Axios Closer

May 08, 2025
🍭 No matter how bad things get, don't buy 70,000 lollipops on Amazon.
Today's newsletter is 640 words, a 2.5-minute read.
🔔 The dashboard: The S&P 500 closed up 0.6%.
🥶 Today's stock spotlight: Cleveland-Cliffs (-15.8%). The second-largest U.S. steelmaker by volume announced late yesterday that it is idling or slowing production at six plants, citing the need to shift away from loss-making operations.
1 big thing: A U.K. trade deal
The U.S. and Britain this morning unveiled the framework for a sweeping new trade pact, which sparked investor optimism that more may be on the way.
- Stocks rose, bond prices fell, and bitcoin jumped back over $100,000 as investors pivoted back into a risk-on trade. But some specific winners emerged from today's agreement.
What's inside: The universal 10% tariff on U.K. imports will remain. However, tariffs on U.K. autos will be lowered from 27.5% to 10%, with a quota of 100,000 vehicles.
- The U.S. will get new access to U.K. markets for exports of beef, ethanol and machinery.
The impact: Aston Martin jumped on the news, with shares of the U.K. luxury automaker surging 16% in London. Just last week it said it was scaling back U.S. imports due to President Trump's tariffs.
- U.K. aerospace suppliers Rolls-Royce and Melrose Industries rose after it was revealed that aircraft-related exports to the U.S. would be tariff-free.
- Deere & Co was another winner: Investors sent shares in the agricultural machinery maker up 3.7%.
Boeing seems to have scored the most immediate win, with a deal reportedly in place to sell 30 of its 787 Dreamliners to British Airways parent IAG.
- The U.S. jet maker has found itself front and center in Trump's trade war, with China reportedly forbidding its airlines from purchasing any Boeing planes just last month.
Reality check: The next deals may not come as easily. As Axios' Courtenay Brown and Neil Irwin noted earlier, a pact with the U.K. was the "low-hanging fruit of trade deals."
Go deeper: Why the U.K. trade agreement matters
2. Pope predictions' big miss


You could have made a lot of money by betting against the conventional conclave wisdom.
- Prediction markets never saw it coming: Chicago native Robert Prevost is the first American to ascend to the papacy in history, and is now Pope Leo XIV.
The intrigue: The papal odds on prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket swung heavily toward Cardinal Pietro Parolin after white smoke signaled the end of the conclave on its second day.
- Prevost's odds hovered in the range of 1% to 2% — or less — in the prediction markets since Pope Francis died.
💭 Nathan's thought bubble: It's fairly evident that the papal betting market was ill-informed, in contrast to prediction markets for matters such as presidential elections, which are steeped in data and historical analysis.
3. Thursday catch-up
🌎 Bill Gates plans to wind down the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years. The organization will commit its funds, totaling more than $200 billion, to health and human development before it closes its doors at the end of 2045. (NYT)
💎 De Beers is getting out of the lab-grown diamond business as prices plunge. CEO Al Cook said the move reflects "our commitment to natural diamonds." (Bloomberg)
🇪🇺 The European Commission released a list of more than $100 billion in imports from the U.S. that could eventually be tariffed if a trade deal can't be negotiated. It could target American products such as vehicles and jets. (Axios)
4. Krispy Kreme's McDonald's pause
Krispy Kreme is hitting pause on its McDonald's partnership, and investors don't love it.
- The doughnut chain today said it is "reassessing the deployment" of its deal with McDonald's and will pause the nationwide rollout.
State of play: Krispy Kreme doughnuts are available in more than 2,400 McDonald's restaurants as of March 30.
- The company doesn't expect to add any McDonald's restaurants in Q2, Krispy Kreme CEO Josh Charlesworth said today on an earnings call. "We continue to believe in the long-term opportunity of profitable growth through our U.S. nationwide expansion, including McDonald's."
The news comes a week after McDonald's announced U.S. comparable sales fell 3.6%, the company's worst showing since the pandemic.
The impact: Krispy Kreme shares closed down 24.7% today after the news was announced in its quarterly earnings.
🥤 This day in history: The first Coca-Cola was sold back in 1886 at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta. Its creator, Dr. John Pemberton, sold the formula shortly before he died two years later to local businessman Asa Candler, who paid $2,300. Candler founded the Coca-Cola Company in 1892.
Today's newsletter was edited by Pete Gannon and copy edited by Carlos Cunha.
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