‘Shadow Fed Chair’ Lurking Over Powell? & Apple’s Huge Gamble on ‘F1’
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It's your turn. Visit servicenow.com. Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, New York City landlords are losing their marbles over the rise of Zoran Mamdani. Then Brad Pitt is hitting the pits in a new F1 movie that Apple spent a whole lot of money on. It's Friday, June 27th. Let's ride. ♪

Happy Friday. Gosh, the weekend is so close. I'm sure you've got a lot of things on your to-do list over the next few days, but Toby and I want you to add one more thing. Share Morning Brew Daily. If you enjoy this news rundown every morning, odds are the people you're friends with or

are related to will also find it useful. So spread the word with everyone you're hanging out with this weekend, and you'll be surprised with how much satisfaction you'll get two weeks down the road when they text you, Erica, thanks so much for turning me on to Morning Brew Daily. Toby, you're a marketer at heart, so let's hear some ideas and tactics from

people can use to share the pod because we get it. It's a little intimidating. Oh man, am I ready for this? I think the best way to share the pod is to prime your friends and family first. And by that, I mean, start dripping out facts slowly. You learn from the pod, a Neil's number here, a Toby's trend there. And only when someone inquires about

As to how you know so much, that is when you drop the link to the show. Got to butter them up first. Either that or fly a plane banner over your nearest population center. Whatever's easiest. But yes, share the pod. We appreciate you. And now a word from our sponsor.

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If you walk by a movie theater this weekend and feel a rumble and hear a roar, that's not the new Jurassic Park installment out early. It's probably the F1 movie making its presence known. The movie starring Brad Pitt as an aging driver making one last pass at glory is fast, loud, and a massive bet.

by Apple. The iPhone maker won the rights to the movie by pledging to sink over $250 million into it, paying Brad Pitt well over $20 million in the process, all in an attempt to make a triumphant return to the big screen. F1 is one of Apple's most ambitious projects to date since diving into Hollywood back in 2019. Since then, it has found limited commercial success.

Apple wants big hits, but only if the content matches the premium aspirational brand of products like iPhone and Mac. And F1 fits the bill. Led by a director who delivered the smash hit Top Gun Maverick, this movie is as much an entertainment product

as it is an ad for iPhones. The racing scenes were filmed on custom-rigged iPhones, while a first-of-its-kind haptic trailer added vibrations to convey the feel of an F1 engine rumbling on a bye. But despite the gaudy marketing, success is far from guaranteed. While Apple has cranked out a few popular TV shows like Ted Lasso and Severance, it hasn't found a ton of box office success so far on the big screen, with its last two releases

Argyle and Fly Me to the Moon flopping hard. Neil, this is a big, big swing. In fact, it's one of the most expensive movies ever made. So Apple needs people to turn out to watch Pit in the Pits. This is a extremely curious side quest for Apple dating back

six years where they decided for some reason to get into the entertainment industry. You're right. It hasn't been super commercially successful in the box office or on the small screen. Apple TV since launching has about 27 million subscribers in the U S Disney plus and HBO max launched in the same year. And they have far leapfrogged that I can't even give you Netflix's numbers because

It would break the chart compared to Apple TV+. They're hoping that F1 can turn the ship around. And to do that, they've enlisted the same director as Top Gun Maverick. Top Gun Maverick made $1.5 billion at the box office in 2022. They're hoping this is just a land-based version of that.

And Apple is, you know, a $3 trillion company. This is not going to make or break its bottom line. Obviously, selling iPhones is its core business. But while it might not matter too much to Apple's bottom line, it could make a big impact on F1, the racing league, not just F1, the movie. Because if you go back to, you know, the pandemic era and Netflix's drive to survive, that led to this massive boom in popularity, 6%.

years ago between 2019 and 2022, US ratings for F1 races just absolutely went off the charts. It caused Disney to sell out $85 million a year for the rights to air them. So they're hoping maybe for another sort of boom bringing all this attention

to the league. That being said, it might not happen because Disney is apparently not so happy with their $85 million a year deal because they're saying that we don't necessarily need to review or go much higher than that. There's no commercial breaks during Sunday races. So it's going to be an interesting moment to see if it gets another bump, the F1 Racing League from F1 the movie.

All that being said, the business stuff aside, this looks really cool. Like the stuff that they've done with the effects and making it seem super realistic. They embedded themselves in F1. There's going to be appearances from drivers. Lewis Hamilton, who is perhaps the best F1 driver ever.

ever is a co-producer. So they've worked really hand in hand with the league to make this a really crazy theatrical experience. I will say it's not expected to gross anywhere near Top Gun Maverick, $1.5 billion. You know, it's estimated to come in maybe 40 to 60 million at the beginning of this weekend. So that'd be a solid but not amazing showing. But it will need to have an amazing showing because it is one of the most expensive movies of all time.

That being said, I'm excited to watch it because, you know, feeling that rumble should be an amazing experience. We've got succession drama at the Federal Reserve with the role of the most important economic policymaker in the world on the line. According to The Wall Street Journal, President Trump is considering naming a replacement for Jerome Powell as early as September or October, an unusually long time before Powell's term expires in May 2026.

That's because Trump has just about had it with Jerome, who has rebuffed his persistent calls to lower interest rates, saying that the risk of higher inflation was too great to cut rates just yet. If we make a mistake here, people will pay the cost for a long time, Powell said this week.

By announcing a successor to Powell in the fall, Trump would essentially be installing a so-called shadow Fed chair that would be like a really annoying backseat driver to Powell and strip him of any market authority. Investors would look to his shadow chair as the primary economic decision maker in the country and ignore Powell, who would be the lamest lame duck around. While Trump may like the idea of finding a new Fed chair that would be more eager to cut rates,

Investors hate the idea. They and virtually all economists view the Fed's independence from political influence as a cornerstone of America's world-beating capital markets. And sure enough, following the report, the U.S. dollar sank to its lowest level in three years against a basket of major currencies, a sign of increasing concern about American institutions being eroded.

As for the White House, it responded that an announcement on the next Fed chair wasn't imminent, but Trump is definitely thinking about it. On Wednesday, he said he had three or four candidates in mind and once again called Powell terrible. Yeah, the Powell-Trump bout has gone 12 rounds at this point. That being said, I was reading Brew Markets, our markets-focused newsletter, and they are saying that some analysts are kind of arguing that selecting a replacement sooner rather than later may help.

help the markets a little bit because what it does is that, yes, it will cause maybe a little bit of turmoil in the short term, but in the long term, you will actually start to get a sense of what this new Fed share might be approaching interest rates cuts and the timeline that they would be putting forth. So even though it's not necessarily on the surface a good thing, rolling out a Fed share earlier and communicating their monetary policies ASAP could give investors a better chance to

accept this new reality. So that is one potential take that you could see from this kind of unprecedented shadow fed situation. Now, who is on the shortlist? Who could be the next Fed chair, which is a big deal because how often do we talk about the Fed chair? Like pretty much every single day, this is the most important economic, uh,

role in the entire world because the U.S. is the largest economy. They set the agenda for basically central banks all over the world. So there are a few people on the shortlist here. We got former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, who you know very well, Scott Bassett, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, and current Fed Governor Chris Waller. They are seen as probably the three or four people that Trump is talking about. Kevin Warsh

that former Fed governor seems like the top pick right now. He is getting a lot of discussion as a possible Trump pick for the next Fed chair. He was an advisor to President George W. Bush, except he is known as more of a hawk, which Trump may not like. He, by saying someone's a central bank hawk, that means that they are more concerned with inflation rather than full employment. Those are the two mandates.

that the Fed has, which leads itself to higher interest rates rather than lower interest rates if you're more hawkish. So Trump may run into some issues with Warsh there. - And just to remember, Fed policy is set by a committee. It's not just set by a single person. So there are 12 policy makers

And Trump can't influence all 12 of those. A lot of those have been sitting in their seats for years now. So finding someone that will both prove loyal to him, but then also be able to wrangle those 12 policymakers, that is not an easy task. But just remember, it's not just a single person making all these monetary decisions. And just remember, Wall Street hates the fact

that there will be any political influence on the central bank. They want it to be as independent and separate from short-term political interest as possible because that will lead to bad decisions that could, that is exactly what Powell was talking about. If we cut interest rates now, it could lead to another bout of inflation. Trump won't be president then, but that's what the central bank is mandated to do. They want them to think over the long term. So investors will be certainly concerned if there is a shadow Fed chair.

It's Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week time, where Neil and I pick one stock to remember to reapply sunscreen during the heat wave and one stock that is rocking a gnarly farmer's tan right now. I won the pre-show game of patty cake, so I'm up first. And my Stock of the Week is Nvidia because the king is back, retaking its throne as the most valuable company in the world this week.

After all the turmoil in January when a new cheap AI model from DeepSeek upended the AI industry and raised questions about demand for its chips, and all the turmoil from President Trump's trade war restricting sales of its chips in China and costing it $2.5 billion in revenue, all Nvidia has done is climb over 30% and is currently trading at an all-time high once again.

deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to supply hundreds of thousands of chips to the countries, have made up for any revenue loss from China. And one analyst from Loop Capital is especially bullish on Nvidia. This week, Loop raised its price target to $250 a share. That would mean...

a $6 trillion market cap for the GPU company, up from its current $3.6 trillion. Of course, a lot of questions remain before you can start tacking on trillions. Will AI demand continue to skyrocket? Is Trump's trade war going to rattle public markets further?

Can China's own chip manufacturers close the gap? But for now, Neil, NVIDIA is back on top. NVIDIA has taken its licks this year, but has gotten up every single time to continue surging higher. I mean, you have this $3 trillion company that's almost $4 trillion. Sorry, it's at $3.8 trillion market cap right now. It reported a 69% increase in revenue last quarter. It's still growing faster than most companies, much smaller than it. And

a big endorsement has come from its biggest customers microsoft meta alphabet and amazon account for more than 40 of its revenue they went up to the earnings call this uh earlier this spring and said we are continuing to spend on ai in fact we are probably going to boost our spending even more this year so much of that money is going to nvidia chips to nvidia data centers

And it is reaping the rewards. It still has this remarkable moat that it's built, that Jensen Huang has built over the past few years on these high-end chips. So it looks like Nvidia is just keeping on cruising. And then zooming out, our stock of the week could have been the entire stock market this week as well, because despite this vibe of uncertainty and all this geopolitical craziness that's going on, the S&P 500 closed less than 0.1% away from a record high.

high yesterday, which it notched back in February. It's been on a 20%. It's been on this huge run since creating 20% in April. So it does look like you just never want to bet against the market right now because it has staged this massive comeback since those Liberation Day tariffs were unveiled. Up next, let's hear about our dog of the week.

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My dog of the week is companies tied to New York City's real estate market. Office landlords SL Green and Vornado, as well as real estate lender Flagstar, all dropped around 4% or more on Wednesday in what analysts are calling the Zoran effect.

Tuesday night, Democratic Socialist Zoran Mamdani won the Democratic mayoral primary for New York City, and investors think his policy proposals could send a chill around the fragile commercial property sector. Mamdani's core plan is to freeze rents on stabilized apartments, launch government-owned grocery stores, and make city buses free, financed in part by higher taxes on the city's millionaires and corporations.

The rent freeze would have the most direct impact on real estate because that would eat into landlords' profits and could make their debt more difficult to pay off. Not good for lenders. The other policies might not seem directly related to real estate, but if they cause companies to hire less in the city or get out of Dodge altogether, it would reduce demand for office space. And the real estate industry appears to have entered full office space

on panic mode. A Wall Street Journal headline blared NYC developers gripped by hysteria after Mamdani's sudden rise, writing that in the day since his election, phones across the sector are ringing almost nonstop as panicked executives scrape together their contingency plans. So it'll be another sign that the business elite is falling.

freaking out over the prospect of a democratic socialist presiding over the world's financial capital. Yeah, and SL Green and Vornado were initially had these big stocks at loss, but then kind of pared back some of those gains, which showed maybe hysteria was the right word, where everyone started to panic, everyone started panicking, and then they realized, all right, take a deep breath. Maybe this isn't as bad as everyone thinks. That being said,

This rent freeze that you mentioned is the kind of controversial proposal here. There's one million rent-stabilized apartments in New York City. And yeah, landlords say that this is just, if you freeze those rents, it eats into their operating revenue. It makes people less inclined to invest in the city. And some people in the industry are saying that this focus on that particular policy is overshadowing some of the other policies from Mamdani that some developers do like.

stuff like expediting land use reviews, opening up public land for development and rezoning more residential products. These are boons to the housing and commercial real estate sector. So it is one of those things where you have this one policy gobbling up all these headlines, but maybe some of the other policies

are just fine. Meanwhile, the focus has shifted to the general election in November. Remember, Mamdani is not the mayor yet. He just won the Democratic primary. So he's likely to go up against the current mayor, Eric Adams. And reports are out now that the business community, the business interests in New York City are all coalescing around Eric Adams and saying, how can we help you beat Mamdani? Because they are quite freaked out over Mamdani's rise. So they back

We talked about how many billionaires backed Andrew Cuomo, who was Mamdani's opponent in the Democratic primary. It looks like they're all coalescing around Eric Adams now and hoping to get him elected. According to prediction markets, Mamdani is well in the lead. It's been a real struggle getting people to come to my upcoming rooftop party, and it's because they're all going to be in Japan.

You're not being original, you know. This summer, Japan is a more popular destination for American tourists than Paris, and only second behind London, according to Kayak. More than 1.5 million seats are set to fly from the U.S. to Japan during June, July, and August, a 6.4% bump from last year. And that's coming off a year so far through May, when the number of U.S. visitors to Japan has jumped nearly 30% from 2024, reports the Japan National Tourism Organization.

Japan does seem like an amazing place to visit, but why the crush of tourists now? The first thing you have to know is the currency gap. For the past four years, the yen has sank against the dollar and is nearing its weakest levels in almost four decades. As Bloomberg notes, in June 2019, $1,000 got you about $1,000.

108,000 yen. Now the same amount gets you 146,000 yen. So as an American, your money goes a lot farther than it used to. Another reason could be fatigue with Europe. Remember, right after the pandemic, Americans flocked to Europe in droves and now might be thinking, you know, I would love for my meals not to take two and a half hours. Summer capacity from the US to Great Britain is down 1.8% and

down 0.4% to Germany. A third reason, it's cheaper to fly to Japan. Average prices on long-haul routes to Asia are running 11% below last summer. Toby, are you thinking what I'm thinking? Remote pod from an izakaya. I'm just happy I'm not crazy because every time I open Instagram, it feels like someone else is Japan and it's

It's not an exaggeration. There has been a massive spike, and airliners are kind of embracing this with open arms because United is flying to Japan 20 times a day. They are the biggest carrier that are sending flights over there, so they are happy that as domestic traffic continues

has waned. This international business has picked up, not necessarily to Europe, which is falling, as you mentioned, but to Japan. So it's a fantastic place to go. It is getting cheaper. Of course, people are going to go there. But also, Japan is quite happy that Americans are picking up some of the slack because there's been a sudden drop-off in

Asian tourists coming from places like South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, et cetera. Those bookings have actually plunged by an average of 50% from a year ago. And the reason why is kind of crazy. There's fear that another big disaster like an earthquake or a tsunami might hit the country because there was this manga cartoon that predicted the last one back in 2011. And the

they recently predicted one is going to happen in July of 2025. So that's caused a lot of maybe superstitious people to avoid traveling to Japan over in Asia. So it's been this odd sort of, you know, mirroring effect where a ton of people from America are coming over, but not as many tourists from Asia are dropping by. All right, let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines.

It's hard to get a house these days, but Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte wants to make it a little easier by instructing the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to start counting cryptocurrencies as assets during mortgage loan risk assessment. Historically, your fart cone holdings have been considered too volatile to be considered in loan evaluations. You'd have to actually sell and convert them into dollars for them to count.

but this new framework gives the crypto industry a better foothold in the housing market and keeps in line with President Trump's promise to make the US the crypto capital of the world. Now, this announcement led to some celebrations from the crypto crowd, but also a lot of jokes about how the next big short is gonna come from a bunch of mortgages collateralized with PepeCoin going belly up.

seems to be demand for this sort of thing. In a recent survey by Redfin, 14% of homebuyers said they plan to sell crypto assets to get the cash to cover down payment on a home, which is up from just 5% in 2019. So under this framework that they're proposing, historically, you would have to sell your crypto assets in order for that to be counted in your mortgage application. Now you don't have to sell those, which a lot of people, I think,

a lot of crypto investors and many people are crypto regular investors are crypto investors now. No, would that would be a positive development for them? And you're right. The crypto industry is celebrating this. They look at the housing industry as just such an antique. And they they're saying that it's a meeting of the oldest asset class with one of

newest. It also comes at a time when there's big changes possibly coming for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They've been in a government conservatorship for a long time, 17 years. The government has had control of them. And now President Trump is making moves to send them to the public market. So their stocks have actually climbed a ton over the past few years or the past few months. So we're seeing big changes in the mortgage markets. And we'll see what happens with this crypto infusion. Yesterday, three-time Olympic champ

Faith Kip Yegan tried to do what no woman has done before and run a four minute mile. She came oh so close in a Nike sponsored event in Paris dubbed a breaking four. Kip Yegan ran 5,280 feet, that's one mile, in four minutes and six seconds, which is still the fastest any woman has run a mile and better than the world record she set. However, this new time won't go in the record books because it was an unofficial event.

Still, Nike hopes that the stunt will help it reclaim its waning dominance in performance apparel and footwear, which was the goal of this event all along. Kip Yegon was decked out in Nike's latest and greatest from an aerodynamic tracksuit to her sneaker spikes. Toby, mission accomplished? Mission almost accomplished. Man, I watched this and it looked like

Through 400, she was on pace. Through 800, she was on pace. Through 1,200, she was a little bit behind pace and then just tied up a little bit down the stretch. Just to put this run into perspective, though, her average split for 400 meters was 61.3 seconds. So it's really not that far off. But, you know, in track, one second can feel like a lifetime. She ran in 4.06 the next fastest 1.

women ever in the event of the mile for 12 so it just shows you how you know ridiculous this was uh... the world athletics has this ability to convert uh... women's times to men's times and that would be the equivalent of a man running 3 42 in the miles of just

Again, another perspective here about how impressive this run was. Let's also zoom out for just a second because Nike also reported earnings yesterday and they were better than expected. Shares were initially dropping, but then surged 10% during the company's conference call.

The quarter, Nike's profits fell 86% as it was kind of clearing all of its excess inventory out, wooing back wholesale partners, kind of pressing the reset button on its digital business. But they're saying like, hey, we have our strategy in place. We're doing events like this. We're going after the top athletes in the world. We're going back to our roots as a wholesaler. And we think we're finally staging a turnaround. So kind of two...

mirroring moments of Kip Yegan falling just short. Nike may be falling just short of where it wants to be, but still looks like both are on the right track.

Finally, Anna Wintour, the curator of the Met Gala and editor-in-chief of Vogue, shocked the fashion industry yesterday and finally showed up to an event without her sunglasses on. Just kidding, she would never. Instead, after four decades in charge, she is stepping down and seeking a replacement. Yesterday, she announced she will seed the U.S. edition's top role, but she's not leaving Condé Nast or Vogue, instead remaining on with a new title as global editorial director. That means a new role is opening up to lead Vogue,

the vaunted American fashion magazine. So update your LinkedIn and polish your resume if you think you'd be a good fit for Vogue head of editorial content. But Neil, it's going to be some tough shoes to follow because Wintour was a powerhouse during her reign, making and breaking designers and setting the tone for the industry as a whole. This is a changing of the guard. She had been doing it

three jobs since 2020. And let me tell you, that is just way too many can speak from experience. She was the global chief content officer for Condé Nast, overall Vogue's global editorial director, in addition to her other role. So I think it's wise that she steps back and maybe put some more time on her calendar. Just wondering what this means for the Devil Wears Prada 2 and perhaps 3. We know that Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly

uh, character is based off Anna Wintour and there is going to be a devil wears product too. Maybe devil wears product three is going to be the succession battle to replace Wintour slash street. The only person I know with editorial, you know, lead in their title is you. So I'm just saying, I wouldn't be upset if you had to go and, you know,

lead vogue that would be a good side gig to your morning brew daily day job the one there's a lot i can do one thing i can't do is being a cultural taste maker that's just not me especially in the fashion world okay that is all the time we have thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful friday and an even better weekend there's not so many of these summer weekends so make the most of it find a pool find a beach find a lake and jump on in

If you have any thoughts on today's episode, send an email with questions, comments, or feedback to morningbrewdaily at morningbrew.com. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Liu is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake. Our technical director is Uchenna Waogu. Hair and makeup is trying to break a 10-minute mile. Devin Emery is our president, and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show, Daniel. I wish you all well.