🇺🇸 Number of U.S. border encounters: 2026: 0.35 million (FYTD) 2025: 0.7 million 2024: 2.9 million 2023: 3.2 million 2022: 2.7 million 2021: 1.9 million Note: fiscal years (October-September)

CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER Warren Buffett vs Stanley Druckenmiller Buffett stepped down as Charman of Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.B today. Druckenmiller has never had a losing year in more than 30 years. Here are their full portfolios as of Q2 2026. BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY - Apple $AAPL: 22% - American Express $AXP: 17% - Google $GOOGL: about 12.6% across both share classes - Coca-Cola $KO: 11% - Bank of America $BAC: 9.2% - Chevron $CVX: 4.7% - Occidental $OXY: 4.3% - Chubb $CB: 3.9% - Moody's $MCO: 3.7% - Kraft Heinz $KHC: 2.6% - DaVita $DVA: 2.1% - Delta $DAL: 1.8% - SiriusXM $SIRI: 1.2% - VeriSign $VRSN: 0.8% - Kroger $KR: 0.7% - Liberty Live $LLYVA: about 0.6% across both share classes - Ally $ALLY: 0.4% - Lennar $LEN: 0.4% - New York Times $NYT: 0.4% - Capital One $COF: 0.2% - Louisiana-Pacific $LPX: 0.1% - Nucor $NUE: 0.1% - Macy's $M: 0.1% - NVR $NVR - Jefferies $JEF - D.R. Horton $DHI DUQUESNE FAMILY OFFICE - Natera $NTRA: 17% - Insmed $INSM: about 5.7% in shares and calls - Taiwan Semi $TSM: 5.4% - Brazil ETF $EWZ: about 5.1% in shares and calls - Amazon $AMZN: about 4.6% in shares and calls - STMicro $STM: 4.5% - S&P 500 Equal Weight $RSP: about 3.7% in calls and shares - Fox $FOXA: about 2.8% across both share classes - YPF $REPYY: 2.7% - CDW $CDW: about 2.7% in shares and calls - BBB Foods $TBBB: 2.3% - Google $GOOGL: 2.3% - Seagate blockstack:native: 2.3% - United Airlines $UAL: 2.1% - Sea $SE: 2.0% - NewAmsterdam Pharma $NAMS: 2.0% - Russell 2000 ETF $IWM: 1.9% in calls - Sandisk $SNDK: 1.5% - Revolution Medicines $RVMD: 1.4% - S&P 500 ETF: 1.3% in calls - Bitdeer: 1.2% - CRH: 1.1% - Delta: 1.1% - Tesla $TSLA: 1.0% in calls - Fluor: 1.0% - D.R. Horton: 0.9% - Coupang: 0.9% - AMD: 0.8% - Palo Alto Networks: 0.8% - Cleveland-Cliffs: 0.8% - Hut 8: 0.7% - Caris Life Sciences: 0.6% - Argentina ETF: 0.6% - Woodward: 0.5% - Meta: 0.5% in calls - Nuvation Bio: 0.5% - Protagonist Therapeutics: 0.5% - Roku: 0.5% - Cavco: 0.5% - ADMA Biologics: 0.4% - Hyperliquid Strategies: 0.4% - Rambus: 0.4% - Rhythm Pharmaceuticals: 0.4% - Champion Homes: 0.4% - Daktronics: 0.4% - PureCycle: 0.4% - Southern Copper: 0.4% - Linde: 0.4% - Entegris: 0.4% - Teva: 0.4% - Unity: 0.4% - Aeva: 0.4% - Riot Platforms: 0.4% - Qnity Electronics: 0.4% - Equinix: 0.4% - Lam Research: 0.4% - Definium Therapeutics: 0.3% - Belite Bio: 0.3% - 10x Genomics: 0.3% - Wabtec: 0.3% - Eli Lilly: 0.3% - Xenon Pharmaceuticals: 0.3% - Olema Pharmaceuticals: 0.2% - Repligen: 0.2% - Rocket Companies: 0.2% - Baidu: 0.2% - Arm: 0.2% - Carvana: 0.2% - Reddit: 0.2% - Alcoa: 0.2% - Thermo Fisher: 0.2% - Danaher: 0.2% - F5: 0.2% - Vista Energy: 0.2% - Skeena Resources: 0.2% - JBS: 0.1% - Monte Rosa Therapeutics: 0.1% - Relay Therapeutics: 0.1% - DBV Technologies: 0.1% - CCC Intelligent Solutions: 0.1% - UWM Holdings: 0.1% - Navitas Semiconductor: 0.1% - Solstice Advanced Materials: 0.1% - FTAI Aviation: 0.1% - Beam Therapeutics: 0.1% - Aurora Innovation: 0.1% - IREN: 0.1% - Grupo Financiero Galicia: 0.1% - Wave Life Sciences: under 0.1% Both own Google, Delta and D.R. Horton. Neither owns Nvidia $NVDA.

OECD Forecasts US 2026 Growth Of 2.2% (Vs 2.0% In June), 2.1% In 2027 (Vs 1.8%) - World 2026 Growth Of 2.9% (Vs 2.8% In June), 3.0% In 2027 (Vs 3.1%) - China 2026 Growth Of 4.5% (Unchanged), 4.2% In 2027 (Vs 4.3%) - Euro Area 2026 Growth Of 1.0% (Vs 0.8% In June), 1.0% In 2027 (Vs 1.2%) - Japan 2026 Growth Of 0.8% (Vs 0.6% In June), 0.7% In 2027 (Vs 0.8%) - UK 2026 Growth Of 1.1% (Vs 0.9% In June), 1.0% In 2027 (Vs 1.1%)

Last wk, oil +9% & ylds +11-26 bps across 2/30 curve w/ S&P/Nas/R2K -0.3%/-0.7%/-2.4%. This wk, I am watching reaction to 1) oil/rates, 2) calls to slow down AI development & 3) Fed on 9/16. I remain on the cautious side till US mid-terms on 11/3. This weekend, the CEO of Anthropic called for a slowing of frontier model development over safety concerns. This follows comments along similar lines by the CEO of OpenAI to employees last week if other companies were willing to do the same thing. The fundamental issues I have with this is 1) foreign adversaries would welcome the US slowing down AI development, 2) I view this as an attempt to slow down open-weight model development which would help the market dominance of OpenAI and Anthropic which are currently in the lead and 3) I do not see other companies agreeing to anything that slows down progress catching up to these two market leaders. Having said that, I could see 3rd party evaluators to limit liability risk going forward and some sort of executive order from the White House. But I hope the longer-term result of these actions is broadly distributed personal AI capabilities for all individuals versus having it become concentrated in the hands of a few companies. Along this vein of AI competition, after releasing their paid API of Muse Spark 1.3 two weeks ago with open-weight versions coming later, $Meta launched their personal AI agent Muse last week with the stock gaining 5%. With 3.6 billion daily active users, a hit product could yield large results. Meta is increasingly showing other ways they can monetize their AI capex spend. This should help the stock to re-rate from a 17x CY27 PE to a multiple closer to peers trading in the low 20s. Meta Connect on September 23–24 is another potential catalyst given their leading frontier model Watermelon should be coming at the latest by October. On the front of broadly distributed AI capabilities, $AAPL stock gained 4% last week on their new product launch. The foldable Duo will provide a personalized AI agent in your pocket with a 50% larger screen than a Pro Max. I continue to see a big upgrade cycle next year. The change from a 4” screen to 5.5” screen with the iPhone 6 drove revenue growth from 7% in FY14 to 28% in FY15. The Android ecosystem has had a foldable Samsung phone since 2019. As for the Fed on Wednesday, I believe Warsh will raise by 25 bps and echo his hawkish statements from Jackson Hole on August 28th that “Price stability is not self-executing… 65 months of sustained, elevated inflation sits squarely with the Central Bank.” The ECB statement last week when they hiked might provide some hints: “For inflation excluding energy and food, the baseline foresees 2.5% in 2026, 2.6% in 2027 and 2.3% in 2028. Compared with June, the baseline projection for inflation in 2026 is unchanged, while it has been revised up for 2027 and 2028… The outlook remains highly uncertain, with risks to the upside for inflation and to the downside for economic growth.” In summary, my caution between now and the US mid-terms on 11/3 remains for reasons I have fleshed out in prior posts including: 1. Don’t fight the Fed: The market historically under-performs during a hiking cycle with the bond market discounting 2 raises by year-end and 3.5 raises by mid-June of 2027. 2. Seasonal headwinds: September is down -0.5% on average and up only 48% of the time since 1957. 3. Historical volatility: S&P drawdowns of 10% between 7/31 and 11/9 have occurred in the lead-up to mid-terms since 1990. 4. Regulatory friction: There is bipartisan pushback against datacenter expansion that could hurt the AI buildout in the near-term. 5. Geopolitical risk: Despite US efforts to de-escalate, I believe Iran drags out hostilities at least through the 11/3 US mid-terms, keeping oil prices elevated. 6. Macroeconomic pressure: Long-term government bond yields are hitting multi-decade highs for several countries, slowing down growth and providing a reasonable alternative to stocks. I believe in not fighting the Fed, the bond market or seasonality. I like the odds stacked in my favor which should improve at least seasonally following the mid-terms.

Premarket movers: Mag 7 stocks are mostly higher: Alphabet is leading Magnificent 7 peers higher as technology and AI-related stocks boost the US stock futures. Meanwhile, Apple underperforms the cohort (Alphabet +2.4%, Nvidia +0.4%, Apple +0.1%, Tesla +0.5%, Amazon +0.5%, Microsoft -0.1%, Meta +0.7%). Cryptocurrency-linked stocks are rallying in premarket trading, set to extend gains, after US SEC greenlit digital versions of securities to start trading in the US. European telecom stocks sold off on Friday, following US-listed peers lower, amid concerns over competition from satellite operators and disruptive impact from agentic AI tools. Fluence Energy Inc. received another downgrade on Friday, with Jefferies cutting the energy storage company to hold from buy, citing a recent cut to the company’s outlook. Intuit shares are little changed in premarket trading, after the tax-preparation software company hosted an investor day where it gave financial targets and discussed its strategy to deliver higher growth. Analysts say the stock remains a show-me story as the company navigates the AI era. Macom Technology Solutions Holdings Inc. shares are up 2.1% in premarket trading, after BMO Capital Markets upgraded the semiconductor device company to outperform from market perform, seeing an attractive valuation in the wake of recent weakness. Netflix shares drop 2.9% in premarket trading as Wells Fargo Securities downgrades to underweight from equal-weight, citing “worrying” engagement trends. Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang expects to sell twice as many chips in the coming year, fueled by the spread of artificial intelligence across different industries. Stubhub shares gain 3.5% in premarket trading as Citi upgrades to buy from neutral, citing “robust” third-quarter trends. . Tyson Foods shares are up 1.4% ahead of the bell as JPMorgan upgrades the meat producer to overweight from neutral. Xenon shares tumble 27% in premarket trading Friday after the bio-pharmaceutical firm voluntarily paused enrollment in clinical studies of major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar depression (BPD).

Is Stripe the biggest product trap of the 21st century? Let’s say you need to get paid, or you just made $100. Stripe is already there. Docs, checkout, webhooks. Naturally you flip it on. The page says 2.9% + 30¢. Sounds fine. So that’s the $100. Then the receipt starts talking: - 2.9% + 30¢ → $96.80 - international card +1.5% → $95.30 - USD in, EUR out, conversion ~1% → $94.30 - Adaptive pricing: customer sees a local price with a 2–4% markup, you still pay processing - Managed Payments +3.5% → $90.80 - Billing extra if it’s a sub, 0.7% → $90.10 - Tax: 0.5% → $89.60 You thought you made $100. You’re holding about $90 and that’s the good version, nobody disputed yet. Then the dashboard isn’t a payments screen. it’s a (low quality) store: - Radar Lite “included” (wtf even is this) - Radar Standard $10–20/mo, or cents per screened payment, for the real AI fraud thing - Smart Disputes auto-fights and takes 30% if it wins - you want one number the reports don’t have → Sigma, $15/mo - Data Pipeline $65/mo to dump it into Snowflake - Signals, Identity, Atlas, Climate, Capital, Issuing, Treasury I opened it to check a payout and spent ten minutes in tabs I never turned on. Then the customer disputes. “Product unacceptable.” You delivered, but it doesn’t matter. - bank files - they take the $100 back - $15 / €20 dispute fee the same day, win or lose - you already paid $10 in processing. they keep that - fight and lose → another $15 / €20 Same $100 sale, worst path: $100 − $10 in stacked fees − $100 clawback − $15 dispute − $15 for fighting What’s left of the $100: about −$40 Negative balance, if that payment was most of what you had. Small ticket or big ticket, it's the same mechanic. Bank can take three months. A friend told me this years ago. I only got it on the ledger: don’t ever run a large payment through Stripe. Why you still use it: - PayPal does the same thing, uglier, and freezes you - Adyen is cheaper at volume and takes weeks of sales - Square is a till - Mollie is fine if you’re small and EU - Paddle / Polar take ~5% to wear the tax - Lemon Squeezy is Stripe now - Visa/MC wrote the chargeback rules for all of them So you stay. You bake 8-12% into the price. You treat a card like it might come back as a debt. Big invoices go on a transfer. A market this size should have five serious options you can switch to asap

GPT-5.6 Luna survives the model launch storm — still #1# in the world based on OrcaRouter Composite Index 🐳 The frontier moved fast: Claude Opus 5. Kimi K3. GLM-5.3. Qwen3.8. Yet GPT-5.6 Luna still holds the crown on our Model Leaderboard. Current Top 10: 🥇 GPT-5.6 Luna — 75.0 🥈 Claude Opus 5 — 72.8 🥉 GPT-5.6 Sol — 72.0 #4# GPT-5.4 Pro — 71.7 #5# Kimi K3 — 70.9 #6# GLM-5.3 — 70.0 #7# GLM-5.2 — 69.9 #8# Qwen3.7 Max — 69.8 #9# GLM-5.3 Flash — 69.0 #10# Grok 4.6 — 67.4 This isn't another benchmark beauty contest. Orca Composite Index: 40% Human Preference 30% Independent Benchmarks 20% Production Evidence 10% Ecosystem Adoption Benchmarks measure models in the lab. We measure which models actually win. 🐳

HERE'S WHAT THE 🇺🇸 STOCK MARKET LOOKED LIKE ON FED DAY Energy had 0 of 8 names green: • ConocoPhillips $COP -6.1% • EOG $EOG -5.7% • Exxon $XOM -3.5% • Chevron $CVX -2.9% Banks sold across the board: • Goldman Sachs $GS -3.9% • PNC $PNC -3.9% • US Bancorp $USB -4.0% • Wells Fargo $WFC -3.0% • Bank of America $BAC -2.7% Semis went the other way: • GE Vernova $GEV +4.8% • Intel $INTC +4.0% • Dell $DELL +3.7% • Marvell $MRVL +3.6% Two days ago oil majors were the only thing green. Today they were the worst sector in the market.