There are tasteful displays of wealth. And then there’s buying a literal castle.

The latter is more Mark Zuckerberg’s speed. The Meta (META) CEO just dropped an estimated €20-30M on Ireland’s Strancally Castle and its 440-acre County Waterford estate.

To his credit, Zuck reportedly has no plans to move in. The purchase fits a portfolio that already spans 11 Palo Alto houses, Florida, DC, and Hawaii. For a guy who infamously went all-in on the metaverse, that’s a whole lot of real estate.

— Brooks & The Street Sheet Team

📉 | Advance Auto Parts (AAP) missed Q2 revenue estimates as same-store sales fell 0.5%.

📈 | Deere (DE) beat fiscal Q3 estimates and lifted the low end of its full-year net income guidance.

📉 | Walmart (WMT) grew same-store sales 2.6% against the 3.5% expected and guided below on earnings.

📈 | Transocean (RIG) signed a $300M ultra-deepwater drillship contract with India's ONGC.

📉 | CrowdStrike (CRWD) is losing its CTO, who is leaving to launch an AI-focused cyber venture fund.

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Merck was the quieter winner of Moderna’s breakthrough moment yesterday. Morgan Stanley thinks it could be a long-term winner too.

Analyst Terence Flynn upgraded the stock to Overweight, arguing pipeline optionality can carry growth past the drug's patent cliff. The call lands as Merck's experimental drugs keep clearing trials.

The firm’s landmark cancer treatment Keytruda booked more than $16B in sales in the first half of this year. But its main US compound patent expires at the end of 2028.

Flynn expects co-formulations to stretch the franchise's tail, with other products like intismeran autogene, sac-TMT and tulisokibart moving closer to launch behind it. He sees room for multiple expansion as the pipeline de-risks.

Wall Street mostly agrees: 24 of the 32 analysts covering Merck rate it a Buy or Strong Buy.

Shares are sharply higher year to date, boosted by yesterday’s late-stage data with Moderna, which handed the stock its best day since 2009. What’s more, unlike Moderna, Merck’s stock merely ticked down today.

💸 US government debt topped $40T for the first time, roughly four and a half years after it crossed $30T.

🏦 The 30-year Treasury yield climbed back to 5.25%, erasing yesterday’s rally that followed Treasury's plan to double its bond buybacks.

🏥 US employers expect health costs to rise 11.1% next year, the steepest jump in more than two decades, according to WTW (WTW).

🚗 | Hyundai will raise capacity at its Georgia Metaplant to 700-800K units by 2028, up from a planned 500K, as part of a $26B US investment push.

🚀 SpaceX (SPCX) is in line for more than $8B in federal Golden Dome contracts, at least a third of the program's budget so far.

Do you own any shares of Honeywell Aerospace (HONA)?

▇▇▇▇▇▇ 🐂 Yup, I'm holding

▇▇▇▇▇▇ 🐻 Nope, not interested

▇▇▇▇▇▇ 👀 No, but I'm interested

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