📈Good News Pays Too: Hunterbrook Capital is a hedge fund built on journalism. They profit off of shorting companies deemed as overhyped or even fraudulent by its reporters. In 2025, Hunterbrook learned that good news pays too: a shift toward long bets on standout firms like Joby Aviation helped deliever a 23% return through the first 9 months of 2025, beating both hedge-fund peers and the S&P 500.

📈Invest in Something Else, Nerd: Trump vows to ban large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes, arguing that “people live in homes, not corporations.” The announcement shocked the market, dropping $INVH ( ▼ 0.92% ) by 6% and $AMH ( ▼ 1.24% ) by 4%, though experts warn that congressional approval will be needed for this ban to be enforceable.

📈Memory Chips Join the Nvidia Party: As Nvidia continues to profit from the AI boom, other manufacturers are also seeing a sharp uptick in demand. Memory chip makers such as Sandisk $SNDK ( ▲ 2.44% ) saw their stocks jump by 30% this week. As demand is expected to outpace supply, market research firms predict prices will increase 35% in Q1 of 2026.

📈Up the Defences: President Donald Trump has proposed a massive $1.5 trn U.S. defence budget for 2027, a ~50% jump from the current $901 bn, pitching it as necessary for “troubled and dangeous times” and a path to a “Dream Military”.

🌎Dressed Down Dictator: Early last week, a special-ops unit involved in the raid on Osama bin Laden flew into Caracas, Venezuela, and captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro (+wife) before escorting them to the U.S. The raid triggered global backlash over bad precedents, but stateside attention briefly wandered when photos of Maduro’s Nike tech-fleece outfit worn during his arrest went viral—and prompty sold out.

🌎So What Happens With the Oil?: The U.S. plans to immediately sell 30-50 million barrels of sanctioned Venezuelan crude, and continue selling the country’s oil production “indefinetely”. Trump and co. is also exploring stewardship over PdVSA (Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas company) in hopes of pushing oil prices down toward his $50-a-barrel goal. Chevron ($CVX ( ▲ 1.3% )) and U.S. refiners jumped on the news, though analysts warn Venezuela’s rundown oil industry could take years to attract meaningful investments.

🌎Albo’s Big Backflip: Mounting pressure in the wake of the deadly Bondi Beach terror attack led Australia PM Anthony Albanese to announce a federal Royal Commission into antisemitism and social cohesion in the country, led by High Court justice Virginial Bell and due to report by 14 December 2026. The move marks a notable reversal for Albanese, who had intitally resisted calls for a federal commission.

🌎Anabolic Health Secretary: U.S. Health Secretary RFK Jr. has issued a new federal dietary guideline. New guidelines serve to influence food-assistance programs, including school lunches. The new advice shuns processed foods and urges people to eat protein at every meal (1.2-1.6g/kg of bodyweight). Some experts are concerned that the new protein targets could inadvertantly fuel a wave of processed protein junk.

👔Now Dispensing: As reported last week, Novo Nordisk has been given the green light for a GLP-1 pill. Now, the Wegovy pill is coming to a pharmacy near you (US only, sadly). Priced between $150 - $300 a month, the Wegovy pill could help you lose 17% of your bodyweight in 64 weeks (kind of mid if you ask me).

👔Step Aside McKinsey: JP Morgan is here to ruin consultants’ lives — from Monday. JPM created a Special Advisory Services intiative in order to help key clients solve some of their pressing problems across investor relations, cybersecurity, AI and of course, finance. Even better the bank plans to not charge for its services.

👔We Don’t Want Your Coal: Rio Tinto is in talks to swallow Glencore, a potential $200 billion megadeal that would dethrone BHP as the world's largest resouces company. While the merger would create a copper superpower, Rio faces a strict February 5 deadline and a messy decision on what to do with Glencore's massive coal portfolio. Rio’s share price fell 5.5% on the news.

👔China Wants Manus: Meta’s acquisition of agentic AI creator, Manus AI has hit some roadblocks. As Manus was formerly incorporated in China before moving to Singapore, Chinese regulators are not a fan of the deal. Whether Manus can be affected by Chinese export laws remains to be seen with the potential impact unknown as the investigation continues.

🤪Pedal to the Metal: As of 10 Jan, China’s BYD has officially snatched the global EV crown with 2.26M sales surpassing Tesla’s 1.63M. Despite losing the sales race, Tesla is still surprisingly valued at $1.4tn thanks to its robotaxi initiatives, though BYD is coming for that too.

🤪Educated Guesses: Maduro’s capture was meant to be a shock, yet some suspicious Polymarket bettors seemingly had a heads up, including one mystery man who banked over $400,000. The uncanny timing has Congress concerned and a bill introduced to the House of Representatives will prohibit govt. employees from using prediction market platforms.

🤪Anabolic Health Secretary: U.S. Health Secretary RFK Jr. has issued a new federal dietary guideline. New guidelines serve to influence food-assistance programs, including school lunches. The new advice shuns processed foods and urges people to eat protein at every meal (1.2-1.6g/kg of bodyweight). Some experts are concerned that the new protein targets could inadvertantly fuel a wave of processed protein junk.

😔Lost in Transit: An employee of Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority lost an emergency phone in a Shanghai airport which contained confidential contact details for a team responsible for protecting nuclear materials from theft and terrorism. The device cannot be remotely wiped. The NRA was created to restore trust post-Fukushima, but right now it keeps tripping over its own shoelaces.