🚀 SpaceX put almost as much payload into orbit as the rest of the world combined

The main driver, of course, is Starlink.

✔️ @venture

🚀 SpaceX completes $60B Cursor acquisition

SpaceX finalized the purchase of Cursor for $60 billion, turning it into a subsidiary. The deal followed an April option allowing SpaceX to buy Cursor or pay $10 billion for collaboration if the acquisition failed.

Cursor recently launched a strong update, its own model, and an SDK. This acquisition gives SpaceX a direct competitor to Claude Code and Codex.

✔️ @venture

📈 Global Capital Markets Hit Record $4.7 Trillion Raised

Global capital markets have raised a record $4.7 trillion in equity, corporate debt, and bank loans so far this year, the third straight annual increase.

This total is about $500 billion above the 2021 post-pandemic boom, driven by tech companies funding AI spending and record debt for AI infrastructure.

Investment-grade private credit for AI-related assets isn’t included but is growing fast. Investors are pouring money into AI at an unprecedented pace.

✔️ @venture

💳 Mastercard is having its worst year in 15 years

Mastercard is down 12.77% in 2026, making it the company's weakest year since 2010.

The decline stands out because the business has been one of the most consistent compounders in the market:

🔴 2010: -12.73%
⏺️ 2011: +68.76%
⏺️ 2012: +33.36%
⏺️ 2013: +63.73%
⏺️ 2014: +3.30%
⏺️ 2015: +13.63%
⏺️ 2016: +8.90%
⏺️ 2017: +43.62%
⏺️ 2018: +24.19%
⏺️ 2019: +57.37%
⏺️ 2020: +17.65%
⏺️ 2021: +2.23%
🔴 2022: -6.26%
⏺️ 2023: +22.98%
⏺️ 2024: +24.81%
⏺️ 2025: +9.28%
🔴 2026: -12.77%
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What makes the selloff interesting is that the underlying business remains strong.

🖱 Mastercard processes more than $10 trillion in annual payment volume.

🖱 Revenue has more than doubled over the last decade.

🖱 Operating margins remain above 50%.

🖱 The company continues to benefit from the long-term shift from cash to digital payments.

🖱 Cross-border transactions, one of Mastercard's most profitable businesses, continue to grow.
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Historically, Mastercard has rarely stayed down for long. Since 2010, only 3 years have finished in negative territory, including 2026.
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Great businesses do not often go on sale. When they do, long-term investors tend to pay attention.

✔️ @venture

💰 Bezos-Backed Prometheus Raises $12B for Physical AI

Prometheus, co-led by Jeff Bezos, raised $12 billion at a valuation near $41 billion. The company focuses on physical AI, software that designs real-world products like jet engines and medical devices.

Prometheus aims to build a universal AI engineer to speed up design, prototyping, and manufacturing. Bezos says processes that now take a decade could be cut by a factor of 10 or more.

✔️ @venture

📈 $5.15 Trillion S&P 500 Options Expire This Week

Markets face volatility as $5.15 trillion in S&P 500 options expire on June 19th, the largest monthly expiration ever.

S&P 500 index options total $4.84 trillion, with $307 billion in $SPY options.

Options bought as protection against the Iran conflict will expire, removing a key hedge and likely increasing market swings.

✔️ @venture

😊 Strategy's "stable" preferred stock falls 11% below par

STRC, Strategy's preferred stock designed to trade near $100, has dropped to around $89, its lowest level since launch in July 2025.
The structure relies on a variable dividend. If the price falls, Strategy can raise the yield and attract buyers. The market is asking for a higher rate, but the company has kept it at 11.5%, likely to preserve cash.
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That cash is becoming more important. In May, Strategy sold 32 BTC, its first Bitcoin sale in four years, to help cover obligations. Cash reserves have fallen from $2.25 billion to roughly $1.1 billion this year.
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The problem is that a preferred stock trading well below par becomes harder to issue, slowing one of Strategy's main funding channels for buying more Bitcoin.

✔️ @venture

🧫 Semiconductor Trade Remains Most Crowded

80% of global fund managers said in early June that long global semiconductors is the most crowded trade, according to a BofA survey. This marks the second consecutive month semiconductors have topped the list.

This reading is the second-highest since 2014, only behind long US tech at 82% in October 2020. Meanwhile, just 12% of respondents named long Magnificent 7 as the most crowded trade, which led for 23 months from 2023 to 2025[ and peaked near 70% in June last year.

Semiconductor stocks have never been hotter.

✔️ @venture

💸 AI has turned stock buybacks into a bad signal

For years, U.S. companies spent trillions buying back their own shares. It boosted earnings, supported stock prices, and often signaled there were few attractive places left to invest.

That logic is being reversed.

Google recently announced an $85 billion equity raise, effectively wiping out more than two years of buybacks. Meta is reportedly considering a stock sale as well. The goal is simple: raise capital and deploy it into AI infrastructure.
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Today's market is rewarding spending, not financial engineering.

Companies building data centers, buying chips, and expanding AI capacity are outperforming those focused on buybacks. According to Goldman Sachs, firms with elevated capital expenditures are beating companies with the highest buyback yields by roughly 30%, the largest gap on record.
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The shift is already visible in corporate financials. Across the market, free cash flow has fallen from roughly 90% of net income to about 75%, as companies spend more on AI infrastructure.
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The message from investors is clear.

Raise debt. Raise equity. Build capacity.

In the AI era, capital expenditure has become the new growth signal.

✔️ @venture

👎 Yann LeCun Calls Musk's xAI a Failure

Yann LeCun called Elon Musk's startup xAI a failure and predicted Musk's AI efforts will end in collapse. He said Musk already cannot compete with leading AI labs.

LeCun criticized Musk for "showing weakness" by leasing his Colossus data centers to competitors Anthropic and Google. He also said Musk won't attract top talent after reportedly mistreating the original xAI cofounders.

✔️ @venture

How to not lose money in the stock market:

1: Wait longer

✔️ @venture

7 Important Financial Ratios to Learn

✔️ @venture

📈 Nebius is becoming one of the fastest-growing AI infrastructure companies

Nebius grew AI cloud revenue by 841% year over year in Q1 2026 to $389.7 million and exited the quarter with an annualized run rate of $1.9 billion. Management expects that figure to reach $7-9 billion by year-end.
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The company belongs to a new category called neoclouds. Unlike AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, these providers were built specifically for AI workloads, with infrastructure optimized for GPUs, networking, and cooling.
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The market is expanding quickly. Neocloud revenue reached roughly $25 billion in 2025 and is projected to approach $400 billion by 2031.
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At the same time, Nebius is scaling capacity from 172 MW at the end of 2025 to a projected 7.5 GW by 2030, according to Wells Fargo. Two major AI campuses in Missouri and Pennsylvania account for 2.4 GW of that buildout.
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The investment case is simple: if AI demand continues to scale, infrastructure providers may become some of the biggest winners. Nebius is one of the few pure-play bets on that trend.

✔️ @venture

6 companies started in garages.

They’re worth nearly $12 trillion.

✔️ @venture