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Good morning,
The New York Times Kristin Hannah, a bestselling author and Forbes 50 Over 50 honoree, has many admirers, including Bill Gates.
Hannah’s Book Women“The War in Vietnam,” a fictionalized account of military nurses serving in Vietnam, is the best-selling book of 2024 so far, with 829,115 copies sold in print, according to data from Circana Bookscan. It’s also the only fiction book on Gates’ summer reading list, with the billionaire Microsoft co-founder calling it “a beautifully written tribute to a group of veterans who deserve more recognition for the incredible sacrifices they made.”
However, in a world where you can instantly download anything to your Kindle, Overall print book sales fell by about 2 million copies. From this time last year.
Firstly
A statue of a brave girl holding an American flag hangs on the New York Stock Exchange building on Independence Day in New York, USA on July 4, 2024.
Beata Zaurzel/NourPhoto via Getty Images
The unemployment rate hit its highest level since November 2021, according to The June jobs report was released by the Labor Department on Friday morning, a fact that may have made workers nervous but was welcomed. Investors hope the Fed will cut interest rates.. The unemployment rate was 4.1%, higher than the consensus estimate but still within a normal range, and the economy added more jobs than expected, at 206,000.
Following the jobs report, the benchmark S&P 500 and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed at record highs, led by Big tech stocks, which benefit greatly from low interest rates. Because of their reliance on debt financing and discretionary spending, shares of five of the six U.S. companies valued at more than $1 trillion — Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta — rose 1.2% or more on Friday to hit new record valuations.
more: It’s no surprise that Nvidia has been the best performing stock in the S&P 500 during the first half of 2024, but there have been There were perhaps several less predictable winners as the index rose to a record high.: Energy providers Vistra, Constellation Energy, and NRG Energy. The utilities sector is typically seen as an underperformer during macroeconomic times like today, but the companies have signaled demand for their services among power-hungry AI data centers. Meanwhile, companies like Walgreens, Lululemon, and Intel have watched the historic stock market rally from the sidelines.
Business + Finance
Former US defense contractor Douglas Edelman and his French wife Delphine Le Dain have been indicted in a decades-long scheme to defraud the United States and Evading taxes on more than $350 million in incomeThe case is the largest brought by the J-5 group, which brings together tax authorities from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States to fight crime globally by sharing resources.
In an exclusive excerpt from Madoff: The Last WordRuth Madoff, wife of Ponzi king Bernie Madoff, has been portrayed as a liar. She was trained as an accountant, The account that held the $68 billion fraud over decades has been regularly reconciled.But Ruthie Box and her sons were never charged with anything, and Bernie and Ruth insisted vehemently that she knew nothing about anything.
Wealth + Entrepreneurship
Return on equity is net income divided by shareholders’ equity: the typical figure is a percentage in the teens, but many companies can boast much higher numbers. There was a time when a good return on equity was considered a sign of management skill. Our advice is Monitor it and use it to compare the company to its peers., But be aware of the limitations of the scale.
Technology + Innovation
Samsung shares hit a three-year high on Friday after it forecast a 15-fold increase in second-quarter profit, beating analysts’ expectations. The South Korean tech giant didn’t release more information, but the impressive outlook remains intact. Most likely due to strong performance in its semiconductor unit. And the ongoing boom in artificial intelligence.
Money + Politics
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos on July 5, 2024 in Madison, Wisconsin.
News letters
President Joe Biden continues to reject growing calls to withdraw from the presidential race, He intensified his election campaign on the basis of his assertion that he is not old.Even after his disastrous debate performance last month, Biden admitted in an interview with ABC News over the weekend that the debate was a “bad episode.” Meanwhile, a growing list of billionaire Biden supporters, as well as Donald Trump critics, have urged the president to abandon his bid, including IAC chairman Barry Diller, Netflix’s Reed Hastings, Walmart heiress Christy Walton, and cryptocurrency investor Michael Novogratz.
On the other side of the ocean, the UK’s Labour Party won a widely expected victory in last week’s general election, a result seen as The beginning of a new era in British politics After 14 years of conservative rule, turnout in France’s high-stakes parliamentary elections rose sharply as the left and center thwarted the far-right National Rally’s efforts to seize power in the National Assembly.
Science + Healthcare
New research suggests that GLP-1 drugs like Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro may also have side effects like protecting against cancer. When prescribed to treat type 2 diabetes, the drugs have been linked to ‘Significant reduction in risk’ for 10 different types of cancercompared to insulin.
Travel + Lifestyle
Boeing has pleaded guilty to fraud in a deal with the Justice Department that allowed the planemaker to To avoid facing trial in a federal criminal case related to fatal accidents. In 2018 and 2019. In a court filing late Sunday, Boeing agreed to pay an additional $243.6 million in fines — the same penalty the company paid as part of a 2021 settlement it was later accused of violating.
Directions + Explanations
Federal Court Ruled against the FTC and issued a temporary ban on non-compete agreements.But despite the wide-ranging follow-up, the decision only applies to plaintiffs involved in the first legal challenge to the FTC’s ban on anticompetitive practices, which began in April. Judge Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas has indicated that her court intends to rule on the matter by Aug. 30.
Daily Cover Story
Why Are Inflation-Stricken Argentines Turning to Cryptocurrencies?
Illustration by Alex Castro for Forbes
top line Inflation has become as much a part of Argentine identity in recent years as the country’s famous barbecue, which is accompanied by social events. Indeed, one painful example of the country’s soaring inflation, which has reached a cumulative rate of 276% over the past 12 months, is that Argentines’ diets are changing. Demand for beef, the country’s staple food, is falling, as Argentines turn to less expensive proteins such as pork and chicken. And with prices rising, which some forecasters predict could rise as much as 600% this year, beef steaks are out of the question.
But while Argentines, who tend to eat twice as much beef per capita as hamburger-mad Americans, are now turning to food alternatives, They were looking for ways to exchange the peso, which had been steadily weakening for decades.In fact, Argentines have been using black market establishments, locally called “cuevas” (caves) or “arbolitos” (little trees), to buy dollars for at least fifty years.
But now there’s a new way to get dollars: cryptocurrencies. In fact, Argentina’s adoption of cryptocurrencies is higher as a percentage of its global population than any other country in the Western Hemisphere. Of the 130 million visitors to the world’s 55 largest exchanges—a measure of usage—2.5 million came from Argentina, accounting for 1.3% of the total. Forbes A study conducted with analytics firm SimilarWeb found the data.
Argentines aren’t playing the meme coin lottery or trying to get rich with the next token. Instead, they typically buy Tether (USDT), a synthetic dollar with a market cap of $112 billion, and hold onto it. “Argentina is an anomaly market where so many people buy Tether that they don’t have room for anything else,” said Maximiliano Heinze, head of Latin America for crypto exchange BitGate. “You don’t see this anywhere else. Argentines buy spot Tether and don’t do anything with it.”
But while stablecoins like Tether might seem like a perfect way out of Argentina’s inflation problems, They come with their own set of risks.The state has not set any rules to control this wild industry, and the stock exchanges and markets are considered the most reliable in the world (according to the ranking of Forbes) are not the most commonly used options among Argentines.
Facts + Comments
Netflix and streaming services from NBC, Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery have all increased their number of paid subscribers in the U.S. so far this year, As the streaming wars intensify and more customers cut traditional cable,Netflix is the fastest growing streaming service ever this year:
2.6 million: Number of subscribers Netflix added from the end of December to the end of May
90 million: Number of paid subscribers for Starz, Apple TV+, Hulu, and Disney+ combined at the end of May, losing subscribers this year
$635 billion: How much is the subscription economy expected to be worth by 2025?
Strategy + Success
It is no secret that financial literacy in the United States lacks knowledge, It has a major emotional impact. How people of all ages handle their moneyNot necessarily excitement or uncertainty, but shyness.If you’re feeling self-conscious about your finances, it can be helpful to (literally) talk to someone. A financial therapist can help you uncover any psychological causes, and from there, financial coaches and advisors are resources to fill in any knowledge gaps on a one-time or ongoing basis.
video
a test
Despite all the volatility, the market cap of all cryptocurrencies rose by $661 billion in the first six months of 2024, according to CoinGecko. Bitcoin accounted for the vast majority of those gains, but the dominant cryptocurrency was outpaced by several “meme coins.” Which of the following symbols? did not Will Bitcoin Outperform Bitcoin in the First Half?
A. Dog
B. Floki
A.A.;Slkdjev
Dr. Baby
Check your answer.
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Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Sarah Whitmer.