July Jobs Report Misses, AI Inference Costs Seen Falling 90%, and DeFi Shifts to AI Agents

Key Takeaways

1. The US jobs report was clearly soft: July payrolls fell by 23,000, May/June figures were revised down by 103,000, and wage growth slowed to 3.2% — the weakest since May 2021. A September Fed hike is no longer expected. — via 1
2. AI inference costs are poised to collapse: Gartner projects a 90% decline by 2030, and valuations have not priced that in; businesses that rely on the spread between compute cost and price are seeing the spread narrow. — via 1
3. DeFi's real shift is to non-human users: Raoul Pal says AI agents will interact directly with protocols without websites or frontends, bundle financing, lending and staking into a temporary structure, then dissolve after the trade. — via 1 2
4. Low-cost donation-style ETFs are raising the bar: Meb Faber says a sub-0.25% fee fund returned 22.6% in its first year, beating CalPERS at 14.8% and CalSTRS at 13.9%, making complex high-cost endowment models harder to justify. — via 1
5. Nielsen is buying DoubleVerify at $13.60/share, about 60% below the analyst valuation in place when Spruce Point published its short thesis, and there were no sell ratings at the time. — via 1
6. Investors left performance on the table: U.S. fund investors earned 8.7% annualized over the decade versus funds' 9.9% total return, a 1.2 percentage-point gap from bad timing. — via 1

1. Macro, Labor Market, and the Fed

1. The July employment report was unambiguously soft: payrolls fell by 23,000, May and June were revised down by a combined 103,000, and year-over-year wage growth cooled to 3.2%, the slowest since May 2021. Even with unemployment dipping to 4.1%, the weak numbers mean the Fed is no longer expected to raise rates in September. — via 1
2. Lyn Alden offers a structural reason the Fed struggles to slow the economy at 5% rates: with debt-to-GDP far above 40%, aggressive inflation fighting increases interest expense, widens deficits, and boosts the passive income of cash-rich asset holders, muting the intended tightening effect. — via 1

2. Markets, Investing, and Asset Management

1. Meb Faber argues foundations and endowments are facing a “show your work” moment: a donation-style ETF charging under 0.25% returned 22.6% in its first year, beating CalPERS (14.8%) and CalSTRS (13.9%). If boards cannot beat such low-cost products, expensive staff and processes become hard to justify. — via 1
2. Morningstar data shows the average U.S. mutual fund and ETF investor earned 8.7% annualized over the decade through 2025, about 1.2 points below the 9.9% total return of the funds themselves. The main drag is investor timing, a repeatable behavioral cost. — via 1
3. Ben Carlson flags that 4-5x leverage produces an asymmetric payoff profile, but the asymmetry cuts both ways and isn't automatically good for the user. — via 1
4. Mohnish Pabrai recalls a 2008 meeting with Michael Burry, who explained CDS, mortgage tranches, and the coming systemic collapse; Pabrai didn't act and later called himself the horse that was led to excellent water but too dumb to drink. It's a reminder that even elite investors can ignore the best answer in real time. — via 1

3. AI, DeFi, and Product Launches

1. Raoul Pal says the true importance of DeFi isn't more human users; it's the emergence of machine users. AI agents can join a protocol without a website or front-end, identify fleeting opportunities, borrow from other agents, spin up sub-agents for lending and staking, then dissolve the entire structure after execution — no company or employees needed. — via 1 2
2. Jason highlights that AI economics are reversing: Gartner expects inference costs to drop 90% by 2030, and many business models in AI have not priced that in. Companies that depend on the spread between compute costs and their price will see that spread compress. — via 1
3. Lyn Alden introduced a new Bitcoin app called Glow, built on Breez, with Passkey login, stablecoin balances, Lightning addresses, and the ability to send USDT/USDC, now available on the App Store and Google Play. — via 1

4. Deals and Corporate Actions

1. Spruce Point Capital notes Nielsen is acquiring DoubleVerify at $13.60 per share, roughly 60% below the analyst valuation when Spruce Point published its short report, with no sell ratings on the stock at the time. The outcome, in Spruce Point's telling, bolsters its original warning. — via 1