A trillion-dollar dilemma 💰
| ⛰️ A TRILLION-DOLLAR QUESTION  The Taliban are now in charge of Afghanistan. In case you're not reading this from Afghanistan and you're wondering what this might mean for you, consider this: Insurgent fighters who overtook the Afghan government are now sitting on at least $1 trillion worth of rare minerals that the world desperately needs.
Afghanistan is one of the poorest nations in the world, but it is home to vast troves of rare earths and precious metals. More importantly, geologists say it may contain one of the world's biggest deposits of lithium — an essential but scarce component in rechargeable batteries and other technologies vital to tackling the climate crisis, CNN Business' Julia Horowitz writes.
Of course, it's not a simple or easy task to extract those minerals from the earth, especially in a country ravaged by decades of war and lacking adequate infrastructure. The complexities of mining — which, if mishandled can be environmentally and financially disastrous — are difficult to navigate even in countries with stable leadership.
DIG IN As the world switches to electric cars and other clean tech, it will need bigger supplies of metals like lithium and cobalt, as well as rare earth elements such as neodymium. In fact, the IEA said earlier this year that supplies of the metals needed to increase sharply or the world would fail in its attempt to tackle the climate crisis. For example:
BIG PICTURE Foreign investment was hard to come by before the Taliban ousted Afghanistan's civilian government. Private capital will be even more scarce now.
That presents a big opportunity for China, the world leader in mining rare earths. On Monday, just hours after the Taliban seized power, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said Beijing was ready for "friendly cooperation with Afghanistan" and to play a "constructive role" in its peace and reconstruction.
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📱 NUMBER OF THE DAY 40 million T-Mobile said that just over 40 million current, former or prospective customers' personal information was leaked to hackers. The stolen personal information includes names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers — so, like, everything except your blood type and your bank account number.
🔻 CORRECTION SEASON  Am I too late for this meme?
Stocks are still at or near record highs, even after big selloffs this week. That sweet infusion of Fed money is keeping the party going despite everything being, well, kind of a dumpster fire at the moment.
But history has some warnings for investors riding high on a big summer stock wave: After August comes September, which is historically the worst month for stocks. After that, October — a notoriously market-crashy, spooky time of year (see: 1929, 1987, 2008, 2018).
And in case anyone missed it, there's plenty to fret about. We're still fighting a highly deadly variant of Covid-19, inflation is rising, and investors are nervous as all hell that the Fed is going to begin tapering its easy-money policies. The Fed basically confirmed those fears when it released the minutes from its July meeting Wednesday, saying "let the taper tantrum begin!" (paraphrasing, of course.)
BRACING FOR BAD With all of that, market analysts are speculating that a correction — a 10% slide from recent highs — is right around the corner. That hasn't happened since the Covid lockdowns in March 2020, which created a brief bear market and led to a more than 20% slide from a prior peak.
No one expects a repeat of that early-pandemic nightmare, thanks to vaccines. But there's a growing sense that corporate earnings are about as good as they're going to get for the foreseeable future.
Of course, this is not to say you should panic-sell. Analysts who spoke to my colleague Paul R. La Monica said investors may want to take a look some "not hot" sectors. Sure, tech stocks are sexy, but consider the boring stuff that offers more safety and trade at lower valuations. Wireless infrastructure, for example. Or homebuilders.
WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON? 💸 Robinhood posted a big loss in its first earnings report as a public company
🎢 Disney Parks are rolling out a new "Genie" app that helps you skip the lines at its theme parks. Naturally, you'll have to pay for it.
👗 Old Navy will no longer separate plus-size clothing from smaller sizes in its stores.
💳 Mastercard is getting rid of magnetic stripes on its credit and debit cards over the next 10 years, part of a broader push to use more secure alternatives to the old-fashioned swipe.
GIF OF THE DAY Wednesday energy.
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