Good morning. US stock futures dipped in Tuesday morning trading as investors await key inflation data due later in the week.

"Human likes and dislikes will wreck any investment program"

Gerald Loeb

Top News

Time to rethink those subsidies…

WHAT: Well, well, well, it looks like it’s subsidy snipping time in the US! Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the US should think about eliminating corporate subsidies, including to energy companies. President Joe Biden’s budget proposal for fiscal 2024 calls for boosting revenue by eliminating $31 billion in tax preferences and subsidies for oil and gas companies.

WHY: The proposal, which has run into big challenges in a divided Congress, came after repeated White House criticism of ”Big Oil” for raking in record profits at a time of high consumer energy costs due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year.

Google, regulators square off in biggest antitrust case in decades

WHAT: Get ready for the ultimate showdown ladies and gentlemen! Google, the internet search titan is about to face federal regulators in what will be the biggest US antitrust trial in a quarter century. Over the next 10 weeks, federal lawyers and state attorneys will try to prove Google hijacked the search market by locking its search engine as the default choice on a number of platforms and devices.

WHY: The Justice Department filed its lawsuit against Google nearly three years ago during the Trump administration, charging that the company has used its internet search dominance to gain an unfair advantage against competitors.

Stock market upside to remain muted for the rest of the year Goldman says

WHAT: Goldman Sachs is delivering some not-so-favorable news to the investing crowd. In a note to investors, the investment bank warned that a US “soft landing” had already been “priced-in” by the market and going forward, investors should expect limited market upside. “Because the soft landing has mostly been reflected in equity prices, we expect little upside to the S&P 500 through year end” the investment bank said.

WHY: Last month, all three major averages ended in the red, with the S&P and Nasdaq breaking what had been a five-month win streak.

In Other News

Nike under fire over worker compensation

WHAT: Nike’s got a “fan club” of investors with a demand as big as its swoosh! In a letter sent to company CEO John Donahoe, the group of more than a dozen investors called on Nike to pay garment workers in Cambodia and Thailand that a labor rights group said lost wages after Covid-19 factory shutdowns.

WHY: In March, activist shareholder platform Tulipshare filed a proposal calling for more information from Nike on how it tracks risks of forced labor and wage theft in its supply chain.

Media giants reach deal over carriage dispute

WHAT: Disney and Charter have kissed and made up just in time for the return of Monday Night Football! The companies announced they had reached a deal to end their historic carriage dispute, with Disney offering to provide Disney+ Basic and ESPN+ as part of the deal to Charter customers at no additional cost.

WHY: The blackout impacted a slew of high profile sporting events including the US Open and arrived on the heels of the NFL’s debut, upping the pressure for both sides to make a deal.

Another day, another OpenAI lawsuit…

WHAT: Some US authors, including Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon aren’t too happy with what OpenAI has been up to recently. In a lawsuit filed in San Francisco, they’re accusing the company of misusing their writing to train its popular artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT. The authors claim that OpenAI copied their works without their permission.

WHY: The lawsuit is at least the third proposed copyright-infringement class action filed by authors against the Microsoft-backed company. Companies including Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Stability AI, have also been sued by copyright owners over the use of their work in AI training.

Key Economic Events

• Tuesday - No Major Economic News

• Wednesday - US Inflation Rate Y-o-Y

• Thursday - Initial Jobless Claims (wk end Sep 8)

• Friday - Baker Hughes Total Rig Count

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