Reading up on finance
61 deep · digging since nov 26, 25
- How the Superwealthy Sidestep the Masses to Get to the World Cup
Wealthy fans bypass crowds by flying private helicopters to World Cup games, underscoring growing inequality as elite travel overwhelms public access.
- 14 value stocks of companies primed for rapid growth through 2028 - MarketWatch
MarketWatch identifies 14 value stocks from the Russell 1000 Value Index with high revenue growth estimates through 2028, noting value stocks tend to outperform growth during high inflation.
- Nearly a Million Investors Lost a Total of $3.8 Billion on Trump Crypto Coin
A cryptocurrency analytics report found nearly a million investors lost $3.8 billion on the Trump memecoin, with retail investors bearing most losses while savvy traders profited.
- Crypto Brought Trump a Huge Windfall, Even as Many Investors Lost Big
President Trump and his family gained massive financial profits from a memecoin while many investors suffered significant losses.
- Learning to Replicate Expert Judgment in Financial Tasks - Thinking Machines Lab
Thinking Machines Lab fine-tuned a custom model on expert-labeled financial data to outperform frontier LLMs on information-filtering tasks at lower cost.
- S&P 500 rejects SpaceX, also blocking entry for OpenAI and Anthropic
S&P 500 rejects rule changes that would have fast-tracked SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic into the index, maintaining standard eligibility criteria like profitability and a one-year seasoning period.
- Crazy Rich Returns Lure Cabbies and Even Kids to Red-Hot Asian Markets - WSJ
AI boom has fueled a retail investing frenzy in South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, with individuals pouring life savings into volatile stocks.
- Secretive Wall Street Powerhouse Jane Street Seizes the AI Spotlight - WSJ
Secretive Wall Street trading giant Jane Street is aggressively expanding into AI and hiring over 500 employees this year.
- Elon Musk Becomes the World’s First Trillionaire
Elon Musk's net worth exceeded $1 trillion after SpaceX shares surged 20% on their first day of trading, making him the first trillionaire.
- How Banks Are Using SpaceX to Woo the Superrich
Wall Street banks are offering their wealthiest clients exclusive access to SpaceX's public listing to deepen relationships in the wealth management business.
- xAI is looking more like a datacentre REIT than a frontier lab - Martin Alderson
xAI's GPU rental deals with Anthropic and Google transform it into a datacenter REIT-like business, driven by financial engineering, compute shortages, and infrastructure advantages.
- The 24-Year-Old AI Wiz Who Counts Jane Street as an Investor - WSJ
Leopold Aschenbrenner's AI-focused hedge fund, Situational Awareness, grew from hundreds of millions to over $20 billion in assets, drawing an investment from quant-trading firm Jane Street.
- The Cattle Empire That Turned Out to Be a Giant Ponzi Scheme - WSJ
A former chemicals plant worker ran a $170 million cattle operation that was actually a Ponzi scheme sustained by phantom livestock and fraudulent financial reports.
- AI Is Upending One of Finance’s Cushiest Jobs
AI chatbots are threatening high-paying wealth manager roles by automating financial advice and tax preparation tasks.
- Wall Street Is Going Gaga for SpaceX
Wall Street banks, led by Jamie Dimon, are preparing for SpaceX's IPO, projected as the largest ever, with massive fee potential.
- AI: Morgan Stanley to open its wealth management funnel to agents
Morgan Stanley will let external AI agents pull client stock-plan data directly from ShareWorks and Equity Edge, bypassing human interfaces.
- Dell Stock Snaps 8-Day Winning Streak Even as AI Server Rivals Soar<!-- --> - Barron's
Dell's stock fell on Tuesday, ending an eight-day winning streak, while competitors in the AI server market saw significant gains.
- The Trillion-Dollar Stakes of the OpenAI vs. Anthropic IPO Race - WSJ
OpenAI and Anthropic are racing to go public first, with significant advantages for the first mover and disadvantages for the second in the AI IPO race.
- For Wall Street, the Only Thing Worse Than SpaceX Flopping Is Missing Out
SpaceX and its bankers are engineering FOMO around its IPO, making investors fear missing out more than the risk of a flop.
- Still Mailing Your Rent? You’re Hardly Alone.
Online rent payments have become the majority method for the first time, but still barely edge out mailing checks.
- Billionaire families are reducing their exposure to the U.S., and this is where they’re looking to invest instead - MarketWatch
Over a quarter of UBS's family-office clients have reduced or plan to reduce dollar assets, shifting investments towards Western Europe and China due to concerns about the weakening reserve currency.
- Goldman Hits the Jackpot After Banks’ ‘Dogfight’ to Lead SpaceX’s I.P.O.
Goldman Sachs won the highly competitive mandate to lead SpaceX’s initial public offering, expected to be the largest in history.
- This 83-Year-Old Investor Is Elon Musk’s Biggest Fanboy - WSJ
Ron Baron, an 83-year-old investor, has bet his firm's future on SpaceX and Tesla, counting on SpaceX's upcoming IPO to reverse fund losses.
- Robinhood Lets Customers Use AI to Trade Stocks, Make Credit-Card Purchases - WSJ
Robinhood is launching a feature allowing customers to delegate trading and credit-card spending decisions to AI agents like Claude and Cursor via dedicated accounts.
- The Average Guys Outsmarting Wall Street on Prediction Markets
Retail prediction-market traders—'sharps'—have earned millions betting on events like elections and movie scores, often beating institutional forecasts.
- Job Cuts Driven by A.I. Are Rising on Wall Street
Wall Street banks are accelerating job cuts as AI automates trading, analysis, and back-office tasks, with executives framing the shift as opening new frontiers.
- Exclusive: Yahoo Finance is building a Bloomberg Terminal for everyone else
Yahoo Finance launches AlphaSpace, a customizable research dashboard with AI assistant, aiming to bring Bloomberg Terminal-style tools to its 150 million retail investors.
- Berkshire Hathaway portfolio changes: How the new stocks are trading
Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a $2.6 billion Delta Air Lines stake and increased its Alphabet position, with several stocks rising on the news.
- See Who Owns The 39 Trillion U S Debt In 2026 From Domestic And Foreign Holders To The Fed And Mutual And Pension Funds
As of March 2026, U.S. debt totals $39 trillion, with domestic investors holding $17.7 trillion and foreign holders $9.3 trillion.
- The Man Who Hunts Monster Stocks
Matt Ankrum's Coffee Can strategy seeks 100-bagger stocks by holding high-quality incumbents, arguing that companies like Toast will adopt AI rather than be disrupted by startups.
- Akamai Stock Notches a 26-Year High. Is the Stock An AI Play Now?<!-- --> - Barron's
Akamai stock reached a 26-year high after Bank of America upgraded it following a $1.8 billion AI deal, signaling it is now an AI play.
- Europe’s few AI plays soar as US tech frenzy goes global
European AI-focused stocks surge as the US-driven technology rally broadens to global markets, lifting the region's few prominent AI plays.
- Here Are the Top 250 Private Wealth Management Teams of 2026<!-- --> - Barron's
The richest 0.1% of U.S. households now control 14.5% of total wealth, up from 8.7% in 1990, driving growth in top wealth management teams.
- AI Bots Auditioning for Wall Street Trading Are Mostly Losing
Most AI systems in trading contests lose money, overtrade, and generate inconsistent decisions even under identical instructions.
- YCharts+Brew Markets
Brew Markets offers a 20% discount on YCharts Professional, which provides portfolio tools and research for advisors, as endorsed by Josh Brown.
- A Meme About Jane Street's Difficult Interview Process Has Gone Viral - Business Insider
A viral meme trend exaggerates Jane Street's notoriously difficult interview process, reflecting the firm's record $40 billion trading revenue and high compensation.
- The Bloomberg Terminal Is Getting an AI Makeover, Like It or Not
Bloomberg is testing ASKB, an AI chatbot for its Terminal, to help traders synthesize vast data via natural language, though it may challenge traditionalists.
- Markets 101: How to Read Stock Indexes and Securities
The Morning Brew explains the five recurring market indicators it tracks—S&P 500, Nasdaq, Dow Jones, 10-year Treasury note, and Bitcoin—plus how stocks, oil, and gold work and why they matter.
- How Larry Ellison’s Wealth Differs From Other Tech Billionaires - WSJ
Larry Ellison's $212.9 billion net worth is almost entirely in Oracle stock, which he pledges as collateral for personal loans to fund assets like superyachts and a Hawaiian island.
- A.I. Is Eliminating Jobs on Wall Street - The New York Times
Wall Street banks are cutting jobs in trading and back-office roles as AI automates tasks, while executives tout AI's potential for new opportunities.
- Banks Are Warned About Anthropic’s New, Powerful A.I. Technology - The New York Times
The Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve chair convened an unusual meeting to warn bank executives about cyberthreats from Anthropic's new powerful AI technology.
- Why Is Everyone Saying the Word Tranche? - The New York Times
The sudden ubiquity of the word 'tranche' stems from its use in reporting on a released batch of documents, reviving a 16th-century financial term.
- Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter
Stripe's $159B valuation comes from $1.9 trillion in processed volume (34% YoY growth) and a $1B Revenue suite run rate, powering 90% of the Dow and 80% of the Nasdaq 100.
- The Other Leverage in Software & AI
AI disruption threatens to compress software revenue, putting at risk the $475 billion in BDC loans and highly-leveraged data-center debt built on that revenue's durability.
- Files Reveal Epstein’s Money Mingled with Silicon Valley’s Tech Start-Ups - The New York Times
Epstein's financial records show he invested in multiple Silicon Valley startups, using tech industry connections for deal access.
- How GPUs Became the Newest Financial Asset
GPUs are being financialized as a new asset class through debt securitization, derivatives, and tokenization, despite rapid obsolescence threatening traditional financial infrastructure.
- Betting on Prediction Markets Is Their Job. They Make Millions. - The New York Times
Professional traders on Polymarket, known as "sharps," are making millions by betting on prediction markets.
- Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling
Prediction markets like Polymarket incentivize manipulation and gambling on news events, risking public trust by merging information with financial speculation.
- Michael Saylor’s Creative Bitcoin Strategy Isn’t Working - The New York Times
Michael Saylor leveraged an ordinary software company to bet heavily on Bitcoin, a strategy that succeeded for years but is now faltering.
- Can F.C. Barcelona, the Most Indebted Team in Global Soccer, Fix Its Finances? - The New York Times
F.C. Barcelona’s 2.5 billion euro debt from mismanagement and overambition threatens its financial stability, requiring urgent restructuring to stay competitive.
- Inside the Invitation-Only Stock Market for the Wealthy - WSJ
The shrinking number of U.S. public companies creates a two-tier market where the wealthy access private shares of high-growth firms while most investors are left with older, slower-growing stocks.
- Robinhood, Susquehanna to Launch Exchange to Expand Prediction Markets Offerings - WSJ
Robinhood and Susquehanna are launching a new futures and derivatives exchange to expand prediction contracts offerings tied to sports, elections, and other events.
Takes
A ChatGPT automation just found ~$45K in erroneous invoices across 3 years of billing history that I've confirmed and already had resolved. My lifetime history for ChatGPT is ~$1,800, so it just paid for itself 25x over. I setup an automation with read-only access to my email, and tasked this one specifically with analyzing construction invoices. It has access to prior construction invoices, emails, meeting notes, etc. It produces a report and emails it to me (the only email its allowed to send, enforced by API token) whenever I receive a construction invoice. Across 3 years of construction projects, it found about $45K in issues. Some were wrong amounts, some were duplicate invoices, some were invoices addressed to the wrong person. I manually verified, emailed my GCs, and got refunded/credited. I get multiple construction bills each month and each bill is ~50 pages in a PDF of low-quality scanned paper. I do manually review each bill but its pretty hard to be right all the time. I do believe these were genuine mistakes and not done out of ill will just based on what the mistakes were. I don't want to share my full construction costs across the past few years, but $45K is a very small percentage of overall billed amounts. Pretty sweet.
@mitchellh
I made a live stock market bubble detector that shows bubble indicators updated multiple times per day https://levels.io/bubble-detector
@levelsio
People still think (or feel) because Bitcoin is down crypto is down. Derivatives/perps, stablecoins, prediction markets, etc are all up in crypto. Crypto touches every area of finance, and is much broader than Bitcoin now. It will take some time for this to sink in. (And yes - Bitcoin is going to do great and is as important as ever - one of many cycles we've all been through.)
@brian_armstrong
Realising Apple went public at under $2 billion and 15 times revenue in 1980. SpaceX wants you to buy at $2 trillion and 100 times revenue in 2026. That is not getting in early. That is being the exit for venture capitalists who have held this equity for years at a fraction of what you are being asked to pay. Almost none of the retail investors buying this IPO will read the 300 pages before the book closes on June 11. That is your entire competitive advantage right there.
@DamiDefi
Exact same with IBKR 😂
@levelsio
The bull market in stocks is only beginning. Everyone is underestimating how big the shortage of compute and power exists. The bears are wrong. The bulls are going to make money. Choose wisely.
@APompliano
bye bye traditional banks 👋
@marckohlbrugge
https://t.co/fA1UmGvKou
@1914ad
https://t.co/v7sot4WCI2
@nicbstme