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| This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how to sell a house amid 7% mortgage rates. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, TODAY, for consideration by your Cheddar peers. (Don’t worry if you get a bounceback email. The mailbox is working, it’s just been inundated with haikus lately, thank goodness!) | Now, news! | Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor | | Table of Contents | | | What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh? | $SPX ( ▼ 0.75% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.68% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% ) | | Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter | $COIN ( ▼ 1.46% ) $BTC ( ▼ 2.95% ) $MSFT ( ▲ 0.52% ) $AMZN ( ▼ 2.24% ) $ORCL ( ▼ 3.11% ) $SPCX ( ▼ 4.11% ) $TSLA ( ▲ 0.32% ) $MORN ( ▲ 2.61% ) | | Regulators Race To Fill the Crypto Void |  | (Cheddar.com) |
| If you were waiting on Congress to deliver crypto guidelines, don't hold your breath. After the Clarity Act stalled in the Senate last week, lawmakers did what they do best: Hit a procedural wall. But while Capitol Hill hit pause, federal regulators have since hit fast-forward. | Just two days after the bill failed to advance, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodities & Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) scrambled to build a regulatory framework under their existing authorities. The SEC quickly paved a temporary pathway for tokenized stocks, inching closer to 24/7 trading, while the CFTC submitted its own proposal to the White House. As former acting CFTC Chair Caroline Pham told CNBC, “a plan B to move forward at the agency level was always in the cards.” | Meanwhile, crypto executives are fed up with legislative traffic jams. Coinbase $COIN ( ▼ 1.46% ) CEO Brian Armstrong blurted out the industry's collective exhaustion, stating, “At this point, I don’t think we can wait on Congress and the Senate.” Summer Mersinger, CEO of the Blockchain Association, pointed out that traditional finance remains stuck in limbo: “When you’re thinking about traditional finance entering in and using some of this technology, they’re being held back right now because there is this regulatory uncertainty.” | Bitcoin $BTC ( ▼ 2.95% ) rose sharply after the regulation failed, of course. | | | Quote of the Day | | | President Discloses Over 1,100 Trades |  | (Google) |
| If you thought day trading was strictly reserved for caffeine-fueled Redditors on Robinhood, think again. President Donald Trump’s financial disclosure reveals 1,156 securities transactions in July alone, shuffling anywhere between $79 million and $270 million across his accounts. That averages out to nearly 37 trades a day, a relentless pace that would make even seasoned Wall Street brokers dizzy. | The July trading spree featured high-volume maneuvers across tech giants, defense contractors, and municipal bonds. On July 20, the portfolio unloaded between $5 million and $25 million each in Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 0.52% ) and Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 2.24% ) shares, only to turn around three days later and buy back small pieces of both. That same day, the portfolio dumped up to $5 million in Oracle $ORCL ( ▼ 3.11% ) and $500,000 in Northrop Grumman $NOC ( ▲ 0.89% ) , right as the president signed an executive order tightening defense contractor supply chains. Throw in repeated trades of Elon Musk’s SpaceX $SPCX ( ▼ 4.11% ) and Tesla $TSLA ( ▲ 0.32% ) , and you have an investment portfolio moving at quite a clip. | How does the White House explain this non-stop financial carousel? By insisting the president isn't pulling any strings. White House spokesman Davis Ingle said, “President Trump’s stock and bond portfolio is independently managed by third-party financial institutions.” He emphasized, “Neither President Trump nor any member of his family has any ability to direct, influence, or provide input regarding how the portfolio is invested or when investments are bought or sold.” | Previous presidents preferred quiet blind trusts or broad index funds to avoid conflict-of-interest headaches, but this portfolio leans into hyper-activity — logging over 21,000 trades in a single year. | Perhaps entirely coincidentally, Americans’ perceptions of government corruption in the U.S. are at their highest level in 20 years, with 89% of U.S. adults saying it is widespread. That figure is up 10 percentage points from last year and well above readings in the 72% to 79% range between 2010 and 2025. Let us know how you feel about that in today’s poll, below |
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