The makers of virtually every T-shirt ever shot out of a cannon at a minor league baseball game are planning to combine to create a basics powerhouse. While we were more familiar with Hanes than the company behind Gold Toe socks and basic tees, Gildan, it’s the latter that’s acquiring the former in a multibillion-dollar deal. Meanwhile, we’re still waiting to catch our first projectile tee (and believe us, we really try).

The S&P 500 barely spent a minute in the red all day, rising 0.3% to secure another record closing high. The Nasdaq 100 lagged, barely breaking even, while small-caps surged as the Russell 2000 advanced 2%. It’s the first time the S&P 500’s advance-decline line has ended above 300 for back-to-back sessions since mid-April, when global stocks were shaking off their tariff-induced drubbing.

There’s no doubt execs and analysts are still talking a lot about tariffs, but something major has shifted.

While mentions of “recession” and related terms in S&P 500 companies’ quarterly earnings calls have dropped precipitously to their lowest level since 2005, references to tariffs (while down) remain extremely high relative to history — you can see this in our side-by-side chart.

A Bank of America survey of fund managers showed that while a trade war triggering a global recession remains the biggest tail risk, with 29% deeming it as such, that share is down substantially from 80% in its April survey. That’s despite expectations for the average US tariff rate to steadily rise from 12% in June to 15%, which tracks with the evolution of effective tariff rates.

So what gives?

Drilling down on why the tariff announcements that brought the S&P 500 to the verge of a bear market in April haven’t produced anything nearly as dire as feared, Markets Editor Luke Kawa looks back at Fed Chair Jay Powell’s 2022 Jackson Hole speech as a turning point in the inflation narrative. It was when people really woke up and noticed that, “Hey, things are getting hot in here!” It wasn’t that the water around us frogs hadn’t been getting warmer, but it had been a slow, sleepy rise that didn’t seem dire… until it did. 

The third quarter of 2025 may serve as a similar alarm bell regarding the “real growth” side of the US economy. Retail earnings out soon may give us some clues as to whether the lackluster performance of consumer spending year to date is gathering momentum. But there’s also the potential outcome that the fear around these tariffs was worse than the experience of actually living with them. 

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We’ve been anxiously watching the progress of Rocket Lab and glad to hear it’s on track to launch its next-generation Neutron rocket later this year. CEO Peter Beck told Sherwood News, “It’s a green light schedule… We are pushing hard and, you know, we’ll do everything we can to get that vehicle away.”

Why so much pressure? Two words: Elon Musk. A successful Neutron launch would allow Rocket Lab to compete directly with Musk’s SpaceX, which currently dominates the industry. The market seems to be betting that there’s a large, untapped demand for alternatives to Musk.

Rocket Lab shares surged following the Musk-Trump breakup, adding to gains that have made the space company one of the stock market’s big winners over the last year, rising over 700%, as we’ve charted here.

We asked Beck whether there had been an uptick in interest from the US government since the Musk-Trump rupture, and he explained why his company could heal a “general uneasiness” around SpaceX’s near monopoly.

Though Rocket Lab’s shares slipped a bit after the company reported mixed earnings results last week, Beck is betting that once Neutron is up and running, the company’s flow of red ink will quickly slow as R&D expenditures decline and the prices it can charge for Neutron launches with larger payloads rise. Now it just has to literally get off the ground.

The two things Beck is still worried about

Amazon’s announcement Wednesday that Prime members across the country can get free same-day grocery delivery sent grocery stocks down, but no one got hit worse than Instacart, which sank double digits. The online retail giant’s latest push into the grocery business might do more than gobble up revenue from competitors; it could eat into other grocery chains’ margins by forcing them to lower their free delivery thresholds for subscribers as Amazon undercuts them all.

Delivery fees, from Amazon to Walmart

What is the most valuable college football team?

Answer here.