unusual_whales

American AI lab launches Ultramarine 1 Flash, an open-source AI model “purpose-built for knowledge work.” The model builds decks, financial models and memos, and was trained on 88 kinds of real professional work across finance, consulting and law.

Biggest increases over the past year, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Fuel oil: +74.2% Gasoline: +34.2% Airline fares: +22.4% Tobacco: +6.4% Car maintenance and repair: +5.8% Hospital services: +5.6% Overall inflation: +3.7% And what got cheaper: Car insurance: -5.0% Medical care products: -3.3% Used cars: -1.5% Dairy: -0.7%

BREAKING: Eight US states have sued OpenAI, claiming ChatGPT has harmed children.

BREAKING: A data center developer is offering residents $10,000 each to win them over. Digital Realty, $DLR, is offering households in De Soto, Kansas, $1,000 a year for 10 years to ease opposition to its planned 1,400-acre data center. The money would come from a $20 million community fund, possibly paid out as property tax or utility bill credits. That’s enough to cover about 2,000 households.

BREAKING: Trump’s tariffs made American-made goods more expensive too, per Fox

Now this is unusual. Bending Spoons is up huge today after it announced that Berkshire Hathaway is investing another $330 million in the company. Did someone know? Seems like it. Before the news, traders bought: - Oct. 13: 1,465 December $55 calls, 49% out of the money, for $314,000, with 86% bought at the ask. Open interest was zero. - Oct. 7: 1,000 Oct. 16 $40 calls, expiring in nine days, for $231,000, with 90% bought at the ask. These traders are up millions.

BREAKING: The Department of Justice has issued about a dozen subpoenas as part of an investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar, including to members of her family, per NBC The investigation is examining matters surrounding Omar’s immigration status, including her birthdate.

BREAKING: The U.S. may have intentionally withheld early warnings of Russian strikes on Ukraine this week, per CBS News. It comes as President Trump pushes an “energy ceasefire” between Russia & Ukraine and has called for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be replaced.

BREAKING: 30 year average mortgage rate has hit 7.56%, per MortgageNewsDaily.

Iran is changing tactics to step up attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, aiming to keep oil prices high ahead of the Nov. 3 U.S. midterm elections, per Reuters. Nearly 20 commercial ships, mostly tankers, have been attacked in the past month in and around the strait.

BREAKING: Social Security checks are getting a bigger raise in 2027. Recipients will see a 3.6% cost-of-living adjustment, about $75 more per month for the average retiree. That’s up from 2.8% this year. But it still trails inflation, which just hit 3.7% in September.

U.S. homebuyer demand just hit a record low, per Redfin. There were just 929,000 buyers in September, versus 1.51 million sellers, a gap of about 580,000. A record 41 of the 50 largest U.S. metros are now buyer’s markets, led by Miami, Nashville and Houston.

BREAKING: There are now far more people trying to sell homes than buy them. U.S. home sellers outnumbered buyers by 62.6% in September, the widest gap since Redfin’s records began in 2013. That’s up from about 58% the month before.

raders are piling into bets that the Fed will raise rates three more times by the end of 2027, per Bloomberg. That would push the Fed’s benchmark rate to 4.5%–4.75%, from 3.75%–4% today. It comes after September’s hotter-than-expected 3.7% inflation reading.

Gas is driving America’s inflation surge. Gasoline prices jumped 9.1% in September, and fuel oil, including diesel, surged 15.3%. Energy accounted for more than half of the monthly rise in consumer prices, pushing annual inflation to 3.7%.

The 2-year Treasury yield just jumped to 4.92%, its highest level since Sept. 29. It comes right after September’s hotter-than-expected inflation report, as traders bet the Fed may need to raise rates again.

BREAKING: Netflix, $NFLX, is laying off 6% of its workforce, about 1000 jobs.

BREAKING: Consumer prices rose 3.7% from a year earlier in September, hotter than expected and up from 3.4% in August, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the highest inflation rate since 2023.

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40% of workers earning over $500,000 are leaving paycheck to paycheck, per Goldman Sachs.

The ultrawealthy are pulling away from everyone, including other rich Americans. The top 0.1% have more than doubled their wealth since 2019, per WSJ They've gained $14.5 trillion, $10 trillion of it from stocks. The top 0.1% now control $28 trillion, 15% of all US wealth.

The AI boom needs Americans to spend a lot more on AI. To justify today's data center buildout, the U.S. may need to spend about $3.5 trillion a year on AI services by 2032, per Columbia professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh. That's 8.8% of GDP. For context, the buildout itself will cost $10.3 trillion from 2025 to 2032, more relative to the economy than the railroad, highway or telecom booms.

Robots can already do about 3/4 of physical job tasks in the US, per Anthropic. But they're cheaper than a human for just 0.3% of them. At the historical rate robots get cheaper, it would take about 40 years for that to reach 10%. Even in the fastest scenario, robots don't become cheaper than people for half of physical work until 2050.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says America has lost the bedrock of America, as there is no "longstanding career" anymore.

Only 37% of Americans consider themselves financially successful.

64% of six-figure earners say their pay only covers essentials, per YF

Microsoft, $MSFT, XBOX is embracing fan-made game ports instead of fighting them. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma addressed the recent wave of classic games, including community Halo mods, being decompiled and rebuilt to run on hardware they were never designed for. Rather than cracking down, she says she sees potential in “giving old games new life.” She’s asked Scott to launch Xbox Labs to explore making games easier to access and letting more players become creators.

Homeowners now spend nearly $24,000 a year on top of their mortgage payment, per WaPo. The biggest expense: utilities, at an average of $7,679 a year.

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Good night to everyone: