Category Archives: Daily Top Ten

TOPLEY’S TOP 10 October 30, 2025

1. The S&P has Hit 40+ Record Highs This Year..What Happens Next?

Nasdaq Dorsey Wright In yesterday’s trading, the S&P 500 (SPX) reached a new all-time high for the 43rd time in 2025. While this is an impressive feat, it still puts the index behind last year’s pace when it notched 51 record highs by the end of October, on its way to 62 high watermarks for the year. With the S&P possibly on track to hitting 50 records in back-to-back years, we were reminded of an article published in Bloomberg around this time in 2023, the first year in a decade that S&P didn’t reach a new all-time high.


2. Yesterday’s Top 10 Had Record Foreign Holdings of U.S. Stocks….Foreign Holdings of U.S. Overall Assets are Surging.

Source: Isabelnet


3. Equal Weight Underperforming Market Cap Weighted by Biggest Margin Ever

Barchart


4. CSCO Max Market Cap 1999 vs. NVDA 2025

Michael J. Kramer


5. In One Day…..Fiserv Gave Back All Stock Gains Going Back to 2016

Google Finance


6. 10-Year Treasury Yield Trending Back Up

CNBC


7. The Era of Negative Bonds Yields is Officially Over

The Kobeissi Letter


8. CNN Fear and Greed Index is in Fear

CNN


9. Healthcare Premiums for Average U.S. Family


10. Beep. Boop. Busted. Here’s how math nerds caught the NBA’s Terry Rozier

Dian ZhangIgnacio Calderon

USA TODAY

The numbers did not compute.

Even before Terry Rozier dropped out of the 2023 NBA game in which he’s accused of rigging his statistics, computers at an “integrity monitor” firm flagged a flood of bets that did not match a mathematical model of how this game should go. The company, now called IC360, alerted the NBA and sportsbooks about the unusual bets coming in on Rozier’s performance.

The investigation that led to the arrest of the Miami Heat point guard and dozens of others for illegal gambling started with math. It ended Oct. 23 with Rozier charged with manipulating his performance in that 2023 game so that gamblers in the know could win tens of thousands of dollars.

Beep. Boop. Busted.

Federal authorities allege more than $200,000 poured in betting that Rozier would turn in a below-average performance in that game after Rozier told another defendant he would drop out of the game early with an injury. Rozier played 9 minutes, 34 seconds for the Charlotte Hornets in the game against the New Orleans Pelicans before leaving with an injury and finished under his usual totals for points, assists and 3-pointers.

Earlier this year, similar mathematical models flagged unusual betting on individual pitches thrown by Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Louis Ortiz. Both were placed on indefinite leave.

How do you use math to catch a cheater? 

Detection starts with prediction. 

“When you do the odds compiling, you have a predicted model for how you expect the game to go,” said Chris Rasmussen, who teaches sports integrity at the University of New Haven and has spent years investigating sports betting fraud for the World Lotteries Association.

Based on the data behind the teams and players in the game, the model expects certain points for those players and predicts “expected behaviors.” When real-world betting behavior starts to deviate from the model’s prediction, that’s when “we are starting to look,” Rasmussen explained. “Why does it deviate, and how much does it deviate, and what’s going on?”

Bookmakers, the businesses or platforms that take bets on sporting events, often work with integrity monitors like IC360 that analyze sports and betting data across the market and flag unusual activity.

“It’s not necessarily the sportsbook’s job to prove cheating,” said Frank DiGiacomo, an attorney who practices law in gaming, sports betting, and lottery. “Their obligation is to flag a situation and report it.” Then, state regulators could launch investigations with law enforcement.

The monitoring model analyzes expected behavior and tracks outliers, numbers outside the expected range, whether they come from events in the game itself or from people placing unexpected bets on it. Then the model signals when it detects something more than luck at work.

A new account placing a maximum bet immediately raises red flags. “That’s really weird,” Rasmussen said. A new bettor would probably place $10, $15 or $20 in a new account, he said, not thousands of dollars.

Similarly, if an existing account that typically bets $50 on certain games suddenly places a $1,000 bet, that outlier behavior could trigger an investigation.

“Of course, you can be lucky one time,” Rasmussen said. “But if you keep being lucky, there’s probably something in it.”

How hard is it to catch cheaters?

Since the Supreme Court overturned the federal ban on sports betting in 2018, 39 states plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico have legalized some form of sports gambling.

With hundreds of thousands of bookmakers today, Rasmussen said cheating in sports betting is harder to catch because there are more betting opportunities. While bettors once could only bet on major games, they can now bet on games from college sports to eSports, and there are more ways to hide.  

“The criminals are working 24/7,” he said, “and we in law enforcement and so on are working … not the same as the criminals.

Rasmussen emphasized the importance of human monitors to identify cheating, even though algorithms and artificial intelligence can process vast amounts of data. 

“You still need a human behind,” he said. “You really need to understand the betting market… You need to understand what prop bets, the handicap, and so on mean, and you need to understand that there’s also the local aspect… There’s a difference from Chicago to LA to New York.”

Prop bets, which stand for proposition bets, allow bettors to wager on specific events or outcomes within a game rather than the final result—betting on who scores first, for example. Or whether Terry Rozier performs under his average stats. Or whether Louis Ortiz will throw an outside slider.

To DiGiacomo, the sports betting lawyer, a “fundamental trust that the games are fair and results are fair” is the core of the sports betting industry.

“Otherwise, people will not bet if they think the match is rigged,” he said.

If a gaming operator fails to notify a regulator, the consequences can be warnings, fines, and ultimately losing their license. “Licenses are their lifeblood, so operators take that seriously,” DiGiacomo said.

The same goes for players, but the consequences can be severe and career-ending. Given the salaries professional athletes could earn today, “losing years or perhaps being banned from a sport is a significant financial penalty, probably, I would assume, more significant than what they could win on a bet,” he added.

With Rozier’s arrest making headlines, athletes “will certainly, or should certainly” know that they’re not going to be able to get away with the regulated sports betting system, DiGiacomo warned.

“It’s a sad day for sports and for sports betting,” he said. “But I would say, this is the system working.” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/10/24/nba-rozier-betting-cheating-math-monitors/86857550007/

TOPLEY’S TOP 10 October 29, 2025

1. Cutting Interest Rates Near All-Time Highs Bullish

Ryan Detrick


2. Allocations to Gold Still Low

Gold Market Chartbook


3. Amazon Cutting 30,000 Corporate Jobs in Biggest Layoff Ever…The Stock Never Got Above 2024 Highs

StockCharts


4. NFLX Chart -20% from Highs…About to Close Below 50day for the First Time Since 2023

StockCharts


5. U.S. Announces Financial Backing of Nuclear $80B to Start …One Chart Tells Why

ZeroHedge


6. URA Uranium ETF Still Below Earlier 2025 Highs

StockCharts


7. Mag 7 Chinese Revenue Exposure

The Irrelevant Investor


8. Foreign Investors Love U.S


9. Child Social Media Bans Gaining Momentum

Statista


10. 900,000 vs 9-Seth’s Blog

It takes about 900,000 minutes to become a board-certified dermatologist. At that point, you might be very skilled and well-informed.

It takes less than nine minutes to make your patient feel seen, understood and reassured.

If you skip the 9 minutes, you wasted the 900,000. https://seths.blog/

TOPLEY’S TOP 10 October 28, 2025

1. American GDP vs. Open AI Energy Needs-Prof G Markets

Prof G Market


2. Another Look at Breadth Improving Beyond Mag 7

Capital Group


3. Semiconductor ETF Break-Out

StockCharts


4. Acceleration of Tech Adoption-Capital Group

Capital Group


5. ChatGPT vs. Internet

Peter Mallouk


6. 13M Meme Coins Launched in 2025

Bloomberg


7. Global Private Investment in AI …U.S. 10x China

Semafor


8. Alternative Investments in 401k Plans….Evergreen Funds are Private Debt and Real Estate

PitchBook


9. That was Fast…AI Equal Amount of Web Articles as Humans

chartr


10. Guided missiles targeting tumor cells open a new route to combat cancer

A major European clinical research event in oncology gives a boost to antibody–drug conjugates, treatments that work like a Trojan horse, delivering chemotherapy to the interior of malignant cells

A researcher at the Clinic Barcelona Comprehensive Cancer Center handles biological samples in the lab.  Jessica Mouzo

If more than half a century ago, science looked expectantly at the potential of chemotherapy to combat cancer; or 15 years ago, oncologists did the same with immunotherapy, which energized the immune system’s own defenses to attack tumor cells; now the spotlight has turned to an innovative treatment that is reaping promising results: antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs), treatments that function like a Trojan horse, delivering chemotherapy to the interior of tumor cells to destroy them. The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress, Europe’s main meeting for clinical cancer research, was held last week in Berlin, and it has given a boost to a new generation of these precision missiles. At the event, there were study presentations that demonstrated ADCs’ potential in several types of breast cancer and at various stages, not just metastatic.

These Trojan horses are formed by an antibody that targets a kind of antenna on the surface of tumor cells. These molecules carry a hidden chemotherapy payload, and when they reach their target, they bind to those receptors and release the entire drug into the tumor cells to selectively kill them. “ADCs are here to stay. It’s a validated line of research and it is like a highway along which we can continue to advance,” noted Aleix Prat, director of the Clinic Barcelona Comprehensive Cancer Center. Other studies presented at the event showed that this therapeutic approach also has potential for other tumors, such as ovarian, endometrial, and pancreatic cancers.

In breast cancer, these precision missiles have shaken up the prognosis of the most aggressive tumors. They entered the therapeutic arsenal more than a decade ago, but new generations of these drugs are gaining more ground. Three years ago, for example, research demonstrated that one of the new ADCs, trastuzumab-deruxtecan, increased the survival rate of women with HER2+ tumors (this subgroup accounts for 20% of all breast cancers) in metastatic stages. And a new study presented this year at ESMO and published simultaneously in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has also shown that another of these new precision missiles, sacituzumab govitecan, is more effective than conventional chemotherapy in treating triple-negative breast cancer (the most aggressive type, affecting 15% of patients) in advanced stages: median progression-free survival was almost 10 months in those treated with this Trojan horse (in those treated with chemotherapy alone it was seven months).

Javier Cortés, director of the International Breast Cancer Center in Barcelona and author of this research, asserts that, with this study, science confirms that when breast cancer metastasis appear; that is, when malignant cells have spread to other parts of the body, these drugs are positioned as the first treatment option. “This study adds another twist and improves the prognosis for these patients. Little by little, we are making slow but steady progress. At this congress, immunoconjugates have positioned themselves as the most innovative, the hottest, and the most spectacular,” notes the doctor, who is also scientific director of the IOB Institute of Oncology Madrid.

But this therapeutic strategy isn’t just suitable for the most advanced stages of cancer. Another study presented at the conference and published in the Annals of Oncology showed that in patients with high-risk, HER2-positive early breast cancer — who are more likely to have the disease recur — administering the ADC trastuzumab-deruxtecan followed by standard therapy before surgery improves the pathological complete response. This means that there are no tumor cells in the breast or lymph nodes at the time of surgery after this treatment, a key parameter for reducing the risk of relapse.

Santiago Escrivá de Romaní, an oncologist at the Breast Cancer Group at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, participated in this research: “We found an 11% higher rate of complete pathological response [when incorporating ADCs into treatment].” The doctor asserts that the development of Trojan horses is “a turning point” in oncology: “ADCs are gaining significant traction. They don’t allow us to rule out chemotherapy, but they greatly help us target it more precisely to tumor cells,” he adds.

Regarding this research, Prat asserts that in these early contexts, the therapeutic potential they anticipate from these Trojan horses means that “they can cure more patients.”

https://english.elpais.com/health/2025-10-27/guided-missiles-targeting-tumor-cells-open-a-new-route-to-combat-cancer.html#

TOPLEY’S TOP 10 October 27, 2025

1. Non AI Stocks Outperforming


2. Number of Leveraged ETFs

ChartStorm via @BarChart


3. Sector Level Earnings Surprises

The Daily Chartbook


4. Bank Loans to Non-Depository Institutions (private lenders)

Irrelevant Investor Blog


5. Small Cap Stocks are Underperforming QQQ by Record Margin

@BarChart


6. Concentration of Returns is Not Abnormal

@MikeZaccardi


7. America is Running Away with Data Center Build Out Race

5,426 Data Centers in the US

There are about 5,500 data centers in the US, and in Germany there are 529, see chart below. The bottom line is that the rest of the world is far behind the US when it comes to AI.

Apollo Academy

Note: Data as of March 2025. Sources: Statista, Cloudscene, Apollo Chief Economist


8. U.S. One of 10 Countries Working More Hours than OECD Average….Mexico and Costa Rica Off the Charts

Sherwood

Sherwood News-With summer now well and truly over for most, some of us might be starting to feel like it’s been ages since we were on vacation.

For a considerable share of Americans, though, it really has been a while.

The grind bind

A new survey from FlexJobs asked over 3,000 US workers about their paid time off, and found that, while most employees (82%) are offered vacation leave — a luxury not guaranteed in the only advanced economy without a minimum PTO mandate — almost a quarter (23%) said they hadn’t taken a single vacation day over the past year.

According to the study, a major concern for employees was falling behind on their workload — with 43% saying they simply had too much to do. But is America really on the grind much more than other countries?

Zooming out to a global scale, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that US employees dowork relatively hard compared with other member nations of the economic group, notching 1,796 hours worked per person last year — about 59 hours longer than average calculated across 36 OECD members. However, no country racked up as many hours worked as America’s southern neighbor, Mexico.

Though the US was one of only 10 nations that worked more than the OECD average, Mexico and Costa Rica racked up over 2,000 hours worked per person in 2024, equating to roughly 42 additional days of work per year above the mean, assuming a 10-hour workday.

At the other end of the spectrum were the usual suspects in these global labor force studies: workers in Germany did ~405 hours less work than the OECD average, closely followed by Scandi nations Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.

So, why do Americans refuse to take vacation days? Maybe, as Gallup has mentioned, AI-enhanced work practices are allowing employees to get in a few holiday-mode hours while they’re still on the clock. But the larger factor is probably just good old-fashioned “vacation guilt.

https://sherwood.news/personal-finance/almost-a-quarter-of-american-employees-havent-taken-a-single-vacation-day-in


9. Americans Worry About Inflation and Crime

Statista


10. Interview with Jim Clayton of Clayton Homes -Shane Parish

Here are 10 of the highlights I took away from this episode and my research:

  1. “If you have to swallow a frog, don’t look at him too long. If you have to swallow two frogs, swallow the big scudder first.”
  2. All complaining comes at the expense of improving.
  3. “Positive action produces positive attitudes, which produce a positive atmosphere.”
  4. Make your plan conform to the territory, not the other way around. Either work with the world the way you find it, or it will teach you a lesson.
  5. The best legal department is happy customers.
  6. “There are 3 kinds of people: those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and occasionally, someone who doesn’t know what happened.”
  7. Sometimes you don’t need to be great, you just need to be better than the competition.
  8. Bad loans are a virus.
  9. “The strong feed during depressions.”
  10. “In business as in flying, your instruments beat your instincts.”

https://fs.blog

TOPLEY’S TOP 10 October 24, 2025

1. More Earnings Stats

Beat rate. “The proportion of US companies beating earnings expectations this quarter is the highest in more than four years … About 85% of S&P 500 firms to have reported third-quarter earnings so far have surpassed profit estimates, on course for the best performance since 2021.”

Farah Elbahrawy – Bloomberg


2.Companies Beating Earnings are Underperforming


3.Sector Performance Since Highs on 10/8


4.Capex is Flat Outside of AI Build Out


5.Single Stock Leverage ETFs Trailing Stocks

WSJ Jack Pitcher  The brutal divergence in performance is caused by what traders call “volatility decay,” or the tendency of price fluctuations to erode the long-term returns of a leveraged fund, even if the underlying asset goes up. And it is why leveraged-fund managers are quick to warn that their funds shouldn’t be held for long periods.

“Everything that is problematic about these funds is more problematic the more leverage or volatility you add to them,” said Dave Nadig, an industry veteran and director of research at ETF.com. 

Money managers say that most leveraged funds aim to amplify returns for a single day, and shouldn’t be held for longer periods.

One of the most popular funds provides an extreme example. Last November, two recently launched ETFs that offered to double the daily returns of bitcoin-linked stock MicroStrategy (now known as Strategy), began to soar. The outsize gains attracted attention on social media, and thrill-seeking individual investors began to pile in at a pace never seen before for a leveraged single-stock fund. 

Many of those investors are now sitting on huge losses, despite the fact that the underlying Strategy shares are up over the past year. Strategy shares rose 28% in the 12 months ended Wednesday, while one of the leveraged funds, the Defiance Daily Target 2x Long MSTR ETF, plunged 65%. 


6.Low Quality Small Cap Rallying But See Long-Term


7.Dominant Active and Passive Managers…Vanguard and Blackrock 66% of Passive Combined

 


8.Mortgage Rates Closing in on 6%


9.Debt to GDP Europe


10.As Stated in My Quarterly Letter.. The U.S. is a Now a Stock Market Nations….Half of Private Sector Employees in 401k