🔥 Sizzling Summers, Burning Questions

^{“Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.”}

— Diane Ackerman

👋 Friends, Rallie here. The newsletter adding a little razzle-dazzle ✨ to your inbox with the latest in crypto, finance, and tech.

On the menu:

• 🔥 Sizzling Summers, Burning Questions

• 🗞️ Headlines That Hit

• 📈 Refresh: Index Funds

• ✌️ Trivia Tuesday

• 💯 Top Tweets

The Rallie Recap

🔥 From wildfires to growing temperatures, this summer has governments ‘collaborating’ and money getting burned. Here’s how:

• Where to start? 🌍 Despite their ongoing trade wars, could recent climate change discussions between China (#1 greenhouse gas emitter) and the U.S. (#2 greenhouse gas emitter) help their troubled relationship?

• 🤝 With temperatures across the globe reaching all-time highs, the two nations agree that bilateral climate negotiations are critical to stop the concerning rise in global warming.

• However, talks are still developing… 🤨 what will each country bring to the table when money and climate are at stake?

• 🇺🇸 Not critical enough? This week, John Kerry, the U.S. representative in talks with China, said that America will not pay reparations to developing countries dealing with the climate crisis. 👋

• 🇨🇦 But let’s circle back to our home base, what’s going on with Canada? Currently, there’s ~900 wildfires burning across Canada, breaking records in all the wrong ways. 😷 In some areas, people are forced to mask as the air quality index rises to dangerous levels.

• And the outlook isn’t great… despite ~1B CAD annually from the government to mitigate the fires, fire season (along with increased smoke exposure periods) is expected to get worse. 🌫️

• But there’s hope! 🧠 AI technology is making breakthroughs internationally by using sensors and satellite data for wildfire prediction. 🤔

• If current technology can learn to accommodate the large size of Canada, wildfires can be predicted days before they happen. 🗓️

• Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is calling on businesses and financial institutions to help the fight saying, 💸 “We need more money, and we need more money from all sources,” after Canada contributed $450M to the Green Climate Fund.

• 🌐 The minister is also pressuring the World Bank, calling multilateral institutions funding of environmental measures “patchy and at times inaccessible to the nations that need it most.” 🤷‍♀️

• But Canada’s economy is no slacker in its greenhouse gas emissions… 🧐 will the burn of the wildfires bring international change?

• 🌱 Don’t let the heat stop your news groove, keep up with us here at The Weekly Rallie!

Headlines That Hit

• 🏒 Consequences. Nike permanently ends its sponsorship of Hockey Canada in response to the backlash over the federation’s mishandling of sexual assault allegations.

• 🏛️ Too much money! Tesla directors pay $735M USD back to their company, settling a lawsuit that claims these executives massively overpaid themselves.

• 📈 Crypto’s optimism. A positive precedent gets set with a recent ruling, XRP tokens are not securities, a good start for crypto exchanges’ ongoing battle against the SEC.

• 🦾 Robodoc…? Strides in generative AI and chatbots show potential in the successful deployment of AI in real-life healthcare settings.

• 💳 Cautious hope. While Canada’s inflation rate falls to 2.8%, experts warn that this deceleration is not sustainable for the future.

Rallie Refresh: Index Funds

😎 Called a haven for savings by the great Warren Buffet, how do you get in on the fun? Time to explore!

 💵 What is an index fund?

• An index fund is a type of mutual or exchange-traded fund with a portfolio made to match or track parts of a financial market index (callback to our S&P 500 Index explanation). 🤑

• Index funds provide broad market exposure, low operating costs, and low portfolio turnover. Part of the reason why they are generally considered ideal core portfolio holdings for retirement accounts.

• ❤️ These funds stay loyal to their benchmark index despite what the state of the markets.

🤩 The theory behind it all..

• 🤌🏻 Compared to actively managed funds, Buffet reasons that it makes more sense for the average investor to buy all of the S&P 500 companies at the low cost an index fund offers, instead of cherry-picking individual stocks which have higher expenses and fees. 🍒

• It’s a long term game. 🛤️ The funds look to match the risk and return of the market based on the theory that in the long term, the market will outperform any single investment.

• Fund managers (or more recently AI models) build portfolios that mirrors specific indexes’ securities to match the performance of the stock market or a wide section of it.

💰 Remember, DYOR on the index funds you invest in before you let them marinate in your portfolio. Like what we are doing here? By copying the link and sharing it with your friends and family, you let us know!

✌️Trivia Tuesday✌️

🛰️ The answer for Thursday’s newsletter (True or False? Elon Musk’s company accidentally blew up a satellite used by Facebook) is True! Tune in next time for today’s answer.

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Congrats, you made it to the end!

That's all for today. Stay hungry & we'll catch you next time. ✌️

DISCLAIMER: This is not financial or legal advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions.