Plus, Figma’s wild reversal of fortune August 5, 2025 Sign Up | View online IN THIS ISSUE 8 min read ⌚ Hot-selling smartwatches ✈️ Spotty airplane Wi-Fi 🤡 Very angry Juggalos Airplane Wi-Fi has existed since 2002. Why’s it still so complicated? | RCA Records 🗓️ Scheduling notice: Like many of you, we had yesterday off, so this week you’re getting a very special Tuesday edition of TLDR. Also: worried, perplexed, confused, or just bored? We want to hear from you! Send us a voice memo with your most pressing macro or micro money questions. You can leave a voicemail for us at 226-444-2833 or send a voice memo to tldrpodcast@wealthsimple.com. Thanks! Now, on to the newsletter. —The Editors THE WEEK IN MARKETS Good news, bad news, good news Did you happen to notice the markets seemed to tell two wildly different stories late last week? Perhaps you were left wondering which to believe? Let’s rewind to Thursday night: investors were toasting incredible earnings reports from the likes of Meta and Microsoft — earnings so incredible that both companies unveiled more breakneck AI spending plans. The next morning, though, Trump’s latest tariff bomb arrived along with some discouraging U.S. economic data (bad hiring numbers, downward revisions for previous months) that suggested those tariff fears might not be so overstated after all. The markets responded with their first serious sell-off since Liberation Day, falling by about 2%. Whatever doubts had crept in, though, vanished over the weekend: stocks shot right back up on Monday, putting the S&P 500 near all-time highs. We keep seeing the same pattern: Rally, rally, rally! Wait — bad news! Sell-off! Now rally, rally, rally! And it’s (probably) because traders seem to believe in two truths that don’t neatly coexist: the AI gold rush is real, and so are the cracks in the U.S. economy. For now, at least, they believe in the good news a little more. THE CHART OF THE WEEK WHAT HAPPENED LAST WEEK IMPORTANT Trump’s new tariffs on Canada come with lots of fine print. You’ve probably seen this 35% figure regarding his latest trade salvo. Well, once you account for all the exemptions, the average tariff will increase about 5%. Still, the general state of confusion is testing Canada’s steel and auto industries. “The longer it goes on,” David Adams, president of Global Automakers of Canada, told The New York Times, “the more likely it is that Trump is going to get exactly what he wants: the dissolution of the auto manufacturing base in Canada.” The pain, at least, is being felt on both sides of the border: tariffs have cost Americans about US$2,400 per household so far. Figma breaks Adobe’s heart all over again. The stock price for the design software company shot up by more than 250% post-IPO — the largest first-day jump for a U.S. market debut in more than 30 years. (It’s since slid by about 27%.) You might recall that just three years ago, Figma was at the goal line on a US$20 billion purchase by Adobe, but regulators blocked it. Since then, Figma has made a stunning comeback; maybe someday soon it’ll be Figma’s turn to try buying Adobe. INTERESTING Garmin is giving Apple a run for its money. It still trails Apple in the nearly US$40 billion global smartwatch market — but while Apple’s sales have slumped, Garmin reported a 24% increase in profits in Q2, thanks in part to its fitness products, chiefly its luxury smartwatches. It’s also been growing its Canadian presence, adding floors and hundreds of jobs to its Cochrane, Alberta, HQ. The price points are comparable, so how’s Garmin catching up so fast? Lots of data — like the exact vertical oscillation of your torso while you jog, which is apparently something runners want to know. Why does airplane Wi-Fi still suck? OK, yes, this is the pettiest of problems — “I can’t stream The Hunting Wives from 10 kilometres above the Earth?” — but since we know it drives you crazy too: it’s been 20 years! Why is plane internet still so spotty? The Atlantic explains: in-flight Wi-Fi used to work by connecting to ground-level stations, resulting in unreliable connections. Airlines are switching over to satellites, which can’t be blocked by dense clouds or trees, but the transition has been a slog because (1) the airline industry is highly regulated, and (2) putting new tech into thousands of planes is expensive. —Sarah Rieger FROM OUR SPONSOR THE FOMO INDEX by Stacey Woods IMPORTANT 🤖 ChatGPT casually clicks through the “I’m not a robot” verification. Pictures of buses, traffic signals — pressure’s on you. Source 🚗 The Tesla Robotaxis coming to San Francisco will be driven by humans or, as Boomers used to call them, “cab drivers.” Source 👥 Recent study says you really only need five friends. More than that is too hard to cancel plans with. Source 🩸 New procedure claims to remove 90% of microplastics from your blood. It definitely removes thousands of dollars from your wallet. Source CRASH & BURN TO THE MOON 🤡 Juggalos mad at Insane Clown Posse for releasing AI video. Raises suspicion that they’ve just been a sane, non-clown duo all along. Source 💕 Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau spotted on a date in Montreal. He wants to give her 11 more out-of-this-world minutes. Source 🚀 Australian rocket carrying Vegemite crashes shortly after launch. Marmite takes giant leap forward in yeast-spread space race. Source 🏰 World’s biggest bouncy castle is coming to Vancouver. World’s best shoe thieves close behind. Source WHO CARES THE BIG IMPORTANT STORY PREPPERS Five Ways to Disaster-Proof Your Retirement A few months ago, we set up a hotline so you could ask us about your most burning money issues. Lots of great questions came in! Over the coming months, we’ll be addressing the most useful and interesting here. Our first is from Margaret: Even though my partner and I have more than enough investments for retirement, I’m afraid a major change in society or inflation will wipe them out. What can we do to make ourselves disaster-proof? This is a great question because a lot of retirement advice stops at the really important part: actual retirement. What changes when you finally get there? How much should you spend and how quickly? From which accounts? And what steps can you take to protect the value of what you already have and keep it growing over the time you’ve got left? There’s no such thing as total security in this world, but here are five ways that can help you keep those fears at bay. 1. Defer your government pensions. Only about 2% of people wait until they turn 70, rather than 65, to start collecting OAS and CPP. By delaying, someone who qualifies for full benefits can boost their annual payout by nearly $10,000. That amount even gets adjusted for inflation. 2. Lower your risk … One of the biggest retirement dangers is an early market downturn that permanently saps your portfolio when it no longer has decades to recover. You can protect against this by upping the amount of bonds you hold as you get older — the amount depends on your goals and taste for risk, but some people like to use their age as a guide (e.g., a 70-year-old’s portfolio should include 70% bonds) — and making sure your stock portfolio spans a variety of industries and geographies (index funds are one obvious way to do this). 3. … but not too much. Some people think that hitting retirement means moving everything into investments like GICs. But if inflation kicks up after you lock in that rate, your “safe” investment could actually cost you money. Measured risk can help keep your savings growing, counter the effects of inflation, and limit the chances of running out of money too soon. 4. Take money from the right accounts at the right time. Although you can’t avoid taxes in retirement, you can influence how much you are taxed. For example, the government forces you to start withdrawing a certain percentage from your RRSP (which gets converted into an RRIF) at age 72, but many people would benefit from starting those withdrawals sooner. That lets you smooth out your taxable income and lower your overall taxes. One common approach is to withdraw just enough from your RRSP and other registered retirement accounts so that when that money is added to OAS and CPP, your annual income falls just inside the lowest possible tax bracket. (Take too high of an income and the government will claw back the OAS money it gave you.) Any extra cash you need can come from TFSAs, where withdrawals won’t be taxed, or non-registered accounts. 5. Reassess your situation every year. Your needs or health could change, as could your desire to spend weeks on a cruise ship. If your investments always reflect your plan and your timeline, we can’t promise you’ll be disaster-proof, but you’ll certainly be disaster-ready. —Ben Mathis-Lilley OTHER VERY GOOD READS 🛍️ Knock It Off How dupes turned online shopping upside down. | The Verge* 👶 Let’s Give Canadian Kids $10K At Birth Kids are expensive. This could give parents a leg up. | Maclean’s 🛢️ How Much in Subsidies Do Oil and Gas Get? Well, nobody really knows. | The Narwhal *Article is paywalled, which, yeah, is kind of annoying. But we think good journalism is worth paying for. THE WISDOM OF SOCIAL Tomorrow: fire that economist who claims we order takeout “5x per week.” THOUGHTS ON TODAY’S ISSUE? Love it Good So so This week’s newsletter contributors: Ben Mathis-Lilley (writer), Devin Gordon (writer), Stacey Woods (writer), Sarah Rieger (news writer), Ambrose Martos (fact checker), Ciara Rickard (copy editor), Maude Campbell (copy editor), Sara Black McCulloch (fact checker), Mohini Tailor (lifecycle marketing manager), Eva Grace Clement Cruz (lifecycle marketing associate), Setareh Sarmadi (senior editorial producer), Matthew Karasz (markets editor), Jared Sullivan (senior editor), Peter Martin (senior editor), and Devin Friedman (editor-in-chief). Wealthsimple Media Inc. 80 Spadina Ave Suite 400 Toronto, ON, M5V 2J4 VIEW IN BROWSER PRIVACY POLICY UNSUBSCRIBE Self-directed investing is offered by Wealthsimple Investments Inc. (WSII). WSII is a member of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO). Customer accounts held at WSII are protected by Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF) within specified limits in the event WSII becomes insolvent. 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