2. Foreign-Held U.S. Equities Hit New Record Highs
NDR
3. Meanwhile…No Money is Flocking to Euro
Apollo
4. Gold Pulling Away from Bitcoin Since August
YCharts
5. Lithium Price Still -90% From Highs
Bespoke
6. COIN Hit $444 at highs…-27% from that Level….Holding June Levels
StockCharts
7. Consumer Staple Bear Market …Now KVUE Tylenol News…Pulls Back to 3-Year Lows
StockCharts
8. Distribution of Stock and Housing Wealth in America
Ben Carlson
9. Africa Trading is Owned by China vs. U.S.
Semafor
10. 4 Ways to Protect Your Path to Purpose
Why managing risks may matter more than chasing dreams. Jordan Grumet M.D.
Key points
Financial planning frees time and choice, fueling a more purposeful life.
Using leisure wisely reduces the risk of living without fulfillment.
Courage means saying yes, embracing discomfort, and growing into purpose.
In the financial world, we spend a lot of time talking about risk mitigation. It’s the art of putting safeguards in place to reduce potential losses. Not eliminating risk entirely, but managing it well. A smart financial plan doesn’t just focus on growing wealth; it pays attention to protecting what you already have.
I often think the same applies to purpose. We get so caught up in searching for purpose—chasing passion, pursuing fulfillment—that we forget there are forces working against us. If we don’t account for those risks, our best efforts can be derailed.
Sometimes the surest way to live with meaning isn’t by adding more, but by defending against what might take it away. Here are four ways to risk-mitigate when it comes to purpose.
1. Financial Planning
Money isn’t the only tool for building a purposeful life, but it is a powerful one. Having financial stability gives you choices: the choice to leave a job that no longer fits, to outsource tasks that drain you, or to invest your time in the relationships and activities that bring you joy.
When you save and invest, the goal isn’t simply to watch the numbers climb in your account. It’s to have better control over the one thing that is most precious to us: our time. Purpose thrives when you can structure your calendar around what matters most, not just what pays the bills.
Financial independence won’t guarantee a life of purpose, but it creates breathing room to pursue it.
2. Time Management
If you ask most people what stands in the way of living with purpose, they’ll say “not enough time.” Yet the U.S. Time Use Survey tells a different story: the average American has four and a half to five hours of free time a day.
The real issue isn’t scarcity—it’s choice. How you spend those hours may be the single biggest factor in whether you feel fulfilled. Do you scroll endlessly through your phone, or do you connect with a friend, volunteer, read, or create something new?
Time is a risk in disguise. Used passively, it drains away. Used intentionally, it’s your best ally in building a meaningful life.
3. Courage
Even with money and time, purpose doesn’t just appear. One of the biggest risks is failing to act because we lack courage.
Living with purpose requires experimentation. It means stepping outside comfort zones, trying things you’ve never done before, and accepting the discomfort that comes with growth. Different outcomes only come from different choices.
Courage is the willingness to say yes to the new activity, the unexpected invitation, and the unfamiliar challenge. Yes to the awkward first step that might lead to joy. Yes to the unknown.
Purpose doesn’t arrive fully formed. It’s discovered through small, brave acts repeated over time.
4. Social Media
If courage expands our world, social media often shrinks it. Platforms are filled with people selling their own versions of purpose: influencers, advertisers, politicians. They dangle images of success, belonging, or happiness, usually tied to something they want you to buy or believe.
These borrowed definitions of purpose are often big, audacious, and unattainable. And when we measure ourselves against them, we risk sliding into frustration, anxiety, or despair.
Protecting your sense of purpose sometimes comes down to something simple: putting the phone down. Reconnect with your own values, not someone else’s curated highlight reel.
In Conclusion
Purpose isn’t just about offense—chasing dreams, setting goals, or building passions. It’s also about defense: protecting ourselves from the forces that erode our sense of fulfillment.
Financial planning, mindful use of time, everyday courage, and boundaries around social media are all forms of risk mitigation. They don’t hand you purpose, but they clear the path so you can pursue it without constant sabotage.
Risk mitigation may not sound glamorous, but it’s practical, and it works. Identify the biggest threats to your purposeful life and take steps to guard against them. When you do, you’ll find it much easier to build the life you want.
Gold reserves. “How long can America afford to sit out the global rush for gold? US gold reserves are now at 90-year lows, while the rest of the world has pushed their holdings to near 50-year highs. At one point, America held over 50% of global gold reserves. Today? Just 20%.”
Daily Chartbook
2. Ex-Tech U.S. Economy Negative Real Growth
Jim Reid Deutsche Bank My colleague George Saravelos wrote an interesting short blog here yesterday that discussed how ex-tech spending, the US would have been close to, or in, recession earlier this year. This was first highlighted by our equity strategists here.
George argues that this huge AI capex can help explain why weak payrolls aren’t hurting growth and why global trade is resilient (a chip trade scramble).
It’s fair to say expectations are that this surging AI capex spend won’t stop until there is a reason to doubt the potential profitability of it. So it will continue to be a big top-down theme of 2026.
Simplifying it, perhaps Nvidia, which employed only 36,000 people at the last update earlier this year, holds the keys to all global macro in 2026! Traditional macro models will surely struggle to capture this.
See George’s short blog for more detail and his latest Blueprint here, from this earlier week, for all his latest FX forecasts.
Jim Reid
3. S&P Sector Returns Around Fed Rate Cuts
Dave Lutz Jones Trading In the four cycles since the 1970s where the Fed delivered only one or two cuts after pausing at least six months, cyclical sectors like financials and industrials outperformed, per Ned Davis. In cycles where four or more cuts were needed, investors leaned defensive.
4. Defensive Sectors About to Break Internet Bubble Lows vs. S&P 500
Topdown Charts Limited
5. Platinum Breaks-Out of Sideways Pattern…New Highs
StockCharts
6. FNMA -22% Correction…Up Over +200% YTD on Go Private Trade
StockCharts
7. Robinhood Crypto and options trading drove almost 80% of the brokerage’s transaction-based revenues in the second quarter….PERPS Majority of Bitcoin Volume
Get Rich or Get Wiped Out: Bitcoin’s Hottest New Trade
Perpetual futures offer traders extreme leverage to bet on cryptocurrencies
Traders seeking rapid returns have made a speculative bitcoin play one of the most popular crypto bets globally: so-called perpetual futures. These potentially offer returns of 10, 20 or even 100 times an initial investment—or huge losses that could leave a trader with nothing
Known as perps, the contracts give traders access to extreme leverage and have exploded in popularity during a rally that has sent bitcoin prices up more than 70% over the past year. Though popular in other parts of the world, perps were largely unavailable until recently to U.S. traders on regulated venues.
8. Boom of Multilayered SPVs………SPV Special Purpose Vehicles Inside Other SPVs
PitchBook
Multilayered special-purpose vehicles, where SPVs are nested inside others, are on the rise as investors clamor for slivers of hot venture-backed companies like OpenAI and SpaceX.
But the boom is also raising new questions about their complex fee structures, and their opacity has left some investors unclear about ownership of the underlying equity. Private market investment company Linqto’s recent bankruptcy highlighted those issues and sparked broader scrutiny of how these vehicles really work.
Some companies have started to denounce unauthorized sales of their equity, including in the form of digital tokens. Some prominent secondary marketplaces are opting out of allowing layered SPVs outright.
“When you have these SPVs that go into other SPVs that go into other SPVs, we don’t know whether the underlying SPV actually has the shares or the company or not,” said AngelList CEO Avlok Kohli. “We don’t want to be in a position where we are facilitating an SPV where, years later, when a company goes public or gets acquired, the investors are wondering, ‘Hey, where’s our distribution? Where’s our capital?’ And it’s like the shares weren’t there to begin with.”
SPV management fees are mounting
The proliferation of layered SPVs comes as secondary sales are soaring, with LPs and GPs looking to create some long-awaited liquidity.
SPV issuers typically impose an origination fee to cover administrative setup costs. But issuers are increasingly now charging ongoing management fees beyond that.
And recurring management fees for SPVs are becoming commonplace as competition heats up: At the top of the VC market in 2021, 41% of SPVs with more than $10 million of assets charged a management fee, according to Carta. In 2023, the latest available SPV data from Carta, 67% charged a fee.
The difficulty for many high-net-worth individuals and family offices to get into the fast-moving funding rounds for high-flying AI startups has ramped up the appeal of SPVs, said Hans Swildens, founder and CEO of secondaries firm Industry Ventures.
Private wealth advisers have also been pushing SPVs onto their clients, he added.
“SPVs have gone mainstream, as you’ve seen, and yes, people are starting to monetize them more through fees and carry,” said Swildens. Rising fees are disproportionately hitting smaller investors, while fund managers often waive SPV fees for existing LPs they invite to co-invest.
Larger SPVs are getting cheaper to set up, according to Anthony Cimino, Carta’s head of public policy. But costs continue to mount for layered SPVs, he said, which are usually smaller assets.
“What we’re trying to figure out is how do we help that broader fund marketplace provide clarity and credibility?” he said. “It’s no longer a situation where the costs around NAV reporting or the [setup] fee structures are basically creating a moat, where only the biggest and most-established players can do it.”
9. Unmanned Naval Vessels Booming
Boom in unscrewed surface vessels
A USMC LRUSV at dockside with eight Hero-120 loitering munitions in a green box and a munitions launcher tube shown on the pier.
Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) are revolutionizing how we explore and protect our oceans. These autonomous vessels, operating at or near the sea surface without any onboard operators, are increasingly being employed across various sectors. From monitoring marine life to enhancing military surveillance, piracy control, and safeguarding offshore industries like gas, oil, and renewables, USVs are becoming indispensable due to their ability to collect data over extended periods at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional research ships, International Defense, Security and Technology reports.
Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) have rapidly emerged as a game-changing military technology, with nations across the globe investing heavily in their development. These autonomous vessels offer the potential to revolutionize naval warfare, providing enhanced capabilities, reduced risks to human operators, and cost-effective solutions for a range of missions. However, as their capabilities grow, so does the threat they pose to maritime security.
Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV ) is a vehicle that operates at or near the sea surface and has no vehicle operators on board. The USV are increasingly employed as they collect data for longer periods of time, at a fraction of the cost of Research ships, and with wide ranging scientific and industrial applications – from monitoring marine life to military surveillance, piracy control, fisheries protection and the offshore gas, oil and renewables industries.
Ukraine’s Strategic Use of USVs: Disrupting Modern Naval Warfare
Ukraine has strategically employed Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) as a powerful tool in its ongoing conflict with Russia, particularly in the Black Sea. These versatile and cost-effective unmanned vessels have proven to be disruptive assets, capable of executing high-impact missions against Russian naval forces while minimizing risks to Ukrainian personnel. Ukraine’s innovative use of USVs underscores their growing role in modern naval warfare, offering new avenues for asymmetric strategies and tactical advantages.
One-Way Attacks and Swarming Tactics
Ukraine has primarily utilized USVs in one-way attack missions, deploying them to target Russian naval vessels with explosives. These expendable vessels are designed to deliver devastating payloads before being destroyed, ensuring maximum impact on enemy forces with minimal resource investment. Furthermore, Ukraine has employed swarming tactics, where multiple USVs are launched simultaneously to overwhelm enemy defenses. This tactic increases the likelihood of a successful strike by saturating the target area with multiple threats, making it difficult for defensive systems to neutralize all incoming vehicles. Additionally, USVs provide Ukraine with the ability to launch surprise attacks, exploiting vulnerabilities in enemy defenses and catching them off guard. In some cases, USVs are also used as diversionary tools, drawing attention away from other key areas or operations, further complicating the enemy’s ability to respond effectively.
Greetings. We regret to inform you—and that one kid from your high school who could randomly kick a football really far despite otherwise being unathletic—that punting is dying. NFL teams are punting just 3.65 times per game this season, the fewest in history. That’s because:
Offenses are starting with better field position, thanks to new kickoff rules.
Coaches are increasingly willing to go for it on fourth down.
Field goal kickers are getting more accurate from long range.
All of these developments could render the lowly punter irrelevant. Finally, a job is becoming obsolete and it has nothing to do with AI.
—Matty Merritt, Sam Klebanov, Dave Lozo, Adam Epstein, Neal Freyman, Holly Van Leuven
1. Why is Market Going Up? Record Profit Margins Before Future AI Cost Savings Even Kick In…
From Irrelevant Investor Blog
The Irrelevant Investor
2. The “S&P 22” Equals 50% Weighting vs. 4% of Stocks in Index
Marketwatch By Christine Idzelis The “S&P 22” group — which equates to a collective 50.3% weighting in the S&P 500, yet makes up just 4% of stocks in the index — includes companies such as retail giant Walmart Inc., he noted
MarketWatch
3. Only 2 Bull Markets Where Cap-Weighted Outperformed Equal-Weigh—Internet Bubble and Today
Bespoke-The only two bulls where the cap-weighted S&P outperformed the equal-weight S&P were the 1990s Dot Com bull and the current “AI Boom” bull. We’ll get to more on this later, but looking at the bear markets that followed these bulls, the equal-weight S&P outperformed the cap-weighted index significantly during the Dot Com Bust bear markets of the early 2000s, and then equal weight underperformed during the Financial Crisis bear and the COVID Crash. During the 2022 bear market that followed the meme-stock and SPAC craze bull market of 2020 and 2021, the equal-weight version of the S&P outperformed slightly.
Bespoke
4. U.S. Dollar at 14-year Support Line
DoubleLine Capital
5. EWY South Korea +60% Year to Date….50day thru 200day to Upside on Weekly Chart
StockCharts
6. Former Popular Retail Trading Name…TTD Trade Desk -67% from Highs ..Back to End of 2023 Levels
StockCharts
7. America Loves Warehouse Stores-CNBC …..COST and WMT Higher P/E Ratios than NVDA
CNBC
8. Leaders of Industrial Robotics
Visual Capitalist
9. Which Jobs Rely on Tips?
SherwoodNews
10. The Worst Foods for Brain Fog
Mark Hyman, MD Co-Founder & Chief Medical Officer of Function Health
Of all the health complaints I field, brain fog is near the top of the list.
It’s also one I deeply empathize with, as I experienced it after suffering mercury poisoning. When you have it, you can’t think clearly, focus, or remember things.
It’s as if you’re wading through mental quicksand.
In functional medicine, we view this often debilitating symptom as a warning light on the body’s dashboard.
However, similar to a strange pinging or screeching noise in your car, pinpointing the root cause of brain fog can require a bit of detective work.
That’s because brain fog isn’t a disease like heart disease or cancer.
Instead, like a persistent cough, it’s a symptom with many potential causes. Possible culprits include poor sleep, stress, dehydration, and exposure to toxins like mercury, among others.
However…
One of the biggest drivers of brain fog lies in the gut.
Many people are sensitive to one or more foods. When they consume them, these foods disrupt the gut.
The gut disruption then sends ripple effects to the brain, leading to feelings of fogginess and a lack of focus.
Based on my clinical experience with patients, five foods top the list of most common offenders. Are you eating them?
The Gut-Brain Connection
The connection between gut health and brain fog is profound.
Consider Long COVID, the persistent brain fog, fatigue, and other symptoms that some people experience for months after they’ve recovered from the virus.
For people with Long COVID, it can feel as if symptoms manifest in the brain.
However, according to a growing body of research, Llong COVID’s fatigue and fog stem from remnants of the virus in the gut.
As the immune system continually attempts to corral the gut infection, it releases proteins that reduce levels of serotonin, which in turn may trigger fatigue, brain fog, and other symptoms.¹ (Learn more about Long COVID with my Comprehensive Guide to Long COVID Recovery.)
Here are a few additional ways gut health influences brain health:
Your gut lining acts as a barrier. When this barrier becomes “leaky” (a condition known as intestinal permeability), undigested food particles and other substances can sneak into the bloodstream. Your immune system reacts, triggering widespread inflammation, including in your brain. This inflammation can impair cognitive function, leading to brain fog.
Your gut is home to trillions of bacteria. Your gut is home to trillions of bacteria—some helpful, some harmful. When the good bacteria dominate, they support digestion, protect your gut lining, and even produce compounds that benefit the brain. But when the harmful ones take over, a condition called dysbiosis, the balance tips in the wrong direction. These “bad” bacteria can release toxins and inflammatory signals that reach the brain, interfering with its function.
A damaged gut can struggle to absorb key nutrients. B vitamins, magnesium, and other nutrients needed for brain health tend to be most affected. Without these nutrients, your brain can’t produce the energy or neurotransmitters it needs to function optimally, leading to mental fatigue and fog.
The bottom line? If your gut isn’t healthy, your brain won’t be either.
The Worst Foods for Your Gut— and Your Brain
During my many decades as a functional medicine doctor, I’ve seen thousands of patients whose brain fog traced back to gut issues.
The science increasingly supports these connections, though in some cases the research is still emerging.
If I waited for every answer to be proven beyond doubt, I’d miss countless opportunities to help people. Again and again, my clinical experience has shown that the same five common offenders are often at the root of the problem.
Gluten: For people with celiac disease, eating gluten sets off an immune reaction that damages the gut and drives body-wide inflammation.² That inflammation—along with a leakier gut barrier—can affect other organs, including the brain, and is linked with symptoms like brain fog, headaches, and mood changes.2,3 Some people without celiac disease also report similar symptoms when they eat gluten (often called non-celiac gluten sensitivity), though the “why” is still unsettled.4,5
Dairy: For people who are sensitive, certain types of dairy can stir up inflammation that may affect the gut as well as the brain.⁶ The main protein in dairy, casein, comes in two forms—A1 and A2. When A1 casein is digested, it can release compounds called casomorphins, which interact with the brain in ways similar to opioids (and, could hypothetically make you feel foggy, sluggish, or even sleepy).⁷ In infants, milk digestion produces higher amounts of casomorphins, and their effects have been studied more extensively.⁸ In adults, the science is less clear, but some research suggests that switching away from A1-containing milk may lead to small improvements in fatigue, mood, or perceived mental clarity.6,9
Artificial Sweeteners: Some, like saccharin and sucralose, can alter the gut microbiome, especially with frequent or higher intake, which could have downstream effects that impact the brain.¹⁰
Alcohol: Drinking can disrupt both gut and brain health. Research shows that alcohol can damage the gut lining, increase intestinal permeability, and alter the microbiome—changes that promote inflammation.11,12 In the brain, heavy or frequent use is linked to impaired cognitive function and structural changes, while even moderate intake has been associated in large studies with faster cognitive decline.¹³
Ultra-Processed Foods: Diets high in ultra-processed foods are linked to shifts in the gut microbiome, reduced microbial diversity, higher intestinal permeability, and low-grade inflammation.¹⁴ These foods tend to be high in refined carbs, additives, and industrial fats, which may worsen gut barrier function and promote dysbiosis. Large population cohorts also show that frequent consumption of ultra-processed foods is associated with faster cognitive decline.¹⁵
These foods aren’t problematic for everyone. We likely all know someone who can down a whole pizza along with several pints of beer and experience zero ill effects.
But for people who experience brain fog regularly, cutting back on one or more of these culprits—depending on the individual—can often make a real difference, bringing back clearer thinking, better memory, and sharper focus.
The research needs to continue to progress in this area, but in the meantime, the positive changes I see with my patients are impossible to ignore.
The DIY Food Sensitivity Test
An elimination diet is the best way to figure out whether gluten, dairy, or any of the other common offenders are a problem for you.
The idea is simple. You temporarily remove one or more food triggers from your diet, give your body time to reset, and then reintroduce those foods one at a time to see how they affect you.
Not sure where to start? My 10-Day Detox can help. In fact, I started using it with my patients for this very reason.
This short-term eating plan eliminates the most common gut-distrupting offenders from your diet. Then, you reintroduce them one at a time to see which ones do (and don’t) lead to problems.
Thousands of people who’ve tried it report clearer thinking, more energy, less bloating, and reduced joint pain. If you’ve been frustrated by lingering symptoms, know this: you’re not alone, and you’re not without options.
An elimination diet may sound hard or inconvenient, but you know what’s really hard? Living day after day with brain fog, fatigue, and other symptoms that never seem to let up.
That’s why I designed the 10-Day Detox—it gives you a clear, step-by-step way to take back control of your health and find relief.
Many are shocked by how much better they feel in just 10 days—maybe you will be, too.
1. History of Small Cap During Similar Rate Cuts by Fed
Dorsey Wright When the Federal Reserve has implemented interest rate cuts spaced more than 100 days apart since 1990, historical returns indicate that small-cap equities, represented by the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM), deliver strong forward returns. Although near-term returns (1–3 months) are often muted, IWM’s average returns are 16% at one year and 32.7% at two years, as shown in the table below. For investors aiming to diversify beyond the S&P 500 (SPX), IWM presents an opportunity to gain exposure in a different areas within U.S. equities.
NASDAQ DORSEY WRIGHT
2. Goldman Sachs Retail Favorite Buy Stocks…Record Consecutive Days of Gains
Sherwood News
Sherwood
3. Tech is Dependent on H-1B Visas…Majority from India
CNBC
4. 40-50% of Venture Funds Suffering a Loss Relative to NAV
PitchBook
5. PYPL has Reduced its Share Count by 1/5 in 5 Years
Koyfin
6. U.S. Dollar to Swiss Franc Trades Down to 2023 Lows
StockCharts
7. American Imports From China 21% to 9% Less than 10 Years
Semafor
8. Chinese Made EVs Big Market Share Gains in Asia
WSJ
9. Fantastic 4 Movie 3200 Employees?? Prof G
PROF G MEDIA
10. Brain Health and Mental Capacity Depend on Physical Activity
Our executive and emotional skills remain connected to activity by evolution. Sarah Gingell Ph.D.
Key points
The evolution of adaptations for physical activity and cognitive and emotional skills are intertwined.
Physical activity remains a key driver of brain health, while inactivity reduces cognitive resources.
This “evolutionary bug” has revealed itself only as sedentary lifestyles have become possible.
Nowadays, no one seriously doubts that physical activity improves our physical health, along with our mental health and cognitive abilities.
Physically active children perform better in school, achieving better academic outcomes than less active children. Active kids also typically have better mental health, with improved self-esteem, social confidence, and emotional regulation, and lower levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. Sedentary adults who start exercising show improvements in attention, memory, and thinking skills, in addition to improved mood and mental health conditions such as depression. Older adults who have been physically active throughout their lives tend to have higher physical and mental well-being, lower levels of neurodegenerative conditions, and retain sharper minds.
But have you ever wondered why?
We are familiar with the idea that our bodies adapt to functional demands. When we are new to running, we are initially unable to meet our muscles’ increased oxygen demand. However, with continued training, new blood vessels develop to supply more oxygen-laden red blood cells, and we breathe more easily. Muscles and bones would grow stronger, the lungs would become more efficient, and many other metabolic and energy management adaptations would occur.
It is often assumed that exercise improves brain health only as a beneficial side effect of these adaptive bodily changes. For example, better cardiovascular function increases cerebral blood flow, enhancing oxygen and nutrient delivery to better support the health of brain cells. However, recent research is clear that many of the exercise-related chemical factors produced by the muscles, bones, liver, and other tissues also target the brain directly. Some of these “exerkines” and metabolites might one day form part of an ‘exercise pill’ to protect brain health.
Why does our brain respond to physical activity in such a direct way?
The fascinating answer may date to around 2 million years ago, when our ancestors descended from the trees and developed skills to move and survive on the ground. The neuroscientist and anthropologist David Raichlen argues persuasively that “we evolved to be cognitively-engaged endurance athletes.”
As early humans developed physical adaptations for walking, running, and aerobic activity, they also developed skills for hunting and foraging. Foraging and persistence hunting—which could involve tailing animals for days—requires planning, organisation, and focus. We recognise these skills in our modern “executive functions” of working memory, cognitive flexibility, and self-control. Physical endurance also depended on constructively managing exhaustion, fear, and anxiety, flexibly responding to setbacks, maintaining focus, not giving up, and so on, all key aspects of emotional regulation.
What began as neural circuits for reflexive movement control gradually expanded through evolution in humans into systems in the prefrontal cortex, cerebellum, and basal ganglia that support flexible activity, abstract thought, and behavioural regulation. Early humans’ evolutionarily adaptive responses to the physical and mental demands of hunting and foraging developed in tandem, and remain intertwined in our modern brains.
This might explain how brain systems evolved, but not why day-to-day physical activity remains so important to the brain health of modern man.
Gerd Kempermann has argued that for our ancestors, being on the move was likely to be associated with mental challenges. Responses to physical activity prime neurons for possible learning, through neuroplastic changes that allow neurons to form new connections or reorganise existing connections to record learning. These connections can then be utilised and stabilised by cognitive and emotional tasks, so that repeated pairing of physical and mental tasks builds brain capacity.
But here’s the kicker.
Because movement wasn’t optional for our ancestors to survive and did not need to be encouraged, evolutionary pressures favoured energy conservation when possible.
This means that we lose energy-consuming capacity when it is not needed.
We are familiar with the idea that unneeded muscle strength and bulk are lost if we don’t exercise. Unfortunately, something similar occurs in the brain. If we are chronically inactive, the hippocampus shrinks more quickly, accelerating age-related cognitive decline. BDNF production is suppressed, limiting the capacity to learn. Levels of mood-enhancing neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine drop, and the prefrontal cortex shrinks and becomes less efficient, impacting executive functions and emotional regulation.
This “evolutionary bug” is revealed only when sedentary lifestyles become a possibility.
What makes this so problematic is that we are also evolutionarily programmed to be drawn to inactivity to conserve energy (even though calories are abundantly available for most of us). The immediate visceral rewards of sedentary activities, such as eating and relaxing (or cat videos), often outweigh the abstract delayed benefits of fitness, such as long-term health improvements, when we have the choice.
Daniel Lieberman has pointed out that we are not well-equipped by evolution to “choose” exercise. One option is to change our environment so we have no choice but to move—our ancestors’ path to exercise. We might take the stairs, park a few blocks away from work, or sell the car… Another option is to make activity more pleasurable so that we want to do it. Start by dancing in the kitchen, walking with friends, trampolining with the kids, or working out with brilliant music and cool clothes.
The key is to start. Once we rouse ourselves into action, evolution has a neat trick to keep us going.
Even a short bout of aerobic exercise, a walk, or light stretching increases dopamine and BDNF release, enhancing mood and motivation and reducing stress. This reward reinforces learning behaviours by making them feel pleasurable, which encourages repetition.
More consistent exercise leads to a general upregulation of dopamine function, which strengthens the overall responsiveness of all reward pathways, not only those involved in exercise. So life in general starts to feel better. This is why exercise can be an effective treatment for depression, addiction, and other mood disorders. Exercise itself acts as a natural reward booster, with the added benefit of neuroplasticity, helping the brain form healthier motivational patterns.
We’ve been built to need to move. And moving more means you’ll like moving more, and everything in life will feel better. This is the real incentive.
1. Sales Growth and Margin Expansion=Higher Market
SPX return drivers. “Sales growth & margin expansion [are] powering S&P 500 returns in 2025, much more so than multiple expansion.”
Sonu Varghese – Carson Group
2. INTC News ….AMD -20% Correction from Highs…Flat for 1-Year Basis
Stock Charts
3. INTC News…ARM Holdings Flat 1-Yr Return
Stock Charts
4. Intel Free Cash Flow Went Negative in 2022
5. Last Week was the End of 2nd Longest Small Cap Streak
Bespoke
6. Private BDC’s Raising Massive Assets
Financial Times
7. Tariffs Annualized $350 Billion
Significant Amounts of Tariff Revenue Collected at the Moment
The US government currently collects about $350 billion in tariffs at an annualized rate, which corresponds to 18% of annual household income tax payments, see charts below.
The bottom line is that the amount of money collected in tariff revenue is very significant.
Torsten Slok Apollo
8. Solar-Powered Cars and Trucks Are Almost Here
WSJ-New, power-sipping EVs due next year are efficient enough to gain 10 to 40 miles of daily charge from the sun alone
Telo Trucks says its optional solar-panel system can provide 15 to 30 supplemental miles a day. Photo: Telo trucks
A handful of startups will soon sell technologies that can power a substantial portion of a driver’s daily mileage with nothing but abundant, free sunlight.
Aptera Motors needed automotive-grade solar panels that could conform to the sinuous curves of its radical new EV, but the Carlsbad, Calif.-based automaker found there weren’t any good options. So it decided to make its own.
In the process, it kicked off a cottage industry of U.S. companies aiming to make everyday vehicles solar-powered.
Now the company is poised to ship a $40,000 car as soon as next year that can get between 15 and 40 miles of range a day from the sun alone—and can run for up to 400 miles between charges.
The key to this innovation isn’t solar panels that are better at turning sunlight into electricity. Existing ones are already pretty good at that. The real unlocks are the innovations that have made today’s EVs more efficient, and new power electronics to get energy from the sun into their batteries.
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF signage on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, US, on Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024.
Grayscale Investments has brought a new twist to crypto investing, rolling out the first multi-token exchange-traded product available in the U.S.
The Grayscale CoinDesk Crypto 5 ETF begins trading Friday on NYSE under the ticker GDLC. The fund bundles together the five largest and most liquid digital assets — bitcoin, ether, XRP, Solana, and Cardano. These five tokens capture more than 90% of the market capitalization of the digital-asset class, according to Grayscale.
“We are ushering in the age of crypto index investing,” Peter Mintzberg, CEO of Grayscale, told CNBC. “We are typically in the first mover position. Grayscale will continue innovating at scale for investors to access the fastest growing asset class of the last 10 years.”
The long-awaited launch followed an approval Wednesday evening from the Securities and Exchange Commission that allowed Grayscale to convert its Digital Large Cap Fund into an ETF and allocate to multiple digital coins.
The move underlines the growing appetite among institutional and retail investors for diversified crypto exposure. The asset class is becoming more mainstream under the Trump administration after the White House’s move to open retirement plans to alternative assets including cryptocurrencies.
The fund allocates about 70% to bitcoin and 20% to ether. The product has existed in other forms since 2018, most recently trading over the counter.
GDLC has gained more than 40% in 2025 as many cryptocurrencies hit record highs. GDLC has outpaced bitcoin by nearly 11% since June, as all four other assets in the fund outperformed the largest digital token.
