Samuel C O'Brient

Businesses are urging Congress to strip a measure from a bill that would restrict defense contractors from issuing dividends or buying back their stock. More than 40 business and industry groups have penned a letter to the Senate urging action on section 815 of the National Defense Authorization Act, a provision that would effectively ban companies that contract with the Department of Defense from buying back their own shares or paying dividends. "If adopted, Section 815 would harm millions of American retirees and other investors by restricting lawful returns of capital to shareholders, establish a troubling precedent for federal interference in corporate governance and capital allocation decisions," the letter stated. President Trump first discussed the idea of barring defense contractors from stock buybacks in January... Read the full story in my latest for @BusinessInsider ⬇️📰 businessinsider.com/stock-buyback-…

@JayShams Not a tunnel built by Elon Musk's Boring Company?

The year is 2054. President-Emperor Barron Trump claims the United States controls the Strait of Hormuz again. China is exporting electric cars to Mexico through a tunnel they built underneath the Earth's crust.

Would you pay $150 for a souvenir cup? No? How about $200 for a cup and a baseball cap? Still no? What if it has the SpaceX logo on it? There's a colorful and weird market online for such swag, as eBay sellers look to cash in on the hype in the wake of the historic SpaceX IPO last month. One seller is offering a set of two glow sticks they say were handed out at the IPO launch party for $150. For $228, you can buy a framed S-1. If you really want to splurge, why not pay $5,000 for an "Elon Musk Rookie Card"? While it doesn't appear to be explicitly linked to the IPO, the listing banner reads: "SpaceX IPO Elon Musk! ROOKIE CARD!" In my latest for @BusinessInsider, I explore the booming SpaceX merchandise market that has taken off recently. businessinsider.com/spacex-collect… $SPCX

@DGretta_Author Pretty sure you could find an aisle like that at any grocery store. My local Whole Foods has something similar to that...and a lot of green produce twenty feet away.

You ain't losing weight here at Wholefoods.

Donald Trump didn't make his first billion in crypto until age 80 Relax, you still have time

Most venture capitalists probably don't root for the hottest investment theme of the current era to flame out and crash. But in a post on X on June 30, Vijay Pande, founder of VZ.VC, laid out why he's rooting for the AI-fueled investing bubble to burst. More than that, he argued that everyone should feel this way, making a case for why the bursting of the AI bubble could be the best thing for the broader economy in the longterm. "I'm telling you to root for the crash that torches my own asset class," Pande wrote. "I mean it. The valuations are silly, the data-center spending is feverish, and half the people I talk to are quietly bracing for the fall." Pande said that he thinks a stock market crash is inevitable at this point, but when it happens, it will ultimately prove to be a positive development. A reversal of AI mania, he argues, is necessary for a "Renaissance cycle" of growth and rebuilding that comes with the disruption prompted by a new. Read the full story about why Pande believes the stock market needs to crash in my latest for @BusinessInsider ⬇️📰 businessinsider.com/ai-bubble-stoc… #AI #stockmarketcrash #economy

Are meme stocks still a thing? Last week, markets got a dose of 2021, when Wendy's stock surged more than 25% in a day and the WallStreetBets crowd rallied around a singe mantra: "We need to save Wendy's." It was a blast from the past and a reminder that the retail cohort still has the power to squeeze stocks, but in a tighter post-COVID market and a new era of mega-IPOs and hot investment themes, the playbook looks a little different than it did in the GameStop era. In 2021 the meme stock trade allowed retail investors to dump their government "stimmy" checks into beaten down names like GameStop and AMC Entertainment, seen as symbols of a bygone era longed for by millennial investors. "Back then, retail enthusiasm was fueled by abundant liquidity, a wave of high-profile IPOs and powerful thematic narratives around clean energy, EVs and disruptive technology," Vanda wrote. Read the full story in @BusinessInsider ⬇️📰 businessinsider.com/meme-stocks-we… $WEN $GME $AMC

The rise of the "finfluencer" has been well documented, but @Ivan_patriki and Carson Hein say the bad advice and scams that unsuspecting traders stumble into have not. An active trader with over 300,00 followers on social media, Patriki can be considered an influencer himself. However, after becoming disenchanted with the information being promoted by some prominent personalities online, he joined forces with a fellow trader when both were still teenagers. Their plan was to give everyday investors access to better tools by launching QuantMap. "You're either lying about the money you made trading with a broker or prop firm, or you're lying about the money you're making just trading normally," Patriki told Business Insider about the tales influencers spin to win followers. "I decided I'm going to speak to the best trader that I know [and] build a system with him." Read more about my conversation with both Patriki and Hein in @BusinessInsider ⬇️📰 businessinsider.com/gen-z-traders-…

@APompliano As the son of two small business owners, I completely agree with this.

Spoke to the owner of a pizza shop based in NYC. He said insurance and electric costs are up 40% in last few years. Tough to thrive in that environment. Small business owners don’t get enough credit for how good they are as entrepreneurs.

@StockJabber Congratulations! Excited to see what you guys do with it. Expecting big things.

Some personal news: Hunterbrook Media has acquired The Bear Cave newsletter. I started The Bear Cave to pursue independent investigative research and am excited to partner with a team that shares that mission. Hunterbrook will invest in bringing more original reporting to The Bear Cave’s readership and together we will bring the publication to new heights. I’d like to thank so many people for helping make The Bear Cave a reality, starting with Professor John Shoven at Stanford, my first paid subscriber Jim Carruthers, early mentors like Marc Cohodes, Andrew Left, Doomberg, Petition, Bill Martin, and many others, including Substack founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi for making it possible for anyone anywhere to build a following and income from writing online. I owe endless gratitude to everyone who read and shared The Bear Cave, and especially those who supported The Bear Cave with paid subscriptions. Above all, The Bear Cave would not exist if not for all the activist short sellers who speak truth to power: @CitronResearch @FriendlyBearSA @muddywatersre @WolfpackReports @JehoshaphatRsch @ScorpionFund @KerrisdaleCap @ResearchGrizzly @CapybaraShort @NMRtweet @HitHawk_ @NingiResearch @GlassH_Research @FuzzyPandaShort @AureliusValue @blueorcainvest @IcebergResear @CulperResearch @GothamResearch @SnowCapResearch @FugaziResearch @WhiteResearch @SunlightPartner @Pelicanwayre @callistores @BmfReports @QCMFunds @JCap_Research @BonitasResearch @Jonathan_Keith2 @viceroyresearch @umibozuresearch @HindenburgRes @Manateeres @MorpheusRes Thank you.

It's official. Wendy's stock is the newest short-squeeze. Retail traders piled into shares of the burger chain on Wednesday, catalyzing a 25% gain that extended by another 9% on Thursday before paring the gains amid volatile intraday trading. According to data from Vanda Research, which tracks retail inflows into single stocks and ETF, Wednesday marked the second-biggest day of retail net-buying of the stock since 2012, with flows behind just Nvidia and SpaceX. Commentary from retail traders around the internet show they see a classic setup: shares of a nostalgia-heavy consumer brand with high short interest, similar to the conditions that helped stocks like GameStop and AMC Entertainment rocket higher. Check out my latest for @BusinessInsider and let me know what you think - is Wendy's the new meme stock? businessinsider.com/wendys-stock-s… $WEN $GME $AMC

@ScottNover @PranavDixit Aren't we all?

@PranavDixit Not yet, but I'm trying.

If anyone can tell me which New York Times journalists make more than $800,000, hit me up on Signal at scottnover.99

Wendy's was already the subject of retail traders' favorite memes. Now they're hoping it'll be their new favorite meme stock. The fast food chain suddenly exploded on Wednesday, surging by as much as 28%, with trading volume soaring to 24 million shares changing hands compared to the daily average of about 8 million. The spike would put the stock on track to erase its year-to-date loss of about 24%. For retail traders, all of this means just one thing: a short squeeze is brewing. "You are looking at a classic combo," one trader wrote on Reddit. "Institutional short sellers getting caught off guard by fundamental turnaround news, and retail communities immediately weaponizing that high short interest to force a squeeze." Is Wendy's the new meme stock? is this a short squeeze? In my latest for @BusinessInsider, we get into these questions ⬇️📰 businessinsider.com/wendys-stock-u… $WEN

SpaceX has been the talk of Wall Street since its historic IPO, with both retail and institutional investors piling in, but there's one group that won't be chasing the hype. Inspire Investing, which focuses on "biblically responsible investing," says it won't be going near Elon Musk's rocket and AI company for one reason: it's social media business. CEO Robert Netzly told Business Insider that X, which is a part of SpaceX-owned xAI, has prevented SpaceX from passing Inspire's "moral audit." "SpaceX is an impressive company by any financial measure, and I had no doubt the IPO would generate extraordinary excitement," he said. "But I wonder sometimes whether investors have paused to ask what they are actually becoming a partial owner of when they buy." Read the full story about my conversation with Netzly in @BusinessInsider businessinsider.com/faith-based-in… $SPCX $PLTR #stockmarket

Lloyd Blankfein left Goldman Sachs in 2018, but the former top banker hasn't been sitting on the sidelines of the market since then. Blankfein recently discussed his investing philosophy with Sam Parr on the My First Million podcast, breaking down where he's putting his money and how he's making investment decisions. He says he's focused on three stock sectors in particular, noting that he's often trading stocks every day. "I'm mostly and have been in tech and energy," he said. "Don't forget, I have a background in trading energy. I'm also in financial services cause I know a lot about it having been in the [the industry]. Those are the three areas that I've been focused on." Read more about Blankfein's investing strategy in my latest for @BusinessInsider ⬇️📰 businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-… #WallStreet #stockmarket #investing

If you're thinking about OpenAI or about the wave of mega IPOs that has already started, I highly recommending checking out what Gary Marcus told me last week. Read all about it in @BusinessInsider ⬇️📰

@GaryMarcus Thank you for sharing! Always a pleasure to chat.

OpenAI troubles could also be troubles … “for tech stocks like Nvidia, Oracle and CoreWeave with high exposure to it. "Their values rely to a significant degree on the expectation that OpenAI will have an immense demand for chips and data centers, but OpenAI is burning cash very, very, very, fast," @garyMarcus told @BusinessInsider "They probably have problems if they don't get public money. If they have problems, that puts the future of other companies that count them as a major customer in doubt”” businessinsider.com/gary-marcus-ai…

SpaceX made its historic debut on the Nasdaq on Friday, popping 30% in early trading and vaulting the company above a $2.2 trillion market cap. Ahead of the offering, SpaceX made a point to court retail traders, setting aside more shares than usual at the IPO price in a bid to get regular folks excited about getting in early on a stock with the potential to soar. Recent data shows that retail traders have been selling many of their favorite stocks across AI and chips sectors, building a cash pile ahead of SpaceX and other expected mega-offerings this year. But, not every retail trader is rushing to start buying. Read the full story in my latest for @BusinessInsider ⬇️ businessinsider.com/spacex-ipo-nas… #SpaceX #SPCE #stocks

The mega-IPO wave led by SpaceX and Anthropic has retirees worried about their finances. Their advisors say otherwise. businessinsider.com/spacex-ipo-ret… via @businessinsider AI Bubble? Inclusion @Nasdaq. @elonmusk @SpaceX @cvpayne Marcus Sturdivant shares his thoughts @BusinessInsider