📰 GOOD MORNING, CFO
What cool CFOs read before their first Zoom of the day.
WHAT A FINANCEDAY
S&P 500 −1.2% • Nasdaq −1.7% • Dow −1.3% 10‑yr UST ~3.8% • Gold up ~$20 • Bitcoin −1.1%.
Markets clearly woke up on the wrong side of the Fed's bed.
BIG PICTURE
U.S. jobs in July missed expectations with +114K; unemployment held at 4.5%.
Did the economy catch a cold, or is this the start of a recession cough?
FED rate‑cut pricing for September just got friendlier.
FOR CFOs THINKING ABOUT RATES
Soft jobs + Fed silence = traders betting on a September cut. Time to revisit your floating‑rate debt and interest‑income scenarios before your board asks why you didn’t.
CFO-CENTRIC BRIEFING
West Pharma names serious CFO: Robert McMahon starts Aug 4 as West Pharmaceutical Services’ new CFO.
Expect restructuring and pharma‑growth updates soon. Old CFO shifts to advisor role, because who’s retiring when the cash metrics are solid? (PharmaLive)
Cellectis reporting Q2 after close today: Gene‑editing biotech goes public today; CFO Arthur Stril takes the mic tomorrow. Be ready to pull numbers or adjust forecasts if Car‑T costs show up weird.
DEAL INTEL & CORP MOVES
Warner Bros. / Discovery split alert: New standalone WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels now heads up Discovery’s finance team. CFOs in media should lean into content-to-cash cycle shifts.
Topgolf sale delayed: CEO shake‑ups push spin‑off timeline to 2026. CFOs in PE/infra deals: re‑run cap‑structure models with delay scenarios.
THIS WEEK IN EARNINGS
Palantir on deck Monday: Revenue growth ~38%, but trading at 189x FCF (yes, seriously). A beat may rally, but one miss…ouch.
Full slate: Disney, AMD, Eli Lilly, Uber, expect strategy changes across tech, retail, and energy.
QUICK HITS
Big Tech is splurging: Amazon, Microsoft, Meta & more will pump $364B into AI capex in 2025. CFOs, adjust your CapEx budgets accordingly (and maybe rethink office snack spend).
CFO pay talk: Raises may not soften much; top finance teams are still commanding strong comp even in choppy markets.
MORNING HACK
Cash conversion slide in under 10 minutes: Create a board‑ready slide showing Trailing‑Twelve‑Month FCF bridge, working capital turns, and C‑cycle vs last quarter. Top it off with an action line:
“Pull forward collections from top‑10 customers by 2 days → +$X cash” Show up looking like a hero (or at least like someone who knows Excel).
🍿 BE RIGHT BACK...
Tonight’s winding‑down watch suggestion: “The Accounting Game”: a Netflix doc where CFOs explain how numbers saved companies from chaos (yes, it’s surprisingly riveting).
That’s it...digest, smirk, and conquer your first meeting. Come back tomorrow for more CFO‑grade fuel without the snooze.
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By Omar Abed