Plus: Canada’s shrinking tariff cushion August 31, 2026 Sign Up | View online In This Issue 8 min read 💎 Dolly’s wisdom 👤 Apple’s secretive new CEO 💈 Hair gel’s new price tag Tariffs are about to drive up operational costs for in-demand stylists like Edward — collateral damage from a trade war that he’ll have to pass on to his Scissorhands clientele. We explain below. | 20th Century Studios/Disney What are the best money lessons you’ve ever learned? We want to know! Send them to us in the feedback module below, or shoot us an email at tldrpodcast@wealthsimple.com. We might share a few of our favourites in an upcoming issue. The Week in Markets And now, inevitably, the SaaS-urrection. Remember a few months ago when the entire software industry was toast? Like so many apocalypses before it, the so-called “SaaSpocalypse” — a term used to describe the swift and impending ruin that AI would unleash on “software as a service” behemoths like Salesforce, Intuit, Adobe, et al. — turned out to be nothing more than a fun word to say for a few days. Salesforce, in fact, the SaaS-iest of them all, shared Q2 earnings last week that surged past expectations, and the reason why was its implementation of the very AI technology — supplied by Anthropic, in this case — that was supposed to replace Salesforce. Meanwhile, Blackrock’s $IGV ETF, which tracks the major software companies and was the dog of the Dow for much of 2026, has also stormed back and edged into the green. What changed so fast? This summary by TLDR fave Brent Donnelly is so sharp we’re just going to hand him the mic: “The market has logically concluded that no large organization is going to deploy a bunch of autonomous agents to replace their software. The whole premise was out of control and it’s a good example of how markets can be grossly inefficient due to fear and greed. Fear, in this case.” TSX: -0.4% (+14.9% YTD) S&P 500: +0.8% (+12.4% YTD) One Chart That Explains Everything Superlatives of the Week Most sobering list of soon-to-be pricey products: The chart above says it all. We’re in a full-blown trade war! And, barring a sudden détente, Canada’s retaliatory tariffs will kick in on Sept. 8 and affect hundreds of U.S. goods. The Globe and Mail published a handy explainer on the biggest consumer categories that will be subject to counter tariffs (likely resulting in price hikes for Canadians!) after Labour Day. What’s on the list? Hair-care products stand to rise sharply, with a 50% tariff affecting some $347.6 million worth of imports. Metal furniture — about $258 million worth of products — also faces a 50% tariff. Ditto clothing, computer monitors, and golf clubs. Most impressive flex by AI’s reigning champion: Nvidia hauled in US$96.22 billion last quarter — and offered a swaggering projection of 70% revenue growth in 2028 (take that, AI-boom doomers). And how did Wall Street respond? Investors have long worried that Jensen Huang’s US$5-trillion super-mega-cap is the lone Jenga block holding up a wobbling skyscraper and that chipmakers like Nvidia might not always be the big AI winners. Hence investors’ tepid reactions to the company’s previous four earnings beats. This time, though, Nvidia’s results overwhelmed all those worries, and helped the company add $442 billion to its market cap on Thursday — the second-biggest one-day gain in history. —Jenna Benchetrit Big Number or Small Number? ⬆️⬇️ $17.1 billion Meta’s 10-year payout to settle accusations that it purposely hooked teens on its platforms sure sounds like a very big number, especially relative to what Volkswagen (US$14.7 billion) and Enron (US$7.2 billion) paid to settle their lawsuits. Then again, Big Tobacco settled a similar addiction-themed lawsuit in 1998 for US$206 billion — US$422B in today’s dollars — over 25 years. Meta was facing penalties as high as US$1.4 trillion, the size of its entire market value. Meanwhile, its Q2 revenue alone was US$60.8 billion. And that’s how US$17.1 billion starts to seem like an awfully small number. From Our Sponsor The FOMO Index by Stacey Woods Important 🗽 Toronto mayoral candidate suggests renaming Trump’s home state “Province of New York.” Please, sir, leave the petty insults to the master. Source 📱 New friction-maxxing app makes your texts travel at the speed of carrier pigeons. Or you could just stick with Rogers. Source 🍪 Scientists for NASA figure out how to turn microplastics into cookies. “Big deal, we’ve always done that,” says SnackWell’s. Source 🏷️ Loblaw returns country-of-origin stickers to groceries. People deserve to know who’s overcharging them for cherries. Source Crash & Burn To the Moon 🧀 Mac and cheese powder spills onto Quebec highway after truck crash. Fortunately, no actual cheese was harmed. Source 🏫 Second-grade teacher creates a classroom “fart corner” so class runs more smoothly. And if that’s not enough, there’s always private tootering. Source 🫦 Richmond Hill ceramics guild joins OnlyFans. Subscribe to unlock the kiln and see some jugs. Source 🐍 Newly discovered snake species has been named after guitarist Slash. That’s good; there aren’t enough snakes named “Saul.” Source Who Cares? The Big Important Story Person of Interest: Meet Apple’s New Man-of-Mystery CEO Illustration by Palesa Monareng The business world produces some, let’s say, interesting characters. Earlier this month, we told you about 24-year-old Rubik’s-Cube-enthusiast Leopold Aschenbrenner, who vapourized US$35 billion with leveraged AI bets. This week let’s meet someone who’s far more discreet but more consequential: John Ternus, the incoming CEO of Apple. He’s a hardware guy who worked his way up the tech giant’s ladder over 25 years, and he’s got some even taller challenges ahead when he ascends to the No. 1 job on Sept. 1. At the top of the list: Apple hasn’t delivered a new world-upending product on par with the iPod or iPhone in many years. Ternus’s mandate is to fix that, fast, while preserving that classic Apple slickness on a company that just turned a dad-bod 50. Is he up to the job? Hard to say! He keeps an almost comically low profile, so we dug up every detail we could find about him to get a sense of what the future might hold. Here’s what we definitely (probably) know: He’s from California. Orange County, specifically. He’s definitely Gen X. When Apple announced him as its next CEO, nobody could figure out how old he was … until it was revealed, in an April regulatory filing, that he was born in May 1975. Which makes him 51. He might be married. Ternus once wore a wedding band during a presentation; beyond that, there’s no public information about his family (assuming the ring wasn’t a ploy to make us think he has a family). He likes making cars go vroom. Sounds like Ternus might be married … to his Porsche, which he rally-races on California’s Laguna Seca racing circuit. He reportedly drives a 1:40 lap, which ain’t too bad for an amateur. He’s a “man of the people.” One former boss noted that Ternus has declined a private office since the mid-2000s, choosing instead to sit with his team in a shared space. He’s also known for working directly with engineers on products, rather than delegating through middle managers. Getting in the weeds helped him notch a long list of wins, including the iPhone Air, the iPad, AirPods, and Apple Watches. He beefed with Jony Ive. Ternus famously fought for (and achieved!) better product performance after standards slipped in the 2010s, when Apple’s obsession with thinness resulted in slow-running gear. (Ternus is said to have gone tête-à-tête with famed designer Ive, the man behind Apple’s minimalism, more than a few times.) He might not differ all that much from Tim Cook. Outgoing CEO Cook is a shrewd businessman who built a world-class supply chain, but he lacked a twinkle-in-the-eye innovative streak à la Steve Jobs. Ternus, similarly, is known more as a shepherd of other people’s ideas than an innovator. But, hey, he hasn’t even started yet! Let’s give the guy a chance. —Jenna Benchetrit Money Lessons From Dolly Parton She was the Queen of Country, sure — but she was also a dang savvy businesswoman and a US$450-million empire builder whose portfolio included a record label, a much-beloved theme park, restaurants, and hotels — plus lucrative branding deals for clothing, jewelry, cake mixes, and fried-chicken batter. She even co-produced the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series! Dolly! And, of course, Dolly being Dolly, she talked about money just as wisely as she made it. Here are our favourite Parton pearls: On music royalties: “My songs are like my children — I expect them to support me when I’m old.” On launching her own record label: “I thought, ‘I’ve made enough money. I can afford to invest a little in myself.’ ” On philanthropy: “I don’t do it for attention. But look! I’m getting a lot of attention by doing it.” On running a business: “I thank God for my failures. Maybe not at the time but after some reflection. I never feel like a failure just because something I tried has failed.” On spending: “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap.” On staying grounded: “I always count my blessings more than I count my money. I don’t work for money, never did.” On work/life balance: “Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” Thoughts on Today’s Issue? Love it Good So so This week’s newsletter contributors: Brennan Doherty (writer), Devin Gordon (writer), David Walters (writer), Stacey Woods (writer), Jenna Benchetrit (news writer), Ambrose Martos (fact checker), Maude Campbell (copy editor), Sara Black McCulloch (fact checker), Katie Noll (senior specialist, product engagement), Lauren Edwards (production coordinator), Matthew Karasz (markets editor), Jared Sullivan (senior editor), Peter Martin (senior editor), and Devin Friedman (editor-in-chief). Disclosures: Contributors to this newsletter own shares in Nvidia. Dolly Parton sources: NPR, AP, Just the Way I Am, Dolly on Dolly, Dream More, CBS News, Vanity Fair, etc. TWIM: Total returns shown in local currency, via TradingView. Wealthsimple Media Inc. 80 Spadina Ave Suite 400 Toronto, ON, M5V 2J4 Have questions? Contact us. VIEW IN BROWSER PRIVACY POLICY UNSUBSCRIBE No purchase required. 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