*as of 8/9, Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, GOLD

This Thursday, Robinhood is launching its next publicly traded venture fund, the aptly named Robinhood Venture Fund II, which will have the ticker RVII. Unlike RVI, its first fund, this one will will investing in early stage startups exclusive founded by current and former Y Combinator participants. The full list of investments already in the fund has been released, containing shares of around 80 companies across 7 sectors. There are a number of fees for investors to consider, with the fund paying a 2% management fee and 20% carry to another entity owned by Robinhood, and an additional 2% in other fees.

➨ TAKEAWAY: It is difficult for retail investors to get access to early stage startups and the potential asymmetric returns they can provide, and this new fund is a straightforward opportunity to do so. However, the fee load is significant and there are no distributions planned, nor any end date where investors can get liquidity. This means that investors will have to rely on the share price moving up to get returns, and share price does not always move in lockstep with the net asset value (NAV) of the fund. Robinhood’s first venture fund (RVI), which holds late-stage startups such as OpenAI and Databricks, has seen its share price more than double after the IPO before falling all the way back down.

Vincent's Slava Rubin was joined by Sacra's Jan-Erik Asplund to explore the recent IPO of SpaceX, its market performance, and the potential upcoming IPOs of major AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Databricks.

📊 Disappointing jobs report: The U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a surprise given the Dow Jones forecast was for a gain of 83,000. The numbers for June and July were both revised downward, indicating a labor market that has been weakening for some time. Paradoxically, the markets reacted favorably to the news because it makes the odds of Fed rate hike slimmer.

📈 SpaceX surge: Defying expectations, SpaceX’s stock rose 16% on Friday, nearly clawing back to its IPO price in the wake of its first lock-up expiration that made 900 million shares publicly tradeable, more than double the previously outstanding share count. There are a number of additional lock-up expiration dates coming that could lead to different results, but the first one did not see massive selling pressure.

🚀 Hadrian fundraise: The AI-related defense tech startup raised nearly $1.4 billion at a $7.9 billion valuation, nearly five times its valuation from January. This funding round is just the latest in a string of high-profile defense tech raises that have seen significant valuation jumps.

🏢 Retail strength: U.S. retail sales were up 6.7% year-over-year in June, boosting the retail real estate sector, which currently has historically low vacancy rates and saw annual rent increases of 2.2%.

🏡 Active inventory increasing: Total housing inventory on the market is up 3.2% year-over-year, while the median listing price fell 2% in the same timeframe. Price cut activity is increasing, which is an indication that prices will continue to fall through the rest of the year.

🪙 Trump pulls back from crypto: The President’s media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, is pulling out of two deals with Crypto.com, including a digital asset treasury and a prediction market platform. Whether the decision was made because the crypto space has been struggling or because of political pressure is unclear, but the relationship between Trump and crypto is worth keeping an eye on.

This week: Monterey Car Week, the biggest week of the year in the classic car world, kicks off today and will feature highly anticipated auctions from Sotheby’s and Gooding & Company, among others.

Tuesday: Existing home sales report released; NFIB small business optimism index released.

Wednesday: Consumer price index (CPI) inflation report released.

Thursday: Producer price index (CPI) inflation report released.

Friday: U.S. retail sales report released.