Axios

The dip in chip stocks this week may be a preview of what’s to come.

Catch up fast: Shares of Nvidia and AMD briefly fell 3% yesterday after a WSJ report said that the Biden administration could tighten export rules for AI chips headed to China.

Another big Wall Street firm on Thursday joined the crusade to bring a spot bitcoin fund to market.

The big picture: Fidelity Investments is the most recent financial juggernaut to join the parade recently kicked off by BlackRock.

• It refiled its application for a spot bitcoin ETF that resembles the world's largest asset manager's, in that it has the same, supposed winning, feature: an explicit surveillance sharing agreement.

What they're saying: "A meaningful portion of our customers are interested in and own digital assets," a spokesperson for Fidelity tells Axios in an emailed statement, explaining its application.

Catch up fast: It joins an ever growing list of ETF hopefuls that includes Cathie Wood's Ark Invest, WisdomTree, Valkyrie, and Invesco.

Details: Fidelity's is called Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust.

Of note: "The Exchange is expecting to enter into a surveillance sharing agreement with an operator of a United States-based spot trading platform for Bitcoin," the filing reads.

• The exchange is CBOE and the spot trading platform, many speculate, will likely be likely Coinbase.

Yes, but: The answer may still be a resounding "no," given that the Securities and Exchange Commission has denied many a request since it first rejected an application from Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss roughly 10 years ago.

The bottom line: We'd be surprised if any spot bitcoin ETFs were approved under this administration.

The duel between Coinbase and a top U.S. financial regulator has officially kicked off, with the opening shots fired on both sides now.

Driving the news: The U.S.'s largest crypto exchange filed a motion late Wednesday night asking the court to dismiss the SEC's lawsuit levied against the company this month.

A little car-sharing service in Vienna, Austria, announced that it had tokenized part of its fleet of over 200 Tesla cars.

Why it matters: By tokenizing ownership of the fleet, the firm can distribute revenue to the co-owners as it comes in, providing real revenue to a blockchain token.

Fast-fashion giant Shein is denying a Reuters report that it has filed confidentially for a U.S. IPO.

Why it matters: This would be one of the year's largest IPOs, but also one of the more controversial given allegations over some of Shein's labor practices.

More encouraging economic news keeps coming: the U.S. economy began the year with more momentum than initially thought.

By the numbers: Gross domestic product grew at a 2% annualized rate in the first quarter, a notable upward revision from the most recent estimate of 1.3% (and the first estimate of 1.1%). The quicker pace is a result of stronger growth in exports and consumer spending, particularly on services.

In the latter years of the 2010s, there was a widening bipartisan sense that fiscal deficits don't really matter. Now, they do again.

Driving the news: That's a clear implication of new long-term forecasts for deficits and debt issued by the Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday afternoon.

As head of Black media at Google, Kayla Conti is responsible reaching audiences outside of the traditional tech and business press by telling the tech giant's culturally relevant stories.

Labor issues used to sit squarely in the purview of human resources and legal, but they are increasingly becoming a major PR issue as companies across industries take major reputational hits.

Why it matters: The rising popularity of unions and employee activism have caused many communications teams to re-evaluate their internal outreach strategies and prepare crisis response plans should strikes ensue.

Federal authorities on Thursday arrested and charged three men with insider trading, related to a blank-check company's planned merger with a social media company founded by former President Trump.

The big picture: The charges do not implicate Trump or anyone else directly involved with Truth Social, but do stem from investigations that have prevented the company from going public.

Almost every major deal market metric was down sharply in the first half of 2023, according to preliminary data from Refinitiv.

By the numbers: Global M&A hit $1.3 trillion year-to-date, which is down 38% over the same period in 2022 and not too much higher than the COVID shock era of first-half 2020.

Snapchat on Thursday will announce that its subscription service, Snapchat+, has reached 4 million paid subscribers in its first year, executives told Axios.

Why it matters: Getting users to pay for social media services that they've grown accustomed to getting for free is not easy.

A standoff between UPS and the Teamsters over their new contract intensified Wednesday when the union's president put out his strongest statement yet — saying a strike would happen if the company didn't improve its offer on wages and benefits.

Where it stands: The union said UPS has until Friday to come back to the table with something better or risk a strike by Aug. 1.

Cruise lines topped the market in the second quarter.

Why it matters: The soaring sentiment buoying cruise operators suggests investors don't expect the American consumer to pull back on spending.

Turns out how you feel about the economy likely comes down to your paycheck: If your wages are outpacing inflation, things look rosy — if not, well, that's quite dispiriting, a new paper finds.

Why it matters: The paper from economist Darren Grant answers a puzzle plaguing economists and journalists since 2022. That is, why was consumer sentiment so dismal even as the economy roared and unemployment hit record lows?

An emerging alignment between the United Auto Workers and former President Trump over electric vehicles threatens to sour the longstanding alliance between the union and the Democratic Party.

Why it matters: The UAW, representing more than 400,000 active workers, has long been a powerful force in progressive politics, serving as a Midwestern bulwark for Democrats.

President Biden has finally stopped worrying and learned to love "Bidenomics," less than two weeks after joking to an audience of union workers: "I don't know what the hell that is."

Why it matters: Biden's embrace of a term he's expressed some ambivalence about will fully align him with a White House communications shop that wants to run on the president's economic record and legislative accomplishments in 2024.