Warren Buffett drives five minutes to work each day stopping at McDonalds along the way. Depending on how ‘prosperous’ he is feeling, he has one of three breakfasts: $2.61 gets him two sausage patties, $2.95 gets him the sausage McMuffin with egg and cheese, and $3.17 gets him the bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. Berkshire Hathaway just announced a record quarterly operating profit of $36 billion and a cash pile of $147 billion. You better believe he is eating that biscuit today.

The lowdown

• 🍳 Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway posts record quarterly operating profit of $36 billion.

• 👸 Barbie rakes in $1 billion at the box office while Oppenheimer sets the box office record for highest grossing film set during WWII.

• 🥶 New evidence suggests that the US labor market is cooling which may cause the Fed to forego another rate rise.

Flex your finance muscle 💪

Sukuk

Sukuk, often termed "Islamic bonds," are financial certificates compliant with Sharia law that allow investors to generate returns without engaging in interest-based transactions which are prohibited in Islam.

Unlike traditional bonds, sukuk denote an ownership interest in an underlying asset or business venture, rather than a debt obligation, hence aligning investment risks and rewards between issuers and investors.

For a more detailed discussion of their mechanism and structure, check out this video. If you are desperate for more sukuk content after that, then this blog post is interesting too.

Featured story

Nintendo’s record-breaking first-quarter profits

Video game developer Nintendo experienced record-breaking first-quarter profits ($) due to the success of The Super Mario Bros Movie and its latest Legend of Zelda game.

Nintendo's operating profit in the June quarter was ¥185.4 billion ($1.3 billion), a remarkable 82% increase from the same period a year earlier. Net sales were up 50%.

The latest Legend of Zelda game has sold 18.5 million copies since launch and the Super Mario Bros Movie has generated over $1.3 billion worldwide at the box office.

Nintendo and Barbie are demonstrating how IP can be cleverly leveraged in movies to drive sales elsewhere.

The content we're consuming today

• The Economist: The world’s worst central banker retires ($).

• BIG by Matt Stoller: The First Big Antitrust Trial of the Century Is About to Start.

• Bloomberg: Murder, Money and the Battle for a Pharmaceutical Empire ($).

Off-balance sheet items

• Team USA has been knocked out of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in the most exciting match of the tournament so far. The match ended in a penalty shootout with the final goal barely getting over the line. Highlights here.

The bottom line