"Sri Lanka steps up disaster preparedness over El Niño concerns"

From the Indian sub-continent east to the Philippines and southeast to Australia is the area of potential concern for agriculture. 

From IRI/Columbia via climate.gov:

 

And from Azerbaijan's News.az, July 1:

Sri Lanka will strengthen disaster preparedness measures in the agriculture, drinking water supply and energy sectors as the country evaluates the potential impact of the El Nino climate pattern, the President's Media Division said on Tuesday, News.Az reports, citing Xinhua.

The decision was made during a meeting of the National Council for Disaster Management held at the Presidential Secretariat under the chairmanship of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

According to the President's Media Division, Dissanayake paid particular attention to the possible effects of El Nino and asked officials to explain the extent to which current forecasts were based on available data and how they compared with previous projections....

....MUCH MORE 

And from NASA, potential ag impacts (keeping in mind that every El Niño is different):

 

Dallas Fed: "The Impacts of Unauthorized Immigration on U.S. Labor and Housing Markets: New Evidence from Administrative Microdata"

I think most observers understood what was happening, even if they didn't have this level of granularity.

From the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, a working paper, March 6, 2026:

Abstract
From early 2021 to early 2024, the U.S. experienced an unprecedented boom in unauthorized immigration, followed by a rapid slowdown beginning in mid-2024. We provide the first systematic empirical assessment of the labor- and housing-market effects of this episode. Using newly available administrative microdata on individual immigrants, we construct measures of net unauthorized immigration at the national and local levels and exploit plausibly exogenous variation across local markets. We find that unauthorized immigrant worker flows (UIWF) increased local employment approximately one-for-one, without significant declines in local wages. These inflows also raised local house prices and rents without expanding housing supply, consistent with a housing demand shock in the face of short-run inelastic supply. Lastly, we find that UIWF reduced labor income per capita, consistent with downward wage composition of the local workforce, and strongly reduced government transfers. These findings should help inform policy debates surrounding how unauthorized immigrant labor supply impacts local labor and housing markets as well as public finances....

....MUCH MORE, (65 page PDF)

Capital Markets: "US Dollar Firm Ahead of ECB Conference and Fed Chair Warsh"

From Marc to Market:

The US dollar is bid and pushing against some resistance levels ahead of flurry of central bank talk at the ECB conference in Sintra, which includes the new Federal Reserve Chair Warsh. The talks are set to begin around 9:00 AM ET. Given his reluctance to provide forward guidance at his first press conference last month, it seems unreasonable to expect more today. Still, due to Friday’s holiday, June US nonfarm payrolls will be reported tomorrow and the median forecast of 110-115k would be consistent with a recovery from last year’s average of about 10k. 

Meanwhile, August WTI and September Brent have made marginal new lows since March today, but benchmark 10-year yields are firmer. Although the offshore yuan is consolidating with a softer bias, the PBOC set the dollar’s reference rate at a new four-year low today. The greenback has extended its gains to new 40-year highs against the yen, while Japanese officials tout their preparedness to act and the close communications with the US. Still, intervention ahead of the US employment report seems minimal....

....MUCH MORE 

Physical AI: Norway's Aker Sells Cognite To France's Schneider Electric For $3.1 Billion

From Bloomberg, June 30/July 1:

Schneider to Buy Industrial AI Firm Cognite for $3.1 Billion 

Schneider Electric SE agreed to buy Cognite in a $3.1 billion all-cash deal to expand its industrial data and AI software operations.

Schneider will acquire all of privately held Cognite’s share capital from Norway’s Aker ASA and other investors, according to a Schneider Electr: Schneider Electric announces agreement to acquire Cognite. The French maker of energy-management equipment plans to combine Cognite with Aveva, its own industrial software business.

“We’ve been after it for many years, because it complements us so well,” Caspar Herzberg, who heads Aveva, said Wednesday on a call with analysts.

Schneider’s move comes as European manufacturers increasingly implement AI across their factories to improve efficiency and streamline processes. Rivals like Siemens AG are also pushing further into automation and artificial intelligence for the shop floor.

Read more: AI for Industry Is Europe’s Hope to Salvage Manufacturing Edge

While the price of the deal “raises questions,” it fits Schneider’s overall strategy, said Bernstein analyst Alasdair Leslie.

Schneider shares declined as much as 1.8% in Paris. The stock is still up over a quarter in the last year as investors bet on firms that produce the infrastructure around the AI boom. Schneider is increasingly providing energy and cooling services to data centers, which in turn provide the computing power and data storage necessary for the AI buildout.

The company is France’s fourth largest by value, with a market capitalization of about €165 billion ($188 billion).

Aker, an industrial investment company that helped establish Cognite in 2017 and scale up the firm, estimates its cash proceeds from the transaction, including the settlement of an outstanding convertible loan, will amount to about $1.48 billion.

....MORE 

Alphabet President And Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat Talks AI (GOOG)

I would have to assume she sees some interesting deals.

From Puck, June 21: 

Ruth or Dare
Alphabet president and chief investment officer Ruth Porat has a cogent and forceful argument for all those A.I. doomers out there—starting with a productivity revolution that she believes will add trillions to the U.S. economy. 

Last week at the Economic Club of New York, Ruth Porat, the president of Alphabet/Google, joined IBM C.E.O. Arvind Krishna to make the bull case for A.I.—and to swat away the concerns voiced by the technology’s growing ranks of critics. As you may have noticed recently, esteemed techworld commencement speakers—Eric Schmidt, Gloria Caulfield, and Scott Borchetta—have been practically booed off the stage when they bring up A.I. (Porat’s boss at Alphabet, Sundar Pichai, artfully minimized the topic during his address at Stanford, though some students walked out anyway.) And no wonder: As Gene Sperling, the former director of the National Economic Council, argued this week in the Financial Times, “A.I. enthusiasts need to lose the delusion that if working families could only comprehend the productivity gains, consumer conveniences, and potential medical breakthroughs that the technology may bring, they would get over their fear of losing their standard of living, meaningful work, and hopes for their children’s economic future. They won’t.”

Of course, no one booed Porat at the Economic Club. While A.I. might pulverize Gen Z job prospects, this crowd had already made its money and Wall Street’s frenzy over A.I. hasn’t exactly done their portfolios any harm—at least not yet. Yes, those data centers hoovering up enormous amounts of power might be an environmental problem, but Porat addressed those worries head on. As a former Morgan Stanley banker, and once the firm’s C.F.O., Porat has become one of the most revered business executives during her 11 years at Google/Alphabet. At the Economic Club, she began by ticking off ways that A.I. would lead to “profound” benefits for society. She argued that the technology could add roughly $4 trillion to the U.S. GDP—about a 10 percent increase—over the next several years. Krishna noted that growth on that scale could mark the difference between a sluggish economy and what he called “a breakaway” economy. (Notably, Alphabet just raised a fresh $85 billion in equity capital to continue its own massive A.I. buildout.)

Porat then turned to A.I.’s implications for science, citing the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry shared by her Google DeepMind colleagues Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for using A.I. to predict the 3D structure of proteins based on their genetic sequences. “It has been described as one of the greatest contributions to drug discovery in our lifetime,” Porat said. Previously, she noted, a Ph.D. student might spend four years diagramming a single protein—and there are roughly 200 million proteins. Hassabis’s response to that challenge was simple. “‘Why not?’” she recalled him saying. “If there’s one thing I would want to leave anybody with—that I quote a lot at Google—it’s that with A.I., the question ‘Why not?’ is something we should each be asking ourselves about anything that to date has been intractable. Because it lets you break through it.”

Porat went on to cite A.I.’s potential benefits for cybersecurity, healthcare, education, and food security. “We were talking about a whole host of really important social issues that we can now address as a result of A.I.,” she said.  Krishna then brought up what many in the room were likely thinking about—“some of the downsides of A.I.,” he said, particularly the spiraling cost of energy from new data centers. That turned out to be a softball for Porat. “We can’t have the upside of A.I. without the energy to power it,” she said, arguing that with so much upside, “we can responsibly protect” the downside. “When I was in New York as a banker, one of the core things we all learned is if you really want to address a risk issue, you have to go at the root cause of the risk issue.”

The real root cause, she said, was decades of underinvestment in energy infrastructure. “It’s caught up with us,” she said, adding that data centers currently use about 4 percent of the energy grid and are on their way to using around 12 percent. Yet she cited a study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that suggested, counterintuitively, that electricity prices have actually risen more slowly in states with data centers than states without them. “Data centers through 2024 have actually helped keep electricity prices growing at a slower rate,” she said....

....MUCH MORE 

"It turns out, slop has a shape. And it’s the reason why AI generated writing sounds the way it does."

From The Digital Contrarian substack, June 16:

The Shape of Enshittification.
The Shape of Enshittification: Books That No Longer Get Read, An Internet That No Longer Gets Surfed, & The End of Social Media As We Know It... 

 

It turns out, slop has a shape.

And it’s the reason why AI generated writing sounds the way it does.

In a new study, a team of researchers at the University of Maryland and Google DeepMind ran an experiment.

They took 10,272 writing prompts and gave each one to a human author and to five AI models: Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Kimi.

They generated 61,608 stories, at around 5,000 words each.

Then, they looked at the underlying structure of each story: how the plot progresses, where the tension and conflict is placed, etc. etc.

And from that structure, they could identify a human-written story from AI-generated slop nearly 93% of the time.

 

What you’re seeing here in that image is the shape of AI Slop vs. Human Writing.

And there are five distinct ways that the shape of human writing is decidedly different from the so-called slop generated by today’s AI models:

1. AI over-explains its themes. (instead of letting readers infer)

2. Human writing is less linear. (more time-jumps and flashbacks.)

3. AI relies on bodily metaphors to explain emotion (81% vs. 38% human)

4. Humans reference specific texts, brands, places (nearly 2x the AI rate)

5. AI narrative is less diverse (fewer subplots and scenes, less dialogue)

And it’s the onslaught of AI writing that’s at least is partially responsible for….

---

2 | Why Nothing Feels Real Anymore.....

....MUCH MORE 

Also at The Digital Contrarian: 

How to Go Viral on Substack (In 2026)
How to Go Viral in Substack: Hacking the Zeitgeist with Human Created Content & Coming Up With the Holy Grail of Hooks... 

"Iran Wants Complete Control Of Hormuz For 30 Days, Warns Against Foreign Intervention" (but what about Oman?)

From Marine Insight, June 29:

Iran said on Sunday that it will have sole control over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz for the next 30 days, warning that any attempt by other countries to intervene could increase tensions and delay the full reopening of the strategic waterway.

Speaking in Baghdad during a visit to Iraq, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the Strait of Hormuz would remain under Iran’s “total oversight and management” over the next month while efforts continue to remove the remaining obstacles affecting maritime traffic.

“The Strait of Hormuz remains under the total oversight and management of Iran through the 30 coming days, and after all obstacles are removed, the total capacity of the waterway will be restored. This is what we are working on,” Araghchi said.

He added that Iran alone is responsible for managing the strait. “There is no other party or state in this respect,” he said....

....MUCH MORE 

It's only for 30 days.

To bend the curve.

Yeah, that's the ticket. Just thirty days to bend the curve.

Alternative metaphor: On the Arab side of the Strait there is another fable, about the camel's nose under the tent...

"The Statistics of Coin Tosses for Theater Geeks"

A repost from April 2017.

From JSTOR Daily:

Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads, again.

Tom Stoppard’s classic play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead opens with two Elizabethan players, some well-stocked prop moneybags, and the flip of a coin that lands as heads. Again. And again. And again.

In Stoppard’s scene, the bit actors Rosencrantz and Guildenstern kill time during a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet by betting on coin tosses. Guildenstern flips a florin and Rosencrantz predicts that it will land as heads. It does. Guildenstern spins another coin and it lands as heads again. After Rosencrantz has successfully bet heads 77 times in a row, Guildenstern proclaims that, “A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith, if in nothing else at least in the law of probability.” He ends up flipping heads 92 times in a row. Forsooth, what are the odds?

The likelihood of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s scenario actually happening is 1 in 5 octillion, a probability so small that it is practically impossible to imagine. According to NOAA’s website, it is more likely that a person in the United States will be struck by lightning four times in one year than repeat the results of Guildenstern’s coin tossing. The 92 heads in a row is, however, more likely to happen than randomly shuffling a deck of cards and discovering that they appear sorted.

More interesting than sussing out precise odds, however, are the premises of the scene. What makes it so absurd? What do we “know” about the probable outcome of tossing a coin that lets us “get” Stoppard’s joke? We know that the odds of a coin toss ought to be a 50/50, split between heads and tails, so surely there must be something wrong with the universe—something unfair?—for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s scenario to play out.

The Mystique of the Biased Coin
The toss of the coin functions as cultural shorthand. A flipped coin is assumed to be an unbiased way to pick between two possible outcomes, since both parties involved in the toss have an equal chance of winning.

So long as the coin is a fair coin, that is. A fair coin is one where either side of the disk has an equal chance of turning up, according to the probabilities worked out by the seventeenth-century Swiss mathematician Jakob Bernoulli. It means that one side can’t be favored, whether it’s inadvertent (say, the manufacture of the coin adds weight to one side, favoring a flip to one side over the other) or intentional (a two-headed coin). When an unfair coin is tossed, it conveys an unfair manipulation of the world to shift the odds in someone’s favor.

In other words, Guildenstern and other flippers of coins have a profound faith that odds of a coin toss are split 50/50, between heads and tails. Part of what makes Stoppard’s scene so compelling is that it plays to the audience’s skepticism that someone could win 92 tosses in a row by betting heads. Sure, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s epic coin tossing demonstrates that such a thing is possible, we tell ourselves—it’s just not very probable.

A Short History of Coin Flips 

Roman coin depicts the head of Emperor Caracalla (via Wikimedia Commons)

Tossing a coin to decide an outcome is nothing new. Since the Roman Empire and throughout the Middle Ages of Europe, a coin toss has offered a way to decide between two alternatives. Known as “heads or ships,” in reference to the images that appeared on the Roman sestertii, the coin toss was a children’s game of chance as well as a gambling game among the patrician elite. Legend has it that Julius Caesar would settle legal disputes with a coin toss.

A medieval variant called “cross and pile” was a favored game for children (and even young apprentices) during the Middle Ages. In the late thirteenth-century, King Edward II’s own exchequer records the royal losses of “cross and pile” when the king played against domestic servants.

In more recent eras, the coin became linked to probability, statistics, and mathematical modeling. In the eighteenth century, for example, famed mathematician and naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon, tossed a coin 4,040 times, which resulted in 2,048 heads, or very close to half the throws. (The relative frequency was ~.5069.) In the early twentieth century, the English mathematician Karl Pearson tossed a coin 24,000 times, with 12,012 of the throws coming up heads. (The relative frequency of Pearson’s experiment was ~.5005, even closer to the 50/50 odds we associate with a fair coin. Following such demonstrations, the coin became, in essence, the smallest random number generator available....MUCH MORE

Previously:
Think a coin toss has a 50-50 chance? Think again.
Gamblers Take Note: The Odds in a Coin Flip Aren't Quite 50/50

"Adani Targets 10 GW Nuclear Power Capacity in India by 2035"

In the U.S. the average nuclear power plant is ~1 gigawatt. They are thinking big.

From OilPrice, June 24:

Adani Group, the conglomerate of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, could become India’s biggest private nuclear power capacity developer within a decade, targeting 10 gigawatts (GW) by 2035, as India opened its civil nuclear power sector to private investment. 

“Our entry into nuclear energy through Adani Atomic Energy is another confident step towards securing India's long-term energy future,” Gautam Adani said at the annual general meeting of Adani Group on Wednesday. 

“With land identified and a 10 GW targeted capacity by 2035, we are positioning ourselves early to serve the growing national demand for clean, round-the-clock power,” the billionaire said. 

A panel set up by India’s power ministry has said in a report that India’s goal to boost its installed nuclear power capacity to 100 gigawatts by 2047, up from just 8.8 GW now, would require as much as 19.28 trillion Indian rupees, or $204 billion at current exchange rates, of cumulative capital....

....MUCH MORE 

Capital Markets: "Yen Drops to 40-Year Lows and Drags Others Down"

From Marc Chandler at Bannockburn Global Forex:

The yen has been pushed to its lowest level in 40 years, and this appears to have helped drag most of the other major currencies lower against the dollar today amid month-end and quarter-end considerations. Japanese officials did not appear to have stepped up their verbal defense of the yen and the market pressed ahead. The dollar has traded as high as JPY162.40, while $1.9 bln options at JPY162.50 expire today. The euro has been sold through $1.14, where options for 3.9 bln euros expire today.

Expectations for a firm US jobs report on Thursday (110k-115k increase in nonfarm payrolls) and bargain hunters emerging after a five-day drop in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq may be helping the greenback. The Supreme Court ruling that Federal Reserve Governor Cook can retain her post while she challenges her dismissal by the president seemed to minimize a tail risk. Chair Warsh speaks alongside other central bankers tomorrow at the ECB gathering in Sintra....

....MUCH MORE 

"One of Ukraine's richest men and his family 'are blown up in Monaco': Billionaire 'fights for life, his wife loses both FEET and teen son hurt' as shrapnel-filled backpack bomb explodes in luxury apartment block"

Bombing and Monaco are not words you expect to see in close proximity.

Plus, it appears the bomb was the nastiest type of anti-personnel weapon.

From the Daily Mail, June 30:  

One of Ukraine's richest men is said to be fighting for his life after a shrapnel-filled backpack bomb exploded at a luxury apartment in Monaco. 

Vadim Ermolaev, also known as Vadym Yermolaiev, sustained life-threatening injuries when he was 'targeted' around 9pm on Monday night. 

A second victim, described as a woman in her 50s or 60s, is thought to be Ermolaev's wife Anna. Witnesses say she had 'her feet missing', and was 'slumped over, covered in blood' following the blast.

A 13-year-old thought to be one of the couple's four children suffered less severe injuries, and the three victims were taken to hospital in Nice. 

Grim photos from the scene show the blood-splattered entry of the Sun's Palace apartment block on Rue Révérend Père Louis Frolla, near the French border. 

An attacker is said to have planted a backpack full of nuts and bolts not long before the explosion. 

In the hours after the blast, police were still searching for the suspect, who allegedly fled on foot to Beausoleil, France. They are yet to confirm any arrests....

....MUCH MORE 

The only comparable shock from the principality (besides Princess Grace's death) that comes to mind was the demise of Edmond Safra:

"Death in Monaco" 

....We've mentioned the disposition of Lilly and Edmond's home a few times:

Mr. Safra's Belle Epoque Monaco Penthouse was flipped by the Candy Bros. for an amount variously reported as $305-$323 Million

"UN to provide 10,000 body bags to Venezuela after quakes"

From AFP via Toronto's CP24:

The United Nations, fearing more deaths from twin earthquakes in Venezuela, said Monday it will provide 10,000 body bags to the country -- though it hopes the eventual toll will not be that high.

Back-to-back quakes last week flattened entire neighborhoods in the coastal state of La Guaira, killing more than 1,700 people and leaving tens of thousands missing.

Gianluca Rampolla del Tindaro, UN coordinator for Venezuela, declined to speculate beyond official figures, but said “we are definitely looking at a number that is higher than the one already reported.”

“I can give you a proxy indicator. We are procuring, and this is something that has been agreed with the authorities here, 10,000 body bags,” Rampolla del Tindaro told a virtual news conference....

....MORE

There are still over 50,000 people being reported as missing or unaccounted for. 

Shipping: "A.P. Moller-Maersk has sharply upgraded its financial guidance for 2026"

From gCaptain, June 29:

Maersk Raises 2026 Earnings Outlook as Container Market Strength Continues

A.P. Moller-Maersk has sharply upgraded its financial guidance for 2026, citing stronger-than-expected demand in the global container shipping market and a sustained rise in spot freight rates, particularly on trades out of the Far East.

The Danish shipping giant now expects underlying EBITDA of $8 billion to $10 billion for the year, up from its previous forecast of $4.5 billion to $7 billion. Underlying EBIT is now projected at $2 billion to $4 billion, compared with prior guidance ranging from a $1.5 billion loss to a $1 billion profit.

Maersk also improved its free cash flow outlook, saying it now expects free cash flow of at least negative $1.5 billion, versus its previous guidance of at least negative $3 billion....

....MUCH MORE

Wow. 

Here's the company, June 29:

https://investor.maersk.com/news-releases/news-release-details/upgrade-guidance-full-year-2026 

"'One-time opportunity': South Korea bets big on AI boom"

From Agence France-Presse via France 24, June 29:

Seoul announced huge private-public investments on Monday totalling nearly $1.2 trillion -- equivalent to more than two-thirds of South Korea's GDP -- for new semiconductor factories and AI data centres.

AFP looks at what has driven South Korea's boom, and where it could be heading:

Sky-high profits
Three companies dominate the global market for producing advanced memory chips that help power AI systems: US giant Micron, and South Korea's Samsung Electronics and SK hynix.

These chips, called high-bandwidth memory (HBM), are used in AI processors alongside the powerful silicon known as GPUs that are made by the likes of California's Nvidia, the world's most valuable company.

Their profits and share prices have soared to dizzying heights as governments and tech companies plough hundreds of billions of dollars into training and running AI tools.

"AI has not only provided big demand, it has also created shortages, and that has driven price escalation," Jim Handy, semiconductor expert at Objective Analysis, told AFP.

Soaring prices for memory and storage chips are being passed on to consumers, with Apple hiking the cost of MacBooks and iPads this month.

The boom has also fuelled worker demands over pay packages, with Samsung averting a major strike in May by agreeing a deal on bonuses with its largest union.

Chinese competition
South Korea has pledged to triple spending on AI this year, aiming to join the United States and China as one of the world's top AI powers.

With China in particular racing to develop its tech industry, Seoul sees the boom period as a "one-time opportunity" to close the gap, said Lian Jye Su, a chief analyst at Omdia....

....MUCH MORE 

Fun Fact: Mag 7 Stocks Were Responsible For 24% Of All Stock Market Wealth Creation Since 1926 (Apple and Nvidia alone equal 10+%)

The numbers are through December 31, 2025 so with MSFT in a bear market, GOOG getting hit by recent AI researcher defections, AMZN and NVDA being down over 10% this year, all while the S&P 500 trades just under new highs, the percentage of all wealth creation has shifted (slightly) away from the Magnificent 7. But not all that much. 

Past performance is no guarantee...your mileage may vary...close cover before striking...etc.

From the New York Times, June 26:

Best Investments Over the Last 100 Years? Almost All Are Tech Companies.
What’s most surprising is that Tesla and SpaceX have entered that elite group. A vast majority of companies weren’t worth owning, a long-running study shows. 

When you step back and look at the stock market over the last 100 years, what you will find is that a tiny group of publicly traded companies has accounted for nearly all of the profits for investors over the entire century.

Most of the top performers are tech companies, headed by Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft. What’s startling is that both Tesla and, if only briefly, SpaceX, two of Elon Musk’s companies, have muscled their way onto that list of superb performers.

While these elite stocks churned out spectacular returns, more than 96 percent of the stock market did virtually nothing for investors over long periods. This vast majority of stocks couldn’t even match the 3.3 percent average return of one-month Treasury bills — basically, the return you could get month-by-month over those 100 years, without taking any appreciable risk.

These findings come from the latest update to a long-running study by Hendrik Bessembinder, a finance professor at Arizona State University who has provided a trove of essential and provocative data about stock market investing. The study has aimed to ferret out long-term wealth creators since 1926, when the data available to Professor Bessembinder begins. The rise of the tech giants, and the relative decline of every other sector of the market, has radically changed the rankings over the last decade, and over shorter periods as well.

For example, Tesla didn’t make the list of top wealth creators nine years ago, when an earlier version of the study ended. The firm now ranks ninth among all publicly traded companies over the century. Even more striking, when Professor Bessembinder ran the numbers at my request on June 16, a few days after SpaceX’s initial public offering, the company made the top 30 all-time list, though its falling share price has since moved it out of that rarefied world.

“We’ve had very high returns for extraordinarily large firms in recent years, and the first few days of SpaceX as a public company were a case study of that,” he said. “To me, the most striking thing over the last nine years is that not only is wealth creation highly concentrated in just a few companies, but that the trend has been accelerating.”

The Implications
Back in 2017, I wrote about the first version of Professor Bessembinder’s work on investing. It showed then that the obstacles facing individual stock pickers were formidable. Most companies’ shares failed to outperform basic Treasury bills. A small proportion of great performers buoyed the entire market, but knowing in advance which stocks would be the winners was a difficult feat.

So I concluded that for a great majority of investors, it was much less risky to avoid stock picking entirely and instead invest with diversified low-cost mutual funds, particularly index funds mirroring the entire market.

But Professor Bessembinder’s findings also made it clear that there were vast riches to be made for those skilled or lucky enough to make the right choices: If you picked the very best performers, and avoided most losers, you would do extraordinarily well.

Those two insights remain true today, and perhaps even more so. I still think most people will be better off buying a small part of the entire stock market, a practice that I continue to follow myself. But the potential for gaining enormous wealth tempts millions of investors who scoop up shares of hot individual stocks like SpaceX. You will have to decide what’s best for you.

Defining Terms
In the first study, Exxon Mobil was the top performer from 1926 through 2016, followed by Apple, Microsoft, General Electric, IBM, Altria Group, Johnson & Johnson, General Motors and Walmart. That list depicted a diverse mosaic of the economy, with old companies dominating, aside from two upstarts, Apple and Microsoft, which had I.P.O.s in the 1980s.

Now Professor Bessembinder has 100 years of data, with returns from 1926 through December.

Just to put the SpaceX I.P.O. in perspective, he has updated the returns, applying the same methods he has used for all publicly traded stocks tracked over the last century. His approach accounts for stock dividends and buyouts, and the comparison with Treasury bills includes an inflation adjustment.

“Lifetime wealth creation,” as Professor Bessembinder defines it, is connected not just to share performance but also to a company’s total market valuation. This means that an increase of 10 percent in the share price for a giant has a far greater effect on total wealth creation than a 10 percent increase by a company with a small value in the market.

That’s important because tech companies have become giants, including SpaceX, which has been publicly traded only since June 12 but has a market capitalization of more than $2 trillion. When tech shares make big moves, 100 years of market returns need realignment.

An Entire Century
The economy has changed in the nine years since the first study. More than ever before, the pack of leaders is dominated by tech stocks, with only two traditional companies, Exxon Mobil and Walmart, remaining in the top 10 for the entire century.

Here are the leaders from 1926 through December, including their lifetime wealth creation and the percentage of the $91 trillion in total stock market wealth for which each was responsible...

....MUCH MORE 

Here's Professor Bessembinder's latest paper at the Social Science Research Network:

One Hundred Years in the U.S. Stock Markets 

Abstract 
This study summarizes investment outcomes for 29,754 common stocks listed on the public U.S. stock markets over the 100-year period from 1926 to 2025, reporting on both compound (buy-and-hold) percentage returns and shareholder wealth enhancement measured in dollars. While the cross-stock mean buy-and-hold return is over 30,000%, the median is -6.9%. Shareholders’ wealth was enhanced by $91 trillion over the century, but long-term investors in nearly 60% of stocks incurred wealth reductions. The degree to which wealth creation is concentrated in a few firms has increased sharply in recent years. Over the 1926 to 2016 period studied in Bessembinder (2018), 89 firms accounted for half of the $43 trillion in net wealth creation. After including outcomes for the most recent nine years, just 46 firms account for half of the $91 trillion in net wealth creation over the full century.  

....MUCH MORE (SSRN download or view-in-browser page) 

"Nuclear Stocks And Small Modular Reactors Ace Big Wins. A DOE Deadline Looms."

A no-nonsense overview from Investor's Business Daily, June 26: 

Three massive C-17 Globemaster aircraft flew out of Southern California in February hauling an experimental 5-megawatt nuclear reactor, disassembled into three pieces, to Utah for testing. On June 18, the Department of Energy announced the eagerly anticipated results.

The microreactor, it said, had become the second advanced nuclear technology to reach "criticality" — an independently sustained nuclear reaction. That put the industry in spitting distance of the Trump administration's goal of three successful criticality tests by July 4.

Now, as that target date looms in the coming week, all eyes are on the third test, involving Santa Clara, Calif.-based Oklo's (OKLO) Groves microreactor. If, as many observers expect, it succeeds, the industry will take a big step forward in earning credibility for the innovative reactors. The new technologies promise independent electrical power generation for everything from remote military bases to massive AI data center campuses.

Though not necessarily less expensive to operate, they pledge to be faster and cheaper to build than full-scale nuclear power plants. And they could propel growth of a long list of companies developing nuclear technologies, ranging from small privately held startups to publicly traded nuclear stocks.

Energy Demand Growing At Full Tilt 
"The demand for energy is growing so rapidly right now, above historical norms, that it is forcing people to choose nuclear power," said Erik Nygaard, who leads research and engineering for BWX Technologies' (BWXT) advanced technologies unit, which is working on a microreactor and next-gen nuclear fuels.

Advanced nuclear technologies, primarily microreactors and small modular reactors, or SMRs, are still in the experimental stages. None are in commercial operation in the U.S. Some forecasts see commercial viability sometime next year, though other nuclear experts see those views as far too optimistic.

The July 4 target for successful tests, set out in a May 2025 White House order, reflects the Trump administration's push to expand the nation's energy system. Leading hyperscalers, including Meta Platforms (META), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Amazon (AMZN), have backed the industry's development with major investments.

Among the nuclear stocks in the spotlight are SMR developers Oklo and X-Energy (XE), as well as BWX Technologies and NuScale Power (SMR). All are vying to bring the first small reactors out of development and into commercial operation.

GE Vernova (GEV) also is developing SMR technology through its GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy venture with Japan's Hitachi (HTHIY). Through Global Nuclear Fuel, another joint venture, Hitachi and GE Vernova also control a large piece of the industry's nuclear fuel production.

Trump's July 4 SMR Reactor Criticality Test Deadline 
The latest advances in small modular reactors show strides across fuels, coolants and housing designs. In a sign of progress, the focus is now shifting from innovation to deployment.

The first criticality success came from Torrance, Calif.-based startup Antares. It achieved the goal a month ahead of schedule, on June 4, at the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory.

A DOE statement touted the Antares test as "one of the most significant technological achievements in nuclear energy in over 40 years." It said the test confirmed that "the reactor can operate safely and establishes a basis that would allow subsequent reactors to produce electricity in 2027."

The Antares test used advanced fuel supplied by BWX Technologies. Antares now says it's targeting the first advanced reactor operating in the U.S. by 2027, and commercial deployments in 2028....

....MUCH MORE 

The Father Of Modern Singapore On Air Conditioning

Via Trung Phan's Xitter feed: 

Lee Kuan Yew:

“Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics. Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning… https://t.co/VV6wOQG1jZ pic.twitter.com/f0Uil7bJAc

— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) June 23, 2026

Trung Phan's SatPost substack:

https://www.readtrung.com/ 

"People’s Bank of China injects $44B in debut overnight reverse repo"

From Crypto Briefing, June 28/29:

China's central bank launches a new short-term liquidity tool, initially withholding the interest rate in a move that caught markets off guard  

The People’s Bank of China just added a new weapon to its monetary policy arsenal. On June 29, the PBOC executed its first-ever overnight reverse repo operation, pumping 300 billion yuan, roughly $44 billion, into China’s financial system.

Here’s the thing that rattled traders: the central bank didn’t specify the interest rate. Market observers had been expecting something in the 1.25% to 1.35% range, so the silence was, to put it mildly, conspicuous. The rate was later set at 1.25%, according to Reuters, landing at the floor of analyst expectations.

What an overnight reverse repo actually means 
Think of a reverse repo as the central bank lending money to commercial banks for a very short period, using government bonds as collateral. The “overnight” part is new here. Previously, the PBOC’s shortest standard tool was its seven-day reverse repo, which it also conducted on June 29 at a steady rate of 1.4%, injecting an additional 157.5 billion yuan....

....MUCH MORE 

"US and Iran agree to halt Hormuz attacks, will reportedly hold talks about strait in Qatar on Tuesday"

Two from the Times of Israel. First up the headliner, June 29:

US official says sides to stand down ‘for now’ after Tehran skips technical talks scheduled for Sunday; Iran’s FM threatens to ‘increase tensions’ if ships don’t traverse route it controls 

Iran and the United States have agreed to halt attacks, a US official said Sunday, and will reportedly meet again on Tuesday in Doha to discuss the Strait of Hormuz.

The Axios news site, citing US officials and a source with knowledge of the details, reported that Tuesday’s talks were originally planned to take place in Switzerland, but the flareup caused them to be moved to Qatar’s capital and the topic was changed to the Hormuz standoff, as disputes and gaps remain despite the memorandum of understanding reached earlier this month.

“We decided to stop all the kinetic activity,” one of the US officials was quoted as saying....

....MUCH MORE

Both Brent and WTI futures are still up a bit. 

Asian equity markets reversed their earlier declines though the KOSPI did close down 0.2% (vs the earlier -2.0%) 

And from Reuters via the ToI liveblog:

Iran, Oman hold first meeting of joint committee on Hormuz, Iranian deputy FM says 

The talks were apparently held this earlier morning, Tehran time.

"Baidu's AI chip unit Kunlunxin targets $50 billion Hong Kong IPO, The Information reports"

The linking of chip purchases to IPO allocation is probably not a good sign.

From Reuters, June 28: 

Baidu's (9888.HK) AI chip unit, Kunlunxin, is planning to go public in Hong ​Kong at a target valuation of $50 billion, The ‌Information reported on Sunday, citing two sources.

Investors have been asked to buy chips with a value three to seven ​times the worth of their planned subscription ​in Kunlunxin’s initial public offering shares, the report ⁠said.

 

Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Baidu did ​not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

  

TikTok ​parent ByteDance was considering using Baidu's Kunlunxin chips, Reuters had reported this month, citing sources.

Tencent (0700.HK), is already a Kunlunxin chip customer, ​according to one of the sources....

....MUCH MORE 

 

Asian markets are trading down one-to-two percent. 

The Bank For International Settlements Has Issued A Warning: "AI boom risks global financial crash..."

We take the Bank for International Settlements very seriously, links below. 

It's those effects beyond the AI ecosystem that get one's attention. 

(looking at you, SoftBank)

 

Best guess, six to twelve months to a big crack-up. The timer has been set. 

From The Telegraph, June 28:

 

AI boom risks global financial crash, warn central bankers
Reversal of ‘excessive’ tech investments could have serious economic consequences, report finds  

Debt-fuelled spending on AI is driving up the risk of a global financial crisis, central bankers have warned.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said on Sunday that “excessive” spending on new AI data centres and opaque transactions risked a financial meltdown similar to the global credit crunch nearly two decades ago.

The BIS, known as the bank for central banks, said there was growing “peril” in financial markets from the complex web of financial ties between AI giants, shadow banks and data centre builders unravelling.

“Financial stability could ... be at risk in the event of an AI bust,” the BIS said. “Should hyperscalers slow or halt the aggressive pace of capex deployment, many borrowers across the supply chain could struggle to replace lost revenue and service their debt.

“The opacity of AI-sector financing compounds these vulnerabilities.”

Pablo Hernández de Cos, the BIS general manager, said there were major questions about whether the boom would benefit the wider economy and warned a reversal of “AI exuberance” could have serious economic consequences.

“One risk is that large-scale investment in AI infrastructure becomes excessive, as each firm tries to outcompete rivals and dominate market share,” he said.

“This could leave the sector more vulnerable if AI underdelivers, possibly bringing the current investment boom to an abrupt end, with large macroeconomic consequences.”

The BIS warning is one of the strongest yet on risks lurking in the AI boom. The Bank of England warned in December that share prices were now the “most stretched” they had been since the 2008 crisis....

....MUCH MORE 

 

Here's the BIS press release with links to the Annual Economic Report, June 28: 

Global economic pressure points call for policy discipline: BIS

*On June 26, 2007 (i.e. pre-"Quant-quake", pre-Bear Stearns, pre-ought-eight-near-catastrohe) we posted a short little piece:
"(Off-topic) Banks' banker warns of downturn":

THE risk of a 1930s-style economic slump has been heightened by "euphoric" markets tapping cheap global credit, one of the world's pre-eminent financial institutions has said.

In its annual report, the Bank for International Settlements noted that the conditions that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Asian crises in the 1990s reflected the current environment.

From The Age

June 2008
BIS: Don't Worry, Inflation Not a Problem Because Global Economy Will Crash  

May 23, 2013
Evans-Pritchard: "BIS and IMF attacks on quantitative easing deeply misguided warn monetarists" 
I didn't see the BIS comments as an attack, just a heads up on what's going on.* I don't really care what the IMF says....

So yes, we listen, even if, as in that last case they can be early, the BIS seems to understand this central banking stuff.  

"A new Harvard study advises couples to wear masks and avoid kissing while having sex"

Now I'm as open to a little cosplay as anyone but looking back, this was nuts. 

From Timeout, June 8 2020:

If you're not in quarantine together, whip that mask out. 

Turns out that the only fool-proof way to avoid contracting COVID-19 while having sex is abstinence. No surprise there, of course. 

But that's not the only suggestion made by Harvard University researchers following a new study they conducted about sexual health in the coronavirus era.

"On the basis of existing data, it appears all forms of in-person sexual contact carry risk for viral transmission, because the virus is readily transmitted by aerosols and fomites," reads the study, confirming that intimacy does, indeed, carry along with it a risk of exposure.

The researchers offer a broad range of recommendations for couples who are not quarantining together and want to avoid the spread of the disease while having sex. The suggestions include wearing masks, avoiding kissing, showering before and after sex and "cleaning of the physical space with soap or alcohol wipes." 

The experts actually go a step further, ranking sexual scenarios based on how likely it is you'd catch the virus while partaking in them....

....MUCH MORE 

The study, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine can be found at the National Library of Medicine (link above).

Ann Intern Med. 2020 May 8:M20-2004. doi: 10.7326/M20-2004

Sexual Health in the SARS-CoV-2 

Era Jack L Turban 1, Alex S Keuroghlian 2, Kenneth H Mayer 3
PMCID: PMC7233185 PMID: 32384139

Big Money: UAE AI Investor MGX May Make A Run At Singapore's DayOne To Head Off A $20 Billion IPO

From the property mavens at Mingtiandi, June 22:

Abu Dhabi’s MGX Weighs DayOne Buyout as GDS Spin-Off Pursues $20B IPO

Artificial intelligence investor MGX is exploring a multibillion-dollar acquisition of data centre operator DayOne, according to a media report, in a potential twist for the Singapore-based operator after the overseas spin-off of China’s GDS Holdings had appeared headed for a $20 billion public listing.

Abu Dhabi-owned MGX is working with an investment bank in preparation for a potential transaction, Reuters said Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The deal would mark the firm’s first Asia acquisition if it proceeds.

DayOne has been preparing for a US initial public offering targeting a valuation of $20 billion, though Reuters reported that MGX may not be willing to match that price. The takeover chatter comes two weeks after DayOne closed a $4.5 billion Series C equity round led by existing investors Coatue Management and Hillhouse Investment. 

“The sources cautioned that a deal may not proceed and that the firm may still opt to pursue an IPO,” the news agency said.

Potential Pivot 
DayOne’s final Series C close more than doubled the size of the fundraising from its initial close in January, with new investors including the Indonesia Investment Authority and Achi Capital Partners joining the pre-IPO round.

The June fundraising brought total equity secured by DayOne since its 2022 inception to around $6.4 billion, according to Mingtiandi calculations. The company said the capital would support expansion in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, Finland and Spain.

DayOne had selected JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup to work on the planned US listing, which Bloomberg reported in February could raise as much as $5 billion. The operator was also said to be considering a dual listing in the US and Singapore.

DayOne Data Centers was established in 2022 as the overseas arm of Shanghai-based GDS under the GDS International name before rebranding in January 2025. Analysts described the relaunch as a move to distance the platform from its Chinese parent amid geopolitical tensions and position it for a public listing.

GDS founder William Huang stepped down as executive chairman of DayOne in April, with former Olam Group chairman Lim Ah Doo now serving as non-executive chairman after having been named co-chairman during the rebrand.

GDS has been paring its exposure to DayOne. The mainland data centre giant held 19.9 percent of the platform as of late April after DayOne repurchased $385 million in ordinary shares from its former parent at the Series C new issue price. Originally, it wholly owned the company, reducing its stake to 52.7 percent at the Series A funding, then to 35.6 percent at the Series B.

DayOne said earlier this month that it had secured more than 1.5 gigawatts of total bookings across Asia Pacific and Europe, up from around 1GW of customer commitments reported at the initial close of the Series C in January.

Gulf AI Push 
MGX was established in March 2024 with Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Mubadala Investment Company and Abu Dhabi-based tech firm G42 as foundational partners, with a mandate to invest across AI infrastructure, semiconductors and AI-enabled technologies.

The firm is chaired by Tahnoon bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, deputy ruler of Abu Dhabi and national security advisor of the United Arab Emirates. Tahnoon, a brother of UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, also chairs the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the emirate’s trillion-dollar sovereign fund....

....MUCH MORE 

The sovereign fund is now up to $1.1 trillion. As noted in the introduction to March 2024's "ICYMI: "Abu Dhabi Targets $100 Billion AUM for AI Investment Firm""

Probably the reason OpenAI's Sam Altman was in the UAE talking about raising $7 trillion for chips and cheese or something. A big ask in anybody's book.

Here's hoping it doesn't become another SoftBank Vision Fund which was the same $100 billion size and for the first few years of its life mainly succeeded in jacking up the price of speculative private investments before roller-coastering into a profitable position this year.

Abu Dhabi had a hand in that one and went on one heck of a ride with Mr. Son....

Our most recent mention of MGX was October 2025's "BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners Circling $40 Billion Data Center Purchase (BLK)"

Also May 2025's "French Tech: France To Host Europe's Largest Data Center (UAE's MGX; EDF; NVDA; Bpifrance; Mistral AI)" 

And for fellow members of the Short Attention Span Finance Fraternity, a flashback to all that gallivanting in the Gulf we saw in 2025:

"Trump’s Road to Riyadh: The Geopolitics of AI and Energy Infrastructure"

More Ways To Play! "Citigroup Is Rolling Out Tokenized Shares of Private Companies"

Citi can have the tagline gratis if they are going for the middle-market casino vibe. 

For bespoke marketing to the higher-end Casino de Monte-Carlo à Monaco crowd, pricing available upon request.

From the Wall Street Journal, June 11:

Citigroup is establishing a way for its wealthy and institutional clients to trade shares of private companies through a blockchain, a venture it hopes will be adopted by other banks across Wall Street.

The bank said it is in discussions with some of the largest private companies to get involved. The venture is intended to broaden access to private firms at the same time companies are taking longer to go public, and Wall Street has been in a frenzy over the coming blockbuster stock-market debuts of SpaceX, Anthropic and others.

 

The venture lets clients put private-company shares essentially “right next to their Apple stock,” said Artem Korenyuk, Citi’s global lead for digital assets enterprise alignment and services enablement.It is initially open to only foreign investors, with a transaction- and maintenance-based fee, but Citi plans to make it available to U.S. investors later. The infrastructure can be used by other banks, Citi said.

 

The venture works through depositary receipts—or securities that allow investors to buy stakes in foreign companies—that are authorized and tokenized. Citi will issue those securities and act as a custodian for them....

....MUCH MORE 

Here's Citigroup's press release, also June 11:

Citi Launches Market-First Tokenized Depositary Receipts to Connect Private Companies and Investors

"From Space to the Polar Depths: China Aims for a Three-Dimensional Presence in the Arctic"

From The Diplomat - Flashpoints, June 19: 

The Arctic – where polar, deep sea, and space intersect – offers a particularly revealing case for China’s ambitions in the “strategic new frontiers.”

Last year, as part of China’s 15th Arctic expedition, two of China’s manned submersibles, the Fendouzhe and Jiaolong, conducted what Chinese news agency Xinhua described as “joint underwater operations” or manned dives under the Arctic ice. This was the first time that China had done anything like this. For the purposes of these dives, China brought to the region two of its deep-sea research vessels, which acted as motherships for the submersibles. These submersibles then conducted more than 40 dives over a 56-day period in the Central Arctic Ocean, some together and some separately.

As we discussed in a longer brief on the topic, these tests were just the latest sign of the growing scope of China’s scientific activities in the Arctic. Many signs point toward China increasingly seeking, among other goals, to develop reliable means to operate, communicate, and navigate within the Arctic region, both below the surface and above it. The manned submersible experiments can be seen as just one important milestone to this end, reflecting China’s growing ambition and capability to expand its presence within its self-defined “strategic new frontiers.”

Towards the “Strategic New Frontiers”

Polar regions (meaning both the Arctic and Antarctica) and deep seas are both part of what in the Chinese political vocabulary is sometimes referred to as the “strategic new frontiers” (战略新疆域). These are strategically important regions or domains that are opening up for exploitation due to advances in technology, and toward which China is already envisioning the next phase of its economic expansion. In addition to polar and deep-sea regions, they typically also include space, cyberspace, and artificial intelligence.

While primarily valued due to their economic prospects, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sees the new frontiers as potential future domains of “military struggle” between great powers. The PLA views recent technological advances in unmanned submersibles and undersea communications as opening the deep seas for military operations – perhaps even in a transformative way. The Arctic, meanwhile, is often defined in PLA assessments as a crossroads of aviation and maritime power projection – a “strategic commanding height” from which the whole northern hemisphere can be brought within strategic reach.

Overall, China views the strategic new frontiers as future theaters of great power competition, where it needs to preemptively establish a strong presence and secure its interests....

....MUCH MORE 

For some reason bringing to mind Robert W. Service:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
      That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
      I cremated Sam McGee....