This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is all about how Walmart is transforming ordinary store visits into VIP experiences for World Cup tourists. Don’t worry, the World Cup is over this coming weekend, then we can talk about…baseball…or something. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers. (Don’t worry if you get a bounceback email. The mailbox is working, it’s just been inundated with haikus lately, thank goodness!)

And now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Table of Contents

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▲ 0.38% )   $DJI ( ▲ 0.02% )   $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$JPM ( ▲ 2.5% )   $GS ( ▲ 9.0% )   $BAC ( ▲ 1.88% )   $WFC ( ▼ 2.72% )   $DEO ( ▼ 1.89% )   $BF.A ( ▼ 3.6% )   $TFC ( 0.0% )   $MS ( ▲ 2.98% )   $BX ( ▲ 2.07% )

Big Banks Smash Earnings Records

How do you survive a global landscape of sticky inflation, war, and basic human struggle? Simple: Become a Wall Street megabank.

While you were weeping at the pump or desperately trying to figure out if you could afford both gas and groceries, JPMorgan Chase $JPM ( ▲ 2.5% ) , Goldman Sachs $GS ( ▲ 9.0% ) , Bank of America  $BAC ( ▲ 1.88% ) , and Wells Fargo $WFC ( ▼ 2.72% ) casually swept up a cool $43 billion in record collective second-quarter profits. As the old adage goes, "in a world of uncertainty, one reliable rule is that Wall Street will find a way to make money.”

Take JPMorgan Chase, which dragged in a modest $21 billion. CEO Jamie Dimon wants you to know it’s because the U.S. economy "demonstrated notable resiliency this year, with stronger business investment and hiring." Of course, he also warned of "risks shifting below the surface like tectonic plates.”

Over at Bank of America, quarterly profits hit an easy $9 billion. CEO Brian Moynihan attributed the run to a "healthy economic backdrop" and his "resilient" consumer clients — namely, us, the consumers who keep paying higher interest rates for longer.

Meanwhile, Wells Fargo pocketed over $6 billion. CEO Charlie Scharf acknowledged "concerns" about affordability and inflation, but comforted us by noting that times are just too good to fail. "We know that such favorable conditions do not go on forever, so we are being selective about how much and where to grow," Scharf said, sounding almost melancholic.

Finally, Goldman Sachs pulled in $6.6 billion, riding a wave of investment banking fees and hot financing deals for AI companies.

Wall Street wins again. And we helped!

Quote of the Day

Boomers, Not Gen Z, are Cutting Back Most on Booze

For years, the media has painted Gen Z as a saintly congregation of kale-munching, mocktail-sipping ascetics, while labeling Baby Boomers as the generation of unbridled, wine-filled indulgence. Well, put down your artisanal kombucha, because the data has arrived to turn that worldview upside down.

According to new research from IWSR, the market researcher for the global beverage industry, it turns out Boomers are actually the ones ghosting the local pub (probably because it’s so loud down there, and their hearing is going?) the Financial Times reports. 71 percent of Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) consumed alcohol in the past six months — the lowest drinking rate of any generation. Meanwhile, a whopping 74 percent of legal-age Gen Zers were busy raising their glasses, a number that has actually risen from 66 percent three years ago. And good for you, kids.

As IWSR president Marten Lodewijks bluntly put it, “The narrative that Gen Z is the generation of moderation is now conclusively debunked.” 

While young people in their twenties are enthusiastically catching up with the rest of the drinking population, Boomers are apparently going cold turkey. The study found that Boomers drank the absolute fewest drinks on the fewest occasions, averaging a microscopic 2.6 drinks per “session.” That’s weak, guys. It’s weak! Get another round!

This devastating drop in senior-citizen partying has sent global alcohol giants like Diageo  $DEO ( ▼ 1.89% ) , Pernod Ricard, and Brown-Forman $BF.A ( ▼ 3.6% ) into a flat-out panic. They spent years designing fancy non-alcoholic botanical spirits for hipsters, only to realize they should have been marketing chamomile tea to their grandparents.

Lodewijks noted that while drinking less in your sixties and seventies is typical, the rate of this latest drop is unprecedented. “If this trend continues, it may actually be the Boomers, not Gen Z, who deserve the title ‘generation of moderation’,” he said.

Congrats, meanwhile, to Gen Z, who it turns out are fun after all. Let us know how much you’re drinking in today’s poll below.