August 21, 2026

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Happy Friday. The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest may have been retired, but it’s always a good time to remember the beautiful gems it gave us. Launched in 1983, the contest invited writers to submit the worst possible opening sentence to a novel nobody would ever want to read.

The archives are full of amazingly terrible writing. This one, from Tony Alfieri in Los Angeles, is one of our favorites:

“In a flurry of flame and fur, fangs and wicker, thus ended the world’s first and only hot air baboon ride.”

—Matty Merritt, Sam Klebanov, Molly Liebergall, Dave Lozo, Adam Epstein, Neal Freyman

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

Walmart’s worst sales growth in six years
The GTA 6 leaks
Pat McAfee’s ESPN role growing

Markets

Nasdaq

26,067.17

-1.00%

S&P

7,641.16

-0.87%

Dow

52,759.21

-1.32%

10-Year

4.696%

+4.0 bps

Bitcoin

$72,816.54

+5.48%

SpaceX

$134

-4.05%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: Stocks stepped on a rake yesterday as investors were unmoved by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s attempt to intervene in the bond market crisis (more on that later). Elsewhere, SpaceX sank for the third straight day as ~319 million more shares became eligible for early investors to sell.

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FEELING BLUE

Walmart reports slowest sales growth in 6 years

Niv Bavarsky

Walmart’s same-store sales growth wobbled out of last quarter with the power of the last remaining shopping cart during a Sunday afternoon grocery trip. US sales growth inched up just 2.6%, the company’s slowest growth in almost six years in what was otherwise a positive earnings report. With Walmart often seen as a bellwether for the broader US economy, economists are worrying if consumer spending might finally be starting to dwindle.

In response to the news, the retail giant’s stock dropped over 9% yesterday. Much of the blame was placed on Walmart’s health and wellness business, which suffered from new drug price caps, including on GLP-1s. But, even excluding those losses, sales growth clocked in at 3.4%, just shy of Wall Street’s expected 3.5%. Last year, same-store sales grew 4.6% during the same time.

So what’s going on?

CFO John David Rainey told investors that the consumer environment has softened in the last quarter, pointing to gas prices jumping past $4 a gallon in July.
Average hourly earnings have slowed, consumer sentiment sank this month, and folks’ personal savings rates are at their lowest levels since 2022.
Spring also brought higher-than-usual tax refund checks that have likely dried up.

Some relief might be on the way. Walmart said that it’s investing its tariff refund—a record $2.9 billion—back into lowering prices. Last quarter, the retailer said it eased prices on 11,000 items, an increase from 7,200 products in Q1.

What about the competition? Retail sales across the board were down 0.6% in July compared with June, according to the most recent Census Bureau data. But some areas are doing better than others: Target said its back-to-school sales were up by almost 20% compared with last year, while Home Depot said that sales of items needed for small projects, like painting and gardening, have replaced large-scale remodels.—MM