What we’re reading (4/23)
“Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq Futures Hold Steady After Israel And Lebanon Announce 3-Week Ceasefire Extension” (Yahoo! Finance). “Earlier in the session, markets had briefly pushed to fresh intraday highs before reversing course. The S&P 500 ended down while the Nasdaq Composite dropped its sharpest one-day decline in nearly a month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also closed lower.”
“Intel Shares Jump 20% As AI Agents Drive Big Growth” (Wall Street Journal). “Intel had largely sat out the AI revolution because it failed to develop a processor that could rival Nvidia’s signature graphics processing units, or GPUs, and because its advanced chip- fabrication business couldn’t keep pace with rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. But over the past year, as AI firms have deployed large language models and other tools that are operated by autonomous AI ‘agents,’ the humble CPU—a more basic kind of computer brain that Intel specializes in—has come back into vogue.”
“This Isn’t Trading. It’s Theft from Your Retirement.” (Adam Kinzinger). “In March, more than half a billion dollars flowed into crude oil futures in the fifteen minutes before Trump announced a de-escalation with Iran. On Polymarket — a prediction platform where Donald Trump Jr. is an investor and advisor — a small cluster of freshly-created accounts placed uncannily precise bets about whether the United States would reach a ceasefire with Iran and about whether Trump would strike Iranian energy infrastructure. Those accounts walked away with hundreds of thousands of dollars, in some cases closing their positions minutes before public announcements hit the wires. On a second major prediction-market platform, where a senior Trump family member also holds an advisory role, similar suspicious patterns emerged around the same events.”
“U.S. Soldier Involved In Maduro Raid Charged With Betting On The Operation” (NBC News). “Federal authorities arrested and charged a U.S. special forces soldier for allegedly making bets on the raid that removed Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro from office. Van Dyke ‘bet a total of approximately $33,034’ on the Maduro operation on the prediction market platform Polymarket, federal authorities said. He ultimately made more than $409,000 as a result of the bets placed on the U.S. operation, an unsealed indictment alleges.”
“A Moment Of Truth: Which Private-Credit Funds Believe Their Own Balance Sheets?” (Wall Street Journal). “Many publicly traded private-credit funds say their assets are worth more than the market is willing to pay. If they really believe that, they should be aggressively buying back their shares. First-quarter reports from the biggest publicly registered credit funds are due soon. For those listed on public exchanges, share buybacks will be a crucial metric for gauging management’s conviction in their own valuations.”
