Despite not having won a national championship in two decades, the University of Texas has the most valuable college football program in America. The Longhorns are worth a staggering $2.38 billion — almost half a billion dollars more than the second-most valuable team.

The S&P 500 opened higher on the heels of this weekend’s trade deal with the European Union and hopes for an extension of the quasi-truce for cross-border commerce with China. The benchmark index gave back those gains throughout the day before creeping back into the green for another record close. Energy was the best-performing sector after the EU said it would purchase $750 billion in US energy products over the next three years as part of a trade agreement.

The dot-com bubble and meme stock frenzy of 2021 are the only times speculative fervor has held a tighter grip on the stock market than it does today, according to Goldman Sachs.

The headline number? The sharpest three-month rise in the bank’s “speculative trading indicator” outside of those two high-profile episodes.

Not only is the index inclusion pop back, but IPOs are enjoying strong starts relative to history: the median IPO return in its first day of trading is at 37%, well over the 30-year average of 9%.

“The recent rise in speculative trading activity signals near-term upside risk for the broad equity market but also increases the risk of an eventual downturn,” Goldman concluded in its note. “During the last 35 years, other sharp increases in speculative trading activity have signaled above-average subsequent 3-, 6-, and 12-month S&P 500 returns, but returns typically faltered on a 24-month horizon.”

Did you know it takes 10,000 smartphone batteries worth of lithium to make one EV battery pack? With 350M+ EVs projected to be sold globally by 2030, lithium demand is looking steep.

Current extraction methods involve waiting for liquids to evaporate in ponds the size of 100 football fields. This inefficiency can’t keep up with forecasted demand. But EnergyX’s technology can extract 300% more lithium than traditional methods.

Investors are taking note. EnergyX has raised $130M+ and even earned a $5M DOE grant. 

Now, they’re scaling their 100,000-acre Chilean project, which has a target output of 52K tons/year per a third party validation of resource estimates.

Perfect timing. You’re eligible for 20% bonus stock¹ as an EnergyX investor while shares last.²

According to the American Pet Products Association, some 49 million households have a cat and a whopping 68 million households have a dog, but shelters across the country are reporting a surge in “owner surrenders” as the cost of keeping pets goes up.

One animal shelter in North Carolina reported that owner surrenders are up 43% this year. Meanwhile, Ruff Start Rescue in Minnesota has seen applications rise 16%, and the Animal Care Centers of New York says it has reached a “breaking point,” suspending its intake entirely.

It might sound barking mad, but given the emotional connection involved, any decision to surrender a pet is presumably never taken lightly — suggesting serious economic hardship is likely at play when so many Americans are making the difficult choice to give up their companions.

A new US-EU trade deal just gave the struggling greenback a boost. This is good news for your European vacation, but investors may actually benefit from a weaker dollar.

The US dollar’s worst first-half performance in more than 50 years, charted