Texas embraces precious metal money
05:29 Share

Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Breakfast, where we cover the top news for investors every morning. It's great to have you here on this Tuesday, July 1st. I'm Julie Morgan. Texas mints a new way to pay, ESPN eyes a return to the diamond, and you can catch NASA on Netflix.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed a bill into law that assigns gold and silver as legal tender for everyday financial transactions within the state. The bill is expected to take effect in May 2027. Under the new law, the Comptroller's Office will contract with a debit card provider to facilitate transactions.

Texans will be able to deposit gold or silver into their accounts, and the debit card will convert those holdings into dollar amounts at the point of sale. While specific details such as transaction fees and merchant participation are still being developed, the system is envisioned to function much like a standard debit card.

City analysts said they foresee gold prices consolidating in the $3,100 to $3,500 per ounce range in Q3, as prices moderate due to geopolitical de-escalation in the Middle East and an improved global growth outlook. The bank said it expects gold prices to fall back to $2,500 to $2,700 by the second half of next year, and it strongly recommends gold producers take insurance against the downside in prices from the current levels.

Disney's ESPN and Major League Baseball are in talks to repair their fractured relationship and bring professional baseball back to the network. According to The Athletic, the talks are in early stages and would only provide the network with local broadcast rights and pieces of ESPN's former package.

The relationship disintegrated early in 2025 when ESPN and the MLB mutually decided to end their 35-year partnership at the end of the 2025 baseball season.

While ESPN felt they were overpaying for broadcast rights, the league accused ESPN of undervaluing content, especially as the network cut back its coverage to 30 regular season games, a third of its previous coverage. ESPN was paying an average of $550 million per season for MLB games under its previous seven-year contract.

versus the $10 million Roku pays for Sunday afternoon games and the $85 million by Apple for a Friday night package. According to The Athletic, if the two were to hammer out a deal, it would likely be for just three years as deals with Fox, TNT, and the MLB's international packages are all up for renegotiation at that time.

The work at NASA is becoming even more accessible. The space agency announced on Monday that it will offer NASA Plus its live programming on Netflix.

Audiences will now have another option to stream rocket launches, astronaut spacewalks, mission coverage, and live views of Earth from the International Space Station. Netflix has a global audience of more than 700 million people, which is a big jump from the 12.4 million subscribers that NASA has on its YouTube channel. NASA Plus also remains available for free with no ads through the NASA app and on the agency's website.

Now for a look at a few other articles that are trending on Seeking Alpha. The CEO of Tesla issues a threat to those lawmakers backing Trump's tax bill and he floats a new political party. Hershey will remove artificial food dyes from its products by 2027, according to a report. And the slump for Tesla in Europe deepens as Denmark and Sweden registrations fall over 60% in June.

On Wall Street today, ahead of the opening bell, Dow S&P and Nasdaq futures are in the red. Crude oil is down 0.1% at $65 a barrel. Bitcoin is down 0.5% at $106,000. Gold is up 1.3% at $3,345.

The FTSE 100 is down 0.2% and the DAX is down 0.3%. And the market in Hong Kong is closed today for a holiday. Wolf Speed is on our list of the biggest movers of the day pre-market. Wolf is up 70% after the company announced a prepackaged Chapter 11 restructuring aimed at slashing debt by 70% and cutting annual cash interest payments by 60%.

On today's economic calendar, at 9.30 a.m., the Fed's Jerome Powell will participate in a policy panel on Central Banking 2025. At 10 a.m., construction spending. Also at 10 a.m., the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.

That's it for today's Wall Street Breakfast. Thanks for listening. For a full offering of news, analysis, ratings, and data on stocks and ETFs, become a premium subscriber. Learn more at SeekingAlpha.com slash subscriptions. I'm your host, Julie Morgan. Go out and make it a great day.