They didn’t merely take a bite of the apple, they practically swallowed it whole. 

The European Commission is levying a €1.8 billion ($1.95 billion) fine against Apple over how it dictated terms to music streaming apps on its App Store. The size of the fine came as a shock to some industry watchers, but the commission said it needed to smack Apple with a big fine because, well, it’s a pretty big company. For Apple, the fine (if it survives the appeal Apple says it’s launching) could make it harder to follow its tried-and-tested playbook of dictating strict terms to developers with which it later directly competes.

Steering Into a Storm

Apple’s first-ever EU fine starts with Sweden-based Spotify, the world’s largest music streamer, which complained to the EU that Apple’s terms of service on the App Store were artificially inflating Spotify’s prices. That’s because Apple takes a 15%-30% cut of all in-app purchases — e.g. when you buy a Spotify subscription on your iPhone — and simultaneously forbids developers from diverting consumers elsewhere. So Spotify is barred from including a little text message in your app saying, “Fancy paying less money? Go sign up on your laptop.” That policy is Apple’s “anti-steering” rule. 

These practices, combined with Apple offering its own competing music streaming app, are what led to the EU’s chunky fine. The money may not be the worst of it:

• The Commission is ordering Apple to ditch its anti-steering rules. If enforced, developers can direct their app users elsewhere and Apple could surrender a decent chunk of revenue, as a 2023 CNBC analysis found that for the preceding year, about $60 billion in payments went through the App Store, with Apple’s slice somewhere between $9 billion to $18 billion.
• Although this is the first time EU’s competition queen Margrethe Vestager has smacked Apple with a monetary penalty, the bloc has shoved a crowbar into Apple’s garden wall before. Having spent years making devices that only use its bespoke lightning charger, Apple conceded in 2022 that starting this autumn all of its phones sold in Europe will have USB-C ports.

Apple issued a fairly withering response to the EU fine, arguing that if anyone’s a dominant player in music streaming it’s Spotify. But this decision has ramifications beyond music, and Spotify isn’t the only developer-slash-competitor to have complained about Apple’s App Store rules. Still, Apple kept the focus on music and asserted that the music streaming industry is “thriving, competitive, and growing fast.”

Stayin’ Alive: “Thriving” might be an overstatement, as can be attested by UK-based music royalties investment fund Hipgnosis, which owns the rights to songs from artists including Beyoncé, Blondie, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Hipgnosis dumped about $465 million in music rights last September, and now the value of its portfolio has slumped more than 25%. Some of Hipgnosis’ problems are unique, but a general waning confidence in the value of its royalties has played a role in its downfall. Singing for your dinner will probably get you an entrée in the streaming era.

Nuclear power may not be everyone’s definition of clean energy, but it’s making a big comeback as nations scramble to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. And you don’t have to be a nuclear technician like Homer Simpson to know that what’s good for nukes is good for uranium mining. 

While nuclear plants have been operating for decades, many countries started to distance themselves from them after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan, sending the price of uranium plummeting. Germany shut down its last remaining nuclear plants last April. 

Nudging Nuclear

However, Japan itself still produces a good deal of nuclear power alongside countries such as France, Canada, and China. And the US, which leads the world by producing nearly 30% of all nuclear energy output, looks to add even more:

• The price of uranium has tripled in the last four years, and at least five US firms have restarted operations at relatively small mines in states including Wyoming, Texas, Arizona, and Utah, Bloomberg reported.
• The Uranium Producers of America say the US will need eight to 10 new major mines over the next decade if the country wants to keep up with the growing demand for nuclear power, and the International Atomic Energy Agency expects the world will need more than 100,000 metric tons of uranium per year by 2040.  

Both Sides Agree: While some activist groups and scientists criticize nuclear plants for the radioactive waste that can contaminate humans and the environment if not disposed of properly, they seem to have ample support in Washington, DC. Just last week, Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill that will speed up the building of the next run of America’s nuclear plants. Democrats see it as supporting the environment and Republicans see it as supporting the economy. Just don’t be surprised when you start reeling in three-eyed fish at your local swimming hole.

Warren Buffett may think Bitcoin has zero value, but the world’s most popular cryptocurrency is once again nearing its all-time high. HODLers and true believers can thank the arrival of bitcoin ETFs.  

Return to the Moon

Bitcoin’s value plummeted by more than 70% over roughly a year following its all-time high value in November 2021, when a single unit was worth $68,990. The virtual currency slowly walked back some of its value over several months. Until recently, that is.

The SEC approved so-called spot-bitcoin ETFs in January, allowing investors to essentially buy and sell the digital currency as easily as stocks or mutual funds. Bitcoin enthusiasts long proclaimed the much-awaited approval to be the moment that the OG crypto tipped into legitimacy. And while the arrival of the ETFs initially triggered something of a selloff event, it’s since ushered in a new wave of interest:

• Bitcoin has risen by roughly 50% so far this year, with most of the increase coming in the last few weeks. On Monday, it rose as high as $67,567 — its highest point ever since November 2021.
• The 10 spot bitcoin ETFs have generated about $8 billion in net inflows since their arrival in January, according to a Bloomberg analysis. Nearly $2.2 billion of that came in the last week alone, according to LSEG data — with BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust accounting for half of the inflows.

Wall Street Bits: Bitcoin’s resurgence has typically conservative Wall Street firms rethinking their crypto skepticism. Wells Fargo and Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch, among others, now allow access to some bitcoin ETFs for select clients, but still don’t allow their advisers to recommend them, Bloomberg recently reported. “Wall Street will embrace whatever will raise them money so that doesn’t let you know whether it’s good or bad,” Michael Rosen, chief investment officer at multi-asset investment firm Angeles Investments, told Bloomberg. Brent Donnelly, trader and president at analysis firm Spectra Markets, recently provided another perspective to Reuters: “We are back to a 2021-style market where everything goes up and everyone is having fun.”