Author: Henry Kanapi

Silver’s sharp moves over the past few days have reignited bubble talk across markets, but macro investor and mining entrepreneur Otavio Costa says the sentiment misses the bigger picture. Costa tells his 286,600 followers on X that the recent volatility needs to be viewed through a long-term lens shaped by supply dynamics, inflation and the broader state of the global monetary system. He first pushes back directly on the idea that silver is entering bubble territory, despite its wild price swings since December 29, after hitting an all-time high of $84. “Bubbles in monetary metals don’t form with tight supply…

Mark Zuckerberg’s $2 billion deal to acquire Manus looks less like a simple AI feature add-on and more like a blueprint for remaking WhatsApp into a do-everything platform, according to Wall Street analyst Gil Luria. In a CNBC interview, Luria, a managing director at D.A. Davidson, says Meta appears to be targeting consumer behavior and distribution by using its own properties to push AI adoption directly inside the apps people already live in. Luria says Meta saw in Manus a working model that is already being embedded into WeChat, and he believes that is the template for what Mark Zuckerberg…

Artificial intelligence is now outperforming humans at persuading people to comply with deceptive requests in romance scams, according to new academic research examining trust formation and manipulation at scale. Researchers from the Center for Cybersecurity Systems & Network, University of Venice, University of Melbourne and University of the Negev interviewed 145 scam insiders and five victims and performed a blinded long-term conversation study comparing large language models (LLMs) scam agents to human operators in an effort to investigate AI’s role in romance scams. According to the researchers, romance scams or pig butchering schemes gain victims’ trust by establishing deep emotional…

Dan Ives believes that AI is entering its most lucrative phase yet, with the real money shifting beyond chips and into the companies building products, platforms and real-world applications. In a new CNBC interview, Wedbush managing director and senior equity analyst Dan Ives lays out his firm’s top AI stock picks for 2026, noting that the next leg of the AI trade will be driven by downstream beneficiaries rather than hardware alone. Ives says the thesis is around what he calls the “derivatives of the AI revolution,” pointing to a multiplier effect that extends far beyond semiconductor spending. “For every…

A top economist at Goldman Sachs says he holds the contrarian view that the explosive growth in artificial intelligence spending is barely registering in official US economic growth data. In a new Bloomberg Podcast interview, Jan Hatzius, chief economist and head of research at Goldman Sachs, says the measured contribution of AI to US GDP in 2025 is far smaller than many investors assume. “Actually pretty close to zero.” Hatzius explains that a major reason is how GDP accounting treats AI-related spending, particularly imports. He says much of the hardware powering AI, including advanced chips, is imported, which offsets the…

A senior Wells Fargo strategist says the artificial intelligence investment boom is far from over, but investors may want to rethink how they position for it as valuations stretch in the biggest technology names. In a new interview with CNBC, Paul Christopher, head of global market strategy at Wells Fargo, says the bank continues to see AI capital spending as a core market driver in 2026. According to Christopher, investors should consider diversifying their holdings away from the most crowded part of the AI trade and into cheaper corners of the market. “We see the AI CapEx trend, the spending…

Venture capitalist Deedy Das says Meta’s acquisition of Manus is a strategic shortcut for a company that has struggled with its internal AI efforts. In a new announcement, Meta says it has acquired Manus to rapidly deploy autonomous AI agents across its ecosystem. The general-purpose AI agent platform has witnessed massive growth this year, hitting $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in just eight months after launch. Says Meta, “Manus is already serving the daily needs of millions of users and businesses worldwide. It launched its first General AI Agent earlier this year and has already served more than…

Tesla (TSLA) is taking an unusually public step ahead of its fourth-quarter delivery report, and Gary Black thinks the timing matters. In a series of posts on X, the former CIO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management points out that Tesla rarely distributes quarterly delivery consensus estimates via press-style communications, making the latest move stand out. Black notes a gap between commonly cited expectations and the figures Tesla appears to be highlighting. “Interestingly, Bloomberg consensus, which tends to be stale since it depends on analysts updating their estimates in a timely manner, shows a 4Q delivery consensus of 445,000, vs the…

Artificial intelligence is advancing faster than ever, but Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the real constraint is no longer the technology itself. In a new reflection posted on SN Scratchpad, the Microsoft chief says the industry has moved past novelty and spectacle and into a phase where human judgment, design choices and real-world application matter more than raw model power. Nadella says the current moment is one of “diffusion,” where AI capabilities are outpacing human ability to turn them into meaningful outcomes. “We have moved past the initial phase of discovery and are entering a phase of widespread diffusion. We…

Retail return fraud is becoming one of the largest hidden drains on the retail economy, even as companies race to deploy artificial intelligence to contain it. New data from UPS reverse logistics firm Happy Returns shows that returns are no longer a marginal issue for merchants. Retailers now estimate that 15.8% of total annual sales will be returned in 2025, pushing total retail returns to an estimated $849.9 billion for the year. Within the flood of merchandise, fraud represents a meaningful and persistent slice of the problem. The report finds that 9% of all returns are fraudulent, representing roughly $76.5…