Snapshots That Wow!

IBankers going back to 40hour work week?

“Global M&A monthly deal count just dropped below 1,250 for the first time on record.

This is even lower than during the 2020 pandemic and the 2008 Financial Crisis. Tariff and geopolitical uncertainty seems to have stalled companies in their boots.”

Source: Kobeissi Letter

Elon Musk pulls a Nayak?

“*If* this drop is real and sustained, then it is super important and suggests that DOGE was actually quite successful at reducing entitlement fraud and waste.”

Perhaps a leaf was taken from Anil Kapoor’s character’s playbook in Nayak.

Source: Zerohedge

Rise of city states!

Are we in the Renaissance era again?!

Capital is moving to Dubai, Singapore, and Australia. Talent will follow. Surprising to note a significant millionaire outflow from the UK!

Source: Balaji S

Top heavy equities!

“The top 1% now own 51% of all stocks held by US households.

This has increased by 8 percentage points over the last 35 years.

The next 9% own 36%, meaning the top 10% of households own 87% of household equities.By comparison, the remaining 90% own just 13%, down from 20% in the 1990s.”

Source: Kobeissi Letter

ICE sales have cooled off long back

ICE vehicles have been struggling for over 8 years now. Barring a meager 4% increase following a double digit decline year in 2022, global ICE sales have been posting declining sales since 2018.

Source: ARKK 2025 Big Ideas

AI feeds off of Humans

What makes Reddit a great source to train AI models is the pursuit to remain distinctly human.

A big chunk of Reddit’s incremental revenue comes from large language models wanting to be trained on its content. For that to sustain, Reddit must remain relentless in its pursuit of keeping its content ‘distinctly human.’

Source: FT