1. Softbank Volatility -40% Twice in 8 Months

StockCharts

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2. IGV Software ETF Hit Negative Return for 5-Year Period Before Recent Bounce

Google Finance

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3. Leverage ETF Craze Changing Structure of Stock Market

Joshua Brown

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4. 2 Clients-Customer A and Customer B Make Up Almost 40% of NVDA Revenue

Perplexity

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5. AI Contribution to GDP Growth-Morningstar

Preston Caldwell MYTH AI Isn’t a Major Contributor to the US GDP Growth

The third myth is that AI isn’t a major contributor to recent US GDP growth. This may sound odd, because the naive view is “of course it is—look at the hundreds of billions being spent on data centers.” But Goldman Sachs economists argued that AI-related investment in 2025 was offset entirely by imports, leading to zero contribution to GDP on net. This view is now perhaps the consensus among more sophisticated observers. But we think it’s missing the full picture.

We estimate that, as officially measured, AI investment contributed 0.4 percentage points to real GDP growth in 2025. And that contribution would’ve been 0.6 points without the Bureau of Economic Analysis undermeasurement of IT equipment investment.

Where does the view that AI’s contribution to GDP was zero in 2025 get things wrong? First, it assumes the official figures are correct. But even granting the official figures, there are two other mistakes. The zero-contribution view neglects the components of data center investment that correspond to non-IT equipment and structures. And it neglects the fact that AI services spending is capitalized as intangibles investment in the national accounts.

So, AI is providing a massive boost on the demand side of the economy, considering this direct contribution, as well as indirect effects, such as the boost to consumption from higher stock prices.

There’s one more nuance to unravel, though: AI’s contribution to GDP growth may be offset by tighter monetary policy. If this is the case, AI’s main impact on the economy isn’t higher GDP growth, but rather higher interest rates. Then, AI won’t start having a major uplift to GDP growth until it shifts from being merely a demand shock to also being a supply-side shock. The latter will happen once AI starts boosting productivity growth, which, as we discussed, is probably yet to ramp up.

https://www.morningstar.com/economy/5-myths-about-ais-economic-impact-what-data-actually-shows

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6. Nuclear Power Capacity To Jump 44% By 2036 As China Surpasses US

by Tyler Durden  Global nuclear capacity is set to surge by 44% over the next decade as China topples the United States as the biggest nuclear power capacity holder and India will hike its capacity to boost energy security. These are the estimates in a new report by BloombergNEF, which sees total global nuclear capacity at 535 gigawatts (GW) by 2036, up from the 372 GW of installed capacity as of the end of 2025.

The world is projected to have as much as 535 gigawatts of installed nuclear power by 2036, up from 372 last year, according to the report released Wednesday.

ZeroHedge

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7. You Know Its Howard Lindzon’s “Degenerate Economy” When Goldman Has to Throw on Ban

Goldman Bans Staff Prediction Markets Bets on Finance, Politics

Bloomberg

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8. U.S. Condo Market Supply for Sale Back to 2013 Levels

Wolf Street Sales of condos and co-ops fell by 2.7% seasonally adjusted in June from May, and by 2.7% year-over-year, to annual rate of 360,000, a record low, shared also by May 2020 and May 2025, all of them the same record low in the data that go back only to late 2011.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate compared to June in prior years:

• 2025: -2.7% (year-over-year)
• 2021: -50.7%
• 2019: -36.8%
• 2012: -25.0% (first June in the data series)

Supply of condos rose to 6.4 months, along with May, June, and September last year the highest since 2012.

Wolf Street

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9. White Lines on American Roads in 1950s Life Saver

WSJ By Ben Cohen  In the 1950s, around the time Jonas Salk cracked the polio vaccine, a metallurgist named John V. N. Dorr became the champion of a different lifesaver: a white line on the right side of the road.  The study found that Dorr’s line nudged cars away from the center line, into the middle of their lanes, and narrowed the speed gap between day and night. In other words, the study found scientific evidence that a single line could dramatically alter human behavior.  

WSJ

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10. My Question—Brown U has 20% of Kids Getting “extra time” for Exams Due to Issues.  Do They Still Get Extra Time While Cheating with AI

This chart should be a ‘wake-up call’ about AI cheating, Brown University professor says  By Henry Chandonnet 

Brown University professor Roberto Serrano told Business Insider that the “cost of cheating has basically gone down to zero.” Roberto Serrano

• Brown University professor Roberto Serrano saw scores drop between a take-home midterm and an in-person final.
• He suspects the students cheated with AI. “It’s certainly a wake-up call to the professors,” he told Business Insider.
• Serrano shared the exam scores. Some dropped from perfect scores on the midterm to below 20% on the final.

What feels off in this AI-generated summary?

Roberto Serrano’s class scored curiously well on the take-home midterm exam. When he suspected widespread AI cheating and made their final exam in-person, their grades tanked.

The Brown University professor teaches welfare economics and social choice theory. The midterm was administered from home after a shooter killed two students in December.

“The problem with this technology is that the cost of cheating has basically gone down to zero,” he told Business Insider. “It’s very easy for students to succumb to the temptation.”

When he told students that the final exam would be in person, many previously high-scoring students dropped out. Others who scored in the high 90s on the midterm scored in the 50s on the final.

Brian E. Clark, Brown’s VP for news and strategic campus communications, wrote to Business Insider that Serrano shared details with the university’s standing committee on the academic code on July 8. The committee “move forward according to its procedures.”

“Brown treats every allegation of academic integrity with the utmost seriousness,” Clark wrote.

The scandal has drawn interest across the internet, and particularly among those who work in tech. Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham posted on X about it; two Google DeepMind staffers also shared their thoughts.

A chart of the data, which was first publicized by Inside Higher Ed, shows each student’s grades: 

Business Insider

1. Technology Stocks Insiders Buying Shares at Highest Rate Ever

Tech insiders. “At least one group of Tech investors appears to be viewing this as a buying opportunity (HINT: Its the people who know these companies best). Make of it what you will.”

@jaykaeppel

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2. Emerging Market Rally Concentrated S.Korea

The Lead-Lag Report

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3. Crypto Sentiment at Bearish Records …Strongly Bullish 1%

Bespoke’s

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4. Crude Oil Sector =Broadcom Stock

Jeff Weniger

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5. NVDA Falls to 2019 P/E Levels

Bloomberg

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6. MU Micron -28% from Highs…Only Gets Stock to 50-Day

StockCharts

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7. Big Tech Borrowing in Bond Markets…Final Order Book Coming in Below Peak Order Book

Bloomberg

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8. Global LNG Trading Post Wars

Semafor

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9. More Chinese real estate stats

Michael A. Arouet

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10. 1 Habit Most Intelligent People Have In Common

Intelligent individuals don’t know how to be right—they know how to be wrong.-Psychology Today

Key points

• Openness to new ideas can reliably predict high cognitive ability.
• Intelligent people habitually seek evidence that challenges, rather than confirms, their beliefs.
• True intelligence sometimes looks like indecision—frequent mind-changing can signal deeper thinking.

Across decades of research into how people think, one behavioral pattern keeps emerging in the data as a reliable marker of high cognitive ability, and that habit has nothing to do with how quickly someone reaches a conclusion.

In a landmark 1997 study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, psychologists Keith Stanovich and Richard West found that the single strongest thinking disposition associated with higher intelligence was what they called actively open-minded thinking: the habitual tendency to seek out evidence that challenges one’s existing beliefs, to sit with uncertainty, and to revise one’s conclusions when the data demands it.

Over the last three decades, that finding has been replicated so consistently across different populations and methodologies that a 2023 comprehensive review in the Journal of Intelligence, one of the field’s most authoritative journals, confirmed it still stands as one of the most robust links between a cognitive disposition and measured intellectual ability.

How This Habit Compounds Your Intelligence

Actively open-minded thinking reflects the extent to which someone habitually weighs new evidence against a favored belief, considers others’ views before closing on a position, and remains genuinely open to being wrong. It sounds straightforward. In practice, it cuts against almost every social instinct we have.

What makes the actively open-minded thinking-intelligence link particularly striking isn’t simply that the two correlate. It’s the direction of the relationship across multiple studies: actively open-minded thinking consistently predicts better real-world reasoning performance on heuristics and biased tasks, on calibration measures, on tests of scientific reasoning — even when controlling for raw cognitive ability.

In other words, this isn’t just intelligence expressing itself through behavior. It’s a thinking habit that compounds whatever cognitive ability a person already has. That distinction matters because it means actively open-minded thinking can be intentionally observed and built.

How This Habit Is Connected to Intelligence

To understand why actively open-minded thinking clusters so reliably with high cognitive ability, it helps to look at the broader personality science.

A 2024 meta-analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, drawing on decades of research across hundreds of studies, found that within the openness-to-experience domain, intellectual curiosity showed the strongest and most consistent positive correlations with measured intelligence—stronger than any other personality facet examined.

Not openness to aesthetics, not sensation-seeking, not openness to feelings. The facets that pointed most reliably toward high cognitive ability were the ones oriented toward ideas and toward an honest reckoning with one’s own thinking. Actively open-minded thinking is what that profile looks like as a daily behavior. It’s openness to experience translated into practice.

The motivational engine underneath it has its own name in the literature: need for cognition. This refers to the tendency to find effortful, challenging thinking intrinsically rewarding rather than draining. For people high in need for cognition, encountering a persuasive counterargument doesn’t trigger defensiveness. It triggers engagement.

A 2024 longitudinal study published in the Journal of Intelligence, which tracked 341 adolescents across a school year using latent change score models, found a bidirectional relationship: fluid intelligence predicted growth in need for cognition, and need for cognition predicted growth in fluid intelligence. The relationship runs in both directions.

This is why psychologists often find that people who describe themselves as indecisive—who change their minds often, who find it difficult to state positions with complete confidence—are frequently the sharpest thinkers in the room. Their uncertainty is a signal that their cognitive system is working correctly, continuously integrating new information rather than defending a position already staked out.

What This Habit Looks Like in Practice

Actively open-minded thinking manifests in specific, recognizable behaviors, and they don’t always look like intelligence from the outside.

On top of this, they also deliberately seek out asymmetric conversations—people with different professional backgrounds, different priors, different life experiences—not to debate, but to locate the edges of their own blind spots.

From the outside, these behaviors can look like indecision or a lack of conviction, but research suggests otherwise. A 2019 study published in Personality and Individual Differences found that both intelligence and cognitive flexibility independently predicted intellectual humility, particularly the facets concerned with respecting opposing views and remaining open to revising one’s attitudes when faced with new evidence.

Crucially, the researchers found a compensatory effect: either high intelligence or high cognitive flexibility was sufficient to support intellectual humility; neither was strictly necessary alone. Two roads in, but both are reliably traveled by highly capable thinkers.

How You Can Cultivate a Habit of Open-Minded Thinking

The most important implication of this body of research is also its most hopeful one: actively open-minded thinking is not a fixed trait.

This means actively open-minded thinking is, at least in part, a practice. It is built through repeated, deliberate exposure to disconfirming information. It is strengthened every time someone asks, “What am I missing?” rather than “How do I defend this?” And it weakens in environments that reward certainty over accuracy.

The takeaway for anyone who works alongside, leads, or wants to develop highly capable people is this: the visible signals of strong thinking are often the opposite of what we’ve been trained to look for. Confidence reads as competence. Fluency reads as expertise. But the deeper marker that research points to most consistently, across decades and methodologies, is a genuine, practiced willingness to be wrong.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202607/1-habit-most-intelligent-people-have-in-common

1. History of Positive Q2

Carson Investment Research

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2. Analysts Raise Tech Earnings by 40%

Analysts have also raised their 12-month tech earnings estimates by nearly 40% this year.

Opening Bell Daily

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3. META AI Capex-Ed Elson

Prof G Media

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4. NVDA Traded Down to 200-Day

StockCharts

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5. PE Exits -46% Quarter Over Quarter

PitchBook

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6. Private Credit Stress Not Easing Up Yet

The Kobeissi Letter

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7. Foreign Holders of Japanese Bonds Selling

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8. HOUSEHOLD iNCOME bREAKDOWN IN u.s.

USAFacts

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9. Family Income Needed Per State to Live “Comfortably”

Visual Capitalist

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10. Rogue Nations Use Crypto to Avoid U.S. Sanctions

Iran, Russia, North Korea and other targets of sanctions have dramatically increased their use of virtual currencies to duck U.S. pressure, handling around $100 billion worth of crypto last year alone, firms that track the flows say.

They are also becoming more sophisticated in how they navigate the market, creating their own digital tokens and crypto exchanges to help process transactions, the firms and Western authorities say.

Iran and Russia have used virtual cash to buy drones and weapon parts, and Russia has used it to pay salaries for seafarers who smuggle their sanctioned crude around the world, according to Western officials and crypto analytics firms. North Korea, which has mastered the art of stealing crypto through hacks and other cybercrimes, has used it to buy fuel and military equipment, officials say.

https://www.wsj.com/world/cryptocurrency-sanctions-evasion-d02b60f1

1. Semiconductors -15% from Highs…Sitting on 50 Day Moving Average

StockCharts

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2. Semiconductor History…Stock Prices Peaked in March 2000 but Earnings Kept Rising into 2001

Dotcom Semis: EPS vs. price. “Wait for EPS to miss or downward revisions to confirm a top, and you’ll fly into the side of a mountain like 2000. Price peaked in March, EPS kept rising into 2001.”

@renmacllc

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3. Semiconductors Expensive in Absolute and Relative Terms

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4. First Half Performance from Global Markets….China and India Negative

MacroMicro

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5. S&P 500 Value Breaks Out to New Highs

StockCharts

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6. China Real Estate Slump Enters Year 5

Apollo

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7. China Real Estate Market Erased 20-Years of Gains

Hedgeye

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8. Japan Raised Interest Rates to 1%…The Highest in 31 Years

Gemini

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9. Heat Deaths in Modern Day Europe

Google

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10. Printers Devils Worked 6 Days a Week 12 Hours Per Day—Benjamin Franklin (indentured servant at 12) and Mark Twain

‘Empire of Ink’ Review: Deadline Dilemmas-WSJ

Finding enough copy was a challenge for early printers. Most weeklies offered a daunting amount of space for small-town editors to fill.-By Harold Holzer

Generations before aspiring communicators began attending journalism schools, and centuries before some of them skipped formal training altogether and simply declared themselves online influencers, most future news professionals launched their careers as indentured apprentices. And they were assigned to learn not writing, but printing.

Bent over type racks 12 hours a day, six days a week, given as little food as possible by cost-conscious, sometimes abusive owner-editors, these youngsters became known as printer’s devils, originally because their hands would be stained with black ink. Yet they developed prized skills in an age when consumers demanded promptly generated information. As early as the Revolutionary War, their value to the young nation was such that the Continental Congress exempted printer’s devils from army service.

Theirs are the stories that Alex Wright, the author of “Cataloging the World” (2014) and formerly a digital designer for Google News, deploys in his captivating “Empire of Ink.” A cache of vividly written episodes that cover 250 years of newspaper publishing, the book glorifies the development of printing, and printers, from the age of the village hand press to the modern global “information ecosystem.”

As Mr. Wright reminds us, both Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain started as printer’s devils. Franklin fled servitude in Boston and established himself in Philadelphia as an independent printer—and eventually as the philosopher-statesman-Founder we know.

A century later, before he became Mark Twain, young Sam Clemens began writing squibs between typesetting chores, later striking off on his own as a so-called tramp printer—a journeyman itinerant who briefly plies his craft in one small town before moving on to the next. Decades afterward, now the most famous writer in America, Twain remained so convinced that mechanized typesetting could revolutionize the industry that he lost a fortune investing in one fatally flawed invention.

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/empire-of-ink-review-deadline-dilemmas-a034bc31

1. Nine Sectors Expected to Grow Earnings Double Digits Next 12 Months

Nine sectors are expected to grow earnings by double digits over the next 12 months.

Chart Kid Matt

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2. The Big 6 Banks New All-Time Highs

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3. Silver was Worst Performing Asset in Q2

Barchart

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4. Record Retail Investor Volume was in January 2026…Including a One-Day $171m Inflow…Right Before -50% Correction

Perplexity

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5. WPP Advertising Stock -55% One-Year as AI Kicks In

Google Finance

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6. Crypto Funding Fell 70% in the Silicon Valley

Ed Elson

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7. China Large Cap Stocks FXI Closing in on New Bear Market

StockCharts

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8. Ukraine has Taken Out 30% of Russian Oil Refining Capacity

Putin Faces a Political Crisis as Fuel Shortages Ripple Through Russia-WSJ

Moscow might have to import gasoline and ban diesel exports as long lines form at petrol stations

By Yaroslav Trofimov

Ukrainian drone attacks have caused widespread fuel shortages across Russia, with 28% of refining capacity offline as of June 20.View more

Fuel shortages across Russia have triggered a new political challenge for President Vladimir Putin, as a relentless Ukrainian drone campaign aimed at the country’s oil refineries has brought the war home for most ordinary Russians.

While Ukraine has targeted Russian energy facilities for years, the quantity and firepower of Ukrainian drones and missiles have risen. This has allowed Kyiv to hit refineries as far as Tyumen, 1,200 miles away in Siberia, and permitted the spectacular raid that broke through thick layers of air defenses and destroyed Moscow’s main refinery on June 18, the turning point of the current crisis.

Some 28% of Russia’s refining capacity was offline as of June 20, estimated Sergey Vakulenko, former head of strategy at Gazprom Neft, a large Russian oil company, and now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/putin-faces-a-political-crisis-as-fuel-shortages-ripple-through-russia-8991cd9

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9. Pie Chart Breakdown of Student Loan Debt in America

Dave Lutz Jones Trading–President Donald Trump’s student-loan changes are here — and for many borrowers, the biggest change will be their monthly bill.  On July 1, the Department of Education rolled out new repayment plans, stricter borrowing caps for graduate students and parents borrowing for their kids, and new limits that could reshape who qualifies for a popular loan forgiveness program for public servants.  Millions of borrowers “will face massive sticker shock this summer and autumn as they are pushed to transition into other repayment plans“

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10. The Four R’s of Nervous System Recovery

Psychology Today Creating the conditions for recovery, clarity, and renewed hope. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe Ed.D.

Key points

• Coping manages stress, but true recovery restores what stress depletes in body and mind.
• The four R’s—restore, regulate, reflect, and reimagine—build capacity for lasting nervous system recovery.
• Recovery isn’t a reward after tasks; it’s necessary groundwork for adaptation, clarity, and hope.

Most of us have been taught how to keep going. Few of us have been taught how to recover. We tend to move from one demand to the next, carrying the weight of our work and our responsibilities, often without enough time to restore what each of those things asks of us.

Part of the challenge is that we’re living in a fast-paced world where many stressors never truly resolve. Many of us are carrying open stress loops that quietly consume our energy in the background.

The reality is that we have become quite skilled at coping. We go for the walk, do the breathing exercise, practice gratitude, or take a short break to manage our state. These practices matter. They can help us feel calmer, more grounded, and more present in difficult moments. Yet many people still find themselves feeling depleted, because regulation and recovery are not the same thing.

Think of your phone battery for a moment. If it drops to 10 percent, switching it to low-power mode is regulation. It conserves what’s left. Plugging it in to recharge is recovery. It restores what has been used. Low-power mode genuinely helps in the moment, but eventually, you need a charge.

Your nervous system is not broken; it may just be weary from carrying more than it has had the opportunity to recover from. Sometimes what we need most isn’t another coping strategy. It’s replenishing what’s been depleted. When was the last time you felt truly restored? For many of us, that feeling has become unfamiliar or something we’ve been postponing for a long time.

This is where the four R’s of nervous system recovery come in: restore, regulate, reflect, and reimagine. Each step helps create the conditions for the next.

Restore (create capacity)

What has been depleted? What part of me needs support right now to feel replenished?

Recovery begins by identifying what needs restoring. While stress impacts all of us differently, depletion often shows up across four connected areas: our body, heart, mind, and community.

Your body may be carrying tension, effects of poor sleep, or deep exhaustion that started long before you noticed it consciously. Your heart may be holding emotional residue, disappointment, grief, or worry you haven’t had space to process. Your mind may be tired from constant decision-making and problem-solving, even when nothing is technically wrong. And your sense of community may feel diminished, because stress often pulls us to withdraw at the exact moment we need connection most.

When you take the time to restore your body, heart, mind, and sense of community, you create the capacity to show up more fully for the people and the goals that matter most to you.

What can help: Try asking, “What part of me needs support right now?” and listen to what you’re truly wishing for. Then get specific. What physical signal is my body trying to get my attention through? What have I been feeling or carrying and not yet acknowledged? What story have I been telling myself about this season or situation? Who makes me feel safe, seen, and supported?

Regulate (create stability)

What helps me feel safe enough to respond?

When our nervous system is dysregulated, even small challenges can feel overwhelming. Once some capacity has been restored, regulation becomes far more effective. Regulation isn’t about eliminating stress or staying calm all the time. It’s about creating enough internal safety and space so you can respond thoughtfully instead of reacting automatically.

What can help: Breathwork, movement, music, nature, prayer, laughter, stepping away for a moment, or anything that genuinely helps you feel safe enough to come back to the present moment.

Reflect (create perspective)

What is this teaching me?

Reflection invites us to slow down long enough to notice patterns, recognize needs, celebrate growth, and learn from challenges. It helps us make meaning of what we have been carrying rather than simply carrying it forward. Reflection isn’t about judgment or overanalyzing. It involves looking back with curiosity and compassion so you can move forward with wisdom.

What can help: Ask yourself what’s helping, what’s hurting, and what you’re ready to do differently. Notice the dual truths and acknowledge your efforts and successes alongside the areas you wish to improve. You may be tired and still showing up with care. Both can be true at once, and naming both is what real self-awareness and honest self-check-ins are all about.

Reimagine (create possibility)

What might be possible from here?

Once we have restored some capacity, regulated our nervous system, and reflected on our experiences, we are better able to lift our eyes toward the future. This is where hope begins, not because every problem is solved, but because you finally have enough capacity and perspective to imagine that tomorrow doesn’t have to look exactly like today.

Reimagining invites us to consider what is possible. It helps us reconnect with our values, priorities, goals, and aspirations. It reminds us that even in difficult seasons, we still have agency, choice, and influence over what comes next.

What can help: Picture yourself on the other side of whatever is weighing on you most right now. Notice how that feels in your body. This isn’t wishful thinking. Imagining a future state genuinely helps your brain begin building a path toward it.

Final thoughts

Many people are feeling weary, overwhelmed, or stuck in a never-ending stress cycle, and when capacity is depleted, the solution isn’t always another coping strategy. Sometimes the next right step is restoring what has been drained so you can rebuild your energy, capacity, and hope.

Recovery has to come before the goal setting, the planning, and deciding what comes next. Recovery also isn’t a reward for finishing everything on your list; it’s part of the work. A nervous system that feels safe and supported is far more capable of learning, growing, adapting, and imagining new possibilities.

My gentle invitation is to ask yourself: “What do I need right now?”

What is one small step you can take today to move closer to feeling truly restored, and why does it matter?

Maybe it starts with your body. Maybe your heart, your mind, or your community. Wherever you begin, remember that small acts of restoration create the conditions for the recovery, clarity, and renewed hope you’re looking for.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/everyday-resilience/202606/the-four-rs-of-nervous-system-recovery