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Good morning,

The buy now pay later business is growing.

Options such as Klarna, Affirm and Afterpay often appear at the checkout when you buy something online, and allow customers to pay for an order over time, sometimes without interest or fees, thanks to merchant subsidies. A 2023 Federal Reserve survey found 14% of households had made BNPL purchases during the last 12 months.

But while the CEO of Affirm initially positioned his company as an anti-credit card play, the BNPLs may start to look more like credit cards anyway, as new regulations kick in and big banks like Citi, Chase and US Bank offer competing products.

FIRST UP

AI has it in stock drove the recent market gains are now faltering as investors move towards safer investments, with Nvidia is down more than 18% in the past month and tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft are also seeing declines. A Bank of America analyst likens this cooling of AI enthusiasm to the waning days of the “California Gold Rush,” suggesting that the AI ​​investment boom may be slowing.

Former YouTube executive and Silicon Valley pioneer Susan Wojcicki died on Friday at 56, after a two-year battle with non-small cell lung cancer. It was her one of Google’s earliest employeesand stepped into YouTube’s CEO role in 2014 after overseeing Google’s $1.6 billion acquisition of the video-sharing platform.

BUSINESS + ECONOMY

It’s been three years since the GameStop frenzy first blew up the markets, and up until now it has no confirmation as to whether the SEC was actually investigating the company for potential violations of securities laws. But Joe Foniecello, GameStop’s new director of social media, says he was sued by the SEC for an investigation that lasted from at least May 2021 through January 2022, before he was hired by the video game company.

Price for sale is more unclear than the price/earnings ratiobut sales are important because they give some hints about future earnings. The idea behind the price-to-sales ratio is that unusually high or low profit margins tend to regress toward the middle, meaning that companies trading at high PSRs are likely to face more competition and may be due for a correction, while those trading at low PSRs may turn out to be the bargain.

TECHNOLOGY + INNOVATION

For the past eight years, Apptronik, a small University of Texas at Austin spinoff, has been working on a humanoid robot named Apollo that can pick up objects and move boxes. The commercial value of humanoids lies in their potential to multitask, and Goldman Sachs predicted that the market for such robots could reach $38 billion until 2035.

Etsy banned the sale of pornography and sex toys on its website two weeks ago and introduced what it described as “stricter criteria” for adult content, but it still hosts thousands of listings that violate these criteria. Etsy has long struggled to enforce its pornography policy: Last December, a Forbes investigation found the retailer hosting a trove of deeply faked nude photos of around 55 well-known celebrities.

MONEY + POLITICS

New poll numbers released over the weekend show Vice Pres Kamala Harris turns weak Democratic numbers around in three key states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin—according to a New York Times/Siena poll caught between 5 and 9 August. Harris leads former President Donald Trump by more than four points in all three states, though the gap remains within the margin of error.

Donald Trump’s federal case for trying to overturn the 2020 election moving forward again after the Supreme Court granted him some immunity, but a trial is not coming soonas the judge overseeing the case granted special counsel Jack Smith’s request for more time to suggest how the case would play out. Still, the case is certain not to go to trial before the November election, and if Trump wins, he could appoint DOJ officials who could get the charges dropped.

SPORT + ENTERTAINMENT

The United States continued its 28-year streak of taking home the most Olympic medals at the Summer Games, but that success does not come cheap: The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee provides bonuses to its medal-winning athletes, in addition to other grants and benefits, and will pay out $8.3 million from the 2024 Games. But Italy and France have even bigger bills to pay, totaling $10.7 million and $9.4 million, respectively.

DAILY TURNOVER

The Philippines’ biggest fast food brand has new plans to challenge Starbucks

TOP LINE Jollibee Foods has long sought after turf of American icon Starbucks, the Seattle-based coffee giant with over 39,000 stores worldwide. The listed operator’s popular fast-food chain Jollibee is already outselling its American rivals McDonald’s and KFC at home in the Philippines, thanks to its best-selling crispy fried chicken and sweet spaghetti.

Now, in a frothy global market, Jollibee’s pushing in hot drinks collects steam again under President and CEO Ernesto Tanmantiong, who is eyeing a larger footprint in the fast-food industry’s fastest-growing segment. According to analytics firm Statista, coffee chains’ combined revenue rose 9% to $630 billion in 2023 from the previous year, and is likely to reach $800 billion by 2030. By comparison, the fast food industry globally achieved a 1.1% increase in total revenue to $978 billion last year.

“It’s a fast-growing market – a huge opportunity for us,” Tanmantiong said from a busy Jollibee store in Pasig City, east of Manila, in early July. Just the day before, Jollibee announced its $238 million acquisition of a 70 percent stake in South Korea’s Compose Coffee, a cup-of-joe powerhouse with close to 2,500 stores, which will bring the group’s investment in coffee to about $700 million.

Tanmantiong’s dream, no less, is that the Philippines’ largest restaurant chain will eventually outsell Starbucks as well.

WHY IT MATTERS While the addition of Compose Coffee will bring Jollibee’s total number of coffee shops to over 4,700, spread across Asia, the Middle East and North America — with only 387 in the Philippines, where Starbucks has 450 stores — the group faces a long march ahead. While these will outstrip the more than 4,600 fast-food branches it operates worldwide, its flagship Jollibee restaurant chain is the biggest sales contributor, accounting for half of the $4.3 billion in revenue the group posted for 2023.

MORE The Philippines’ 50 Richest

FACTS + COMMENTS

After a roller-coaster week for the stock market, the S&P 500 ended last week almost exactly flat. The stretch included that of the index best and worst days of the last 18 monthspartly linked to a worse-than-expected unemployment report:

3%: The S&P 500 fell on Monday amid global fears of an impending market crash

Fourth: Last week marked the S&P’s fourth week of less than 0.1% weekly movement in the past two years

25%: Odds Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase see a recession affecting the US in the next year

STRATEGY + SUCCESS

With the Olympics now behind us, why not channel some of that reinforce the mindset in your everyday life? Just like the athletes who caught our attention in recent weeks, Stay organized and focused to turn your goals into achievements. Keep visualizing your success, stay disciplined and remember to take care of your mind and body – because even outside the arena you can live like a winner.

VIDEO

QUIZ

After a night out in Paris, a famous musician was taken into police custody Friday morning after an alleged physical altercation with a bodyguard at the George V Hotel. Who was it??

A. Kanye West

B. Justin Bieber

C. Cardi B

D. Travis Scott

Check your answer.

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Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Sarah Whitmire and Chris Dobstaff, with writing contributions by Tavon Thomasson.