Daily Brew // Morning Brew // Update

May 28, 2026

Cough cough. According to Business Insider, a growing number of US employees are planning to fake calling in sick in order to snag last-minute tickets to World Cup matches when they (hopefully) become cheaper and watch some of the action IRL.

Definitely not us, though. We are firm believers in keeping the office AC and a second monitor running while crafting newsletters.

—Matty Merritt, Dave Lozo, Molly Liebergall, Holly Van Leuven

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

How AI money is shaping the housing market
New drone strikes near the Strait of Hormuz
The “6-7” trend’s fate after the pope used it twice in one week

MARKETS

Nasdaq

26,674.73

+0.07%

S&P

7,520.36

+0.02%

Dow

50,644.28

+0.36%

10-Year

4.481%

-1.0 bps

Bitcoin

$74,554.03

-1.42%

Snowflake

$175.26

-1.32%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: The three major indexes finished yesterday up, and the Nasdaq and S&P 500 hit new records, due to a draft memo circulating from Iran that said it would reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days following a peace deal—even though the White House disputed the memo’s validity.
Stock spotlight: The Force was not with Salesforce after the software company’s revenue outlook for the fiscal quarter fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.

BOT CASH

People are buying luxury homes with AI money

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Sales of luxury homes, driven primarily by free-flowing AI money, are surging in places like San Francisco and the Hamptons, while nonluxury sales are stalling out.

The median US luxury home sale price jumped to $1.39 million from February to April this year, a 3.6% year over year increase, compared to a 1.4% median price increase for nonluxury homes, according to a new Redfin report.

There’s no bigger boom than in the San Francisco Bay Area, ground zero for the AI race:

Luxury prices in the area have risen 13.4% since November 2022 (when ChatGPT’s first model was released), while less-expensive properties in the same area have fallen 3.8%.
In March, the median house price in the city of San Francisco reached a record $2.15 million.

Some SF real estate agents have argued that the steep spike in luxury homes can be chalked up to a correction after years of home price hibernation. But rents have also shot up in the last few years, driven by workers flocking back to the city to get a piece of the AI boom:

The median monthly price of a one-bedroom apartment jumped over 21% in the last year to above $4,000, the biggest jump in the US, according to apartment-listing firm Zumper.
A two-bedroom runs about $5,500 a month on average, tying the city with New York for the most expensive rent in the country.

On the other coast: The median property sale price in the Hamptons hit a record $2.34 million in the final quarter of last year. Realtors in the area say deep-pocketed AI workers are paying all cash and are willing to shell out $50,000 to make sure the fiber internet is top-tier. Luxury home sales are also proceeding at a good clip in cities like Tampa, West Palm Beach, and Miami.

Speaking of AI…it doesn’t have high hopes for mortgage rates dropping below 5% in the next five years.—MM

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WORLD

Tour de headlines

Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

US and Iran exchanged drone strikes near Strait of Hormuz. Yesterday, the Treasury Dept. issued sanctions against the Persian Gulf State Authority, the entity newly formed by Iran to manage the Strait of Hormuz. The US also said it disabled four one-way drones that Iran launched over the strait. An anonymous US official who spoke to the New York Times said that the military led an airstrike against an Iranian drone ground-control station in Bandar Abbas, an important Iranian port city, before a fifth drone could be launched. Early this morning local time, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said it retaliated by targeting the base from which the US strike on Bandar Abbas was launched.

Robinhood to let AI make trades, buy stuff for you. Yesterday, the company announced Agentic Trading and the Agentic Credit Card, which will allow users to connect their AI agents of choice to the tools to carry out investment or spending plans with limited human interaction. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said in a statement, “Our mission has always been to democratize finance for all, and now, that mission extends to AI agents.” Robinhood said that the agentic trading accounts are separate from a user’s main portfolio, require the user to set spending caps, and will give the user notifications about transactions, as well as the ability to immediately disconnect an agent from an account.

Roku gets dynamic home screen revamp. If you’re still unsure what Roku is or how it’s different from the other 12 apps on your TV, and also whether it’s a city, this news may or may not help you. The streaming service, which reaches over 100 million households, announced its first big design revamp in a decade. Among other new features, the change introduces a Roku home screen that shifts throughout the day, powered by AI-driven personalization, for Roku TVs and streaming devices. The company also introduced new ad slots on the home screen. Ad money accounted for most of the $4.74 billion in revenue that Roku brought in last year, according to Bloomberg.—HVL

CHARGING AHEAD

Ford’s new profit vehicle isn’t actually a vehicle

Ford Energy

Ford’s stock is surging…and it has nothing to do with Sam Elliott’s gravelly voiceovers on F-150 ads. Shares closed at a three-year high of $15.88 yesterday, continuing a run that started two weeks ago, when the automaker announced a new energy subsidiary that’s powering AI data centers.

The company is investing $2 billion in Ford Energy, which takes batteries made for electric vehicles and repurposes them as energy storage systems for power utilities, industrial businesses, and the data centers your neighbors are arguing over. With EV sales waning, Ford is giving the batteries a second life that has investors buzzing:

Optimism abounds thanks to Ford’s partnership with China-based battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL).
The bull run really took off when Morgan Stanley estimated that Ford Energy could be worth $10 billion.

Two days after that report, Ford announced a five-year deal to supply 4 gigawatt-hours annually for renewable power developer EDF, beginning in 2028.

Bottom line: While Ford surges through energy diversification, its competitors are headed in reverse—shares of GM, Jeep, and Stellantis are all down this year.—DL

Three Headlines and a Lie

Three of these headlines are real and one is faker than getting any work done on the patio. Can you spot the odd one out?

Knicks blowout prompts NYC bar to slash tabs by 37%: ‘We took one for the team’
California’s last surviving ‘bubble house’ is for sale
You can actually win FIFA World Cup Finals tickets in Dave & Buster’s crane game
New study finds trees can have allergies, too

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ANSWER

We made up the one about tree allergies.

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: iridocyclitis, meaning “inflammation of the iris.” Thanks to Patrick from South Carolina and Kenna from Memphis, TN, for the eye-watering suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.

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