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🍋 The Hedge Fund Replacing Humans

🍋 The Hedge Fund Replacing Humans

Plus: Intel just had its best day in nearly four decades, Jane Street out-earned every bank, and Google is doubling down on Anthropic.

Short Squeez
April 27, 2026

Together With

"If I didn't do football, I'd be grinding the streets of New York doing finance." — Fernando Mendoza, #1 Overall NFL Draft Pick (2026)

Good morning! Intel had its best day since 1987, surging 24% past its dot-com record high on a strong turnaround. Clearlake Capital investors are growing concerned its co-founders are spending too much time on sports investments (like buying the Padres) as fundraising for its flagship fund stalls. And Thrive Capital, Joshua Kushner's VC firm, is taking a stake in the SF Giants.

Bill Ackman's Pershing Square plans to offer 33.12M shares at $50 in its IPO. Google plans to invest up to $40B in Anthropic, both a partner and rival to its Gemini. And Jane Street hauled in a record $40B in revenue last year, more than any Wall Street bank and 10%+ ahead of closest rival JPMorgan.

Plus: Chick-fil-A sold $650 million of investment-grade private debt in a private placement arranged by Bank of America, mid-market bank Lincoln International filed for an IPO, and how to use procrastination to your advantage.

Learn the importance of finance-specific AI. Read Mosaic’s analysis here.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

The Hedge Fund Replacing Humans

Instacart co-founder Apoorva Mehta is launching a hedge fund called Abundance that wants artificial intelligence to run the entire investing process. The fund’s AI agents are supposed to find trade ideas, research companies, pick stocks, size positions, and execute trades.

In other words, AI isn’t just helping the PM; AI is the PM, analyst, trader, and increasingly the whole investment committee.

Abundance is based in Palo Alto and has a 10-person team of quant researchers, engineers, and AI specialists building the models behind the strategy. For now, the firm is mostly trading its own capital, but it plans to take outside money eventually. It has raised $100 million in seed equity financing, currently runs long-short stock strategies, and wants to expand into other asset classes over time.

The core pitch is that human investors are limited by biology and human errors. Even the best PM can only track so many companies, read so many filings, process so many headlines, and make so many good decisions before mistakes inevitably come.

Mehta thinks AI changes that and thousands of agents can scour the internet, generate ideas, run research, debate signals, and allocate capital at a scale no human team can match. Some Abundance strategies are already fully AI-run, while others still have humans involved for now.

Quant funds have automated trading for decades, and every asset manager on earth now has an AI slide buried somewhere in the pitch deck. But Abundance is trying to do something more aggressive: replace the fundamental portfolio manager, not just hand one a better tool. Mehta said he started seriously exploring the idea after OpenAI’s o3 model showed stronger reasoning ability, convincing him that generative AI could start making bigger decisions, including where to put real money.

The obvious question is whether the bots can actually beat the market. Mehta says Abundance has outperformed multiple indexes, but declined to say which ones. Ken Griffin has also been skeptical, arguing late last year that generative AI still has not meaningfully helped hedge funds beat the market.

Takeaway: Wall Street has spent the AI boom talking about copilots, productivity tools, and faster research. Abundance is asking the question of what if the investor is the bottleneck. Maybe thousands of bots can process more information, find more ideas, and trade more rationally than a person staring at six monitors while pretending not to be emotional.

Or maybe the market will do what it always does and humble the smartest machine in the room. Either way, the next hedge fund analyst might not need a Wharton degree, a Patagonia vest, or a crippling caffeine addiction; it might just need compute.

PRESENTED BY MOSAIC

Can AI Build Sensitivities?

Sensitivity tables are a cornerstone of financial analysis, allowing you to view returns across various operating assumptions.

When asked to make a sensitivity table, Claude effectively recreated the entire model in one cell.

The resulting formula is impossible to audit and includes numerous hardcoded assumptions.

Claude cannot build standard sensitivities, but Mosaic can build dynamic 2D-4D tables in as little as 5 seconds.

Book a demo.

HEADLINES

Which Bulge Bracket has the Best Culture?

Now you can find out. We just rolled out culture league tables on Wall Street 360, the first time the Street has ranked firms head-to-head on culture, not just comp.

Filter by:

Bulge Brackets
Elite Boutiques
Middle Market
Private Equity
Country, city, or industry

The results are eye-opening. Some firms with the loudest reputations rank middle of the pack. Others you wouldn't expect are quietly outperforming. And a few elite boutiques are putting some bulge brackets to shame.

See where your firm stacks up.

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

Stocks pushed higher, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hitting new record highs again
Technology and semiconductors led, driven by strong outlooks and AI momentum
Oil rally paused, easing pressure as peace talks gained traction
Bond and currency markets were relatively calm, signaling reduced stress
Markets are leaning into a risk-on tone supported by both geopolitics and earnings

Peace Hopes Cooling Energy Pressure

Renewed momentum toward negotiations is reducing near-term geopolitical risk
The extension of regional ceasefires is helping stabilize expectations
Oil remains elevated, but the trajectory matters more than the level right now
Markets are increasingly pricing a path toward normalization
This shift is supportive for equities, especially energy-sensitive sectors

Sentiment vs Reality

Consumer sentiment is extremely weak, but actual behavior tells a different story
Spending remains resilient, supported by income and fiscal tailwinds
The labor market continues to show stability with limited layoffs
This disconnect highlights a market driven more by hard data than soft sentiment

Earnings Driving the Market

Strong earnings growth continues to be the foundation of the rally
Technology remains the clear leader, powered by AI demand and infrastructure buildout
Markets are becoming less reactive to headlines and more focused on profits
The upcoming wave of mega-cap tech earnings will be a major catalyst
Continued earnings strength is key to sustaining record-level valuations

Movers & Shakers

(+) Intel ($INTC) +24% after crushing Q1 estimated revenue of $13.58B vs. $12.42B expected, driven by data center demand.
(+) Hims & Hers ($HIMS) +9% because JPMorgan initiated coverage with an Overweight rating and $35 price target, citing the company's Novo Nordisk GLP-1 partnership.
(–) Comcast ($CMCSA) -13% after Q1 results showed operating margin collapsing to 13.1% from 17% a year ago, weighed down by a $432M Peacock EBITDA loss.

Prediction Markets

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Private Dealmaking

Cyera agreed to acquire Ryft, a data management startup, for up to $130 million
Salmon, a Filipino consumer finance app, raised $100 million
Lyft acquired the U.K. operations of Gett for about $55 million
Mintlify, a code documentation platform, raised $45 million
Bluefish, an AI marketing platform, raised $43 million
Alloy Therapeutics, an AI drug discovery startup, raised $40 million

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

BOOK OF THE DAY

The Art of Fighting

Description:
A thoughtful and practical exploration from Priya Parker on how conflict, when approached intentionally, can become a powerful tool for growth and connection. The book reframes disagreement as something to be designed and guided rather than avoided, offering frameworks to engage in productive conflict that leads to better outcomes, deeper understanding, and stronger relationships.

Book Length: 272 pages
Release Date: September 8, 2026

Ideal For:
Leaders, teams, and anyone looking to navigate conflict more effectively and turn difficult conversations into opportunities for growth

Conflict handled well is not destructive it is one of the fastest paths to clarity and progress.

DAILY VISUAL

UNH Spends $1.7M Protecting C-suite

PRESENTED BY ACRETRADER

Farmland: A Real Asset for the Modern Portfolio

Invest in the one thing they aren’t making any more of: Farmland. These are real assets for a rising-cost world.

The Proterra AcreTrader Farmland Fund LP combines AcreTrader’s expert sourcing and management with the institutional power of Proterra Investment Partners. The Fund provides diversification across high-quality U.S. farmland assets, offering an open-ended gateway into an essential asset class that has historically provided consistent returns.

Why the Proterra AcreTrader Fund?

Real Assets: Direct access to high-quality U.S. farmland via a tax-efficient private REIT.
Portfolio Stability: Access a tangible asset with the potential to serve as an inflation hedge, based on farmland's historically low correlation to stocks and bonds.
Historical Performance: Access an asset class that has delivered a 9.4% average annual return since 1997, with low volatility.*

Learn more here: AcreTrader.com

DAILY ACUMEN

Sunk Identity

The hardest thing to walk away from is rarely the money or the time you have already spent. It is the version of yourself that the project, the relationship, or the career was supposed to confirm. Quitting feels like an admission that you were wrong about something larger than the decision itself.

This is why intelligent people stay in obviously broken situations far longer than makes any sense. Not because they cannot see the exit, but because the exit would require contradicting a story they have been telling themselves and others for years.

The cost of leaving feels enormous in the moment. The cost of staying is just paid quietly, in installments, over the rest of your life.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

How to use procrastination to your advantage
How quiet time makes you a better leader
Your job title doesn’t define your work
What the best private equity backed CEOs do differently
Why smart leaders do less

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 800+ 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.

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