One of the biggest investing advantages isn't finding the next Nvidia. It's keeping more of what you already make.

Today's main story is about tax-loss harvesting, a strategy that's easy to ignore because it feels like admitting defeat. In reality, it's one of the few ways the market can hand you future compounding through today's volatility. Sometimes the smartest move isn't avoiding losses. It's putting them to work.

Meanwhile, Wall Street is entering another make-or-break week. Big Tech just reminded investors it's still willing to spend hundreds of billions chasing AI, but the market is becoming less interested in spending and more interested in returns. Earnings, Friday's jobs report, and rising Treasury yields will all test whether this rally has another leg higher.

Today:

📰 AI spending faces its next reality check as earnings continue
📉 Turn portfolio losses into future gains with one overlooked tax strategy
🚀 SpaceX earnings, jobs data, and a packed week of market catalysts

Let's get started.

This is not financial advice. Always do your own research. Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results.

You own a stock down 30%. Your instinct is to hold and wait for recovery. Meanwhile, you're leaving money on the table. Sell the loser, take the tax deduction, and immediately buy a similar fund. You lock in the tax benefit while staying invested. That's not realizing a loss. That's harvesting it.

If you're in a 35% tax bracket with a $10,000 loss, that's $3,500 in tax savings. Reinvest that $3,500 for 30 years at 8% compounding and it becomes roughly $42,000. Your loss just funded $42,000 in future gains. That's the math that separates people who optimize from people who just hold.

How: sell the losing position, buy a substantially similar fund (VOO instead of VTI, AGG instead of BND). Different ticker, same exposure. You stay invested, you capture the deduction, and the IRS doesn't care because you're not buying back the identical security within 30 days.

Do this every year and the tax savings compound into real wealth. Down markets aren't obstacles. They're opportunities to fund your future compounding with deductions. Look at your portfolio right now. Any position down 15% or more? That's a candidate. Harvest it.

US stocks closed out the week higher as Big Tech earnings fueled a massive reshuffling of nearly $2 trillion across megacap names.

The hyperscalers came out swinging this earnings season, with Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet collectively adding more than $1.5 trillion in market cap this week. Amazon's stock ripped 15% higher on Friday after reporting cloud revenue jumped 37% year-over-year, its strongest AWS expansion since 2021. The company hiked its 2026 capex forecast to $220 billion, up from a prior $200 billion estimate, signaling the AI spending spree isn't slowing down. Microsoft gained over $600 billion in market cap for the week, while Alphabet added more than $400 billion.

Not everyone had a good week. Apple shares tumbled more than 7% on Friday after the company issued weak guidance citing "supply constraints." Revenue growth for the current quarter is expected to land between 9% and 11%, missing analysts' expectations for 12% growth. Apple is wrestling with a massive memory shortage that's already forced price hikes on Mac and iPad, and analysts expect iPhone prices to rise this year too. The company shed more than $350 billion in market value this week.

Meta also got punished, losing about $85 billion in market cap after investors weren't convinced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg's AI spending pitch. The company pushed up the low end of its 2026 capex guidance but failed to give clear answers on cloud demand for its AI infrastructure. One portfolio manager at Gabelli told CNBC there's "rising impatience" around Meta's strategy.

AI spending among the megacaps is now trending toward $800 billion over the next 12 months, according to Jefferies co-head of global tech investment banking Jason Greenberg. The question investors are grappling with: Is the long-term demand going to be profitable enough to justify all this cash going out the door?

President Trump held off on new military strikes against Iran after officials signaled a deal on reopening the Strait of Hormuz is close, according to Bloomberg. Oil prices have stabilized in recent weeks as diplomatic talks continue, offering some relief after months of elevated gas prices.

The "Situational Awareness" hedge fund collapsed this week, marking one of the most dramatic blowups in the AI trade so far. The fund, run by 25-year-old ex-OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, grew to $45 billion by making concentrated, highly leveraged bets on semiconductors and memory. When the sector rotation hit, Citadel swooped in to buy up the wreckage. The bigger question: Is this a one-off or a warning sign for everyone piling into the same AI thesis?

This week brings SpaceX's first earnings report as a public company on Tuesday. Elon Musk's company is looking for a catalyst after shares shed nearly 30% since the world's largest IPO last month. Analysts are watching capex closely: SpaceX is expected to increase spending from $48.7 billion this year to $118.4 billion by FY 2028, with overall debt projected to balloon from $41.7 billion to over $218 billion in the same period. A lockup expiration on Aug. 6 could add more selling pressure.

Friday's jobs report will cap the week, with economists expecting 88,000 payrolls added in July, up from June's 57,000. Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh has spent most of his public comments hammering on inflation, barely mentioning the labor market side of the Fed's mandate. A print significantly above target could strengthen the case for rate hikes. The 30-year Treasury yield pushed above 5.2% to its highest level since 2007 this week, while the 10-year hit its highest since January 2025.

Other earnings to watch this week: Palantir and ON Semiconductor report Monday; AMD reports Tuesday alongside Caterpillar and Merck; Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Western Digital, Sandisk, and Disney report Wednesday; ConocoPhillips and Constellation Energy report Thursday. Economic data includes ISM manufacturing Monday, JOLTS job openings Tuesday, ADP employment Wednesday, and the nonfarm payrolls Friday.

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Cheers,
Brandon & Blake of Invested Inc