blackjack player, the central bank waved off the dealer and decided to stay on 17. It's the fifth straight meeting the Fed has declined to lower rates, despite immense pressure from the White House

to bring them down. Chair Jerome Powell, who's been catching heat from Trump, explained why the central bank continues to stay the course inflation. It's still higher than the Fed's target. of 2%, and an economy-juicing rate cut would risk sending inflation higher, especially with tariffs putting upward pressure on prices. At the same time, the labor market is chugging along fine, creating no urgency to cut rates. And so the Fed remains in a state of suspension like an object in jello until the economy makes a clear break one way or the other. However, the decision to keep rates at current levels was not unanimous, exposing some possible drama within the central bank. The Fed has a 12-member committee that decides interest rate policy, and two of those

governors dissented, arguing for a quarter-point rate cut. It was the first time since 1993 that more than one governor voted against a Fed policy choice, and the two who dissented have something in common. Michelle Bowman and Christopher Waller were appointed by Trump. Some analysts said the dissents were noteworthy. Others said it wasn't so out of the ordinary for disagreements to emerge during uncertain and complex times for the Fed. All in all, it was another tried to say as little as possible about what the Fed will do next kind of date for Jerome Powell as all eyes turned to the next meeting in September. Yeah, Bloomberg's Joe Wisenthal tweeted out that that was one of the least anticipated Fed decisions in a long time and it lived up to the hype.

Not a lot of mystery was involved in this decision. It was all but certain that Jerome would keep rates where they're at. The only thing that people were potentially looking at was would we get a hint or a whisper of a rate cut at their next meeting? But Powell stayed very away from dropping any of those hits. We got zero indication, not even a nudge or nod otherwise. Right now, if you look at kind of what the market is pricing a Fed rate cut at in December, it's about 45%, just a September rate cut of at 45% just a few days prior. I was at 63%. So it has ticked downwards a little bit, but this particular meeting didn't really yield anything spicy or salacious. Right. And just as a reminder, the Fed has two jobs and two jobs only.

Keep inflation at its 2% target and get the labor market to full employment. But it's concerned that by focusing on one of those jobs, it'll fail at the other. It could lower rates to boost jobs as Trump wants. But that's a recipe for inflation. It could keep rates high, which helps combat inflation. But that could lead to more unemployment because the job market isn't breaking down right now. It's okay with where things are. And that's why you had Jerome Powell talk about the September meeting and saying,

we have made no decisions about September. We don't do that. in advance, which is frustrating for those of us who want to, you know, know the path of what the Fed is thinking, but he's just saying the wait and C mode continues. Yeah, and one thing that could kind of rest them from the wait and C mode, though, is that on 12.01 a.m. on Friday, August 1st trade deadline is coming. So that is when tariff rates could change drastically for a lot of people around the world and a lot of countries around the world. So that could complicate the Fed's calculus a little bit going forward. Scott Bissan,

has called on the Fed to, quote, show a little bit of imagination. He said that don't look at maybe rising inflation as something that is coming from tariffs, actually look at it because the dollars depreciated over the course of the year. So he's saying, like, hey, get on board with this. The economy is humming narrative and start cutting rates a little bit. So August 1st deadline is looming. That September rate cut meeting is looming. So even though this last meeting was literally like watching paint dry a little bit, I do think there's some fireworks coming down the pipeline. So after the GDP came and went, and after watching Paint Try, I mean watching the Fed meeting, the day was not over because we still had meta earnings coming down the pipeline. And it looks like we saved the most explosive news for last because now we know why Zuck has been handing out MBA contracts to AI researchers.

It's kind of dominating. A massive earnings beat set the stock up 10% in after hours trading with meta reporting $47.5 billion in revenue compared to expectations of $44 billion. its 10th straight earnings beat. As an appetizer earlier in the day, Zuck published a video and essay laying out his vision for the future of super intelligent AI. His main message was that we're closer

than you'd think, saying meta has seen glimpses of the AI system improving itself. The focus on its super intelligence ambition comes as no surprise. After the creation of meta superintelligence labs last month, the new very expensive unit of the company that will aim to develop these

smarter than human technologies. As part of that effort, Meta has embarked on the mother of all hiring sprees, attempting to poach top researchers from around the industry with pay packages that were rumored to reach into the billions of dollars. It's also spring in the real world with plans to more than double its spend on AI infrastructure like data centers and servers in the second half of the year. Neil, what else is there to say about meta at this point? It's spending money, but it's also making money, and now its stock is up over 760% from its 22 lows. brings in $46.5 billion per quarter just in its advertising business. It had $18, over $18 billion in net income or profits from April to June last quarter. That's why Zuck has a lot of leeway and money to spend on 50 people, essentially, 50 All-Stars creating who knows? It's super intelligence

no one can exactly define it. And Zuck still hasn't identified a particular use case or purpose for it. but investors are just going along with it. They think that unlike metaverse, that meta named itself after in this big pushback in 2022, that is completely flopped, the AI revolution is real and they're rewarding him for scooping up all the top talent. But most of all, it's because they have this huge piggy bank to play with because of their so lucrative ad business that they can hand out all this money to top talent. He did lay out some of his vision for what he thinks super intelligence means specifically to meta and how it differs from other companies. He wants to introduce personal superintelligence to the world where he says a lot of the rivals are focused on Automating valuable work away from people that monetization strategy also relies very heavily on this idea that

Glasses are going to be the next primary computing devices Remember they are very bullish on this form factor of wearing a computer on your face that can listen and see everything you're seeing Throughout the day it's been kind of selling like hotcakes too because the company that makes RayBans and Oakleys that Meta has partnered with, said revenue from sales of Venice Raybans more than tripled year over year. So it wants to use the specific form factor to personalize your super intelligence instead of replace white-collar workers. So that was generally the thesis that Zuck was laying out. Now, if they achieve superintelligence, that's still up in the air, but that's kind of how they plan to monetize it. Meta wasn't the only big tech company to report earnings. Yesterday afternoon,

Microsoft had another blowout quarter. Shares jumped 7% in after hour. trading because its cloud business is absolutely ripping right now. It joined Navidia in the $4 trillion market cap club. So Microsoft is another one of those AI giants doing really well. And then we got some more coming today. Apple and Amazon will report after the bell. And you know, Meta and Microsoft have set a very high bar here. Yeah, with Microsoft up 7% after hours and meta up 10% after hours, the two companies added $440 billion in market cap between them. So you could say we are so back because clearly investors are pretty bullish on the direction of those two companies. And I'm pretty bullish on this next segment, which is Neal's Numbers.

Welcome to Neal's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats from the week's news that will surprise, delight, and even titillate. For my first number, India has become the number one exporter of smartphones to the U.S. topping China for the very first time. According to Canales, India accounted for 44 percent of U.S. smartphone imports last quarter, up from 13% the year before. China, meanwhile, accounted for just 25% of U.S. smartphone shipments last quarter compared to 61% in the same period in 2024. Even Vietnam, with a 30% share, sent more smartphones to the U.S. than China. The changing leaderboard is due to the actions of one single company, Apple. Tim Cook has been shifting more production to India to hedge against higher tariffs and geopolitical

tensions between the U.S. and China. Samsung and Motorola have also, been moving U.S.-bound smartphone manufacturing to India, but not to the extent that Apple has. In the next few years, Apple wants to make about one quarter of all iPhones in the country. And that strategy has led to a smartphone production boom in India. The total volume of smartphones made there was up 240% from a year earlier. Yeah, it's definitely mostly an Apple story, but a lot of global manufacturers are trying to shift their production to India, specifically their last mile assembly, which is kind of just the finishing touches because the tariffs are lower there. The one thing to watch, though, are yield rates,

because yield rates are an indicator of manufacturing efficiency. Yields are lower if your factory isn't as good. And right now, yields are much lower in India, in Vietnam compared to China. So, yes, a lot of companies are trying to make this rush and do their production in India. But it won't be lasting unless they can get up to the quality levels of Chinese factories. And meanwhile, India is not immune from tariffs. Just yesterday morning, President Trump said that India will pay a 25% tariff beginning on August 1st, plus an unspecified penalty for buying military equipment and energy from Russia. So while it may not be a tariff rate that's as high as China, India is being tariffed at 25%. What was interesting about the China deal that the two countries cut a few months ago was that smartphones were exempt. from those super high tariffs.

We'll see now that Apple is such a vast presence in India, whether smartphones and other electronic equipment will be exempt from these 25% Indian tariffs. My next number is good news if you play sacks in a wedding band, because getting hitched is cool again. According to Brad Wilcox, sociology professor at the University of Virginia, marriage as a social institution is showing new strength after decades of declines starting in the 1960s. I promised you numbers, here are the numbers.

The rate of new marriages among prime age adults, that's people 25 to 55, has increased in each of the three years since 2020, with the marriage rate in 2023, the most recent data we have available, higher than in any year since 2008. Meanwhile, the divorce rate has fallen by nearly 40% since the early 1980s, with half of that decline occurring in the past 15 years. If these trends hold, it marked a significant reversal from the marriage-shunning American culture of the past half century. In 1960, the share of prime age adults who were married was 83%. That fell to 57% by 2010, according to the census. And the share of children who were born to unmarried parents spiked from 5% to 41% over the same time frame. Economists say Americans embracing Uptown Funk and Shout is good for society overall. Melissa Carney of the University of Maryland, Go Terps, said, quote, evidence is clear, even if the punchline is uncomfortable,

children are more likely to thrive behaviorally and academically and ultimately in the labor market and adult life if they grow up with the advantages of a two-parent home. Yeah, they are more likely to graduate from college. They are less likely to be incarcerated. And just in general, married men and women from ages 25 to 55 are twice as likely to be very happy with their life compared to their non-married peers. That's according to a general social survey from 2024. Married people live longer.

They are more financially secure. they end up building more wealth than single people. And part of the reason for maybe the shift in marriage is that marriage is different from what it once was when it comes specifically to domestic responsibilities. Husbands are chipping in a lot more than they used to. Back in 1965, they were spending about two and a half hours a week on child care. Now that's up to nine and a half hour or nine hours in 2024. So you are seeing dads pitch in more.

Now, again, the time spent on child care by dads rose from 25% of what moms provided to 62% so still only 62% of what moms were providing but trending upward. So you are seeing a, it's almost a narrative violation that marriage for a long time was declining. Divorce rates were climbing. Those have settled down and now more people are getting hitched again. For my final number, what if I told you there was a way to lower your house temperature by up to 6 degrees Fahrenheit during a heat wave and it costs as little as a cup of yogurt

from the supermarket? Well, there is because the method is literally spreading yogurt on your windows. Dr. Ben Roberts, a researcher of healthy buildings in the UK, says an experiment he ran showed that slathering yogurt to the outside of windows lowers the average temperature of a house by one degree Fahrenheit and as much as six degrees on hot and sunny days. He wants to make people aware of this cheap and simple cooling solution as the UK endures its third heat wave of the summer, which has had an outsized impact because few homes in the country have air conditioning. So why does yogurt cool your house? Well, Roberts says that yogurt establishes a thin film on the window and reflects incoming solar radiation with its light color, blocking the sun's heat rays from entering your house. Yogur also has a number of other advantages.

It only smells for about 30 seconds when drying, then dissipates. It doesn't attract insects. It's easy to apply, and all you need is a cloth and water to clean it up once the heat wave is over. The yogurt concept wasn't dreamed up by Roberts. It's the brainchild of British engineer Tom Greenhill, who's been on a crusade for years to get people to apply yogurt to their windows, while acknowledging it's a, quote,

totally eccentric idea. He doesn't see any downsides. Listen, until I try this myself and actually smell the smell, I can't trust the fact that it dissipates after 30 seconds. What do you mean? Hot, sunny yogurt doesn't stink up your house,

but I do feel like they stop short of an actually great experiment because the yogurt they used in this study had a fat percentage of about 10%. I want to see do different fat contents lead to great. or heating or cooling properties. Does the brand matter if I toss Gogh Gogart on there?

Would it work? What about if you introduce flavors into the mix? Maybe you'll get a little bit of strawberry essence in the air. So just a very bizarre study top to bottom, but apparently it works. I do think it's just easier to buy shades and actually cover your window with something meant to cover your window,

but apparently it's pretty inexpensive to do this method. All right, Neil, thank you for those numbers. Let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. If you've had a Celsius recently, You may have gotten more of a buzz than you bargain for. High noon, the alcoholic seltzer announced a recall yesterday after accidentally mislabeling some of its canned cocktails as Celsius energy drinks.

The recall was initiated after high noon discovered that a packaging supplier that the two brands share mistakenly shipped empty Celsius cans to a high noon facility. And apparently no one caught it before those alcohol-filled imposter cans were shipped out to Florida, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Neil, can you imagine crack and open to Celsius at 6 a.m. before one of our shows and getting a PUI instead. That's podcasting under the influence. I mean, it may have happened. I got to tell you, Celsius is quite potent that I'm not sure I would be able to tell the difference between Celsius if I was drinking an alcoholic beverage.

The company said that consumption of the liquid in these cans will result in unintentional alcohol ingestion. And yeah, we've all been there. Up next. Apologies if I get a little too much. drool on the mic for this next story, but you'll excuse my salivating once you hear what it is. Hershey's and Mondalez are teaming up to bring together two iconic products and two iconic flavors. Allow me to introduce you to Reese's Oreo Cups and Oreo Reese's cookies. Yes, some mad food scientists have cooked up a Frankenstein's monster of chocolate and peanut

butter perfection. Rees filled Oreos and Oreos filled Rees are set to hit stores this fall after both companies saw the DIY combos their customers were chefing up themselves. Company leaders are especially bullish on Gen Z taking a particular liking to this flavor combo, given their penchant for taking risks on more complex flavors and loving brand mashups. Neil, what if the best way to turn around flagging sales at snack companies has just been to smush Reese's between two Oreo cookies? Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. It's so simple. And apparently these two companies have been getting called and messaged and commented on their Instagram saying, please mash these up. We are begging you since at least 2014. People are literally

picking up the phone and calling Oreo headquarters saying you got to put some Reese's in there and they are responding to this. And it's very odd, very unusual in the food space for rivals to team up like this. This is like Coke and Pepsi saying we're going to release a drink together because Mandela has tried to buy Hershey last year. Hershey said, no, thank you. But now that they're coming to the table, I think shows you sort of what dire. straights the food industry is in with RFK Jr. bearing down in people's taste going away from these more indulgent snacks, but perhaps we all like a sweet treat now and then. Which sweet treat do you have your eye on? There's the Reese's Oreo Cup or the Oreo Recy's cookie. The Reese's Oreo Cup has a

little bit of the, you know, white vanilla flavoring of the Oreo on top of it while the Oreo Reese's cookie is literally just peanut butter between. Just give me that. Yeah, that one sounds a lot better. The other ones in the Reese's packaging, it doesn't look quite good because it has almost a white chocolate look to it. I don't really like white chocolate. So I agree. The Oreo Reese Reese's cookie. That's the one. Finally, the naked gun reboot comes out tomorrow and it's being hailed as one of the best comedies in years. With a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes, the Liam Neeson-led spoof will hit theaters as one of the best reviewed comedies since 2020, providing much-needed laughter to a comedy-starved public. One of the most talked about trends in Hollywood has been the

of the blockbuster comedy. As Lit Hub notes, there hasn't been a genuine comedy commercial hit since Bridesmaids came out 14 summers ago. And that came after an epic run starting around 2000 that included 21 Jump Street, Anchorman, Super Bad, Meet the Parents, The Hangover, 40-year-old Virgin, I Could Go On for hours. Toby, is comedy legal again? I think it is, because if you flip on the Netflix as well, what's the number one movie in America right now, it's happy Gilmore, too. And it's actually not just the number one movie on Netflix. It's the best three-day debut of a Netflix film ever. It had 46 million viewers.

So I do think there has been a little bit of a vibe chip. I mean, these are just two movies, and Naked Good hasn't even come out yet and performed at the box office. But comedy suddenly has some sale in its wings. Apparently, Liam Easton is hilarious. He's also dating Pamela Anderson now. The two met filming this movie,

so it's got a nice PR cycle around it as well. I'm going to have to brush up on the original Naked Guns to watch this because I feel like, if Happy Gilmore 2 had a lot of callbacks to the original, I feel like this is going to have even more callbacks to that original trilogy. And as we're talking about these two movies, one is apparently funny and the other was absolutely terrible as you watched Sunday night and you'd probably want your two hours back.

It's very interesting charting the decline of the comedy blockbuster. Like why aren't studios making big comedies anymore? And I did some research in there. A few theories. One is that as the global box office becomes more important to studios, that American humor just doesn't totally translate overseas. So they're relying more on stuff that everyone around the globe can appreciate. And then comedies were huge for home video sales, for DVDs.

They could bring in $100 million in DVD sales as those became less important. Studios decided to lean less on comedies. And then the lack of franchising or IP opportunities. I mean, that's what you want with a new movie, with a comedy. I mean, there is Happy Gilmore, too, and there have been however many hangovers. but they're not so easily franchisable. So if you're looking to understand why there's been such a decline in comedies, those are maybe some hypotheses,

but it looks like, you know, comedy is coming back, just a tad. Maybe Gen Z just doesn't have a sense of humor. I don't even want to think about what Gen Alpha's sense of humor. Skippy Toil, I don't even want to get down there. They're too busy staring. Yeah. Okay, that is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Thursday.

If you have any thoughts or feedback on today's show, send a note to Morningbrewdaily at MorningBrew.com. but make sure it's friendly. We have thin skin. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Lute is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake. Lonnie Fiscus is our technical director. Hair and makeup is trying the yogurt experiment. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew.

Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow.