Is bitcoin back?

MARKETS

• The race to a $1 trillion market cap: Well hello, Alphabet, glad you could join the party. After posting beastly earnings, Alphabet's stock shot up 3.9%. With an $870 billion market cap, it's now close behind Apple ($947B) and Amazon ($888B).
• Turkey: The central bank made the surprising decision to not hike the benchmark interest rate. Then, the lira tumbled. It's the bank's first policy decision since Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's reelection as president.

TRADE

Trade Is a Battlefield

We get it—trying to keep track of the ups, downs, and in-betweens of a budding trade war is almost as difficult as ordering from a steakhouse with your WeWork company card. But this is a major week for tariff tussles, so we've got you covered with everything you need to know.

Farmers catch a break

The White House said it'll offer $12 billion in emergency aid to farmers. Why? It has major concerns U.S. agriculture will suffer as trade disputes escalate.

See, China aimed tariffs at farm goods to hit U.S. states that supported Trump in the election...think disgruntled soybean, pork, and chicken farmers in the midwest.

• Xs and Os: Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the emergency aid plan is a "one-time" program that'll give the Trump administration "time to work on long-term trade deals." But, the plan has already received some backlash from lawmakers (including fellow Republicans) who want to see a permanent fix to the trade war.

Harley-Davidson engines sputter

A sales slump is one thing...but a sales slump paired with new tariffs? That makes for a bumpy road ahead at Harley-Davidson.

In its earnings report, Harley (+7.67%) slashed profit guidance for the year....a cut that came "given the expected impact of tariffs in 2018."

• Remember: It's only been a few weeks since Harley announced plans to move some production overseas to counteract the negative impacts of tariffs on its bottom line.

What about automakers?

It's a huge day—Fiat Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford report earnings. Detroit won big with corporate tax cuts last winter...but now, tariffs on auto inputs (like steel and aluminum) could erase those savings, per Bloomberg.

And those tariff costs could pale in comparison to the potential 25% tax on imported autos Trump's considering.

• The U.S. imported $293 billion in vehicles last year...
• ...meaning a $73 billion tax increase if the auto tariff actually happens.

And wouldn't you know, the possibility of that auto tariff could become clearer today, because...

Trump, meet Juncker

The president will meet with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in D.C. today to hash out some trade tensions. Trump's message heading in?

+ On a tariff kick? Here's a tracker from Bloomberg to keep tabs on who's winning and who's losing.

CRYPTO

Bitcoin’s Back in Business

The 2004 Boston Red Sox, Steve Jobs's return to Apple, the New Kids on the Block reunion—everyone loves a good comeback story. Could it be time to add bitcoin to the list?

This week, the biggest cryptocurrency by market value surged above the $8,000 threshold for the first time in two months.

No dog days of summer for bitcoin:

• It clunked to a seven-month low of $5,755 on June 24...
• ...Then managed a 40% rally in the month that followed.

What's driving the optimism? Crypto advocates are expecting a bitcoin ETF to gain SEC approval soon, not to mention major institutions are getting their crypto feet wet.

But don't drive off in that Lambo just yet. Bitcoin is still far off (like, 60% off) its record high near $20,000, set in December 2017.

Plus, the relative strength index (a widely used momentum indicator) jumped above 70.0 Tuesday to its highest level since December. So what does that mean? Bitcoin could be at its most overbought level in seven months—high demand has pushed the price to a point that may not match bitcoin's fundamental value.

TECH

Facebook Is Wiggling Back into China

We were casually going about our Tuesday tradition of combing through Chinese business registration records...when we stumbled on a new entry: "Facebook Technology (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd."

Turns out, Facebook (+1.78%) set up a subsidiary in China and plugged it with $30 million to get it off the ground.

Why it's important: This is a major step forward for a company whose site has been blocked by the Chinese government since 2009.

And what will the subsidiary do? The plan is to incubate startups and train software developers through workshops. You know...classic "innovation hub" stuff (Facebook has similar operations in France, South Korea, India, and Brazil).

Reality check, courtesy of Zuck: When asked about Facebook's situation in China by Recode's Kara Swisher, he replied, "I mean, we're blocked."

+ While you're hanging in Hangzhou...drop in on Alibaba executive chairman Jack Ma. His e-commerce company also calls this coastal city home base.

TRANSPORTATION

Uber Hits 10 Billion Trips, Makes a Cool Video to Celebrate

So...who was the 10 billionth?

• Actually, it was 173 trips and deliveries starting at the same time (10:12 pm GMT on June 10) that put Uber over the top.
• Those trips happened across five continents and 21 countries.
• The shortest trip? A half-mile Uber Eats delivery. And the longest trip was someone heading 41 miles to the Denver airport.

STOCKS

Winners, Losers, and Upsets from the Brew’s Stock Survey

Yesterday, we posed @ReformedBroker's question to Brew readers: "If you could pick one stock to give to somebody as a gift that you couldn't touch for the next 25 years, what would that be?"

Thousands of you responded. Here are the results...

Amazon was the clear No. 1. 28% of you love Bezos’s chances over the next quarter-century.

The runners-up?

• Alphabet (Google)—9%
• Apple—8%
• Berkshire Hathaway—6%
• Tesla—4%

Upset alert: GE received more votes than Netflix (!). Yes, this is the same GE that's shedding $20 billion in assets and just got kicked off the Dow. And yes, this is the same Netflix that was one of the S&P's best-performing stocks in the first half of 2018. Go figure.

• The Netflix pile-on: Despite being briefly passed by Netflix in market cap earlier this year, Disney earned over 3x the votes of its streaming rival.

What else did Brew readers snub? Finance, food & beverage, and retail—in fact, Walmart received fewer votes than "bitcoin."

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Apple (+0.73%) issued an apology (and a fix) for a software bug that slowed down MacBook Pros under heavy workloads.
• Ivanka Trump is closing down her fashion brand. It had 18 employees.
• Verizon (+1.50%) beat quarterly expectations thanks to strong subscriber growth. AT&T (-1.70% after hours) didn't fare as well.
• Ford (+0.96%) is creating a $4 billion self-driving vehicle unit.
• Madison Square Garden (-2.60%) is switching from Coca-Cola to Pepsi across its venues (like Radio City Music Hall) on Sept. 1. Its partnership with Coke lasted over 100 years.
• Lululemon (-1.91%) named Calvin McDonald its new CEO. He'll replace Laurent Potdevin, who was ousted amid allegations of misconduct earlier this year.

BREAKROOM

TECH TIP
If your looking to improve you're grammar, their might be a solution: Google Docs will soon be rolling out an AI grammar checking feature that'll identify mistakes and offer corrections (all using the same machine translation algorithm that powers Google Translate). Look out, Grammarly.

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