The Rundown - Michael Saylor Forced to Sell Bitcoin, Supreme Court Defends Fed Independence

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

Market update for Tuesday June 30, 2026Check out the Public app for incredible investing tools and to support the show (LINK)Follow us on Instagram (@TheRundownDaily) for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode, Zaid covers:Monday’s market bounce as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq snapped five-day losing streaksThe Dow hitting a record high after Alphabet officially joined the indexThe Supreme Court blocking Trump’s attempt to fire Fed Governor Lisa CookDronemaker AeroVironment's blowout earningsWhy Michael Saylor's Strategy is abandoning its "never sell Bitcoin" mantra after the stock cratered 80% from its peakGold’s worst quarter in more than a decade, and whether a second-half comeback is still possible

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in 10 minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Tuesday, June 30th. In today's episode, we'll break down the Supreme Court's ruling on Fed Governor Lisa Cook and what it means for Fed independence. We'll also tell you why Michael Saylor might be forced to sell his Bitcoin. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why gold just had its worst quarter, in 13 years.

We got a great show for you today. Let's go. Stock started the week off on a strong note. The S&P 500 jumped 1.2% while the NASDAQ ripped 2.1%, both indices finally breaking a five-day losing streak. And I guess I have to mention the Dow Jones here because the Dow rose 0.6% yesterday and closed above 52,000 points for the 5,000. first time ever. Now, I'm still a Dow hater, all right, but it did get a makeover yesterday. Verizon

was removed from the index and replaced by Google's parent company, Alphabet, so the Dow became slightly more relevant in my eyes. And by the way, Alphabet made an immediate impact on the index. The stock jumped almost 5% on Monday, which helped push the Dow to a record high. And overall, yesterday was a nice bounceback for tech stocks in general. Amazon, Meta, and Vida, we're all up 1 to 3%, and Tesla had a monster day up 8%. By the way, it wasn't just tech stocks rallying on Monday. Even small cap stocks were up with the Russell 2000 index hitting a record high. The Russell 2000 is now up 21% this year, which is the best first half performance for

the index in over three decades. Now, looking ahead, we're about two weeks away from kicking off earnings season for the second quarter. And the key question for this earning season is whether corporate profits can keep growing like they have the last couple quarters. Now, according to the Wall Street Journal, corporate profit margins hit an all-time record high in the first quarter with net profit margins for the S&P 500,

coming in at 14.8%. And it's not just tech companies patting those numbers, financials, industrials, and multiple sectors are reporting margins above their five-year average. Overall, earnings growth for the S&P 500 came in that nearly 29% in Q1, which is the strongest since the end of 2021. You know, I think it was this strong earnings season that helped reignite the rally in April and May. So will this type of earnings growth continue for Q2 will be the key thing to monitor?

We'll start getting some answers in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, remember, we have a short week this week. Markets are closed on Friday for the 4th of July. So no show from us on Friday and also no deep dive this weekend as well. But we still have a lot to cover this week, including Nike earnings, which drop tonight. We'll cover those on tomorrow's episode. and then the June jobs report on Thursday morning. So we'll be covering that along with everything else happening in the market.

So if you're new here, definitely get subscribed to the podcast and tune in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines. Starting with the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court made a big ruling yesterday that directly impacts the economy, the stock market, and our overall financial system. In a 5-4 decision, the court blocked President Trump from 5'4. Firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, reaffirming the Fed's independence from the White House. Now, quick back story here.

Last August, President Trump tried to fire Lisa Cook from the Fed's board of governors, accusing her of lying on mortgage paperwork back in 2021 before she joined the Fed. Lisa Cook denied wrongdoings. Her lawyers have argued that this was just an inadvertent paperwork issue, and they sued to block the firing, saying that the real reason she was being fired was because President Trump wanted more control over the Fed, and interest rates. And that's why this case became such a big deal.

This was the first time in the Fed's history that a president has tried to remove a sitting governor. And in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court basically said the president cannot just fire a Fed governor on the spot without a meaningful legal scrutiny. Chief Justice John Roberts made it very clear that allowing the president to fire a Fed governors at will would threaten the central bank's independence.

And that was the key issue because Fed independence is basically the foundation of our financial markets. The Federal Reserve sets interest rates and investors want the Fed making those decisions based on inflation, employment, and the economy and not based on what the president wants before an election or what the stock market might do that week.

If investors started to believe the Fed was just taking orders from the White House, that could create a real problem in the bond market. Investors may start demanding higher yields to buy U.S. treasuries and that could increase borrowing costs for everybody. So this ruling by the Supreme Court was a major win for Fed independence. And it was also probably a win for the new Fed chair Kevin Warsh. Remember, Trump picked Kevin Warsh to lead the Fed, but Warsh still needs credibility with the markets. So this ruling could give him more room to operate independently instead of just looking

like someone who's listening to what the White House wants to do. But look, this fight is not over yet. The court did not say that President Trump could never fire Lisa Cook, or any Fed governor for that matter. The court just said that the first attempt to fire Lisa Cook was illegal because Lisa Cook was never given proper due process. The case now goes back to the lower courts, and President Trump is actually taking a victory lap. He posted that this ruling was strictly procedural and vowed to take further action against Lisa Cook. So the door is still open for another attempt to fire her, but the White House would have to give Lisa Cook more explanation of the evidence and a chance to respond. So we'll see what happens down the line, but for now, though, it is a victory for Fed

independence, and I do think the market probably would have freaked out if the Supreme Court had ruled the other way. Because once you let the president fire Fed governors over policy disagreement, I mean, the whole system could start to fail. What's funny is the Supreme Court did give President Trump broader powers to fire officials and other independent agencies like the FTC, but the Fed was a big exception. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of AeroVire. Iron Mint are flying this morning after the drone maker delivered a blowout earnings report. Earnings per share came in at $1.84 cents well above the estimates of $1.46. And revenues more than doubled from a year ago to $642 million, which was also better than expected.

Air environment has benefited from the rising demand for lethal and non-lethal drones and other next-generation defense technologies. The company provides unmanned aircraft systems and tactical missile systems, primarily to organizations within the U.S. Department of Defense and to international allied governments. And the contracts have been stacking up lately. The company's backlog grew to $1.2 billion as of the end of April, which is up 47% from a year earlier. And the current quarter is already off to a solid start. Just after last quarter ended, AeroVirman won a $117 million contract with the U.S. Department of War to supply 82 surveillance drones to the army. As a result, AeroVironman stock is up more than 20% this morning at the time of this recording. But despite the huge rally today, shares are down around 50% from their 52-week high.

Now, on the flip side, shares of strategy are pulling back after a 13% rally on Monday. Strategy, formerly known as Micro Strategy, is basically Michael Saylor's Bitcoin Treasury Company. And for the last few years, the company's strategy was simple. It was to raise money, buy Bitcoin, and never sell that. Bitcoin. Well, Bitcoin is now down 50% from its highs, and that's brought down strategy stock with it. Shares are down more than 80% from their peak. In fact, investors are now valuing strategy at less than the Bitcoin they actually hold. Normally, strategy stock was trading at a huge premium to their Bitcoin valuation, which is what allowed the company to keep issuing shares

and buying more Bitcoin. Well, that advantage is now gone, so management has been forced to make some moves. Strategy announced a turnaround plan yesterday that includes a $2 billion. dollar stock buyback program. And in order to fund the buyback, the company authorized a Bitcoin monetization program, which allows the company to sell up to $1.25 billion of its Bitcoin in certain scenarios. Now, to be fair, this is a tiny fraction of the roughly $51 billion in Bitcoin they hold, but symbolically, it's huge because Michael Saylor's whole identity has been around never selling Bitcoin.

Now that strategy is starting to sell their Bitcoin, I mean, that could put Bitcoin under more selling pressure. Let's wrap the show with the fun fact. Gold is about to wrap up its worst quarter in more than a decade. Gold prices are down roughly 13% on the quarter, which would be its worst drop since 2013. In fact, prices even briefly drop below $4,000 an ounce this morning for the first time since November. There seems to be a vibe shift when it comes to gold. Remember, late last year and early this year, gold essentially became. a meme stock when prices shot up over $5,500 an ounce making record highs back in January. But now the price is down 25% from those levels.

And the biggest reason for the reversal is interest rates. The market seems to be convinced that the Fed is going to raise interest rates this year. In fact, new Fed chair Kevin Warsh made it clear in his press conference a couple of weeks ago that he's willing to raise rates to fight inflation. And higher rates are not good for gold because gold doesn't pay you any yield. The other part of the story is that retail investors kind of got bored from the gold rally as well. Gold ETFs are seeing outflows now and investors have moved on to things like semiconductor stocks and also SpaceX. In fact, according to the Financial Times, a lot of traders literally sold their gold to buy AI stocks and SpaceX shares during the IPO.

But look, there's still some people on Wall Street that are bullish on gold like Goldman Sachs, since that gold will rally this year and could hit $4,900 an ounce by the end of the year. Their argument is that central bankers are still aggressively buying gold to diversify away from the dollar. In fact, according to the World Gold Council survey, a record 45% of central banks said they expect to increase their gold reserves over the next year. So there could be a floor price when it comes to gold, but right now, gold is clearly out of favor when it comes to retail investors. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. Thank you guys so much for listening, watching, and commenting.

Shout out to Mike for all the work behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.