Good Morning! JPMorgan is rolling out its first tokenized money-market fund on the Ethereum blockchain, seeded with $100 million. McKinsey is planning thousands of job cuts as consulting slows. And Roomba maker iRobot filed for bankruptcy, with a Chinese supplier set to take control.

Tesla popped after a video confirmed a robotaxi demo with no safety driver. Ford booked a massive $19.5 billion EV impairment charge. And Zillow’s stock fell as Google tested a new real estate ad format.

Plus: ‘Slop’ is the 2025 word of the year, the Trump admin plans to hire 1,000 specialists for a new “Tech Force,” and Strategy bought another $1 billion of Bitcoin.

Deal teams are cutting diligence time by 75% with the most advanced AI agent for Excel on the market. See how F2 accelerates analyst work in PE and credit.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

SpaceX’s Bake-Off

SpaceX is moving closer to an IPO and is kicking off a bake-off, inviting investment banks to pitch for a role advising on a potential IPO.

Bankers are set to make initial presentations this week, marking the first formal step toward what could become the largest public offering in history.

SpaceX is still publicly framing an IPO as optional. The company’s CFO told its employees that a listing could happen next year “if we execute brilliantly and the markets cooperate.” But timing aside, the direction is clear: SpaceX is positioning itself for the public markets, not treating them as a hypothetical.

An IPO could push Elon Musk closer to becoming the world’s first trillionaire. Musk became the first person in history worth more than $600 billion yesterday after SpaceX launched a tender offer valuing the company around $800 billion, double the $400 billion level discussed earlier this summer.

The news sent Musk’s net worth to $677 billion, just two months after he became the first person to cross the $500B net worth threshold. With Musk owning roughly 42% of SpaceX, a public listing would be a massive windfall.

For Wall Street, this could be the deal of the decade. SpaceX is not a conventional tech IPO. Instead, it’s an aerospace, defense, satellite broadband, and national infrastructure wrapped into a single asset.

If it goes public, it would instantly reset underwriting league tables and explode fee pools.

The U.S. IPO market is also thawing, banks are rebuilding full pipelines, and 2026 is shaping up as a real reopening year. SpaceX doesn’t need to go public for the cycle to restart, but if it does, it becomes the anchor deal that validates the window and pulls everything else through it.

Takeaway: A bake-off doesn’t guarantee an IPO. This could just be Elon’s way of seeing how Wall Street values SpaceX. But if it does go through, expect a crowded syndicate and a bonus pool big enough to feed a lot of ECM bankers across the Street. For the bankers on this deal, it wouldn’t be just another tombstone, it would be the one you frame.

PRESENTED BY F2

Data Room to IC in 75% Less Time

Whether you're a private credit analyst spreading financials for covenant analysis, a PE associate building LBO models, or a commercial banker preparing credit committee materials, F2 handles the technical work.

The platform processes Excel models, synthesizes data room documents, integrates market sources like FactSet, and generates investment-grade materials with full transparency. Analysts and Associates reclaim their time. VPs and Principals get better prepared analysis. MDs and Partners see faster deal flow.

Used across private credit, private equity, commercial banking, and investment banking. Teams evaluate deals 75% faster while maintaining the standards investment committees demand.

Try the most advanced Excel agent on the market.

Please Support Our Partners!

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• JPMorgan steps further into crypto with tokenized money fund (WSJ)

• McKinsey plots thousands of job cuts in slowdown for consulting industry (BB)

• Roomba maker iRobot files for bankruptcy (CNBC)

• Ford to record $19.5 billion in special charges related to EV pullback (CNBC)

• SpaceX starts a Wall Street bake-off to hire banks for possible IPO (WSJ)

• Zillow stock falls as Google tests new real estate ad format (CNBC)

• Tesla stock pops as robotaxi testing with no safety driver confirmed (YF)

• Trump admin to hire 1,000 specialists for 'Tech Force' to build AI, finance projects (CNBC)

• Strategy buys almost $1 billion in bitcoin again in past week (BB)

• Blackstone’s giant real estate platforms look too big to sell (BB)

• Wall Street sees an AI bubble forming and is gaming what pops it (BB)

• Hong Kong’s big year for IPOs to close with final rush of deals (BB)

• Hassett’s Fed chair candidacy received pushback from high-level people close to Trump, sources say (CNBC)

• High cost of goods is causing consumers to spend less for the holidays (CNBC)

• Microsoft’s AI advantage isn’t all about OpenAI, and Wall Street loves it (YF)

• Fannie, Freddie quietly add billions to mortgage-bond portfolios (BB)

• Why HR departments often don’t live up to employee’s expectations (WSJ)

• Billionaire wants to build Europe’s biggest defense company (BB)

• Merriam-Webster selects 'slop' as 2025 word of year (HR)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• Stocks slipped Monday after an early rally faded, extending last week’s pullback and pressuring major indexes into the close.

• Technology lagged, with continued weakness in Oracle and Broadcom weighing on the Nasdaq (-0.6%), now down 2.2% MTD.

• Small caps fell (Russell 2000 -0.7%) but remain up 1.3% MTD, supported by rotation away from mega-cap tech.

• Rates mixed, with the 2-year Treasury yield down ~2 bps while the 10-year held steady near the middle of its 2025 range.

• Commodities diverged, as gold edged higher toward October highs while WTI oil slid to ~$57, a 2025 low.

Economic Data Highlights

• Data flow resumes this week following the record government shutdown, with delayed October/November payrolls and October retail sales due tomorrow, and November CPI on Wednesday.

• Hiring expected to be soft, with consensus looking for roughly +50k November payrolls, but no signs of labor-market distress.

• Data quality caution, as disruptions to collection and sampling may introduce more noise than usual into the releases.

Currency & Macro Trends

• Dollar weaker, with the trade-weighted USD now down ~9.4% in 2025 and continuing to drift lower into year-end.

• U.S. exceptionalism fading, as slower growth, Fed rate cuts, and stronger international equity performance reduce relative dollar support.

• 2026 outlook, where one or two additional Fed cuts could add further downside pressure to the dollar.

Earnings Today

• Lennar (LEN) – Focus on housing demand, order trends, and margin commentary as mortgage rates and affordability remain key swing factors.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Tesla ($TSLA) +4% after the company released videos of strong driverless robotaxi tests.

• (–) Strategy ($MSTR) -8% because the company bought another $1B in BTC as the price fell below $86k.

• (–) iRobot Corp. ($IRBT) -73% after the Roomba maker declared bankruptcy.

Prediction Markets

• The odds are still pretty slim that we’ll see income tax abolished.

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

Private Dealmaking

• OneOncology, a cancer care network, sold a majority stake to Cencora for $5 billion

• Spinny, a used cars marketplace, raised $160 million

• Impulse Dynamics, a medical device company focused on heart failure, raised $158 million

• Steelhead Technologies, a provider of ERP software for metal finishers and fabricators, raised $84 million

• ProLynx, a developer of long-acting obesity treatments, raised $70 million

• Link Cell Therapies, an oncology cell therapy startup, raised $60 million

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

BOOK OF THE DAY

The Unicorn Project

Description: A fast-paced business novel that puts developers—not executives—at the center of digital transformation. Told through the lens of a struggling tech organization, Kim shows how flow, autonomy, and data literacy unlock innovation, while bureaucracy and fear quietly kill it. It’s a story about power shifting to those closest to the code—and what happens when leadership finally listens.

Book Length: 352 pages
Release Date: November 26, 2019

Ideal For: Engineers, product leaders, executives, and anyone navigating digital transformation inside a large organization.

“The future belongs to organizations that trust the people who build.”

DAILY VISUAL

The Chatbot Era

PRESENTED BY RAMP

From PDF to 5-Year Projection in 60 seconds

It’s 2am and you’re still in the trenches (building an operating model in Excel), hoping you can steal a couple hours of sleep before your 9am call.

It doesn’t have to be that way...

Ramp Sheets builds fully formulated, editable spreadsheets. Stop manually entering data from PPT and PDFs. Upload any file (PDF, CSV, Excel), and watch the AI agent:

• Model: Upload a deck / CIM and receive a 5-year operating model with revenue build, margin expansion, and EBITDA projections. (Save 4+ hours)

• Research: Request comps and see revenue/EBITDA multiples and pricing tiers pulled automatically. (Save 2+ hours)

• Clean: Convert raw vendor exports into structured spend analyses, no manual formulas required. (Save 90+ minutes)

Over 10,000 analysts are already automating their work. You’re still doing it manually.

Please Support Our Partners!

DAILY ACUMEN

Boredom

Before smartphones hijacked our attention, we had shower thoughts, waiting room revelations, and commute epiphanies. Boredom wasn't empty time, it was fertile ground for creativity and insight. Today, we fill every micro-gap with scrolling, checking, and consuming.

But neuroscience reveals that your brain needs downtime to process information, form connections, and generate insights. The "default mode network”, active during rest, is where creativity happens.

Lin-Manuel Miranda got the idea for Hamilton while on vacation, doing nothing. J.K. Rowling conceived Harry Potter during a delayed train journey with no entertainment. These weren't despite boredom, but because of it.

Schedule boredom into your day. Take a walk without podcasts. Sit in a waiting room without your phone. Let your mind wander freely. The constant stimulation isn't making you more productive, it's making you more anxious and less creative.

Remember, the greatest ideas often come not when you're frantically searching for them, but when you're doing absolutely nothing at all.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• The leadership blind spot nobody talks about

• How to create a personal culture of excellence

• Why you shouldn’t bring your whole self to work

• A 31 holiday HIIT challenge to boost your mood

• The best business books this month

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.

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

🔒 Short Squeez Premium – Insiders: Access exclusive content, including investment analysis, wellness features, career tools, and our full recruiting resource library. Upgrade to Premium. 

🧢 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.