Jesse Felder

NEW BLOG POST: ‘Move Slow And Make Things’ thefelderreport.com/2026/10/24/m...

'Anthropic's legally binding contracted obligations combined are 169x the latest annualized operating income.' roddubitsky.substack.com/p/anthropic-...

‘The truth, which Anthropic didn’t want to emphasize in the S-1, is that Q2, right at the height of tokenmaxxing was fantastic, but Q3, post tokenmaxxing and after the rise of low cost alterntive models, represented a slowing of their growth.’ garymarcus.substack.com/p/what-anthr...

‘When Anthropic is added to the index, it is likely to displace either Berkshire Hathaway or Eli Lilly, the only non-tech companies with valuations above $1 trillion, from the top 10.‘ www.nytimes.com/2026/10/26/t...

‘Corruption has become a key source of American discontent in the closing days of midterm election campaigning, with a large majority of US voters saying they are worried about graft in Donald Trump’s second administration.’ www.ft.com/content/2770...

‘American shoppers are convinced that businesses are deploying technology to charge higher prices. They worry that businesses are using artificial intelligence and other technology to quickly change prices by assessing their needs or profile.‘ www.wsj.com/business/ret...

“If you just used risk management and you looked at the data, they want to be hiking this week,” said Claudia Sahm, a former Fed economist. www.wsj.com/economy/cent... by @nicktimiraos.bsky.social

“Meta is trying to get in front of Anthropic with its own equity offering and my obvious question is, Who’s next?,” said David Erickson, an adjunct associate professor at Columbia Business School. “At some point there’s going to be an oversupply.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

‘Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom have agreed to buy as much as $5 billion of the common shares in aggregate. Meta intends to use the proceeds to support its investment in AI infrastructure and personal superintelligence.’ www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“If the AI bubble is going to burst, it’ll likely start as a credit event as neocloud and risky AI debt defaults, creating a cascade of devaluations, reduced spending and contraction (in multiples and growth).” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“Capex itself has become a two-sided risk. Spending cuts raise questions about the durability of the investment cycle…whilst further increases raise questions about financing, execution, and the eventual returns.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

‘We have another possible AI-powered Jevons paradox, which I’m officially rebranding as the Infinite Work Machine. As AI becomes more ubiquitous throughout the economy, you can see it leading to more work that will arguably generate the same result.’ www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

‘The “everything else” category of adjusted S&P 500 earnings, those not linked to the war or AI, is expected to have grown just about 4.5% last quarter, barely outstripping the 3.7% pace of inflation.’ www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

‘One thing we learned once the DotCom bubble burst was that analysts often sought to justify extremely high share prices by ramping up growth expectations, shifting excessive EPS growth into the outer years where there is less scrutiny of their assumptions.’ www.reuters.com/commentary/r...

‘Artificial intelligence is fast becoming the largest investment in U.S. history. As the money pours in, the companies involved are resurrecting bad old habits eerily reminiscent of the shenanigans deployed in the run-up to the financial crisis.’ www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/o...

‘While global tech stocks teeter, in China they have already crashed as lofty valuations collapse under worries about AI demand and curbs on Chinese exports.’ www.reuters.com/world/china/...

This was a fun convo with an old friend and his daughter: www.insidearbitrage.com/2026/10/the-...

‘It’s considered good form these days to wring your hands about fiscal policy but things are more complicated than that. The world’s central banks are the key enablers of bad fiscal policy and the Fed is unfortunately no exception.‘ robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/the-story-...

‘JP Morgan estimates that only 20% of AI capital expenditures will be funded by free cash flow in 2027, with the remaining 80% requiring external financing.’ thedailyshot.com/2026/10/26/c...

‘I wonder if this discarded confidence survey is accurately indicating that the foundation under the contemporary bull market is far less structurally sound than most perceive.’ paulsenperspectives.substack.com/p/has-the-us... by @jimwpaulsen.bsky.social

#StrandedCompute

‘The growth of the 0DTE counter-trend trading flow is now so great that the net effect outweighs the impact from the option dealer re-hedging, according to UBS.’ www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“As of the past few weeks, debt markets have almost entirely shut off access to money for any company that doesn’t have substantial revenue independent of AI data centers. The 200+ neoclouds are going to see guppy-level death and consolidation.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

EVERCORE DESK: “.. I’m increasingly thinking about AI Power versus Utilities as a live market gauge .. .. Power is one of the earliest, longest-dated, and least reversible steps. .. it’s the first place the market can visibly say ‘we’re not funding the next one.’”

GS DESK: “.. Great parties can lead to hangovers, and it’s fair to call the current environment the latter at least with regards to the AI complex. .. .. This week we saw AI Beneficiaries (GSTMTAIP) having its worst day vs SPXXAI since DeepSeek Monday ..”

“What the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we're not supposed to dance at all anymore.” -Kurt Vonnegut www.cbsnews.com/news/god-ble...

‘Increasingly capable AI systems are making it possible to discover and exploit software vulnerabilities at speeds and scales that were previously unimaginable. The economic costs will likely be enormous.‘ paulkedrosky.com/the-hackenin... by @paulkedrosky.com

“Mainstream corporate America is pulling back and starting to view token spending not as a source of growth but as a cost center that weighs on margins.“ www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

‘Hedge funds boosted their bets against the euro to the most since March 2020 as political turmoil in France rattles European markets and weighs on the currency.’ www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

‘After months of hoping for a swift resolution inspiring a delayed response to price hikes, the reality is now becoming clearer that elevated input prices are likely here to stay, creating pressure for hiking cycles to lengthen ahead.’ bobeunlimited.substack.com/p/higher-for...

‘October 2026 marks the lowest number of confirmed, undisclosed SEC investigations we have ever tracked in our 26-year history.‘ www.disclosureinsight.com/since-trumps...

Writers Guild speaks out about tech platforms squashing the @alexgibneyfilm doc about Elon Musk: “A small handful of billionaires now own virtually every major media company, news outlet, social media platform and are demonstrating how this unchecked concentration threatens democratic discourse.”

A Sunday morning thought.

‘This isn’t the first time industrialists have turned to handouts. One year before the nation would collapse in the Great Depression, the world’s first billionaire gave out dimes to schoolchildren.’ www.wsj.com/economy/musk...

“The price action has been eye-watering in a lot of situations,” said Ivelina Green, founder of Pearlstone Alternative. “Into year-end, primary markets are effectively shut. And there isn’t a lot of liquidity on the way down, so that is exacerbating the panic.“ www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

‘Data centers face potential credit rating downgrades due to moratoriums and cancellations driven by public opposition, according to S&P Global Ratings.’ www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Apollo: ‘Despite massive investments and widespread hype around artificial intelligence, the technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech.’ www.apollo.com/wealth/insig...

Edward Chancellor: US corporate profit boom faces its ‘Minsky moment’ www.breakingviews.com/columns/big-...

‘A squeeze on excess liquidity earlier this year is beginning to have an impact on global risk assets. It’s unlikely to change until either monetary policy is loosened or animal spirits are reanimated.’ blinks.bloomberg.com/news/stories...

‘Richard Bookstaber warned in April 2007 that complex financial products and heavy borrowing had made the financial system brittle. He‘s more worried today than he was on the eve of the last crisis. “It’s a period of major risk, and people just don’t seem to get it”.‘ www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/b...

‘Multiple people with knowledge of the Morgan Stanley-led process said demand from clients was weaker than in the past. “There has been zero clamouring. All the prior times [OpenAI] have been on there’s been a frenzy. This time is a bit of a thud.”’ www.ft.com/content/bb56...

‘The US’s largest retirement fund for government workers, repositioned its portfolio in the first half of 2026, reducing the combined number of shares it directly held in the Magnificent 7 stocks — Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta and Tesla — by 26%.’ www.ft.com/content/e842...

‘Bessent could have used his bully pulpit to call for a bipartisan fiscal reform. Instead, he is acting as if America can avoid hard fiscal choices by using clever market arbitrage, endless AI optimism — and its exorbitant privilege.‘ www.ft.com/content/bf95...

‘The IMF reckons that, yes, the share of France’s GDP that must be spent paying interest to public debt holders is set to ratchet up. But they also reckon that it won’t hold a torch to the share of American GDP set for the same purpose.’ www.ft.com/content/9aa4...

‘Money managers are wary of the massive amount of debt tech companies will need to fund AI investments, a concern that intensified this week after Meta said that it was looking at raising “hundreds of billions of dollars” over several years beginning this fall.‘ www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“You have vendor financing being done at a scale that we’ve never seen before,” said Jason Pompeii, a senior director at Fitch. “That just increases the chance that if AI ends up being a disappointing story, there will be ripple effects throughout the supply chain.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“After five years of above-target inflation, both short- and long-term inflation expectations have ticked up in recent months, exposing risks that elevated inflation expectations could become entrenched,” Joanne Hsu, director of the survey, said in a statement. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

‘Meta has a rare hit on its hands with its Muse AI agent. The question now is if it will make a big enough splash to justify hundreds of billions of dollars in capital spending. The answer is almost certainly no.’ www.wsj.com/finance/stoc...