😔 If You're Reading This, It's Too Late: May 11, Issue 26

📈 BTC Breaks $100k again: $BTC.X ( ▲ 0.8% ) jumped above $100,000 on Thursday, recovering to its highest level since February 2025. The recovery is fueled by a strong demand from ETF traders, who likely are using it to mitigate risks as trade talks are set to begin between China and the U.S.

📈 The Taiwanese Dollar Appreciated against the USD: On Monday the NTD gained 9% against the USD, the largest jump since 1981. This was primarily fueled by Taiwanese exporters converting NTD → USD, hedging activities and expectations of continued appreciation.

📈 Skechers are going Private for $9.4bn: Private equity firm 3G Capital are delisting Skechers. Shareholders are being offered $63/share or $57/share + equity in the private entity. Prior to the announcement shares were trading at $47.80, representing a premium of almost 32%.

📈 Trump will not like this: On May 7, the Fed held interest rates steady at 4.25-4.5%. Fed officials cited tariffs as an area of concern and noted that the decision was due to the risk of higher inflation (still currently above target) and unemployment. Per usual, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said he is in “wait and see” mode. Whilst the dovish comments suggest the central bank isn’t ready to make a move, economists are still expecting a rate cut this year.  

🌎  Wholelotta Talking: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is set to meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng today to discuss tariffs and non-tariffs barriers issues. Trump gave his two cents via Truth Social: “80% Tariff on China seems right! Up to Scott B.” Experts expect a pure yap sesh, which is why the $SPX ( ▼ 0.07% ) slipped ahead of their meeting today.

🌎 North Korea Sends Thousands of Workers to Russia: Kim Jong Un has dispatched just under 15,000 North Korean labourers to help plug Russia’s deepening labour shortage. Many arrived on student visas, skirting UN sanctions that ban North Korean overseas workers. It’s estimated that North Korea pockets over 90% of wages.

🌎 Indian-Pakistani Conflict Escalates: Following a terrorist attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir, India launched airstrikes on Wednesday into Pakistan. The situation escalated rapidly by Friday, with both sides trading hundreds of drones, engaging in heavy artillery shelling, and implementing blackouts in several cities.  

🌎 UK-US Trade Deal Announced: Trump and Starmer (UK PM) have agreed to slash car import taxes from 27.5% to 10% for up to 100,000 UK vehicles annually and scrapping 25% tariffs on UK steel and aluminium. Trump loved it, but Starmer warned against expecting “overnight euphoria” as a 10% baseline tax is still in place for most British goods.

🌎 Columbia x Pro-Palestine Protestors and a Library, Again: Just days before finals, Columbia students turned Butler Library into the campus’s most controversial study group. Protesters stormed the building, waved Palestinian flags, and chanted slogans. NYPD arrested 78 people, and two campus safety officers were injured.

💼 OpenAI Abandons For-Profit Shift: OpenAI scrapped plans to convert into a traditional for-profit structure after pushback from regulators and public leaders. Instead, it will remain under the control of its nonprofit board, which has a fiduciary duty “to humanity”.

💼 Bill Gates Plans to Die Poor, Kinda: In what he calls the "largest philanthropic commitment in modern history," Gates announced he’ll give away $200 billion over the next 20 years, then shut down the Gates Foundation by December 31, 2045. His reason? "People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but ‘he died rich’ won’t be one of them."🫡

💼 Delivering World Domination: Fresh off a profitable Q1, DoorDash acquired UK-based Deliveroo for $3.9B, marking its boldest international leap yet. The deal offers a juicy 29% premium per share and will supercharge DoorDash’s international footprint that it has been pushing strongly following its 2022 purchase of Wolt. UK/Ireland accounts for 59% of Deliveroo’s revenue, and with 7 million users, this move triples DoorDash’s non-U.S. business overnight (according to our shotty maths).

💼 Toyota Launches $15K Electric SUV in China: Toyota’s new bZ3X electric SUV, priced at just $15,000 (sunroof included!), went on sale in China this March and received 15,000 orders on day one. It’s built entirely within China’s hyper-efficient EV ecosystem, local design, local batteries, local software, and no US supply chain in sight.

🤪 CEO of Heaven: Pope Leo XIV, announced on May 8, will be the 267th Pope. Originally born in Chicago, he spent a lot of his life as a missionary in Peru before being elected.

🤪 Disney is Coming to Abu Dhabi: Mickey is heading to the Middle East, with Disney opening its seventh park in partnership with destination developer Miral. Disney’s Imagineers will handle the design, but the company won’t spend a dollar building it, instead, it’ll earn royalties while Miral handles construction.

🤪 Coming Soon to a Backyard Near You: A Soviet-era Kosmos 482 spacecraft, designed as a Venus lander but failed horribly at its mission, is estimated to reenter Earth’s atmosphere today. Kosmos 482 weighs about 500 kilos and would be hitting the Earth’s surface at about 150 mph. Expert Marco Langbroek says the risk is low but never zero.

🤪 Music That Moves You: A new international study backs Neural Resonance Theory, the idea that musical rhythm and harmony sync with natural brain oscillations, shaping how we move, feel, and even heal.

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