What I Read This Week…

Political campaigns are increasingly using influencers to reach voters, the M7 has reached new all-time highs in the stock market, and researchers discovered how visual clutter affects brain function

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Caught My Eye…

• Political campaigns and super PACs are increasingly using social media influencers to reach voters, operating without the disclosure requirements that govern traditional political advertising. How is this new form of political advertising working, and what are its implications? Both the Harris and Trump campaigns are allocating campaign dollars on influencer marketing, with individual creators earning anywhere from $200 to $100,000 per post depending on the size of their following. Unlike traditional political ads, influencers aren't required to disclose when their content is paid for by political groups, even though federal regulations otherwise demand they disclose their affiliations when promoting commercial products. This lack of regulation for political advertising has raised concerns about voter manipulation and the spread of misinformation, particularly through networks of micro-influencers whose content is harder to track. Some states, like Texas, are beginning to require disclosure of paid political content by influencers, but at the federal level, the FEC has decided not to regulate this emerging form of political advertising yet.

• While some predicted that investors would shift away from big tech stocks this summer, the "Magnificent Seven" tech companies have instead reached new all-time highs. What's driving their reasserted dominance in the stock market? The group's strong performance stems from two main factors: better-than-expected earnings and renewed excitement about artificial intelligence applications. Initially, only three companies - Nvidia, Apple, and Meta - reached new record highs. However, this week Tesla joined them after reporting that unit production costs fell to their lowest level (around $35,100 per vehicle), leading to higher profit margins than Wall Street expected. The Magnificent Seven have been the biggest contributors to the S&P 500's gains this year, highlighting their outsized influence on the overall market.

• Researchers at Yale have discovered how visual clutter affects brain function. Their study shows that when our field of vision is cluttered, it changes how efficiently our brain processes information, though the basic pattern of information transfer remains the same. How does the brain handle visual information, and why does clutter make it harder to process what we see? Our visual cortex contains smaller processing units within larger brain regions, each handling specific aspects of visual information. When we look at something, these units work together to process what we see. However, when our environment is visually cluttered, these units have to divide their resources across too many visual inputs at once, reducing their efficiency. This scattered attention makes it harder for our brain to focus on any single item, remember information clearly, or handle multiple tasks effectively. The brain responds to this strain by producing more stress hormones. This research is particularly relevant today, as we increasingly interact with visually complex environments and it could lead to better ways to manage and process visual information in our daily lives.

Other Reading…

• Treasuries Sell-Off Reverberates Through Global Markets (Financial Times)

• Inside The Washington Post’s Decision to Stop Presidential Endorsements (NYTimes)

• Companies Look Past Chatbots for AI Payoff (Wall Street Journal)

• Meta Strikes Multi-Year AI Deal With Reuters (Axios)

• It All Started With a Perceptron (Medium)

• A Million People Play This Video Wargame. So Does the Pentagon (Wall Street Journal)

• Commercial Property’s Moment of Truth (Financial Times)

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