United States

As American's rush out to buy $7 billion dollars worth of Coors Light, hamburgers and hot dogs to celebrate the Fourth of July, it seems that roughly one-quarter of them should probably do a quick google search to figure out what exactly they're celebrating.  According to a new Marist Poll released yesterday, nearly 25% of Americans can't identify which country the U.S. declared its independence from in 1776.  Moreover, a shocking number of those surveyed attributed the holiday to a split with Mexico.  Per the Marist Poll:

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

It's difficult to say what most Americans commemorate or celebrate on Independence Day nowadays. Many appear to focus on some vague notion of "America." Others even take to jingoism equating the United States government with the very notion of "freedom." 

Lost in all of this is the fact that the Declaration of Independence - the document we're supposed to remember today - is a document that promotes secession, rebellion, and what the British at the time regarded as treason. 

Amazon’s impending takeover of Whole Foods Market isn’t the only thing weighing on grocers' spirits this Fourth of July holiday. As Bloomberg reports, booming meat supplies have sent ground-beef prices to three-year lows, squeezing food sellers’ margins ahead of the top grilling day of the year, when 87% of US consumers are expected to barbecue.

What’s worse, the surge in production has kept in-store prices low, while wholesale costs have risen.

Here’s Bloomberg with more:

There was something different - and symbolic - about last night's North Korean ballistic missile launch which not coincidentally took place on US Independence Day, because shortly after the event, North Korea announced it would have an important announcement to make.

With the US out on holiday for the 4th of July, overnight trading volumes have been muted, as Europe started off in the red but has since trimmed most losses (Stoxx 600 -0.1%) while S&P500 futures rose shaprly from session lows spurred by the European open ignoring the risk-off sentiment from North Korea's latest missile launch, trading 0.2% higher, or up 4 points to 2,429 and closing the gap to Monday's last minute tech-driven market selloff.