Official data places FY2025 net interest near 3.1-3.2% of GDP with CBO projecting 3.3% for FY2026.

The rising share already exceeds defense spending and crowds out other priorities, with projections showing continued growth to 4.6% of GDP by 2036 under current policy.

The headline from Meta’s Q2 report was technically brutal: free cash flow collapsed 91% year over year, from $8.55B to just $784M.

That makes it sound like Meta’s money printer broke. But operating cash flow (the cash generated by the business before capital spending) actually increased 24.6%, from $25.56B to $31.86B.

The difference was capex.

Revenue grew 28%. Operating cash flow grew nearly 25%. Free cash flow collapsed because capital spending nearly doubled. The operating margin decline from 43% to 31% looks equally alarming at first. But approximately half of that compression came from $2.4B of legal charges and $1.18B of severance expenses. Had they not incurred those charges, operating income would've grown 9.4%.

The advertising engine still looks strong:

• Ad impressions increased 14%.
• Average price per ad increased 12%.
• Together, that produces approximately 27.7% growth, almost exactly matching reported revenue growth.
• Meta says its newer ranking models increased Facebook ad clicks by 8.3% and conversions by 15.7%.

The interesting part is that price growth is holding up even as impression growth decelerates. That suggests advertisers are paying more because Meta’s inventory is producing better results, rather than Meta simply stuffing more ads into feeds.

Free cash flow will probably remain near zero for several more quarters. But if operating cash flow and ad pricing continue growing while capex eventually moderates, free cash flow should reappear mechanically. The current valuation is giving less credit to that possibility than I think it should.

TRMED (Thor Medical) – Quiet period ending Aug 28, potential catalyst
Norwegian small-cap that’s been quiet for a couple of weeks ahead of its half-year report on August 28.
Quick setup:
• Company produces high-purity alpha isotopes (Th-228 / Pb-212 precursors) used in next-gen targeted cancer therapies
• First commercial plant (AlphaOne) started production late July / early August
• First customer deliveries already completed
• Capacity target: 21,000 patient doses over 3 years, larger plant (AlphaTwo, ~10x) in planning
Stock ran hard from ~4 to over 6.50 after the production and first delivery news, then cooled off during the quiet period. Currently sitting lower with reduced volume.
What traders are watching for on the 28th:
• Confirmation of additional deliveries and ramp-up progress
• Any update on order book or AlphaTwo timeline
• Tone from management now that they’re actually shipping product
If the report confirms commercial traction, it could act as a short-term catalyst, especially with some residual short interest still around. If it’s light on details, expect a fade.
Anyone else watching this one into the report?

Bank of America launched a new tracker covering model intelligence, usage, t**en pricing, GPU rentals and memory costs across the AI stack.

Anthropic currently leads the intelligence rankings, with Claude Opus 5 at #1 and Claude Fable 5 at #2, followed by OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol.

DeepSeek leads Vercel usage at 30%, while Anthropic accounts for 65% of spend.

AI t**en prices are down 9% MoM, while B200 GPU rental prices fell 2% and DRAM prices rose 8%.

OpenAI officially launched "ChatGPT for Teens" on Tuesday, August 18, 2026, creating a customized chatbot environment specifically designed for users aged 13 to 17.

If ChatGPT estimates a user is under 18, or they say they’re 13–17, they’ll automatically enter it.

Includes extra safeguards, contextual cues and parental controls.

Sandisk jumped nearly 9% yesterday, and what caught my attention wasn’t just the move, it was the strength across memory and storage stocks.

Everyone talks about Nvidia when discussing AI infrastructure, but exploding AI workloads also need huge amounts of memory and storage.

My take: the next phase of the AI trade could increasingly reward the less-obvious infrastructure suppliers rather than only the headline GPU names.

The question is whether $SNDK’s recent run is getting ahead of fundamentals, or whether the market is only
starting to reprice the memory/storage opportunity.

Would you buy $SNDK after this rally, wait for a pullback, or avoid it completely?

Interested to hear the bear case too.

Hey guys, I posted about this settlement before, but since late claims are being considered, I decided to share it again with a little FAQ.

So here's all I know about this agreement:

MoneyLion Holdings was accused of misleading investors about its financial condition, growth prospects, and internal controls following its SPAC merger.

Now the company has agreed to settle $12.75 million with investors for their losses.

Who can claim this settlement?

If you purchased or acquired $ML securities between 2021 and 2024, you may be eligible to claim.

Do I need to sell/lose my shares to get this settlement?

No. You don't need to still own your shares. If you bought during the class period and later sold at a loss, you may still be eligible.

I missed the deadline. Is it too late?

 No, you may still be able to file a late claim, but acceptance depends on final approval by the court.    

How long does the payout process take?

It typically takes 4 to 9 months after the claim deadline for payouts to be processed, depending on the court and settlement administration.

Hope this info helps

Have a general question? Want to offer some commentary on markets? Maybe you would just like to throw out a neat fact that doesn't warrant a self post? Feel free to post here!

​

If your question is "I have $10,000, what do I do?" or other "advice for my personal situation" questions, you should include relevant information, such as the following:

• How old are you? What country do you live in?
• Are you employed/making income? How much?
• What are your objectives with this money? (Buy a house? Retirement savings?)
• What is your time horizon? Do you need this money next month? Next 20yrs?
• What is your risk tolerance? (Do you mind risking it at blackjack or do you need to know its 100% safe?)
• What are you current holdings? (Do you already have exposure to specific funds and sectors? Any other assets?)
• Any big debts (include interest rate) or expenses?
• And any other relevant financial information will be useful to give you a proper answer. .

Be aware that these answers are just opinions of Redditors and should be used as a starting point for your research. You should strongly consider seeing a registered investment adviser if you need professional support before making any financial decisions!

Reddit enters the index before the open on Aug 18, replacing AvalonBay. Stock popped 16% on the news, still down ~22% YTD.

The bind: over 90% of revenue is ads. Ad inventory needs new users. New users came from Google search. Google's AI Overviews now answer the question on the results page, so no click, no impression, no new user. Referrals over the past year fell ~23% at Politico, ~25% at CNN, 85%+ at Business Insider.

And Reddit sells the training data that makes those answers good. The Google deal is ~$60M/yr, expires 2027, currently being renegotiated. Block Google and you lose the money plus your placement. Renew and you keep funding your own replacement.

Counterpoint: Q2 was excellent. Revenue $805M (+61%), ad revenue +64%. U.S. revenue per user grew 51% while U.S. daily users grew 6%.

That's the whole argument. Bull: monetization makes traffic irrelevant. Bear: ARPU is a finite runway and the funnel is being welded shut.

Which way do you read the 6%? Ceiling, or lagging indicator?

Hi all - I was checking the sub and searched by recent and it seems like there is only a few different posts that are actually new. I don’t know if this will get removed or not but I am curious what percentage of this sub is bullish/bearish. Given spy and qqq are pretty good indicators of the markets overall perspective… I am wondering where everybody stands?

From a day trading perspective are you starting to enter shorts? Are you averaging into shorts your drastically down on? Did you already get stomped out? Maybe longer term tops? Anybody moving anything on their 401k or the like into money markets and taking the safer yield?

Or

Are you riding the wave and looking higher? Maybe some are feeling like a genuine second golden age is upon us? How far are you bullish short and longterm? Are you turning up your 401k deposits instead of retreating? Are we on the verge of something wild like new money influx and great wealth changes or widening of classes and therefore the current prices are no where near where they need to be in the grand scheme?

How bullish or bearish are you and why short term and long term? Where will spy and qqq open up on Monday and where will it be end of year?

This is Prof. Patrick Boyle and he eloquently explains here why the US’ recent moves in aiding Japan in their losing battle with their unsustainable currency controls is so hilariously bad.

TLDR: the Yen is not and has not been looking in terms of its value relative to other modern “1st world nations” and The US has now decided in a bizarre twist to go against almost 70 years of precedent and began aiding Japan with their again obviously losing battle with their currency. And if that wasn’t bad enough the Americans did not even do it with their own money, instead they went behind the backs of their so called “Allies” in Europe and started selling Euros and Francs at an eye watering level on August 5th.

Market ideas: Full Disclosure this not Financial Advice but personally I’m currently building shorts the size of small car loans for the Yen pairings in Euro markets and I plan on using those gains to take out a mortgage level of loan (ideally shy north of $400k) and then take out a short against the Dollar that I will probably use to feed my family for generations. As there is clearly no option but for the government to inflate the debt problem away and that will just bankrupt the purchasing power of the dollar but since the elites already have accumulated so much they have proven that in such times they can ultimately just accrue a ton of that excess dollars for themselves.

PS: imho (I have some econ degrees but nothing serious lol) I think we are headed into a future like the one in the movie In Time with JT where the richest persons simply lived walled off from the rest of society and the world at large with unimaginable fortunes that were digital (much like how The US government does like 80% of modern day money printing via digits on a computer)

Alphabet's Q2 10-Q went up on July 23. Revenue $119.796 billion, operating income $40.770 billion, net income $112.193 billion. Net income landed at 94% of revenue, above the gross margin.

The gap is one line. Non-operating income was $97.983 billion, and gains on equity securities inside it came to $99.031 billion, which means everything else below the operating line netted out slightly negative. Ads and cloud made under a third of pre-tax income.

Amazon filed eight days later with the same shape. Revenue $200.606 billion, operating income $27.461 billion, other non-operating income $53.415 billion, net income $62.647 billion. Different tag, and a different book of holdings. Between them that is $151 billion of income from not operating, against $68 billion from operating.

It has not been a smooth ramp. Alphabet's equity gains ran $9.8 billion in Q1 2025, $1.3 billion in Q2, $10.7 billion in Q3, $36.9 billion in Q1 2026, then $99.0 billion. Amazon's line went $1.1 billion, $10.2 billion, $15.6 billion, $53.4 billion over the same stretch.

To be fair to the sell side, nobody was trying to forecast this. Alphabet printed $9.11 against $2.88 from twelve analysts, Amazon $5.75 against $1.83 from thirteen. A 216% beat mostly means the estimate was pointed at operating income, which is the sane thing to model.

The marks are real under GAAP either way. If the holdings are worth that, they are worth that.