Temu appears to have largely stopped funding a network of fake accounts on Meta’s platforms in the days after it was first exposed by Fortune.
Temu had spent nearly $1 billion funding partnership ads with various influencers and creators on Instagram and Facebook, targeting users in the U.K. and 27 E.U. countries. Around 73 of the 100 influencers whose pages featured the most Temu ads were probably fake.
Fortune’s story on the fake account network ran on Aug. 31. At that time, Temu was running 4,900 separate partnership campaigns a day on the network. By Sept. 4, 90 accounts suddenly featured zero advertising from Temu. And of the top 100 accounts, 54 stopped using partnership ads almost immediately after Aug. 31.
MORE FROM FORTUNE
Inside Chevron’s Massive Bet on AI & Energy | Fortune Daily
Animoca’s Evan Auyang worked in finance and public transit before crypto—Why he thinks the blockchain should be more like a bus – Nicholas Gordon
Alice Walton got $33 billion richer last year without running a company. She’s building a tuition-free medical school instead – Sydney Lake
31-year-old millionaire sold his first business at 17 for over $100K—he lost it all in 15 months to bad investments: ‘I got cocky, I got arrogant’ – Orianna Rosa Royle
Trump made more than 1,100 trades in July alone—nearly 40 times Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s total for all of last year – Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez
Google CEO Sundar Pichai says this one uncomfortable habit gets young workers ahead—and helped build his $1.6 billion fortune – Sydney Lake
‘It’s so corrosive to democracy’: Over 50 federal prosecutors speak out against Trump’s $100,000 a month ‘insider trading’ scheme – Joshua Hong
THE MARKETS
Stocks tick up modestly, but the real drama is in the bond market
Markets in Asia and Europe ticked up modestly today. U.S. futures were up marginally before the open in New York. Most of the drama this week has been in the bond market.
All the benchmark U.S. bonds now have yields that are at or above 5%, Saxo’s strategy team said in an email this morning. “The average yield across the $32 trillion U.S. Treasury market has risen to 5.05%, while the average yield on government debt globally is approaching 4%, the highest since 2007. The surge has immediate real-world consequences, sharply raising borrowing and refinancing costs for consumers, corporations and governments,” they said. The squeeze on financing could “eventually translate into a sharper economic slowdown.”
Mortgages hit the psychologically testing level of 7%, UBS’s Paul Donovan noted. “The increase erodes the spending power of new homeowners—and critically does so in a way that real income data does not capture.”
- S&P 500 futures were up 0.3% this morning. The index sank 0.02% yesterday.
- In Europe, the Stoxx 600 was up 0.9% in early trading, and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.63% before lunch.
- Asia: Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 1.3%. India’s Nifty 50 was up 0.25%. China’s and South Korea’s markets are closed today.
- Brent crude was $105 per barrel this morning, down from a high of $108 yesterday.
- Bitcoin was at $84,602.
The S&P 500 faces a ‘debt refi wall’ as bond yields rise
The bond market selloff is raising the interest rates that set prices for corporate credit. And that begs an interesting question, according to Michael Kantrowitz and Emily Needell at Piper Sandler: Which companies will experience sticker shock when they come to refinance their debt? For most companies in the S&P 500, roughly 40% of their debt comes due in the next five years, they estimate.
“We continue to see higher rates as THE biggest risk to equity markets in 2026 and 2027. The higher rates go and the longer rates remain elevated, the bigger the impact the debt refi wall will have on earnings and growth.”
Unemployment claims hit their lowest in 3 years
The U.S. job market remains reassuringly robust, according to Thomas Simons of Jefferies. In the week through Sept. 19, 197,000 people filed a new claim for unemployment insurance, down 1,000 from the previous week and below analysts’ estimates.
“Continuing claims fell to their lowest level since the week ended May 31, 2023, at 1.717 million,” he told clients in a note.
CHART OF THE DAY
The canary in the airline? Declining passenger numbers have previously heralded recessions
Are plane ticket sales indicating a recession is in the offing? That might be the case, according to data published by Oliver Allen at Pantheon Macroeconomics. This chart shows U.S. air passenger numbers suddenly dip before recessions happen. The presumption is that air travel is one expense you can quickly cancel if your fortunes go into a nosedive.
“The number of airline passengers passing through TSA checkpoints provides a unique steer on economic activity, as the data are available daily, almost instantaneously, and are a full count, with no estimation. Declines in airline passenger numbers in early 2001 and 2008 were early signals that consumers were retrenching. So the recent weakness in passenger numbers merits a close look,” Allen said. “Year-over-year growth in passenger numbers was slightly positive in the first few months of this year but slowed to about zero in May. It then weakened again to about -3% in July, and that rate of decline has since been broadly maintained.”
NUMBER OF THE DAY:
$39 billion
That’s the size of the global tokenized asset market, according to Marion Laboure and Camilla Siazon of the Deutsche Bank Research Institute. Excluding stablecoins (89% of the market), tokenized assets—like bonds and gold—grew from $10 billion in 2025 to $39 billion this year.
THE FRONT PAGES TODAY
Oracle on the hook to pay data centre investors even if site has no electricity – FT
CEO who posted ‘Lake America’ sweatshirt photos is no longer with the company – CNBC
Trump allies open new front against Anthropic CEO over AI ‘doomerism’ – Axios
Five Takeaways From Trump’s Washington Summit With Xi – WSJ
Bond Yields at 5% Mark New Era ‘Until Something Breaks’ – Bloomberg
U.S. Intercedes for Elon Musk’s X Over European Fine – NYT
Ex-Trump official Alina Habba to marry Turkish billionaire – NY Post
ONE MORE THING
Nanny faked VC firm credentials and allegedly stole $1.28 million
In late 2014, Ellen Polcari was nannying for a VC’s two young children. A decade later, she had branded herself the investment firm’s “controller,” and, according to the SEC, was the person who allegedly moved about $1.28 million of investor money into her own accounts. The money went to online gambling, shopping, and restaurant meals, regulators say.
Polcari worked for two VC funds that raised about $28.7 million from at least 85 mostly high-net-worth investors and family offices, Fortune’s Amanda Gerut writes. The venture firms aren’t named.
Here’s what happened, according to the SEC. A year into her nannying gig, the fund manager brought Polcari into the firm as an “executive assistant.” Her role grew to cover everything from sending offering documents and wire instructions, tracking down subscription agreements, and wiring capital to portfolio companies.
By April 2023, she allegedly became the sole signatory on a new fund’s bank account and described herself as a “Partner with Control of the Entity” and an 80% owner of the fund, unbeknownst to the owner, the SEC says. She siphoned off tens of thousands from multiple transactions.
Here’s the shocker: The SEC claims neither the VC owner nor its co-owner had access to or signatory authority on the funds’ bank account.
