Good morning investors!

If this is your first time reading, welcome to The Investor’s Edge — a thriving community of more than 16,000 subscribers striving to be better investors with an edge in the market.

Every weekend we publish “The Weekly Wrap-Up” — your ticket to being well informed and staying ahead in the investment game!

This report is designed to help investors of all skill levels break down important stories/topics within the stock market. And best of all, we cut through all of the BS and give you exactly what you need to know in easy to digest, bite sized pieces of content.

Grab your coffee and let’s dive in.

Market Talk

It was a tough week for both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 as the technology sector saw a huge sell-off.

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🗨️ Chat rooms: Investors discussed the the huge moves from mega cap tech and the crypto sell-off. Members also dove into the number of jobs reports and shared their views on the overall economy.

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3 Stories Moving the Market

These are some of the biggest stories from the second half of the week that had an influence on market action.

CrowdStrike issue causes major outage affecting businesses around the world

On Friday, a content update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused a major IT outage, disrupting businesses globally.

The financial services sector, general practitioners' offices, TV broadcasters, and air travel were notably affected, with grounded planes and delayed services.

CrowdStrike’s CEO, George Kurtz, clarified that the issue was a defect in a Windows update and not a security incident or cyberattack. He confirmed that Mac and Linux systems were unaffected, and a fix has been deployed.

Meanwhile, Microsoft also restored its cloud services after being affected by the outage, though some users continued to face issues.

Amazon Prime Day drives U.S. online sales to record $14.2 billion

During Amazon's 48-hour Prime Day event, U.S. online spending surged 11% year over year to $14.2 billion, surpassing estimates and setting a record, according to Adobe Analytics.

This increase was driven by back-to-school shopping and consumers buying new electronics like tablets, TVs, and Bluetooth speakers, contrasting with last year's focus on household essentials.

Amazon reported record-breaking Prime Day revenue but didn't disclose total sales. They highlighted their Rufus shopping assistant, which uses AI to suggest products and provide order updates, as a significant aid for shoppers.

Numerator found that the average order size increased to $57.97 from $54.05 last year, with popular items including Amazon-branded products, Premier protein shakes, and Liquid IV packets. However, shoppers bought fewer big-ticket items and made fewer multiple orders, indicating a shift to more conscious shopping and saving over splurging.

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Netflix beats estimates as ad-supported memberships rise 34%

Netflix reported second-quarter earnings, highlighting its leading position in the streaming industry as it added more global subscribers and saw significant growth in its advertising business.

The ad-supported memberships grew 34% compared to the same quarter last year, with advertising becoming an important revenue model for profitability.  Revenue for the quarter was approximately $9.6 billion, up 17% from the previous year.

Global paid memberships increased 16.5% year over year to 278 million.

Netflix announced that it will stop providing quarterly membership numbers or average revenue per user starting in 2025, focusing instead on revenue, operating margin, and customer engagement as primary metrics.

Netflix's stock has benefited from its efforts to increase subscribers on its cheaper, ad-supported tier and its crackdown on password sharing. Shares are up over 100% since announcing the crackdown.

In Other News

In this section, we'll be curating a selection of news headlines we think you'll find interesting. If a topic catches your eye, click the provided links to read more about it.

• TSMC second-quarter profit beats expectations as AI chip boom continues

• Education Department to pause student loan payments for millions amid legal battle

• State Farm Threatens to Abandon California If They Can't Raise Prices: 52% For Renters, 30% For Homeowners

• AmEx's quarterly profit beats estimates on robust spending

• Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly shares slide on new obesity drug trial from Roche

• Eli Lilly's weight loss drug tirzepatide gets approval in China

• Domino's Pizza warns of slower Q3 sales; shares fall

• Abbott raises profit forecast on strong medical device sales

• Copper has its worst week since 2022

IE+ Posts of the Week

We continue to push out more and more content every week to give investors that edge. Here are the posts Investor’s Edge+ subscribers received this week.

Edge Report

Mondays are for the investors. Every Monday morning we share exactly what we’re watching in the week ahead, how we’re positioning, and even share a sneak peek into our systems and models. This week we discussed the upcoming earnings reports and potential volatility ahead. See the latest full report here:

Earnings Recap

Every week during earnings season we share a recap of the quarterly reports from stocks that we cover. This week Edge+ subscribers received two reports to their inboxes. You can see this week’s earnings recaps here:

The Week Ahead

Earnings will take center stage as investors look to these major companies' guidance for a clearer understanding of the economic outlook. We also get a major inflation report that could determine whether we get the first rate cut soon.

Earnings Reports

Let the earnings season begin. Here is the list of names we will be covering next week:

• Monday 7/22: Verizon and Alexandria Real Estate

• Tuesday 7/23: Alphabet, Tesla, Visa, Coca-Cola, UPS, Lockheed Martin, and General Motors

• Wednesday 7/24: IBM, Waste Management, and Chipotle

• Thursday 7/25: Abbvie, Union Pacific, Tractor Supply, and L3Harris

• Friday 7/26: 3M

Here is the full calendar of scheduled earnings releases:

Economic Reports

Next week's calendar includes several significant events, such as housing reports, crucial PMI and GDP data, and the now closely monitored jobless claims report. However, the most critical event is Friday’s PCE inflation report. The Fed, the market, and investors will be paying close attention to this report to determine if the trend of decreasing inflation persists.

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Thank you for reading this edition of the Weekly Wrap-Up. Have a great weekend!

Until next time investors!

Mark & Chris

The Investor’s Edge

Disclosure

This is not investing advice. It is very important that you do your own research and make investments based on your own personal circumstances, preferences, goals and risk tolerance.