Good Afternoon. Earnings gave us numbers, but policy gave us direction. Chip stocks slid after new U.S. security requirements for Nvidia’s H200 exports to China. While silver ripped to new levels as investors paid up for insurance and AI is helping to potentially double survival rates. Let’s get into it.

—Rosie, Wyatt, Evan & Conor

🔥 What’s Hot: 🔥

🥶 What’s Not: 🥶

1. Tech Selloff Weighs on Nasdaq

The News: U.S. stocks slid on Jan. 14, 2026, led by the Nasdaq as chip names sold off after the Trump administration said Nvidia must meet new security requirements before exporting H200 AI chips to China. The pullback broadened as bank earnings hit: Bank of America reported Q4 profit up 12% to $7.6B, yet the stock fell roughly 4%, while Wells Fargo missed key estimates and Citigroup absorbed a $1.2B loss tied to its Russia exit.

Why It Matters: For investors, the market is re-learning an old lesson: when policy touches semiconductors, it’s not just a single stock story, it’s a supply chain story, a margin story, and a multiple-compression story. Add earnings season volatility, and you get days where “good results” still sell off if guidance, rates, or headlines steal the microphone.

What to Watch: Watch for the details that actually move shipments: what “security requirements” mean in practice (testing, customer controls, supply prioritization) and whether they slow H200 deliveries enough to matter to Nvidia’s China demand. On the macro side, watch whether strong Nov. 2025 retail sales (+0.6% m/m) and cooling producer prices (+0.2% m/m) keep the Fed narrative steady—or reignite the “higher-for-longer” debate if growth runs too hot.
Source: wsj.com

2. OpenAI and Anthropic Warm Up the IPO Engine

The News: OpenAI and Anthropic have begun early-stage preparations for eventual IPOs, according to reporting cited on Jan. 14, 2026, as a wider “mega-IPO” pipeline takes shape alongside SpaceX. OpenAI was valued at about $500 billion in an October 2025 secondary share sale, Reuters reported, and the company has been laying groundwork that could support an IPO filing as soon as the second half of 2026, depending on markets and internal readiness. Anthropic has tapped Wilson Sonsini to start IPO prep work and has held early talks with banks, Reuters reported in Dec. 2025, with private funding discussions implying a valuation above $300 billion. SpaceX, meanwhile, set an $800 billion valuation in a December 2025 secondary share sale, per Reuters, as it explores a potential 2026 listing window.

Why It Matters: For consumers, going public usually means more transparency and more pressure to standardize pricing, support, and uptime when your “AI assistant” starts sitting inside work, school, and healthcare workflows. But it can also change incentives: public shareholders tend to prefer predictable margins, which can show up as higher subscription prices, tighter usage limits, or faster product bundling.

For investors and operators, these would be among the largest IPOs ever, potentially resetting valuations for the entire AI stack (chips, cloud, data centers, software) and reopening the IPO window after a long private-market boom.

What to Watch: Watch for concrete milestones: audited financial disclosures, S-1 filing timelines, and governance clarity, especially for OpenAI, which shifted to a Public Benefit Corporation structure with the nonprofit retaining control, and is simultaneously navigating high-profile legal friction that could complicate timing. IPOs are like weddings, everyone loves the invite, but the months of planning decides the date.
Source: nytimes.com

3. Silver Blows Past $90

The News: Spot silver jumped above $90/oz for the first time on Jan. 14, 2026, rising roughly 3%–4% to around $90.11–$90.95 as softer U.S. inflation reinforced Fed rate-cut bets and geopolitical risk boosted safe-haven demand. Reuters pegged silver up ~27% year-to-date after a blistering ~145% gain in 2025. Mining shares moved with the news in premarket trading, with Hecla +~3.5% and Coeur +~3.4% among notable gainers.

Why It Matters: For consumers, silver’s surge is a two-for-one signal: it often reflects both “fear trade” flows and real industrial pull from electrification meaning geopolitical stress can bleed into costs that matter, while demand tied to solar and electronics can keep the floor higher than traditional “safe haven” cycles. For investors, miners are a leveraged bet on the metal but the leverage cuts both ways: higher prices can gush cash flow if costs are managed, yet history says miners are talented at spending windfalls at the top of the cycle.

What to Watch: Watch whether silver can hold $90 through the next macro catalysts, Fed messaging around June 2026 cut expectations is a big one, and whether exchange operators keep hiking margin requirements as volatility climbs. Also watch physical-market stress: the U.S. Mint has warned that rapidly rising silver prices may force temporary removals of some silver numismatic products while it updates pricing. Silver’s moves are dramatic; the pullbacks may be, too.
Source: cnbc.com

4. Trump Takes Aim at Swipe Fees

The News: President Donald Trump endorsed the bipartisan Credit Card Competition Act, urging support to curb “out-of-control” swipe fees and pairing it with his separate push for a one-year 10% cap on credit-card APRs. The bill (first introduced in 2023) would require card-issuing banks with more than $100 billion in assets to enable at least two unaffiliated payment networks for credit transactions, including one outside Visa/Mastercard, an explicit attempt to weaken what supporters call a duopoly. Swipe fees averaged about 2.35% in 2024, and U.S. merchants paid roughly $187.2 billion in total card-acceptance fees that year, per the Nilson Report data frequently cited by merchant groups.

Why It Matters: For consumers, lower processing fees could translate into lower prices if merchants pass savings through, big “if,” but fee-heavy categories (gas, groceries, discount retail) care a lot about a couple tenths of a percent. The trade-off is real: banks and card networks argue interchange helps fund rewards and card benefits, and military-focused banks/credit unions warned Congress the bill could reduce revenue that supports programs for service members while raising fraud and cybersecurity risk if routing shifts to alternative networks.

What to Watch: Watch whether congress tries to move this as a standalone vote or tuck it into a must-pass vehicle (where controversial ideas go to sneak in wearing a trench coat).
Source: finance.yahoo.com

5. Mayo Clinic says AI discovery doubled brain cancer survival rates

The News: At the 44th J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, Mayo Clinic CEO Dr. Richard Gray said Mayo is running 155 AI applications in production with 310 more in development, and described an AI-driven finding in glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. Mayo used AI to evaluate variables around brain-cancer surgery, including post-op medications, and found one specific antiseizure drug (and only that one) was associated with double the survival rate. Mayo said it is now conducting follow-up studies to validate the result.

Why It Matters: For patients, this is the promise of AI that actually matters: faster discovery of actionable patterns in messy real-world data, potentially turning an existing, familiar medication into a meaningful survival lever, if prospective validation holds up.

What to Watch: Watch for Mayo to publish details on the glioblastoma signal, drug identity, cohort size, endpoints, and whether the “doubling” survives scrutiny. For now, it’s an exciting time to be working in and receiving these new emerging forms of healthcare.
Source: natlawreview.com

1. Asia’s Defense Stocks Rise

The News: Defense and aerospace stocks across Japan and South Korea extended gains into Jan. 14, 2026, as investors priced in higher global defense demand amid U.S.-Iran tensions and fallout from the Jan. 3, 2026 U.S. operation that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. In Japan, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is up more than 12% in the first two weeks of January, with peers like Kawasaki Heavy Industries and IHI also rising. In South Korea, Hanwha Aerospace surged more than 11% in a single session last week, and Korea Aerospace Industries rose roughly 5% on Jan. 9. The sector’s tailwind is also policy-driven: Trump has called for a $1.5 trillion U.S. military budget in 2027 (vs. $901B approved for 2026).

Why It Matters: For investors, the trade is straightforward, when governments hint at bigger budgets, the market starts pulling forward multi-year order books. That dynamic is now spilling into IPO markets too: Europe’s Czechoslovak Group (CSG), an ammunition supplier, announced an Euronext Amsterdam IPO plan to raise €750M, backed by €900M in cornerstone commitments.

What to Watch: Watch the next 72 hours of headlines out of the Gulf, Trump publicly urged Iranian protesters to keep going and said “help is on its way,” while reporting has pointed to heightened force-protection moves at key regional bases. Defense investing can be cyclical and remember geopolitical risk rarely sends a calendar invite.
Source: morningstar.com

2. Regulators Just Dropped the AI Rulebook: No “Black Box” Excuses

The News: The U.S. FDA and the European Medicines Agency jointly published 10 principles for “Good AI Practice” in drug development on Jan. 14, 2026, aiming to standardize how AI can be used to generate and monitor evidence across a medicine’s lifecycle—from early research and clinical trials to manufacturing and post-market safety surveillance. The framework stresses human-centric design, a risk-based approach, clear context of use, strong data governance/documentation, and life-cycle management (including monitoring for issues like data drift). The effort follows an FDA–EU bilateral meeting in 2024 and plugs into EMA’s broader digital/AI strategy work.

Why It Matters: For patients and families, this is about trust and speed: clearer expectations can help companies deploy AI to pick trial populations faster, detect safety signals earlier, and reduce “trial-and-error” development without quietly lowering standards. For pharma operators and investors, it’s a roadmap for what regulators will ask for when AI touches endpoints, manufacturing quality, or safety surveillance, meaning fewer surprises late in development, but more upfront rigor (and paperwork) for models that can’t explain themselves. The timing also matters: deal activity is accelerating (e.g., AstraZeneca’s Modella AI acquisition on Jan. 13, 2026) right as regulators signal they’re aligning the guardrails.

What to Watch: Watch for the “next layer” as regulators hinted at follow-on guidance mapping these principles to legal requirements and emerging EU rules. On the industry side, expect companies to highlight compliance-ready AI stacks and audit trails as a competitive advantage in 2026 R&D updates.
Source: usnews.com

3. Europe Just Promised €30B for Clean Energy Links

The News: At the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 13, 2026, the European Commission said it plans to increase the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for Energy fivefold to €30 billion, targeting cross-border grid infrastructure and the integration of renewables, an effort EU energy ministers backed in Dec. 2025. EU officials framed the push as part of deeper energy ties with Gulf partners.

Why It Matters: Bigger cross-border grids are the unglamorous lever that can lower power bills and reduce blackout risk, renewables are cheapest when you can actually move electrons to where demand is. For European industry, grid bottlenecks have been a competitiveness problem, with Brussels explicitly pointing to energy prices that are more than double those in the U.S. and China for some industrial users. Plus more opportunities (and scrutiny) for Gulf capital to co-finance Europe’s transition as the EU tries to harden energy security.

What to Watch: The key question is sequencing: when does “eventually reach €30 billion” turn into funded calls and shovels in the ground—and what strings attach (security screening, permitting rules, and cross-border coordination are where EU infrastructure dreams go to die).
Source: wam.ae

Q: Why are elevator jokes so good?

A: They work on many levels.

✅ Money Personality: Of these six money personalties, which one are you?
✅ Hydrate: Fill a glass of water and drink it now.
✅ Winning Photographs: See the winners from Capture the Dark 2025 Night Sky Photography contest.

To show or prove that a statement or action is right, reasonable, or valid.

“The attorney tried to justify her client’s actions by referencing case law.”

Alternative Investing Report: Insights, news, and trends in Art, Collectibles, Crypto, Real Estate, Venture and more, sent to you every morning. Trusted by 95,000+. Sign-up here.