In partnership with Think Ink…
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The U.S. Army just made a big move to rebuild America's critical minerals supply chain. Commercial mineral processing is coming to active military installations. Only four companies were selected. Only one specializes in heavy rare earths. Why does that matter? Because on January 1, 2027, Chinese-origin rare earth materials and magnets will be prohibited in U.S. defense systems. That gives defense contractors fewer than 165 days to establish an alternative domestic supply chain. The challenge is enormous. China controls more than 90% of global rare earth processing and has already begun tightening its grip. Industry experts estimate it could take three to seven years for a new competitor to build comparable production capacity. The Pentagon has just months. That's where REalloys (NASDAQ: ALOY) enters the picture. Long before Washington announced its new initiative, the company was assembling a fully integrated mine-to-magnet platform for heavy rare earths. Now, as one of just four companies selected by the U.S. Army, REalloys expects to begin delivering qualification materials before year-end, with commercial production targeted for early 2027. The deadline is fixed. The qualification clock is running. And one company has spent years preparing for exactly this moment. |
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Market Tactic |
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Hello there.
Happy Friday! We’re back to talk about the proverbial tortoise in the room, again.
In this issue:
💰 Apple Just Hit $5 Trillion By Playing It Safe
⚡️ eBay Just Settled One of the Weirdest Cases Ever
🚨 Wall Street Is Betting Against AI Companies
🤖 Altmans Says AI Might Need to Chill a Bit
🎙️ China’s AI Challenge & The Battle for Control
It’s a simple thing, but you gotta admit, there’s something really compelling about a top contender playing it safe even as the rest of the pack steps on the gas. It’s like a reverse Jobs-ian play. So hipster it circles back on itself. Total Apple play. More below. 👇
💰 iThink We Should Just Play It Safe
Apple briefly touched a $5 trillion market cap on Tuesday, becoming only the second company ever to hit that level after Nvidia. The stock jumped to $342.89 before pulling back a bit, but the message was clear: while everyone else is burning billions on AI data centers, Apple's just vibing and winning.
Right now, all the other big tech companies (Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft) are collectively spending hundreds of billions of dollars building AI infrastructure and taking on massive debt to do it. Apple? They're basically letting Google handle the heavy lifting and just licensing their tech for the new Siri. They're not building data centers. They're not going into debt. They're just keeping things chill and letting their competitors stress out.
And it's working. Apple stock is up 25% this year while a bunch of other tech stocks are down. Investors are starting to ask if all that AI spending is actually going to make money, or if companies are just lighting cash on fire.
Apple sidestepped the whole mess by staying in their lane and making products people actually want to buy. They even just launched a leasing program so you can pay like $18 a month for an iPhone instead of dropping a thousand bucks upfront. Smart move when everyone's worried about prices. They're not even lowering prices, they're just making the sticker shock feel less painful.
⚡️ The Tech Ticker
eBay and former executives agreed to pay a couple $56 million after a harassment campaign that included sending them a costume mask covered in pig's blood and installing a tracking device on their car.
Amazon submitted an FCC application to launch 5,105 satellites for its Leo Direct-to-Device network.
Data centers on the largest US grid may face temporary power cuts starting June 2027.
Three Bitcoin holders sued Apple for $1.8 million after a fake wallet app on the App Store drained their accounts between May and August 2025.
Peacock partnered with YouTube to offer Premium subscribers access to its full lineup starting early 2027.
🚨 Burry Smells Blood in the Water
Remember Michael Burry, the guy from The Big Short who made millions betting the housing market would crash? Well, some investors are trying to pull off a similar move with AI companies right now, and the signals are getting pretty loud.
The main thing people are watching is something called credit default swaps, or CDS for short. Think of them like insurance policies against companies going bankrupt. When the cost of that insurance goes up, it means investors think there's a higher chance the company might not be able to pay back its debt. And right now, those costs are spiking for a bunch of big AI players.
Oracle's default insurance hit a multi-year high this week. SpaceX's has jumped more than 50% since it started trading last month. Even companies like Nvidia, Meta, Amazon, and Google are seeing their numbers climb. The issue is pretty straightforward: these companies are borrowing insane amounts of money to build AI stuff, and no one really knows if it's going to pay off. Amazon just sold $25 billion in bonds and barely got enough buyers. That's not normal for a company like Amazon.
Some of these firms are burning through cash so fast that they're posting negative free cash flow, which is a roundabout way of saying they're spending more than they're making. CoreWeave has a 50% chance of defaulting according to the market's math right now. That's… not great!
The big question everyone's asking is whether we're heading for another 2008-style crash, except this time it's AI companies instead of housing. Burry himself is betting against the AI giants, which is making people even more nervous. Is this just investors protecting themselves from normal business risk, or are they seeing something bigger coming? We'll probably find out soon, but either way, the fact that people are even comparing this to 2008 should tell you something.
🤖 All Eyes on AI
Sam Altman says OpenAI may need to "pace" AI development to give society time to adapt, after one of its models broke out of a secure environment…again.
Zuckerberg credits AI for accelerating app development, saying LLMs are helping teams ship products faster and hinting at more apps on the way.
DoorDash launched drone delivery service DoorDash Air, expanding beyond ground-based logistics into autonomous aerial fulfillment.
Microsoft topped quarterly cloud growth estimates, easing investor concerns about AI infrastructure spending and data center capacity constraints.
Electrician training programs tied to data center construction are surging across the country, as the industry races to strike while the iron is hot.
🤡 Meme of the Week
🎙️ Micro-Influencers Win & The New Celebrity Economy
In this episode of The Best One Yet, the hosts unpack a week where everyday social media users become advertising powerhouses, Apple reinvents smartphone ownership, and Hollywood’s newest power couple turns fame into a diversified business empire.
📻 Tune in to:
Examine why brands are shifting marketing budgets away from mega-influencers and toward smaller creators whose audiences are more engaged.
Unpack Apple’s new iPhone leasing strategy and how the company is using creative financing partnerships to expand its customer base.
Explore the rise of Tom Holland and Zendaya as a modern celebrity super-brand, revealing how today’s biggest stars generate value far beyond the movies.
🎧 Listen on:
⭐️ What did you think of today's edition?
That’s all for today. Write us and let us know your thoughts on the market, the newsletter, or the weather—we’d just love to hear from you.
Till next time,
— Brandon and Blake
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