August 21, 2026

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Happy Friday. The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest may have been retired, but it’s always a good time to remember the beautiful gems it gave us. Launched in 1983, the contest invited writers to submit the worst possible opening sentence to a novel nobody would ever want to read.

The archives are full of amazingly terrible writing. This one, from Tony Alfieri in Los Angeles, is one of our favorites:

“In a flurry of flame and fur, fangs and wicker, thus ended the world’s first and only hot air baboon ride.”

—Matty Merritt, Sam Klebanov, Molly Liebergall, Dave Lozo, Adam Epstein, Neal Freyman

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

Walmart’s worst sales growth in six years
The GTA 6 leaks
Pat McAfee’s ESPN role growing

Markets

Nasdaq

26,067.17

-1.00%

S&P

7,641.16

-0.87%

Dow

52,759.21

-1.32%

10-Year

4.696%

+4.0 bps

Bitcoin

$72,816.54

+5.48%

SpaceX

$134

-4.05%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: Stocks stepped on a rake yesterday as investors were unmoved by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s attempt to intervene in the bond market crisis (more on that later). Elsewhere, SpaceX sank for the third straight day as ~319 million more shares became eligible for early investors to sell.

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FEELING BLUE

Walmart reports slowest sales growth in 6 years

Niv Bavarsky

Walmart’s same-store sales growth wobbled out of last quarter with the power of the last remaining shopping cart during a Sunday afternoon grocery trip. US sales growth inched up just 2.6%, the company’s slowest growth in almost six years in what was otherwise a positive earnings report. With Walmart often seen as a bellwether for the broader US economy, economists are worrying if consumer spending might finally be starting to dwindle.

In response to the news, the retail giant’s stock dropped over 9% yesterday. Much of the blame was placed on Walmart’s health and wellness business, which suffered from new drug price caps, including on GLP-1s. But, even excluding those losses, sales growth clocked in at 3.4%, just shy of Wall Street’s expected 3.5%. Last year, same-store sales grew 4.6% during the same time.

So what’s going on?

CFO John David Rainey told investors that the consumer environment has softened in the last quarter, pointing to gas prices jumping past $4 a gallon in July.
Average hourly earnings have slowed, consumer sentiment sank this month, and folks’ personal savings rates are at their lowest levels since 2022.
Spring also brought higher-than-usual tax refund checks that have likely dried up.

Some relief might be on the way. Walmart said that it’s investing its tariff refund—a record $2.9 billion—back into lowering prices. Last quarter, the retailer said it eased prices on 11,000 items, an increase from 7,200 products in Q1.

What about the competition? Retail sales across the board were down 0.6% in July compared with June, according to the most recent Census Bureau data. But some areas are doing better than others: Target said its back-to-school sales were up by almost 20% compared with last year, while Home Depot said that sales of items needed for small projects, like painting and gardening, have replaced large-scale remodels.—MM

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World

Tour de headlines

Close-up photo of a pile of frozen blueberries

Adobe Stock

🫐 FDA upgraded frozen blueberries recall to highest-risk level. The Food and Drug Administration categorized the recent recall of frozen GreenWise blueberries sold at Publix as “Class 1,” its most severe health warning. Though the berries have already been removed from store shelves, some have expiration dates into 2028, meaning buyers may still have them in their freezers. The blueberries were recalled last month after officials linked them to a multistate E. coli outbreak that sickened at least 12 people as of July 30. The news adds to a mounting list of food recalls in the US this year, including jalapeños linked to salmonella and iceberg lettuce linked to Cyclospora.

🧑‍⚖️ China sentenced Evergrande founder to life in prison. A Chinese court sentenced Hui Ka Yan, the property tycoon and founder of real estate developer Evergrande, to life in prison for financial fraud related to the collapse of the company. Evergrande defaulted on more than $300 billion in debts and collapsed in 2021, setting off China’s property crisis. The 67-year-old Hui, who at one point was believed to be the richest man in China, pleaded guilty to an assortment of financial crimes, including embezzlement and bribery. “The amount involved is exceptionally large, the circumstances are particularly egregious, and extraordinarily heavy economic losses have been caused,” the court said in a statement.

📱 Senators demand answers about TikTok’s “depraved” experiment. Republican Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut sent a letter to TikTok executives demanding answers about an experiment the company conducted that withheld a safety feature from millions of users. According to Bloomberg, TikTok intentionally removed a safeguard from 10% of users, subjecting them to potentially harmful content as part of a control group. One of the users in the group was a 16-year-old who was reportedly shown thousands of videos about loneliness and suicide before he died by suicide in 2022. TikTok did not respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment.—AE

UNSHAKEABLE BONDS

Treasury’s plan to boost bonds falls flat

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images

Uncle Sam’s attempt to give its Treasury bonds a not-so-invisible hand isn’t working out as planned. The effect of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s announcement this week that he would raise the limit on buying bonds back from investors to support the US bond market turned out to be as short-lived as your calligraphy hobby.

Bessent’s announcement on Wednesday that the buyback program would grow from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation followed a bond selloff that pushed the 30-year bond yield—which moves opposite to price—to 5.32% on Tuesday, the highest level since 2007. Many analysts interpreted Bessent’s move as an attempt to lower yields (along with closely correlated mortgage rates). But instead of sagging, they whipsawed:

Yields came down to as low as 5.18% following Bessent’s initial announcement on Wednesday but then rebounded to 5.27% by yesterday morning.
After Bessent told CNBC yesterday that the Treasury could use other tools to support bonds, yields dipped again—but only briefly.

Some analysts aren’t surprised. They say buying bonds doesn’t address the reasons investors are demanding higher premiums for holding US debt in the first place—which include fears that rising oil prices will reignite inflation and worries about ballooning government debt.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh advocates for the opposite approach…saying the central bank should take a backseat to bond investors in determining interest rates.—SK

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GRAND THEFT CYBER

GTA VI hackers threaten a nightmare scenario

Promotional image from Grand Theft Auto 6 showing two main characters, Jason and Lucia, standing on a dock in front of a speedboat. Jason is holding up a gun menacingly, with Lucia standing behind in a defensive stance holding a gun and briefcase.

Rockstar Games

The most anticipated video game of the decade may be suffering its most catastrophic leak yet: A hacktivist group called CyberLeek has allegedly been releasing unauthorized Grand Theft Auto VI footage all week, in protest against what it described as “monetization schemes.”

Worst case: The whole game gets spoiled. Yesterday, CyberLeek posted a clip (its fifth since Tuesday) that shows a GTA VI protagonist shooting the word “LEEK” into a wall:

This suggested that the group may have an actual working build of the game—not just stolen videos.
The group has said that it won’t stop releasing footage until publisher Rockstar Games and parent company Take-Two make certain business changes.
A prevailing fear is that CyberLeek may spoil the game bit by bit: It already apparently posted the game map.

CyberLeek appears to be opposed to Take-Two’s unpopular decisions to make GTA VI digital-only and paywall some in-game features behind the $100 Ultimate Edition. “No physical discs? Then more leeks!” the group wrote on one of its clips. Per its manifesto, CyberLeek is “raising funds for a secret project” and will target any game publisher that it considers to be acting against consumers’ interests.

Great timing: Netflix is set to air an official extended look at GTA VI gameplay on Aug. 27.—ML

Dave’s sports desk

ESPN wants to feed you even more Pat McAfee

Host and sports personality Pat McAfee, light-skinned man with short salt-and-pepper hair wearing a white suit, runs through a crowd getting high-fives and applause from fans.

Isaiah Vazquez/Getty Images

On Fridays, the Brew’s Dave Lozo looks at a sports business story that says a lot more than just the final score of a game.

ESPN has found yet another place to showcase ~~singer/songwriter~~ former NFL punter Pat McAfee. The network’s favorite tank-top-wearing manosphere idol will join Monday Night Countdown this fall, making him arguably the new face of the company.

The ubiquitous McAfee is reportedly on the verge of a new deal that will pay him $60 million annually—and it seems like ESPN wants to get its money’s worth. He already hosts his own show, is part of the College Gameday crew, and apparently has enough free time to put out a debut music album last week that ESPN employees swore they loved. Meanwhile, one critic called it a “train of diarrhea and disappointment.”

McAfee’s new contract, which doubles his current salary, comes in the wake of another round of high-profile ESPN layoffs, including Ryan Clark, who had been an analyst on Countdown.

Movies next? McAfee reportedly hired an agent to land him film roles, although he’s already starring in his own version of Everything Everywhere All At Once.—DL

Reader Poll

How do you feel about Pat McAfee’s growing role at ESPN?

Too much.
Still not enough.
Just the right amount.
I don’t know who that is.

Friday trivia

Today’s riddle comes from Puzzle a Day.

You encounter a wise man sitting in a cave. In front of him are two coins: a five-cent coin and a large gold coin worth $10,000.

He offers you a challenge:

You may make one statement.
If your statement is true, he will give you one of the coins, but he won’t tell you which.
If your statement is false, you receive nothing.

What statement can you make to guarantee that you win the $10,000 gold coin?

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Answer

“You won’t give me the five-cent coin.” (There may be other correct answers.)

Here’s the explanation.

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: penumbra, meaning “a part of a shadow in which only some of the light is blocked, used especially about a shadow made during an eclipse.” Thanks to Victoria from Maine and several others for the suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.

✷ A Note From State Street Investment Management

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Written by Adam Epstein, Matty Merritt, Sam Klebanov, Molly Liebergall, Dave Lozo, and Neal Freyman

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