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As President Donald Trump considers life after the White House when his term-limited time in office ends in 2029, might he follow the path set by one of his predecessors and make a post-presidency pivot to an art career? Trump’s artistic skills are in the spotlight after The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump allegedly contributed a suggestive drawing and lewd poem for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003. Trump denied having anything to do with the page, but in his denial, he told an undisputable lie: “I never wrote a picture in my life,” he told The Journal. Trump has, in fact, made many pictures in his life, and the description of the medium used to make the drawing reportedly sent to Epsteina heavy marker just so happens to be his medium of choice. Say what you will about the inconsistencies between his words, politics, and actions, but Trump has a consistent, distinctive artistic style. [Screenshot: Heritage Auctions] Trump created marker-made doodles showing recurring motifs of city skylines for charity auctions throughout the 2000s, when he hosted NBC’s The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice. “It takes me a few minutes to draw something. In my case, it’s usually a building or a cityscape of skyscrapers, and then I sign my name. But it raises thousands of dollars to help the hungry in New York through the Capuchin Food Pantries Ministry,” he wrote in his 2008 book, Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges Into Success. [Photo: Paul Buck/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock] Far from trompe l’oeil (French for “fools the eye”), a style in which objects are depicted with photographically realistic detail, one of Trump’s doodles of the Empire State Building is filled in with sharp black squiggles that resemble his own sharp, jagged signature, while a 2006 sketch of the George Washington Bridge stands apart from the rest and proves Trump has more artistic skill than he might let on. His sketch of the bridge shows a sense of depth and angles. [Screenshot: Julien’s Auctions] Viewed as a body of work, most of Trump’s sketches are rudimentary and his skylines blocky and simple (“Art may not be my strong point,” he admitted in Trump Never Give Up), but they share an aesthetic. And judging Trump’s work alongside the art of other presidentsfrom presidential doodles to former President George W. Bush’s post-presidency oil paintingsit’s clear that his style is singular. “Its sort of surprising that Trumps doodles show a bit of artistic talent,” David Greenberg, a journalism and media studies professor at Rutgers University and author of books including Presidential Doodles, tells Fast Company. “Id put him in maybe the top third of presidents in his doodling. Of course, its hard to say. Hes no Herbert Hoover, thats for sure.” The National Archives called Hoover “among Americas greatest doodling presidents.” Is there a market for Trump to make a name for himself as an artist out of office? Still, like with a painting by, say, Khloe Kardashian, Trump’s doodles aren’t valuable for their artistic merit, but for the artist’s famous name. Trump’s Empire State Building drawing sold at auction for $100 in 1995 for a charity; by 2017, when he was president, it resold for $16,000. By this measure Trump’s potential value as an artist has never been higher. More famous than ever, Trump could do worse than an art career.
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E-Commerce
General Motors’ second-quarter core profit fell 32% to $3 billion on Tuesday, as the automaker continued to confront challenging tariff policies, which it said sapped $1.1 billion from the results. The automaker’s revenue in the quarter ended June 30 fell nearly 2% to about $47 billion from a year ago. Its quarterly adjusted earnings per share fell to $2.53 compared with $3.06 a year earlier. Analysts on average expected the company to notch a quarterly adjusted profit of $2.44 per share, according to data compiled by LSEG. Shares of the company fell about 3% in premarket trade. The largest U.S. automaker by sales said it expects the tariff impact to worsen in the third quarter and stuck to a previous estimate that trade headwinds threaten to hit the bottom line by $4 billion to $5 billion. GM said it could take steps to mitigate at least 30% of that impact. GM was among the many corporations to pull its annual guidance as it evaluated the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, but eventually reinstated it to a lower annual adjusted core profit of between $10 billion and $12.5 billion. The company on Tuesday stood by that guidance. Beyond tariffs, GMs underlying business in the quarter was solid. Sales in the U.S. market its main profit center rose 7%, while the company continued to command strong pricing on its pickup trucks and SUVs. GM swung back to a small profit in China, after losing money there a year earlier. Nora Eckert and Nathan Gomes, Reuters
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E-Commerce
Last week, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE: TSM), also known as TSMC, crossed an important psychological threshold for investors. The Taiwanese company surpassed a $1 trillion market capitalization, making it the first Asian company to do so since Chinas PetroChina oil and gas giant briefly achieved this milestone in 2007, notes GuruFocus. TSMC manufactures the most advanced computer chips in the world, which are essential for running the most complex AI tasks. The company makes chips for a variety of tech giants, including Nvidia and Apple. As of the time of this writing, TSMC has a market capitalization of approximately $1.2 trillion. The chipmaking giant has achieved this 12-figure valuation on the strength of its chip business in recent months, which has seen a surge in demand thanks to the artificial intelligence boom sweeping the world. But the question many people may be wondering now is whos next in line to join the $1 trillion club? Heres what the numbers say. Who is currently in the $1 trillion club? The list of companies valued at $1 trillion or more is pretty short. Currently, just 11 companies have a 12-figure valuation, according to data compiled by CompaniesMarketCap.com. The companies with trillion-dollar market caps currently include: Nvidia ($4.1 trillion) Microsoft ($3.7 trillion) Apple ($3.1 trillion) Amazon ($2.4 trillion) Alphabet/Google ($2.3 trillion) Meta Platforms ($1.7 trillion) Saudi Aramco ($1.6 trillion) Broadcom ($1.3 trillion) TSMC ($1.2 trillion) Tesla ($1 trillion) Berkshire Hathaway ($1 trillion) While TSMC is the newest member of this esteemed list, the company that tops the chart, Nvidia, is the most notable. Not only is it the most valuable company in the world, but it is also the only company to have ever reached a $4 trillion market capitalization, which it achieved earlier this month. What companies are closest to joining the trillion-dollar club? As its fairly hard to predict how the stock marketand individual stockswill perform in the future, its also nearly impossible to say with any certainty which company may be the next one to cross the trillion-dollar threshold. The companies that are the closest now could have calamity strike next week, and see their stock prices plunge as a result, taking them further from the 12-figure mark. Alternatively, a company that is worth only a few hundred billion now could strike metaphorical business gold next week, and see its share price surge catapulting it to the trillion-dollar club out of nowhere. But given that a companys market cap is defined by adding up the value of a companys total shares, its easy to see which companies are currently next closest in line to becoming a trillion-dollar giant. The following five companies that are closest based on their current stock prices are: JPMorgan Chase (Market Cap $800 billion) Walmart ($763 billion) Visa ($685 billion) Eli Lilly ($684 billion) Oracle ($684 billion) Banking giant JPMorgan Chase is the closest to a $1 trillion market cap. To reach it, it would only need to see its stock price rise by another 25% from current levels. Walmart would need to see its stock increase by about 31% from current levels. Visa, Eli Lilly, and Oracle would all need to see about a 46% jump in their stock prices to reach a $1 trillion market cap. As for some of Americas other tech giants, many would need to see their stock prices nearly double or triple from todays levels to reach a $1 trillion valuation. These companies include: Netflix (current valuation: $524 billion), SAP (current valuation: $358 billion), and Palantir (current valuation: $358 billion). For now, its unlikely that any of these companies will be hitting the $1 trillion threshold in the near future, which is precisely why TSMC joining the club is such a big deal. Even as the value of many of the worlds largest companies continues to surge, crossing the 12-figure mark is still a relative rarity.
Category:
E-Commerce
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