Listen to Vital Dawn on Spotify for Creators open.spotify.com/episode/0QM…

What was framed as a debate on whether AI is a bubble instead turned out to be an argument about how big the bubble is. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…

Who had it on their bingo card that CoreWeave was the catalyst that (potentially) prompted Trump to end the Iran war?

The US budget deficit for Sept was “only” $26.9B, a sig. improvement from the last several months ($166.7B in Aug, $432B in Jul, $120B in June, $292B in and May) but way down from the $197B surplusin Sept of F25.

Listen to Vital Dawn on Spotify for Creators open.spotify.com/episode/6j0…

Investors temper Anthropic IPO valuation expectations over revenue growth slowdown, sources say - reuters.com/business/finance…

Looking at Schwab margin debt linearity, it was $169.9B as of the end of Jul, $177.6B as of the end of Aug, and $187.9B as of the end of Sept (the Sept margin debt number was up 93% Y/Y).

Listen to Vital Dawn on Spotify for Creators open.spotify.com/episode/2ta…

AI update: thoughts on the Anthropic numbers and what it means for the industry vitalknowledge.net/article/2…

"Higher oil prices permeated all District reports. Firms reported elevated diesel prices and noted that fuel surcharges were passing on increased costs throughout the supply chain. Contacts in multiple Districts also noted continued price pressure from other commodities, tariffs, and insurance" - Oct Beige Book

Listen to Vital Dawn on Spotify for Creators open.spotify.com/episode/4la…

$META There were rumblings in the media back in the June timeframe about Meta selling a large slug of stock to bolster its balance sheet and with the stock up meaningfully from where it was back then (thanks to Muse and Muse Wonder/Wonder Full), one wonders whether the company won't revisit those plans (the Street is modeling ~$200B of capex in 2027, an astounding 65% of projected revenue). The mega cap earnings season is more disjointed than usual this time around - META kicks things off on 10/21 w/MSFT and GOOGL the following week and AAPL not until Nov.

"Houthis are behaving very badly" - Trump

43% of Americans said they support the idea of establishing a "Medicare for All" program to provide government-run health insurance to all, largely replacing private health insurance. 24% oppose the idea and 32% say they aren't sure - Axios

These headlines also help shed light on why AI is trading poorly (its not because of a memory breakthrough in China or Hock's "casino" comment) "Frenzied Stock-Options Trading Shows Individual Investors Are Still Hungry for Risk" - WSJ "BofA Poll Shows Investors Most Exposed to Tech Stocks Since 2020" - Bloomberg

Listen to Vital Dawn on Spotify for Creators open.spotify.com/episode/2xb…

It's headlines like these that are causing AI to trade poorly (not Hock Tan's "casino" remark). Capital markets issuance is critical for the sector's spending outlook. If debt/equity sales slow, it will negatively impact capex. "Blackstone-Backed Hyperscale Data-Center Operator Delays Singapore IPO" - WSJ "AI borrowing slows as investors grow wary of debt binge" - FT

$META Zuckerberg and Wang conducted a long interview on Collison's Cheeky Pints podcast discussing Muse and the new Wonder/Wonder Full models. Zuckerberg revealed that his Muse agent was shopping Instacart on his behalf for baking supplies and realized he was under the limit to get free delivery so unprompted put a watermelon in the cart to commemorate the launch of Wonder (which was code named Watermelon inside the company). The agent knew Watermelon was launching today and wanted to commemorate the occasion.

AI update: Anthropic/OpenAI questions weigh on the space vitalknowledge.net/article/2…

AI borrowing slows as investors grow wary of debt binge ft.com/content/9c13d40e-d2b2…