Wasteland Capital
Buy The Dip.

https://t.co/U2Oz9xDgz0 - ClarksonsFarm
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AkhenOsiris
$DKNG $FLUT $HOOD Kalshi Polymarket

Macquarie's near-term TAM assessment frames prediction markets as a material, incremental opportunity for DraftKings and FanDuel, and puts a figure of $4.4bn on the sports-only TAM and $5bn when non-sports are included.

This is largely concentrated in non-OSB states representing ~40% of the US population, led by California and Texas, the team added.
Both operators intend to launch their prediction products in Q425 or Q126 at the latest, initially focused on jurisdictions without legal sports betting.

The analysts constructed the sports-only TAM by assuming prediction handle will be 25% lower than OSB handle, reflecting fewer bet types, weaker promotional intensity and less sophisticated same-game parlay/prop inventories.

Macquarie estimates a ʻbig five'
competitive set: DraftKings, FanDuel, Kalshi, Polymarket and Robinhood.

The analysts modeled market shares of 15% for DraftKings and 17% for FanDuel for sports prediction markets, yielding roughly $700m revenue and ~$150m EBITDA each.

Blending both sports and non-sports verticals, Macquarie assigned DraftKings a 14% total prediction market share and FanDuel 16%, resulting in incremental market value creation of $2.5bn for DraftKings and $2.8bn for FanDuel.

This will be entirely additive to
current OSB economics given these markets are outside existing sportsbook jurisdictions.

Macquarie also modeled OSB cannibalization scenarios. Crucially, even with 10% cannibalization, prediction markets still generate net positive EBITDA for both DraftKings and FanDuel if they achieve the assumed 14% and 16% market shares.

In light of their view that prediction markets are a net additive, not substitutive, they believe the recent share-price declines for both operators are fundamentally overdone.
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AkhenOsiris
Anthropic Claude Productivity Assessment

Across one hundred thousand real world conversations, Claude estimates that AI reduces task completion time by 80%. We use Claude to evaluate anonymized https://t.co/cBAQCMiXmu transcripts to estimate the productivity impact of AI. According to Claude’s estimates, people typically use AI for complex tasks that would, on average, take people 1.4 hours to complete. By matching tasks to O*NET occupations and BLS wage data, we estimate these tasks would otherwise cost $55 in human labor.

The estimated scope, cost, and time savings of tasks varies widely by occupation. Based on Claude’s estimates, people use Claude for legal and management tasks that would have taken nearly two hours, but for food preparation tasks that would have taken only 30 minutes. And we find that healthcare assistance tasks can be completed 90% more quickly, whereas hardware issues see time savings of 56%. This doesn’t account for the time that humans might spend on these tasks beyond their conversation on https://t.co/cBAQCMiXmu, however, so we think these estimates might overstate current productivity effects to at least some degree.

Extrapolating these results to the economy, current generation AI models could increase annual US labor productivity growth by 1.8% over the next decade. This would double the annual growth the US has seen since 2019, and places our estimate towards the upper end of recent estimates. Taking as given Claude’s estimates of task-level efficiency gains, we use standard methods to calculate a 1.8% implied annual increase in US labor productivity over the next ten years. However, this estimate does not account for future improvements in AI models (or more sophisticated uses of current technology), which could significantly magnify AI’s economic impact.

https://t.co/napRaQfQhT
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AkhenOsiris
Piper on $HOOD JV, reit OW $155 target

MIAXdx holds several derivatives licenses, including a Designated Contract Market (DCM), Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO), and Swap Execution Facility (SEF), which will enable the joint venture to build a prediction markets exchange.

Until now, Robinhood has been using external exchanges such as Kalshi and ForecastEx for its prediction market offering, but this acquisition will allow the company to operate its own platform.

Piper Sandler views the deal as "quite positive" for Robinhood, estimating the company will receive approximately a 45% boost on its prediction market economics for contracts traded through the new joint venture.
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Wasteland Capital
If everyone was a value investor, noone would ever buy stocks higher.

Someone needs to buy a stock higher for it to go up. Just holding it doesn’t make it go up.

So be glad there are many investor types. From value, GARP & growth to delusion & Ponzi, and everything in between.
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WealthyReadings
Finished looking into $PATH: I’m not convinced, mainly due to ARR dollar growth deceleration.

I understand the bull case. But until the data backs it up, I’ll stay out.

That said, $PATH has one of the best chart on the market and reports next week.

Now onto $ZETA. Which one should I check next?
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Fiscal.ai
The Fiscal AI Black Friday Sale is now Live!

Get 30% Off any paid plan this week only! 💥 https://t.co/XmLOLTkRMj
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Fiscal.ai
Uber and Airbnb trade at nearly the exact same forward valuation.

Which would you rather own at current prices?

$UBER 22.4x
$ABNB 21.8x https://t.co/hizgiNJaGe
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WealthyReadings
$BABA will shock when it posts 15%+ YoY growth in Q1-26.

The market isn’t pricing this in and still believe $BABA's growth is slowing. It isn’t.

$BABA sold Inmut and Sun Art Q4-24, two businesses that generating roughly RMB 20B per quarter. Their removal from revenues makes this year’s growth look softer simply because comps include businesses that no longer exist in the group.

Adjusted for those, $BABA growth has actually been accelerating over the last three quarters: 10% → 10.7% → 15%

It’s not obvious in the numbers, but it will be once Q1-26 is compared against the first fully post-selling quarter.

Just wait for the market’s reaction.
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EndGame Macro
The Inflation Nobody Sees but Everybody Feels

Paychecks have gone up, but the stuff people can’t avoid has gone up faster. Wages climbed steadily from 2021 to today, but shelter, food away from home, and even basic services have pulled ahead and they haven’t come back down. That gap is the entire mood of the economy right now.

Wages Are Up But The Essentials Escaped the Gravity of Paychecks

If you look at the lines one by one, wages rise in a clean, controlled slope. But shelter shoots higher. Eating out shoots higher. Groceries edge higher. Even basic services drift above the wage line. The only categories that actually fit inside the wage gains are things people cut first when money’s tight, recreation and alcohol.

That alone tells you the truth: the things that make life enjoyable are still affordable if you sacrifice somewhere else, but the non negotiables are the ones eating the difference. You don’t feel richer when the gains you make at work are swallowed by rent, food, and service prices before you even touch your discretionary budget.

And that’s the thing the headline numbers never capture. The inflation rate cooled, but the price level never came back. The shock stayed in place. You don’t undo a 25–30% jump in shelter by bringing annual inflation back to 3%. Households live in the new level, not the new rate.

Why Sentiment Feels Worse Than the Data Says

Historically, this isn’t normal. Pre 2020, we basically lived in an era of dead flat inflation and low rates. The economy wasn’t perfect, but it was predictable. Then in four years, everything that matters jumped in price at the fastest pace since the early ’80s. Even if wages kept up on average, most people don’t feel it. Renters got hit the hardest. Young buyers got priced out. Anyone who didn’t lock in a mortgage before the spike feels like they’re paying a premium for the same life their parents got at a discount.

That’s why consumer sentiment still reads like a recession even with unemployment low and stocks at highs: people aren’t reacting to the economy, they’re reacting to what it costs to live in it. We’ve seen strong spending numbers, but underneath that is a shift toward trading down, choosing cheaper brands, cutting back on dinners out, and saving less.

And once people feel squeezed on the essentials, that shapes everything else: politics, mood, expectations, and how secure they feel even with a decent job.

The Real Takeaway

This is a snapshot of a deeper tension in the economy: a world where the macro data looks stable, but the lived experience feels harder. A world where the recovery happened on paper, but the affordability didn’t come with it.

That’s why the vibecession won’t magically disappear. People don’t care that inflation is down, they care that rent is still up. They care that groceries never went back to 2019 levels. They care that eating out is now a conscious decision instead of a casual one.

And until the essentials start moving in the same direction as wages or wages finally outrun the essentials the gap you see in this chart is the gap you’ll keep hearing in the public mood.

Why there never was a Vibecession in one chart.

It’s always been about the prices of essentials. https://t.co/lDhA1HqIa2 - Isabella M Weber
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EndGame Macro
Stephen Miran’s Quiet Revolt And Why He Says the Fed’s Leverage Fix Doesn’t Go Far Enough

Miran isn’t against giving banks capital relief. The new rule cuts the enhanced leverage buffer and trims TLAC and long term debt, opening up more balance sheet space for Treasuries, reserves, and repo, exactly the mechanical change I laid out before. What he’s saying is that, in normal times, the leverage ratio shouldn’t be the thing that bites, because when it does, it pressures banks to reach for riskier, higher yielding assets just to justify the capital they’re forced to hold.

Where he breaks from the rest of the Board is on the structure. The new rule still counts Treasuries and Fed reserves in the leverage denominator; it just lowers the required ratio. Miran thinks that’s fundamentally inconsistent. Regulators require banks to hold these instruments as high quality liquid assets, and risk based capital already treats them as essentially risk free. In his view, it makes no sense to demand those holdings for liquidity, then penalize them again through the leverage test. He wants Treasuries and reserves excluded from the SLR denominator altogether.

He ties this directly to market plumbing. Treasury and repo desks are low margin, high volume businesses that keep the government’s funding machine running. If you make those books capital intensive, banks will naturally shrink them at the margin, especially when volatility is high. That, in his eyes, makes the Treasury market shallower and more fragile just when the fiscal side needs it most.

He also points back to 2020, when regulators temporarily carved Treasuries and reserves out of the SLR to stop the market from seizing. His argument is don’t wait for the next panic and improvise another exemption that looks like a bailout. Set the rule in advance, make it transparent, and avoid having to bend it under pressure.

So the Board majority is saying they will keep the basic leverage design, but dial it down so it stops choking balance sheets. Miran is saying, If you really believe these assets are the safest in the system, they shouldn’t be in this ratio at all.

How I Read the Tradeoff

On logic, he has a strong case. It is hard to defend a framework that forces banks to hold Treasuries and reserves, calls them risk free in one part of the rulebook, and then treats them as if they’re just another asset in the leverage test. That really does discourage the kind of Treasury market intermediation policymakers say they want.

But taking Treasuries and reserves completely out of the denominator isn’t costless. For the largest banks, those positions are enormous. If you ignore them in the leverage ratio, that ratio stops being a real backstop and you slide back toward relying almost entirely on risk weighted models and supervisory judgment, the combination that badly underestimated risk pre 2008. You also invite banks to grow very large books of risk free sovereign exposure, which deepens the link between the banking system and the state. That’s fine until confidence in the sovereign wobbles; then you’re flirting with the kind of bank sovereign doom loops Europe has already lived through.

So I see the majority trying to walk a middle line: keep a meaningful leverage check, but loosen it enough to free up trillions of balance sheet space. Miran is pushing the internal logic all the way to the end that if the real goal is smooth Treasury financing and deep liquidity, then the clean answer is to stop letting the leverage ratio lean on those holdings at all.

The deeper signal is that everyone involved shares the same fear of a huge refinancing wave, a softer economy, and a Treasury market that cannot afford another March 2020 moment. The disagreement is not about whether to use bank balance sheets as shock absorbers, that decision has basically been made. It’s about how much of the old armor they’re willing to strip off to make that strategy work.

My statement on the final rule on levera[...]

ge ratio capital relief. I think we should give further attention to removal of Treasury securities and reserves from leverage ratio calcluations, since we force banks to hold these through liquidity requirements. https://t.co/umglzUrFzw - Stephen Miran tweet