The most watched show on streaming is once again the Australian animated TV series about a blue heeler puppy, which has racked up 25.1 billion viewing minutes this year. Surprisingly, the only prestige TV show to crack the top 10 was “Squid Game.” Five of the 10 most watched shows are over 20 years old, four are cartoons, and 7 out of 10 are ABC, CBS, Fox, or NBC originals. This has us wondering: is the friend who’s hyping up “The Bear” really spending most of their time binging “The Big Bang Theory”? 

On Tuesday, chipmakers got a lift from the ability to send AI processors to China once more, but that was only enough to stave off a much bigger decline for the S&P 500 in a session where the lion’s share of constituents posted losses. The benchmark US stock index gave back 0.4%, while the Nasdaq 100 eked out a 0.1% gain and the Russell 2000 tumbled 2%.

It’s a small loss for the ages: the number of stocks in the S&P 500 that fell outnumbered those that rose by 404. Based on data going back to 1997, the index has never had a loss this small during a session when that many of its constituents declined. Check out the red dot that represents July 15 on this chart!

The 15-year-old Chinese designer toy company Pop Mart has catapulted into the global spotlight, with shoppers lining up for hours to snag its signature Labubu doll — a pointy-eared, mischievous figure with a toothy grin that’s become a collector’s obsession and has been seen dangling from celebrities’ handbags.

The company attributed its massive bottom-line growth not only to rising brand recognition but also to “constant product costs optimization” and “strengthened expense control.” 

Its signature blind boxes — sealed packages with random toys inside — have built a loyal, thrill-seeking fan base, driving resale hype through unboxing videos across social media. Anyone familiar with the thrill of chasing that rare Pokemon, or even modern video games, where chance rewards from loot boxes have become commonplace, will recognize the playbook instantly. The buying and opening itself is part of the fun. 

More and more people are leaning into crypto. But for Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency by market cap, there’s a crucial missing piece on the path to mass adoption.

Bitcoin Depot is already ahead of the curve. As the largest Bitcoin ATM operator on the planet, the company’s 8,500+ machines are up and running across the U.S., Canada, and Australia — and they’re expanding fast.

As mainstream crypto adoption takes hold, Bitcoin Depot is a strategic opportunity for investors, too. With 2024 revenue at $573.7M, Q1 2025 revenue is already up 19% YoY.¹ And as an access point for crypto usage and adoption, Bitcoin Depot historically generates revenue regardless of Bitcoin’s price swings.²

If you’re looking for a crypto-focused investment not directly tied to a coin, Bitcoin Depot could be for you. Learn more about investing in BTM stock.³

After surveying 40 large enterprise decision-makers about Microsoft, Jefferies has raised its price target on the tech giant to $600 from $550. The reason? 

Faster adoption of M365 Copilot versus OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Jefferies’ note contradicts a report last month by Bloomberg that said Microsoft’s sales team was having trouble convincing companies to use Copilot over ChatGPT, which it said many employees prefer.

Of course, the people making the decisions have different incentives than the employees at large, including the consideration of Microsoft’s long-standing and deep existing relationships with its client companies.

As anyone who has messed around with AI casually can attest, there’s stuff that the machine learning models are amazing at, stuff that they’re terrible at, and a whole lot in between. Pair programming and assisting a human coder just seems to be one of those things that AI is really, really solid at. It turns out that if you train a computer on millions of forum threads and Stack Exchange posts, it actually gets pretty good at whipping up half-decent code. Whoever wins that will be an instant gold standard in the AI business, and Microsoft may have the edge here. 

If you asked random people on the street — even those with almost no interest in the stock market — what the most important and successful stock in the US has been lately, Markets Editor Luke Kawa bets you’d get one answer that would stand head and shoulders above the rest. Yet, when the iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF rebalanced its portfolio near the end of May, that popular megacap stock was excluded from the ETF for the first time since Q1 2023.

See if you guessed right and why it’s gone.