🚀 Figma Files IPO

Good afternoon! Nearly five years after its massive fraud scandal and Nasdaq delisting, Luckin Coffee is back - this time in the U.S. The Chinese chain opened two stores in NYC, offering $1.99 drinks on day one and aiming to undercut Starbucks with cheaper, faster coffee.

Luckin’s not alone. Cotti Coffee and tea brand Chagee, both China-based, are also expanding into the U.S. Whether low-cost drinks can win over American consumers remains to be seen but the battle for your caffeine fix is heating up.

MARKETS

• A New Quarter, A New Playbook: Markets opened Q3 with a clear rotation out of tech and into value. The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% despite most stocks rising, as smaller names couldn’t offset declines in index giants.

• The Nasdaq dropped nearly 1% with Tesla sliding 5% amid renewed Musk-Trump tension. Meanwhile, the Dow ticked higher as investors digested Trump’s budget bill and Powell’s latest signals.

STOCKS
Winners & Losers

What’s up 📈

• Wolfspeed exploded 98.09% after the chipmaker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, surprising traders with the rally. ($WOLF)

• Bloomin’ Brands jumped 12.31% as investors bought the dip following a six-day losing streak. ($BLMN)

• Array Technologies climbed 12.54%, Sunrun soared 10.51%, and SolarEdge popped 7.16% after the Senate dropped the excise tax on clean energy projects. ($ARRY, $RUN, $SEDG)

• Las Vegas Sands gained 8.89%, Wynn Resorts rose 8.85%, and MGM Resorts added 7.27 after Macau’s June gaming revenue jumped 19%. ($LVS, $WYNN, $MGM)

• Kontoor Brands rallied 6.7% after Goldman Sachs added it to its conviction list, highlighting the Helly Hansen acquisition. ($KTB)

• Hyatt Hotels rose nearly 4.11% after Raymond James upgraded the stock to strong buy following its Playa-owned real estate divestiture. ($H)

• Ford popped 4.61% after reporting a 14% increase in quarterly vehicle sales. ($F)

• Hasbro rose 4.29% following a Goldman Sachs upgrade, driven by optimism around Magic: The Gathering. ($HAS)

What’s down 📉

• AeroVironment dropped 11.42% after announcing a $750M stock offering and $600M in convertible senior notes. ($AVAV)

• Progress Software sank 13.03% after reporting mixed Q2 results, missing slightly on revenue. ($PRGS)

• AMC Entertainment tumbled 9.03% following the announcement of a new debt restructuring plan. ($AMC)

• GE Vernova slid 4.37% after reports surfaced about a potential sale of its Proficy industrial software business. ($GEV)

• Joby Aviation dropped 7.01% as traders took profits after Monday’s big pop. ($JOBY)

• Tesla lost 5.34% after Trump called for a review of subsidies going to Elon Musk’s companies. ($TSLA)

• Insulet fell 4.52%, Dexcom dropped 4.25%, and Beta Bionics sank 4.26% after proposed Medicare reimbursement changes hit diabetes tech stocks. ($PODD, $DXCM) Tandem Diabetes declined 7.51%. ($TNDM)

NEWS
Figma Files for NYSE IPO After Rapid Growth and Adobe Deal Collapse

Design darling Figma just filed for a US IPO, putting one of 2025’s most anticipated public listings in motion. The San Francisco-based firm dropped its S-1 Tuesday, revealing $749 million in 2024 revenue — up 48% from the year prior — and a profitable Q1 this year with $44.9 million in net income on $228 million in sales. Not too shabby for a company that nearly got scooped up by Adobe for $20 billion before antitrust red tape shredded the deal.

Figma's listing plans come amid a resurgent IPO window and a market with a design for risk. The NYSE debut will trade under the ticker FIG, with Morgan Stanley, Goldman, JPMorgan, and Allen & Co. leading the charge. No pricing or share count yet, but IPO watchers estimate it could raise as much as $1.5 billion — potentially topping CoreWeave’s 2025 lead.

Clean Lines, Strong Margins: Figma isn’t just growing — it’s efficient. The company pulled a 91% gross margin last year, has no material debt, and managed to bounce back from a one-time $732 million loss tied to employee stock grants. That includes 10.5 million options handed out at $8.50 apiece. CEO Dylan Field even cashed out $20 million in a 2024 tender offer but still controls about 75% of voting power thanks to a mountain of super-voting shares.

Still, Figma’s future isn’t sketched in pen. The S-1 flagged competition from AI-native design apps and admitted the race to stay relevant in generative tools is heating up. Even with 13 million monthly users and backing from Sequoia, Greylock, and Kleiner Perkins, Field told investors, “Our goal is not efficiency. Our goal is to achieve long-term growth.”

Zooming Out: Wall Street has been hungry for high-growth, profitable tech — and Figma fits that moodboard. But unlike the 2021 IPO frenzy, investors today want cash flow with their curve gradients. Figma’s return to profitability, expanding platform, and well-known brand could help it become the stock-market poster child for post-pandemic SaaS.

Bottom line: Figma’s not just launching an IPO. It’s laying down the blueprint for what modern software exits might look like in the AI era.

NEWS
Market Movements

• 🧘 Lululemon sues Costco over $8 yoga dupes: Lululemon ($LULU) filed a lawsuit against Costco ($COST), alleging it copied designs and damaged its brand by selling $8 versions of its $118 apparel. With sales growth stalling and competition rising, LULU is cracking down on knockoffs to defend its premium turf.

• 🚨 Trump Threatens Musk Subsidies: Tesla dropped 5.3% after Trump threatened to slash federal subsidies for Elon Musk’s companies, accusing him of benefiting from massive government support. Musk responded by calling for allsubsidies to be cut ($TSLA).

• 📉 Powell: Tariffs Blocked a Rate Cut: Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank would’ve already cut rates this year if not for inflationary pressure from Trump’s tariffs. The Fed remains in wait-and-see mode, with markets pricing in no cut at July’s meeting ($^IRX).

• 🕵️ Apple Sues Former Vision Pro Engineer: Apple filed suit against ex-employee Di Liu, alleging he stole trade secrets before joining Snap. The company claims Liu downloaded confidential files about Vision Pro and used his access after resigning without disclosing his new employer ($AAPL).

• 🎰 Macau casino stocks jump on 19% revenue surge: Macau’s gaming revenue rose to $2.6B in June, up 19% YoY and well above the 9.4% consensus forecast. Tourism and concerts like those by Jacky Cheung helped drive the boom. Casino stocks including Wynn Resorts ($WYNN), Las Vegas Sands ($LVS), and Melco ($MLCO) surged more than 6%.

• 🤖 AI stocks fall after Senate scraps preemption clause: The Senate voted overwhelmingly to remove a GOP budget amendment that would’ve blocked states from regulating AI. The reversal rattled AI software and data center names including Meta ($META), Palantir ($PLTR), Cloudflare ($NET), Nvidia ($NVDA), AMD ($AMD), and Broadcom ($AVGO).

• 🚘 EV credits in jeopardy as Lucid and Rivian fall: Lucid ($LCID) and Rivian ($RIVN) dropped after reports that Senate Republicans may gut key EV subsidies, ending the $7,500 tax credit on September 30. Rivian’s upcoming R2 SUV might miss out entirely. The Trump-Musk feud likely dashes hopes of policy reversals.

• 🍺 Modelo parent slips on earnings and weak outlook: Constellation Brands missed on EPS and lowered full-year guidance, citing tariff headwinds and changing consumer tastes. Modelo remains a strong seller, but sales fell 6% YoY, and shares of Constellation are now down ~25% YTD ($STZ).

• ✈️ Boeing replaces CFO amid executive overhaul: Boeing CFO Brian West will step down, with former Lockheed Martin exec Jesus Malave set to take over in August as part of broader leadership changes ($BA).

• 🤖 Amazon tops 1 million warehouse robots: Amazon announced it has deployed over 1 million robots in its warehouses, approaching parity with its human workforce amid automation expansion ($AMZN).

• 🌌 Netflix to stream NASA missions: Netflix will broadcast NASA rocket launches and spacewalks globally starting this summer, marking a new push into live space coverage ($NFLX).

• 💰 Musk’s xAI raises $10B for expansion: Elon Musk’s xAI secured $5B in debt and $5B in equity to grow its Grok chatbot and infrastructure, escalating its rivalry with other AI firms ($TSLA).

AI
Cloudflare Launches Pay-per-Crawl to Let Sites Charge AI for Scraping

Cloudflare is flipping the script on AI’s data diet. The internet infrastructure giant, responsible for routing around 20% of global web traffic, just launched Pay per Crawl, a new marketplace that lets website owners charge AI bots a micropayment every time they scrape content. Think of it as a toll road for data-hungry algorithms.

Rather than block AI crawlers entirely or let them run wild, publishers can now set their own prices. Want OpenAI to train on your articles? That’ll be $0.002 per crawl. Or nothing. Or no access at all. It's your call. The tool gives publishers a dashboard to see who’s crawling, why, and how often, and a way to cash in on it.

Search Is Dying, Scrapers Are Thriving: This launch isn’t happening in a vacuum. Publishers are losing traffic and ad revenue as users turn to AI summaries over old-school Google links. Cloudflare found that for every single referral to a site, OpenAI scraped it 1,700 times, and Anthropic scraped it 73,000 times. In other words, AI companies are lifting content thousands of times but sending back barely any traffic in return.

By default, all new websites hosted by Cloudflare will now block AI bots unless given permission. Big names like The Atlantic, TIME, and Condé Nast are already on board. While Pay per Crawl is still in beta, Cloudflare is betting it’ll become a central nervous system for monetizing web content in the AI era.

Investors aren’t quite sure what to make of it yet. Cloudflare stock dropped 5.56% today, possibly on concerns about pushback from AI firms or the scale of adoption. But the company is still up 64.34% year to date, a sign that Wall Street sees potential in being the middleman of the AI economy.

Web Crawlers Explained: AI crawlers are bots that roam the internet to vacuum up articles, images, and data to train large language models like ChatGPT or Claude. Historically, bots scraped for search indexing. But now they’re feeding AIs that paraphrase your work without ever linking back. That’s why publishers are pushing back.

Cloudflare’s system authenticates both sides so AI bots can’t spoof their identity and lets them register max budgets to avoid surprise fees. And while there's no crypto involved yet, CEO Matthew Prince hinted that a Cloudflare stablecoin could be in the works.

Bottom line: If AI is going to remake the internet, Cloudflare wants to own the toll booth.

Calendar
On The Horizon

Tomorrow

Wednesday brings the latest ADP private payrolls data, a key check-in on how the job market held up in June. As one of the largest payroll firms in the country, ADP pulls from its own records to track hiring trends across industries.

Last month’s report showed the slowest hiring pace in over a year. With trade tensions easing slightly, economists are watching closely to see if that gave employers more confidence to add to their headcounts.

NEWS
The Daily Rundown

• 💵 Dollar Slumps, Stocks Surge: The S&P 500 closed H1 2025 up 5.5%, while the U.S. dollar plunged 10% in June—its worst start to a year since 1973. Rate cut hopes, solid corporate earnings, and pending trade deals lifted stocks, while debt fears, inflation risks, and tariff chaos dragged down the greenback. Analysts say a weaker dollar could boost U.S. exporters and multinationals.

• 🏛️ Senate All-Nighter Over Tax Bill: The Senate held a vote-a-rama on the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” debating dozens of amendments on Medicaid cuts, EV credits, and immigration enforcement. Republicans can only afford three defections, with two already in opposition.

• 🇨🇦 Canada Scraps Digital Tax After Trump Threat: Canada abruptly repealed its planned 3% digital services tax on big tech firms to restart trade talks with the U.S. Trump had halted negotiations over the levy, threatening retaliation. The move clears the way for renewed dialogue between the countries, which are each other’s top trade partners.

• 🏀 WNBA Expands to 18 Teams: The WNBA announced three new expansion franchises in Cleveland (2028), Detroit (2029), and Philadelphia (2030), bringing the league to 18 teams. Franchise values have nearly tripled since 2024, but tensions are rising as players seek better pay and benefits.

• 🔥 Deadly Wildfire Ambush in Idaho: Two firefighters were killed and one injured in Idaho after a man allegedly set a wildfire and ambushed responders. The 20-year-old suspect later died by suicide after a five-hour manhunt. The incident has shaken firefighting communities across the U.S.

• 🏫 Harvard Risks Losing Federal Funding: A civil rights probe found Harvard failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment. The Trump administration warned that without changes, Harvard could lose all federal funding—including financial aid.

• 🍙 Trump Threatens Japan With Rice Tariffs: Trump criticized Japan for refusing to import U.S. rice despite domestic shortages and warned of new tariffs. A formal proposal outlines steeper import duties if no deal is reached in upcoming trade negotiations.

• 💉 Moderna’s Flu-COVID Combo Vax Nears: Moderna’s mRNA flu shot outperformed existing vaccines in late-stage trials. A combo COVID-flu shot is now expected later this year, potentially offering a more convenient annual vaccination option.

• 💰 Nvidia Insiders Sell Over $1B in Stock: Nvidia execs, including CEO Jensen Huang, sold more than $1B in shares over the past year, with $500M sold in June alone. While routine, the timing raised questions amid the company’s meteoric AI-driven stock surge.

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