Axios

Key takeaways from major earnings reports today:

🥤 Coca-Cola: The beverage giant raised its 2024 sales forecast and reported a 15% increase in organic revenue. Nine points of the growth were attributable to price hikes, though two-thirds of the latter was due to runaway inflation in Argentina.

🤧 Kimberly-Clark: The maker of Kleenex tissue paper and Cottonelle toilet paper said consumer tissue sales fell 4% in the second quarter, compared with a year earlier. The company raised its 2024 forecast, but its stock was still down 4% this afternoon.

Ether didn't move much in the last 24 hours, during which the final SEC approvals for various ETFs to launch today landed.

💭 Our thought bubble: If memory serves, bitcoin didn't do cartwheels initially either.

• The surge and the fresh all-time high came a bit after the launch — maybe, ether will trace that pattern, or go its own way.

The big question right now is whether the economy's gentle slowdown could morph into a painful downturn. But the signals that typically offer clues look more unreliable than ever.

Why it matters: Recession indicators don't work like they used to. Many of them have been tripped, yet no big downturn has materialized. The quirks of the pandemic business cycle — driven by a rolling series of disruptions to supply and demand — are the likely culprit.

Italian eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica knows that the not-so-secret secret to making money in the fashion industry is to have direct relationships with customers. That's why it's beefing up with tech — and is buying a high-profile streetwear brand.

Driving the news: EssilorLuxottica said last week it would spend $1.5 billion to buy Supreme; it seems likely to accept a $5 billion investment from Meta; and is buying a controlling interest in Heidelberg Engineering, a company specializing in eye-test technology.

Sunday's seismic decision from President Biden to end his re-election campaign barely registered across financial markets Monday.

Between the lines: After an initial jolt, investors — and the prediction markets — didn't budge from bets based on former President Trump winning in November.

Grayscale Investments' mini ether ETF is set to trade on major exchanges Tuesday, and could price at less than a McDonald's Big Mac.

Why it matters: The Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust (ETH) is designed to beckon at retail investors.

Ryanair, Europe's most-flown airline, has a good news is bad news problem: Summer travel will be busier than last year, but its profits will be much lower.

Why it matters: Consumers who travel with the budget carrier are pushing back on higher fares.

Driving the news: "We are repeatedly seeing price resistance," CEO Michael O'Leary told analysts this morning. As CFO Neil Sorahan put it, customers were being "a little bit more frugal."

Nike's newest ad is giving AITA vibes.

Between the lines: The "Winning Isn't for Everyone" campaign "marks a return of the 'f**k you' attitude in Nike advertising that taps into its hardcore athlete pedigree," Fast Company notes.

Zoom in: Narrated by Willem Dafoe, the ad wonders aloud "Do you think I'm a bad person? I think I'm better than everyone else. I want to take what's yours and never give it back."

• The promotion, released late last week ahead of the Olympics starting on Friday, resembles the tone of a 1996 Olympics campaign with a similarly competitive tagline, "You don't win silver, you lose gold."

McDonald's is extending its popular $5 meal deal in a push to drive more consumers back.

Why it matters: Restaurant chains have been under pressure to bring back value and affordability as consumers trade down to eat at home.

The world's second largest cryptocurrency will be accessible to U.S. investors starting Tuesday in a regulated ETF on major public exchanges, with a few issuers already seeing their applications going effective and others saying theirs is expected to hit soon.

Why it matters: The spotlight is now on ether, the Ethereum blockchain's native token, as the latest digital asset to be legitimized as an investment.

The United States Postal Service is releasing new Forever stamps that honor late celebrities and celebrate a 50-year-old game — weeks after raising postage stamp prices.

The big picture: Americans continue to reduce what they send via snail mail. But the new stamps could be popular among fans and stamp collectors.

If you want to see how quickly markets can react, just take a look at a relevant crypto asset when big news breaks.

Why it matters: The blockchain industry claims it has the tools to better price everything.

• Yesterday, President Biden dropped out of the race for president and threw his support behind his vice president, Kamala Harris.

This chart shows two meme coins on Solana, Kamala Horris (KAMA) and Jeo Boden (BODEN).

Biden's dropping out of the 2024 presidential election yesterday elicited some reactions from Crypto Twitter over the efficacy of prediction markets.

What they're saying: Solana cofounder Anatoly Yakovenko took the time to hype Polymarket: "Without Polymarket there is a chance that bs polls like 538 would have buried the truth. This is truly the first crypto election."

• Gitcoin's Kevin Owocki asked, "Does Polymarket measure outcomes or create them? 🤔"

By the numbers: Over $21 million was spent on the bet that Biden would drop out.

• The company pointed out one trader who stood to lose millions if he did.

Robert Leshner's Superstate, a crypto-native asset manager specialized in tokenized funds, is out with its second product, this time a market-neutral strategy that aims to deliver regardless of whether numbers go up, or down.

Why it matters: The Superstate Crypto Carry Fund (USCC) aims to deliver a higher yield than short-term U.S. treasuries offer right now.