Good morning. On Fortune’s radar today:
- Exclusive: Disney is no longer the king of the theme park world.
- Kalshi valuation could be $42 billion.
- We got our hands on Meta’s new AI-powered smart glasses and wristband.
- AI hyperscalers have roughly one more year to start showing ROI.
- Markets: Global bond selloff forces stock markets into the red.
- The U.S.’s most important job market data is usually wrong.
- The civil war inside Dolly Parton’s estate.
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ONE BIG THING
Disney, dethroned: Dubai takes the Magic Kingdom’s crown for the world’s most-visited theme park
Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando has been dethroned as the world’s most-visited theme park by Dubai's Global Village, an attraction that began as a small pop-up fair in a parking lot, Chris Sylt reports for Fortune.
For more than two decades, the Magic Kingdom has held the title of the theme park with the highest annual attendance, according to the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). Although this accolade is not in doubt, new analysis has revealed that the park isn’t the undisputed leader it was believed to be.
Disney comfortably has the highest combined attendance of any theme park operator. Its 14 outposts in four countries welcomed a total of 145.2 million guests in 2024, according to the TEA’s latest data. The jewel in its crown is the Magic Kingdom in Florida. The latest TEA data shows that in 2024, the Magic Kingdom had an average of 48,732 visitors per day.
However, Global Village’s tally came to 49,505, as it attracted 10 million people in just 202 days (Global Village isn’t open during the brutal Dubai summer). What’s more, Global Village’s typical hours are 38% shorter than those of the Magic Kingdom, so its attendance per hour is around 33% higher than its rival in Orlando.
Kalshi could be worth $42 billion as it eyes IPO
Prediction market Kalshi notched a $1 billion investment in May that valued it at $22 billion, and investors are eyeing an initial public offering as soon as next year. But it could be worth as much as $42 billion, according to an analysis by Pitchbook—assuming the company can survive a looming Supreme Court case that may give individual U.S. states the right to regulate its business. Fortune’s Jeff John Roberts has the numbers.
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A-MUSE-ING
Meta has taken the lead in the race for the post-smartphone world
Some moments make emerging tech feel genuinely different. That’s the case the first time you put on a pair of Meta’s most advanced smart glasses on the market, which project a high-resolution digital box inside the right lens and allow you—with the help of a smart wristband—to control objects on the screen by moving your fingers. Tap your pointer finger and thumb together to open an app. Fortune’s Sebastian Herrera tells us what it’s like.
AI hyperscalers are running out of time to make their money back
When will the AI boom—or bubble—end? Oxford Economics’ Ben May thinks he may have the answer: Next year.
The hyperscalers funding the boom now have total negative free cash flow, he said in a recent research paper, and thus now need to generate vast profits in order to see a reasonable return on investment. “Based on cumulative investment of around $3.8 trillion from 2024 to 2028, the hyperscalers would need to make $570 billion-$800 billion of additional profits per year to get these returns,” he said. “Based on the dotcom experience, AI will need to generate substantial productivity gains soon—arguably as early as next year—to justify the elevated returns that investors and the AI firms themselves expect.”
But $570 billion-plus of additional profits may not be in the pipeline, according to estimates by Inigo Fraser Jenkins of AllianceBernstein. The hyperscalers’ cloud-revenue backlog is now over $2 trillion, he said in a recent note. “If we assume a five-year time frame for the realization of this backlog, then it implies a run rate of $400 billion per year,” he said. That’s $400 billion in revenue, not profit—which would leave the entire industry $170 billion-plus short of the minimum level that Oxford’s May estimates will be required.
THE MARKETS
Markets sell off globally in reaction to bond market fear
Stocks sold off globally today in reaction to the price of oil shooting up to $105 per barrel as talks between the U.S. and Iran showed little progress toward ending the war. There was also a big selloff in bonds. The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond rose 15.2 basis points yesterday as investors demanded ever-greater risk premiums for holding U.S. government debt. It sat at 5.137% this morning. The yields on 5-year, 10-year, and 30-year Treasury bonds are all now above 5%. Foreign government bonds followed suit today.
Ironically, strong data regarding purchasing manager expectations—a macro metric usually ignored by the market—convinced traders that future interest rate hikes from the Fed are more likely.
Although the fall in bond prices was sudden, yields on bonds are not historically high. It’s the direction they're heading in, not the current price, that has investors worried.
“For Gen Z bond traders, a 0.15-percentage point rise in yields is scary. For Gen X bond traders, it is mild,” UBS’s Paul Donovan told clients this morning.
- S&P 500 futures were down 0.6% this morning. The index was down 0.75% yesterday.
- In Europe, the Stoxx 600 was down 0.56% in early trading and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.21% before lunch.
- Asia: South Korea’s KOSPI was closed today. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.76%. India’s Nifty 50 was down 1.63%. China’s CSI 300 was down 1.73%.
- Brent crude was $105 per barrel this morning, up from $99 yesterday.
- Bitcoin was at $83,598.
Chart via CNBC.
CHART OF THE DAY
Revisions to the U.S. jobs number are usually negative
On the first Friday of every new month, economists get very excited—that’s the day when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the new “nonfarm payrolls” number, which describes the number of new jobs the economy created in the previous month. There’s only one problem with the number, as this chart from Pantheon Macroeconomics shows: It is usually wrong. As time goes by and late survey responses trickle in, the BLS revises the number, and the revisions usually cut jobs from the final number. (Revising the number over time is a normal part of the process—the U.S. is a big place!)
NUMBER OF THE DAY:
20% less
The reduction in Europe’s total energy consumption compared to 20 years ago, according to Marieke Blom of ING.
THE FRONT PAGES TODAY
US and China extend trade truce as Trump welcomes Xi for summit - FT
Global debt tops $365 trillion as economists sound alarm over ‘vicious cycle’ - CNBC
Judge Orders Trump to Lift Ban on CNN, MS NOW, Politico - WSJ
As Xi Visits Washington, Trump Plays Down China’s Actions Against U.S. Interests - NYT
ONE MORE THING
Dolly Parton’s estate descends into litigation less than one month after her death
Dolly Parton's estate accused the country music icon’s nephew of threatening to commit violence and destroy his aunt’s legacy and business empire in court filings submitted Tuesday and asked a judge to keep him away from its employees and business dealings, the AP reported.
Bryan Seaver owns a company that provided Parton’s security detail and was handpicked by the star to announce her death from cancer last month. Seaver’s messages have resulted in Parton’s trusts and estates attorney leaving and employees of Parton’s company She’s Alive resigning, according to the court documents. The entity has also had to hire private security for its employees, including at their homes, the documents state.
The restraining order is meant to stop Seaver from talking with or being within 1,000 feet of She’s Alive employees, attorneys, and business partners. It is also meant to keep him from interfering with its business relationships.
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