Good Morning! Global dealmaking hit $4.5 trillion in the second-best year on record. Gold is heading for its strongest year since the Jimmy Carter era. And family offices are quietly becoming some of the most powerful players on Wall Street.

A private-equity firm bought an F1 team for just $200 million that’s now valued at $2.5 billion. A $400,000 shipment of lobsters vanished en route to Costco. And Target jumped after an activist investor disclosed a new stake.

Plus: Goldman’s private-credit arm is struggling to clean up bad bets, Google reveals the top trending searches of 2025, and YouTuber Nick Shirley racked up over 100 million views in two days after exposing a daycare fraud in Minnesota.

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

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Silver’s Short Squeeze

Silver is supposed to trade like a sleepy commodity, not a meme stock. But on Friday, silver ripped nearly 10% in a single day. It’s now one of the best-performing assets of 2025, up ~35% in the past month and more than 170% over the past year.

Silver is trading near $80/oz, up from ~$29 to start 2025. An ounce of silver is now worth more than a barrel of oil.

Speculators are piling in. Rich Dad, Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki says the rally is just getting started and believes silver could hit $200/oz within a year.

But beyond the mooning price, Elon Musk has warned the rally may not be good news. Silver is a critical industrial metal, and the real issue is supply.

The catalyst is China. Starting January 1, 2026, Beijing will require government licenses for silver exports. Only large, state-approved producers will qualify, effectively cutting off smaller exporters. With China controlling roughly 60–70% of global silver supply, tightening exports hits global availability almost immediately.

The timing is brutal. Silver has already been in a structural deficit for five straight years, with demand exceeding supply and inventories collapsing.

The stress is amplified by leverage. Paper silver markets dwarf physical supply, with estimates putting the paper-to-physical ratio near 350-to-1. When even a small share of buyers demand real metal, prices gap violently. Add in inelastic industrial demand from solar, EVs, electronics, and data infrastructure, and the paper market is discovering it cannot absorb a physical squeeze.

Takeaway: Silver is no longer trading like a stable commodity. It’s trading like a meme stock with a supply problem. When a market is levered hundreds of times, the price does not drift but instead moves violently. This kind of silver short squeeze only shows up once a decade, and it’s happening in a metal critical to dozens of industries. Congratulations to silver longs. Condolences to the global supply chain.

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HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Global dealmaking hits $4.5T in second-best year on record (YF)

• Tim Walz pushes back on Minnesota fraud allegations following viral daycare video (Fox)

• Gold is set for its best year since Jimmy Carter was president (CNN)

• Family offices have become the new power players on Wall Street (WSJ)

• Private equity bought an F1 team for just $200M and it's not selling (FOS)

• $400,000 lobster shipment disappears while on its way to Costco locations (Fox)

• Target jumps as activist investor builds stake, increasing pressure (YF)

• Goldman Sachs’s private-credit company struggles to clean up soured bets (WSJ)

• Warren Buffett and private equity both love insurance, but similarities end there (WSJ)

• Google reveals the top trending searches of 2025 (Fox)

• Intel stock soared in 2025. 'Everything hinges' on what comes next (YF)

• 2025 has been a brutal year for layoffs (YF)

• Oracle shares on pace for worst quarter since 2001 (CNBC)

• Bitcoin miners thrive off a new side hustle: retooling their data centers for AI (WSJ)

• American Airlines pilot shared screenshot of salary, and people’s jaws are on the floor (NYP)

• Saudi Arabia: venture capital firms bet on M&A as listings get tougher (BB)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• U.S. equities were little changed amid thin holiday trading volumes

• S&P 500 finished just below Wednesday’s record high; Nasdaq was flat

• Russell 2000 lagged, slipping ~0.5%

• Treasury yields were mixed: 2-year fell ~2 bps, while the 10-year held around 4.13%

Sector & Asset Class Trends

• International markets were quiet, with several global exchanges closed for the holidays

• Precious metals continued to rally; gold remains on track for its best year since 1979, supported by geopolitical tension and a weaker dollar

• Volatility stayed muted, with the VIX near a 2025 low, signaling limited market concern around headlines

Energy & Geopolitics

• WTI crude traded down to around $57, despite being on pace for its largest weekly gain since late October

• Prices reflected mixed signals: geopolitical tensions tied to Nigeria and Venezuela offset by optimism around a potential Ukraine peace agreement and easing Russian oil sanctions

• Lower oil prices continue to provide modest relief for U.S. consumers facing persistent inflation above the Fed’s 2% target

Year-in-Review Takeaways

• 2025 delivered strong results across asset classes for diversified investors

• International equities led, with the MSCI AC World ex U.S. up 30%+, its strongest year since 2009

• U.S. equities logged 39 new all-time highs, on track for a third straight year of 15%+ gains

• In fixed income, high-yield bonds, EM debt (8%+), and investment-grade bonds (~7%+) all posted solid returns

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Coupang ($CPNG) +6% after the online retail company's data breach was mitigated.

• (+) Target ($TGT) +3% because an activist investor dialed up pressure amid declining sales.

• (–) Rigetti ($RGTI) -9% after the quantum stock rally cooled.

Prediction Markets

• With only two days remaining in 2025, Gemini appears the clear favorite.

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

Private Dealmaking

• PsiThera, a developer of oral medicines for immunology and inflammation, raised $48 million

• Kargo, an SF-based warehouse inventory tech startup, raised $42 million 

• Solve Intelligence, an AI platform for patents, raised $40 million

• 1mind, an AI sales startup, raised $30 million

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

BOOK OF THE DAY

How To Make a Few More Billion Dollars

Description: A candid, experience-driven playbook from a serial dealmaker who’s actually built (and bought) his way into outsized outcomes. Jacobs breaks down how real value gets created: disciplined capital allocation, picking markets with room to consolidate, operating with ruthless clarity, and knowing when to press the advantage versus when to walk. Less “motivation,” more machinery — the decisions and systems that compound into billions.

Book Length: 296 pages
Release Date: Dec 9, 2025

Ideal For: Founders, CEOs, operators, and investors who want practical frameworks for scaling businesses through execution and smart M&A.

“Billions aren’t made in ideas — they’re made in repeatable decisions.”

DAILY VISUAL

Continued Strong Foreign Demand for US Assets

PRESENTED BY ENDEX

Sam Altman: "Enterprise Will Be a Major Priority for OpenAI Next Year"

In an interview this week, Altman said 2025 was the year OpenAI's enterprise growth outpaced consumer for the first time. "The models were not robust and skilled enough for most enterprise uses," he said. "Now they're getting there.”

GPT-5.2 now scores 68% on junior IB tasks.

Wall Street is reacting fast. Firms are adopting AI tools for slides and modelling like Endex, OpenAI's Excel agent, to shift analysts from manual spreadsheet work to AI-driven modeling.

Request access to Endex today.

DAILY ACUMEN

Reverse Engineering Success

When Elon Musk wanted to build rockets, he didn't start from scratch.

He bought textbooks, deconstructed existing rocket designs, and figured out the cost of raw materials.

He discovered that rockets were being sold for 50 times their material cost.

This reverse engineering approach didn't just save him money, it revolutionized space travel.

Similarly, when the Beatles wanted to write hit songs, they didn't wait for inspiration.

They studied the chord progressions and structures of songs they loved, then created their own variations.

Success leaves clues everywhere, you just need to know how to find them. Stop reinventing the wheel. Study those who've achieved what you want.

What patterns do you notice? What strategies can you adapt?

Remember, innovation often isn't about creating something entirely new, it's about combining existing ideas in novel ways.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• Try this Gen-Z spending hack

• Do you know how to behave at work?

• Why some leaders fail upwards

• How to overcome feeling not good enough

• 5 types of hobbies that build self-discipline

• The most critical factor for longevity 

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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