The hottest Financial Analysis Substack posts right now

The risk free rate is important for calculating risk premiums in finance. It acts like a foundation for understanding the potential returns on investments.
Traditionally, the U.S. Treasury rates were seen as risk free because they were assumed to be free from default. This means that investors thought the U.S. government would always pay back its debts.
Recently, there have been signs that this assumption may need to change. A rise in the cost of insuring against U.S. Treasury defaults suggests that investors are now more concerned about the risk of default.

Risk includes both danger and opportunity. It’s important to see how they work together.
In good times, everyone focuses on opportunities, ignoring the risks involved.
In bad times, it’s easy to only see the dangers, but paying attention might reveal new opportunities.

Using Generative AI can save a lot of time when creating drafts for legal documents. Lawyers at Ashurst found they could save up to 80% of the time on some tasks.
The accuracy of AI-generated content can be surprisingly high compared to human output, but it still requires careful review. Lawyers found it hard to tell whether some AI outputs were made by a human or the AI.
When pitching to fund selectors, having a clear story and understanding your audience is key. Many pitch decks fail because they don't address who their target customers are or why now is the right time for their proposal.

Microsoft saw strong growth in their cloud services, particularly with Azure, largely driven by AI usage, although their stock declined despite beating revenue expectations.
Meta is successfully growing its user base and focusing on efficiency, but its heavy spending plans are causing its stock to drop even after beating earnings expectations.
Coinbase reported a decline in trading revenue but is still profitable; they are diversifying their income and even expanding their workforce, unlike many other tech companies.

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The Onso sequencer was barely mentioned in the recent PacBio presentation, which is surprising given its high accuracy.
There seems to be a new short read sequencer coming soon, called SuperOnso, which is expected to show results by late 2025.
On a positive note, the revenue from consumables is growing, and PacBio has managed to significantly reduce their financial losses.

The tech market has experienced a crash that affected many investment firms, especially Tiger Global, which focused on rapid investments without preparing for downturns. This shows the importance of balancing speed with caution in investing.
Emerging 'Venture Platforms' will likely dominate the market by leveraging their scale and resources, creating stronger advantages over smaller firms. It’s about using size to deliver better services to startups.
Venture capital is moving into an 'asset accumulation' phase, where larger firms will capture more market share, which can lower overall returns for investors. This shift poses challenges and opportunities for smaller funds and their strategies.