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An “everything rally” in markets greets the start of a two-day Federal Reserve meeting, with stocks at record highs, bond yields subsiding and a two-month low dollar taking the heat ahead of what is widely expected to be the first U.S. interest rate cut of the year. A quarter point Fed rate cut on Wednesday is fully priced. But the spotlight is as much on the central bank’s institutional standing as on the policy call itself, after a pair of developments underscored the White Houses growing sway over the Fed. Meanwhile, gold set a new record high, and China’s offshore yuan hit its highest level of the year after positive signs from the U.S.-China trade talks in Madrid. The Senate’s narrow confirmation of Stephen Miran to the Fed’s Board hands President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser a policy vote just as the FOMC convenes, while a U.S. appeals court ruling means Governor Lisa Cook can attend unless the Supreme Court intervenes. Together with Trump’s public call for a ‘bigger’ cut and his stated intent to replace Chair Jerome Powell when his term ends next May, the moves highlight the degree of political pressure now bearing down on the central bank. Ahead of a 20-year bond auction later today, long-term Treasury yields hover close to four-month lows. Big Tech led Wall Street gains on Monday, with Tesla shares climbing 3.6% after regulatory filings revealed CEO Elon Musk had acquired nearly $1 billion worth of the electric vehicle maker’s stock last week and Alphabet hit a record high to race past $3 trillion in market capitalization. Nvidia underperformed after China’s market regulator said it will continue an investigation into the AI chip leader after early findings showed it had violated the country’s anti-monopoly law. Although the S&P500’s year-to-date gains of 12% are still only half of that of the MSCI world index excluding U.S. stocks, funds tracking the ‘Magnificent Seven’ megacaps are now up 16% for 2025. S&P futures were higher again ahead of Tuesday’s open. China’s offshore yuan hit 2025 highs even though its ebullient stock benchmarks stalled on Tuesday after U.S. and Chinese officials said they reached a framework agreement to switch short-video app TikTok to U.S.-controlled ownership – a move expected to be confirmed in a Friday call between U.S. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Madrid talks encouraged hopes of another extension of the trade truce beyond the world’s two biggest economies beyond November. Elsewhere, data showed the British jobs market and wage growth softened ahead of this week’s Bank of England meeting and German investor morale unexpectedly strengthened in ZEW’s September update. In today’s column, I discuss how euro zone credit markets are converging, erasing the old ‘core-periphery’ divide and reshaping the bloc’s borrowing dynamics. Today’s Market Minute U.S. President Donald Trump sued the New York Times, four of its reporters, and publisher Penguin Random House for at least $15 billion on Monday, claiming defamation and libel, and citing reputational damage, a Florida court filing showed. U.S. and Chinese officials said on Monday they have reached a framework agreement to switch short-video app TikTok to U.S.-controlled ownership that will be confirmed in a Friday call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. U.S. companies should be allowed to report earnings every six months instead of on a quarterly basis, Trump said on Monday, announcing what could prove to be a major shift for corporate America. The U.S. labor market appears to be deteriorating rapidly just as the country’s housing market is also creaking, two negative forces that risk feeding off each other and smothering economic growth. Read the latest from ROI markets columnist Jamie McGeever. While U.S. corporate taxes and interest rates fell over the past 40 years, the federal deficit soared. Does that mean the federal government is now justified in taking a slice of corporate profits and is this the tax hike the United States needs? Find out in Robinhood Markets Chief Investment Officer Stephanie Guilds latest piece for ROI. Chart of the day In the increasingly polarized world of American politics, there is bipartisan agreement that Americans are less tolerant of opposing views than they were 20 years ago, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos survey. Today’s events to watch U.S. August import/export prices (8:30 AM EDT), August retail sales (8:30 AM EDT), August industrial production (9:15 AM EDT), September NAHB housing index (10:00 AM EDT), August business/retail inventories (10:00 AM EDT); Canada August housing starts (8:15 AM EDT), Canada Aug consumer prices (0830) U.S. Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee starts two-day meeting on interest rates, decision on Wednesday U.S. President Donald Trump visits Britain US Treasury sells $13 billion of 20-year bonds Want to receive the Morning Bid in your inbox every weekday morning? Sign up for the newsletter here. You can find ROI on the Reuters website, and you can follow us on LinkedIn and X. (The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters) Mike Dolan, Reuters
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E-Commerce
Meditation app maker Calm is no stranger to helping people sleepusers have played its bedtime stories more than 1 billion times in the decade theyve been available. But with the new Calm Sleep app, its helping people build habits that will help them sleep better overall. The CDC reports that as of 2022, more than a third of American adults arent getting the recommended seven hours of sleep a night. That lack of sleep seems to be coming to a head, with a 2024 survey from Sleepopolis showing that 92.6% of American adults want to improve the quality of their sleep, and that more than half of those surveyed said they planned to purchase a sleep product in the next year. When you see all this put together, we just felt it was really important to have more of an end-to-end experience going forward in sleep, says David Ko, CEO of Calm. The new Calm Sleep builds on demand for existing tools within Calm while helping users adjust their lifestyles to improve their sleep quality. [Photo: Courtesy of Calm] The big business of sleep Sleep has been a growing market for nearly a decade, and its not slowing down. 2025 has seen big funding rounds for companies that make devices focused on measuring or optimizing sleep quality. Health tracker Oura raised $200 million in December 2024, and smart mattress maker Eight Sleep raked in $100 million in August. Calmwhich was last valued at $2 billion when it completed a series C funding in late 2020thinks it has an opportunity to turn its already strong position in sleep, built by its meditation app, into a distinct product. So many devices out there either help you get to sleep, like Calm today, or they tell you how you slept, but they don’t give you the checks and balances you need to prep throughout the day, says Ko. What does Calm Sleep do? For $69.99 a year (or $19.99 per year on top of an existing Calm subscription), Calm Sleep personalizes sleep plans for users based on answers to a questionnaire about their habits. The result is a list of assignments like Leave your phone in another room for 30 minutes, Skip the caffeine after 12 p.m., and Take two minutes to reflect on how today feltthat will fill a readiness bar leading up to a desired bedtime of the users choosing. When its full, users are ready for a high-quality night of sleep, the company says. [Photo: Courtesy of Calm] Beyond the app Calm is supporting the Calm Sleep launch with various products that will roll out by the end of the year. Starting October 1, the Tempo by Hilton New York Times Square will feature hotel rooms designed for optimal sleep, including upgraded mattresses, cooling pillows, blackout shades, and Calm Sleep content built into the rooms TVs. Its also planning a collaboration with Ozlo Sleepbuds blending Calms Sleep Stories with the earbuds sleep detection technology, and will sell a line of of bedding at Target in December. The hotel stay and Sleepbuds will come with a free year of Calm Sleep, while each product purchased from Target comes with a free month of the app. [Photo: Courtesy of Calm] The broad approach to supporting the Calm Sleep launch, Ko says, is designed to highlight the company as more than its mainstay meditation app (which has been downloaded 180 million times), and a partner for its users health. This launch is just the beginning, Ko says. We are continuing to invest in your consumer health journey, and sleep is such an integral part of that.
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E-Commerce
Here’s a mash-up you didn’t see coming: It turns out that LimeWire was the mystery buyer of the Fyre Festivals brand assets back in July, when it spent $245,300 to acquire the failed music festival’s trademarks, intellectual property, and social media off eBay. But branding doesn’t really follow mathematical logic: Does the combination of two failed but infamous brands equal a net positive? LimeWire’s betting on it. Fyre Fest’s new owner believes it can take the meme value of the failed festival to power something new that audiences will still find familiar. (Besides, it’s LimeWire. It can’t be too scared about Twitter dunks.) A test case for two wrongs making a right Anyway, neither company has had much success on its own. LimeWire is the Y2K-era peer-to-feer file-sharing service that in the early aughts offered internet users access to free, illegally downloadable music, all from the comfort of their home computers alongside competitors like Napster and Kazaa. LimeWire shut down in 2010, but Austrian brothers Julian and Paul Zehetmayr bought up the assets and relaunched it as an NFT platform in 2022. And the 2017 Fyre Fest was, of course, a flop. Billed artists like Blink-182 pulled out, and after festival organizers suffered severe logistical failures they stranded attendees on an island in the Bahamas eating cheese sandwiches out of Styrofoam containers. Never mind that those attendees spent thousands of dollars to attend. Accommodations included disaster relief tents. And founder Billy McFarland’s plans for a Fyre Fest II never got off the ground. But what Fyre Fest did do wellif by accidentwas establish real brand recognition by becoming something of a schadenfreude content factory, inspiring a pair of documentaries on both Netflix and Hulu. Ryan Reynolds also referenced it in a 2019 ad for his brand Aviation Gin, in which he detailed just how far he was willing to go for his company. “He gets it,” Fyre festival investor Andy King said in the ad. The name “Fyre Fest” itself has become a cautionary tale and pop cultural shorthand for hubris and failure. Reynolds and his production company Maximum Effort bid on Fyre Fest as well, though LimeWire outbid them. Maximum Effort then got in touch after the auction, Julian Zehetmayr tells Fast Company, and the two entities have already collaborated. Most immediately, the Fyre Fest brand appears briefly in a new ad Reynolds narrates for Visa that reimagines the company’s famous “It’s everywhere you want to be” slogan. Zehetmayr says they have other plans for the brand name, though he declines to share specifics. “Congrats to LimeWire for their winning bid for Fyre Fest,” Reynolds said in a statement. “I look forward to attending their first event but will be bringing my own palette of water.” LimeWire, Fyre Fest, and the trick to reviving zombie brands Zehetmayr says he learned from his experience with LimeWire what not to do when buying up a “zombie brand,” or a failed brand that’s worth something only because it’s well-known. (Napster and Enron, which have been repurposed by new buyers, offer additional examples.) The most important thing is sticking to what people know the brand name for. “One thing that we’ve learned with buying brands is that obviously you can’t go too far from the original concept,” Zehetmayr says. After the Zehetmayrs bought LimeWire, they turned it into an NFT platform. But in 2024 LimeWire added decentralized file sharing, once again making the site a file-sharing platform. This time, however, it’s for legal and encrypted files. Julian Zehetmayr says he and his brother are being intentional with the Fyre Fest brand, and “not trying to rush ourselves too much,” but they plan to make an announcement as soon as early next year about what they plan to do with it. Zehetmayr says they’re not bringing back the festivalor the cheese sandwichesbut they are bringing back the brand and meme through experiences. “We’ve got quite a few concepts,” he adds. The value of the Fyre Fest brand, he says, is in the attention that it gets, but one thing he says they won’t do is take it too seriously. “I think we’ll do the whole thing with a lot of self-awareness and humor, so we’re not pretending that we are buying a premium brand,” he says. He also sees the LimeWire and Fyre Fest brands as complementary. “The brands kind of match,” Zehetmayr says. “Both very infamous and chaotic, both obviously very music and entertainment focused as well.” They also hit different age groups. While millennials might all know LimeWire, Fyre Fest “kind of also bridges the gap,” he says, for everyone under 28 who’s too young to remember the file-sharing era. Like buying restaurantsor even a gin brand or sports team, for that matterbuying up zombie brands can require a gentle touch. Stray too far from what the brand’s known for and you lose the power of the name ID that you bought in the first place. As Zehetmayr says: Stick to the core that the brand represents.
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E-Commerce
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