The AI Illusion

Investors rushed to buy both AI and gold Something unique started happening in August. Investors simultaneously started aggressively buying AI companies, gold, and even Bitcoin. What’s the connection here? It’s actually a very unusual one. To build AI data centers, the biggest tech companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars. They need money for that. A lot of money. Which they keep borrowing in the market. In 2026 alone, their spending could approach $700 billion. And the problem is that the U.S. government is borrowing money in exactly the same way. And the more they borrow, the higher the interest rate they have to offer on that debt. But in August, the Treasury stepped in. And increased its buybacks of its own bonds to bring that very rate down. Investors immediately understood: Debt is becoming too expensive, and now the government will be looking for ways to make it cheaper. And the more interventions like this we see, the stronger the fear that the dollar will lose value. That’s why some of the money is moving into gold and Bitcoin. Which, as a result, saw inflows of $7 billion in just 5 days. At the same time, no one is giving up on AI either. Nvidia keeps climbing, and money is still flowing into tech funds. The market is now simultaneously buying AI as a bet that technology will make the world richer, while also buying gold and Bitcoin as insurance in case the bill for this party turns out to be too big and the system can’t handle it.

Why are billionaires buying plumbers? Who would have thought, but the biggest investment funds have found a new favorite asset. They are rushing to buy plumbing, electrical, and air-conditioning service companies on a massive scale. For context: since 2022 alone, funds have bought almost 800 such companies in the US. The most striking case is Apex Service Partners. In 2019, Alpine started bringing small trade service companies together under this company. Back then, Apex’s revenue was around $40 million. Today, it is already more than $3 billion, while the entire company was recently valued at around $10 billion. Why does this work? The US home services market is worth around $700 billion, but it is still made up of thousands of small firms. Funds buy them one by one, consolidate advertising, procurement, and management – and build one large network. And demand is very strong: pipes and air conditioners still need to be fixed, homes in the US are getting older, while the number of skilled tradespeople is declining. That is why, following the same model, companies providing elevator, fire-system, roofing, and even garage-door services are already being bought up. Essentially, funds have found a way to turn a very ordinary local business into companies worth billions of dollars. Most likely, the US has once again launched a new business model. And this proven model will quickly start being copied in other countries, building similarly large networks out of local service businesses.

Tesla will release a “human” for $20,000 Musk officially confirmed: the first Optimus robots will go on sale in 2027. And the bet on them is so massive that, to make room for these robots, the company has already discontinued its legendary Model S and Model X cars. Tesla wants to create a truly universal assistant: clean the house, put things away, bring in groceries, load the washing machine, open the door, use regular tools, and learn new tasks simply by being told what to do. In short, a new member of the family for every household. And on top of that, a universal worker in any factory. The target price is around $20–30K, although Tesla has not announced the final price yet. Right now, in Texas, they are designing a factory to produce 10 million robots a year. That’s 20 times more than the number of robots being made worldwide right now. So Tesla is going almost all-in on this field. Although the bet is worth it. If Optimus learns to work like a human, for the first time, the workforce could simply be produced on an assembly line. And here’s a solution to demographic problems around the world. Do you believe robots can partially replace physical labor this quickly? ❤️ – It’s possible 👍 – I don’t believe it

Apple just released a $2,000 iPhone It’s called the iPhone Duo. And yes, as many of you may have already heard, it’s the first foldable iPhone in history. The price starts at $1,999. This is an experiment. Apple is essentially testing whether millions of people are willing to pay for a smartphone like they would for a good laptop. If they are, the price ceiling for premium phones has just been pushed significantly higher for the entire market. Analysts are already expecting 6–10 million Duo sales in its first year. In a strong scenario, that number could reach 15–20+ million. If the Duo actually sells better than expected without hurting margins, analysts will have to raise their forecasts for Apple’s earnings. In a strong scenario, that points to around $400–430 per share, versus the current ~$315.

Is ChatGPT destroying Wall Street? OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT for finance today. It includes data on roughly 13 million companies and 3 million transactions. You can give it a specific stock – anything from a company like Apple to a little-known business. And get a full breakdown: how revenue and earnings are growing, how much debt the company has, how it stacks up against competitors. And how much the stock could be worth under different scenarios. It pulls all of this together in Excel and backs it up with sources. A professional deep-dive that a team of Wall Street analysts could previously spend days or weeks putting together can now be done with a single prompt in a matter of minutes. The product was built in partnership with Morgan Stanley. There, 98%+ of financial advisor teams are already using the AI. OpenAI is now testing the tool with banks and funds. The next step – add it to regular ChatGPT, so the kind of analysis used by the world’s biggest banks to evaluate virtually any asset could end up in anyone’s phone.