The 5 deadly sins of an investor

🖱️ Waiting for the next crash to invest
🖱️ Emotional-based decision making
🖱️ Trading too much
🖱️ Trimming winners to buy more losers
🖱️ Chasing the next big thing

✔️ @venture

🔠 AI capex turns contracted

The AI buildout already has about $3.2T of commitments locked in, making it look less discretionary than a normal capex cycle.

🖱️ $GOOGL, $946B, up 116% QoQ.
🖱️ $META, $731B, up 59% QoQ.
🖱️ $MSFT, $672B, up 50% QoQ.
🖱️ $AMZN, $453B, up 13% QoQ.
🖱️ $ORCL, $349B, up 16% QoQ.

Hyperscalers are securing compute, power and infrastructure years in advance.

The supply chain is starting to look like a multi-year contracted buildout.

✔️ @venture

⚖️SEC Proposes First Crypto Rulebook

🖱️ Projects can raise up to $75 million a year without registering as securities.

🖱️ A separate one-time exemption allows up to $5 million over four years.

🖱️ A token stops being a security once the team completes what it promised to build.

🖱️ State securities rules are overridden for these offerings.

🖱️ Projects still have to disclose key information to investors.

🖱️ The public comment period runs for 60 days.

✔️ @venture

📺 YouTube Eyes $1B NBA Deal

YouTube is in advanced talks on an NBA streaming deal worth more than $1B from the 2027-28 season.

It could combine local broadcasts for at least 25 teams in one hub. The NBA reportedly seeks up to $1.2B.

✔️ @venture

Google went public 22 years ago today at a $23B valuation.

It is up 18,161% since.

✔️ @venture

🧬 Moderna’s Personalized Cancer Vaccine

In a Phase 3 trial, Moderna’s personalized mRNA vaccine intismeran, combined with Merck’s Keytruda, extended recurrence-free and distant metastasis-free survival in high-risk melanoma patients after surgery. Moderna shares surged.

The vaccine targets each tumor’s neoantigens. It is the first successful late-stage trial for an individualized mRNA cancer therapy.

✔️ @venture

“We all sit in the shade of trees that were planted by others. So it’s obligatory, I think, to plant a few trees ourselves, if we’ve had good luck.”

Warren Buffett

✔️ @venture

“Intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs.”

Charlie Munger

✔️ @venture

💻️ NVIDIA’s $500 Billion Headline

On 10th August 2026, NVIDIA tied $500 billion to 6 memorandums of understanding. Final agreements remain pending.

Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR would create independent pools to underwrite compute as infrastructure. Huang said NVIDIA may support 25%, or $125 billion, not a booked liability.

A filing lists facility lease guarantees of $3.5 billion maximum gross and $712 million escrow over 5-7 years. The $500 billion is neither revenue nor one fund.

Closed deals will show tenor, collateral, usage contracts and who bears losses.

✔️ @venture

Ⓜ️ Thiel’s Facebook Exit

Peter Thiel turned a $500,000 investment in Facebook into roughly $1 billion, while retail investors were down 47% from the IPO price.

🖱️ 2004: Thiel invests $500,000 for roughly 10% of Facebook.

🖱️ May 18, 2012: Facebook IPOs at $38. Thiel sells 16.8 million shares for $640 million and sets up a plan to sell the rest before the stock trades for an hour.

🖱️ August 16-17, 2012: He sells 20.6 million more shares at $19-$21 after the first lockup expires.

🖱️ He keeps 5.6 million shares and his board seat.

The exit turned an early stake into $1 billion in cash, while the stock closed at $20.01 on August 20, 2012.

✔️ @venture

📈 Citadel Exits Bottom-Bought Portfolio

Citadel has sold 80% of the portfolio it bought from Situational Awareness at the market bottom, according to the Financial Times. The holdings rallied sharply after the purchase.

Situational Awareness nearly collapsed after the tech crash wiped out its positions. Citadel bought most of the stock holdings, then sold them back into the market through nearly 100 trades worth over $4 billion.

Ken Griffin told investors: "We have prided ourselves on being front-footed and proactive during periods of market dislocation."

✔️ @venture

7 Investors to Study

🖱️ Ray Dalio

🖱️ Nick Sleep

🖱️ Terry Smith

🖱️ Peter Lynch

🖱️ Warren Buffett

🖱️ Charlie Munger

🖱️ François Rochon

✔️ @venture

🇨🇦 Canada Retaliates With U.S. Tariffs

Canada will impose dollar-for-dollar tariffs on U.S. steel, electronics, appliances and other goods from September 8.

The move follows U.S. tariffs of 50% on around $20 billion of Canadian imports.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said the U.S. “asked too much and offered too little” after trade talks collapsed.

✔️ @venture

⚡️ Cathie Wood bought ~$28M of SPCX.

✔️ @venture

“One of my favorite tricks is the inversion process.”

“If somebody hired me to fix India, I would immediately say, ‘What could I do if I really wanted to hurt India?’ I’d figure out all the things that could most easily hurt India…and then I’d figure out how to avoid them.”

“It works better frequently to invert the problem.”

Charlie Munger

✔️ @venture

💻️ NVIDIA Escalates the AI Race

NVIDIA is spending $6B to build a powerful US alternative to Chinese AI models.

The company is licensing technology and acquiring engineering talent from AI startup Poolside. More than 100 engineers are expected to join NVIDIA and work on its Nemotron project.

The move puts NVIDIA in competition with DeepSeek, OpenAI, and Anthropic. CEO Jensen Huang is betting that open-weight AI can help the US maintain its lead over China.

✔️ @venture

📈 Burry Warns of Private Market Stress

Michael Burry says private equity and private credit could face disaster within 2-3 years, even without higher interest rates.

Private credit funds half of all AI data centers.
More than 3,000 private equity firms have not done a deal since 2021.

Higher rates make old deals expensive to refinance now.

✔️ @venture

“People are very careful: they spend hours to get $50 off an airplane flight. They look at everything. And then they'll put $10,000 in some crazy stock they heard about on the bus.”

Peter Lynch

✔️ @venture

“If you’re not willing to react with equanimity to a market price decline of 50% two or three times a century you’re not fit to be a common shareholder and you deserve the mediocre result you’re going to get.”

Charlie Munger

✔️ @venture

⚠️ US-China Sanctions Risk Escalates

China buys around 90% of Iran’s oil exports, mostly through smaller independent refineries. Imports fell from 823,000 barrels per day in July to around 534,000 in August, but China has not stopped buying.

Bessent warned that companies doing business with Iran could be cut off from the US dollar system. China says sanctions are not the solution and will protect its interests. Continued purchases could put major Chinese banks at risk, turning Iran sanctions into a direct clash with Beijing.

✔️ @venture

🔸 Copper moved ahead of a tariff

American warehouses held 673,766 tonnes before any tariff was imposed. The proclamation ordered a review, not a duty. Commerce missed the 30 June 2026 deadline, with no White House decision.

The review covered 15% from January 2027 and 30% from January 2028. Refined cathode remains excluded, while the 50% Section 232 rate from August 2025 applies to semi-fabricated goods.

Of the total, 406,872 tonnes were warranted and deliverable, while 266,894 were eligible but not warranted. Registered inventory was only 60% of the total.

The LME spread reached nearly $550 a tonne in backwardation, then fell to about $176 after 63,000 tonnes arrived on warrant in 3 days.

That points to a shortage of warrants, not metal.

✔️ @venture