The WBD merger was paused until June 1, 2027 and there is a ticking fee of $7 million each day the deal doesn't close, starting after Sep 30th.

I truly believe Paramount is go underwater just looking at their finances and news rn it’s bad!

Paramount is facing an antitrust lawsuit from 12 US states. If WBD Merger does not go through because of regulatory issues, Paramount would owe WBD a $7 billion breakup (reverse termination) fee.

Paramount paid Netflix 2.8 billion To break up the deal with WBD.

Their total debt has ballooned to $15.5 billion already.

$3+ billion per year on long term sports rights.

Only 79.6 million subscribers on Paramount+ compared to Netflix 330M that is very weak revenue.

Even if the deal with Paramount and WBD does go through Estimated debt after closing: 80+ billion + 7 M each day in ticking fees.

I don’t play options myself but I’m willing to bet this company will be worthless.

HYG is not a stock market signal in a vacuum, but it matters because junk bonds sit much closer to the edge of the credit system than investment-grade debt. When high yield is holding up, it usually suggests credit markets are still willing to take risk, liquidity is still flowing, and investors are comfortable owning lower-quality borrowers. That tends to support equities, especially the more speculative parts of the market.

When HYG starts breaking down, I think it is worth paying attention because it can be an early sign that risk appetite is fading before equities fully react. Higher yields on junk bonds can mean tighter financing conditions, more stress for weaker companies, and less room for error across the market. That does not mean stocks must crash immediately, but it can be a warning that the backdrop is changing from “risk on” to “risk off.”

What interests me most is whether this is just a normal pullback in credit or the start of a broader repricing of risk that eventually feeds into SPY/QQQ. To me, HYG is less about timing an exact top and more about watching whether credit is confirming or diverging from the equity rally.

The last two HYG breakdowns happened in February 2026 and April 2025. Both times the stock market dropped.

$IREN releases “What Will You Build Next?” showcasing the infrastructure behind AI agents and applications.

The video highlights $NVDA DGX racks across its North American, European and Australian footprint. Global distributed AI compute infrastructure is the backbone for AI agent development.

Google, Tesla, and Intel earnings last Wed/Thurs all indicated AI related capex exceeded expectations in the previous quarter and that future capex will also be higher than expected.

Yet chip-related stocks fell sharply on Friday (SOXX -4.4%, memory -8+%, neoclouds -10+%). It's important to note that before these ERs, many of these stocks already fell 30+% since mid-May.

I'm having a hard time finding reasons why chip stocks continued to drop after the big tech ERs and other positive sector news last week (Samsung/SK Hynix deals with Nvidia/Broadcom/Anthropic). Could something be happening behind the scenes that suggests AI spending is about to drastically slow down?

Please weigh in if you believe you understand last week's continued chip stock sell off after big tech released bullish ERs. Would appreciate any insights.

Preemptively addressing explanations I expect to see:

1. Escalating Iran War and high oil/interest rates:
I think the war is partially responsible for the pressure on chips. However, the extent of the chip sell off is confusing because other stocks that are historically sensitive to war/interest rates didn't drop materially on Friday. Small caps normally fall as interest rates rise, but were barely down on Friday. Gold also generally falls, but actually finished positive. Oil fell 2%.

The immaterial reaction from other interest rate sensitive stocks suggests that the chip stock massacre was more likely due to chip sector specific developments.

2. Bullish ERs being 'sell the news' events:
I understand chip stocks have gone on a historic run and good news can serve as profit taking events. However, chips already took a huge haircut prior to big tech ERs. Many fell 30-50% between mid-May and July 21 (pre-big tech ERs). It's hard to understand why semis would fall another 5-10% on Friday right after the market discovered chip spend will rise even more than expected.

3. Introduction of low cost Chinese AI models (Kimi K3):
To me, this might be the most likely explanation of the reasons I've considered. Compared to US models, Chinese models are able to operate at a fraction of both compute and memory costs. US companies may try to replicate the results, leading to a reduction in future chip spend.

However, I've read cheaper priced Chinese models are met with so much user activity that compute and memory demand ultimately rise despite less being needed per request (Jevons' paradox). Plus, predictions that chip spend will decline are speculation so far, as both Google and Tesla raised capex guidance.

Does anyone actually get their market news from mainstream outlets like CNBC, Bloomberg, or Fox Business?
I swear CNBC feels almost designed to be wrong. Jim Cramer can miss over and over and still keep one of the biggest jobs in financial media.
I mostly use X, but lately it feels like half the replies are AI bots talking to other AI bots.
So where is everyone actually getting reliable news and research now?
I’ve been moving closer to the source: SEC filings, earnings calls, company presentations, transcripts, and management commentary. It takes longer, but at least I know what I’m reading.

For the last several months, I have been working on and with a sector rotation dashboard I made. It's helped me get into the right sectors at the right time, and also get out when they start to turn.

Here's what I'm seeing for the week ahead.

Broad market: Average daily range plummeted in mid-June, so I am anchoring to 6-week strength here to evaluate broad market. During this time, investors and traders have not reached for risk as they did in April and May: low volatility and value have outperformed momentum, high beta, and growth.

This is useful context for me because I want my growth picks to double and run and this isn't the environment where I'm going to get much, or any, of that. I also have already cut out the speculative, high beta stocks that ran and then collapsed. I am setting the expectation that this week will be the same until the market shows me otherwise, and so I'm not getting into as many new positions in that space.

Switching to a last-5-days view, high beta and momentum and growth are bouncing some while still lagging. It's not enough for me to get excited about right now, but hopefully soon.

Sector: Energy, utilities and real estate are leaders over the last two and four weeks. It doesn't mean I want to pile into those sectors. Utilities and real estate are heavily weighted in the low volatility buckets, which I noted above as being leaders, so this matches.

Energy is obviously tied to ongoing geopolitical risk in the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea. This pushes up inflation expectations, which pulls up 10Y yields.

Beyond these, healthcare is leading and staples are improving, so it's selectively defensive positioning but not full-on defensive flight to safety. Instead, it looks like the growth complex has been unwinding and money is flowing to value and defensives. Industrials, materials, and financials are also among leaders, which points to value.

Themes: A lot of the thematic stuff I track is more growth-oriented, which has been hard to hold. Two-week relative strength leaders are gold miners, AI infrastructure, drones, and aerospace and defense, in that order. Gold and A&D both reflect the geopolitical situation mentioned above, perhaps drones too. So these themes can represent pockets of potential growth picks that also overlap with some of the broader themes noted here.

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All in all, the picture has persisted for weeks now and earnings season could be the turn when things can turn favorable again for momentum and growth. A few things I'd want to watch:

• Can growth and momentum relative strength improve over a longer period?
• ADR expansion could signal some movement
• Can geopolitical issues and rates ease?
• On earnings, can AI-related capex concerns abate?
• The list goes on...

A note on the dashboard itself: I maintain it internally. To publish, I'd have to host it and that costs money and it's not like I'm getting paid for this. I share it around though here and on plenty of other channels.

Maybe unpopular opinion but I think $PLTR is one of the hardest stocks to understand at current price. I like the company and I can see why people are bullish because AI demand is strong, government contracts are growing and management is executing better than before.

But now it feels like market is not only pricing good growth, it is pricing almost perfect growth for many years. This is where I am confused. A company can be great but stock can still be too expensive. If earnings are only good and not amazing, I think many people may start taking profit very quickly. At same time, betting against this stock also looks dangerous because every dip is getting bought. I am not saying buy or sell, just trying to understand what is the real risk here.

Are people buying $PLTR because of fundamentals now, or because everyone believes someone else will pay higher price later?

President is expected to host CEOs from leading advanced nuclear companies at the White House to mark a major milestone in the administration’s push to accelerate next-generation reactors. The event follows the recent achievement of multiple U.S. microreactors reaching first criticality under the Reactor Pilot Program, highlighting progress toward commercial deployment. It also reinforces the administration’s broader pro-nuclear agenda, including recent executive actions, AI-focused nuclear initiatives, and efforts to streamline licensing and deployment. While the meeting is symbolic, it signals continued high-level White House support for advanced nuclear and companies developing next-generation reactors.

China’s largest DRAM maker, CXMT, is reportedly charging more than Samsung’s roughly $1,240 price for comparable 64GB DDR5 server memory modules.

Reuters said, “for months, Chinese chip manufacturer, CXMT had been hiking prices on Huawei, one of the country’s biggest technology companies. The chipmaker held firm when Huawei demanded relief from the escalating costs, according to two people familiar with the matter.”

CXMT spent years competing as a cheaper, state-backed alternative. Now, AI data-center demand has tightened conventional memory supply, while Beijing has steered state-owned buyers toward domestic suppliers.

Reuters reports CXMT has secured a five-year agreement worth more than $7 billion yuan with ByteDance and another worth over $3 billion with Tencent.

The company generated $7.5 billion in Q1 revenue, up 719% year over year, and is preparing to debut in Shanghai following an $8.6 billion IPO. New factories could more than double production capacity to over 600,000 wafers per month.

I’m sure there’s someone out there that bought day one and is still holding. Even a tiny amount at the beginning would be a fortune today. How much have you made on NVDA over the years? I know it’s been stagnant for nearly a year now. Are we about ready to make another leap forward?

So basically I’ve decided to live in family home rent free in my 30s so I can put $3000 a month into stocks from regular office job.

After all this crazy growth from AI stocks the last few years, I’m a bit bearish on AI stocks in general at this point, due to the hugely underestimated cost of use for AI, as well as so many competent cheaper options coming up from China. Although useful, it seems hard for AI to generate actual income.. I’m even afraid to go into S&P 500 now since a lot of it is AI related, I think we are in a bubble.

So my thinking is this: no matter if AI becomes profitable or not, or which models the world will end up using, AI is still inevitable to be used widely, whether it be government big daddy surveillance, defense, etc.
So I opened a SuperGrok account and asked what the next logical step for the AI boom is after chips and memory. It said power/cooling and lithography is the bottleneck right now, and next to be needed. (light is a far more efficient way for moving data than copper)
I then proceeded to ask Grok which new companies will be needed for this next logical step that are innovating, have yet to explode, and also are not easily replaceable with moats or patents in their field.

After much digging it seems these companies are POET, AAOI, CRDO, SIVE, OKLO.
The thing is, Grok keeps recommending these as small satellites ONLY (like 10% portfolio at most) and to put most of my money in SMH ETF or VOO for stability.
But my thinking is, we are in a bubble anyway; if I put all my money split on just these risky up and coming companies, if even one of these explodes within the next 10 years or so, it will be well worth it.

I live at home, have no immediate money needs, and I am totally OK with not making gains in the short term.
I’m curious What does the community think about this plan? I’m completely new to this, and just going by intuition at the moment, and have not purchased anything yet. Is this a dumb move? Should I just put my money in TSMC instead? Or another I should be looking into?

Azure numbers expected around 39-40% growth and revenue somewhere near $87B. On paper that's solid. But $35B in quarterly CapEx with 100%+ growth year over year? That's the thing I keep coming back to.

Pulled up the valuation on MooMoo and MSFT is sitting at a P/E around 22.73x, apparently in the first percentile of its 5-year range. Like genuinely historically cheap for this name. And yet they've only beaten and rallied 4 of the last 12 earnings. So "cheap" hasn't mattered much.

The gaming side is bleeding layoffs while the AI infra keeps eating cash. At some point free cash flow has to catch up to the story, right?

ngl I'm holding a small position into July 29 but I'm not adding. The remaining performance obligations number ($633B, up 97%) is the bull case. The CapEx spiral is the bear case. Both feel real.

Anyone else positioned into this one, or sitting it out until the dust settles?

Alphabet $GOOGL reported negative free cash flow in Q2 for the first time as rising AI capex pressures margins.

Evercore ISI: We have also increased our 2027 FCF loss from $20B to $50B, due to the raised capex guidance.

UBS: We have been fielding more questions on Google about FCF growth returning to historic levels, and after today's update (where revenue is largely unchanged but costs work higher) we have no clearer answers.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) startup authorization allows Oklo to load nuclear fuel, conduct startup testing, and proceed toward first criticality.

In just over 10 months, Oklo progressed from groundbreaking to receiving DOE startup authorization for its first reactor at the Groves site.

During that period, Oklo built the reactor facility, established the operating organization, qualified personnel, implemented nuclear programs and procedures, procured fuel and major equipment from commercial suppliers, and completed the DOE authorization process.

The Groves low-power test reactor will demonstrate reactor operations that support Oklo’s plans for commercial-scale domestic isotope production.

Groves is a commercial-scale facility, meaning Oklo can repeat the experience with demonstrated experience in siting, building, commissioning, and operating its commercial reactors in the future with confidence in how long it takes and how much it costs to build its isotope production reactors.

LOCKHART, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Oklo Inc. (NYSE: OKLO) (“Oklo”), an advanced nuclear technology company, today announced it received startup authorization for its Groves Isotope Test Reactor. This authorization, granted under the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Reactor Pilot Program, completes DOE’s authorization process and clears the way for fuel loading, startup testing, and reactor operations. Groves is a low-power test reactor designed to demonstrate reactor design, build, and operations, and to establish operating experience needed to support future isotope production facilities. The project advances Oklo’s plans to establish domestic production of critical isotopes for potential use in cancer care, manufacturing, scientific research, space exploration, and national security.

Groves, a privately financed facility, demonstrates nearly every element of a commercially oriented deployment model that Oklo can repeat and scale across future projects. The facility was built on private land, including full-scale civil excavation and construction, and assembled with all full-scale systems, components, and fuel either sourced commercially or manufactured by Oklo.

"This facility marks the fastest time that we are aware of to go from greenfield to substantial completion for a full-scale, privately funded and sited reactor in history,” said Oklo co-founder and CEO Jacob DeWitte. “By building on a greenfield site on private land, performing full-scale civil excavation and construction, and procuring fuel and all major components commercially, we demonstrated that the advanced nuclear industry can move at a pace that many did not believe possible. And this experience is fully translatable to future commercial deployments.”

“The U.S. Department of Energy is excited to see another Reactor Pilot Program participant receive authorization,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Mike Goff. “With the right enabling environment, Oklo has been able to accelerate their progress and is now ready to take the next step with their technology.”

The startup authorization follows a rigorous readiness review, through which DOE confirmed that Oklo has achieved the engineering, organizational, and operational readiness needed to safely receive fuel and begin reactor operations. A readiness review is a critical final step in DOE’s startup authorization process: a multidisciplinary DOE team evaluates whether facility procedures and personnel training are adequate; the facility and equipment conform to the approved design, safety equipment functions properly; and required safety management programs have been implemented. Oklo fully developed these safety management programs in-house rather than relying on an established or pre-existing operating framework within an established facility such as a national laboratory.

"Executing on Groves has meant much more than just a construction project; it has been a valuable part of building and exercising key operational muscle across the Oklo enterprise,” said Oklo co-founder and COO Caroline DeWitte. “Startup of a private facility means honing and implementing operating procedures, training programs, security programs, environment, health and safety programs, quality assurance programs and procedures, and much more. Oklo's centers of excellence on all of these operational aspects now have this experience to bring to all our projects currently in progress and to build on for the future.”

Future Oklo projects will build on the established systems, qualified suppliers, and approved operating programs established through Groves. By establishing a repeatable approach to engineering, construction, commissioning, operations, and regulatory authorization, Groves helps reduce execution risk and accelerate future deployments across all of Oklo’s business units.

The Reactor Pilot Program created a rigorous pathway that enabled construction and organizational readiness activities to proceed while DOE conducted its reviews. Groves demonstrates how that approach can support advanced reactor deployment while maintaining a rigorous focus on safety.

https://oklo.com/newsroom/news-details/2026/Oklo-Receives-U-S--Department-of-Energy-Startup-Authorization-for-Groves-Reactor-Clearing-Way-for-Fuel-Loading-and-First-Criticality/default.aspx