Good Morning! KKR and AEW are seeking to sell China property assets at steep losses. Trump is imposing 50% tariffs on certain Canadian goods over alleged trade discrimination. And the Paramount and Warner Bros. merger was hit with a temporary restraining order.

Trump Jr.'s 1789 fund is investing in companies that have scored billions in federal funding. Miami's metro area is now more expensive than New York with the cost of living surging since the pandemic. And Blackstone-backed Jersey Mike's set its IPO terms and is aiming to raise $1 billion.

Plus: Dating apps have a growing AI "chatfishing" problem, and billionaire Mark Walter's firms are being probed by federal prosecutors.

This hedge fund research platform beat ChatGPT, Claude, and Shortcut in financial modeling. Learn more about the tool Tier 1 hedge funds are using.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Billionaires’ Latest Asset Class

Billionaires have already bought the sports teams, the islands, the art, the watches, and the homes with three kitchens nobody uses. Naturally, the next prestige trade is a 66-million-year-old apex predator in the foyer.

Dinosaurs have become the latest alternative asset class for the ultra-rich, and the market is about as orderly as you would expect. Ken Griffin spent $44.6 million on a stegosaurus, and a T. rex named Gus just sold at Sotheby’s for $50.1 million, the highest price ever paid for a dinosaur at auction. Hollywood A-listers like Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicolas Cage have reportedly played in the fossil market too.

The appeal makes a ton of sense as a f--k-you-money symbol. T. rex skeletons are genuinely scarce, genuinely dramatic and basically impossible to comp. Fewer than 30 T. rexes that are more than 30% intact have ever been identified, and a complete skull alone can sell for millions. Stan, one of the most famous specimens ever found, sold at Christie’s for $31.8 million in 2020, blowing past an $8 million estimate.

The problem is that this is still a tiny, opaque market with very rich buyers and very old inventory. There is no clean Bloomberg screen for dinosaur comps, no easy standard for what “complete” really means and no regulator making sure every eight-figure fossil comes with perfect provenance.

Most commercial skeletons include some mix of original bone, cast replicas and synthetic material because full dinosaur skeletons are almost never found intact. That can be totally normal, but it also makes valuation feel less like underwriting an asset and more like asking whether the $50 million lizard is mostly lizard.

That is the tension in the dinosaur market. Billionaire money can help fund real fossil discoveries and occasionally put major specimens in museums, but it can also turn scientific artifacts into trophy assets, push prices into the stratosphere and make the market even more opaque. Scientists want access to study the fossils, auction houses want competitive bidding and wealthy collectors want the ultimate flex, which is exactly why the whole market can be both rational and completely ridiculous at the same time.

Takeaway: Dinosaurs are the latest billionaire asset class because they check every box: scarce, dramatic, hard to value and impossible to ignore. A T. rex is cooler than a painting, rarer than most sports franchises and opaque enough to make the market chaotic. Gus just sold for $50 million, Ken Griffin already has his stegosaurus, and the ultra-rich have found a new way to flex. The dinosaur trade is real, it is growing, and it is about as orderly as a starving T. rex, which is probably half the appeal.

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Claude for Excel Only Scored 48% on its Analyst Exam

A leading analyst training firm put the top AI tools through a classic first-year assignment, a fully integrated three-statement model for Apple, and graded them like trainees. ChatGPT scored 43%, Claude managed 48%, and Shortcut topped the field at 50%. All of them failed. Yet, most investors still paste tickers into these chatbots and trust their modeling (and research).

Tier 1 Hedge funds run their work through Primer instead, which took the same test and scored 81%, a full 31 points clear of Shortcut.* Built by former hedge fund investors to help analysts do higher quality, more robust research. Until now, access was reserved for institutions. Today it's open to everyone.

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HEADLINES

Top Reads

• KKR, AEW seek to sell China property assets at steep losses (BB)

• Trump slaps 50% tariffs on Canada goods on trade discrimination claims (CNBC)

• Paramount and Warner Bros. merger hit with temporary restraining order (CNBC)

• Trump Jr.'s 1789 fund invests in companies that have scored billions in federal funding (CNN)

• Miami's metro area is now more expensive than New York (BB)

• Blackstone-backed Jersey Mike's sets IPO terms (Axios)

• ChatGPT, Claude infiltrate dating apps by helping singles flirt with matches (BB)

• The number of those worth more than $30 million jumped by 14.4% last year (WSJ)

• Billionaire Mark Walter's firms probed by federal prosecutors (BB)

• Everyday investors sour on the Mag Seven and flock to newer AI trades (WSJ)

• Goldman says hedge funds sell US tech stocks at record pace (BB)

• Most Americans oppose Trump government owning companies, CNBC poll finds (CNBC)

• Buyout firm TrueLink nears $1 billion deal for coffee syrup maker (WSJ)

• KKR-backed Serentica eyes $450 million loan in renewables push (BB)

• BlackRock eyes more than $12 billion debt for data center (BB)

• Andreessen Horowitz adds Connor Love to American Dynamism team (BB)

• They call her 'The Assassin' on Wall Street. She has a new target. (WSJ)

• Why Burger King is embracing 'beef wars,' despite record prices (NBC)

• The market for psychedelic drugs to treat mental health conditions gets a big buy signal (CNBC)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• U.S. equities closed mostly lower as investors weighed renewed U.S.-Iran tensions and the start of a busy earnings week.

• The S&P 500 declined 0.2%, while oil prices finished only modestly higher as reports indicated both sides remain open to negotiations.

• Energy was among the strongest-performing sectors, while communication services benefited from gains in Alphabet.

Earnings Season

• Approximately 80 S&P 500 companies are scheduled to report this week, including Alphabet and Tesla.

• S&P 500 earnings are expected to grow 23% year over year, led by energy and technology.

• Technology stocks have declined about 9% since early June after gaining more than 45% from the March lows, as investors reassess the pace of AI infrastructure spending.

• AI remains a key growth theme, though investors are increasingly balancing exposure with cyclical and value-oriented areas, including U.S. mid-cap stocks.

Geopolitical Risks

• U.S.-Iran military tensions escalated over the weekend, but markets remained relatively stable as diplomatic discussions remained possible.

• The S&P 500 has gained more than 15% from its March low following a 9% first-quarter pullback, despite continued geopolitical uncertainty.

• Recent economic data, including resilient retail sales and moderating core inflation, continue to support the broader market backdrop.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Archer Aviation ($ACHR) +20% after unveiling Thunder, an autonomous VTOL aircraft jointly developed with Anduril.

• (+) Iren ($IREN) +20% because the company raised its year-end AI Cloud annualized run-rate revenue target to over $4B from $3.7B.

• (–) Carvana ($CVNA) -5% after shares slipped ahead of its July 29 earnings report, with investors cautious of used cars sales slipping.

Prediction Markets

• Earnings Call Special (before markets open): Charles Schwab

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Blackstone took a controlling stake in Futronic, a South Korean supplier to the automotive and industrial robotics industries, for $720 million

• CuspAI, a materials discovery startup, raised $450 million 

• Flex, an AI banking platform for mid-sized business owners, raised $70 million

• Senra Systems, a wire-harness startup, raised $65 million

• Bunkerhill Health, an agentic AI platform for health systems, raised $55 million

• RapidPulse, an aspiration medical tech company for acute ischemic stroke, raised $48 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

You Weren’t Supposed To See That

Description:
A straightforward investing guide from Joshua M. Brown that pulls back the curtain on how markets, Wall Street, and investing really work. Drawing on decades of experience advising investors, Brown explains the hidden incentives, behavioral traps, and overlooked principles that often separate successful long-term investors from everyone else. Blending market history with practical advice, the book emphasizes disciplined decision-making, emotional control, and focusing on what truly drives investment returns instead of market noise.

Book Length: 288 pages
Release Date: September 9, 2025

Ideal For:
Investors of all experience levels looking to better understand market behavior, avoid common mistakes, and build a disciplined long-term investing approach

The biggest edge in investing rarely comes from knowing more than everyone else it comes from reacting better than everyone else.

DAILY VISUAL

Oil Tops $90 as Mid East Fighting Escalates

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DAILY ACUMEN

IKEA Effect

People consistently overvalue things they built themselves, even when the result is objectively worse than something they could have simply bought. Named for the furniture that customers rate more highly after assembling it by hand, the effect explains far more than furniture. Effort creates ownership, and ownership distorts judgment.

This is why founders hold onto flawed strategies long after the market has rejected them, and why analysts defend models they built even after the assumptions inside them stopped being true. The labor invested becomes indistinguishable, in the builder's mind, from the quality of the result.

The discipline worth building is separating how much something cost you to create from how good it actually is. They are unrelated facts that feel related, and the harder you worked on something, the more suspicious you should be of your own verdict on it.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• 5 money lies you need to stop telling yourself right now

• Is PTO-maxxing the problem?

• How Nvidia built a $5 trillion company making people pay for their own lunch

• Why 60/40 portfolios are too risky for wealthy investors

• How to find joy on a quiet day

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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