Stock Market Surges After 'Aggressive' Fed Rate Cut & Costco Launches New Product…Housing?
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Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, a first-of-its-kind housing development just broke ground in L.A., and it involves a Costco and a rooftop pool. Then, Jerome Powell signaled a new era for the U.S. economy, announcing the medias of interest rate cuts. It's Thursday, September 19th. Let's ride. ♪

The battle for toy supremacy has reached levels Pixar could never dream of. Yesterday, the National Toy Hall of Fame released the 12 finalists under consideration for entry into the Hall of Fame, which includes first-time contenders The Trampoline, Apples to Apples, and Balloons. Other toys hoping to get enshrined are Hess Trucks,

Sequence, Phase 10, the Pokemon trading card game, and Transformers action figures. Toby, I am making you an honorary committee member for the Toy Hall of Fame. Your criteria are the toys have to have longevity, be recognizable, and have great play value, meaning they encourage things like creativity and socialization. Who has your vote this year?

So I was initially skeptical of including the simple red balloon, but if you've ever played The Floor is Lava, where you have to just keep the balloon from the floor, endless hours of fun. Apples to Apples, I know you're not a fan of that, but I played it at a bar late night the other day. It is still hits. It's still extremely fun, but I do just want to call some attention to a name you didn't mention, which was My Little Pony. This is its

seventh year as a finalist. Can we put some respect on Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash's names, please? They deserve better. Although I am hearing that they may have been PED users, steroid users in their prime. So maybe that's the only thing that makes sense and why that they're on the outside looking in.

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After months of hand-wringing, prediction market watching, and analysts prognosticating, it turns out that the only person we needed to go to for guidance for how much the Fed would cut rates was Rod Stewart. Because the first cut is the deepest. Yesterday, Jerome Powell served us up an interest rate announcement that would make Morgan Spurlock proud, a supersized 50 basis point cut that surprised swaths of economists who predicted a more standard 25 point cut.

It was the first interest rate cut in over 1,600 days, dating back to the early days of the pandemic, and sets the federal funds rate between 4.75% and 5%. Predictably, stocks jumped for joy after the announcement, with all three indexes spiking before settling slightly in the red for the day as the exuberance wore off.

In his press conference after the announcement, Powell said the economy is in good shape, but also cautioned against thinking that 50 points is the new pace for cutting in the future. Neil, you called it on yesterday's show, so I know you're not that surprised. But what do you make of how the Fed kicked off its rate-cutting campaign? Yeah, I think it's very important to listen to what Powell said in his press conference. You said he did say the economy is in a good place.

And our decision today is designed to keep it there. So the way I've been thinking about this is when you're driving a car, your gas level is getting a little low and you're looking at the tank. You're like, should I fill up? Should I wait for the light to come on? This is Powell taking that car off the road, going to the gas station and filling up before we get to that light because the economy is in a good place. But the point right now is he wants oil.

maintenance. He wants the labor market not to fall any further. He said that would be worrying. We're at an unemployment rate of 4.2 percent, which is still low. It's much higher than it was at the beginning of the year. Jobs are still being added, but at a lower level. So this is all about preservation of the economy. It is not an emergency rate cut where things have already become into recession, but he just wants to get out.

ahead of it with this meaty rate cut. And then let's look at those gas levels a little deeper, too. You already mentioned the unemployment rate, which is not extremely high, but it is a little bit higher than the Fed likes to see. Also, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge is running around 2.5%. They'd like to get that down to that 2% number that they always cite. And then if you just look at the economy as a whole, the GDP expanded at a 3% annual rate in the last quarter. So it

there aren't check engine lights flashing, but you are right. It depends on what kind of driver you are. Recently. Are you the person who puts it all the way down to the end of the tank? Or do you want to fill up when you still have some gas left? Jerome Powell did say too, that we are not going back to that world of ultra low interest rates. There's never going to be, or under his term, he does not see that era of cheap money returning. So that was kind of goes in line with what I said is that he said, don't,

expect a 50 basis point cut on our next meeting. And this is not the pace in the future. We are going to just continue to monitor the data. This was just a reaction to what we saw in this particular moment, but it doesn't necessarily inform what we are going to do in the future. Now, I know you're probably thinking, because this is exactly what I was thinking, what does this mean for my money? What is this Fed rate cut going to do? I know broadly, conceptually speaking, a Fed rate cut is intended to boost the economy by lowering borrowing rates,

spurring more spending. But over the past couple of years, I've parked many people have parked their money in high yield savings accounts and CDs and money market funds that have accrued 5 percent yield because of the Fed's high interest rates. Now, many people are wondering, OK,

Does the Fed rate cut going to lower those yields? And what do I do with my money now? Well, the answer is yes. If you do have your money in a high yield savings account, it's going to be a lot less lucrative to stash your money there. So you you might want to reallocate your portfolio to find different places to put your cash to work. Don't expect an email from Wealthfront or your savings account.

to the fact that they're lowering rates. They're not obligated to. I know probably on the way up, they were sending you emails every single day being like, now you can get 4%. Now you can get 4.5%, but they are not obligated to tell you. So definitely check your savings accounts, see what's going on there. Are they, are,

They won't lower immediately, but a 50 basis point cut is big. So expect in the days, weeks, months to come that saving is not going to be as useful as it was, which is the entire point of a rate cut, right? It's to get your money off the sidelines and into spending it to boost the economy. And then let's look ahead for a second here. The Fed's dot plot, which is this amalgamation of various committee members projection for future interest rates.

They are seeing around a 50-point cut going forward. That's also indicating what traders are betting on as well. So it looks like we're going to get another 50-point cut by the end of the year. But again, there are two more Fed meetings left on the calendar. So that would put a more standard 25 basis point cut at each one of those. Again, echoing what Jerome Powell said is like this is not the pace that we expect going forward. Yeah, we're just going to keep it standard. But either way, it is a new era for...

for the U.S. economy that Jerome Powell has signaled, and it is exciting. It's fun to have lower interest rates and higher interest rates, I think. I can say that for everyone. Now, a deep dive into the global supply chain for an ancient technology, the pager. After thousands of pagers carried by Hezbollah militants in Lebanon simultaneously exploded on Tuesday in what appears to be an unprecedented, wildly sophisticated attack by Israel's spy service, the Mossad.

The attack on the pagers, which was followed by more explosions of walkie talkies in Lebanon yesterday, killed 32 people total and injured more than 3000, according to Lebanon's government, which blamed Israel. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility, but it is widely believed they were the masterminds behind the attack, which threatens to escalate tensions into a wider regional war that diplomats have been desperately trying to avoid today.

But let's talk about the pagers, because the mystery of how an explosive compound was secretly planted into these ancient devices somewhere along their supply chain has sparked a frenzied global investigation that spans three continents. The first stop, a nondescript building in a suburb of Taipei, Taiwan, the home of a 40 person business called Gold Apollo.

You are right that it is this mystery that is spanning across the globe because, yes, they were, the pagers just seem like they were manufactured by this company, Gold Apollo. But then a bunch of reporters showed up on the founder's doorstep and the company's doorstep, and the guy was just bewildered because he assured them that he had nothing to do with it. Instead, Gold Apollo pointed their finger at a company in Budapest, Hungary called BAC Consulting that had licensed Gold Apollo's company brand and trademark about two years ago.

But according to the New York Times, BAC Consulting was established as this shell company that would pose as an international pager producer, even though the ultimate goal was to establish this relationship with Hezbollah in Lebanon. BAC did have these ordinary clients. It did make ordinary pagers, but it also...

made pagers that were not ordinary. They contained batteries laced with an explosive, according to New York Times reporting, which is how kind of this entire supply chain meandered across the globe and eventually found their way into Lebanon. Right. And so this guy just woke up this morning in Taipei, was just going to work, and he was sworn by reporters and investigators being like, we saw a

hollow gold brand on these pagers that exploded. How can you explain this? And he's like, I can't. I have no idea what's going on. The product isn't ours. And then he said that they got into this business relationship with BAC a few years ago. He did point out that there was some sketchiness involved. He talked about particular payments that were flagged by the Taiwanese bank. In fact, in one instance, they were blocked by the Taiwanese bank, their local Taiwanese bank. And he was like,

I don't use like they flagged it to me. We worked for a we worked for an entire week to unfreeze this payment. So it appears that he had suspicions and that this arrangement to begin with to light. They didn't manufacture the Taiwanese company, did not manufacture these particular pagers used in Lebanon. And so he said the original request that he licensed his brand out to this company, this BAC consulting company in general seemed a little suspicious.

This Apollo Gold company is very interesting in general because they are single-handedly perhaps responsible for resuscitating the entire pager business. At one point, they said they own 99% of the pager market in the Netherlands. They also said they supply the FBI, which speaks to the weird persistence of

pagers in our life, even though it seems like it is an ancient technology that had been replaced by the phone. Yeah, pagers have obviously declined in popularity. They still persist in certain industries. What comes to mind first is, of course, healthcare and hospitals. They persist because they can reach

workers in cellular dead zones. They have long-lasting batteries. It is just a more simple technology. So some military organizations follow a similar logic. Also, Hezbollah said that they had a compromise with cell phones, which is why they made this big push over to pagers,

which seems like it was also kind of orchestrated by Mossad and Israel intelligence. But it also just opens up this can of worms, too, into how smart appliances and how Internet of Things, Internet-connected devices can be weaponized in this new era. So a lot of people are looking at this particular attack and saying that we could see this happening with other things. It could be your refrigerator. It could be your phone. It could be your television. Anything that is connected to the Internet could happen.

theoretically be weaponized. So it does open a new can of worms when it comes to global cyber warfare.

The battle to put computers on our faces continued this week after Snap unveiled its fifth generation AR spectacles. Now, if you're a fan of looking normal, these are not for you. I'd describe them as a cross between the glasses you wear after an eye exam and the ones you wear to a 3D movie. But if you're a fan of wearable AR hardware becoming as normalized as phones are today, then maybe give them a shot.

It's worth noting that these big ol' honking facehuggers are designed specifically for developers, so function was prioritized over form in this case. Some highlights that reviewers called out from this update was a field of view increase over Generation 4, a more polished operating system, and a surprisingly light package despite their hulking size.

But still, it's hard to see these reaching mainstream adoption anytime soon. Neil, what is Snap's vision for these spectacles? - You're right, they are not expected to hit consumers anytime soon. The idea right now is to put them in the sandbox of developers, let developers work on particular use cases for these AR glasses, and then once there are compelling things to do with them, then start to sell them for consumers. But this device is now eight years old,

It is very, it's very clear that Snap is bullish on AR glasses that you will wear essentially a computer on your face perhaps instead of your phone because Snap is a small company, right? Like it doesn't have that much money to throw around, especially it is going head to head in this space with the apples and the metas of the world.

Meta brought in $132 billion in sales last year. Snap had just $4.6 billion. Meta can afford to lose a ton of money building their...

Meta quest AR headset and Apple also prints cash More than you could ever imagine in their life so they can build something like the vision Pro and Release it snap it just has fewer resources to play with so the fact that they've been so bullish and pouring a lot of money into AR glasses for eight years now the first one came out in 2016 shows that were they

Evan Spiegel, the CEO, really believes in this technology. He thinks it will lead to new business opportunities. Obviously, they wouldn't devote resources to it. The vision that he potentially has is that a lot of Snapchat's business today is driven by advertising, which is sold on videos and chats within its app on your phone. But

investing in AR, potentially owning its own operating system can help diversify its business model a little bit, expand its ad business. So maybe imagine you're wearing these gigantic snap glasses in the future and you're getting AR ads kind of fed to you on your periphery, AR billboards suspended in space and time. A little dystopian, but maybe good for Snapchat's bottom line here. But I looked at some of the demos and

And it's just, I'm not super bullish on it because even though that the field of view that I talked about did increase over version four, it's still not great. Like I was watching this person playing this golf simulator and it was literally like they were playing through a doorway in front of them because it doesn't have that huge range

feel the view that you're hoping for in these AR glasses. So still early innings for sure, but I don't know. I mean, they started with just cameras on the sides of it, and now they're moving into AR. We'll see if it can go toe-to-toe with the big boys here, but I hope I get proven wrong because it would be cool to wear a computer. You sound like Steve Ballmer criticizing the iPhone. I know, I know. I can't believe I just called Snap Spectacles the iPhone. But I hope they prove you wrong, Toby. Yeah, me too, honestly. I like cool technology.

Up next, sorry, Jerome Powell, your interest rate cut isn't even the most important numeric announcement of the week because we got Neil's numbers coming in hot. Toby, what's a good instance of leading by example? Hmm, when I wash the dishes in the office sink? That is a good one, but I'm thinking more elevated, like leading the way in new dimensions of sporting luxury, which is what the Range Rover Sport is known for. Yep, it's quite the ride with features like adaptability,

Adaptive off-road cruise control to monitor ground conditions and acclimate to the terrain. Dynamic air suspension that offers agility control and composure. And adaptive dynamics that reduce unwanted body movements to deliver smooth and composed handling. Man, the Range Rover Sport definitely leads by example by rising to every occasion. It could probably wash dishes better than I can, too. Wouldn't surprise me. Explore the Range Rover Sport at LandRoverUSA.com.

That's LandRoverUSA.com. And now a word from our sponsor, MassMutual. Neil, remember when you decided to take up that big renovation project in your apartment? That floating shelf was not going to mount itself, okay? No, it wasn't, but you did a horrible Chip Gaines impression, and now there's two giant holes in the wall.

Same goes for your finances. I thought I could hang a shelf with a drill and a dream, but financial planning is not like that. You need a solid plan and solid advice. That's where MassMutual's financial professionals come in. They help you build a financial future that's structurally sound. No more patch jobs or quick fixes, just a plan that works. Now, if they could only help me find the studs in this dang wall. Hit up Chip and Joanna for that. Visit MassMutual.com and get started on a plan that lasts.

Welcome to Neil's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats from the week's news that will make you feel as smart as someone who uses their middle initial. For my first number, a country has made history by having more electric vehicles on the road than gas-powered cars.

And that country is the birthplace of Magnus Carlsen and Erling Haaland, Norway. The Road Federation there reported Tuesday that of the 2.8 million passenger cars registered in the country, 26.3% are fully electric, topping gas-powered cars for the first time anywhere in the world. Before you point out that doesn't add up to 100%, you're right, it doesn't. The rest of the cars are deforested.

Diesel.

By next year, it aims to become the first country to end the sale of new gas and diesel cars altogether. Paradoxically, though, you got to point out that Norway is a major oil and gas producer and the profits that they reap from selling oil and gas to other companies or countries is what allows them to subsidize their kind of push for electrification. But it is quite the push. I mean, nine...

electric vehicles made up 94% of new car registrations in Norway. Compare that to 22% of new car sales in China, just 7% in the United States. And if you want to look at how many cars are on the U.S. that are all electric, 1.2% of U.S. cars and trucks are electric, according to the Department of Energy. So it really shows how much further ahead Norway is. But

You've got to remember, it is a much smaller country. It's a very wealthy country. And it also just has made this a key priority for their government. It has. They have that $1.7 trillion wealth fund from oil and gas that they're putting to use on EVs. And maybe next year they will ban the sale of gas and diesel cars once and for all, which would be another historic milestone.

My second number is also a first-of-its-kind development in the most literal sense. Yesterday, construction crews in Los Angeles broke ground on the first mixed-use development in the country to have Costco as its anchor retail tenant. I'll try to paint the picture for you. A Costco with 800 apartments stacked on top.

Housing analysts say this innovative real estate mashup, if successful, could spark more like it around the country and help alleviate a severe affordable housing shortage. Here are some more details about the housing development. Twenty three percent of those 800 apartments will be reserved for low income residents, with the rest offered as non subsidized, affordable and workforce housing units.

This thing is going to be tricked out with amenities as well, including a gym, workspaces, courtyards, a rooftop pool. And did I mention the Costco downstairs? Thrive Living, the developer behind the project, said it was only possible because of a brand new law passed in California, which helps streamline approvals for apartments and mixed use projects.

That includes low-income housing. Toby, this might be a more compelling of a combo than $1.50 for a hot dog and a soda. I don't know if we want to go that far. But yes, in terms of mixed-use developments, having an anchor tenant, I can't think of a much better one than Costco. Maybe Dave & Buster's, although that's not even a retail tenant.

I did see some pushback, though, from housing advocates in L.A. saying that this was more an attempt by Costco to just get the building itself done because it's very hard to build a big box store in L.A. It is much easier to do it if you slap some housing on top.

But the reason that they did it was the California law that you mentioned, in order to get that expedited timeline for development, it has to be at least two-thirds residential. Costco itself is 185,000 square feet, so they needed at least 370,000 square feet of residential. And a lot of those apartments ended up being these prefab models that are small one-bedroom units. So there were no family units available.

Again, any housing is good housing, but this was some of the pushback is that some housing advocates are like, this is Costco just trying to get their Costco built rather than them trying to introduce more housing because if they were truly trying to make a great neighborhood place, you would include some family units, not just these single dorm-like things. But again,

I think overall, the sentiment was that this is a very cool project. 800 apartments, 23% of them reserved for low-income residents. I mean, California, Los Angeles specifically, has a shortage of 270,000 units of affordable housing. They just passed this law to streamline more mixed-use projects, get more apartments. We know that there is a housing crisis.

So the fact that yes, there may be a Costco at the bottom, but that's great for this area, which doesn't have a lot of fresh produce or supermarkets going on. So I think overall, I mean, you saw the LA mayor there broke, breaking ground, cutting the ribbon. I mean, this was a huge deal that happened on Wednesday. And so I think this is overall a huge win for everyone involved.

My final number is a $1.9 billion flop brought to you by the soccer club Real Madrid. Ahead of this summer, Real Madrid completed a $1.9 billion renovation of its legendary stadium, the Bernabeu, to turn it into a multi-purpose, state-of-the-art venue that could host not just soccer games, but also the biggest musical acts from around the globe.

The idea was that there were only so many soccer games and adding concerts to the menu could present new revenue sources for what would be an empty stadium. All was going according to plan early this summer. Taylor Swift played two nights in May. Carol G performed four concerts.

But then the complaints started pouring in. People who lived around the stadium said these concerts were so loud and went on so late that it amounted to a, quote, torture drone. And I didn't even mention the drunk fans laying waste to the neighborhood after the shows. The local residents group was so fed up, they took legal action against City Hall and the team for violating municipal codes and applied so much pressure that last Friday, Madrid said it had canceled or postponed all concerts

concerts at the Bernabeu, which remember it had paid $1.9 billion to upgrade until next year. So it could work on a fix. Toby, Real Madrid usually pummels their opponents to a pulp. They finally met their match with angry neighbors. I mean, the

Before the show today, we were just cruising around on Google Maps aerial view and looking at where this stadium is situated. And it is surrounded not by an ocean of parking lots like maybe MetLife is here in New Jersey. It is smack dab in the middle of a city with a lot of residents around it. So, of course, they're going to be mad when you're blasting music into the late nights. You can see, though, where this is coming from from Real Madrid fans.

This massive investment that they took to renovate the stadium costs a lot of money. They also did a deal with a U.S. investor, Sixth Street, to provide €360 million in funding for the rebuild. In exchange for that €360 million, they would get 30% of revenue from the stadium's events over 20 years, with the exception of season ticket sales. So they need these investments.

extraordinary events as they're labeled in kind of the Madrid code. You need these concerts to make their money back. So you can see the conflict of interest between Real Madrid needs to make their money back. Sixth Street wants to make their money back, but the residents want to sleep at night. So I think you're going to continue to see this tension building as it's almost like this David versus Goliath moment.

in the Madrid, the neighborhood of just where Madrid is located. Well, it was a huge engineering fail. They spent so much money trying to create a concert venue and they didn't even think about the sound seeping out. And there are 20,000 people that live around. They're just trying to live their lives. So they are hiring a UK consultancy, which is going to look at the stadium design and see if they can do anything to dampen the sound. And, uh,

It looks like this fight will pick back up next year when they first announced their first tour date of a live podcast.

Let's get it. Pour one out for your permanently sauce-stained Tupperware containers because the colorful lidded kitchen staple is heading for bankruptcy. It filed for Chapter 11 protection late on Tuesday as mounting losses and slow demand has sunk the once iconic food storage brand. It's quite the fall from grace from a brand whose popularity exploded in the 1950s period as women held

Tupperware parties at their home riding a post-war wave of independence and empowerment. But now, low-cost competitors and more environmentally friendly bands have eaten away at its market share, leaving its stock worth less than a dollar and saddled with half a billion more in debts than assets.

Neil, the Tupperware party looks to be over. It does. The problem is Tupperware was so tied to this particular distribution model of having parties at their home that they completely neglected the e-commerce revolution or wanting to sell it in any sort of wholesale or retail outlet. The problem

I mean, according to Tupperware's chief restructuring officer who wrote in the filing, in stark contrast to the early days of the company, nearly everyone now knows what Tupperware is, but fewer people know where to find it. They didn't have an Amazon storefront or were in Target until 2022. And when you have to have these parties, which seems so revolutionary, and they were in the early days, in an era where people can just click on Amazon and say, I want a store, I want a container for my food. They don't really care the brand. This is

very much commoditized at this point. That presented a huge problem for this company. It did say it would seek a court-approved...

court approval for a sale in order to protect the iconic brand. So if maybe you're an e-com wizard, you think you can adapt the brand, then I'd inquire because it is one of those eponym brands. I think that's the word that you call a product that is known by its brand. They like Kleenex and Band-Aid. Neil's looking it up right now. But Tupperware is on that level of a Kleenex or a Band-Aid where you just associate the actual product with the name itself. So I do think there's a lot of

power in this brand if someone can just figure out how to modernize it for the modern e-commerce age I think it will do well maybe if you got some extra cash laying to the side you could make an inquiry to see if Tupperware is available I think they have to get away from plastic yeah

People don't want to buy plastic anymore. There's Pyrex. There's all these new types of materials that are being used for storing your food. And I think if Tupperware wants to compete in this business, if it's still alive, if any of our readers listen to it, yeah, you need to get away from that. They also cited the cost of resin, which was a big raw material for them, the rising cost of that as an issue. So you are right that they probably do need to modernize their actual ingredients that go into making it.

That is all the time we have for the show. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Thursday. For any feedback, questions, or comments on the show, send an email to morningbrewdaily at morningbrew.com. And don't forget to share Morning Brew Daily with your friends, family, and coworkers so you don't have to explain why a Costco is coming into South Los Angeles. If you need some inspo, Toby has you covered.

I want you to share today's podcast with someone you think you could turn around the Tupperware brand with. So it's probably going to be that friend who always hits you up with this late night business idea that stinks, but might work. You guys definitely have the chops to turn around this business this time. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Liu is our producer. Olivia Graham is our associate producer. Uchenawa Ogu is our technical director. Billy Menino is on audio. Hera Makeup is hosting the final Tupperware party.

Devin Emery is our chief content officer, and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show, Daniel. Let's run it back tomorrow.