Let's start with a little history, shall we?
On July 28, 1978, National Lampoon’s Animal House, a movie spoof about 1960s college fraternities starring John Belushi, opens in U.S. theaters. Produced with an estimated budget of $3 million, Animal House became a huge, multi-million-dollar box-office hit, spawned a slew of cinematic imitations and became part of pop-culture history with such memorable lines as “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” Set at the fictional Faber College (the University of Oregon served as a stand-in during filming), Animal House centered around the disreputable Delta House fraternity, whose members enjoyed beer-soaked toga parties and crude pranks such as putting a horse in the dean’s office. Animal House was the first big hit for director John Landis, who went on to helm The Blues Brothers (1980), Trading Places (1983) and Coming to America (1988). The film’s cast included a then-unknown Kevin Bacon (Footloose, Mystic River), Karen Allen (Raiders of the Lost Ark) and Tom Hulce (Amadeus), all of whom were then just beginning their movie careers.
On this day in 1868, following its ratification by the necessary three-quarters of U.S. states, the 14th Amendment, granting citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including formerly enslaved people—is officially adopted into the U.S. Constitution. Secretary of State William Seward issues a proclamation certifying the amendment. In the decades after its adoption, the equal protection clause was cited by a number of African American activists who argued that racial segregation denied them the equal protection of law. However, in 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that states could constitutionally provide segregated facilities for African Americans, so long as they were equal to those afforded white persons. The Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which announced federal toleration of the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine, was eventually used to justify segregating all public facilities, including railroad cars, restaurants, hospitals and schools. However, “colored” facilities were never equal to their white counterparts, and African Americans suffered through decades of debilitating discrimination in the South and elsewhere. In 1954, Plessy v. Ferguson was finally struck down by the Supreme Court in its ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
On this day in 1932, during the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover orders the U.S. Army under General Douglas MacArthur to evict by force the Bonus Marchers from the nation’s capital. Two months before, the so-called “Bonus Expeditionary Force,” a group of some 1,000 World War I veterans seeking cash payments for their veterans’ bonus certificates, had arrived in Washington, D.C. Most of the marchers were unemployed veterans in desperate financial straits. In June, other veteran groups spontaneously made their way to the nation’s capital, swelling the Bonus Marchers to nearly 20,000 strong. Camping in vacant government buildings and in open fields made available by District of Columbia Police Chief Pelham D. Glassford, they demanded passage of the veterans’ payment bill introduced by Representative Wright Patman. While awaiting a vote on the issue, the veterans conducted themselves in an orderly and peaceful fashion, and on June 15 the Patman bill passed in the House of Representatives. However, two days later, its defeat in the Senate infuriated the marchers, who refused to return home. In an increasingly tense situation, the federal government provided money for the protesters’ trip home, but 2,000 refused the offer and continued to protest. On July 28, President Herbert Hoover ordered the army to evict them forcibly. General MacArthur’s men set their camps on fire, and the veterans were driven from the city. Hoover, increasingly regarded as insensitive to the needs of the nation’s many poor, was much criticized by the public and press for the severity of his response.
Now for some stock and investing news-
Futures roll into Tuesday all down 0.3%. Crude is down 0.5% and Gold is down 0.4%.
A Georgia judge hears arguments today in a case brought by Governor Brian Kemp to stop the city of Atlanta from enforcing a mask mandate that is punishable by a fine or up to six months in jail. Shares of mask makers like Alpha Pro Tech (NYSEMKT:APT), Allied Healthcare Products (NASDAQ:AHPI) and Lakeland Industries (NASDAQ:LAKE) are on watch as the emergency motion asks the judge to halt Atlanta's enforcement efforts while a lawsuit works its way through the courts. Kemp, one of the first governors to ease statewide stay-at-home orders and business closures, claims that Atlanta's measure is more restrictive than a state order which "strongly encourages face coverings" but does not require them.
The Ellen DeGeneres Show has become the subject of an internal investigation by WarnerMedia (NYSE:T) following numerous accounts of workplace discrimination and mistreatment on the long-running daytime series. The probe follows a BuzzFeed report in mid-July alleging a toxic work culture based on anonymous testimonials by one current and 10 former employees.
Remington Arms has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in two years despite surging gun demand. It already went through the restructuring process in 2018, transferring ownership to investors including Franklin Resources (NYSE:BEN) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM).
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.B) (NYSE:BRK.A) adds another $398M of Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) stock to its holdings after buying $816M of the bank's shares early last week. Berkshire bought 16.4M more BAC shares at prices ranging from $24.073 per share to $24.3664 from July 23 to July 27, bringing its total holdings in BofA to 998M shares, or ~11.5% of BAC's 8.66B of shares outstanding.
Bernstein drops Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) to an Underperform rating from Market Perform on its view that shares are overvalued at their current levels. "Despite our relatively bullish stance on electric vehicle evolution, and structural advantages we believe Tesla may hold, we find it difficult to justify Tesla's current valuation even under our most bullish/imaginative scenarios," writes analyst Tony Sacconaghi. It appears that to some folks, valuation matters. $TSLA is down about 2% premarket.
Off to Google Finance-
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and PepsiCo, Inc. (NASDAQ: PEP) announced a five-year partnership that establishes Microsoft as a preferred cloud provider for accelerating PepsiCo’s infrastructure, ERP, and data estate consolidation and modernization. And as part of the agreement, PepsiCo will roll out Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams to all of its 270,000 employees worldwide.
Eastman Kodak Co. has won a $765 million government loan under the Defense Production Act, the first of its kind. The purpose: to help expedite domestic production of drugs that can treat a variety of medical conditions and loosen the U.S. reliance on foreign sources.
Where is Jon Corzine and does MF Global use Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams?
Where is Marissa Mayer and did her online sports betting company account for the Florida Marlins games being cancelled due to players testing positive for COVID-19?
Where is Elizabeth Holmes and why can't she and the others involved in her "massive" fraud trial simply wear masks and get it over with?
Have a great day everyone. Stay safe out there.
This is the day The Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.