Trauma bond

Good morning. Looking for a new job? Have a sweet tooth and high tolerance for copious amounts of dairy? Then do we have the gig for you! Rapper and serial entrepreneur Snoop Dogg and his ice cream startup Dr. Bombay are hiring an “international ice cream taster.” 

The job is completely remote and pays US$10,000 a month over a three-month contract. As long as it includes a gym membership and a lactase enzyme stipend, we don’t see a downside here.

Today’s reading time is 5½ minutes.

Markets: Canada’s main stock index had a solid outing yesterday as rebounding gold prices lifted mining stocks and investors digested the Bank of Canada’s decision to hold interest rates.

It’s, once again, time to talk bonds.

Driving the news: Tumult in the global bond market has continued apace this week, as yields for 10-year U.S. Treasuries reached their highest levels since October 2023 yesterday while U.K. 10-year yields reached an 18-year high before cooling slightly later in the day.

Why it’s happening: There’s a mile-long list of reasons why yields might be up — an asset strategist told the Financial Times he had never seen “this range of diversion in opinions” on the subject — including the war in Iran and oil prices, hand-wringing over government debt loads, and AI companies hogging up capital. However, there could be deeper-rooted issues.

Zoom in: There was arguably a global bond bubble in the 2010s that popped during 2022’s inflation spike (as inflation drives down bond values). We now seem to live in a permanent state of inflation fear, which — alongside other factors like more hedge funds holding bonds — has turned what was seen as the safest asset into a riskier one.

Why it matters: The bond market sneakily undergirds the entire global financial system, setting the cost of money, creating liquidity, and facilitating government spending. Fundamental changes in it would affect everything, including mortgages and your investment portfolio.—QH

OpenAI faces more Tumbler Ridge shooting lawsuits. A law firm representing victims of the mass shooting, including a student who was shot, filed 30 federal lawsuits in California against the AI company, alleging that it acted in negligence and aided and abetted the shooter by not reporting her violent conversations with ChatGPT. These new suits are in addition to seven cases filed in April on behalf of victims who died in the attack. (CTV News)

The Bank of Canada held its benchmark rate again. As expected, Governor Tiff Macklem and the BoC held the key interest rate at 2.25%, marking the central bank’s seventh consecutive hold. Macklem said that it was higher energy prices — sparked by the war in Iran — that posed the biggest inflation threat to Canadians, not Ottawa’s countertariffs on U.S. goods. (CBC News)

Meta disables cameras on thousands of smart glasses. Many users reportedly tampered with the light that discloses that the smart glasses’ camera is on, forcing Meta to disable thousands of devices used to secretly record strangers. The company has faced a slew of privacy complaints over its glasses (which some have derisively dubbed “pervert glasses”), including the discovery that subcontractors in Kenya were secretly watching footage of users. (Semafor)

📡 What else is on our radar: 

Apollo is the AI revenue engine for teams that are done leaving pipeline on the table. 230M+ verified contacts, automated outreach, and AI that does the busywork for you.

More pipeline, less chaos. All in Apollo.

Sign up for free

In the bowels of a decommissioned gold mine, researchers from the University of Bristol using a hypersensitive electronic detector caught a glimpse of a mysterious particle colliding with an atom in a vat of liquid xenon. The team is hopeful this interaction may have been the result of a weakly interacting massive particle, which is believed to make up dark matter.

Why it matters: It’s widely accepted that dark matter makes up over 85% of the universe, but nothing is known about it for sure as it is invisible. Statistically, it’s unlikely that this recent discovery will lead to a breakthrough, but if they did detect dark matter, it could be the first step in answering countless questions about our universe. 

Ontario’s plan to outlaw $500 nosebleed seats has run into some trouble. 

What happened: The province has fined resale platform SeatGeek $25,000 for failing to comply with its new ticket scalping law, which forbids the resale of any ticket for above its original face value. It’s the first penalty handed out under the law, which was passed in April. 

Why it matters: Even with the $25,000 fine — likely a fraction of what SeatGeek makes from a single Blue Jays game — the Ontario law hasn’t been effective in deterring ticket markups. SeatGeek’s site currently has tickets listed for over 1,000% of their face value. 

Zoom out: Other provinces like Manitoba and Alberta implemented similar policies, but eventually abandoned them because they were too difficult to enforce. Quebec, which has the strictest ticket resale laws in Canada, has also struggled to tackle re-sellers — in 14 years, the province has only penalized one local company, Billets.ca.  

Our take: This was a half-baked law passed right before the World Cup, when Canadians were particularly livid about ticket prices. It’s hard to see a scenario in which Ontario’s penalties become frequent and severe enough to genuinely deter platforms like SeatGeek.—LA

🚗 3,300. Jobs that Uber is cutting as part of its biggest round of layoffs since the pandemic, eliminating 10% of its workforce. The company’s CEO said the layoffs will allow it to cover the costs of its investments, particularly in robotaxis.

Presenting: today’s mini-crossword, the daily sudoku, Codebreaker, and Who’s Who.