1. Semiconductor Index Underperformed S&P on One-Year Basis

Within technology, semiconductors had been the strongest industry group, outperforming everything by a wide margin. But that too has flipped, with semiconductor relative strength peaking last June. Semis have actually underperformed the S&P 500 over the past year, a fact that would likely surprise many.

Biello

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2. Elon Musk Companies and Government Subsidies

His space exploration company SpaceX has received over $20 billion from the federal government over the past 15 years, according to federal spending records. SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell has said that the company has $22 billion in government contracts, Reuters reported.

EV company Tesla, whose stock makes up the bulk of Musk’s nearly $400 billion net worth, has benefited from $2.8 billion in tax subsidies or grants, according to subsidy tracker Good Jobs First. The Los Angeles Times calculated in 2015 that Musk’s empire of companies, which includes Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity and The Boring Company, took in nearly $5 billion in tax breaks.

Tesla, SpaceX, and DOGE did not reply to a request for comment from Fortune.

Fortune

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3. Hedge Inflation with Stocks. Change in S&P 500 Dividends, Median Earnings, and Consumer Prices

Axios

Abnormal Returns

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4. SMCI Bounced at 200-Week Moving Average…Still More than Halfway Off Highs

Stock Charts

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5. Share of EU Imports by State

Visual Capitalist

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6. The Big 6 Private Equity Firms Dominate

Meanwhile, the big are getting bigger by raking in money from insurance companies and individual investors. The top six private-markets managers—Apollo, Blackstone, Ares Management, KKR, Carlyle and Brookfield Asset Management—were responsible for nearly 60% of the industry’s total fundraising in the first three quarters of 2024, according to company filings and data compiled by Preqin. The figure is up from about 20% in 2019 and includes areas such as credit and infrastructure.

WSJ

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7. Venture and Private Investment in Crypto

The Irrelevant Investor

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8. Europe VC Valuations Also Moving Higher

Despite a lackluster year for VC dealmaking, European startups that raised capital in 2024 received more money and at higher valuations than before.  Here are five charts from PitchBook’s 2024 Annual European VC Valuations Report detailing how price tags and deal sizes moved last year.

PitchBook

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9. Male Vote 2020 vs. 2024

The COVID-19 pandemic reduced young people’s trust in authority and pushed them further to the right, a political writer argued. US youths have traditionally been progressive. But in 2024 they were nearly evenly split between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and Europe has seen a similar shift. One possible explanation is a global protest vote against inflation: Many incumbents were voted out in 2024 as prices soared. But Derek Thompson argued in The Atlantic that the pandemic reduced physical-world socialization, pushing young men in particular into online echo chambers: Thompson said that youths who experience pandemics “have less confidence in their scientific and political leadership,” which can persist for years because political ideology tends to solidify in one’s 20s.

Semafor

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10. Average Time Spent with Friends Plummets

Daily Shot Brief

1. Cash at Lowest Levels Since 2010 for Professional Investors

Yahoo Finance

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2. Mag 7 Not Leading in 2025

Financial Times

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3. U.S. Dollar Chart Fails to Make New Highs….Closes Below 50-Day

Stock Charts

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4. Weaker Dollar Helping International Stocks…Rotation to Europe Fund Flows

Fund inflows into Europe-focused equity funds surged last week.

Deutsche Bank Research

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5. Euro Defense Spending

For example, if we assume a gradual increase in defence spending until 3% of GDP is reached in 2030, it would be equivalent to about EUR600bn of additional spending relative to the 2% target by the end of the decade. This extra spending is equivalent to about 3.5% of GDP. Correcting the last 10 years of underspending relative to the current 2% of GDP defence spending target would cost EUR800bn (equivalent to about 4.5% of GDP). An alternative approach to thinking about spending needs is to look at closing the gaps in European defence capabilities. These too point to the need for significant additional spending on defence. For example, Commission President von der Leyen has talked about an EU missile shield as a priority. The EU Commissioner for Defence said this alone could have a price tag of EUR500bn or almost 3% of GDP.

Jim Reid Deutsche Bank

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6. Fires…PCG California Energy Down -30%

Stock Charts

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7. FXI-China Large Cap Breaking Above Previous 2024 Highs

Stock Charts

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8. Small Cap Stocks Still Stuck Sideways Below Highs

Stock Charts

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9. Barron’s DOGE Update

Via Barron’s: Nor did markets seem perturbed as Elon Musk’s DOGE wielded a scythe on federal payrolls, ostensibly to slash the budget deficit. The 75,000 workers who reportedly have accepted buyouts represent about 2.5% of the federal workforce, according to a report from Veneta Dimitrova and London Stockton of Ned Davis Research, which would represent a savings of about $15 billion out of the $650 billion in employee compensation. “In the context of $7.0 trillion total federal outlays, however, the expected savings are a drop in the bucket,” they note.

To save $100 billion annually—one-tenth of the $1 trillion of cost cuts bruited by Musk—would mean sacking a quarter of the federal workforce, some 750,000 employees, according to an analysis by Macquarie economists David Doyle, Chinara Azizova, and Ric Deverell. To realize the $1 trillion goal would require a 30% reduction in nondefense spending (excluding entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid); a 15% cut in defense outlays; and a 15% cut in social spending such as entitlements. They also note a GAO estimate that between $233 billion and $421 billion annually was lost to fraud between 2018 and 2022, which included pandemic spending.

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10. Woop Method

20 Years Ago, Psychologists Developed the WOOP Method. It’s Still the Best Way to Control Your Emotions to Reach Your Goals Sometimes the biggest barrier to our success is our own feelings.

EXPERT OPINION BY JESSICA STILLMAN, CONTRIBUTOR, INC.COM

@ENTRYLEVELREBEL

Why don’t more of us reach the big goals we set for ourselves? Sure, sometimes the answer is lack of ability. It is entirely possible you are not smart enough to be an astrophysicist or strong enough for the NFL. But for many everyday goals the issue isn’t ability, it’s emotions.

You want to be bolder with your business, but fear of failure sets you back. You want to improve your relationships, but your anger keeps blowing things up. You mean to make it to the gym, but somehow you just can’t muster the self-control to get off the couch.

Feelings can be a powerful fuel to propel us forward, but they can also be the hurdle that blocks our way. How do you overcome that hurdle to finally achieve your dreams?

Twenty years ago, a pair of psychologists came up with a simple four-step procedure for clearing emotional blocks so you can reach your goals. After a couple of decades of research and testing, it remains one of the most reliable ways to turn wishes into reality.

Actually, it’s OK to bottle up your emotions sometimes. First off, it’s important to clear up a common misconception. In our enlightened age of mental health awareness and widespread therapy speak, most of us have heard it’s a bad idea to bottle up your feelings. But that’s actually not quite right, according to neuroscientist and author Ethan Kross.

Yes, it’s a bad idea to permanently deny or ignore emotions. The sadness, rage, shame, or anxiety you’re hiding from will just leak out elsewhere in unpredictable and destructive ways. But as Kross recently explained in an interview with NPR, “It’s a myth that when we’re experiencing some big emotion, we’ve got to get to the bottom of it right away.”

If getting something off your chest is constructively helping you, by all means keep going. But if you’re just turning the same worries, fear, or pain over and over in your mind without any improvement or resolution, taking an intentional step back from your feelings is often a good idea.

Consider that some of the most respected and long-lasting studies of both adults and children suggest that the ability to recognize your emotions and then set them aside to deal with them later with a clearer mind is one of the most important skills for a happy and successful life.

“You don’t have to choose between only confronting immediately or avoiding chronically,” Kross concludes.

20 years of science supports the WOOP Method If the answer to the troubling emotions that keep getting in the way of reaching your goals isn’t to ignore or fruitlessly fret over them, what is the solution? Twenty years ago, a pair of psychologists out of New York University—Gabriele Oettingen and Peter Gollwitzer—developed a protocol for shifting the difficult feelings that so often sabotage our goals.

Over the past two decades it’s been tested in a variety of settings, from classrooms to hospitals to gyms, and repeatedly found to be effective. The method goes by the handy acronym WOOP, which stands for:

Wish – Outcome – Obstacle – Plan

The idea is to use this framework not when you’re in the heat of a difficult moment, but a bit later when you’re calm enough to think through your feelings and plan a constructive path forward. It works in a variety of settings and benefits from repetition. The more you practice it, the better you’ll become at using it.

How to use the WOOP method to reach your goals The method is simple. The first step is to identify your Wish. What is the attainable but ambitious goal you are trying to reach that keeps getting derailed? Once you’ve got that clearly in mind, go a step deeper by moving on to the Outcome. If you achieve this wish, how will you feel? Understanding why you want something is one of the best motivators out there.

Now that you understand what you’re aiming for and why, move on to identifying the internal Obstacle standing in your way. Maybe this is a nagging sense of unworthiness, a feeling of being overwhelmed at the scale of the project, or a worry about the judgement of others. Whatever it is, put a label on it, so you have a clear sense of what’s holding you back.

The last and crucial step is making a clear and specific Plan to overcome that obstacle. Often this will take the form of: When [specific time or occasion], then I will [concrete, feasible action].

Perhaps when you feel yourself losing your temper, you can leave the room for 30 seconds. If you want to stop feeling constantly overwhelmed, you could decide to spend five minutes over coffee each morning laying out three priorities for the day. If fear of failure is stopping you from embarking on a difficult project, you could plan a specific time to reach out to a mentor and talk through your worries.

Is that a dream or a goal? The coach of boxing champ Evander Holyfield once asked him if becoming the best in the world was “a dream or a goal? Because there’s a difference.”

Dreams are things we idly imagine and hope may one day happen. When difficult emotions or circumstances arise, we often abandon them. Goals, on the other hand, are concrete objectives with workmanlike plans to attain them.

WOOP is a method for, essentially, transforming flimsy, easily derailed dreams into sturdier goals. The key is to get out of pointless and repetitive brain loops—whether they’re fantasies of success of anxieties about your shortcomings—and move on to making actionable plans to deal with whatever obstacles you face. If you do that, you’re far less likely to get knocked off course by difficult emotions.

1. Apple Underperforming Mag 7

Bloomberg

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2. Old Tech Rally…CSCO Up Since November

StockCharts

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3. Old Tech… Intel +20% Year To Date

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4. Old Tech….IBM +18% YTD

StockCharts

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5. Robinhood +438% One-Year…Crypto and Options Trading Lead

StockCharts

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6. Ethereum -25% YTD….Gives Back All Post-Election Gains

StockCharts

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7. High Flyer…Trade Desk TTD -42% from Highs

StockCharts

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8. Russia Outspends All of EU Combined on Defense

Semafor

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9. Wall Street’s digital lifelines: How severed undersea cables could be a big problem for the global financial system

With $10 trillion at stake daily, the mysterious undersea cable breaks add another threat that financial services players must protect themselves against. ·

There have been a series of mysterious incidents of severed undersea cables.

Damage to undersea cables could negatively impact the global financial ecosystem.

Security and policy experts say what it could mean for finance firms and how to mitigate the risk.

While much of banking and trading seems to have gone digital, the global financial system still depends on a vast network of undersea cables that crisscross the sea floor. Carrying $10 trillion worth of transactions every day and powering Wall Street’s global trading and communications, these cables have had little mainstream attention as they lay deep in the world’s oceans for decades quietly serving their purpose.

But now these cables, many no thicker than a garden hose, are at the center of a series of mysterious incidents that have Wall Street security leaders and consultants on high alert.

Tankers dragging their anchors have severed undersea cables in recent months in the Baltic Sea and East China Sea. Officials in Europe accuse Russia of sabotaging the infrastructure, while Taiwan has said it suspects China is behind the damage off of its northern shores. The cables are part of a network spanning about 745,000 miles that transmits 95% of the world’s data. The snap of a few subsea cables has knocked islands the size of Taiwan offline, cutting off access to communications, internet, and banking.

Business Insider

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10. YouTube MBA

Matt Grey

1. BABA Stock Breaks Above David Tepper China Call Highs… +40% YTD

StockCharts

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2. Chinese Internet KWEB +17% YTD…Not Yet at Previous David Tepper Highs

StockCharts

Bloomberg

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3. Coke vs. Pepsi War…KO Straight Up vs. PEP

StockCharts

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4. European Financials +13% Year to Date…New Highs in Chart

StockCharts

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5. Leverage Long ETFs at Record Levels

There are is a record ~$95bn in leveraged long ETFs vs. just ~$9bn in their bearish counterparts.

Bloomberg

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6. The Number of People Turning 65 Every Day by Country

Wealth of Common Sense

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7. Work From Home Number Staying Sticky at 30%

Via Wolf Street: Of all full-time employees, 13% were full WFH in late 2024, while 26% were in a hybrid-WFH situation, so about 39% were at partially or fully WFH, according to the study. The remaining 61% were working fully on site.

Wolf Street

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8. Google says U.S. is Facing a Power Capacity crisis in AI Race against China

Via CNBC: The U.S. is facing a power capacity crisis as the tech sector races against China to achieve dominance in artificial intelligence, an executive leading the energy strategy of Alphabet’s Google unit said this week.

The emergence of China’s DeepSeek artificial intelligence firm sent the shares of major power companies tumbling in late January on speculation that its AI model is cheaper and more efficient. But Caroline Golin, Google’s global head of energy market development, said more power is needed now to keep up with Beijing.

“We are in a capacity crisis in this country right now, and we are in an AI race against China right now,” Golin told a conference hosted by the Nuclear Energy Institute in New York City on Tuesday.

Alphabet’s Google unit embarked four years ago on an ambitious goal to power its operations around the clock with carbon-free renewable energy, but the company faced a major obstacle that forced a turn toward nuclear power.

Google ran into a “very stark reality that we didn’t have enough capacity on the system to power our data centers in the short term and then potentially in the long term,” Golin said.

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9. Top Import Partners for Each U.S. State

Visual Capitalist

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10. 8 Mistakes to Avoid Making During Work Meetings, According to an Etiquette Expert

There are lots of things to avoid doing during work meetings. Business Insider asked an etiquette expert about the mistakes to avoid making during work meetings.

Whether in-person or virtual, work meetings are almost always a guaranteed part of professional life. Unfortunately, employees can unintentionally undermine their professionalism during meetings in several ways.

To help you avoid these missteps, Business Insider asked etiquette expert Arden Clise to share some common mistakes people make during work meetings. Here’s what she said.

Showing up late

When it comes to meetings, a common faux pas is showing up late and disrespecting the time of others.

“If everyone’s arriving late, then you can’t start a meeting on time, and you don’t accomplish what you need to accomplish,” Clise said.

Clise told BI that she recommends facilitators always start the meetings on time to reward those who show up when they should.

Turning the camera off in virtual meetings

In a virtual meeting, keeping your camera off can be seen as rude.

“I think it’s really disrespectful to just remain with your video off when you’re addressed and when you are speaking,” Clise told BI.

She added there might be a few exceptions, like if your kid just came in the room or you have coworkers around you, but your camera should generally be on — especially when you’re talking.

Trying to multitask during the meeting

According to Clise, it’s not polite to juggle other tasks while in a meeting. This includes using your phone, jotting down notes unrelated to the meeting, or thinking about other to-do list items.

“If you’re not present in the meeting, if you’re doing other work, you’re not going to hear what’s going on. You’re not going to participate because you’re missing that opportunity to,” Clise told BI.

In general, she said to avoid anything that can pull your attention elsewhere.

Excessively typing in the chat

Another etiquette mistake to avoid in virtual meetings is overusing the chat box. Clise said that continual messages can be distracting for others, so it’s best to keep chat box usage to a minimum. She said that if you have a question for one person, sending them a direct message is much better than drawing everyone’s attention to it in the chat.

“Chatting is like a side conversation in an in-person meeting,” Clise told BI.

Dominating the conversation

It’s important to give others the chance to talk.

Another big mistake to avoid is dominating the meeting and not allowing others to share their thoughts. Clise said it can be extremely frustrating if one person constantly shares ideas or asks questions without letting others talk.

If you’re running a meeting, it’s also important to make sure everyone is given a chance to speak

Interrupting others while they’re speaking

Interrupting, especially in virtual meetings, is a common misstep.

“It’s hard sometimes in a meeting, particularly a virtual meeting, to know when someone is finished or going to be finished. But if you’re someone who regularly interrupts people … that can be really offensive,” Clise said.

Even if it’s accidental, it’s essential to avoid talking over other people.

Putting quiet team members on the spot

Clise said it’s never OK to point out that someone is quiet in a meeting. Doing so might make them feel uncomfortable, and it can come across as though you’re trying to make them look bad.

Instead, politely ask their thoughts on a certain point, reassuring them that they’ve had great ideas in the past, so they feel comfortable speaking up.

Not following through on assigned tasks after the meeting

Don’t drop the ball after the meeting is over.

After leaving a meeting, it’s crucial to follow through on the tasks you agreed to handle.

Clise said that sometimes, people forget to follow through on action items because they didn’t take notes, make a to-do list, or add items to their calendars. However, forgetting to follow through can come across as disrespectful to others.

“It doesn’t reflect well on you if you’re not holding up your end of the work tasks. If you’re not getting work done, you’re not helping your coworkers, and you’re not allowing the company to accomplish what it needs to accomplish,” she said.

1. Tesla -32% from Highs…Approaching Support Level…Gives Back Post-Election Gains

StockCharts

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2. Gender Divide in Crypto

According to a Pew Research survey based on February 2024 data, men under age 50 are more likely than older men and women of all ages to have used cryptocurrency. The gender divide is notable even among young investors. Forty-two percent of men ages 18 to 29 have invested in, traded, or used cryptocurrency, compared with 17% of women in the same age range, Pew said. Interestingly, just 17% of all U.S. adults say they have invested in, traded, or used a cryptocurrency, according to the 2024 survey. That was statistically unchanged since 2021, Pew said.

Barron’s

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3. 8 of the 10 Most Downloaded Financial Apps are Crypto Apps

From MarketWatch: Granted, institutional investors are not holding such cryptocurrencies, and memecoins account for just under 2% of the entire crypto market, by BCA’s calculations. But the strategists say the surge in memecoins is a symptom of a larger trend, that consensus is now very bullish on crypto: The bitcoin ETFs were the most successful exchange-traded-fund launches in history, with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink saying big investors are discussing whether to allocate up to 5% of their portfolios to bitcoin. Fink said bitcoin’s price could climb as high as $700,000.

“We are concerned that this raging optimism is a sign that we are near a top,” says the BCA team, which points out the supply of bitcoin in profit is over 90% — historically a proportion at which tops have formed in bitcoin prices. Eight of the top 10 most downloaded financial apps are crypto trading apps, they add.

MarketWatch

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4. Firms are Not Mentioning Inflation on Earnings Calls

Few firms are mentioning inflation on earnings calls.

Bloomberg

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5. Truflation Dropping

Andreas Steno

Google

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6. Bearish Sentiment at 52 Week High

The Irrelevant Investor

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7. China Biotech Transactions Go from 5% to 30% of Global Market

Via the WSJ: China’s rise in biotech has been years in the making, but it is now impossible to ignore. In 2020, less than 5% of large pharmaceutical transactions worth $50 million or more upfront involved China. By 2024, that number had surged to nearly 30%, according to DealForma. A decade from now, many drugs hitting the U.S. market will have originated in Chinese labs.

WSJ

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8. $10,000 EVs Made in China

Semafor

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9. YouTube Viewership On TV Screens Exceeds Mobile For First Time In U.S.

Deadline

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10. Doing This for 30 Minutes a Day Can Unlock Your Full Potential

Taking just 30 minutes a day to learn something new improved my life

Via Addicted to Success: Between the demands of work, life, and the never-ending cycle of bills, we often put our development, learning, and self-improvement at the bottom of our daily to-do lists.

When I was younger, I typically justified this in two primary ways:

1. Lack of Control – I believed I didn’t have a choice. Things were beyond my control. Excuses like “I’m just so busy,” “My boss is unfair,” or “I’m just not as fast as my colleagues” were my go-to justifications.
2. Fear – I was afraid of not being next in line for a promotion, of not getting my next raise, of not being enough. Although I never missed a promotion, I wasn’t exactly the healthiest individual. Years later, burnt out, overworked, and with no sense of who I was outside of work, I collapsed.

It took years (and thousands spent in therapy) to realize both excuses stemmed from the same place—a deep-rooted insecurity.

Self-Worth & Work

Unbeknownst to me at the time, my self-worth was directly tied to my job. My value depended on what my boss thought, how hard they saw me working, and how much time I spent in the office (this was clearly before COVID).

As I’m sure anyone in a similar situation can attest, I allowed the allure of winning to eclipse everything else in my life including myself.

For those who are good at it, business is fun. Winning contracts, pursuing leads, figuring out a new code base, it’s all exhilarating! But that excitement wasn’t enough to compensate for everything else I was losing.

In the grand scheme of a universe that’s at least 13.8 billion years old (and likely older), it’s silly to think anyone including your boss, can dictate your self-worth or justify your existence.

Think about it. For all the great philosophical minds that have come before us—Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, Confucius, the ancient Greeks—no one can definitively explain why we are here, as a species or as individuals.

Before You Freak Out

Years ago, this uncertainty would have terrified me. The not knowing used to bring anxiety.

Now? I’ve realized it’s one of the best parts of life: No one can tell me or you why we are here. Which means we get to figure it out for ourselves—if we choose to.

Most of us got to where we are today by doing what we were supposed to. By following the rules.

But in doing so, we likely left pieces of ourselves behind. Pieces we miss even if we don’t realize it yet.

The good news? You can start rediscovering those pieces today by setting aside time to learn something new.

30 Minutes of Mastery

Taking just 30 minutes a day to learn something new improved my mental health, sharpened my skills, and, most importantly, helped me find myself again.

Here’s how you can do the same:

Step 1: Identify Your Peak Time

Find the time of day when you’re at your sharpest, most alert, and most capable.

• For most, this is an hour or two after waking up.
• Others hit their peak right after lunch.
• Observe yourself for a few weeks. Track your energy levels throughout the day in a journal. Your peak time will naturally reveal itself.

Step 2: Block 30 Minutes for Learning

Once you’ve found your peak time:

• Block 30 minutes of it on your calendar every day.
• Only schedule a week at a time to allow flexibility for unexpected changes.
• Set a recurring meeting with yourself—just like you would for an important client or project.

Step 3: Show Up & Protect Your Time

This is the hard part.

• Show up every day (at least three times a week, minimum).
• Don’t let distractions cancel your session.
• Don’t use holidays or busy schedules as excuses.
• Don’t waste this time responding to emails or texts.

Instead, use it to learn something meaningful, robotics, graphic design, mindfulness, coding, creativity, whatever calls to you. Trust your intuition.

Step 4: Observe & Adjust

As Annie Dillard said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

By prioritizing yourself and daily learning, you’re making an investment that will pay dividends for you, your career, and society as a whole.After all, if we’ve all left pieces of ourselves behind along the way, maybe it’s no wonder life isn’t as fulfilling as it could be.  The choice is yours are you ready to reclaim those lost pieces?