Good Morning! China's backflipping AI robot maker Unitree surged over 600% in its Shanghai stock market debut. SK Hynix plans to buy back and cancel more than $28 billion of its shares in what would be South Korea's largest stock buyback. And the U.S. national debt topped $40 trillion for the first time in history, after doubling in less than a decade.

Jefferies Credit Partners is looking to raise around $1.16 billion for a private credit secondaries fund. The Honey Deuce price held flat at $23 this year, a rare inflation win at the US Open. And Bessent deployed debt buybacks in a sign of concern over rising yields.

Plus: The 15 venture capital firms with the best track records since 2010, how LinkedIn accidentally became a dating site, and the case for hiring job hoppers.

There is a new status symbol amongst the high earners. It’s called Stelrix.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Moderna’s Second Shot

Moderna just had the best day in its history, and this time it had nothing to do with Covid. Shares closed Wednesday at $174.38, up 176.97%, after finishing Tuesday below $63, on positive late-stage results for a personalized cancer vaccine. The move took Moderna's market cap from $25 billion to $69 billion in a session, and its development partner Merck rose 13% for its best day since 2009.

Here's what they built: Every tumor carries its own genetic mutations, so Moderna sequences a patient's tumor after surgery and makes a vaccine specific to that person, training the immune system to kill any cancer cells left behind.

Moderna and Merck are 50/50 partners on it, with Merck opting into the program in 2022 and sharing costs and profits. They tested it in 1,137 melanoma patients who'd had their tumors removed: half got Merck's Keytruda alone, the standard of care, half got Keytruda plus the vaccine. The combination group stayed cancer-free longer and was less likely to see the disease spread. It's the first time an mRNA cancer treatment has succeeded in a Phase 3 trial.

On the news, Bank of America upgraded Moderna from Underperform to Neutral and raised its price target over fourfold from $40 to $170, arguing the vaccine’s success could finally move the company beyond its dependence on infectious disease. Investors are now asking whether Moderna could become an oncology company instead rather than a one-hit wonder from Covid.

Analysts estimate the melanoma vaccine could eventually generate a few billion dollars in annual sales. Moderna and Merck are already testing the same personalized mRNA approach across lung, bladder, kidney, pancreatic and gastric cancers, and if it works beyond melanoma, this starts looking less like one successful drug and more like a repeatable way to treat cancer.

Short sellers ended up losing $5 billion on the news and added gasoline to Moderna’s rally. Roughly 14% of Moderna’s tradable shares were sold short heading into Wednesday and as the stock ripped higher, shorts were forced to buy shares back. Moderna shares had fallen 94% below its 2021 peak and the company looks to have potentially found a second act.

Moderna still has a long road ahead and the full Phase 3 data haven’t been released, and regulators still need to approve the treatment. And while Moderna says patients could potentially get access as early as next year if the regulatory process goes well, manufacturing a custom vaccine for every patient is far harder than producing millions of identical doses.

Takeaway: Moderna did not cure cancer Wednesday, but its stock might have popped like it did. This was the first successful late-stage trial for an mRNA cancer vaccine, and Wall Street is no longer pricing one melanoma drug; it’s pricing the possibility that Moderna’s mRNA technology can become a repeatable cancer-treatment platform.

PRESENTED BY STELRIX

How the Rich Borrow Until They Die

ProPublica once calculated that America's 25 wealthiest paid a “true tax rate” of 3.4% on $401 billion in wealth growth*. Their playbook has three steps. 1. Buy assets that appreciate. 2. Borrow against them when cash is needed. Since loan proceeds aren't income, no tax bill arrives. 3. Then die, because heirs inherit at a stepped-up basis, meaning decades of embedded gains are wiped clean for tax purposes and the estate simply settles the loans. Larry Ellison has pledged billions in Oracle stock this way for years. Stelrix introduces the borrow step, with an investment-backed credit card, to portfolios without a private banker.

Explore Stelrix's Instagram for more luxury and finance news and sign-up for their waitlist today.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Chinese humanoid robot maker Unitree jumps 460% in blockbuster Shanghai IPO (NY Post)

• SK Hynix plans more than $28 billion share buyback (WSJ)

• National debt tops $40 trillion after doubling in less than a decade, Treasury data shows (CBS News)

• Jefferies targets $1.14 billion for private credit secondaries fund (BB)

• US Open Honey Deuce price set for 2026: See history of signature cocktail, concession menu (Bleacher Report)

• Long-dated Treasuries rally as Treasury boosts bond buybacks (BB)

• These 15 venture capital firms have the best track records since 2010 (Inc.)

• Marvell gives Google right to buy up to $12.2 billion in shares (BB)

• The meal-kit industry is in disarray after a major supplier went bust (WSJ)

• LinkedIn has accidentally become a dating site — despite its no-romance rules (WSJ)

• AI stocks’ volatility shows momentum trade is fading (Axios)

• Cantor lets hedge funds place big bets on Kalshi’s prediction markets (WSJ)

• The key to pharma M&A: never shopping hungry (WSJ)

• Private credit’s insurance problem (Axios)

• Carvana shares on pace for 10% weekly loss as Mark Walter probe fuels investor jitters (CNBC)

• OpenAI ‘will be a public company in 2027’ or sooner, CFO Friar tells employees (CNBC)

• Goldman sounds out investors for CoreWeave-tied data center bond (BB)

• Trump touted a deal to avert new tariffs on Canada. Here’s what we know so far. (CNBC)

• Stripe to buy OpenRouter as fintech expands deeper into AI (CNBC)

• Defense-tech firm Lyntris shares plunge 11% after downsized IPO (BB)

• Two Sigma lost major investor in founders’ feud, Overdeck says (BB)

• SpaceX attempted to acquire AI coding startup Cognition (BB)

• Hudson River Trading posts record $11.4 billion trading haul (BB)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• Stocks rose as the 10-year Treasury yield eased near 4.64% following a Treasury buyback announcement.

• WTI crude climbed near $84 amid continued Strait of Hormuz disruptions; Asia and Europe finished mostly lower.

• The U.S. dollar declined against major currencies, consistent with lower yields.

Earnings Season

• The Treasury will roughly double its buyback operations for 10-year to 30-year securities starting September 9.

• The U.S. paused proposed 50% tariffs on nearly $20 billion of Canadian goods for three days to allow further negotiations.

• Exemptions would limit the affected trade to about 5% of the $382 billion in Canadian imports in 2025.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Moderna ($MRNA) +177% after its personalized mRNA cancer vaccine cut the risk of melanoma recurrence in a late-stage trial.

• (+) Estée Lauder ($EL) +16% because the company beat fiscal Q4 estimates on both lines and forecasted 2027 profit above estimates.

• (–) Nebius ($NBIS) -10% after disclosing plans to raise $4.5 billion through a private offering of convertible senior notes.

Prediction Markets

• Traders are anticipating a slight drop on in jobless claims for the week ending August 15th.

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

Private Dealmaking

• Etched, a builder of frontier inference clusters, raised $700 million

• Velaura AI, a developer of ultra-low-power silicon and software solutions, raised $110 million

• Decade, a Brazilian AI wealth advisor, raised $85 million

• Abcuro, a biotech focused on autoimmune diseases and cancer, raised $66 million

• Yulu, an Indian electric mobility startup, raised $63 million

• Heaviside Industries, a defense hardware startup, raised $60 million

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

BOOK OF THE DAY

The Mindful Athlete

Description:
George Mumford's expanded 10th-anniversary edition applies mindfulness and mental-training techniques to peak performance in sports, work, and everyday life. Mumford draws on his experience working with elite athletes and teams, including Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, to explain how awareness, concentration, trust, and emotional control can improve performance under pressure. The new edition expands on his practical techniques, including the Five Superpowers, while adding a new foreword from Dan Harris alongside the original foreword by Phil Jackson.

Book Length: 248 pages
Release Date: July 7, 2026

Ideal For:
Athletes, executives, entrepreneurs, leaders, and anyone interested in mindfulness, mental toughness, focus, and performing at a higher level under pressure.

The goal isn't to eliminate pressure or distraction, it's to learn how to perform fully in the middle of it.

DAILY VISUAL

Price of Brick Going Up

PRESENTED BY BUYSIDERS CLUB

The Most Curated Room in Finance

Buysiders Club is a curated, highly vetted community of Wall Street's top minds, bringing together professionals across private equity, hedge funds, venture capital, investment banking, institutional investors, and operating executives.

What members get:

• Exclusive private dinners at places like John Lennon’s townhome, a SoHo art gallery, private clubs, etc.

• Access to private placement deals like xAI

• Partner events with brands like La Pauleé and the Enhanced Games

• Introductions to the global finance community and leaders from other industries, including arts, tech, culture, and fitness

If you want to level up your social circle and access the best people in finance and beyond, apply for membership below.

Apply for membership. (VP and above only)

DAILY ACUMEN

False Patterns

Run enough comparisons across enough variables, and some will correlate strongly by pure chance, with no causal link whatsoever. Ice cream sales and drowning deaths rise and fall together every year, not because one causes the other, but because both are driven by warm weather.

Markets are a fertile breeding ground for this, because there are enormous numbers of variables and an enormous number of people constantly searching all of them for something that looks predictive. Given enough attempts, a meaningless pattern that happened to hold in the past will always turn up somewhere.

The test worth applying to any newly discovered pattern is whether there is a believable mechanism connecting the two things, not just a chart where the lines happen to move together. A correlation without a plausible cause is not an edge. It is usually just noise that got lucky enough times to look like a signal.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• 6 signs you work in a psychologically safe workplace

• 4 tips to improve your VO2 max

• 5 red flag phrases that signal your relationship is over

• The case for hiring job hoppers

• Why reaction-time training is crucial

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

📊 Wall Street Comp & Culture Data: Get the most detailed comp, carry, and culture insights across 1000+ Wall Street firms. Explore the data.

📈 Grow With Us: Work directly with the Overheard on Wall Street team to scale your finance brand. Schedule your free consult.

🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.