Directive 8020 Reviews are up Highs • ButWhyTho: 9.5/10 • LootLevelChill: 9.5/10 • GameSpew: 9/10 • TheSixthAxis: 9/10 • GAMINGbible: 9/10 • CGMagazine (CGM): 8.5/10 • PC Gamer: 8.5/10 • IGN: 8/10 (calls it “a step forward in spectacle and storytelling”) • GameRant: 8/10 • PSLS / GameReactor: 8/10 • Shacknews: ~8/10 Mid / Mixed: • GameWatcher: 7/10 • GamingTrend: 7.5/10 • DualShockers: 7/10 • TheGamer: 7/10 (or ~3.5/5) • PSU / Day One: 7/10 • Hobby Consolas: 76/100 Lows: • Eurogamer: 6/10 • Creative Bloq: 6/10 • GameSpot: 5/10 (“The Dark Pictures Anthology Has Never Been More Adrift”) • Game Informer: 5/10 Metacritic: ~71-72 OpenCritic: 76

JPMORGAN FORECASTS 7% ANNUAL RETURNS FOR 60/40 PORTFOLIOS J.P. Morgan Asset Management projects a 7.0% annual return for a traditional 60/40 stock-bond portfolio over the next 10–15 years. Key annualized forecasts: 🔸 U.S. stocks: 7.5% 🔸 Global bonds: 5.3% 🔸 Private equity: 9.8% 🔸 Gold: 5.5% Adding diversified alternatives could lift portfolio returns to 7.5% annually.

New results on the Extended NYT Connections Benchmark: GPT-6.1 Sol (high) improves on GPT-6 Sol (high): 90.1 → 95.5, while costing about 54% less per puzzle. Claude Sonnet 5.5 (high) improves on Sonnet 5 (high): 75.1 → 80.5, while costing about 87% less per puzzle. Mistral Large 4 (high) improves on the non-reasoning Mistral Large 3: 7.5 → 27.4, but costs much more. More info:

HERE'S WHAT THE 🇺🇸 STOCK MARKET LOOKED LIKE THIS WEEK Chips surged: • Qualcomm $QCOM +13.6% • Intel $INTC +13.3% • AMD $AMD +12.7% • Lam Research $LRCX +9.4% • Applied Materials $AMAT +9.1% • Marvell $MRVL +7.2% Meta $META +12.9% on the week of its Connect keynote. Also up: • Amphenol $APH +8.4% • Amgen $AMGN +7.5% • Palantir $PLTR +6.8% • Seagate $STX +6.8% • Microsoft $MSFT +4.5% Financials had 2 of 23 names green: • Blackstone $BX -5.2% • Wells Fargo $WFC -3.7% • PNC $PNC -3.2% • Morgan Stanley $MS -3.1% Also down: • Oracle $ORCL -7.1% • NextEra $NEE -5.5% • Adobe $ADBE -5.4% • Airbnb $ABNB -5.3% • McDonald's $MCD -4.7% Semis have now led the market two weeks in a row since the AI slowdown selloff on September 14. Intel is up more than +30% over that stretch.

BREAKING: US stock market futures rise after President Trump calls off strikes on Iran and says a deal is near: 1. S&P 500: +0.5% 2. Nasdaq 100: +0.8% 3. Dow Jones: +0.4% 4. WTI Crude: -7.5% 5. Brent: -10.0% 6. Gold: +0.7% Peace deal headlines are back.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management added a bitcoin forecast to its Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions for the first time. This is the 31st edition of the annual report. Its 10-year base case for BTC is a 10% compounded return with 55% volatility. That is 2.5 points above its 7.5% estimate for US large caps and 4.5 points above its 5.5% estimate for gold. JPM still does not treat BTC as a portfolio diversifier. It points to unstable correlations and high volatility, and its bear case is -11.2% a year.

Americans are worried about inflation. US consumer median 1-year ahead inflation expectations jumped +0.3 percentage points in September, to 3.9%, their highest level since May 2023. This figure has risen +0.9 percentage points since February. Over the next year, consumers expect gasoline prices to increase +4.8%, food prices to rise +5.5%, medical costs to surge +9.2%, the price of a college education to jump +7.5%, and rent prices to rise +6.8%. 1-year inflation expectations have now been at or above 3.0% for 22 consecutive months. Meanwhile, 3-year inflation expectations rose +0.1 percentage point last month, to 3.3%, the highest level since June 2022. Consumers are bracing for a prolonged period of higher prices.

gpt-6 sol should've been called gpt-5.7 sol and i'm not even joking. nothing about this thing feels like a new generation of models. opus 5.5 already makes it look fucking embarrassing and apparently sonnet 5.5 is about to do it again. really bad look for openai.