Good Morning! Apollo agreed to buy UK airline EasyJet in a $7.7 billion deal after Castlelake withdrew its bid. Leopold Aschenbrenner made a $400 million investment in a privately held company just a week after his hedge fund Situational Awareness nearly blew up. And Jamie Dimon warned of high leverage in the market, saying somebody will eventually disrupt it.

BlackRock's troubled TCP sold $523 million of loans to Pantheon. SoftBank got an $8.2 billion boost from Intel as OpenAI takes a backseat. And mortgage rates hit their highest levels in over a year.

Plus: FS KKR's losses are narrowing as moves to stabilize the credit fund take hold, and the money regrets of eight CEOs and founders.

Modernize your LBO modeling the same way as largest firms on Wall Street with Mosaic. Demo their platform today.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Millennium Hires Claude

Hedge funds are always looking for their next edge, and the latest alpha might be going all-in and hiring Claude as the latest analyst. Millennium Management is reportedly teaming up with Anthropic and building an AI risk analyst. And this won’t just be AI integrated into vanilla hedge fund operations; Claude will be touching one of the most complicated hedge fund operations on the planet. 

Anthropic’s engineers will work alongside Millennium’s own tech and risk teams and build a tool that will scan positions across every asset class. The tool will also flag emerging risks and help human managers make faster calls. So Millennium isn’t just asking Claude to pick stocks or run a portfolio; it wants the model policing the hundreds of traders who are already placing bets across the firm.

There are definitely barriers to rolling out an AI tool that will work at this scale. Millennium is a $92 billion fund and runs more than 340 separate investment teams. Each team at Millennium has its own strategy, risk limits, leverage and targets. The central risk desk has to know not just what every team owns, but whether trades that look totally unrelated are secretly exposed to the same market move. And Millennium wants to shift the central risk desk’s job to Claude’s and is hoping the AI tool can sort through mountains of data and catch the connections a human analyst might miss.

This isn’t Millennium’s first move with AI, either. Claude and Claude Code are already rolled out across the firm, and employees use them to write software and speed up workflows. The firm also stood up an AI lab recently to test new models early and work directly with companies like Anthropic. So this isn’t a one-off experiment; it’s more like the next step, and it’s landing in one of the most important parts of the whole multi-strat model.

The news comes right after Millennium dropped 2.1% in July during a rough stretch for AI and semiconductor stocks, leaving the fund up 8.2% for the year through July. Not a disaster by any measure, but the fund trailed behind rival Citadel, and it’s a good reminder that even a fund this diversified can get caught off guard by how fast correlations show up once markets start moving.

Takeaway: The appeal is pretty obvious to risk managers who spend their days chasing down questions like why exposure shifted overnight, what’s actually driving a loss, or whether three or four teams have unknowingly piled into the same trade without realizing it. A system that can chew through proprietary data, remember past conversations, and explain how risk is evolving in real time could make all of that faster and a lot more thorough.

PRESENTED BY MOSAIC

Anthropic and Apollo Discuss the State of AI in PE

Anthropic recently hosted a session for private markets deal teams called “Claude for Investing Teams,” featuring Apollo walking through how their firm uses AI day to day. 95% of PE funds report AI initiatives meeting or exceeding original business goals, according to FTI’s 2026 Private Equity AI Radar cited in the session.

Apollo’s own rollout started small: an AI chat pilot in March that scaled firm-wide within two weeks, then expanded into automated research briefings, spreadsheet modeling, and reporting. Apollo now relies on tools, like Mosaic, to automate its LBOs with a standardized workflow.

Mosaic is used for LBO screening, citing the platform’s built-in workflows rather than building that capability in-house.

The takeaway from the session: firms are drawing a hard line between what they build in-house (proprietary data, judgment, strategy) and what they buy off the shelf for high-volume, repeatable workflows.

Explore how Mosaic can scale your firm’s capabilities.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Apollo agrees to buy UK airline EasyJet in $7.7 billion deal as Castlelake withdraws (CNBC)

• Situational Awareness returns to investing with $400 million bet (BB)

• JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon warns of high leverage: ‘Somebody will disrupt the market’ (CNBC)

• BlackRock’s troubled TCP sells $523 million of loans to Pantheon (BB)

• SoftBank gets $8.2 billion boost from Intel as OpenAI takes a backseat (CNBC)

• Mortgage rates hit highest levels in over a year (Yahoo Finance)

• FS KKR losses narrow as moves to stabilize credit fund take hold (BB)

• Deutsche freezes Radiant World funds as miners move to cut ties (BB)

• Defense startup Hadrian valued at $7.87 billion in new round (BB)

• The SpaceX IPO investors who were left holding the bag (WSJ)

• Family offices back clean energy and sustainability startups in July as dealmaking holds steady (CNBC)

• The vulture capital capital: Inside private equity’s takeover of Hartford, Connecticut (Fast Company)

• Bain Capital’s co-head of global private equity set to retire (PENews)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• The S&P 500 slipped 0.2% as markets awaited Friday's payrolls report; WTI crude rose about 3.6% on unclear Strait of Hormuz agreement details.

• The 10-year Treasury yield edged up near 4.66% and the 2-year rose to about 4.25%.

• Initial jobless claims held low at 199,000, and Q2 labor productivity rose 1.4%, above the 0.7% estimate.

Earnings Season

• ADP showed 44,000 jobs added in July, down from a revised 95,000 in June.

• The Challenger Job-Cut Report showed announced layoffs fell to 33,429 in July, the lowest in two years.

• ISM manufacturing employment hit its highest level since August 2022, while ISM services employment fell into contraction.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Versant Media Group ($VSNT) +7% after reporting Q2 revenue growth in its platforms business.

• (–) AppLovin ($APP) -20% because Q3 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $1.71–$1.74 billion missed the $1.75 billion consensus.

• (–) United Wholesale Mortgage ($UWMC) -35% after posting a $452 million net loss and suspending its dividend for the first time ever.

Prediction Markets

• Traders are predicting with high certainty that Gemini 3.5 Pro releases in August.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Hadrian, a defense manufacturer, raised $1.37 billion

• Iceye, a Finnish satellite observation provider, raised around $1.1 billion

• Pathos AI, an AI drug developer, is raising up to $300 million

• LifeMine Therapeutics, an immunosuppressant developer, raised $263 million

• Moove, a UAE-based autonomous mobility startup, raised $250 million

• Xylem is paying $200 million to buy WaterFleet, a provider of mobile water and wastewater utility services

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Training Camp

Description:
A leadership fable from Jon Gordon that reveals the mindset and habits separating elite performers from everyone else. Through the story of an overlooked rookie football player fighting to earn his place in the NFL, Gordon shares practical lessons on mental toughness, discipline, purpose, and continuous improvement. Blending sports, leadership, and personal development, the book demonstrates that lasting success is built through consistent daily habits, resilience in the face of adversity, and an unwavering commitment to excellence.

Book Length: 176 pages
Release Date: May 18, 2009

Ideal For:
Leaders, athletes, entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and anyone striving to develop the mindset and habits of top performers.

Champions aren't defined by talent alone, they separate themselves through the choices they make when no one is watching.

DAILY VISUAL

The AI Capex Boom = 3% of GDP Every Year

Source: Apollo

PRESENTED BY BLUEFLAME AI

12 AI Use Cases for Junior Investment Bankers

1. Coverage and relationship management

2. Pitch book development

3. Deal kick-off and workspace setup

4. Financial Modeling

5. Equity story and CIM development

6. Buyer identification and process preparation

7. Buyer outreach and process management

8. Due diligence and VDRs

9. Bid evaluation and negotiation

10. Quality control and document review

11. Legal and regulatory workstreams

12. Closing and deal administration

For more knowledge into how private markets use AI, follow Blueflame’s Instagram. And to try it out yourself, schedule a demo with their team.

DAILY ACUMEN

Cheap Bubbles

A bubble doesn't always look expensive. Sometimes it looks cheap.

One of the most counterintuitive lessons in investing is that the lowest P/E ratios can appear at the peak of a cycle. Why? Because earnings, not valuations, are temporarily inflated.

That's what made many banks look attractive before the 2008 financial crisis. They weren't trading at extreme multiples; they were trading on peak earnings that ultimately proved unsustainable.

Some investors argue today's AI infrastructure buildout shares that characteristic. Their concern isn't that Nvidia or the hyperscalers trade at outrageous valuations, but that current earnings may be flattered by extraordinary capital spending, optimistic accounting assumptions, and an investment cycle that may not persist indefinitely.

Whether that bearish view proves correct remains to be seen. But the broader investing lesson is timeless: a low multiple isn't automatically a bargain. Sometimes the real question isn't "How cheap is the stock?" but "How durable are the earnings?"

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• The money regrets of 8 CEOs

• How to talk to anyone and why you should

• Are heavy weights or high reps better?

• The no. 1 question that makes me want to hire someone on the spot

• Why recovery has become non-negotiable for modern leadership

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

📊 Wall Street Comp & Culture Data: Get the most detailed comp, carry, and culture insights across 1000+ Wall Street firms. Explore the data.

📈 Grow With Us: Work directly with the Overheard on Wall Street team to scale your finance brand. Schedule your free consult.

🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.

Good Morning! SpaceX stock fell 13% to an all-time low of $108 as AI spending concerns rattled investors and a massive share unlock looms. Citadel's flagship fund surged 5.9% in July after the firm bought Situational Awareness's public book, pushing year-to-date gains to 12%. And major hedge funds including Point72, Millennium, Two Sigma, and Citadel were targeted in a wave of attempted cyberattacks.

BC Partners' credit arm is leading a group looking to lend money to LIV Golf, a lifeline for the tour after Saudi Arabia's PIF pulled its funding earlier this year. Bank of America spends $250 million a year on GLP-1 drugs for its employees. And Sequoia raised $10 billion for AI reindustrialization investing.

Plus: Google shook up its AI leadership as the DeepMind chief shifted roles, why Nvidia bankrolls its rivals, and the economics of owning a cafe.

The largest firms are pouring billions into AI deployment. The smartest are turning to purpose-built solutions like Blueflame. Sign up to learn more.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Wall Street is Eating

Source: Bloomberg

Investment bankers might have spent the past few years complaining about a frozen deal market on Wall Street. But in 2026 the deals are back, trading desks are printing money, and bankers are preparing to become extremely annoying at holiday parties again.

Bonuses for equity sales, trading and underwriting are projected to rise as much as 30% or more this year, per Johnson Associates, the highest of any sector. M&A could see increases of 15% to 20%, while fixed-income traders are expected to get a more restrained 7.5% to 12.5%.

SpaceX's IPO alone threw off ~$500 million in fees, with Goldman and Morgan Stanley taking ~$100 million each and BofA, Citi and JPMorgan ~$75 million apiece. One rocket company going public funds quite a few Hamptons houses.

Volatility, shifting rate expectations and geopolitical chaos have kept desks busy, and hedge funds are pulling their biggest quarterly inflows in two decades too. Wall Street has spent years warning that volatility is bad for markets while quietly charging clients every time they panic.

Normally, a boom like this would lead banks to hire aggressively. But that is not happening, and AI and other technology are allowing firms to process more deals and trading activity without adding nearly as many people. As Johnson Associates put it, “The people that survive are going to make more.” The remaining bankers may be paid better and mentored more closely, but breaking into the industry could become even harder.

The reversal stings most in private markets, which owned finance comp for a decade. Large PE firms may see 2.5% to 7.5%, smaller and midsize shops flat, and private credit down as much as 10% on weak fundraising and record-low distributions. The bankers who watched colleagues leave for buyout firms finally get to send the "hope all is well" text in the other direction.

Takeaway: Bonuses are surging because trading, underwriting and M&A revenues are booming, but this cycle feels different because banks aren't pairing the revenue with a hiring spree. AI doesn't need to replace every banker to change the economics. It just needs to help the same number of bankers collect a much larger fee pool.

Curious how your firm stacks up? Wall Street 360 has the most up-to-date comp data across 1,000+ Wall Street firms.

PRESENTED BY BLUEFLAME AI

"AI Helped Us Close Deals We Would Have Missed"

That’s what 1,000 dealmakers said last month in a survey conducted by Datasite, Blueflame’s parent company, and FT Longitude, and nearly one in four said AI has already helped them close a deal they would have otherwise missed. 62% now say relying on human judgment alone is no longer defensible in complex deals.

The industry is past AI experimentation. Currently, half of deal teams have AI embedded in their due diligence. But the study draws a hard line between firms bolting on generic tools and firms building AI into how the deal team actually operates.

Private equity firms and investment banks are choosing Blueflame AI to do the latter. Amp, Blueflame's AI agent for dealmaking, takes on the process-heavy work like reviewing data rooms, surfacing red flags, comparing targets, and it leaves the decision making to the deal team.

Learn how Blueflame can help your deal team today.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• SpaceX stock hits new all-time low as AI capex jumps in Q2 (Yahoo Finance)

• Citadel’s hedge fund soars after Situational Awareness bet (BB)

• Major hedge funds targeted in wave of attempted cyberattacks (BB) 

• BC Partners’ credit arm explores extending lifeline to LIV Golf (BB)

• Bank of America spends $250 million a year on GLP-1 drugs for its employees, CEO says (CNBC)

• Sequoia raises $10 billion for AI reindustrialization (BB)

• Google shakes up AI leadership as DeepMind chief shifts role (Yahoo Finance)

• Why Nvidia bankrolls its rivals (Axios)

• Citigroup readies $2 billion debt deal for KKR’s Integer buyout (BB)

• Santander’s $12 billion Webster Bank deal wins Fed approval (Pymnts)

• SpaceX has bought $329M worth of Tesla Megapacks so far this year (TechCrunch)

• Carlyle continues to bring in capital as distributable earnings climb (WSJ)

• Fed’s Kashkari says ‘now is the time to start slowly moving’ rates up (CNBC)

• Inside Harvard’s elite undergraduate consulting club (BB)

• Anthropic CEO says his employees are a bunch of untrustworthy rats (Futurism)

• Private capital rushes to fund AI buildout in emerging markets (BB)

• Manager of DRAM memory trade blockbuster ETF is back with new AI thematic bet (CNBC)

• Pipeline owners race to build capacity as AI power demand jumps (BB)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• Nasdaq fell about 0.8%, the S&P 500 slipped 0.2%, and the Dow gained 0.5% as investors weighed earnings and reports of a possible Strait of Hormuz agreement.

• ADP showed private employers added 44,000 jobs in July, below the 75,000 estimate; the 10-year Treasury yieldclosed at 4.61%.

• The ISM Services PMI rose to 54.1 in July, following Monday's ISM Manufacturing PMI of 55.6.

Earnings Season

• AMD beat estimates on strength in its Data Center segment, though shares fell on profit-taking after a 140%+ year-to-date gain.

• SpaceX reported better-than-expected revenue in its first quarterly filing as a public company, but shares fell after capex came in at $18.4 billion, above the $13.2 billion estimate.

• S&P 500 earnings are on pace to grow 45% year over year this quarter, with full-year growth estimated near 30%.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Shopify ($SHOP) +17% after Q2 revenue of $3.58 billion beat the $3.45 billion consensus, up 34% year-over-year.

• (+) Disney ($DIS) +4% because the company beat Q3 earnings estimates on strength in its theme parks and streaming segments.

• (–) SpaceX ($SPCX) -14% after investors focused on surging AI costs even despite revenue up 92% year-over-year.

Prediction Markets

• The price of H200s has doubled from earlier in the year.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Disney agreed to sell its 50% stake in A+E Global Media to Hearst for $1.2 billion

• Volta Infra, a Singaporean AI cloud company, raised $300 million

• Horizon3 ai, a penetration testing platform, raised $250 million

• Okta acquired Permiso, an identity security startup, for a reported $200 million

• Eliyan, a developer of optical interconnect solutions, raised $145 million

• River, an Indian EV maker, raised $120 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Therapy Nation

Description:
A provocative examination from Jonathan Alpert, a practicing psychotherapist, of how modern therapy culture has expanded beyond the therapist's office into everyday life, workplaces, education, and public discourse. While arguing that therapy can be transformative when practiced well, Alpert contends that an overemphasis on validation, emotional processing, and self-diagnosis has, in some cases, weakened resilience and personal agency. Drawing on decades of clinical experience, case studies, and cultural analysis, he challenges readers to rethink what effective therapy should accomplish and advocates for a return to approaches that emphasize accountability, coping skills, and long-term growth.

Book Length: 320 pages
Release Date: May 19, 2026

Ideal For:
Readers interested in psychology, mental health, culture, leadership, and understanding the broader societal impact of therapy and emotional well-being.

Growth doesn't come from endlessly explaining your struggles, it comes from developing the strength to move beyond them.

DAILY VISUAL

Mortgage Rate Rises to Highest Level in a Year

PRESENTED BY STELRIX

How the Rich Borrow Until They Die

ProPublica once calculated that America's 25 wealthiest paid a “true tax rate” of 3.4% on $401 billion in wealth growth*. Their playbook has three steps. 1. Buy assets that appreciate. 2. Borrow against them when cash is needed. Since loan proceeds aren't income, no tax bill arrives. 3. Then die, because heirs inherit at a stepped-up basis, meaning decades of embedded gains are wiped clean for tax purposes and the estate simply settles the loans. Larry Ellison has pledged billions in Oracle stock this way for years. Stelrix introduces the borrow step, with an investment-backed credit card, to portfolios without a private banker.

Explore Stelrix's Instagram for more luxury and finance news and sign-up for their waitlist today.

DAILY ACUMEN

Choice Overload

More options should make a decision easier. Past a certain point, they do the opposite. A well known study found shoppers offered twenty four flavors of jam were far less likely to buy any than shoppers offered six, even though the larger display drew more people in. Choice, past a threshold, stops feeling like freedom and starts feeling like a burden the brain would rather avoid than resolve.

This plays out in decisions that matter more than jam. The investor staring at hundreds of funds who ends up parked in cash, paralyzed by the comparison required to feel confident in any single pick. The manager with forty resumes who cannot commit to an interview slate because each additional option resets the fear of missing a better one still in the pile.

The fix is not fewer opportunities. It is narrowing the field deliberately before you evaluate it, setting hard criteria that cut twenty four options to three before you taste any of them. Good decisions rarely come from surveying everything available. They come from ruthlessly reducing the field to a size the mind can actually reason about.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• The economics of owning a cafe

• The lost art of the bromance

• A decision coach’s approach to making hard decisions

• Are therapists to blame for the rise of adults cutting off their parents

• How much coffee is safe to drink

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

📊 Wall Street Comp & Culture Data: Get the most detailed comp, carry, and culture insights across 1000+ Wall Street firms. Explore the data.

📈 Grow With Us: Work directly with the Overheard on Wall Street team to scale your finance brand. Schedule your free consult.

🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.

Good Morning! Bending Spoons agreed to buy Airtable for $2.25 billion, a stark comedown from its $11.7 billion peak in 2021 and one of the first high-profile SaaSpocalypse casualties. Apollo is halfway toward raising $25 billion for its 11th flagship private equity fund. And Chipotle pulled jalapeños in Minnesota after dozens fell ill in a salmonella outbreak.

Jefferies uncovered new evidence of fake invoices at its beleaguered fund tied to iron ore trader Sapphire Minmetals in the latest private credit woe. SpaceX stock dropped after its first earnings report as AI costs soared. And Blackstone pitched a mega debt package for an Anthropic chip deal.

Plus: Big AI bets are dividing VC and leaving smaller funds behind, NYC's Flatiron building is entering a new era with $58.5 million apartments, and why garbage stocks are a perfect hedge against an AI selloff.

Watch Daloopa’s on-demand webinar to quickly get started building intelligent finance agents with Claude Code.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

DIY Hedge Funds are So Chic

Building an automated trading system used to require a small army. To compete with the best and brightest at hedge funds you’d need expensive data feeds, teams of quantitative researchers, enough Ph.D.s to fill a Renaissance Technologies recruiting event. But now some retail traders are finding they can just ask Claude to write the code over the weekend and plug it straight into Robinhood.

And this trend of building DIY hedge funds isn't just one guy on WallStreetBets. A growing number of individual investors are building their own trading bots with AI; things that scan markets, chew through options data, and fire off trades while the owner is at work. Interactive Brokers, Robinhood, Moomoo and Public have all rolled out their own AI tools, and platforms like Alpaca and Tradier are letting retail investors hook up whatever outside model they’ve built directly to their brokerage account. Webull's president called it "zero commission 2.0."

The results so far are all over the place. One trader fed his system bad volatility data early on, lost 25%, rebuilt the whole thing, and says he's now up around 14% this year. Another just lets an AI agent handle his options exits, and swears it's helped him hold winners longer instead of selling out of nerves. Then there's a former Yahoo engineer who credits one of his six Claude-built bots with most of a roughly 50% return this year,  though he still won't let it execute a trade without approving it first. Turns out the most important feature on an autonomous trading system might still be the off switch.

You can see why this is catching on. AI can write code, backtest strategies, and watch hundreds of tickers at once without ever getting tired, scared, or pulled into a Zoom call. Retail already makes up more than 20% of U.S. stock volume, and their options activity has jumped over 150% in six years to something like 36 million contracts a day. Hand that crowd autonomous agents and you get a massive new pool of liquidity, which is just the polite finance word for a bunch of bots buying and selling from each other all day.

The catch is that AI makes quant trading look a lot easier than it actually is. Real firms spend years testing models across every kind of market environment, scrubbing their data, managing leverage, and building in fail-safes for when something breaks. Retail bots, on the other hand, are often trained on similar data and run similar models. That means they can land on similar trades too, which could make rallies and selloffs even more crowded than they already are. An AI agent can strip the emotion out of a trade, but it can also automate a genuinely bad idea and execute it with total confidence before you even notice.

Takeaway: AI is handing ordinary investors tools that used to belong exclusively to sophisticated hedge funds. It is not handing them the risk management that actually makes those tools work. The next chapter of the retail trading boom probably has less to do with Reddit threads and more to do with autonomous agents quietly scalping options while everyone's at their day job. Some of these traders are going to find a real edge. A lot of them are going to learn that losing money feels a lot more efficient when a robot's the one doing it.

PRESENTED BY DALOOPA

Build Intelligent Agents for Financial Workflows

Many financial institutions are building internal research agents and AI-powered workflows, but getting started can be a challenge. 

Firms are using Daloopa’s financial data layer when building finance agents with AI tools such as Claude Code. With Daloopa, they’re also getting a step-by-step education on how to build finance agents that generate accurate and reliable outputs. Tune-in as Daloopa CEO Thomas Li shows exactly how the agents build investor decks and financial models and how they use Daloopa's audit-ready dataset across 6,000+ tickers.

See how Daloopa powers AI research workflows. Watch their webinar today.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Bending Spoons to buy Airtable for $1.28B (TechCrunch)

• Apollo draws $12 billion so far for flagship private equity fund (BB)

• Chipotle pulls jalapeños from some restaurants amid salmonella investigation (Guardian)

• Jefferies gets new evidence of fake invoices at beleaguered fund (BB)

• SpaceX's Q2 results top estimates in first-ever quarterly report (Yahoo Finance)

• Blackstone has pitched mega debt package for Anthropic chip deal (BB)

• Big AI bets divide venture capital, leaving smaller funds behind (BB)

• New York City's Flatiron building enters new era with $58.5m apartments (Guardian)

• Garbage stocks may hedge an AI stock selloff (BB)

• Jet fuel made from tropical fruit gets $3 billion backing (BB)

• Thoma Bravo sells majority stake in Command Alkon to Francisco Partners (BB)

• Jeff Bezos just filed to sell $4 billion in Amazon. The shares are falling. (CNBC)

• AI is replacing HR tasks across corporate America (BB)

• Goldman Sachs creates $1 billion reinsurance pool with Talcott (BB)

• Why Texas is betting 'Y'all Street' can take on Wall Street (NPR)

• KKR-backed Infinx Services said to weigh $300 million India IPO (BB)

• Anthropic inks $10 billion computing deal with new cloud startup (BB)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• The S&P 500 and Dow closed at record highs as WTI crude fell near $76 on hopes for a Strait of Hormuz deal.

• The 10-year Treasury yield eased near 4.62%; the U.S. dollar weakened modestly.

• Europe closed higher while Asia finished mixed overnight.

Earnings Season

• Job openings fell to 7.4 million in June, in line with estimates and above the 7.1 million unemployed.

• Nonfarm payrolls are due Friday, with forecasts calling for 100,000 jobs added in July and unemployment steady at 4.2%.

• Manufacturing new orders fell 0.3% in June, while durable goods orders rose 0.5%.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Wayfair ($W) +30% after U.S. revenue grew 8.7%, its strongest domestic growth since 2020.

• (+) Palantir ($PLTR) +29% because Q2 results delivered what CEO Alex Karp called an “otherworldly” quarter with revenue up 93% YoY.

• (–) Chipotle ($CMG) -10% after pulling jalapeños from stores nationwide over a possible link to a Minnesota salmonella outbreak.

Prediction Markets

• Traders are predicting we’ll see continued manufacturing expansion with the PMI number that comes out today.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Bending Spoons agreed to acquire Airtable, a relational database company, for $1.29 billion

• KKR agreed to buy a 50% stake in TotalEnergies’ European onshore solar and wind assets for around $1.2 billion

• Valar Atomics, a developer of small nuclear reactors, raised $1 billion

• Nordic Capital agreed to acquire the medical business of BWX Technologies for up to $800 million

• Orix agreed to buy AerFin, a British aerospace parts maker, for around $640 million

• Mariana Minerals, a mining tech firm, raised $310 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

How To Fall In Love With Questions

Description:
A thought-provoking guide from Elizabeth Weingarten that challenges our obsession with finding quick answers and instead argues that the most meaningful growth comes from embracing life's biggest questions. Blending behavioral science, psychology, philosophy, and personal storytelling, Weingarten explores how uncertainty can become a catalyst for resilience, purpose, and self-discovery. Inspired in part by the writings of Rainer Maria Rilke, the book offers practical tools for navigating life's transitions and transforming doubt into curiosity.

Book Length: 320 pages
Release Date: April 15, 2025

Ideal For:
Anyone navigating career changes, life transitions, or uncertainty who wants to develop greater resilience, purpose, and confidence without needing all the answers.

The answers may change your circumstances, but the right questions can change who you become.

DAILY VISUAL

4% vs. 91%: The AC Divide Among Rich Nations

Source: Apollo

PRESENTED BY PRIMER

How to Equip Yourself for the Three Trillion Dollar IPOs

With three trillion dollar companies IPO’ing in the next several months (Anthropic up next?) and a flood of headlines, investment-grade tools are becoming essential for the everyday investor. Very few people can - and have time to - read an S-1 (we did a deep dive here), but now you don’t have to.

Primer, an institutional AI platform for hedge funds, has just launched that same platform for retail. It can read filings, build a model, and compose detailed analyses for any public, or soon-to-be public, company. In analyst modeling tests, it scores nearly twice as well as any other AI model. Conduct institutional-level analysis on SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI, or any other company in your portfolio to find what is real and what is noise.

For a limited time, get your own hedge fund analyst for a free week.

Try Primer today.

DAILY ACUMEN

Stress Tested

Most things break under pressure. A small number do the opposite, growing stronger and sharper because they were exposed to volatility rather than protected from it. Nassim Taleb called this antifragile, and it is different from resilience. A resilient system survives a shock and returns to where it started. An antifragile one comes back better than before.

Muscle works this way, tearing under load and rebuilding denser. Certain lean businesses work this way too, gaining share during downturns that bankrupt their overleveraged competitors, because the stress that destroys the fragile clears the field for whoever was built to exploit it.

The implication is not to avoid volatility. It is to ask honestly whether what you are building gains or loses from disorder. A heavily leveraged position is fragile. A diversified one with dry powder is closer to antifragile, positioned to buy when others are forced to sell. The goal was never to predict the shock. It was to build something that benefits from it.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• Could AI be conscious?

• Why self-awareness is the key to leadership

• 3 learning habits backed by neuroscience

• Inside America’s most generous 401(k) plans

• How much to exercise for better sleep

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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Good Morning! The US and Japanese governments intervened to prop up the yen on global currency markets, the first time the US strengthened the currency since 1998. Trump said Exxon and Chevron made "too much money" off high oil prices during the Iran conflict. And JPMorgan announced plans to invest $750 billion to boost the US housing supply and homeownership.

Palantir posted blowout Q2 numbers with US commercial revenue soaring nearly 150% (stock was up 15% after-hours). Zach Dell,  Michael Dell's son, is raising money to put a battery in your backyard at a $13 billion valuation. And Citadel sees a $500 billion chip financing debt binge coming in public and private markets by 2028.

Plus: Amazon joined the $3 trillion club as its post-earnings rally continues, FIFA ended its big PE plans, and boomers are leaving more than $1 trillion in art that they can’t sell.

There is a new status symbol amongst the high earners. It’s called Stelrix.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Gen Z Is Retirement-Maxxing

Gen Z might have come up with looksmaxxing and vibesmaxxing. But now in 2026, some of them are all-in on retirement-maxxing.

On average, Gen Z has been excellent at saving for retirement, and the numbers are wild. Charles Schwab says Gen Z is starting to save and invest at 19, on average, compared to 32 for Gen X and 35 for Boomers.

Vanguard found that a third of Gen Z savers who put money into an IRA last year maxed it out at $7,000. And older Gen Z households already have nearly three times as much saved for retirement as Gen X households did at the same age back in 1989, even adjusted for inflation.

And honestly, it isn't just old-fashioned responsibility. There’s a touch of financial nihilism, just channeled the opposite direction. For Gen-Z, housing feels out of reach, Social Security's trust fund is on track to run dry in the early 2030s, AI is eating entry-level jobs, and the whole "climb the ladder, get promoted, retire comfortably" plan doesn't feel guaranteed anymore. So while some people gamble, others decide they'd rather have six figures invested before they turn 30.

Most of these savers aren't actually trying to retire at 35 and disappear to become goose farmers. What Gen-Z really wants is optionality. Bloomberg interviewed a 26-year-old consultant in Chicago with $100,000 saved who just wants enough cushion to avoid getting stuck by golden handcuffs, as well as a 24-year-old Amex analyst in the Bronx sitting on $92,000 between savings and brokerage accounts. The goal isn't early retirement; it’s making work optional instead of mandatory.

Of course there's a catch, and Vanguard has noticed some of these young savers are so locked in on the future that they're letting credit card debt pile up right now. Maxing your Roth while carrying a balance at 24% on your Chase Freedom card isn't really a wealth hack; it's more like betting against yourself.

Takeaway: Gen Z is taking Project Freedom seriously. One group looks at an uncertain future and leans into risk. The other looks at the same uncertain future and saves aggressively enough to build an exit. For some that exit is crypto, and for others it's $100,000 in a brokerage account, a beat-up Honda, and a spreadsheet literally named "escaping the matrix."

PRESENTED BY STELRIX

How the Rich Borrow Until They Die

ProPublica once calculated that America's 25 wealthiest paid a “true tax rate” of 3.4% on $401 billion in wealth growth*. Their playbook has three steps. 1. Buy assets that appreciate. 2. Borrow against them when cash is needed. Since loan proceeds aren't income, no tax bill arrives. 3. Then die, because heirs inherit at a stepped-up basis, meaning decades of embedded gains are wiped clean for tax purposes and the estate simply settles the loans. Larry Ellison has pledged billions in Oracle stock this way for years. Stelrix introduces the borrow step, with an investment-backed credit card, to portfolios without a private banker.

Explore Stelrix's Instagram for more luxury and finance news and sign-up for their waitlist today.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• The US has stepped in to buy Japanese yen (CNN)

• Trump says Exxon and Chevron made 'too much money' off high oil prices during Iran conflict: 'I don't like it' (CNBC)

• JPMorgan Chase to invest $750 billion to boost U.S. housing supply, homeownership (WSJ)

• Palantir surges with U.S. commercial revenue soaring nearly 150% (CNBC)

• Zach Dell is raising money to put a battery in your backyard (WSJ)

• Citadel Securities sees a $500 billion chip financing debt binge (BB)

• Amazon joins elite list of stocks to top $3 trillion in value (BB)

• Red card on FIFA's private equity plans (Axios)

• The great wealth transfer includes $1 trillion in art (BB)

• Blackstone, EQT weigh majority stake buys in two precision engineering firms (VCCircle)

• Robinhood private company fund to back Y Combinator startups (BB)

• This high-powered real estate fund is run by college students (WSJ)

• KKR to buy Integer Holdings for $4.3 billion (WSJ)

• TotalEnergies sells stake in European renewable assets to KKR (WSJ)

• Pharma giants AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers in reported merger talks (Axios)

• OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Thinking Machines fight for AI talent (Axios)

• Sequoia leads $1 billion funding round for nuclear startup Valar (BB)

• Millennium lost 2% last month as AI trade whipsawed hedge funds (BB)

• ChatGPT dominates early AI spending in Congress as lawmakers weigh regulation (CNBC)

• Japan yen intervention: why the U.S. stepped in (CNBC)

• Jefferies analyst slams 'simple-minded' criticism of SpaceX governance (BB)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• Stocks rose as WTI crude fell about 5% to near $80 after President Trump paused planned Iran strikes for diplomacy; the 10-year Treasury yield fell below 4.7%.

• Consumer discretionary and communication services led sector gains; the ISM Manufacturing PMI hit its highest level since May 2022.

• Over 100 S&P 500 companies report this week, with Friday's nonfarm payrolls the key labor data release.

Earnings Season

• About 61% of the S&P 500 has reported, with 86% beating estimates; Q2 earnings are on pace to grow nearly 45% year over year.

• Technology, communication services, consumer discretionary, and energy are each on pace for growth above 65%; the Russell Midcap Index is on pace for over 20%.

• Nonfarm payrolls have averaged 92,000 jobs per month through June, with the unemployment rate at 4.2%.

 Movers & Shakers

• (+) CoreWeave ($EBAY) +19% after Truist upgraded to Buy following a 42% pullback, while strong Big Tech earnings reinforced demand.

• (+) Amazon ($AMZN) +5% because of a post-earnings rally leading the company to reach a $3 trillion market cap for the first time.

• (–) GameStop ($GME) -12% after announcing a private exchange of $1.4 billion in convertible senior notes for equity.

Prediction Markets

• This is the first earnings call since SpaceX’s IPO.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Curium agreed to buy Lantheus, a radiopharma company, for around $8 billion

• KKR agreed to acquire Integer, a medical device outsourcer, for $5.7 billion

• Prysmian agreed to buy Atkore, an electrical manufacturer, for $3.8 billion

• Visa agreed to acquire BioCatch, an Israeli fraud intelligence company, for $2.4 billion

• American Family Mutual Insurance agreed to acquire Bowhead Specialty Holdings for around $1.2 billion

• Base Power, a home battery startup, raised $1 billion

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Talk

Description:
A groundbreaking guide from Alison Wood Brooks, a Harvard Business School professor and leading researcher on the psychology of conversation. Drawing on years of behavioral science research, the book reveals the hidden structure behind successful conversations and explains why even small improvements in how we communicate can transform our relationships, careers, and everyday interactions. Brooks introduces practical frameworks for asking better questions, navigating difficult discussions, building trust, and becoming a more engaging, empathetic conversationalist.

Book Length: 336 pages
Release Date: January 21, 2025

Ideal For:
Professionals, leaders, entrepreneurs, salespeople, and anyone looking to improve communication, build stronger relationships, and become a more confident and effective conversationalist.

The best conversations don't happen by chance, they happen because someone is intentional enough to make the other person feel heard.

DAILY VISUAL

Gen X is Losing Confidence

PRESENTED BY BLUEFLAME AI

"AI Helped Us Close Deals We Would Have Missed"

That’s what 1,000 dealmakers said last month in a survey conducted by Datasite, Blueflame’s parent company, and FT Longitude, and nearly one in four said AI has already helped them close a deal they would have otherwise missed. 62% now say relying on human judgment alone is no longer defensible in complex deals.

The industry is past AI experimentation. Currently, half of deal teams have AI embedded in their due diligence. But the study draws a hard line between firms bolting on generic tools and firms building AI into how the deal team actually operates.

Private equity firms and investment banks are choosing Blueflame AI to do the latter. Amp, Blueflame's AI agent for dealmaking, takes on the process-heavy work like reviewing data rooms, surfacing red flags, comparing targets, and it leaves the decision making to the deal team.

Learn how Blueflame can help your deal team today.

DAILY ACUMEN

Attribution Error

When someone else misses a deadline, the instinct is to conclude they are disorganized. When you miss one yourself, the instinct is to explain that the market moved, the data arrived late, the week fell apart. Same failure, two different explanations, and the pattern is consistent enough across contexts that psychologists gave it a name: the fundamental attribution error.

We explain our own failures with circumstance and other people's failures with character. It runs in one direction with startling reliability, and it quietly poisons how teams evaluate each other. The analyst who blew a call gets filed away as sloppy. The manager who made the identical call, under identical pressure, remembers every factor that made it forgivable.

The correction is uncomfortable but simple. Before judging someone's miss, extend the same generosity you would give yourself. Before excusing your own, ask honestly whether character had more to do with it than you want to admit. Most conflict on a desk is not a disagreement about facts. It is two people applying this error to each other at the same time.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• Why bad intentions feel more real

• The 7 best espresso makers for coffee geeks

• Frozen yogurt is back, but not how you might remember it

• How to deal with failure and stick with hard things

• How to get a good night sleep

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

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📈 Grow With Us: Work directly with the Overheard on Wall Street team to scale your finance brand. Schedule your free consult.

🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.

Good Morning! The US economy slowed to 1.5% growth in Q2 with core inflation at 3.3%. The stock market ripped anyway after Microsoft had its best single day since 2008. But two private equity-backed IPOs, Blackstone-backed Jersey Mike's and Permira-backed Reformation, both stumbled out of the gate. 

KKR profits soared as it cashed in a record amount of private equity bets. Amazon shares jumped as cloud sales accelerated. And Goldman is pitching $5.4 billion in debt for a Microsoft-tied data center.

Plus: Banks are in talks to lend $15 billion for an Anthropic data center backed by Google, NYSE parent ICE agreed to buy MarketAxess for ~$6 billion, and how highly successful people sound smart.

“Buy, borrow, die". It’s the strategy the wealthy use to access capital. You can now do it with Stelrix. Join the waitlist today.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

AI Poster Boy Gets Sacrificed

Citadel bought the bulk of Leopold Aschenbrenner's public stock portfolio on Thursday after margin calls from his lenders left the high-flying AI hedge fund scrambling for cash. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, two of Situational Awareness's prime brokers, were involved in the negotiations. Millennium submitted a competing bid, and at least three multibillion-dollar funds held talks over the 24 hours before the deal closed.

Citadel took only the slice financed with borrowed money; Situational kept the portion funded with client capital. Situational also keeps its private investments, including a ~$5bn Anthropic stake, and is expected to carry on as a private investment firm.

Aschenbrenner was running the public book with borrowed money to amplify the bets (reportedly 4x), and leverage cuts in a straight line: the more of the position that belongs to the lender, the smaller the drawdown needed to wipe out your own equity in the trade. When the underlying positions fell hard through July, the prime brokers issued margin calls demanding more collateral.

Aschenbrenner had already tried everything else first: a July 24 letter inviting existing investors to add capital, talks with lenders, and conversations with smaller investors about selling pieces of the portfolio directly. That letter pointed to August 1 as the next window for fresh money. It never came in time. Overnight Wednesday he cut off the smaller buyers and pivoted to getting one large deal done to speed up the process and limit the losses.

The fall is almost as insane as the rise. Aschenbrenner launched the fund in 2024 in his early twenties with a few hundred million dollars and no professional trading background. It grew past $20 billion in ~2 years, with a staff of eight, four of them investment professionals. It was up 439% in the first half of this year.

The strategy that built all of that was going long the AI buildout: memory chips (SK Hynix, Sandisk), power (Bloom Energy), and AI cloud capacity (Nebius). That trade worked spectacularly on the way up. Run with leverage, it worked just as violently on the way down when investors soured on AI capex and higher borrowing costs and every name in the book fell at once.

Citadel is the more interesting character in this story than it might first appear. This is exactly the kind of trade Griffin's firm is built for; enormous liquidity, sophisticated risk systems, and the patience to simply wait until someone else becomes a forced seller. Citadel didn't have a special insight into AI infrastructure stocks. It had cash on hand at the exact moment someone else didn't. 

Takeaway: Aschenbrenner still owns part of Anthropic (and is getting married to its chief of staff this weekend), still runs a roughly $10 billion firm, and could still end up looking right if the AI buildout plays out the way his original thesis argued. But the public portfolio that made him famous is gone, sold at the bottom to the guy with more cash and less leverage.

The lesson here isn't really about AI being a bad bet; it's about what happens to a great thesis when it's run at 4x leverage. Being right eventually doesn't matter if you don't survive long enough to see it, and Ken Griffin just made sure he gets to own the recovery instead.

PRESENTED BY STELRIX

How the Rich Don’t Pay Capital Gains Tax

The wealthy don’t just make money differently, they access it differently. Instead of selling appreciating assets and triggering capital gains taxes, many borrow against their portfolios to unlock liquidity while their investments continue compounding in the background. This strategy, often called “buy, borrow, die,” allows investors to use stocks, ETFs, or other assets as collateral for low interest credit without creating a taxable sale event. The advantage is not only tax deferral, but also maintaining ownership, preserving long term market exposure, and keeping compounding intact while still accessing cash when needed. What was once a strategy reserved for ultra high net worth private banking clients is now becoming increasingly accessible through modern investment backed credit platforms, like Stelrix.

Explore Stelrix’s Instagram for luxury and finance news and sign-up for their waitlist today.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• US economy slowed to 1.5% growth rate in Q2; June core inflation at 3.3% (CNBC)

• Jersey Mike's stock falls 6% in public market debut after pricing shares at $23  (CNBC)

• KKR earnings hit record with best-ever quarter for asset sales (BB)

• Microsoft's $41 billion AI bet just cleared a major test (Yahoo Finance)

• Amazon posts record Q2 revenue of $200.6 billion, with AWS growth of 37% beating expectations (CNBC)

• Goldman pitches $5.4 billion debt for Microsoft-tied data center (BB)

• Banks in talks to lend $15 billion for Anthropic data center backed by Google (WSJ)

• NYSE parent ICE agrees to buy MarketAxess for about $6 billion (BB)

• Oracle gains after expanding Google Gemini AI partnership (BB)

• Casey Wasserman's talent agency to buy out his stake using private equity financing (WSJ)

• OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar tells employees ARR in July topped all of Q2 (CNBC)

• The rise of luxury NYC gyms where recovery is the main event (NY Post)

• Meta’s free cash flow stinks (Axios)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• Stocks surged after Wednesday's sell-off; the Nasdaq rose over 2.7% and the S&P 500 about 1.7%, led by technology, up over 5%.

• WTI crude dipped back below $84 and bond yields eased modestly across the curve.

Earnings Season

• Q2 GDP growth slowed to 1.5% annualized, below the 2.0% forecast, while personal consumption rose 3.2%, above forecasts.

• Core PCE inflation came in at 3.3%, still well above the Fed's 2.0% target.

• The Fed held rates at 3.50% to 3.75% with three dissents; September is seen as a live meeting for a hike.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Sandisk ($SNDK) +26% after Situational Awareness fell, Morgan Stanley reiterated a bullish stance citing NAND shortages and forecasting a 25%+ price increase.

• (+) Microsoft ($MSFT) +16% after the company crushed earnings, with Azure growth of 43% hitting $100B in annual revenue.

• (–) Carvana ($CVNA) -7% after issuing a full-year adjusted EBITDA forecast below Street expectations, with a decline in sales.

Prediction Markets

• Oil prices have surged recently. Chevron and ExxonMobil have earnings calls today as well.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Nscale agreed to acquire Anyscale, an AI app development platform, for a reported $1.65 billion

• Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a nuclear fusion startup, raised $1 billion

• Procore Technologies agreed to acquire DroneDeploy, a robotics and visual intelligence platform, for $845 million

• Johnson & Johnson is investing $785 million into Sail Biomedicines, a CAR-T cell therapy developer

• Antora Energy, an energy storage company, raised $550 million

• K2 Space, a satellite platform, raised $500 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Growth Capital Playbook

Description:
A practical guide from Rick Ford on navigating one of the most important decisions a founder can make: bringing in growth capital. Drawing on more than four decades of experience as an entrepreneur, investor, and CEO, Ford explains how to determine whether outside capital is the right move, identify partners who align with your vision, negotiate deals that preserve long-term value, and transition from founder-operator to strategic leader. The book emphasizes sustainable growth, strong partnerships, and building enduring businesses rather than chasing the highest valuation.

Book Length: 176 pages
Release Date: June 23, 2026

Ideal For:
Founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, investors, and business owners considering private equity, growth capital, or scaling a founder-led company.

The best capital doesn't just fund your growth, it strengthens your vision, your leadership, and your company's future.

DAILY VISUAL

U.S. Economy Grows 1.5% in Q2

PRESENTED BY MOSAIC

Bain: "PE Is Sitting on 32,000 Unsold Companies"

Bain's new Global PE Report put out a huge number: private equity is holding 32,000 unsold companies worth $3.8 trillion. After years of waiting, the exit window appears to be opening. 

Medline's listing was the largest PE-backed IPO in history, corporate buyers are back, and Bain's survey of GPs indicates a belief in that momentum carrying through 2026. But buyers are still selective, and the deals getting done are the ones where the seller can back up the price.

PE firms are getting exit-ready in Mosaic, where a new Football Field tab adds a DCF, public comps, and precedent transactions to any completed LBO in one click, and the redesigned Deals View keeps models, metrics, and documents in one place for the whole team.

See why firms are turning to Mosaic for modeling.

DAILY ACUMEN

Halo Effect

One positive trait about a person, a company, or an idea quietly convinces the brain that everything else about it must be good too. The charismatic founder gets the benefit of the doubt on strategy. The polished pitch deck gets the benefit of the doubt on the underlying numbers. A single strong signal blurs the rest of the picture it has nothing to do with.

This is why confident presenters raise more money than sound businesses, and why a strong manner in a meeting can outperform a stronger memo delivered awkwardly. The brain does not evaluate traits independently. It lets one visible strength quietly contaminate every invisible unknown sitting next to it.

The discipline is forcing the traits apart on purpose. Rate the business without letting the founder's charm bleed into the score. Rate the term sheet without letting the firm's name do the underwriting for you. Impressive in one dimension does not mean sound in all of them.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• Build unique workflows for your firm*

• How highly successful people sound smart

• Why the key to productivity is pacing yourself

• 9 types of procrastinators 

• How to get more from your runs

• 3 distinct types of liars in romantic relationships

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

📊 Wall Street Comp & Culture Data: Get the most detailed comp, carry, and culture insights across 1000+ Wall Street firms. Explore the data.

📈 Grow With Us: Work directly with the Overheard on Wall Street team to scale your finance brand. Schedule your free consult.

🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.

Good Morning! The Fed held rates steady after a cliffhanger meeting, with three officials dissenting. Bloomberg agreed to acquire Canoe Intelligence, a platform that automates private markets data collection for institutional investors and family offices. And DoorDash is building its own drone for in-house delivery.

Airbus completed a 24-hour flight from Melbourne to Toulouse in a push for the world's longest commercial route. Morgan Stanley bankers were pressured to approve mortgages for wealthy clients. And Anglo American is reportedly in talks to sell De Beers for about $1 billion, a big markdown for a company it bought for $13 billion in 2011.

Plus: The CDS market is surging as Wall Street picks AI's winners and losers, and how Blackstone put Jersey Mike's on a fast track to this week's IPO.

The largest firms are pouring billions into AI deployment. The smartest are turning to purpose-built solutions like Blueflame. Sign up to learn more.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

The SaaSpocalypse Buying Opportunity

When Claude Code dropped earlier this year and software valuations collapsed, most of the PE software industry froze. Francisco Partners locked-in and went fundraising.

The San Francisco firm, founded in 1999 and now sitting on $75 billion in capital raised, just closed $21 billion in new money against an $18 billion target. It's the first large-cap software-focused PE firm to close a raise since the SaaSpocalypse hit in February. The message from LPs is clear: software is not dead, it is on sale.

Co-founder DJ Deb's bet is that AI splits the sector rather than levels it. "AI will not kill the software industry, but it will create a dispersion of winners and losers," he told the FT. "For some companies, their long-term valuations are permanently impacted, but for others people will realize that not only do they have strong moats, but they will be able to have a greater market to sell to."

Right now the market is pricing almost everything as a loser, which is historically where buyout firms make their money. "If you look at the history of private equity, when you buy right, you tend to make a lot of money, and valuations are at their lowest level in a long time." His corollary: the 2021 and 2022 vintages bought at peak multiples will struggle, while the funds deploying now have a real shot.

The track record backs the pitch. Per California pension filings, FP’s 2011 and 2015 funds each returned more than 3x, and the 2018 vintage has already returned nearly 100% of investors' cash at an 18.4% net IRR. Deb concedes some existing positions "will have issues by virtue of what's happened," and notes credit markets remain open to software buyouts though financing costs have risen. On the other side of the trade, he is blunt: "I think we're sitting on a massive AI bubble. This reminds me of 2000."

Takeaway: Francisco closed above target into a sector the market thinks is being disrupted out of existence, on the view that AI produces winners and losers rather than only losers. Whether February was a buying opportunity or the start of a structural decline is the most important question in tech investing right now, and Francisco Partners just put $21 billion behind the former.

PRESENTED BY BLUEFLAME AI

"AI Helped Us Close Deals We Would Have Missed"

That’s what 1,000 dealmakers said last month in a survey conducted by Datasite, Blueflame’s parent company, and FT Longitude, and nearly one in four said AI has already helped them close a deal they would have otherwise missed. 62% now say relying on human judgment alone is no longer defensible in complex deals.

The industry is past AI experimentation. Currently, half of deal teams have AI embedded in their due diligence. But the study draws a hard line between firms bolting on generic tools and firms building AI into how the deal team actually operates.

Private equity firms and investment banks are choosing Blueflame AI to do the latter. Amp, Blueflame's AI agent for dealmaking, takes on the process-heavy work like reviewing data rooms, surfacing red flags, comparing targets, and it leaves the decision making to the deal team.

Learn how Blueflame can help your deal team today.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Fed decision redline: here's what changed in the second statement under Warsh (CNBC)

• Bloomberg to acquire Canoe Intelligence in private markets push (BB)

• DoorDash building its own drone as it launches in-house drone delivery (Axios)

• Airbus jet completes 24-hour flight in push for world's longest commercial route (Fox Business)

• Morgan Stanley bankers were pressured to approve mortgages for wealthy clients (WSJ)

• Ex-Goldman exec awarded £1.45M after paternity leave ‘stigma’ (FT)

• Anglo said to be in talks to sell De Beers for about $1 billion (BB)

• How Blackstone put Jersey Mike's on a fast track to this week's IPO (WSJ)

• Wall Street picks AI winners and losers as credit swaps surge (BB)

• Brent oil jumps back above $90 after Trump threatens to hit Iran hard (CNBC)

• Deutsche Bank plans fresh $569 million buyback after earnings increase (WSJ)

• Shares in Gucci owner Kering surge as recovery gains traction (WSJ)

• AI companies are recruiting electricians by the thousands (NYT)

• SpaceX Starship heat shield can't support rapid flights, experts say (BB)

• Korean stocks tumble a second day as SK Hynix results disappoint (BB)

• Barclays moves to Wall Street pay model with higher bonuses (BB)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• Stocks fell more than 1.5% after Iran struck a U.S. base in Jordan and WTI crude jumped 7% to $85.

• The Fed held rates at 3.50% to 3.75% with three dissents favoring a hike; long-term yields rose.

• Apple and Amazon report after the close today.

Earnings Season

• Tech has pulled back roughly 5% this month, with the Philadelphia semiconductor index down 22%.

• Financials, energy, and healthcare each gained more than 5%, with the equal-weight S&P 500 and Russell 1000 Value hitting record highs before today.

• Visa posted 10% U.S. payments volume growth, the highest since 2019.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) GE Healthcare ($GEHC) +12% after beating Q2 estimates, with record order growth and a reaffirmed full-year outlook.

• (–) Humana ($HUM) -6% because investors were disappointed the company maintained its guidance after peer UnitedHealth lifted its own earlier this month.

• (–) Hims & Hers ($HIMS) -15% after the FTC sued the company over alleged data privacy violations.

Prediction Markets

• Core PCE for June gets announced this morning around 8:30am EDT.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Grant Thornton agreed to buy CBIZ for $5 billion, creating one of the country’s largest accounting firms

• Apax Partners agreed to acquire Centor and another plastic packaging business from Gerresheimer for around $1.6 billion

• Bain Capital agreed to lead a $1.5 billion investment in Eaton Fiber

• Pentair agreed to buy Taco Group, a hydronic and water-based solutions company, for $1.4 billion

• ThreatLocker, a zero trust security company, raised $190 million

• CAIS, an alts investment platform for independent financial advisors, raised $170 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Hard Lessons From The Hurt Business

Description:
A powerful memoir and self-improvement guide from Ed Latimore, a former heavyweight boxer who uses the brutal lessons of the ring to illuminate life's toughest challenges. Drawing on his journey from poverty and addiction to becoming a professional athlete, writer, and entrepreneur, Latimore explores resilience, discipline, self-mastery, and personal responsibility. The book demonstrates how embracing adversity, not avoiding it, can build character, sharpen judgment, and create a life of purpose.

Book Length: 304 pages
Release Date: August 5, 2025

Ideal For:
Anyone looking to build mental toughness, overcome adversity, develop self-discipline, and apply the hard-earned lessons of elite competition to everyday life.

The strongest people aren't the ones who avoid life's hardest punches, they're the ones who learn how to get back up every time.

DAILY VISUAL

Private Wealth Funds Ditch Middleman for More Alts Exposure

PRESENTED BY STELRIX

How the Rich Don’t Pay Capital Gains Tax

The wealthy don’t just make money differently, they access it differently. Instead of selling appreciating assets and triggering capital gains taxes, many borrow against their portfolios to unlock liquidity while their investments continue compounding in the background. This strategy, often called “buy, borrow, die,” allows investors to use stocks, ETFs, or other assets as collateral for low interest credit without creating a taxable sale event. The advantage is not only tax deferral, but also maintaining ownership, preserving long term market exposure, and keeping compounding intact while still accessing cash when needed. What was once a strategy reserved for ultra high net worth private banking clients is now becoming increasingly accessible through modern investment backed credit platforms, like Stelrix.

Explore Stelrix’s Instagram for luxury and finance news and sign-up for their waitlist today.

DAILY ACUMEN

Eighty Twenty

A small fraction of inputs quietly produce the overwhelming majority of outputs, in almost every system anyone has measured carefully. A handful of clients generate most of the revenue. A handful of positions generate most of the returns. A handful of trading days generate most of a market's gains for the entire year. The rest is closer to noise than most people admit.

The instinct is to treat every input as roughly equal, giving each client, task, and position a proportional share of attention. This feels fair. It is also a quiet way of starving the few things that actually matter in order to evenly water everything else.

The uncomfortable implication is that most of what fills a calendar or a portfolio is not pulling its weight. Finding the small slice that is doing the real work, and feeding it disproportionately, is worth more than any optimization spread evenly across the whole.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• The office amenity that improves teamwork 

• Why white-collar men are obsessed with the perfect lawn

• 4 ways to increase willpower and mind control

• 3 habits to replace your overapologizing tendency

• How to walk the length of Manhattan in a single day

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

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🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.

Good morning! BlackRock's private credit arm is ramping up post-HPS to take on Blackstone and Apollo directly. A former Citi managing director got 30 years for drugging and sexually assaulting at least six women over nearly a decade. And Apple will lease iPhones for $17.99 a month via Klarna.

Tesla struck a long-term deal to buy power from a KKR-backed solar and battery project in Arizona. Apple crossed $5 trillion, only the second company ever to get there. And a Connecticut PE firm is selling a chain of mental health centers and sober-living homes in a deal financed by muni bonds.

Plus: PE dealmakers are ditching big firms to go independent, nearly half of New York's bus riders skipped the fare through June, and why young people are so risk-averse.

Build custom deployments around your firm’s unique workflows with Endex.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

FIFA Meets Wall Street

FIFA looked at the World Cup, the most valuable sports property on earth, and had a very Wall Street thought: what if we put this thing in a new entity and sold a minority stake?

FIFA is exploring the creation of a new commercial vehicle called FIFA Forward Enterprise, which would house the commercial and event operations around its tournaments, including broadcast rights, sponsorships, ticketing and licensing. The entity could be valued around $20 billion, with FIFA potentially selling up to 20% to outside investors and raising roughly $4.2 billion.

JPMorgan is advising, and the expected lead investor group would be led by Thrive Eternal, the holding company from Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital world. FIFA says the money would flow back into the game and fund its 211 member associations. FIFA says they’re only selling the economics and insists it would retain control over competitions, calendars and sporting decisions.

Europe’s soccer governing body immediately went nuclear, saying the “soul and governance of football are not assets to trade” and that FIFA has no right to sell what it does not own.

But from a finance perspective, the logic is obvious. The World Cup is a monster cash-flow machine. The 2026 tournament supercharged global attention, sponsorship demand, ticketing, media rights and national-team soccer as an investment product. Private capital has already been all over sports, and FIFA is asking if everyone else can monetize sports IP, why not the mothership?

The tension is that football is not just another asset. FIFA is a nonprofit governing body, not the usual PE takeover target. The World Cup is supposed to belong to the game, the national associations and the fans, not a new vehicle with minority investors who presumably care about returns. FIFA says investors will not have operational control, but investors don’t necessarily write $4 billion checks for the love of the game.

Takeaway: FIFA is trying to turn the World Cup into a $20 billion commercial entity that Wall Street can underwrite. FIFA says this is about funding global football, but UEFA says football’s soul is not for sale. The truth is probably somewhere uglier and more obvious: the World Cup has become too valuable for finance not to show up.

PRESENTED BY ENDEX

Magnum Opus?

This past week, Anthropic shipped Opus 5. The two weeks before, it was OpenAI's GPT-5.6, SpaceXAI's Grok 4.5, and Meta's Muse. Every few days, a different lab claims the frontier.

For analysts and associates, that's just more headache. On key benchmarks, best-in-class agent quality now reshuffles weekly, and with open-weight models like Kimi closing the gap at a fraction of the cost, "which model for which task" is no longer an obvious call.

For Wall Street, top firms are partnering with Endex to cut through the noise. Endex is model-agnostic. It routes every agent request to the model that clears the required quality threshold and reserves frontier models for the tasks where incremental intelligence produces measurable economic value.

When a new model drops, teams don't reevaluate their tooling. Endex evaluates it and routes to it automatically, keeping them on the frontier as the landscape shifts underneath them.

Endex brings these agents directly into the Microsoft Office Suite, building custom deployments around each firm's unique workflows.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• BlackRock private credit plans ramp up in challenge to Blackstone, Apollo (BB)

• Ex-Citi managing director gets 30 years in prison for sex crimes (BB)

• Apple plans to lease iPhones for $17.99 a month through Klarna deal (CNBC)

• Tesla to buy power from KKR-backed Arizona solar battery plant (BB)

• Private equity firm unloads mental health chain into muni market (BB)

• Apple tops $5 trillion market cap, only second company to hit the milestone (Yahoo Finance)

• Why private equity dealmakers are becoming independent sponsors (BB)

• As Mamdani seeks free buses, New Yorkers are skipping the fare (BB)

• Hyperscalers face higher capex scrutiny after Alphabet report panned (CNBC)

• Micron, SK Hynix stocks fall as chip sell-off deepens (Yahoo Finance)

• Visa to cut 7% of workforce as CEO seeks to revamp payments firm (BB)

• SpaceX falls 20% below IPO price, erasing $1.2 trillion value (BB)

• AI makes starting a business easier but fails to spur high-quality startups (BB)

• How private equity captured the Pentagon (BB)

• Japan's new activists blend McKinsey and Blackstone (Forbes)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• U.S. equities closed higher as broad gains offset tech weakness; South Korea's Kospi fell more than 10% amid semiconductor selling.

• The 10-year Treasury yield eased near 4.60% and WTI crude fell below $80 per barrel.

• The U.S. dollar weakened modestly alongside the drop in yields.

Earnings Season

• Meta and Microsoft report today, followed by Amazon and Apple on Thursday.

• With about a third of the S&P 500 reporting, 85% have beaten estimates by an average 37%; Q2 growth forecasts rose to 36% from 22%.

• The Fed is expected to hold rates at 3.5% to 3.75% with a hawkish tone.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) IQVIA ($IQV) +14% after beating Q2 estimates, revenue of $4.37B (up 8.7% year-over-year) vs. $4.3B expected.

• (+) Boeing ($BA) +5% because the airplane manufacturer posted a faster-than-expected return to positive free cash flow.

• (–) Micron ($MU) -9% after Chinese memory maker ChangXin completed its IPO, reigniting fears that competitors will undercut pricing.

Prediction Markets

• There’s a 75% chance that the Fed maintains rates.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Spur Intelligence, an IP intelligence platform, raised $200 million

• Dwelly, a residential letting agency, raised $178 million

• Claris Bio, a developer of a corneal disease treatment, raised $118 million

• Enigma, an AI research lab focused on robot engagement, raised $71 million

• Paper, a design platform for agentic AI, raised $34 million

• Nuclidium, a German radiopharmaceutical developer, raised around $33 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

How To Be Good At Life

Description:
A practical guide from Ben Meer that argues lasting success comes not from relying on willpower, but from building effective systems. Drawing on behavioral science, systems thinking, and years of coaching founders and executives, Meer introduces a repeatable framework for designing routines that make progress inevitable. Covering health, career, relationships, finances, and personal growth, the book provides actionable systems that reduce complexity, improve consistency, and help readers achieve more while experiencing less stress.

Book Length: 352 pages
Release Date: October 6, 2026

Ideal For:
Professionals, entrepreneurs, students, and anyone looking to replace motivation with reliable systems that improve productivity, organization, and long-term success.

You don't rise to the level of your goals, you rise to the level of the systems you build.

DAILY VISUAL

FCF Takes a Hit After Revised Consensus Capex

Source: Apollo

PRESENTED BY BLUEFLAME AI

Private Equity Drops $4 Billion Just to Turn AI On

TPG, Advent, Bain Capital, and Brookfield recently put more than $4 billion into a joint venture with OpenAI. It’s not to buy a company but simply to get AI deployed. Blackstone and Goldman answered the same day with a $1.5 billion Anthropic version.

The biggest names in private markets are paying billions for deployment, because these chatbots lack the industry expertise to execute the work at excellence. A chat window can’t tear through a data room or build an LBO.

Deal teams are partnering with the freshly rebranded Blueflame, whose new agent, Amp, runs deal work end to end, from data room reviews to model builds and IC memos. It routes each task to the right model and only pauses where human judgment is needed.

See what AI built for finance can do for your firm.

DAILY ACUMEN

Framing

The same fact, described two different ways, produces two different decisions from the same rational person. A procedure with a ninety percent survival rate sounds acceptable. The identical procedure described as a ten percent mortality rate sounds frightening. Nothing about the underlying reality changed. Only the frame did, and the frame did all the work.

Pitches and portfolios run on this constantly. A fund down eight percent this year sounds concerning. The same fund up thirty percent over three years sounds excellent, even describing the identical path. Whoever chooses the frame quietly chooses the emotional reaction before a single fact gets debated.

The defense is to deliberately reframe anything important before deciding on it. State the loss as a gain and the gain as a loss, and see if the conclusion still holds. If it flips depending on the wording alone, you were never really deciding on the substance.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• How to de-escalate your heightened emotions at work

• Successful and happy people prioritize 2 things in their careers

• Are return-to-office mandates a pay cut in disguise? 

• How running brands are angling for the luxury crowd

• Why are young people so risk-averse?

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

📊 Wall Street Comp & Culture Data: Get the most detailed comp, carry, and culture insights across 1000+ Wall Street firms. Explore the data.

📈 Grow With Us: Work directly with the Overheard on Wall Street team to scale your finance brand. Schedule your free consult.

🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.

Good Morning! Anduril returned to market for a new round that could value the defense tech firm at ~$100 billion, up from its $61 billion valuation just two months ago. Miami's ultra-luxury home sales are now outpacing New York and San Francisco. And BlackRock kicked off a $12.3 billion bond sale to finance a Meta data center.

Goldman's president is firing back in a battle over knocking down trees at his $32 million Martha's Vineyard estate. KPMG sent its summer interns to a boot camp in Florida at the firm's $450 million training facility. And Paramount and Warner Bros. halted their merger until legal challenges are resolved or June 1, 2027, whichever comes first.

Plus: How much a TikTok creator with 30,000 followers really makes, the $600 million world of executive perks, and how deep sleep builds muscle and burns fat.

The first half of the year brought hope for a strong end to the year for PE. Prepare for deals in the second half of 2026 with Mosaic.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

ASU’s Influencer Major

Arizona State University is launching a Bachelor of Arts in Content Creation through its School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The school says the major will prepare students to become “an influencer and strategic storyteller who thrives in the rapidly evolving creator economy.” So yes, getting college credit for becoming an influencer is now officially a thing. 

The specifics are worth knowing before you dunk on it. The 120-credit-hour degree was approved by the ASU University Senate in March 2026 and appears in the university’s 2026-2027 course catalog. Coursework will cover content planning, video and podcast production, and personal branding, with real-world experience through a Los Angeles Content Studio, brand content projects, media internships, and content creation trips abroad.

The capstone is what makes it interesting. For their final project, students must pick a social media platform like Instagram or TikTok, develop a growth strategy, produce content, and show real audience growth with actual followers. In other words, the final exam is building a tiny media company and proving it works, needing real numbers and a follow count to back it up. 

Goldman Sachs projects the creator economy will reach $480 billion by 2027, which makes influencing less of a punchline and more of an actual industry. The skills required are real too: video production, audience analytics, brand partnerships, platform strategy and monetization are all part of building a modern media business. So you can roll your eyes at “majoring in TikTok,” but half of corporate America is currently paying agencies and creators to figure out TikTok for them.

The skepticism is still fair. One ASU professor asked on X whether the degree would survive the new federal rule requiring programs to show they actually increase graduate earnings over non-degree holders. That is a real question in an industry where the top 1% can make millions and everyone else may just be posting into the void.

There is also something ironic about the whole thing. The creator economy was supposed to be the great unbundling of media, where anyone with a phone could bypass the gatekeepers and build an audience directly. Then universities looked at the trend and asked: what if we bundled it back into a degree program?

Takeaway: The headline is “students majoring in TikTok.” The substance is closer to entrepreneurship, analytics, media production and brand monetization. Whether you need four years of tuition to learn it is the real question. But the creator economy is not going away, and ASU just became one of the first major public universities to treat it like it isn’t.

PRESENTED BY MOSAIC

Bain: "PE Is Sitting on 32,000 Unsold Companies"

Bain's new Global PE Report put out a huge number: private equity is holding 32,000 unsold companies worth $3.8 trillion. After years of waiting, the exit window appears to be opening. 

Medline's listing was the largest PE-backed IPO in history, corporate buyers are back, and Bain's survey of GPs indicates a belief in that momentum carrying through 2026. But buyers are still selective, and the deals getting done are the ones where the seller can back up the price.

PE firms are getting exit-ready in Mosaic, where a new Football Field tab adds a DCF, public comps, and precedent transactions to any completed LBO in one click, and the redesigned Deals View keeps models, metrics, and documents in one place for the whole team.

See why firms are turning to Mosaic for modeling.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Defense tech Anduril seeks $100B valuation (Axios)

• Miami's ultra-luxury home sales outpace New York, San Francisco (BB)

• BlackRock kicks off $12.3 billion bond sale for Meta data center (BB)

• Goldman Sachs exec fires back in battle over Martha's Vineyard trees (Page Six)

• We went to the boot camp where KPMG teaches auditors to think critically (WSJ)

• Paramount, Warner Bros. agree to pause deal until June (BB)

• How TikTok creators earn midlevel salaries with small audiences, brand deals (BB)

• See the $600 million world of executive perks (WSJ)

• Blackstone private credit fund co-CEO Jonathan Bock resigns (BB)

• SoftBank weighs deal for robotics startup Gravis (BB)

• Meta gives Facebook Marketplace its own app called Seller (NYT)

• After Palantir beef, US withdraws bid to improve military intel (BB)

• Amazon makes sellers label AI-generated people in images after NY law (CNBC)

• 'Big Short' legend Michael Burry says markets are acting like in the last months of 1999-2000. Prepare for the crash now. (Yahoo Finance)

• AEW's Tony Khan on the business lessons he learned from his billionaire father Shad Khan (Yahoo Finance)

• Why IBM's CEO isn't worried about the biggest stock selloff since Black Monday (WSJ)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• S&P 500 finished little changed and the Nasdaq fell 0.6% on chip weakness, while the Dow and Russell Midcap Index posted modest gains.

• New 10% to 12.5% tariffs took effect overnight under Section 301, replacing the temporary Section 122 levies from February.

• WTI crude fell below $90 but still finished the week up roughly 9%; the 10-year Treasury yield eased to 4.68%.

Earnings Season

• Alphabet's Wednesday earnings sent the Nasdaq down more than 2% Thursday after raised capex guidance.

• Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Apple all report next week.

• S&P 500 full-year earnings are projected to grow 28%, led by energy, technology, and communication services.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Digital Realty Trust ($DLR) +11% after Q2 revenue hit $1.9B, well above the $1.66B consensus thanks to AI and cloud leasing demand.

• (+) Booz Allen Hamilton ($BAH) +10% because the consulting firm beat earnings, with adjusted EBITDA margin rising to 11.9%.

• (–) MaxLinear ($MXL) -22% after investors took profits after earnings, even despite Q2 revenue and EPS beating estimates.

Prediction Markets

• Was the Trump 2028 hat from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner a dead giveaway?

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• MN8 Energy agreed to acquire Greenbacker Renewable Energy for $375 million

• Etched, an inference chip startup, raised $300 million

• Equipifi, a provider of embedded BNPL solutions, raised $34 million

• Parasail, a deployment network for AI agents, raised $32 million

• Geordie AI, a security and governance platform for AI agents, raised $30 million

• Nas, an AI platform for solopreneurs, raised $27 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Situated

Description:
A groundbreaking guide from Angela Duckworth that argues success depends not only on grit, but also on the environments we create for ourselves. Building on the ideas introduced in Grit, Duckworth explains how the people around us, our physical surroundings, daily routines, and communities profoundly shape our behavior and performance. Combining psychological research with practical advice and real-world stories, she shows how intentionally designing your environment can make achieving your goals easier, more sustainable, and more fulfilling.

Book Length: 352 pages
Release Date: September 1, 2026

Ideal For:
Professionals, leaders, students, and anyone interested in psychology, habit formation, and creating environments that support long-term success and well-being.

Your environment is not just the backdrop to your life, it is one of the most powerful forces shaping who you become.

DAILY VISUAL

Not All Software Is Bad

Source: Apollo

PRESENTED BY ALUMNI VENTURES

Invest in High-Potential Startups Like These

Alumni Ventures is giving readers early access to high-potential startup opportunities across today’s most active sectors, co-invested alongside name-brand VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Bessemer, & Y Combinator.

You get:

• Curated deal flow of high-potential startups

• Invest alongside well known lead venture firms in these deals

• No cost to see deals

• No obligation to invest

Don’t miss your chance before access closes.

See current AV deals.

DAILY ACUMEN

Just World

Most people carry a quiet, largely unconscious belief that the world is fundamentally fair, that success reflects virtue and failure reflects some deserved flaw. It is a comforting belief and almost entirely wrong, which makes it a dangerous lens for judging outcomes, your own or anyone else's.

This shows up as a bias toward assuming winners in any field were simply better and losers were simply worse, when the honest account usually includes a large helping of circumstance neither party controlled. It also produces false comfort, the quiet assumption that if you are careful enough, misfortune will not find you.

The market does not know or care whether you deserve a good outcome. Diligence improves your odds. It does not purchase immunity, and letting go of that belief is uncomfortable precisely because it means admitting fairness was never guaranteed to begin with.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• How deep sleep builds muscle and burns fat

• What we should learn from Nordic happiness

• What’s the smell in the office?

• How productive snacking helps you break from feeling stuck

• Why mid-year is the perfect time to set new goals

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

📊 Wall Street Comp & Culture Data: Get the most detailed comp, carry, and culture insights across 1000+ Wall Street firms. Explore the data.

📈 Grow With Us: Work directly with the Overheard on Wall Street team to scale your finance brand. Schedule your free consult.

🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.

Good Morning! Tech selloff sank stocks as AI spending faces scrutiny. Alphabet dropped 7% after the Google parent boosted its 2026 capex forecast to $205 billion. And Tesla shed $215 billion in market cap, its worst single-day loss on record.

Hedge funds are growing at the fastest rate in history as the AI boom lifts markets. Blackstone says the pace of withdrawals is slowing at its flagship private credit fund. And Substack is betting readers want content written by humans, launching an AI detection tool to prove it.

Plus: Oracle signed a 10-year software contract with the Pentagon worth up to $7 billion, an FDA panel recommended loosening peptide restrictions, and is working from home actually good for you?

The largest firms are pouring billions into AI deployment. The smartest are turning to purpose-built solutions like Blueflame. See how Blueflame can help your firm.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

The Proprietary CEO

Private equity in Asia has enough money, deals, and dry powder to go on a strong run. But private equity firms are finding they don’t always have someone to run the portfolio company after buying it.

Asia-focused buyout funds are having a huge fundraising rebound. The 10 largest funds that closed in the first half raised $45.5 billion, which is more than double last year’s comparable total. But firms from Japan to India to China are running into a more annoying constraint than capital; they can find companies to buy, but they cannot always find executives capable of taking over and executing on strategy.

And in 2026, buying a company, adding leverage, and waiting for multiple expansion is not exactly a differentiated strategy. Returns increasingly depend on improving the business, which means the CEO is integral, not just a post-close detail. In Asia, that is harder because many fast-growing companies are still founder or family-led, and the bench of PE-ready professional managers is thinner than in the U.S. or Europe.

The result is that firms are getting much more cautious, including passing on deals early because they are not confident they can recruit the right leader. Carlyle used to buy a company in Asia and then look for a CEO, but now its investment committee increasingly wants a top candidate before approving the deal. Searches can even take three to four times longer, span multiple countries and involve far more scrutiny. 

The big firms are trying to build their way out of it, and Blackstone has a 120-person network of current and former CEOs and directors from its Asia portfolio companies, nicknamed “Hotel California,” because operators check out of one portfolio company and apparently never really leave.

KKR built a 420-person value-creation machine across advisers and in-house teams, Bain’s portfolio group has more than 115 people, and Blackstone’s operating team is about 435. Private equity used to talk about proprietary deal flow but now it also needs proprietary CEO flow.

The irony is that the talent shortage may be the clearest sign of how much the industry has changed. The bottleneck is no longer just capital or access to deals; it is execution. CEOs have to deal with geopolitics, AI disruption, supply-chain shifts, shorter hold periods, and investors who paid full price and need value creation yesterday.

Takeaway: Asia private equity is booming, but the scarce asset is not just a good company, it is a good operator. Firms have raised billions and are chasing deals across the hottest markets in the world, but financial engineering can get you into a deal; it cannot run the business. The barbarians at the gate can still get through the gate, but the harder part is finding someone competent to run the castle.

PRESENTED BY BLUEFLAME AI

Private Equity Drops $4 Billion Just to Turn AI On

TPG, Advent, Bain Capital, and Brookfield recently put more than $4 billion into a joint venture with OpenAI. It’s not to buy a company but simply to get AI deployed. Blackstone and Goldman answered the same day with a $1.5 billion Anthropic version.

The biggest names in private markets are paying billions for deployment, because these chatbots lack the industry expertise to execute the work at excellence. A chat window can’t tear through a data room or build an LBO.

Deal teams are partnering with the freshly rebranded Blueflame, whose new agent, Amp, runs deal work end to end, from data room reviews to model builds and IC memos. It routes each task to the right model and only pauses where human judgment is needed.

See what AI built for finance can do for your firm.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Trump to slap ‘sweeping’ new tariffs on 60 trade partners as global duties expire (CNBC)

• FDA panel recommends loosening peptide restrictions (AP)

• Alphabet tests Wall Street's patience as AI spending overshadows growth (CNBC)

• Google has the muscle to overpower spending worries (WSJ)

• Tesla stock tumbles 14% after profit miss; full-year capex spend of $25 billion confirmed (Yahoo Finance)

• Blackstone leads $400 million private loan for HVAC firm buyout (BB)

• Hedge funds grow at fastest rate in history as AI boom lifts markets (FT)

• Blackstone says pace of withdrawals slowing at flagship private credit fund (FT)

• How Wall Street's bots are cashing in on Trump's Truth Social posts (WSJ)

• Substack bets readers want to pay for content written by humans with new AI detection tool (Axios)

• Intel tops Q2 estimates on top and bottom lines, offers upbeat Q3 outlook (Yahoo Finance)

• Oracle signs 10-year software contract with Pentagon worth up to $7 billion (CNBC)

• Blackstone profits jump, boosted by exits and winning bets on AI (BB)

• Nestle to offload half of waters business in joint venture with Platinum Equity (WSJ)

• Google Cloud CEO Kurian says customers are spending 50% more as segment blows away expectations (CNBC)

• Mistral in talks with Samsung on €20B valuation (Axios)

• Investors are getting pickier with their AI power plays (WSJ)

• Stressed private credit funds are an opportunity for secondary investors (FT)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• U.S. equities closed lower as WTI crude oil rose above $90 per barrel, fueling inflation concerns and pushing Treasury yields higher.

• The 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 4.70%, while the U.S. dollar strengthened alongside higher yields.

• International markets were mixed, with Asian equities mostly higher and European markets lower.

Earnings Season

• Alphabet reported results that were broadly in line with expectations, but shares declined after the company increased its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $195–205 billion.

• Tesla also finished lower after reporting earnings below expectations.

• S&P 500 earnings are projected to grow 23% year over year, with energy, technology, and materials expected to lead earnings growth.

• Earnings growth is expected across 10 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors, indicating broad participation this reporting season.

Economic Data

• Initial jobless claims fell to 187,000, the lowest level in more than 50 years and well below expectations.

• Continuing claims remained near 1.8 million, while the unemployment rate held at 4.2%.

• Job openings (7.6 million) continued to exceed the number of unemployed workers (7.1 million), pointing to a resilient labor market.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Lockheed Martin ($LMT) +11% after crushing Q2 estimates and raising full-year guidance, boosted by a $35B THAAD interceptor deal with the Missile Defense Agency.

• (–) Alphabet ($GOOGL) -7% because the company raised its 2026 capital expenditure outlook to $195–$205B, up from ~$190B.

• (–) Tesla ($TSLA) -15% after missing Q2 earnings estimates, with free cash flow turning negative as margins came under pressure.

Prediction Markets

• Last week saw a low for July. This gold market closes at 5pm EDT today.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Atoms, a robotics company led by former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, raised $1.7 billion

• Augustus, a banking startup, raised $180 million

• Crystalys Therapeutics, a company focused on gout treatments, raised $130 million

• Hemispheric, a platform seeking to understand the human brain, raised $52 million

• Sable, a customer communications AI company, raised $45 million

• Lassie, a developer of autonomous systems to run small businesses, raised $35 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

The Knot: Problems Can Be Solved

Description:
A concise and practical guide from Seth Godin on overcoming the obstacles that keep people and organizations stuck. Rather than viewing difficult problems as barriers, Godin argues they are knots that can be untangled through better thinking, persistence, and creative problem-solving. Combining insights on leadership, innovation, and decision-making, the book encourages readers to embrace uncertainty, question assumptions, and focus on making meaningful progress instead of waiting for perfect conditions.

Book Length: 160 pages
Release Date: September 22, 2026

Ideal For:
Entrepreneurs, leaders, creators, and anyone looking to solve complex problems, think more creatively, and move forward when facing uncertainty or resistance.

Every meaningful breakthrough begins with the decision to stop accepting the problem as permanent and start believing it can be solved.

DAILY VISUAL

The Great Rate Reset

Source: Axios

PRESENTED BY STELRIX

A Private Bank in Your Wallet

Family offices and private banking clients have accessed capital by borrowing against their assets for generations, using their portfolios as collateral while keeping investments intact and compounding. Traditional securities-backed lines require $100,000 minimums and weeks of underwriting, keeping this approach exclusive to institutional relationships.

Stelrix built that same infrastructure into a sleek gold card that connects directly to your existing brokerage. This equates to dynamic buying power and smart APR. Your credit and holdings remain untouched, so they can continue generating returns while you access spending power in real time. Limits are dynamic, based on your portfolio value. It’s like a private bank in your pocket.

Reserve your gold card today.

DAILY ACUMEN

Naive Realism

Everyone assumes they see the world exactly as it is, without distortion, and that anyone who disagrees with them must be missing information, biased, or arguing in bad faith. Psychologists call this naive realism, and it is one of the most stubborn features of human cognition precisely because it never feels like a bias from the inside. It just feels like seeing clearly.

This is why disagreements escalate so quickly. Both sides are not just certain they are right. Both sides are certain the other side's wrongness must be explained by some flaw, stupidity, ignorance, or hidden agenda, because the alternative, that reasonable people are looking at the same facts and reaching different conclusions, is somehow harder to accept.

The better default, especially in markets, is that the person on the other side of your trade is not necessarily foolish. They may simply be weighing something you have not considered. The question worth asking is not why are they wrong, but what would have to be true for their position to make sense.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• Was leaving my girlfriend a mistake?

• Is working from home actually good for you?

• Why does our mind wander?

• Why stop rushing the conversation leads to influence

• 7 relationship red flags

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

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🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.

Good Morning! JPMorgan and Goldman are set for $100 million paydays on SoftBank's $40 billion bridge loan for its OpenAI investment. Blackstone is tying up $3 billion to build AirTrunk's new data center in Australia, while OpenAI plans to spend over $30 billion on a massive new one near Savannah, Georgia.

A growing number of hedge funds and asset managers are eyeing a move from Singapore to Hong Kong and other low-tax cities to attract investors. AMD is investing up to $5 billion in Anthropic as part of a computing power deal. And private equity zombie funds hit a record, with over $348.5 billion stuck in funds at least a decade old.

Plus: Mediterranean summer yacht rentals are down 20% to 30% from last year, Miami is overtaking NYC in the return-to-office race, and how to spend less time thinking about money.

Get access to early-stage investment opportunities with Alumni Ventures. See their current deals.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Your IRA Is Cute

The average American family has about $268,000 in IRA savings. But it turns out that Silicon Valley elites are richmogging them. More than 1,000 Americans now have IRAs worth at least $25 million, more than double the number in 2019. Around 11,600 people have IRAs worth at least $10 million, and roughly 200 Americans have retirement accounts worth $100 million or more. 

And this is what happens when the retirement system meets startup equity, insider access and a once-in-a-generation tech boom.

The playbook many Silicon Valley elites are employing is buying private startup shares when they are worth basically nothing, put them inside a Roth IRA or another tax-advantaged account, wait for the company to go public, and let the gains compound without the usual tax bill. For normal people, the IRA is where you buy index funds and pray the S&P does its thing for 40 years. But for startup elites, it can become a tax-free venture fund.

For example, Gregory Baszucki, the brother of Roblox’s founder and a longtime board member, accumulated roughly two million Roblox shares in his Roth IRA years before the IPO at an adjusted price of 72 cents each. By the time Roblox went public, the stake was worth $141 million. His remaining Roth stake is valued around $68 million, and if earlier sale proceeds were reinvested, the account could be worth roughly $158 million. 

Tench Coxe, a former Sutter Hill Ventures managing director and longtime Nvidia board member, has tax-advantaged retirement savings at an estimated $2 billion or more. He held Nvidia shares in retirement accounts from the days when the stock traded at a split-adjusted price of less than 3 cents. 

The issue is not that people made great investments, because great investments should make people rich. The issue is that the biggest upside is mostly available to insiders who can access private shares early, value illiquid stock before the market gets a clean look, and then watch the gains compound inside accounts subsidized by taxpayers. Congress is now looking at forcing withdrawals from giant accounts above $10 million, because “retirement security” starts to sound a little different when the retirement account has nine zeros.

Takeaway: The Roth IRA was supposed to help normal Americans build a nest egg, but startup insiders figured out how to turn it into a tax-free venture lottery ticket. For most people, the contribution limit is the constraint. But for people with access to pre-IPO shares, it can be the entry point to a fortune that compounds tax-free for decades.

PRESENTED BY ALUMNI VENTURES

Invest in High-Potential Startups Like These

Alumni Ventures is giving readers early access to high-potential startup opportunities across today’s most active sectors, co-invested alongside name-brand VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Bessemer, & Y Combinator.

You get:

• Curated deal flow of high-potential startups

• Invest alongside well known lead venture firms in these deals

• No cost to see deals

• No obligation to invest

Don’t miss your chance before access closes.

See current AV deals.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• JPMorgan, Goldman set for $100 million paydays on SoftBank's record loan (BB)

• OpenAI plans to spend over $30 billion on Georgia data center (BB)

• Blackstone tying up $3 billion AirTrunk loan as data center debt binge woes grow (BB)

• Hedge fund stars look to quit Singapore for Hong Kong: AIMA (BB)

• AMD and Anthropic sign major chips-and-investment deal (WSJ)

• One great chart: the rise of the zombie funds (WSJ)

• Renting a yacht in the Mediterranean this summer just got cheaper (CNBC)

• Miami overtakes NYC in return-to-office race as companies expand South Florida footprint (Fox Business)

• Morgan Stanley's $100 million SpaceX IPO payday was only a start (BB)

• KKR-backed Vertis is said to be frontrunner for Megha Engineering Indian roads assets (BB)

• Trump's push for American-made AI chips hits TSMC's margins (CNBC)

• Private credit and data center wraps are 2008 redux (BB)

• SpaceXAI explores major data center expansion in Texas (The Information)

• The most important stock decision you'll make this year (BB)

• Ray Dalio warned Elon Musk against betting all his money on Mars exploration — the SpaceX CEO said there was 'no need' for a financial backup plan (Fortune)

• Citadel Securities opens Amsterdam options trading office (FT)

• Deutsche Bank headquarters raided for third time this year (FT)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• U.S. equities closed lower as investors weighed rising Middle East tensions, higher oil prices, and new tariff announcements.

• The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.66% as energy prices moved higher amid concerns around supply disruptions.

• The administration announced plans for a 100% tariff on imported generic pharmaceuticals beginning in 2028, while trade policy remains a focus ahead of the expiration of temporary Section 122 tariffs.

• Investors are also watching Alphabet’s earnings report for updates on AI investment and spending plans.

Trade & Geopolitical Risks

• Oil prices moved higher as negotiations between the U.S. and Iran showed limited progress, while disruptions around key shipping routes added supply concerns.

• Recent tariff announcements have increased uncertainty, including additional tariffs on Canadian goods and proposed pharmaceutical import tariffs.

• Despite policy uncertainty, markets have historically recovered from tariff-driven volatility, reinforcing the importance of maintaining a long-term investment approach.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Super Micro Computer ($SMCI) +20% after releasing results showing a record order backlog worth $60 billion in new orders.

• (+) EQT ($EQT) +8% because the natural gas company raised its guidance.

• (–) GE Verona ($GEV) -9% after Q2 earnings of $2.47/share missed the $3.13 consensus despite beating on revenue.

Prediction Markets

• Jobless claims come out this morning at 8:30am EDT.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Glow, an endpoint security company, raised $180 million

• Humanoid, a London-based humanoid robotics company, raised $152 million

• Candid Health, an autonomous RCM platform, raised $120 million

• Cashea, a Venezuela-based banking and payments fintech, raised $100 million

• Oak, an identity governance company, raised $60 million

• Auger, a supply-chain software startup, raised $50 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

You Can Just Do Things

Description:
A refreshing guide from Cate Hall and Sasha Chapin on developing "high agency"—the belief that you can meaningfully shape your own circumstances. The book argues that many of life's biggest opportunities are missed not because of a lack of talent or resources, but because people underestimate what they are capable of creating. Through practical frameworks, real-world examples, and mental models, it teaches readers how to take initiative, challenge assumptions, solve problems creatively, and act decisively instead of waiting for permission.

Book Length: 304 pages
Release Date: June 3, 2025

Ideal For:
Entrepreneurs, builders, professionals, and anyone looking to develop greater initiative, overcome self-imposed limitations, and create more opportunities through action and ownership

The people who change their lives are often the ones who realize they never needed permission to begin.

DAILY VISUAL

Nolan Capital

PRESENTED BY MOSAIC

Bain: "PE Is Sitting on 32,000 Unsold Companies"

Bain's new Global PE Report put out a huge number: private equity is holding 32,000 unsold companies worth $3.8 trillion. After years of waiting, the exit window appears to be opening. 

Medline's listing was the largest PE-backed IPO in history, corporate buyers are back, and Bain's survey of GPs indicates a belief in that momentum carrying through 2026. But buyers are still selective, and the deals getting done are the ones where the seller can back up the price.

PE firms are getting exit-ready in Mosaic, where a new Football Field tab adds a DCF, public comps, and precedent transactions to any completed LBO in one click, and the redesigned Deals View keeps models, metrics, and documents in one place for the whole team.

See why firms are turning to Mosaic for modeling.

DAILY ACUMEN

Beauty Contest

Keynes once compared the stock market to a newspaper contest where readers picked the prettiest face from a set of photographs, and the prize went not to whoever picked the face they found prettiest, but to whoever picked the face that matched the majority's vote.

The winning strategy was never about your own opinion. It was about correctly guessing everyone else's opinion, and the sharpest entrants went further still, guessing what the average person expected the average person to think.

This is a more honest description of markets than most people are comfortable with. A stock does not move because it deserves to. It moves because enough participants believe enough other participants will buy it, layered several levels deep in mutual anticipation.

Fundamentals still matter, eventually, but over almost any horizon that matters to a career, the more useful question is rarely what is this actually worth. It is what does the crowd currently believe, and what will make the crowd change its mind next.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• 21 management habits that save time weekly

• How to spend less time thinking about money

• The career edge that no algorithm can take from you

• The United States of luxury

• Is an AI apocalypse coming?

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

📊 Wall Street Comp & Culture Data: Get the most detailed comp, carry, and culture insights across 1000+ Wall Street firms. Explore the data.

📈 Grow With Us: Work directly with the Overheard on Wall Street team to scale your finance brand. Schedule your free consult.

🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.

Good Morning! KKR and AEW are seeking to sell China property assets at steep losses. Trump is imposing 50% tariffs on certain Canadian goods over alleged trade discrimination. And the Paramount and Warner Bros. merger was hit with a temporary restraining order.

Trump Jr.'s 1789 fund is investing in companies that have scored billions in federal funding. Miami's metro area is now more expensive than New York with the cost of living surging since the pandemic. And Blackstone-backed Jersey Mike's set its IPO terms and is aiming to raise $1 billion.

Plus: Dating apps have a growing AI "chatfishing" problem, and billionaire Mark Walter's firms are being probed by federal prosecutors.

This hedge fund research platform beat ChatGPT, Claude, and Shortcut in financial modeling. Learn more about the tool Tier 1 hedge funds are using.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Billionaires’ Latest Asset Class

Billionaires have already bought the sports teams, the islands, the art, the watches, and the homes with three kitchens nobody uses. Naturally, the next prestige trade is a 66-million-year-old apex predator in the foyer.

Dinosaurs have become the latest alternative asset class for the ultra-rich, and the market is about as orderly as you would expect. Ken Griffin spent $44.6 million on a stegosaurus, and a T. rex named Gus just sold at Sotheby’s for $50.1 million, the highest price ever paid for a dinosaur at auction. Hollywood A-listers like Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicolas Cage have reportedly played in the fossil market too.

The appeal makes a ton of sense as a f--k-you-money symbol. T. rex skeletons are genuinely scarce, genuinely dramatic and basically impossible to comp. Fewer than 30 T. rexes that are more than 30% intact have ever been identified, and a complete skull alone can sell for millions. Stan, one of the most famous specimens ever found, sold at Christie’s for $31.8 million in 2020, blowing past an $8 million estimate.

The problem is that this is still a tiny, opaque market with very rich buyers and very old inventory. There is no clean Bloomberg screen for dinosaur comps, no easy standard for what “complete” really means and no regulator making sure every eight-figure fossil comes with perfect provenance.

Most commercial skeletons include some mix of original bone, cast replicas and synthetic material because full dinosaur skeletons are almost never found intact. That can be totally normal, but it also makes valuation feel less like underwriting an asset and more like asking whether the $50 million lizard is mostly lizard.

That is the tension in the dinosaur market. Billionaire money can help fund real fossil discoveries and occasionally put major specimens in museums, but it can also turn scientific artifacts into trophy assets, push prices into the stratosphere and make the market even more opaque. Scientists want access to study the fossils, auction houses want competitive bidding and wealthy collectors want the ultimate flex, which is exactly why the whole market can be both rational and completely ridiculous at the same time.

Takeaway: Dinosaurs are the latest billionaire asset class because they check every box: scarce, dramatic, hard to value and impossible to ignore. A T. rex is cooler than a painting, rarer than most sports franchises and opaque enough to make the market chaotic. Gus just sold for $50 million, Ken Griffin already has his stegosaurus, and the ultra-rich have found a new way to flex. The dinosaur trade is real, it is growing, and it is about as orderly as a starving T. rex, which is probably half the appeal.

PRESENTED BY PRIMER

Claude for Excel Only Scored 48% on its Analyst Exam

A leading analyst training firm put the top AI tools through a classic first-year assignment, a fully integrated three-statement model for Apple, and graded them like trainees. ChatGPT scored 43%, Claude managed 48%, and Shortcut topped the field at 50%. All of them failed. Yet, most investors still paste tickers into these chatbots and trust their modeling (and research).

Tier 1 Hedge funds run their work through Primer instead, which took the same test and scored 81%, a full 31 points clear of Shortcut.* Built by former hedge fund investors to help analysts do higher quality, more robust research. Until now, access was reserved for institutions. Today it's open to everyone.

Get your own hedge fund analyst.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• KKR, AEW seek to sell China property assets at steep losses (BB)

• Trump slaps 50% tariffs on Canada goods on trade discrimination claims (CNBC)

• Paramount and Warner Bros. merger hit with temporary restraining order (CNBC)

• Trump Jr.'s 1789 fund invests in companies that have scored billions in federal funding (CNN)

• Miami's metro area is now more expensive than New York (BB)

• Blackstone-backed Jersey Mike's sets IPO terms (Axios)

• ChatGPT, Claude infiltrate dating apps by helping singles flirt with matches (BB)

• The number of those worth more than $30 million jumped by 14.4% last year (WSJ)

• Billionaire Mark Walter's firms probed by federal prosecutors (BB)

• Everyday investors sour on the Mag Seven and flock to newer AI trades (WSJ)

• Goldman says hedge funds sell US tech stocks at record pace (BB)

• Most Americans oppose Trump government owning companies, CNBC poll finds (CNBC)

• Buyout firm TrueLink nears $1 billion deal for coffee syrup maker (WSJ)

• KKR-backed Serentica eyes $450 million loan in renewables push (BB)

• BlackRock eyes more than $12 billion debt for data center (BB)

• Andreessen Horowitz adds Connor Love to American Dynamism team (BB)

• They call her 'The Assassin' on Wall Street. She has a new target. (WSJ)

• Why Burger King is embracing 'beef wars,' despite record prices (NBC)

• The market for psychedelic drugs to treat mental health conditions gets a big buy signal (CNBC)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• U.S. equities closed mostly lower as investors weighed renewed U.S.-Iran tensions and the start of a busy earnings week.

• The S&P 500 declined 0.2%, while oil prices finished only modestly higher as reports indicated both sides remain open to negotiations.

• Energy was among the strongest-performing sectors, while communication services benefited from gains in Alphabet.

Earnings Season

• Approximately 80 S&P 500 companies are scheduled to report this week, including Alphabet and Tesla.

• S&P 500 earnings are expected to grow 23% year over year, led by energy and technology.

• Technology stocks have declined about 9% since early June after gaining more than 45% from the March lows, as investors reassess the pace of AI infrastructure spending.

• AI remains a key growth theme, though investors are increasingly balancing exposure with cyclical and value-oriented areas, including U.S. mid-cap stocks.

Geopolitical Risks

• U.S.-Iran military tensions escalated over the weekend, but markets remained relatively stable as diplomatic discussions remained possible.

• The S&P 500 has gained more than 15% from its March low following a 9% first-quarter pullback, despite continued geopolitical uncertainty.

• Recent economic data, including resilient retail sales and moderating core inflation, continue to support the broader market backdrop.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Archer Aviation ($ACHR) +20% after unveiling Thunder, an autonomous VTOL aircraft jointly developed with Anduril.

• (+) Iren ($IREN) +20% because the company raised its year-end AI Cloud annualized run-rate revenue target to over $4B from $3.7B.

• (–) Carvana ($CVNA) -5% after shares slipped ahead of its July 29 earnings report, with investors cautious of used cars sales slipping.

Prediction Markets

• Earnings Call Special (before markets open): Charles Schwab

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Blackstone took a controlling stake in Futronic, a South Korean supplier to the automotive and industrial robotics industries, for $720 million

• CuspAI, a materials discovery startup, raised $450 million 

• Flex, an AI banking platform for mid-sized business owners, raised $70 million

• Senra Systems, a wire-harness startup, raised $65 million

• Bunkerhill Health, an agentic AI platform for health systems, raised $55 million

• RapidPulse, an aspiration medical tech company for acute ischemic stroke, raised $48 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

You Weren’t Supposed To See That

Description:
A straightforward investing guide from Joshua M. Brown that pulls back the curtain on how markets, Wall Street, and investing really work. Drawing on decades of experience advising investors, Brown explains the hidden incentives, behavioral traps, and overlooked principles that often separate successful long-term investors from everyone else. Blending market history with practical advice, the book emphasizes disciplined decision-making, emotional control, and focusing on what truly drives investment returns instead of market noise.

Book Length: 288 pages
Release Date: September 9, 2025

Ideal For:
Investors of all experience levels looking to better understand market behavior, avoid common mistakes, and build a disciplined long-term investing approach

The biggest edge in investing rarely comes from knowing more than everyone else it comes from reacting better than everyone else.

DAILY VISUAL

Oil Tops $90 as Mid East Fighting Escalates

Source: Axios

PRESENTED BY ALUMNI VENTURES

Invest in High-Potential Startups Like These

Alumni Ventures is giving readers early access to high-potential startup opportunities across today’s most active sectors, co-invested alongside name-brand VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Bessemer, & Y Combinator.

You get:

• Curated deal flow of high-potential startups

• Invest alongside well known lead venture firms in these deals

• No cost to see deals

• No obligation to invest

Don’t miss your chance before access closes.

See current AV deals.

DAILY ACUMEN

IKEA Effect

People consistently overvalue things they built themselves, even when the result is objectively worse than something they could have simply bought. Named for the furniture that customers rate more highly after assembling it by hand, the effect explains far more than furniture. Effort creates ownership, and ownership distorts judgment.

This is why founders hold onto flawed strategies long after the market has rejected them, and why analysts defend models they built even after the assumptions inside them stopped being true. The labor invested becomes indistinguishable, in the builder's mind, from the quality of the result.

The discipline worth building is separating how much something cost you to create from how good it actually is. They are unrelated facts that feel related, and the harder you worked on something, the more suspicious you should be of your own verdict on it.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• 5 money lies you need to stop telling yourself right now

• Is PTO-maxxing the problem?

• How Nvidia built a $5 trillion company making people pay for their own lunch

• Why 60/40 portfolios are too risky for wealthy investors

• How to find joy on a quiet day

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

📊 Wall Street Comp & Culture Data: Get the most detailed comp, carry, and culture insights across 1000+ Wall Street firms. Explore the data.

📈 Grow With Us: Work directly with the Overheard on Wall Street team to scale your finance brand. Schedule your free consult.

🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.

Good Morning! Trump threatened Canada with tariffs over wildfire smoke, claiming "willful negligence." Apple briefly edged out Nvidia to reclaim its title as the most valuable publicly traded company in the US, but Nvidia clawed it back by day's end. And Ken Griffin offered $3 million to buy an old cottage across from Citadel's new Miami HQ, because apparently the whole block isn't enough.

Sweetgreen jumped 14% after Taco Bell was linked to an explosive diarrhea parasite, clearing Sweetgreen's name. And Pentagon is dangling $400,000 salaries to recruit Wall Street bankers.

Plus: Anthropic is in early talks with Meta to acquire compute power, and Apollo likens risky private credit to a mere "sprinkle" on a cupcake.

Build custom deployments around your firm’s unique workflows with Endex.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Trump’s Latency Trade

It turns out that, over the last 18 months of TACOing, Trump’s Truth Social posts have been one of the most effective global market movers. And now Trump Media is trying to figure out whether they can monetize and charge hedge funds early access to Trump’s social media posts.

Trump Media is launching Truth API, a real-time data feed that will give financial firms fast access to posts from Truth Social’s most influential accounts. The target customer is high-frequency traders, hedge funds, and algorithmic shops that care deeply about seeing market-moving information a few milliseconds before everyone else.

And the pitch isn't cheap: according to the Financial Times, Trump Media has floated charging as much as $100,000 a month (roughly $1.2 million a year) for the fastest, lowest-latency version of the feed. In other words, a seven-figure annual subscription whose entire value proposition is seeing one man's posts before the rest of the market does.

The business logic is obvious because whenever Trump posts, markets seem to react. Traders and hedge funds alike scan for any edge they can receive over the latest tariff headlines, China restrictions, or Iran peace deal. Trump’s posts have been effective at moving stocks, bonds, currencies, and commodities. And for trading firms, getting that information faster is valuable. And Trump Media, which has yet to turn an annual profit, is looking to diversify revenue streams beyond advertisement and will package that speed into a recurring data product.

To be fair, selling fast data feeds is not new. Traders already pay enormous sums for real-time information because speed is the product and exchanges, news terminals, and social platforms all sell data. The difference is that most data feeds are not built around the sitting president’s personal posting habits.

The optics are also not exactly subtle. Trump is president and is the company’s largest shareholder, with his stake held in a trust managed by Donald Trump Jr. And now the company wants to sell Wall Street faster access to the president’s own market-moving posts. 

Takeaway: Trump Media may have found its cleanest business model yet: monetize the latency between a presidential post and the market reaction. For traders, the pitch is faster Truth posts and more profitable trades. For everyone else, it is a reminder that in modern markets, information is the asset, milliseconds are the edge, and even presidential posting can become a high-margin subscription product.

PRESENTED BY ENDEX

Open Source, Open Season

Last week, Moonshot AI made waves with their Kimi K3 release, an open-source model that shockingly outpaced Anthropic and OpenAI frontier models on key performance benchmarks. This jolted the market into a TSMC, Nvidia, and SoftBank sell-off.

But for enterprises, this reignited discussions around what tasks open-source can handle, open-source safety, and, above all else for many, can open-source cut AI spend?

For Wall Street, top firms are partnering with Endex to cut through the noise. Endex is model-agnostic. It routes every agent request to the model that clears the required quality threshold and reserves frontier models for the select tasks where incremental intelligence produces measurable economic value.

When a new model drops, teams don't have to reevaluate their tooling. Instead, Endex evaluates it and routes to it automatically, keeping them on the frontier as the landscape moves underneath them. Endex brings these agents directly into the Microsoft Office Suite, building custom deployments around each firm's unique workflows.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Trump says Canada will face tariffs over wildfire smoke (Hill)

• Apple overthrows Nvidia to reclaim Wall Street's crown (WSJ)

• Griffin wants to buy an old cottage across from new headquarters (BB)

• Sweetgreen shares jump 15% after Taco Bell linked to explosive diarrhea parasite (NYP)

• Pentagon dangles $400,000 salaries to recruit Wall Street bankers (WSJ)

• Taco Bell engulfed in crisis with 'explosive' diarrhea outbreak tied to lettuce (Axios)

• Apollo likens risky private credit to mere 'sprinkle' on cupcake (BB)

• LIS, a luxe new summer camp for adults, costs $12K for two nights (NY Post)

• Anthropic in early talks with Meta to acquire compute power (CNBC)

• Chip stocks tumble into bear market as 105% AI rally fizzles (BB)

• Retail and Wall Street are underwater on SpaceX — but not going down without a fight (CNBC)

• NYC's municipal debt investors are losing patience with Zohran Mamdani (NY Post)

• The tax strategy for people suffering from stock-market success (WSJ)

• Gen Z looks for a cheap date (WSJ)

• Lettuce grower Taylor Farms to recall products tied to parasite (BB)

• Howden plots giant capital raise on path to blockbuster IPO (BB)

• Apple's big lawsuit could disrupt OpenAI's IPO plans (Yahoo Finance)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• Global equities declined, led by continued weakness in semiconductor stocks. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 10% for the week, while Taiwan entered correction territory and South Korea's market remained sharply below its June peak.

• Renewed U.S.-Iran tensions pushed WTI crude oil above $81 per barrel, lifting the energy sector while technology and communication services lagged.

• Treasury yields declined, with the 10-year Treasury yield falling to 4.55%, providing some support to fixed income.

Technology

• AI-related stocks remained under pressure as investors questioned the pace and returns of AI spending, with concerns amplified by advances in open-source AI models from China.

• Corporate earnings have not yet shown a slowdown in AI demand or investment, but concentration in technology remains elevated.

• Alphabet and Tesla report earnings this week, with investors focused on AI spending, profitability, and future capital expenditure plans.

Economy & Earnings

• This week's economic data remained constructive, with cooler-than-expected CPI and PPI inflation, solid retail sales, and strong bank earnings.

• S&P 500 earnings are expected to grow approximately 23% year over year, with 12% revenue growth.

• Technology and energy are expected to account for roughly 80% of total S&P 500 earnings growth this quarter.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Sweetgreen ($SG) +14% after regulators traced the explosive-diarrhea cyclosporiasis outbreak back to Taco Bell restaurants, clearing Sweetgreen's name.

• (+) Travelers ($TRV) +9% because the insurance company crushed Q2 earnings on improved catastrophe-loss performance.

• (–) Netflix ($NFLX) -7% after issuing guidance that came in below Wall Street forecasts, spooking investors on near-term revenue growth.

Prediction Markets

• It was Opening Weekend for The Odyssey. This market closes this morning at 10am EDT.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Wonder, a cloud kitchen company, raised $650 million

• Crypto.com received a $400 million investment from Citadel Securities

• Alpaca, an embedded trading startup, raised $135 million

• Lumin, a digital bank, raised $115 million

• American Growth Insurance, an AI insurance brokerage roll-up, raised $70 million

• Fora, a travel booking platform, raised $60 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

The Soccer of Success

Description:
A practical leadership and personal development guide from Ciarán McArdle that applies the principles behind the world's most popular sport to success in business and life. Using lessons from elite teams, legendary managers, and the culture of soccer, the book explores leadership, teamwork, resilience, preparation, and strategic thinking. It demonstrates how consistent execution, trust, and adaptability, not just individual talent, are the foundations of sustained high performance.

Book Length: 256 pages
Release Date: January 28, 2025

Ideal For:
Sports fans, leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals looking to apply the mindset and lessons of elite teams to business, leadership, and personal growth.

Championships are won long before the match begins through preparation discipline and the commitment to improve every day.

DAILY VISUAL

Tariffs 6 7

Source: Apollo

PRESENTED BY BLUEFLAME AI

Private Equity Drops $4 Billion Just to Turn AI On

TPG, Advent, Bain Capital, and Brookfield recently put more than $4 billion into a joint venture with OpenAI. It’s not to buy a company but simply to get AI deployed. Blackstone and Goldman answered the same day with a $1.5 billion Anthropic version.

The biggest names in private markets are paying billions for deployment, because these chatbots lack the industry expertise to execute the work at excellence. A chat window can’t tear through a data room or build an LBO.

Deal teams are partnering with the freshly rebranded Blueflame, whose new agent, Amp, runs deal work end to end, from data room reviews to model builds and IC memos. It routes each task to the right model and only pauses where human judgment is needed.

See what AI built for finance can do for your firm.

DAILY ACUMEN

Matthew Effect

Small early advantages do not stay small. The extra bit of capital, the marginally better reputation, the slightly earlier start, all of it compounds into a gap that eventually looks like a difference in talent when it was actually a difference in timing.

The uncomfortable part is how invisible the mechanism is from either end. The person pulling ahead genuinely believes their growing lead reflects growing skill. The person falling behind assumes the same, and quietly downgrades their own ability to match.

Before crediting genius in an outsized outcome, check for a head start instead. And if you are early in something that matters, protect that small edge now, because the whole game rewards whoever gets compounding on their side first.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• Is too much sleep as bad as too little?

• Why burned out Gen-Zers are joining lie down clubs

• 6 ways leaders harness stress

• 5 hidden pitfalls of fitness tracking

• How to survive mid-career burnout

• A new card to get 100% cashback on your purchases

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

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📈 Grow With Us: Work directly with the Overheard on Wall Street team to scale your finance brand. Schedule your free consult.

🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.

Good Morning! BofA is no longer working with Chicago on the sale of debt owed to the city from fines and fees. Eli Lilly is buying psychedelics maker AtaiBeckley for $2.8 billion as experimental treatments gain traction. And Apollo plans to put as much as $20 billion to work financing projects in Mexico.

Nvidia-backed Fireworks hit a $17.5 billion valuation as companies chase cheaper AI models. Wall Street's profit boom has Europe ripping up its banking rulebook. And Trump Media launched an API to give paying customers real-time access to market-moving Truth Social posts.

Plus: Why IPOs of tiny foreign companies have vanished in the US, and 7 fitness habits of highly effective CEOs.

Get access to early-stage investment opportunities with Alumni Ventures. See their current deals.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Connecticut Gets a Water LBO

Dozens of wealthy Connecticut towns are about to learn an important lesson: public ownership can still feel a lot like a leveraged buyout when the debt service shows up in your water bill.

Aquarion is Connecticut's largest water utility, serving about 59 towns (much of Fairfield County) that Eversource had owned and wanted out of. Now a public authority is selling $2.4 billion of bonds to buy it. It is the biggest bond sale in the state's history, and the buyer is technically public, but customers are looking at roughly 60% rate increases over the next decade.

This is not Apollo buying a water company and squeezing customers; it is the South-Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority, which spun up a new affiliated authority to absorb Aquarion and serve towns like Greenwich, Stamford, Darien and Westport, then used a giant debt raise to finance the deal. Connecticut's hedge fund suburbs did not get bought out by private equity; they got bought out by municipal finance, and somehow the bill still went up.

Aquarion argues the deal helps customers over time because a public authority can borrow through tax-exempt bonds, avoid corporate income taxes and stop paying shareholder returns. It also says the system needs serious investment: pipe replacements, treatment plant upgrades and compliance with new rules around forever chemicals.

But the customer version is simpler: my water company changed hands, PURA no longer sets the rates the way it used to, and now my bill is going up. The new board of municipal officials is responsible for approving rates high enough to cover costs and bond payments. S&P viewed the board's willingness to raise rates as a credit positive, exactly the kind of sentence bondholders love and homeowners in Darien do not.

Takeaway: Connecticut just invented the public-sector version of an LBO. A water utility needed capital, Eversource wanted out, a new authority borrowed billions to buy it, and ratepayers are now staring at a decade of hikes to help make the math work. The pitch is long-term savings and better infrastructure, but the reality is that even when the buyer is public, leverage still has to be paid back by someone. In this case, that someone has a sprinkler system in Fairfield County.

PRESENTED BY ALUMNI VENTURES

Invest in High-Potential Startups Like These

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You get:

• Curated deal flow of high-potential startups

• Invest alongside well known lead venture firms in these deals

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Don’t miss your chance before access closes.

See current AV deals.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Bank of America exits Chicago plan to sell overdue parking debt (BB)

• Eli Lilly to buy psychedelics maker AtaiBeckley for $2.8 billion (CNBC)

• Apollo bets on Mexico with $20 billion target for private credit (BB)

• Nvidia-backed Fireworks hits $17.5 billion valuation as companies pursue cheaper AI models (CNBC)

• Wall Street's profit boom has Europe ripping up its banking rulebook (CNBC)

• Truth Social to license its data to Wall Street (Axios)

• Why IPOs of tiny foreign companies have vanished in US (BB)

• Netflix revenue, profit grow despite concerns about keeping subscribers hooked (WSJ)

• Vital Signals announces $399 Signal Ring that gives blood pressure readings (BB)

• Evicting Wall Street from the housing market will be messy (WSJ)

• Trump promoted companies on Truth Social days after buying their stocks (CNN)

• Hedge funds turn to smaller, independent firms for trade ideas (BB)

• Uber agrees to buy Delivery Hero in $14.8 billion deal to expand global food delivery business (Yahoo Finance)

• Nvidia reveals new AI model and expands Japan's physical AI ecosystem (CNBC)

• TSMC to invest additional $100 billion in Arizona after second-quarter profit soars 77% (CNBC)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• U.S. equities closed modestly lower, with the Nasdaq underperforming the S&P 500 and Dow as technology stocks continued to consolidate.

• South Korea's KOSPI fell more than 6%, pressured by weakness in semiconductor shares.

• WTI crude oil declined to around $79 per barrel, while the 10-year Treasury yield edged higher to 4.56%.

• Market leadership continues to broaden, with strength rotating beyond technology into other sectors.

Inflation

• June PPI inflation slowed to 5.5% year over year, down from 6.0% in May, while monthly PPI declined 0.3%.

• Core PPI increased 0.2%, below expectations, reinforcing this week's softer CPI report.

• Markets continue to price in no change at the July Fed meeting, with expectations for September remaining mixed.

Earnings

• Second-quarter earnings season is underway, with J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs all reporting results above expectations.

• S&P 500 earnings growth is now expected to reach roughly 23% year over year, up from about 14% at the start of the quarter.

• Alphabet and Tesla report next week, followed by Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple, with investors focused on AI-related capital spending and returns on those investments.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) ManpowerGroup ($MAN) +32% after returning to profitability in Q2, beating earnings estimates, and issuing Q3 EPS guidance above expectations.

• (+) Abbott ($ABT) +11% because the company beat Q2 earnings expectations and raised its full-year 2026 adjusted EPS guidance.

• (–) Sweetgreen ($SG) -7% after after concerns over the cyclosporiasis outbreak, a parasitic intestinal infection spread through contaminated raw produce.

Prediction Markets

• The World Cup is this Sunday at 3pm EDT. Spain are favorites to win with 58.6% odds.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Uber announced plans to acquire Delivery Hero for $14.8 billion

• ABB agreed to acquire Rotork, a manufacturer of electric actuators, for $5.5 billion

• Eli Lilly agreed to buy AtaiBeckley, a psychedelic treatment developer, for up to $3.8 billion

• Fireworks, a custom training company, raised $1.5 billion

• Walden Robotics, a general-purpose robotics company, raised $300 million

• Astro Mechanica, a developer of turboelectric supersonic jet engines, plans to raise $250 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Wrong Number

Description:
A timely guide from Aaron Brown on navigating a world flooded with misleading statistics, flawed analyses, and data taken out of context. Drawing on decades of experience in quantitative finance and risk management, the book explains how numbers can be manipulated to persuade, confuse, or deceive. It equips readers with practical tools to evaluate evidence, recognize statistical traps, and make better decisions by separating meaningful insights from quantitative noise.

Book Length: 320 pages
Release Date: September 2, 2025

Ideal For:
Investors, business leaders, analysts, and anyone looking to improve data literacy, critical thinking, and decision-making in an increasingly data-driven world.

Numbers reveal the truth only when you first understand how easily they can be used to hide it.

DAILY VISUAL

Cover Ratios for Hyperscaler Bonds Declining

Source: Apollo

PRESENTED BY MOSAIC

Bain: "PE Is Sitting on 32,000 Unsold Companies"

Bain's new Global PE Report put out a huge number: private equity is holding 32,000 unsold companies worth $3.8 trillion. After years of waiting, the exit window appears to be opening. 

Medline's listing was the largest PE-backed IPO in history, corporate buyers are back, and Bain's survey of GPs indicates a belief in that momentum carrying through 2026. But buyers are still selective, and the deals getting done are the ones where the seller can back up the price.

PE firms are getting exit-ready in Mosaic, where a new Football Field tab adds a DCF, public comps, and precedent transactions to any completed LBO in one click, and the redesigned Deals View keeps models, metrics, and documents in one place for the whole team.

See why firms are turning to Mosaic for modeling.

DAILY ACUMEN

Delayed Feedback

Expertise only develops where feedback is fast and clear. A surgeon knows within hours. A chess player knows within moves. Those fields produce genuine mastery, because reality corrects the practitioner constantly and mercilessly.

Now consider the fields where the feedback loop runs for years. Hiring. Strategy. Long-horizon investing. Parenting. By the time the outcome arrives, so many other variables have entered the picture that the lesson is unreadable, and the practitioner has usually forgotten what they were actually thinking at the time. These fields produce enormous confidence and almost no calibration.

The implication is uncomfortable for anyone whose career sits in the second category. Your intuition is not being trained by experience the way you believe it is. The only real defense is to write down your reasoning before you know the answer, so that when the answer eventually arrives, there is something honest to check it against.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• 7 fitness habits of highly-effective CEOs

• How to deescalate your heightened emotions at work

• 6 habits of emotionally intelligent leaders

• A non-billionaire’s guide to the Hamptons

• A simple evening routine for better sleep

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

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📈 Grow With Us: Work directly with the Overheard on Wall Street team to scale your finance brand. Schedule your free consult.

🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.

Good Morning! The New York Yankees are in advanced talks to raise ~$3 billion from Apollo. The founder of Hinge released a new AI dating app that skips swiping entirely; the AI just decides who you're compatible with and matches you automatically. And Anthropic is moving closer to a mega-IPO as bankers line up investor meetings.

BlackRock crossed $15 trillion in assets. Stripe and Advent made a $53 billion takeover offer for PayPal, sending the stock soaring. And Mira Murati's AI startup released its first AI model, an open-weights model called Inkling.

Plus: Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan announced $24 million to boost US shipbuilding, and is 8 hours of sleep overrated?

Wall Street's most accomplished gather every month for curated dinners and deal flow. Apply to join Buysiders Club.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Daniel Ek's Next Subscription

Neko Health was founded by Hjalmar Nilsonne, left, and Daniel Ek, right

Daniel Ek helped convince the world to pay a monthly fee for music they used to own, and now he wants to convince them to pay for a body scan before anything is actually wrong. Neko Health, the preventive health startup Ek co-founded with Swedish entrepreneur Hjalmar Nilsonne, just raised $700 million to expand its clinic network, including a planned New York location later this year. 

The round was co-led by Lightspeed and Eyal Ofer's OG Venture Partners, with Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan and Tim Ferriss among the backers. And when Zuckerberg and the guy who monetized podcasting are both writing checks into your health startup, you are probably onto something, or at least onto something that wealthy people will pay for.

So what is the product? You walk into a clinic that looks more like a spa than a hospital, step into what amounts to a pastel scanning booth, and let 70-odd sensors collect roughly 50 million data points off your body in under ten minutes.

It photographs and maps every mole you have, runs an ECG and arterial analysis, measures body composition and grip strength, and pulls a blood sample that gets processed in the on-site lab while you wait. The whole visit takes about an hour, and a doctor walks you through the readout before you leave, flagging risk for things like skin cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

In the U.K. it costs £299, roughly $400, which is cheaper than a full-body MRI and significantly cheaper than finding out the hard way. More than 350,000 people in Sweden and the U.K. have registered for a scan, though only a portion have actually gone through with one yet.

The most interesting thing about Neko is where it is working. Sweden and the U.K. both have national health care, meaning people are paying out of pocket for something they could theoretically get through their public system. That gap between what traditional medicine offers and what a modern consumer wants is basically the whole business. Wearables spent a decade training people to obsess over sleep scores, glucose levels and heart rate variability. And Neko is trying to take that same instinct from the Apple Watch to the clinic, at a price point that is uncomfortable but not insane.

The skeptics are not wrong either. Some doctors push back on full-body scans because more data does not always mean better outcomes, it can mean false positives, unnecessary follow-ups and a lot of expensive anxiety. That is a real tension, and Neko will have to navigate it as it scales into the U.S. market. Ek is also stepping down as Spotify CEO to focus on this, which is either a sign of how seriously he is taking it or a sign that running a health startup is more interesting to him than fighting with artists over streaming royalties.

Takeaway: Neko Health is a bet that preventive care can become a mainstream consumer product, cheaper than concierge medicine, more polished than the annual physical, and compelling enough to get people to pay out of pocket even in countries where health care is technically free. Ek already proved people would pay monthly for music they used to own. Now he is betting they will pay to see what their body is doing before the doctor has to tell them something went wrong. Given how that first bet turned out, it is probably worth taking seriously.

PRESENTED BY BUYSIDERS CLUB

Why Billionaires Still Go to Summer Camp

Last week, private jets stacked up in Idaho as Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Altman gathered for Allen & Co.'s "summer camp for billionaires." The Washington Post acquisition and the Disney–ABC merger both started as conversations there. And none of it happens by accident; who's invited, who hikes with whom, who's seated next to whom at dinner. The room is designed, and the design is why deals get done.

Buysiders Club brings that same design to Wall Street. It’s a unique place for all segments of finance to connect through dinner, dealflow, and discourse. Every dinner is curated down to the seat - the venue, the menu, the introductions - and members get access to private placement opportunities before most have even heard of them. All candidates are interviewed and character-referenced to ensure Buysiders Club accepts only the highest quality people on Wall Street.

If you think you qualify, apply to Buysiders Club here.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• New York Yankees in talks with Apollo over $3 billion financing deal (BB)

• The founder of Hinge raised $18M to build a new AI dating service, Overtone (TechCrunch)

• Anthropic moves closer to mega-IPO as bankers line up investor meetings (CNBC)

• BlackRock assets cross $15 trillion, adding $192 billion of cash (BB)

• Stripe and Advent International make $53 billion offer for PayPal (Yahoo Finance)

• Wholesale prices fell 0.3% in June, largest monthly drop since April 2025, as energy costs ease (CNBC)

• Mira Murati's AI startup releases first model in bid to loosen AI giants' grip (WSJ)

• Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase announce $24M to boost U.S. shipbuilding (CNBC)

• Warren Buffett on the market today: 'It's tough to find values when everybody is preferring gambling' (CNBC)

• JPMorgan, BlackRock and Goldman to tokenize stocks, Treasurys (WSJ)

• Historic IBM stock crash sets up unique options strategy (CNBC)

• KKR markets debt backed by PayPal's buy now, pay later loans (BB)

• Hinge adds 'Friend's Take' feature, letting inner circle leave testimonials to help singles weed out potential creeps (NY Post)

• Wall Street banks reap windfall from stock and debt sales (Axios)

• SpaceX falls to $135 IPO price ahead of Starship launch (TechCrunch)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• U.S. equities closed higher after a softer-than-expected June PPI report, with consumer discretionary and communication services leading gains.

• Treasury yields declined, with the 10-year Treasury yield falling to 4.55% and the 2-year yield to approximately 4.14%.

• Asian markets were mostly higher, led by a rebound in South Korea's KOSPI, while European markets finished slightly lower.

• WTI crude oil edged higher as investors continued to monitor developments in the Middle East.

Inflation

• Headline PPI slowed to 5.5% year over year, down from 6.0% in May, while monthly PPI declined 0.3%.

• Core PPI rose 0.2%, below expectations for 0.4%, indicating broader wholesale inflation pressures eased.

• Following this week's softer CPI and PPI reports, markets are pricing in no change at the July Fed meeting, with September expectations remaining mixed.

Consumer

• Attention now shifts to June retail sales, with headline sales expected to rise 0.3% and control-group sales expected to increase 0.4%.

• Consumer spending remained resilient during the first half of the year, supported by a stable labor market and stronger household income.

• Moderate job growth and low layoffs continue to support household spending heading into the second half of the year.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Lucid ($LCID) +29% after issuing a firm rebuttal letter, signed by its chief legal officer, unequivocally denying the bankruptcy and take-private rumors.

• (+) PayPal ($PYPL) +17% because a report surfaced that Stripe and Advent International have proposed a joint acquisition of the company in a deal valued at over $53 billion.

• (–) Micron ($MU) -8% after Chinese competitor ChangXin Memory moved closer to an IPO.

Prediction Markets

• Only a 59% chance that McDonalds advertises during the World Cup.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Neko Health, a whole-body scan company, raised $700 million

• AdvanCell, an Australian radiopharmaceutical company focused on cancer, raised $315 million

• Emergent, a vibe coding startup, raised $130 million

• Brinc, a 911 drone maker, raised $125 million

• TerraFirma, an interplanetary construction startup, raised $115 million

• Spectro Cloud, an AI infrastructure company that helps manage token costs, raised $100 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Uncommon Sense

Description:
A thoughtful guide from William R. Brody and Mike Field on challenging conventional thinking to solve complex problems more effectively. Drawing from leadership, medicine, business, and science, the book argues that many of life's biggest challenges persist because we approach them with outdated assumptions. Through practical examples and fresh perspectives, it encourages readers to think across disciplines, question accepted wisdom, and develop creative solutions that others overlook.

Book Length: 304 pages
Release Date: May 5, 2026

Ideal For:
Leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, and lifelong learners looking to improve problem-solving, challenge assumptions, and think more creatively in business and everyday life.

Extraordinary solutions begin the moment you stop assuming that ordinary thinking is enough.

DAILY VISUAL

The Looksmaxxing Era

Source: Business of Beauty

PRESENTED BY REX SHARES

Now Trading: HYNX, a 2x Daily Leverage on SK HYNIX

The T-REX 2X Long SKHY Daily Target ETF (HYNX) is now trading, seeking 200% of the daily performance of the SK hynix ADR (SKHY). This ETF gives 2X daily exposure to the memory chips used in servers and data centers in one ticker.

SK hynix is a South Korean multinational semiconductor company that manufactures memory chips, including DRAM and NAND flash memory. As of March 2026, SK hynix had a market capitalization of approximately $460 billion and reported 2025 annual revenue of $59.4 billion.

HYNX is part of the T-REX lineup, which has daily 2X long and inverse exposure across 40+ tickers from REX Shares and Tuttle Capital Management.

Visit rexshares.com/hynx for the prospectus and risk disclosures. Investing in HYNX is not equivalent to investing in SK hynix.

DAILY ACUMEN

Power Laws

Most people plan their lives and portfolios as if outcomes follow a bell curve, clustering sensibly around the average. Almost nothing that matters actually works that way. In venture, in careers, in creative work, a tiny handful of outcomes produce nearly all the value, and everything else rounds to noise.

This changes the whole logic of how you should behave. If returns were normally distributed, you would optimize for a good average and avoid mistakes. But under a power law, the cost of a miss is bounded and the cost of missing the one outlier is not. Being wrong twenty times is survivable. Not being at the table for the one that mattered is the only unforgivable error.

The people who understand this look reckless to everyone else, because they tolerate a strike rate that seems terrible. They are not gambling. They are just playing the actual distribution rather than the one that feels intuitive.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• A new clue linking depression to the immune system

• 1 thing you need more than compatibility in a relationship

• Why reading feels so hard now

• 4 easy ways to live longer

• Is 8 hours of sleep overrated?

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

📊 Wall Street Comp & Culture Data: Get the most detailed comp, carry, and culture insights across 1000+ Wall Street firms. Explore the data.

📈 Grow With Us: Work directly with the Overheard on Wall Street team to scale your finance brand. Schedule your free consult.

🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.

Good Morning! IBM cratered 25%, its worst day on record, losing $69 billion in market value after warning that Q2 earnings fell short of expectations. Apollo is muscling in on Wall Street's turf with $300 billion in loans, competing directly with JPMorgan and Goldman for blue-chip deals. And the superrich are landsmaxxing, buying entire blocks at a time.

Fed Chair Warsh says the Fed has "no tolerance" for elevated inflation. A New York state bill may give shoppers a 10% discount for using self-checkout. And Buffett plans to offload his Berkshire stake within eight years, with Gates’ Foundation notably snubbed.

Plus: data center builders are racing to offload stakes worth billions, Wall Street is warming to Apple's AI strategy, and what separates confident leaders from arrogant ones.

This new AI platform reduces the cost for commercial due diligence by 10x. Get access here.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Banks are Eating Again

The biggest banks posted quarterly results yesterday, and it turns out they are on a roll. JPMorgan, Goldman, Bank of America, Citi and Wells Fargo collectively earned more than $49 billion last quarter, up 39% from a year ago, with revenues rising more than 20%. Jamie Dimon even said conditions were getting close to “as good as it gets.”

The quarter was basically a Wall Street buffet. SpaceX pulled off the biggest IPO in history, but even without counting SpaceX, U.S. IPO proceeds more than doubled from a year earlier. M&A volume in the first half hit record levels in the U.S. and globally, while Goldman more than doubled its equity underwriting fees to nearly $1 billion on the back of the SpaceX mandate.

Trading floors feasted too, helped by volatility in the Middle East and a market that gave clients plenty of reasons to trade. Goldman posted record equities revenue, up 72%. JPMorgan’s equity markets revenue jumped 86%, and Bank of America logged record sales and trading revenue of $7.1 billion, with equities up 70%. Volatility is terrifying for normal people, but for trading desks it can be a giant windfall.

Then there is the AI money machine. Banks are not just advising AI companies. They are financing the entire build-out: chips, data centers, power, infrastructure, energy and every other industry trying to bolt an AI strategy onto its investor deck. David Solomon said the AI financing cycle is still in its early stages, which means data centers are not done borrowing, and the fee meters are not done running.

Takeaway: Big banks just had one of those quarters where every part of the franchise worked at the same time, which does not happen often and almost never lasts forever. IPOs came back, M&A ripped, trading desks feasted on volatility, and AI financing created a fresh fee stream. The only problem with “as good as it gets” is that it usually comes with an expiration date. Wall Street is eating again, and the only question is how long the buffet stays open.

PRESENTED BY DILIGENCESQUARED

How to Skip the $500k McKinsey Bill

Most funds skip commercial due diligence early on. Not because it wouldn’t help, but because at $500K to $1M a pop, they can’t afford to. So they wait until after initial IC and first-round bids, go deep on a few late-stage bets, and pray the thesis holds.

DiligenceSquared runs AI-native CDD at a fraction of that cost. Built by ex-Blackstone and BCG operators, it delivers investment-grade market and customer insight, so funds screen more targets earlier, reach conviction before the competition, and save the heavy spend for deals that already cleared the commercial bar.

Help your fund win deals faster. Book a demo today.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• IBM stock craters 25%, the worst day on record, after company issues second-quarter earnings warning (CNBC)

• JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs face new competition from Apollo on lending (BB)

• 'Landmaxxing': the new way rich people are buying property (WSJ)

• Warsh says Fed has 'no tolerance' for elevated inflation (BB)

• NY state bill may give shoppers a 10% deal for self-checkout (NY Post)

• Buffett to offload Berkshire stake in 8 years as Gates snubbed (BB)

• Data-center builders are racing to offload stakes worth billions (WSJ)

• Wall Street warms to Apple's AI strategy (Axios)

• Apple is in talks with a startup that squeezes powerful AI models onto iPhones (CNBC)

• Bank earnings takeaways: From Goldman Sachs's SpaceX IPO fees to JPMorgan's AI job cuts (CNBC)

• EQT forms new venture capital fund to house some existing tech stakes (WSJ)

• Jamie Dimon has a long wish list for his successor at JPMorgan (BB)

• JPMorgan urges staff to avoid deploying pricey AI for easy tasks (BB)

• Private credit stress test as higher rates squeeze borrowers (CNBC)

• Goldman blows past stock trading records with $7.42 billion boon (BB)

• Citi beats every profit estimate as CEO's rebuild gains steam (BB)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• U.S. equities moved higher after a cooler-than-expected June CPI report, while Treasury yields declined.

• The 10-year Treasury yield finished near 4.59%, and the U.S. dollar weakened against major currencies.

• International equity markets were mostly higher across Asia and Europe.

• WTI crude oil rose to near $80 per barrel amid renewed tensions in the Strait of Hormuz.

Inflation

• Headline CPI slowed to 3.5% year over year, below expectations of 3.9%.

• Core CPI cooled to 2.6%, below forecasts of 2.9%, with easing price pressures across shelter, food, energy, and transportation.

• Attention now turns to June PPI, with headline producer inflation expected at 6.4% year over year.

Earnings

• Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo all reported results above earnings and revenue expectations, providing a strong start to earnings season.

• S&P 500 earnings are expected to grow approximately 21% year over year, led by energy, technology, and materials.

• Ten of the eleven S&P 500 sectors are currently expected to report year-over-year earnings growth.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Goldman Sachs ($GS) +9% after crushing Q2 estimates as market volatility from the Iran conflict and landmark IPOs including SpaceX and SK Hynix.

• (–) Lucid ($LCID) -16% because a report claimed restructuring firm AlixPartners had presented Lucid’s board with options including a take-private deal or Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

• (–) IBM ($IBM) -25% after a Q2 pre-announcement revealed customers shifting IT spend away from IBM’s software and infrastructure toward AI hardware.

Prediction Markets

• Producer Price Index (PPI) for June comes out today around 8:30am EDT.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• PixVerse, a video-generation startup, raised $439 million

• Chai Discovery, an AI drug discovery company, raised $400 million

• LimX Dynamics, a Chinese humanoid robotics company, raised $200 million

• Contraline, a maker of male contraceptives, raised $92.5 million

• Singularity, a drone countermeasure company, raised $80 million

• State Affairs, an AI platform for regulatory information, raised $70 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Code Red

Description:
A timely examination from Wynton Hall of the geopolitical, technological, and ideological battle surrounding artificial intelligence. The book explores how AI has become a strategic competition involving governments, technology companies, and global superpowers, with a particular focus on the United States and China. Blending politics, national security, and emerging technology, it examines the race to shape the future of AI and the profound consequences for economic leadership, military power, and individual freedom.

Book Length: 304 pages
Release Date: September 9, 2025

Ideal For:
Readers interested in artificial intelligence, geopolitics, national security, and the global competition to shape the future of technology.

The race to lead artificial intelligence is ultimately a race to shape the future of power itself.

DAILY VISUAL

Memory Companies Expected to Report Big Sales Jump

Source: Axios

PRESENTED BY PRIMER

Claude for Excel Only Scored 48% on its Analyst Exam

A leading analyst training firm put the top AI tools through a classic first-year assignment, a fully integrated three-statement model for Apple, and graded them like trainees. ChatGPT scored 43%, Claude managed 48%, and Shortcut topped the field at 50%. All of them failed. Yet, most investors still paste tickers into these chatbots and trust their modeling (and research).

Tier 1 Hedge funds run their work through Primer instead, which took the same test and scored 81%, a full 31 points clear of Shortcut.* Built by former hedge fund investors to help analysts do higher quality, more robust research. Until now, access was reserved for institutions. Today it's open to everyone.

Get your own hedge fund analyst.

DAILY ACUMEN

Winner’s Curse

In any competitive auction, the person who wins is, by definition, the one who was most optimistic about the asset. Which means the winner is usually the participant whose estimate was furthest above everyone else's, and the prize for that optimism is the privilege of overpaying. The very act of winning is evidence that you were probably wrong.

This is why so many acquisitions destroy value and so many bidding wars end badly. The winning bid was not a signal of superior insight. It was a signal that ten sophisticated parties looked at the same thing and you were the one who liked it most, which is a far less flattering description of the same event.

The discipline is to feel a flicker of dread rather than triumph when you win a contested process. Ask what the underbidders saw that you did not. Sometimes you were genuinely right and they were slow. More often, you were simply the most excited person in a room full of people who had done the same math and stopped sooner.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• What separates confident leaders from arrogant ones

• The lost art of leisure 

• The neuroscience of complaining

• How CEOs balance workouts with workloads

• The psychology behind chatbot-fueled delusions

• Build unique workflows for your firm*

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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