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.

ZEROBASE WEEKLY 8.10-8.16 ZBT came under pressure this week, trading overall in the $0.085–$0.105 range. It opened near $0.105 on August 10, gradually pulled back through mid-week (dipping toward the mid-$0.08s), and closed the period around $0.083–$0.087. Despite the notable decline of roughly 15–20% from the weekly open, trading volumes remained decent on most sessions and liquidity conditions stayed relatively stable, with bid-ask spreads holding at reasonable levels. Crypto markets traded lower and range-bound this week amid fading post-jobs momentum, mixed ETF flows, regulatory delays, and persistent Middle East supply risks. Total cryptocurrency market capitalization drifted from roughly the $2.21–$2.22T area early in the period toward approximately $2.16T by the weekend, reflecting modest net outflows in risk appetite. Bitcoin opened the week near $64,800–$65,000 on August 10 (with intraday highs above $65,300), then ground lower through mid-week, touching lows near $62,500–$62,800 before stabilizing. It closed the period around $62,900–$63,100, for a net weekly decline of roughly 2.7–3.5% from the August 10 levels. Ethereum moved in a tighter band, starting near $1,900–$1,910, dipping below $1,870, and finishing near $1,870–$1,880 — a weekly loss of approximately 1.5–2%. Derivatives metrics pointed to cautious positioning. Open interest held relatively steady-to-soft (total crypto OI near $117B by weekend), 24-hour liquidations stayed moderate outside of brief volatility spikes, and funding rates on major pairs hovered near neutral to mildly negative, consistent with reduced leverage appetite in thin summer liquidity. Macro and geopolitical developments supplied the main headwinds and occasional relief. Ongoing U.S.-Iran tensions and the Strait of Hormuz disruption remained central: negotiations between Iran and Oman on temporary shipping arrangements stayed incomplete, with Tehran continuing to demand compensation, sanction relief, and an end to the U.S. naval blockade. Houthi strikes on Saudi facilities added to supply concerns. Brent crude rose from the mid-$80s early in the week toward the high-$80s (settling near $88.50 by August 16), while WTI climbed into the low-to-mid $80s — a weekly gain of more than 5% for both benchmarks after the prior week’s decline. Higher energy prices reinforced inflation stickiness concerns even as other data softened. July CPI data released on August 12 came in line with expectations and provided limited relief: headline CPI rose 0.1% month-over-month (3.4% year-over-year, down from 3.5%), while core CPI rose 0.2% MoM (2.5% YoY). Energy prices continued to ease on a monthly basis but remained elevated annually. The print, following the previous week’s weak nonfarm payrolls (-23,000), supported the view that the Fed could stay on hold longer, yet it failed to catalyze a sustained crypto rally as liquidity remained light and regulatory overhang persisted. U.S. equity markets finished the core trading week (through August 14) mixed. The S&P 500 posted a modest gain of approximately 0.4% (closing near 7,830), the Nasdaq Composite edged higher by roughly 0.1–0.2% (near 26,730), while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined about 0.6%. Technology and semiconductor names showed dispersion amid AI-spending scrutiny and oil volatility; overall risk assets consolidated after the prior week’s stronger advance driven by the soft labor report. Institutional flows shifted from the prior week’s strong inflows. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs had recorded roughly $850–$865 million in net inflows over the preceding five sessions (August 3–7). This week opened with a notable outflow of approximately $145 million on August 10, followed by small positive or negative prints and further net outflows (including roughly -$61 million on August 12, -$131 million on August 13, and -$58 million on August 14), leaving the period net negative for BTC products. Ethereum ETF flows were more mixed, with intermittent modest inflows offsetting earlier redemptions. Regulatory caution added pressure: the SEC cancelled a planned meeting on crypto rules, and the Senate entered recess without advancing the Clarity Act (now eyed for September). The Crypto Fear & Greed Index remained firmly in Fear territory, fluctuating mostly in the 26–35 range (ending near 34). On-chain data offered a more constructive contrast to the soft price action. Large holders (“strongest hands”) continued to accumulate: the number of wallets holding ≥10,000 BTC reached a six-month high near 90, and addresses in the 10–10,000 BTC cohort added substantial volume (earlier estimates pointed to ~$1.5 billion equivalent accumulation since late July). Whales recorded one of the larger single-day accumulations in recent months (over 46,000 BTC on one notable session), while smaller/micro wallets distributed. Some dormant supply (2010–2017 vintage) moved, though residual non-clustered activity remained elevated relative to July. Exchange inflows from whales early in the week signaled selective distribution readiness, yet the overall rotation toward larger, longer-term holders continued to build support at current levels. In summary, the August 10–16 period delivered a measured pullback and consolidation in spot prices. Soft CPI and lingering hopes for a less restrictive Fed stance were outweighed by fading ETF momentum, regulatory delays, thin liquidity, and elevated energy prices from the unresolved Hormuz disruption. Higher oil is likely to keep near-term inflation sticky, yet the labor-market cooling already underway points to limited room for aggressive further tightening. With on-chain accumulation by large holders providing a floor and ETF flows showing early signs of stabilization potential, the market remains in a cautious consolidation phase within a still-complex macro and geopolitical backdrop.

SpaceXAI just released Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0.....and it already ranks #1# for BOTH Final Transcript accuracy and First Partial Transcript accuracy on Artificial Analysis’ streaming ASR benchmark Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0 reaches just 2.7% word error rate on final transcripts That’s down from 3.9% on Grok Voice Transcribe 1.0.....roughly 31% fewer transcription errors It now leads Meta Muse Voice Transcribe, Cartesia Ink, ElevenLabs Scribe Realtime and every other streaming ASR model tested Grok is now leading real-time speech transcription accuracy

Considering the speed and magnitude of the move higher in interest rates the returns for US Treasuries this year really aren't that bad: 2 year +0.2% 3 year -1.0% 5 year -2.9% 7 year -4.1% 10 year -5.2% 20 year -7.1% 30 year -8.1% These are really bad days in the stock market

Last wk despite WTI +10% & ylds +2-7 bps across the curve, S&P/Nas/R2K +0.1%/+0.4%/+0.1%. $NVDA acquisition of Hugging Face & $Meta release of Muse Spark 1.3 last wk make both names more attractive into year-end. My view is that LLMs increasingly bifurcate into 90%+ usage of open-source/ open-weight models in the future as companies optimize the right models for the right task. Since the focus on controlling AI expenditures, the Silicon Data token cost has fallen over 50% since late May but the weekly usage of tokens in models across OpenRouter has increased by 3.6x over this same time. In addition, enterprises are increasingly focused on making sure their own proprietary data does not leak out when they use third party closed frontier LLMs. Hugging Face is the premier central collaborative platform, repository, and toolkit for open-source and open-weight AI with over 18 million developers. Nvidia has three customers that accounted for 44% of their revenues over the past six months and their largest customers are increasingly designing their own ASICs and in some cases selling them externally. A more diversified customer base that owns their own AI compute stack instead of renting from the big cloud service providers would help Nvidia with both of these issues. With this acquisition, Nvidia is in an even better position to sell enterprises a complete alternative AI stack (from the model to chips) where the customer will own their own data. Valuation is also compelling. Nvidia trades at a 15x CY27 PE versus their own guidance for 70% revenue growth and the Big 3 public cloud service providers at 21-23x for 15-26% total revenue growth. The S&P trades at 19x for 9% revenue growth for comparison. Nvidia is also up “just”24% versus the Semiconductor Index up 66% following underperformance last year at up 39% versus 42%. As for Meta, the stock is down 7% year-to-date after being up just 13% last year driven largely by concerns that 1) they can only monetize their near doubling in AI capex spend through efficiencies in their own business and 2) they were falling behind in the AI model race. The launch of the Muse Spark 1.3 API last week, catapulted Meta back to near frontier status (Top four in the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index out of 10 models) but with aggressive token pricing (Bottom four in Cost per Task.) Open-weight versions of the Muse Spark lineup are coming soon. This will give the company another way to monetize their aggressive capex plans. This follows Meta's settlement in late August with state AGs on their youth addiction trial which was another overhang on the stock. Trading at 16x CY27 PE for 20% revenue growth is compelling with the settlement and Spark 1.3 launch as catalysts. From a broader market perspective, I recommend caution between now and the US mid-terms for reasons I have fleshed out in prior posts including: 1) Don’t Fight the Fed given I believe a 9/16 hike is likely 2) September -0.5% on avg & up only 48% of the time 3) S&P drawdowns of 10% in lead-up to mid-terms 4) Bipartisan pushback against datacenter expansion 5) Iran dragging out hostilities through US mid-terms

Microsoft AI has released MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming, taking the #1# spot for Final Transcript accuracy and First Partial Transcript accuracy on AA-WER Streaming with 2.5% WER at 0.13s after end of speech MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming is @MicrosoftAI's new streaming Speech to Text model, joining the non-streaming MAI-Transcribe-2. It leads streaming Final Transcript WER at 2.5%, ahead of the previous #1#, SpaceXAI's Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0 at 2.7%, and returns that transcript in 0.13s rather than 0.49s. It is available for streaming transcription at $0.54 per hour of audio, at the higher end of pricing among the leading streaming models. Key takeaways ➤ Final Transcript: MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming achieves 2.5% WER at 0.13s after end of speech, ranking #1# of 38 models. It is more accurate and faster than Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0 at 2.7% and 0.49s, Muse Voice Transcribe at 3.1% and 0.16s, and ElevenLabs Scribe v2 Realtime at 3.6% and 0.14s. It is also more accurate, though slightly slower, than Cartesia Ink Preview (external endpoints) at 3.1% and 0.11s ➤ First Partial Transcript: The model achieves 2.5% WER at 0.12s, ahead of Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0 at 3.4% and 0.49s, and ahead of Muse Voice Transcribe and ElevenLabs Scribe v2 Realtime on accuracy, both at 3.6%, and slightly faster than both at 0.12s versus 0.13s. It is more accurate but slower than Cartesia Ink-2 (external endpoints) at 4.0% and 0.07s ➤ Price: MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming costs $0.54 per hour for streaming, or $9.00 per 1,000 minutes. This puts it level with Gemini 3.5 Transcribe Live at $9, above the $6.50 charged for ElevenLabs Scribe v2 Realtime and Deepgram Flux, more than twice Cartesia Ink-2 at $4, and three times Muse Voice Transcribe at $3. Non-streaming transcription costs $0.10 per hour, or $1.67 per 1,000 minutes Congrats to the @MicrosoftAI team on the launch! See more details below

🇺🇸US DATA RUNS HOT: INFLATION STICKY, DEMAND FIRM INFLATION • Headline PCE MoM: +0.2% vs +0.1% est.; prior -0.1% • Headline PCE YoY: +3.7% vs +3.6% est.; prior +3.7% • Core PCE MoM: +0.2% vs +0.2% est.; prior +0.1% • Core PCE YoY: +3.3% vs +3.3% est.; prior +3.3% GDP • Q2 GDP annualized: +1.5% vs +1.5% est.; prior +1.5% • Personal consumption: +3.4% vs +3.2% est.; prior +3.2% • GDP Price Index: +6.4% vs +6.2% est.; prior +6.2% • Core PCE QoQ: +3.6% vs +3.4% est.; prior +3.4% INCOME & SPENDING • Personal income MoM: +0.4% vs +0.2% est.; prior +0.2% • Personal spending MoM: +0.2% vs +0.1% est.; prior +0.3% • Real personal spending MoM: 0.0% vs 0.0% est.; prior +0.4% DURABLE GOODS • Durable goods orders MoM: +1.1% vs +0.5% est.; prior +0.5% • Durables ex-transportation: +0.4% vs +0.6% est.; prior +0.7% • Core capital goods orders: +0.2% vs +0.7% est.; prior revised to +1.7% • Core capital goods shipments: +1.4% vs +1.0% est.; prior revised to +2.4% BOTTOM LINE: Inflation remains sticky while consumer demand and headline durable goods beat expectations. GDP growth was in line, but stronger price pressures could keep the Fed cautious on rates.

Tesla is still dominating. In the first half of 2026, they secured over 52% of the U.S. EV market. 1. Tesla: 52.3% — 242,100 units sold 2. Chevrolet: 6.1% — 28,267 3. Hyundai: 5.8% — 26,936 4. Cadillac: 4.7% — 21,855 5. Rivian : 4.7% — 21,770 6. Toyota: 4.7% — 21,767 7. Ford: 3.6% — 16,606 8. Kia: 2.7% — 12,627 9. BMW: 2.4% — 10,790 10. Subaru: 2.2% — 10,064 11. Honda: 1.8% — 8,407 12. Lexus: 1.7% — 7,814 13. GMC: 1.4% — 6,645 14. Lucid: 1.1% — 5,208 15. Volvo: 0.9% — 3,964 16. VW: 0.8% — 3,768 17. Mercedes: 0.6% — 3,010 18. Porsche: 0.6% — 2,967 19. Other Brands: 0.6% — 2,596 20. Nissan: 0.4% — 1,774 21. Audi: 0.4% — 1,697 22. Genesis: 0.1% — 560 23. Dodge: 0.1% — 534 24. Jeep: 0.1% — 418 25. Mini: 0.1% — 307 26. Acura: 0.0% — 108 (Data Via Cox Automotive Q2 2026 EV sales)