The semiconductor sector took another hard hit on Friday, with the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) falling more than 4% in the session and extending a brutal July selloff that has now erased more than 8% from the ETF’s value. This marks the third weekly decline in four weeks for the SMH. The catalyst was a Chinese startup. Moonshot AI unveiled a new artificial intelligence model this week that the company claims performs on par with the leading offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic — at a fraction of the infrastructure cost. Applied Materials, Lam Research, Intel, KLA Corp., and Arm Holdings each...

Netflix delivered a mixed second quarter that sent shares tumbling more than 7% on Friday — one of the streaming giant’s sharpest post-earnings drops this year. The company reported Q2 revenue of $12.56 billion, up 13% year over year, narrowly missing the $12.59 billion Wall Street had penciled in. Earnings per share came in at $0.80, a penny ahead of the $0.79 consensus, while net income reached $3.40 billion — up from $3.13 billion in the year-ago quarter. On the surface, the numbers look decent. But investors focused on what’s ahead, not what just happened. The trouble started with guidanc...

The labor market may be sending a more positive signal than Wall Street expected. ManpowerGroup (NYSE: MAN) delivered a blowout second-quarter earnings report on Thursday, sending shares surging 32.4% to $51.65 — a four-year high. The global staffing giant swung to a net income of $53.5 million in Q2 2026, reversing a net loss of $67.1 million in the same period last year. Revenue grew 7.5% year-over-year to $4.86 billion, up from $4.52 billion. Excluding one-time items — including the sale of its Jefferson Wells US business and restructuring costs — adjusted earnings per share came in at $0.9...

Eli Lilly is writing another major check — this time to gain a foothold in the fast-growing psychiatric drug space. The pharma giant announced it will acquire AtaiBeckley Inc. (NASDAQ: ATAI) for up to $3.8 billion, sending shares of ATAI surging 33.4% to $7.15 on Thursday. The deal structure offers AtaiBeckley shareholders $6.75 per share in cash upfront, plus up to $2.50 per share in contingent value rights (CVRs) tied to clinical and regulatory milestones — bringing the total potential payout to $9.25 per share, a 72% premium over Wednesday's close of $5.36. The CVR payments are staggered ac...

PayPal just had its biggest single-day move in years — and the catalyst is a blockbuster $53 billion takeover bid. Shares of PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) surged 17.2% on Wednesday to close at $55.52, after Reuters reported that payments company Stripe and private equity firm Advent International are teaming up to acquire the fintech giant at $60.50 per share. That buyout price represents a 27.7% premium over PayPal's prior closing price of $47.37. If the deal closes, it would rank among the largest private equity-driven buyouts in fintech history. The backdrop matters here. PayPal has spent...

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When Fundrise's Innovation Fund (VCX) listed on the NYSE on March 19, 2026, at a net asset value of $18.97 per share, something unusual happened: retail investors briefly bid the price above $400 — a premium exceeding 20 times NAV. That euphoria has faded. But the underlying NAV math, when you run it carefully through the fund's actual holdings and recent fundraising rounds, tells a genuinely interesting story. Financial Samurai's founder, a multiple six-figure investor in Fundrise products who has been locked up since the listing, has published the most detailed NAV estimate yet: approximatel...

An AI startup just used one of its own AI agents to raise $100 million. The agent drafted investment memos, communicated with over 130 prospective investors, tracked which slides they lingered on the longest, and helped the founders choose the best strategic partners from $400 million of interest for a $100 million raise. The company is Lyzr Inc., a New York-based firm that builds autonomous AI agents for enterprise clients including Accenture (ACN). The round closed in weeks. The story sounds like a footnote — until you zoom out and ask what it means when AI is now helping finance the next wa...

The bears said the AI infrastructure trade was over. Samsung just proved them wrong in spectacular fashion. The South Korean chipmaker's preliminary second-quarter operating profit came in at roughly 89.4 trillion won — nearly $60 billion — up 19 times year over year. The driver? Almost pure AI memory demand. That number doesn't support the narrative that the AI infrastructure cycle has peaked. It obliterates it. This month's selloff in AI infrastructure stocks has been significant. Micron Technology (MU) dropped about 20% from its June record high. SpaceX Technologies (SPCX), TeraWulf (WULF)...

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