Ben and Tom discuss WSJ&#x27;s Timiraos reporting that Trump has been calling Warsh repeatedly since he became Fed Chair — treating him as a trusted economic adviser on the Iran war and AI&#x27;s economic impact — reigniting the Fed independence debate just as Bessent posted a viral tweet that lit up financial media, memory names WDC dropping 16% and SNDK falling 12% on decelerating quarterly growth despite still-strong annual revenue, ISM Services showing continued resilience with tariff and Middle East concerns fading and World Cup boosts persisting, Fastenal running slightly better than seasonal, Bank of America showing acceleration in lower-income segments, Costco&#x27;s lowest ex-gas ticket since November potentially signaling disinflation, and Meta launching its Muse Code coding agent as a cheaper alternative to OpenAI and Anthropic. Join our live YouTube stream Monday through Friday at 8:30 AM EST: http://www.youtube.com/@TheMorningMarketBriefing Please see disclosures: https://www.narwhal.com/disclosure

Bessent Trolls Timiraos with Tweet of the Year + Memory Names Sink on Growth Slump | August 6, 2026 – Morning Market Briefing

The Morning Market Briefing

Good morning. Welcome to the Morning Market Briefing. Today is Thursday, August 6, 2026. Hope you're doing well. We've got a lot to get to today. Some more on the straight, maybe straightening that out. We have another coding platform, another coding AI platform that's now one of the top ones and memory providers getting smashed. SK Hynix was down 30% at one point overnight on some of those memory chip.

Concerns, I guess, but really bubbles. What I wanted to start off, Tom, is talking about the state of the U.S. economy specifically and talk about a little bit what's making it up. And I think that we have a manufacturing economy in the United States that is picking up steam, that's still at a lower level than the services side of the economy.

But the momentum is very much in one direction versus the services side of the economy is doing well, but there's a little bit less clear direction. And that 10th can often be the case, but we're seeing that especially right now. We did have fast and all sales report for the month of July.

Very much similar to May and June, frankly, running about a point ahead of normal seasonality. Usually July is down about 3%. They were down 2% this time around. Heavy manufacturing continues to perform exceptionally well, lead the charge on a year-over-year basis up 18%.

But non-residential construction doing well also, and there's some easier comparison periods in the back half of the year, which should allow for further acceleration in non-residential construction, which would be really good for a lot of industries and pretty telling. But what's interesting is the heavy manufacturing side that's really picked up.

Bessent Trolls Timiraos with Tweet of the Year + Memory Names Sink on Growth Slump | August 6, 2026 – Morning Market Briefing

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

Bessent Trolls Timiraos with Tweet of the Year + Memory Names Sink on Growth Slump | August 6, 2026 – Morning Market Briefing

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.