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📱Everyone's spending billions to build AI. Apple's investing in hardware to wear it. Foldable iPhone, AI glasses, AirPods with a camera, an AI pendant — Apple's making roughly 10 new product bets. Will you switch back to a flip phone once Apple’s newest innovation launches this fall?

💸 Some Senate Republicans are pushing a tax proposal that could lead to an average of $350K in tax cuts for the top 0.1% — it's being pitched as an affordability fix. The idea: index capital gains to inflation, so you can adjust an asset's purchase price upward before calculating the gain. Smaller gain, smaller tax bill. Per Yale's Budget Lab, most of the break would go to the top 20% of earners — top 0.1% gets the largest share.

In 2022, this entire industry traded less than $1B. Last year? $63B. Four things actually caused it: → Kalshi won its case against the CFTC in May 2025 — federal recognition for prediction markets, first time ever. → The 2024 election. Polymarket became the real-time odds board cable news actually trusted. → Sports went legal. Kalshi did over $1B in trading volume on Super Bowl Sunday alone. → The institutional money showed up. The NYSE parent company wrote a $2B check. Sequoia, Paradigm, and a16z backed Kalshi at a $22B valuation. Part 3 next week — how big this actually gets, and what it means for you.

Meta spent $2B on an AI startup. Now China told them to give it back. The deal: $2B for Manus, the fastest startup ever to hit $100M ARR. Closed December. ~100 employees have already moved into Meta's Singapore office. This week: China's state planner ordered the whole thing unwound. The bigger story: China is now treating advanced AI the way the US treats semiconductors — as a strategic asset that doesn't get exported. Every US acquisition of an AI company with Chinese DNA (Beijing IP, Chinese founders, Tencent or Alibaba money) just got harder to close.

$725 billion. One year. On AI. That's what Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon are collectively spending in 2026. For context: → Apollo Program (10 yrs): $305B → Marshall Plan (4 yrs): $210B → Interstate Highway System (35 yrs): $665B Combine Apollo + Marshall + Manhattan Project. Big Tech still outspends all three by ~$180B...in a single year. And the forecasts keep going up. Meta just raised theirs by $10B. Alphabet says next year is "significantly higher."

Four tech giants reported this week — Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta. Together, they answered the biggest question hanging over this market: Is the AI boom slowing down? The answer: Not even close.

Today was Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's final FOMC meeting as Fed Chair. 8 years. 9.1% peak inflation. A 0% → 5.50% rate cycle in 16 months — the fastest tightening since the 1980s. A balance sheet that ballooned to $8.9T. Whether you think he moved too slow, just in time, or threaded the needle, his tenure reshaped how the Fed talks to markets — and how markets listen back.

🗞️ The Daily Range: Anthropic's Claude went from $1B to $30B in revenue in 15 months. OpenAI's ChatGPT just quietly missed its targets. Four stocks tanked today because of it.

He left because they wouldn't let him run it. He's suing because they ran it without him. In 2015, Elon Musk and Sam Altman co-founded OpenAI as a nonprofit. The written mission: make sure AGI benefits all of humanity. In 2017, Musk wanted majority equity, the board, and the CEO seat. The team said no. He resigned and told them their probability of success was zero. In 2019, they went for-profit anyway. Microsoft wrote a $1B check. In 2025, the cap came off entirely. $852B valuation. Microsoft holds 27%. A jury decides on May 12.

44% of the S&P 500 reports this week. Five of the Magnificent Seven are in that lineup. These aren't just earnings prints — they're economic signals. Ad revenue from Meta and Alphabet. Tariff exposure from Apple's guidance. Consumer and cloud health from Amazon. And the AI question that's been building all year: $470B in combined spend — does the revenue start showing up, or does the market start asking harder questions? We'll be watching closely. What are you paying attention to this week?

“There’s an endless world of jobs for the financial planners that work at Range,” CEO and co-founder Fahad Hassan on the next era of financial planning. We believe the future is bright for CFPs, CPAs and CFAs.

One French trader made $85M betting on a US election. In 2022, prediction markets traded $500M. In 2025? $63 billion. That's a 127x jump in three years. We just dropped part 1 of a series breaking down the wildest regulatory arcs in modern finance — from 3 Iowa economists in 1988 to Kalshi winning its case against the CFTC last May. What are your thoughts on prediction markets? 👀

✈️ For the first time, the front of the plane is out earning the back. Delta's latest earnings report reads more like an economic outlook. Premium revenue jumped 14% while main cabin barely moved. All while budget airlines struggle to stay afloat. Meanwhile the top 10% of US earners now drive nearly half of all consumer spending, according to Moody's. Guess where they're sitting? Airline earnings aren't really about airlines anymore. They're a real-time read on who can still afford to spend — and who can't.

Because one AI company wasn't enough for Elon Musk, Tesla just committed $25 billion to AI and robotics. That's 3x what they spent last year — and almost none of it is going toward EVs. The money is funding Optimus (their humanoid robot), AI infrastructure, and the Cyber Cab. We're watching this one closely. Stay tuned for more updates.

$60B. For a coding app. More than WhatsApp. More than LinkedIn. More than the biggest cybersecurity deal ever made. And the price is the least interesting part of this story. In 78 days, Musk quietly spent $310B — and consolidated more of the AI stack than anyone on Earth. Is Cursor worth $60B? Debatable. Is this M&A? Not even close. It's a data moat. And we should all be paying attention.

Mortgage applications jumped 10% this week. Here's why: 🏡 Mortgage rates fell to 6.35% this week, down from 6.42% last week. 🏡 Home prices have remained relatively stable YoY (+1.1% per AEI, the slowest since 2012). 🏡 30-year rates are now 55 bps lower than this same week last year.

$326 billion just quietly moved into one type of account — and almost nobody's talking about why. It's called a donor-advised fund. Two small rule changes made it the go-to move for high earners this year: — Charitable deductions now only count above 0.5% of your AGI (if you itemize) — Top-bracket earners' deduction is capped at 35%, down from 37% So wealthy families are opening DAFs, bunching years of giving into one high-income year, clearing the AGI floor, and giving on their own timeline for the next 10–20 years. 3.5M accounts. 74% funded with appreciated stock, ETFs, or real estate — not cash. If you're still writing December checks, you could be leaving a real deduction on the table. Comment "DAF" and we'll send you our guide to donor-advised-funds 👇

Meet Trump's pick to replace Powell as Fed chair. Kevin Warsh had his Senate confirmation hearing today — and his testimony told us a lot about how he'd lead our central bank. The clock is ticking for the Senate to come to a decision — Powell's term ends May 15th. Would you trust Warsh with the economy? 👇

Range Radar: Tim Cook is stepping down after 15 years as Apple's CEO. Here's what he built: - $3.65T in market cap added - Stock up 1,886% - Led the first company ever to hit $1T, $2T, and $3T Swipe to see his full legacy by the numbers.