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Today's Summary

Pending Home Sales Decreased 0.4% Year-over-year in January. Housing starts decreased 0.6% in 2025 compared to 2024, but total completions decreased 7.5% year-on-year. Investors who expect high inflation are plowing into Real Estate. Wolf Richter says the US government-debt monster needs to be looked at in context, not by itself in a vacuum. Massive deficit spending is keeping the economy growing, but it also leads to the trade deficit. Wolf says inflation is running hotter despite the fact it is a chain weighted index. Howard Marks is much less skeptical about AI than he was just a few months ago. Howard Marks of Oaktree makes 180-degree turn on AI after Claude tutorial. Real GDP grew at a 1.4% annual rate in the fourth quarter. Consumption growth alone could account for more than all of the growth. Security policies that prioritize military force over governance and development do not prevent or shorten conflicts. Barry and MiBarry discuss the broadest rally in history. Hilary Allen is a professor at the American University, Washington College of Law in DC. She specializes in financial regulation, banking, law, securities regulation and technology law. Hilary Allen, Barry Ritholtz and Andrew Beer discuss Fintech Dystopia. Allen: Its nicer to believe that something will succeed than that it will fail Allen: Stocks and bonds seems to have become a whole lot more correlated in recent years. U.S. has a total tariff of 125% on Chinese-made EVs, along with a ban on cars that are connected to Chinese software ecosystems. China allowed its economy to become dominated by real estate, reducing long-term productivity growth. China may also come to regret the fruits of the Uyghur repression. This weeks Daily Wraps looks at the rise of pre-trained market models. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter/X have lost ground, while TikTok and Reddit have grown modestly. Anti-Indian sentiment among online Trump supporters has spilled over into the real world. Strategy Anchorage Digitals STRC position is meaningful because it is not a direct bullish call on MSTR. Shares of Strategy (MSTR) and Coinbase (COIN) are two of the most shorted stocks on the market, according to data compiled by Goldman Sachs. More than $400 million worth of short positions have been liquidated in the last 24 hours. Analysts reject Jane Street theory that Jane Street suppressed Bitcoin price action. Long-term holders selling spot into the market had done far more to explain price action, says Checkonchain analyst. Trump family-linked mining company American Bitcoin Corp. reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $59 million as bitcoin prices fell, cutting the value of its digital asset holdings. Block, Inc. will cut more than 4,000 employees, reducing its workforce by nearly half. Block will cut its headcount from more than 10,000 to less than half. Ethereums 2026 roadmap defends its role in the on-chain. Block CEO Jack Dorsey told employees the company will cut more than 4,000 roles and reorganize around an “AI-era” operating model. Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported 108,435 U.S. job cuts in January 2026, up 118% from a year earlier. Meta remains the largest source of CyberTipline reports, accounting for about two-thirds of the 20.5 million tips received in 2024, down from 36.2 million in 2023. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says company will not remove safeguards from its Claude AI model. Realloys is focused on rebuilding a part of the rare earth supply chain that largely does not exist at scale in the United States. New KadMic Pont roast Hen reflect! bobhemer policemen Brazil, Guyana, and Argentina are leading a significant growth in non-OPEC oil production in South America. Colombias oil industry is caught in a death spiral. Venezuelas potential return as a major producer is heavily constrained by its heavily corroded petroleum infrastructure.