Finance Media Podcast by @amitisinvesting & @stevenfiorillo

New York, NY
Joined February 2026
Basis Points retweeted
AMAZON HAS ITS BEST DAY SINCE AUGUST: - Morgan Stanley named Amazon their topic pick, sees 40% upside with a PT to $350 - Amazon announced TorchNeuron, a new software tool designed to make it easier for developers to run existing PyTorch AI workloads on its Trainium2 and Trainium3 chips with minimal code changes, reducing a major barrier to adoption and helping Amazon compete with Nvidia $NVDA, whose CUDA software ecosystem has historically been a key competitive advantage. - AWS projections increased to 47% and 42% YoY growth through 2027-2028 by Morgan Stanley Amazon has underperformed the Nasdaq $QQQ over the past 5 years, with the Nasdaq up 94% and Amazon up 50%. It feels like the consensus view is that 2027 will be the year of Amazon...but that consensus view has also been similar over the past 2 years. If 2027 is the year for Amazon, it would be based on AWS + Trainium inflecting along with inflows in general beginning to rotate from Semis to Mag 7. $AMZN +5%
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The new @basispointpod is up with @amitisinvesting and me. We discuss a wide range of topics and may provide some hints as to who the next guest is. CoreWeave Bond Yields EXPLODE, Anthropic Numbers DISAPPOINT, Fed Hikes A... youtu.be/tYxt-memteA?si=lfkK… via @YouTube
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I just want to say this. On Thursday nights when I am with Amit at the studio I see him actually write these posts. It's really amazing the level of detail in here and how beneficial this single post is. I am writing my weekly dividend article and I wanted a recap of everything that happened in the market and I instantly went to this series of posts.
A TON OF THINGS HAPPENED IN THE STOCK MARKET TODAY. Here's a full recap: 1. OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue was approaching $50B at the end of September, according to the Financial Times, below the roughly $70B figure that had been widely reported last month. The discrepancy reportedly reflects differences in accounting methods, with Anthropic including revenue generated through cloud partners such as AWS and Google Cloud, while OpenAI does not. Investors had attempted to adjust OpenAI’s figures to make them comparable with Anthropic’s, contributing to the higher estimate. The report weighed on AI infrastructure sentiment, with several semiconductor stocks falling roughly 5–7% as investors reassessed near-term AI spending expectations. OpenAI declined to comment. 2. The September FOMC meeting minutes showed that most Federal Reserve officials expect another interest rate hike by year-end, reinforcing the central bank’s higher-for-longer stance. All 19 Fed officials supported the September rate hike, reflecting unanimous concern that inflation remains above target. The minutes also said almost all policymakers believe inflation risks remain tilted to the upside, with several officials warning that the accelerating AI investment boom could increase demand faster than supply, adding to inflationary pressures. 3. Elon Musk said today that he sees an extraordinary long-term future for $SPCX SpaceX, writing: “This will sound super crazy, but I see a path to SpaceX being worth orders of magnitude more than the current Earth economy.” 4. Goldman Sachs upgraded Palantir $PLTR to Buy with a $230 price target, while Barclays initiated coverage with a Buy rating and a $265 price target. Goldman argued that Palantir’s total addressable market is entering another step-function expansion, driven by the rise of sovereign AI, bespoke enterprise AI applications, and the company’s increasing verticalization strategy. The firm also highlighted Palantir’s Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) model as a key competitive advantage, noting that its tight feedback loop between customer deployments and product development has become so refined that Palantir is now able to automate portions of the FDE workflow with AI-powered FDEs. Goldman believes these dynamics further strengthen Palantir’s long-term competitive position as enterprise AI adoption accelerates. 5. Zeta $ZETA unveiled AthenaOS, an enterprise intelligence operating system designed to dynamically organize AI, applications, and workflows around a specific business objective by combining proprietary enterprise knowledge with intelligence from the Zeta Data Cloud. The company also introduced Athena MCP, which allows Athena’s intelligence to plug directly into existing enterprise tools, including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, while preserving enterprise data governance and control. Zeta also launched the Athena Inference Model (AIM), a suite of specialized AI models built with Fireworks using NVIDIA Nemotron, and said it has begun developing a specialized AI chip and supporting data center infrastructure with a leading semiconductor partner through a capital-light approach. AthenaOS is currently in limited internal beta, with a public beta planned later this year and general availability targeted for Q1 2027. 6. Starbucks $SBUX has reportedly explored a potential takeover of Chipotle $CMG in what would rank among the largest restaurant acquisitions ever. A combination could significantly accelerate Chipotle’s international expansion by leveraging Starbucks’ global network of more than 41,000 stores, established licensing partners, and extensive real estate relationships. At the same time, any transaction would face substantial financing, integration, and execution challenges given the size of the deal and the complexity of combining two of the world's largest restaurant brands. 7. The top 10 most active options today by contracts traded were $NVDA with 2.9M contracts, $TSLA with 1.3M contracts, $INTC with 1.2M contracts, $MU with 1.1M contracts, $AAPL with 1.0M contracts, $SPCX with 1.0M contracts, $PLTR with 927K contracts, $AMZN with 635K contracts, $ORCL with 635K contracts, and $IREN with 612K contracts. 8. The U.S. Pentagon has reportedly instructed the military to complete preparations for a potential resumption of major combat operations against Iran, according to Axios. U.S. and Israeli sources told the outlet that renewed operations could occur before the midterm elections, while a White House official said President Trump “has all options available at any time.” The report also said Trump's national security team met at Camp David on Friday to discuss possible scenarios for restarting large-scale military operations. The developments come as the administration continues weighing both military and diplomatic options in its approach toward Iran. 9. Broadcom $AVGO is reportedly seeking more than $50B in financing for OpenAI’s custom AI chip program, according to the Wall Street Journal, with Apollo and Blackstone among the firms approached to participate. The financing could support several gigawatts of custom AI chip capacity, with a transaction targeted before year-end, though discussions remain preliminary and the size could change. OpenAI’s internally developed chip initiative, known as “Nexus,” includes its first two generations, “Jalapeño” and “Serrano,” and builds on the companies’ previously announced plan to deploy 10 GW of custom AI chips using Broadcom’s networking technology between the second half of 2026 and 2029. 10. Bitcoin $BTC fell to around $81,000 down roughly 3% on the day and about 6–8% from the $87,000 highs reached earlier this week, with an intraday low near $80,300. The selloff appears to be a broad risk-off move rather than the result of a single headline, driven by Brent crude above $105, rising inflation concerns, expectations for another Fed rate hike after the September FOMC minutes and comments from Governor Christopher Waller, and a 10-year Treasury yield near 5.3%. Pressure was compounded by roughly $485M in U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF outflows on October 7, approximately $1–1.16B in crypto liquidations, mostly long positions, and blockchain data showing wallets linked to the U.S. government moving about 12,267 BTC from a seized Bitfinex wallet, adding to concerns about potential future supply. Altcoins underperformed Bitcoin throughout the session, consistent with a broader leverage-driven unwind across the crypto market. 11. Since the start of 2025, U.S. nonfarm payrolls have been revised lower in 16 of the last 20 months, removing a cumulative 793,000 jobs from previously reported figures, an average downward revision of roughly 39,650 jobs per month. The latest revisions reduced July and August payrolls by a combined 60,000 jobs, continuing a pattern of consistent downward revisions that has persisted since 2023. If that average revision were applied to the initially reported 29,000 jobs added in September, it would imply a decline of roughly 10,650 jobs instead. That would mark the third monthly contraction in payrolls during 2026, following declines of 156,000 in February and 10,000 in July. 12. SpaceX $SPCX has agreed to acquire Grain Management’s nationwide portfolio of 800 MHz low-band spectrum licenses, a move Elon Musk called “the last critical piece of the spectrum puzzle” needed for Starlink to become a major U.S. mobile carrier. The company plans to combine its satellite network with a terrestrial mobile network, using the newly acquired low-band spectrum alongside Starlink’s existing 2 GHz holdings to improve indoor coverage and expand service into areas with weak or no cellular reception. Separately, the FCC approved a new constellation of 15,000 SpaceX satellites for direct-to-device mobile services, further advancing Starlink’s wireless ambitions. The announcement pressured telecom stocks after hours, with AT&T $T falling 6.75%, Verizon $VZ down 5%, and T-Mobile $TMUS declining 5.4%, as investors weighed the prospect of a new nationwide competitor. The spectrum acquisition remains subject to FCC approval and other customary closing conditions, with financial terms undisclosed. WALL STREET IS THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.
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These guys are truly awesome. I loved doing the interview with them. It’s so great. They were able to get some incredible people from zeta Live to join them as well. LG 🚀🚀🚀 $ZETA
Replying to @amitisinvesting
@amitisinvesting and I took @basispointpod to Zeta Live and the episode just dropped! $ZETA This is a special one for the @ZetaGlobal community and anyone interested in Zeta Global. We had the opportunity to speak with CEO David Steinberg @dsteinberg10000, Palantir’s @edavisVC Elias Davis $PLTR, @DivesTech Dan Ives, and investors who saw something special in Zeta Global from the beginning @Sam_Badawi and @Davis_C15. Thank you to everyone who joined us and the Zeta team for having us at Zeta Live. Basis Points LIVE From Zeta Live: David Steinberg, Dan Ives & More! youtu.be/A5_AWBP2Hko?si=LIz8… via @YouTube
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Basis Points retweeted
Credit where credit is due, I would’ve never thought to ask this had Nick not written about it!
I’m speechless… Q: Is there a pathway into the public sector, for example: Zeta may help the FED… “The answer is yes. We’re already working on that…” – David Steinberg, CEO $ZETA
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Basis Points retweeted
I’m speechless… Q: Is there a pathway into the public sector, for example: Zeta may help the FED… “The answer is yes. We’re already working on that…” – David Steinberg, CEO $ZETA
I believe $ZETA x $PLTR will eventually help the Federal Reserve... In my latest Substack, I explore this concept. Kevin Warsh has recently assembled a new task force. This task force has one goal – identify new data sources and methodologies to arm the FOMC with a better arsenal for improved decisioning. To Warsh's point... - Private industry does it. - The FED has been notoriously late. - Current data-points are laggard or void. Change MUST happen. I believe there is a world where the enriched governmental position $PLTR possesses, historical relationships between Warsh and Karp, and public $PLTR data contract with the FED – open the door for $ZETA's real-time touch point with the American consumer to feed the Ontology. Though this architecture, the FED would privacy compliment, real-time contextual and transactional data on nearly every American adult (240M). Here's my substack! Enjoy the free read: wealthmatica.substack.com/p/… I hope we can look back to this post one day and smile when it becomes a confirmed reality. Tick tock... P.s. it may flag hot for some AI test due to the copy and paste of quotes or citations with context. The thought experiment, research and content are all written by me.
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Replying to @amitisinvesting
@amitisinvesting and I took @basispointpod to Zeta Live and the episode just dropped! $ZETA This is a special one for the @ZetaGlobal community and anyone interested in Zeta Global. We had the opportunity to speak with CEO David Steinberg @dsteinberg10000, Palantir’s @edavisVC Elias Davis $PLTR, @DivesTech Dan Ives, and investors who saw something special in Zeta Global from the beginning @Sam_Badawi and @Davis_C15. Thank you to everyone who joined us and the Zeta team for having us at Zeta Live. Basis Points LIVE From Zeta Live: David Steinberg, Dan Ives & More! youtu.be/A5_AWBP2Hko?si=LIz8… via @YouTube
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Ok, here is my deep dive heading into $PLTR Q3 earnings and why I think it can move higher after smashing through $200 again. Palantir Stock: Too Expensive? Here’s Why I’m Still Bullish And Believe It Can Go Higher youtu.be/fSx-Ho8mi18
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Basis Points retweeted
$PLTR what a journey folks Barclays Initiates coverage with a Buy, $265 PT for Palantir big boys on the street want it to go higher! Dr. Karp, two years ago, said the value would go to chips and ontology. In a world where the market struggles to understand the core offerings from the frontier labs, Palantir emerges as the *actual* winner for delivering real, tangible business outcomes to empower the worker and advance GDP. +100% from the lows this year
"Mounting frustration around the disconnect between increasingly intelligent models and their ability to produce useful real-world results." "Less about winning individual software applications and more about becoming the common data, AI, and deployment layer." "Prioritizing customer depth, not quantity." we’re doing it! $PLTR
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Basis Points retweeted
I cannot believe the week to week improvements in the quality of production @basispointpod brings week in and week out, and this isn’t even their interviews, incredible edits, great backdrop and feel, somehow it feels like I have a 16k screen for how sharp it is… great job @amitisinvesting and @stevenfiorillo …your pod may be the only thing outpacing the improvements in AI!
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The new @basispointpod episode just dropped and the opening is not a bit, @amitisinvesting was basically asleep before he came to life with the opening and we have the footage somewhere.......... Micron CRUSHES Earnings But The Market Doesn't Care, Trump Gets $2T In O... youtu.be/Kr2eris4-50?si=44o_… via @YouTube
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Well, $MU just reminded the market that AI is a memory story too. Their Q4 revenue hit $54.2B which was up 31% QoQ and 379% YoY. The part most people still miss: the GPU logo is not the whole bottleneck. HBM revenue grew faster than the company in Q4. Micron says the vast majority of calendar 2027 HBM bit supply is already spoken for with significant price increases. They are working with $NVDA on custom HBM4E (NVHBM) for next-gen GPUs and NVLink Fusion. Data center SSD revenue was nearly $10B in one quarter. More than 10x Q4 last year. Their Q1 guide backs the tape as they guided for $61.5B ± $1.5B in revenue. Here is the crazy part that I believe the market is overlooking. MU finished their 2026 fiscal year generating $133.2B of revenue and $52.98B in FCF at a 39.77% margin. The analyst community believes that MU could generate $266B of revenue in 2027, $311B in 2028, $326B in 2029 and $530B in 2030. Hypothetically lets say that the thin coverage out to 2030 plays out. That would be $569.97 billion of FCF generated at a 38.77$ margin on 1.43 trillion of revenue. MU is only a $1.24 trillion market cap and that is a tremendous amount of FCF that would be generated. MU trading at 6.6x 2027 expected earnings with this type of firepower for buybacks is insane. I think the market will be forced to rerate MU higher going forward. My plan is continuing to own the names that fund growth from cash flow. For the AI stack that means watching $MU beside $NVDA and $AVGO in addition to the hyper scalers. Memory is not a side bet in Super Intelligence. It is part of the capital stack.
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The @federalreserve just got more reasons to pause. In my view, hiking again now would be a mistake. August core PCE came in at 3.0% YoY versus 3.3% expected. Headline PCE was 3.4% versus 3.7%. Both matched July’s revised annual readings. That gives policymakers a better inflation picture than they expected. There are caveats: some improvement reflects BEA revisions, monthly inflation picked up from July, and inflation remains above the Fed’s 2% target. But the surprise gives the Fed room to be patient. Then came today’s jobs report: • September payrolls increased just 29,000 versus 90,000 expected in Reuters’ poll. • Unemployment edged up to 4.2% from 4.1%. • July and August payroll gains were revised down by a combined 60,000. One report doesn’t settle the outlook. It does raise the bar for arguing that the economy needs another rate hike right now. Q2 GDP was revised up to 2.2% annualized. Underlying private domestic demand grew 4.6%, so there is still real strength in this economy. The question is whether another hike is necessary when hiring is this soft and inflation came in below expectations. The Fed already raised rates on September 16. My concern is that another hike could add pressure to hiring and borrowing before policymakers know whether it is needed. I believe that the Fed should hold rates then watch the next inflation and employment reports.
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Well, $NVDA is pushing into record territory and I think the next chapter could be extraordinary for long-term shareholders. @JensenHuang has built an AI powerhouse which is becoming a major dividend compounder and capital allocator. My model points to approximately $1.78 TRILLION in cumulative free cash flow across FY2027–FY2031. That is the current fiscal year plus the next four. NVIDIA’s fiscal year ends in January, so FY2027 covers mostly calendar 2026. This model therefore captures business conducted largely during calendar 2026–2030. The math starts with approximately $4.245 trillion in combined analyst revenue estimates over those five fiscal years. My TTM baseline is approximately $303 billion in revenue and $127 billion in free cash flow. That is a 41.9% FCF margin. Applying that margin to those revenue estimates produces approximately $1.78 trillion in cumulative FCF. Now look at what that could fund. Management has stated a plan to return at least 50% of free cash flow through dividends and buybacks. At exactly 50%, my model produces approximately $890 BILLION in capital returns. I modeled a $1 annual dividend growing 20% each year, using 24.147 billion shares outstanding. At that share count, a $1 dividend requires $24.147 billion annually. After four 20% increases, the annual dividend reaches $2.0736 per share, an increase of 107.4%. Here is how the annual allocation could look, with half of projected FCF going to shareholders: • FY2027: $1.00 per share; $24.15B in dividends and $61.57B in buybacks. • FY2028: $1.20 per share; $28.98B in dividends and $116.05B in buybacks. • FY2029: $1.44 per share; $34.77B in dividends and $158.87B in buybacks. • FY2030: $1.728 per share; $41.73B in dividends and $188.80B in buybacks. • FY2031: $2.0736 per share; $50.07B in dividends and $184.65B in buybacks. Across the five fiscal years, that is approximately $179.7 BILLION in dividends and $709.9 BILLION in repurchases. The $1 starting dividend is a full year annualized assumption, and I hold the share count constant throughout. If buybacks reduce shares outstanding after employee compensation and other issuance, NVIDIA could fund the same dividend per share with less cash, creating additional room for repurchases. My original $750 billion plus buyback thesis remains achievable within this framework. With the share count held constant, returning approximately 52.3% of modeled FCF would fund $750 billion in buybacks alongside that 20% annual dividend growth. At a 53% payout, repurchases would reach approximately $763.3 billion. NVIDIA is already taking meaningful steps. On September 28, it added $150 billion to its repurchase authorization, bringing the remaining program to $235 billion, which it expects to execute through FY2028. Those are authorized purchases that still need to be completed. The other half of the cash flow is central to my thesis, too. Under the 50% payout scenario, approximately $890 billion of modeled FCF remains before strategic investments and other financing needs. I want Jensen using that financial capacity to build the Berkshire Hathaway of tech. To me, that means turning NVIDIA’s operating cash into valuable ownership stakes across the AI ecosystem while maintaining a strong balance sheet and returning substantial capital to shareholders. The earnings call and Goldman Sachs discussion reinforced why this opportunity interests me. NVIDIA supplies an entire AI computing platform across GPUs, CPUs, networking, systems, and software. Its ecosystem reaches frontier labs, enterprises, sovereign AI, robotics, and regional cloud providers. Selective investments could let NVIDIA participate in the value those businesses create while strengthening the market for its own technology. The discipline matters because investments need attractive returns while buybacks need sensible prices. I believe that NVIDIA will deliver the revenue and cash conversion assumed in this model. Management has already flagged memory cost pressure and lower gross margins ahead. The 41.9% FCF margin and 20% dividend growth are my assumptions, and competition, financing risk, or slower AI spending could change the outcome. But consider the potential combination: a dividend that more than doubles, hundreds of billions in repurchases, and substantial capital to invest across the AI economy. That is why I think NVIDIA could become one of the most compelling dividend compounders of the AI era. I am interested to see what @altcap thinks and if he would agree?
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Replying to @basispointpod
@basispointpod is the BEST finance show out there. Entertaining AF and they know what they are talking about! I almost wish it was on everyday 🤣
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Love @amitisinvesting and really enjoyed doing this interview with him. @PalantirTech + @ZetaGlobal Is 1+1=4 LG 🚀🚀🚀
$PLTR $ZETA Sat down with David Steinberg, CEO of Zeta Global, at Palantir's 11th AIPCon to discuss the company's new partnership with Palantir, how their missions around outcome based incentives aligned, and where the future is headed for Zeta's overall growth. Thank you to @dsteinberg10000 for taking the time!
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Basis Points retweeted
$PLTR $ZETA Sat down with David Steinberg, CEO of Zeta Global, at Palantir's 11th AIPCon to discuss the company's new partnership with Palantir, how their missions around outcome based incentives aligned, and where the future is headed for Zeta's overall growth. Thank you to @dsteinberg10000 for taking the time!
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We’re back with a new episode @basispointpod and I may have lied to @amitisinvesting about something. Listen to find out! The AI Doomers Are BACK, The Fed Sends A MESSAGE, Can The Market Handle ... youtu.be/Y90qNohsn28?is=yOO6… via @YouTube
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Basis Points retweeted
A TON OF THINGS HAPPENED IN THE STOCK MARKET TODAY. Here's a full recap: 1. The Clarity Act $BTC $ETH failed to advance in the Senate on Sept. 15, with the motion to proceed falling short of the 60-vote threshold in a 49–50 vote. The last-minute Sept. 14 rewrite included 126 Democratic-requested changes, covering state AG enforcement of ethics rules, a Treasury “circuit breaker” on stablecoin rewards if banks see deposit flight, and broader developer, miner, and validator safe harbors. The main sticking point was ethics language tied to official crypto holdings. The final text would have required covered officials and spouses to divest certain crypto interests or place them in a qualified blind trust, but critics argued it still left unresolved concerns around presidential crypto ventures. Markets sold the news, with Bitcoin down about 3% and $COIN Coinbase and $CRCL Circle falling roughly 8%-10% after the vote. 2. Elon Musk made several notable comments at the All-In Summit across $SPCX SpaceX, $TSLA Tesla, and AI safety. On Starship, he said the odds of catching the ship on the first try are “at least 50 or 60%,” and that he thinks it is “extremely likely” SpaceX achieves full reusability with rapid reflight in 2027. Asked why Tesla and SpaceX remain separate companies, Musk said, “Great question. Nobody's ever asked that one,” before adding, “Imagine what action one might take when there's so much close collaboration in so many areas.” On AI safety, Musk said the danger of AI is “very significant” and that when people from Anthropic and OpenAI say their models are dangerous, “we should believe them.” He also suggested that major AI competitors should test each other’s models, saying it would be better than companies “grading your own homework.” 3. Grab $GRAB will acquire a controlling 60% stake in Atome Financial for $1.49B in cash, expanding its consumer lending business across Southeast Asia. Atome operates BNPL, cash loans, cards, and digital lending across 5 markets, with a $1B gross loan portfolio and 25M cumulative transacted users. Grab expects the deal to help its Financial Services segment reach $500M in adjusted EBITDA and a $6B+ gross loan portfolio by 2028. The company also raised its 2028 group targets to $1.7B in adjusted EBITDA and 30%+ revenue CAGR from 2025 to 2028. Grab has also agreed to acquire the remaining 40% roughly two years after the first deal closes, with the valuation capped at $4.5B. 4. Global yields are breaking into decades-high territory: U.S. yields are at 2007 levels, UK yields at 1998 levels, Germany and France at 2008 levels, and Japan at 1996 levels. China is the major outlier, with government borrowing costs near record lows. Meanwhile, U.S. diesel prices hit a new record $6.26/gallon, up more than 80% in 9 months, leaving truck drivers paying nearly $3.00/gallon more than they were in January. California gas prices have also pushed above $6.00/gallon, adding another inflation shock as oil supply risks continue to build. 5. Officials from all 27 EU member states are set to meet in Brussels on Thursday to discuss international rules for advanced AI and receive a technical briefing on recent AI incidents, according to POLITICO. The discussions are expected to focus on global coordination through groups including the G7, G20, and United Nations. Europe already regulates advanced AI through its AI Act, with the European Commission beginning enforcement of parts of the law in August and the European AI Board coordinating implementation across member states. EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen has also called for greater international cooperation and regulatory interoperability to prevent fragmented AI rules across countries. 6. Another AI safety researcher has resigned from a frontier lab, this time from $GOOGL Google DeepMind, where he worked on AGI safety and alignment. He said he is “extremely concerned” by the default trajectory of AI and believes the technology “has the potential to kill us all” if current risks are not addressed. He pointed to the pace of progress since 2022, arguing that frontier systems have moved from being “amusingly useless” to agent swarms solving major math problems and allegedly escaping control in the Hugging Face incident. His core concern is that superintelligent systems could emerge within the next few years before alignment is solved, with capabilities advancing faster than researchers’ ability to ensure these systems actually do what humans want. He called for more coordination between AI companies, a slower pace of development, greater transparency into frontier labs, and more people working on catastrophic AI-risk mitigation. 7. The top 10 most active options today by contracts traded were $NVDA with 1.5M contracts, $TSLA with 1.5M contracts, $META with 868K contracts, $SPCX with 845K contracts, $AMZN with 710K contracts, $AAPL with 700K contracts, $INTC with 520K contracts, $MU with 512K contracts, $AMD with 387K contracts, and $PLTR with 361K contracts. 8. Saudi Arabia suspended oil loadings at Yanbu, its main Red Sea export port, after attacks on the East-West pipeline, according to Reuters. Yanbu typically exports up to 5M barrels/day, making the disruption another major pressure point for an already tight energy market. 9. OpenAI has held early talks with investors about a new private funding round that could value the company at roughly $1.2T, up from $852B in March, according to the Financial Times. The discussions were reportedly initiated by investors and remain at an early stage. OpenAI’s annualized revenue passed $40B last month after jumping about 20% following GPT-5.6, while Sam Altman has said an IPO is unlikely before 2027. The company raised $122B in March and spent $34B last year, underscoring both the scale of demand and the massive capital intensity behind the AI buildout. 10. Meta $META CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he does not think the AI industry needs a coordinated pause. His view is that each lab should slow down on its own when safety requires it, and that alignment will increasingly become a competitive advantage because people will not use AI agents they cannot trust. Meta already delayed Muse for several months to address safety and security issues without asking other labs to pause with it. Zuckerberg also said Meta has committed the significant majority of its compute to serving users rather than racing toward recursive AI self-improvement. 11. Long-term unemployment in the U.S. continued to rise in August, with the number of Americans unemployed for 27+ weeks jumping by 155,000 to 1.93M, the 4th-highest reading since December 2021. As a share of total unemployment, long-term unemployment rose 1.5 percentage points to 27.0%, the 3rd-highest level since December 2021. The metric has now been climbing for more than 3 years and is higher than in every recession except the 2008 Financial Crisis and the 2020 Pandemic. For context, this cycle’s low was 17.8% in February 2023. 12. Tomorrow will be one of the most important FOMC descisions all year. Kevin Warsh was asked in July 2025 whether his push for Fed rate cuts was influenced by the president who might appoint him to lead the central bank. His response: “There's a time for a bird to change his feathers, and it's with the times. It has nothing to do with this president.” Fast forward to today, and Wall Street has largely shifted toward expecting a Fed hike this week, driven by Warsh’s read on the economy and the way the macro backdrop has changed since he took over in May. The biggest shift has come from the Iran War, rising inflation pressure, and the AI investment boom. As of today, nearly every major bank on the Fed call sheet expects a September hike, with most looking for 50 bps, while Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and RBC expect 75 bps. Central bank watchers now expect not just one hike this week, but potentially another before year-end. WALL STREET IS THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.
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