• Markets: John F. Kennedy once said a rising tide lifts all boats, and in this case, the rising tide is “chip stocks” and the boats are “markets.” A rebound for chipmakers pushed all three major indexes back into the green, putting investors in a cheery mood as they await another round of tech earnings starting this week. Elsewhere, GM climbed after beating Wall Street’s earnings projections.

THE HEAT IS ON

Adobe Stock

Trading the Big Apple for Miami has become as financially prudent as packing a Kobe beef lunch at home instead of getting a burrito bowl at work. The Miami metropolitan area has become pricier to live in than greater New York for the first time ever, according to Bloomberg’s analysis this week of government data from 2024.

Costs have climbed further since then, squeezing longtime locals and the scores of recent transplants lured not just by warmer weather, but also by the promise of cheaper living and no state income tax. Consumer prices have risen 36% for Miamians since 2019, which is more than in any other US metro area except Tampa, Florida.

No more cheap condos

The recent influx of sunshine chasers—made up of folks earning an average of $122k per year—has contributed to Miami’s home prices rising 79% since the pandemic, per the S&P Case-Shiller index.

While Miami’s per-square-foot home prices are still lower than New York’s, the average total cost of housing is now 5% higher than in the tri-state area, which includes parts of Connecticut and New Jersey:

• Greater Miami’s property taxes have skyrocketed 62% since 2019, per real estate data firm Attom.
• Many residents in older apartments now have to pay for costly safety upgrades that have become more frequent after the deadly Surfside condo collapse in 2021—on top of the steepest homeowners’ insurance rates in the country.

Outside the home, there aren’t many dollar slices. An average restaurant check in Miami was $94 last year, compared with $79 in New York, according to OpenTable.

To add insult to injury: Miami workers are earning $1,000 less per year than the median American. Bloomberg noted that Miami’s white-collar wages are also lower than New York’s.

Not struggling to afford Miami…are the billionaires who continue to relocate there in a trend vocally championed by Citadel founder Ken Griffin, who bought a $107 million estate in the city this year. Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have also recently become Miami-area residents.—SK

      

reader poll

Sponsored By Re:You

Looking to step up your hair game? Many hair serums on the market rely on decades-old ingredients that weren’t created for hair loss—and they likely weren’t optimized for efficacy or safety, either.

RE:YOU’s new Dual-Path Hair Revival Serum contains three proprietary molecules designed to specifically support hair follicles from the inside out. Each molecule was optimized for efficacy and honed to work on different biological issues that can contribute to hair thinning.

Let’s talk numbers: RE:YOU partnered with an independent third party to conduct a double-blind, expert + machine-graded, 190-person clinical trial. After just three months, experts graded RE:YOU users with 19% thicker hair on average.

Get 15% off with code MORNINGBREWSPECIAL15.

World

Tour de headlines

Michael Siluk/Getty Images

🤥 Novo Nordisk sued Eli Lilly for allegedly deceptive GLP-1 ads. The Ozempic and Wegovy maker accused its rival, the company behind Mounjaro and Zepbound, of using “outdated” clinical trial data to make its weight-loss drugs appear superior to Novo’s. Novo says that the ads leave out more recent data that shows that a high-dose version of Wegovy can help patients lose the same amount of weight as Lilly’s products. Novo is asking a court to force Lilly to stop running the ads and issue corrections. In a statement to CNBC, Lilly said it stands “firmly behind our advertising” and would “defend against this lawsuit vigorously.” As of last year, Lilly has overtaken Novo as the top GLP-1 company by revenue and market share.

📱 Apple is partnering with Klarna to let you lease iPhones. According to Bloomberg, Apple will soon announce Apple Upgrade, a subscription program that will allow users to lease iPhones, Macs, iPads, and Apple Watches with backing from buy now, pay later company Klarna. Similar to car leases, users will reportedly be able to pay off their devices early, upgrade or keep them at the end of the term, or return them. The company plans to market the initiative as a way to make payments lower than existing financing options, Bloomberg reported. Apple Upgrade is set to roll out in the US on July 28.

🐭 Disney and Kraft Heinz ink “strategic alliance.” If Thor is guzzling a large bowl of Kraft Mac & Cheese in the next Avengers movie, don’t be shocked. The Mouse House made a wide-ranging media deal with Kraft Heinz to help boost both companies’ brands. As part of the deal, Disney will use Kraft Heinz products at its parks and cruises in North America (and potentially incorporate them into TV shows and movies), while Kraft Heinz will get to use Disney characters in its marketing. “For generations families have grown up with both of our companies and our brands,” Kraft Heinz CMO Todd Kaplan said, adding that the deal builds on the “memory structure” that consumers have of each brand.—AE

PARDON THE JOB INTERRUPTION

Greg Fiume/Getty Images

Ryan Clark, Karl Ravech, and Cam Newton were among the on-air personalities let go by ESPN this week, as the Worldwide Leader and NFL Network consolidate their media talent before football season begins.

Yesterday’s layoffs are the result of the $3 billion deal the NFL and ESPN completed last February that gave the league a 10% equity stake in ESPN, while ESPN acquired NFL Network and NFL Red Zone. Most of the cuts affected behind-the-scenes employees, but the firing of Clark, an ESPN mainstay since 2015, was as public as they come:

• Clark was informed of his impending departure Monday while on NFL Live, the day before ESPN had planned to let everyone affected know, and he left mid-show, per The Athletic.
• The layoff follows a tense on-air incident on Get Up in September that rankled ESPN executives, according to The Athletic, in which Clark disagreed with NFL reporter Peter Schrager by saying, “That’s the non-player in you.”

Beyond the ESPN layoffs…parent company Disney cut hundreds of jobs in other divisions yesterday, with most of the firings happening at Pixar Studios and National Geographic. In April, Disney cut ~1,000 marketing positions across various platforms, citing lower streaming profits.—DL

      

Sponsored By Cytonics

Final days to invest. When Big Pharma can’t cure a disease, they look to acquire companies that can. That could be Cytonics’ story. They’re developing the first and only potential cure for osteoarthritis, and it just cleared Phase 1 clinical trials. While nothing’s guaranteed, an uncured $560b disease is exactly where Big Pharma’s known to look for acquisitions. Invest while the timing is right.

what sorcery

Niv Bavarsky

Hasbro played Rampant Growth last quarter. The toymaker reported stellar earnings yesterday, beating Wall Street estimates thanks to its Magic: The Gathering card game bringing in more than $500 million for the first time. The company’s stock ended the day up 8.8%

For those unfamiliar with the pain of drawing only lands for three straight turns, Magic has boomed since Hasbro acquired it almost three decades ago. In 2023, Hasbro said the game was the company’s first billion-dollar brand based on annual sales. And this past quarter was its best yet:

• Magic brought in $545.3 million in Q2, a 32% jump from the same period last year.
• Execs credited the success to the brand’s Marvel superheroes set released last quarter, which set first-day and first-month sales records.
• The game has reached 50+ million players since its inception in the 1990s.

While the game’s rapid release schedule has been key to driving sales, it has also reportedly overwhelmed some players who can’t keep up. The brand’s next big release, a Star Trek-themed set, is scheduled for November.

Looking ahead...Hasbro said it is abandoning many of its video games in production and decreasing spending in the division by at least 25% a year.—MM

      

Sam’s stock of the week

Biotech IPOs outshine AI stock market debuts

Getty Images

On Wednesdays, the Brew’s Sam Klebanov highlights a fascinating stock, commodity, or other asset that’s worth your attention.

It might be a hard pill for AI bulls to swallow, but the hottest IPOs are about drugs—not data centers. Shares of biotech and pharma companies that went public this year are up 55% on average, according to Bloomberg’s estimate.

That’s compared with an average 4.4% return for all companies that went public in 2026 and a 6% average loss for the 10 biggest IPOs of the year, including splashy offerings by AI chipmakers and SpaceX.

For instance:

• Veradermics, a hair loss treatment maker, is the best-performing IPO of 2026, up more than 500% since listing in February.
• Blood disorder drug developer Hemab Therapeutics soared more than 100% after raising $350 million in its May IPO.

Big picture: The biotech boom is helped by looser regulations, recent research breakthroughs, and cash-flush Big Pharma buying up smaller companies.—SK

Sponsored By CAKES Body

Every outfit, fully covered. Backless dress? Deep-vee top? Strapless everything? CAKES has you covered—literally. Grippy Cakes, Sticky Cakes, the Cleavage Bra, CAKES Tape, and NEW Invisible Undies, all 30% off through July 31. Confidence, comfort, zero underwire. Shop the sale of the summer.

News

What else is brewing

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced questions from the Senate Appropriations Committee over his request for another $80 billion to fund the war in Iran, days after three US service members were killed.
• France adopted a social media ban for users under 15, becoming the first country in the European Union to do so.
• Anthropic must pay authors a historic $1.5 billion to settle a copyright lawsuit alleging that it used pirated copies of hundreds of thousands of books to train its Claude chatbot.
• Computer science enrollment fell for the first time in roughly two decades due to the rise of AI, according to a Stanford economist.
• Utz, one of the potato chip brands you’ve probably heard of, is being taken private in a $2.9 billion deal with a German snack company.

recs

• In this game, try to guess the song as quickly as you can.
• Spin the wheel to land on a random website from the 1990s or 2000s.
• The best video games of 2026 so far, per NPR.
• A minimalistic multi-tool that can tighten screws and open a beer afterwards.**

^{*A message from our sponsor. **This is a product recommendation from our writers. When you buy through this link, Morning Brew may earn a commission.}

Play

Word Search: This week’s theme is “FIFA World Cup winners,” but as long as you’re decent at geography, you’ll pass muster. Play the Word Search here.

Complete the song

OK, pay attention to these instructions. We’ll give you the title of a non-No. 1 song with one word missing. That word is the title of a song by a different artist that went No. 1.

Example: “___ Romance” (Lady Gaga) = “Bad” by Michael Jackson.

1. “____ Around” (House of Pain)
2. “___ Not ___” (Demi Lovato)
3. “break up with your ____, i’m bored” (Ariana Grande)
4. “Sweet but ____” (Ava Max)

Answer

1. “Jump” by Van Halen
2. “Sorry” by Justin Bieber
3. “Girlfriend” by Avril Lavigne
4. “Psycho” by Post Malone ft. Ty Dolla Sign

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: guzzling, meaning “drinking or eating quickly and in large amounts.” Thanks to Erin from Harrisonburg, VA, for the suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.