Josh Welsh of Benefits and Pensions Monitor reports IMCO adds $300 million in pension assets with Hamilton mandate:

The Investment Management Corporation of Ontario (IMCO) has been selected to manage approximately $300 million in pension assets for the City of Hamilton, consolidating three legacy defined benefit (DB) plans that cover more than 1,000 retirees, deferred members and beneficiaries, according to its press release Thursday.

According to the organization, the mandate will require an onboarding process during which IMCO will work with the city on investment decision-making and transition planning for the legacy portfolios

The mandate marks the first time one of Ontario's largest municipalities has outsourced legacy pension fund management to IMCO. The arrangement covers only the city's closed legacy plans, which are distinct from its “open” pension fund managed separately by another manager, according to IMCO. Hamilton's active pension fund will continue to be managed separately by another provider, the firm added. 

"The City of Hamilton's decision reflects the strength of our investment platform," said Bert Clark, president and CEO of IMCO. "We provide our clients with an end-to-end, cost-effective investment solution. Expert governance, strong liquidity and risk management, and high-quality reporting and disclosure are essential to managing public funds effectively.”

Growing municipal interest in pooled investment platforms

Hamilton's move follows a pattern of Ontario broader public sector organizations shifting pension investment management to IMCO rather than running it in-house. The City of Ottawa's OC Transpo Employees' Pension Plan is already an IMCO client, as are the Ontario Pension Board (OPB), the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), the WISE Trust Pension Plan, the Provincial Judges' Pension Board, Ontario's Pension Benefits Guarantee Fund, Tarion Warranty Corporation and the Ontario Clean Water Agency.

Complexity driving outsourcing decisions

Clark pointed to rising investment complexity as a factor pushing more public sector organizations toward external management.

"Many Ontario public sector organizations whose core mandate is not investing continue to manage public funds directly," he said. "But, in an increasingly complex investment environment, more are recognizing the value of joining IMCO."

IMCO, which manages $90.7 billion in total assets, operates on a not-for-profit, cost-recovery basis. It offers clients asset mix advisory services, access to a diversified range of asset classes including private markets and alternatives, and portfolio-level risk management and reporting. 

Last week, IMCO issued a press release stating it has added the City of Hamilton as a new client, expanding its public sector investment partnerships across Ontario:

TORONTO (July 30, 2026) – The Investment Management Corporation of Ontario (“IMCO”) today announced that it has been selected to provide investment management services to the City of Hamilton, supporting the long-term sustainability of the City's pension obligations.

“The City of Hamilton's decision reflects the strength of our investment platform. We provide our clients with an end-to-end, cost-effective investment solution,” said Bert Clark, President and CEO, IMCO.

Following an evaluation process, IMCO was selected to manage approximately $300 million in assets for the City of Hamilton. The mandate consolidates three legacy plans supporting more than 1,000 retirees, deferred members and beneficiaries. The mandate is focused specifically on legacy pension funds, which are distinct from its “open” pension fund managed separately by another manager. IMCO will work with the City on onboarding and investment decision-making.

With the addition of the City of Hamilton, IMCO continues to expand its role as a trusted partner to public sector institutions across Ontario. IMCO provides its clients with access to asset mix advisory services, a full range of asset classes and comprehensive risk, portfolio management and reporting services, all on a cost-recovery basis.

IMCO's growing roster of clients includes:

• Ontario Pension Board (“OPB”), administrator of the Public Service Pension Plan
• Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), Insurance and Loss of Retirement Income funds
• WISE Trust Pension Plan, administrator of the WSIB Employees’ Pension Plan
• Provincial Judges’ Pension Board, administrator of the Provincial Judges’ Pension Plan
• Ontario's Pension Benefits Guarantee Fund (PBGF)
• City of Ottawa, administrator of the OC Transpo Employees’ Pension Plan
• Tarion Warranty Corporation’s Guarantee Fund (Tarion)
• Ontario Clean Water Agency’s (OCWA) reserve fund

“Many Ontario public sector organizations whose core mandate is not investing continue to manage public funds directly. But, in an increasingly complex investment environment, more are recognizing the value of joining IMCO,” continued Clark.

“Expert governance, strong liquidity and risk management, and high-quality reporting and disclosure are essential to managing public funds effectively.”

About IMCO

The Investment Management Corporation of Ontario (“IMCO”) manages $90.7 billion of assets on behalf of its clients. Designed exclusively to drive better investment outcomes for Ontario's broader public sector, IMCO operates under an independent, not-for-profit, cost recovery structure. We provide leading investment management services, including portfolio construction advice, better access to a diverse range of asset classes and sophisticated risk management capabilities. As one of Canada's largest institutional investors, we invest around the world and execute large transactions efficiently. Our scale gives clients access to a well-diversified global portfolio, including sought-after private and alternative asset classes. Follow us on LinkedIn and X @imcoinvest. 

I'm going to briefly go over my thoughts here.

First, and most importantly, I agree with IMCO's CEO Bert Clark:

“Many Ontario public sector organizations whose core mandate is not investing continue to manage public funds directly. But, in an increasingly complex investment environment, more are recognizing the value of joining IMCO. Expert governance, strong liquidity and risk management, and high-quality reporting and disclosure are essential to managing public funds effectively.”

In short, there are a lot of public sector organizations in Ontario that have no business whatsoever managing a pension plan, and their members would be better served over the long run by IMCO or another well-governed DB pension plan.

Let me be frank here, Canada as a whole has way too many small to medium-sized public pension funds that would be better served by a larger pension platform (larger pension fund) with solid governance.

I'm a big believer in amalgamation when it makes perfect sense from an administrative and performance view.

I covered IMCO's 2025 results back in April here.  

For the most part, it's a solid pension fund that is run well. 

Is it perfect? No, none of them are, but when compared to the alternatives at the municipal level, no doubt in mind members are better off joining IMCO if they have a small plan managed internally (if they're with OMERS, stay the course).

IMCO is unique among the bigger Canadian pension funds in that it still has to fight to get new clients.

A $300 million mandate from the City of Hamilton is a big mandate, even if it's focused specifically on legacy pension funds, which are distinct from its “open” pension fund managed separately by another manager.

With scale, IMCO becomes larger, can negotiate better terms and be involved in bigger deals, especially on co-investments to reduce fee drag.

Lastly, I will mention that Jennifer Hartviksen, former Head of Global Credit at IMCO, has left the organization to become the Head of Global  Fixed Income at TD Asset Management.

Fernando Martinez has replaced her, and I wish them both well in their new roles. 

Below, Amy Wu Silverman, RBC Capital Markets head of derivatives strategy, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss hyperscalers after second-quarter earnings season, AI and more.

And Ed Yardeni, Yardeni Research, joins 'Closing Bell' to discuss Yardeni's outlook for equity markets, earnings estimates and much more.

The Trump-Vance administration inherited a strong labor market with record employment and wage gains. But after a year of the administration’s economic mismanagement, workers are feeling more vulnerable to the softening labor market. While the president is busy touting the stock market’s performance, working people and families are expressing concerns about job security and affordability. This is evident in the Federal Reserve’s latest Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED), which shows an increase in the number of adults who worry about finding or keeping a job. More than 2 out of 5 adults reported concerns about finding or keeping a job in 2025, up from 37% in 2024.

The latest SHED survey also shows that the harm caused by the administration’s economic chaos has not affected all people equally. Structural inequities embedded in the U.S. economy and labor market have historically left communities of color disproportionately vulnerable to economic insecurity and poverty, and the Federal Reserve’s survey shows that this trend is continuing. While the overall financial well-being of most adults held steady in 2025, the financial well-being of Black adults declined. These individuals were also more likely to experience layoffs, leaving a higher share of Black adults and their families with increased fear of finding or keeping a job in 2025. The added employment uncertainty of Black adults also left them significantly more likely to report major concerns about making ends meet. The survey also shows that education largely failed to protect these individuals from the experience of increased economic fragility.

Black adults find themselves in the worst financial position in nearly a decade

In 2025, Black adults were most likely to report a decline in their financial standing. The share of Black adults “doing okay” or “living comfortably” declined by almost 5 percentage points last year to 60% (see Figure A). This is the lowest figure the Survey of Household Economic and Decisionmaking survey has recorded since 2015. The 2025 figure also reflects a steep decline from the high of 2023, when nearly 68% of Black adults answered questions about their financial well-being positively. We find that the bulk of the decline last year took place among the individuals who reported “living comfortably,” as this share declined from 23% in 2024 to 19.0%.

Figure A

Higher education largely failed to protect Black individuals from added financial insecurity under the Trump-Vance economy. While nearly all Black adults with varying levels of education experienced a deterioration of their financial position last year, the situation of adults with a college education worsened the most (see Figure B). The share of these individuals doing okay or living comfortably, for example, declined by nearly 7 percentage points last year.

Figure B Black adults were more likely to experience a sharp increase in layoffs last year

By summer 2025, job growth had slowed considerably, and Black workers were among the first to experience this slowdown with a rising rate of unemployment. The uneven impact of these debilitating forces last year comes across clearly in the Federal Reserve survey. The share of Black adults who reported experiencing a job loss increased by about 3 percentage points between 2024 and 2025 (see Figure C). This reflects the largest increase among all racial and ethnic groups. In fact, Black adults were more than twice as likely as their white, non-Hispanic peers to report layoffs last year. This reality aligns with the broader labor market position of Black workers, who experienced a steeper rise in their unemployment rate in 2025 and who remained about twice as likely as their white peers to be unemployed. 

Figure C

As the pace of job growth slowed and the unemployment rate rose in the first year of the Trump-Vance administration, people’s concern with finding or keeping a job increased. But this increased employment vulnerability and insecurity fell most heavily on Black individuals and their families (see Figure D). More than half of Black adults said that finding or keeping a job was either a minor or major concern for them or their families last year. This figure increased by nearly 10 percentage points between 2024 and 2025. In fact, Black adults of all education levels reported increased concerns about finding or keeping a job last year. 

Figure D Black adults and their families have grown increasingly more concerned about their economic security

The added employment vulnerability, combined with the impact of the ongoing affordability crisis, has also left more Black individuals and their families worried about their ability to make ends meet. More than 3 out of 4 (77.5%) Black adults reported that making ends meet was at least a minor concern for them and their families last year (see Figure E). This figure increased by about 8 percentage points between 2024 and 2025, leaving Black adults of all education levels more economically vulnerable last year. In contrast, the share of white, non-Hispanic adults who reported similar concerns declined marginally during the same period.

Figure E We cannot address the affordability crisis without dealing with its root causes

The Federal Reserve survey points to the relationship between employment, economic security, and well-being. The uneven impact of the weaker job market last year resulted in increased employment and economic uncertainty for Black adults and their families. The survey findings are a reminder that ongoing discussions about the affordability crisis shouldn’t ignore the role of employment, wages and income. Affordability remains an outcome of a race between income and prices, and we know that the pace of job and wage growth is a policy choice. While there is no silver bullet, we know that a broad basket of policies is needed, including a higher wage floor, increased union density, and macroeconomic policies that reduce inequality.

This week, EPI will release a new tool showing the cost of mass deportations to taxpayers in every U.S. city, county, and state. For the first time, the actual economic tradeoffs imposed on all taxpayers will be shown in one place. Below, we preview the data for Minnesota, a prominent target of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown earlier this year.

At a time when families across the country are struggling to afford housing, health care, and education, the Trump administration and its allies in Congress have been cutting support for basic needs and diverting huge sums of money to deportations.

In Minnesota, $4.4 billion in federal taxpayer dollars is being spent on detaining immigrants—many of whom are in the country lawfully—and even some U.S. citizens. That means, on average, every household in the state is paying roughly $2,000 to track down, intimidate, detain, or deport people.

If that money were spent instead on programs proven to improve the lives of working families—education, health care, living wages—it could improve Minnesota communities dramatically. Here are a few different ways the money could be spent over the remaining 2.5 years of the Trump administration:

• Schools across the state are being forced to cut staff and increase class size. With the money being spent on mass deportations, the state could hire 14,000 more full-time school teachers. This would mean, for example:
  • 1,100 more teachers in Minneapolis
  • 340 more teachers in Minnetonka
  • 215 more teachers in Bloomington
  • 140 more teachers in Duluth
• With the cuts to the Affordable Care Act, over 140,000 people in Minnesota are projected to lose their health insurance. Due to cuts in Medicaid funding, hospitals are at risk of closing down in Austin, Staples, Mahnomen, Baudette, Little Falls, Hibbing, and Minneapolis. With the money being spent on deportations, we could keep 129,000 people on health insurance, which would also help keep hospitals open.
• Over 400,000 Minnesotans rely on food stamps, primarily working families with children and elderly people on fixed incomes. But because of cuts in the 2025 Republican tax and spending megabill (the OBBBA), 45,000 people across the state are at risk of being cut off. With the money being spent on deportations, Minnesota could protect food stamps for all hungry families in the state.
• Last year, over 600 Veterans Administration positions were cut in Minnesota. With the funds being diverted to deportations, we could reverse all these cuts and guarantee Minnesota veterans the care they deserve.
• Or, instead of restoring any of these services, every household in Minnesota could be given a $2,000 tax refund.

EPI and others have documented the economic harms of a draconian immigration policy and enforcement on immigrants and their families, as well as U.S.-born workers and the economy as a whole. Any of the alternatives listed above would be a better use of taxpayer dollars for improving the welfare of everyday Minnesotans. It is critical that we take into account the missed opportunities of funding a mass deportation regime, including the badly needed services being ignored or cut off to keep this policy funded and to keep immigrants living in fear.

Hugh Son of CNBC reports on how Leopold Aschenbrenner built a $45 billion AI hedge fund — and lost most of it in days:

Two years ago, Leopold Aschenbrenner argued he was one of few people in the world who saw the future clearly.

In a sprawling, 165-page essay that became required reading in Silicon Valley, the former OpenAI researcher positioned himself as a kind of prophet for the coming age of artificial super intelligence.

But this week, the limits of Aschenbrenner’s vision were on display when the AI-themed hedge fund he runs — named Situational Awareness, also the title of his viral June 2024 manifesto — ran into the harsh reality of tumbling semiconductor stocks and Wall Street margin calls.

At its peak earlier this month, his fund sat atop $45 billion in assets. By Thursday, however, after being forced to offload all of his leveraged stock bets — including hard-hit names like SK Hynix and CoreWeave — to Ken Griffin’s Citadel at a discount, the fund’s holdings plunged to around $10 billion, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

The story of Aschenbrenner’s meteoric rise and sudden fall has captivated both Wall Street and tech circles, making him the most high-profile casualty yet of the volatility accompanying the AI boom.

A polarizing figure, his online followers saw Aschenbrenner — a Columbia University valedictorian at age 19 — as a genius of the next big thing and followed his fund’s quarterly filings for clues on hot AI stocks.

Before this month’s decline, Situational Awareness racked up gains of more than 1,000% since inception, The Wall Street Journal reported last month. The Journal noted Aschenbrenner was just 24 years old.

Meanwhile, critics pointed out that Aschenbrenner had no experience running money prior to launching his fund in July 2024, calling him more lucky than smart. Some noted that his early work experience was at the doomed crypto firm FTX, where he helped now-disgraced founder Sam Bankman-Fried run a charity out of a Bahamas penthouse.

Others on Wall Street, including former traders at global investment banks, noted that in light of reports Situational Awareness used as much as 400% leverage, the collapse wasn’t shocking.

“A lot of people saw this blow-up as a matter of not if, but when,” said Jerry Diao, who runs a Wall Street coaching firm. “Maybe his views on AI are correct in the long run, but in the public markets, you have to be prepared for the short-term.”

The hedge fund didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.

Earlier this week, before the sale to Citadel, about two-thirds of Situational Awareness holdings were in long and short positions in public equities, according to one source. The rest were stakes in private companies, dominated by a multibillion-dollar Anthropic investment, the person said.

CNBC’s sources spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic details.

The near-collapse of Situational Awareness coincides with the hedge fund manager’s wedding, set for this weekend, sources told CNBC’s David Faber. Aschenbrenner is engaged to Avital Balwit, chief of staff for Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, according to a Fortune profile. 

‘Weirdness’ and ‘disagreeableness’

Born in Germany to physician parents before moving to the U.S., Aschenbrenner showed an early aptitude for math and computer science, according to profiles and podcast interviews.

He skipped several grades in the German school system, graduating high school at age 15, and as a teen at Columbia University he garnered attention for an academic paper titled, “Existential Risk and Growth.”

A Columbia classmate, Sofia Montrone, said that she hadn’t heard of Aschenbrenner before meeting him over Zoom shortly before their 2021 graduation.

“It was not like he was some prince, emerging out of the school,” Montrone told CNBC. “He was just some guy.”

In the interaction, Montrone, who was salutatorian, said she found her classmate “child-like” and socially awkward.

Aschenbrenner has since said that his personality — what he called his own intellectual “weirdness” and “disagreeableness” — was punished in German culture. He came to see it as the source of his edge.

While at Columbia, he co-founded the school’s chapter of Effective Altruism, a philosophy popular in some tech circles that advocates for founders to make the most money possible in order to help humanity.

That network became his career pipeline, eventually leading him to work with another effective altruism proponent — Bankman-Fried — after his graduation in 2021. He worked for a stint at the Future Fund, the philanthropic arm of FTX, before the crypto firm’s collapse.

In 2023, Aschenbrenner landed on OpenAI’s Superalignment team, working under Ilya Sutskever on the problem of keeping AI aligned with human interests. After a hacker breached OpenAI’s internal systems, he wrote a memo to the board warning that the company’s security wasn’t strong enough to stop foreign espionage, naming China specifically.

In 2024, the company fired Aschenbrenner after accusing him of improperly sharing confidential information, a characterization he has disputed, saying he was raising concerns about the company’s security practices.

“I liked Leopold while at OpenAI,” Scott Aaronson, a computer scientist now at the University of Texas at Austin who previously worked on AI safety at OpenAI, told CNBC this week in an email.

“I was sorry when he got pushed out because of sharing information in a way leadership didn’t approve of,” he said. It “sounded like he was trying to do the right thing and they overreacted.”

An OpenAI spokesman declined to comment and referred to statements the company made at the time that the firm disagreed with many of Aschenbrenner’s claims.

Representatives for Columbia University and its Effective Altruism chapter didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Stripe, Github investors

Weeks after his departure from OpenAI, Aschenbrenner turned his brief experience at the leading AI firm into a sweeping vision of where artificial intelligence, and the world, was headed.

His June 2024 essay argued that artificial general intelligence could arrive within years and that governments were badly underestimating the pace of progress. Admirers saw it as evidence that Aschenbrenner was a prodigy with valuable insight into AI’s trajectory, while critics said it overstated both the technology’s near-term capabilities and his own certainty about the future.

By July of that year, Aschenbrenner parlayed his rising fame into seed capital for his hedge fund, raising a reported $225 million from Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and investor Daniel Gross.

That would mark the start of a two-year run unlike any in recent Wall Street history.

“Before long, the world will wake up,” Aschenbrenner wrote at the time, adding that only a few hundred people in the AI community knew what was coming.

“If they are seeing the future even close to correctly,” he wrote, “we are in for a wild ride.”

Yun Li of CNBC also reports on why Situational Awareness hedge fund imploded, even in a tame stock market:

The stock market looked unusually tranquil. Beneath the surface, one of Wall Street’s fastest-growing funds devoted to artificial intelligence investments was unraveling.

In a matter of weeks, Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness went from managing roughly $45 billion to being forced into a sweeping reduction of its listed-stock positions as a historic momentum reversal triggered losses on both sides of its portfolio and set off margin calls and compulsory sales.

Situational Awareness had built concentrated positions in one of Wall Street’s most popular trades: owning companies expected to supply the chips, data centers, power and other infrastructure behind the AI boom while betting against software firms viewed as vulnerable to the technology’s disruption.

Its long positions were concentrated among some of the market’s biggest AI beneficiaries. Public filings showed large stakes in Nebius, Bloom Energy, Sandisk, CoreWeave, SharonAI and IREN as of March 31. By Wednesday’s close, those shares had fallen between by 50% and 78% from recent peaks. 

At the same time, software stocks like Adobe that had been used as the short leg of the trade rallied. That meant the fund wasn’t protected by its hedges. Instead, the longs and shorts lost money simultaneously.

“People get over leveraged in this market, and they get seduced by the big returns that some of these companies can deliver,” said Bob Lang, founder and chief strategist at Explosive Options. “If you’re not managing your risk properly, this is the sort of thing that’s going to happen to you.”

As the value of the portfolio fell, the fund’s equity cushion shrank and its prime brokers demanded additional collateral. Raising cash required selling more holdings, adding further pressure to sliding stocks and generating additional losses. What might otherwise have been a painful drawdown became a deleveraging spiral. Ken Griffin’s Citadel hedge fund reached a deal to buy the fund’s publicly traded assets.

“Running somebody out the door like this is as old as time,” Lang said. “I’ve seen it happen a lot in oil markets ... there’s a lot of things that are happening underneath the surface that we really don’t know about.”

Momentum crash

The episode offers a stark example of how a hedge fund can sustain devastating losses even when major stock indexes appear relatively calm. The S&P 500 remained near record levels as the damage unfolded, masking one of the most violent reversals in market leadership in decades.

“There is no other way to put it, we just witnessed the largest/ fastest momentum crash in modern history,” Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at BTIG, said in a note. “And it wasn’t particularly close.”

Morgan Stanley’s sector-neutral Momentum Index tumbled 17.4% in just four trading days, its worst such decline on record, according to BTIG. The drop surpassed the momentum reversals that followed the dot-com bust, the pandemic shock and the 2022 inflation-driven bear market.

The iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF posted its best month ever as recently as April, and is now on pace for its worst month, illustrating how quickly one of the year’s strongest strategies turned into one of its weakest.

Clearing event?

AI infrastructure stocks rebounded sharply Thursday as investors increasingly interpreted the previous several weeks of volatility as the product of a technical dislocation rather than a deterioration in the industry’s fundamentals.

With one of the market’s largest forced sellers stepping back, traders rushed into many of the same chipmakers, power companies and data-center plays that had been at the center of the selloff. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped for a second day Friday, on track for a weekly gain of 0.9% after suffering steep losses the last two weeks.

Still, not everyone believes the forced unwind marks the end of the AI selloff.

Among the most prominent skeptics is Michael Burry of “The Big Short” fame. Burry has been one of Wall Street’s most vocal critics of the AI boom, arguing that much of the industry’s demand is being sustained by financing arrangements rather than end customers.

Rather than viewing Thursday’s rebound as a turning point, Burry used the rally to add to bearish positions in Micron, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF and Nvidia put options, according to a Thursday Substack post.

“The knee jerk reaction to the Paired Momentum unwind yesterday has been to put it back on today,” Burry wrote. “This was a historic reversal, even more so than what happened 26 years ago,” when the dot-com bubble began to burst in 2000.

Burry said oversold and overbought conditions made a short-term bounce unsurprising, but he questioned whether the trade still had staying power.

“The legs,” Burry wrote, already “they look tired.”

What an insane week full of market action!!

Let me blunt: This week is the type of volatile week elite hedge fund traders dream about. 

You had Big Tech earnings, a big Fed meeting, a big Bank of Japan meeting and currency intervention, and a major hedge fund focused on AI imploding because it was way over-leveraged in AI growth stocks.

What more can elite hedge fund traders ask for?

From the big names, Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft added nearly $1.5 trillion in combined value this week:

Wall Street is growing increasingly divided over AI’s winners and losers after the world’s largest technology companies reported earnings and affirmed or raised their capex forecasts, suggesting the spending spree isn’t letting up yet.

Nearly $2 trillion has moved this week into or out of the six megacaps that have reported earnings this season so far. The three biggest hyperscalers, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet, have all seen their market caps surge after posting strong cloud growth. It suggests that investors believe returns may be in sight after the companies committed to spend billions on AI.

Microsoft gained over $600 billion in market cap this week, while Amazon and Alphabet both added more than $400 billion.

On the other end, Meta has seen its stock plunge after earnings, as investors weren’t sold on its AI investment strategy, erasing about $85 billion from its market cap this week. Apple suffered a steeper drop, losing more than $350 billion in market value, as the memory shortage weighed on its outlook. Tesla lost about $7 billion in market value after it went cash flow negative and forecast higher spending.

AI spending among the megacaps is “trending” toward almost $800 billion over the next 12 months, Jason Greenberg, co-head of global tech, media and telecom investment banking at Jefferies, told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Friday.

Investors no longer question whether people are adopting AI, or if there’s real demand for chips and compute capacity, Greenberg said.

“It’s whether in the long term demand is going to be sufficiently profitable to warrant all of this investment,” Greenberg said. “I think overall that’s the real issue that we’re struggling with right now.”

Investors are in "show-me-the-money" mode, and companies that understand this (Microsoft, Amazon) got rewarded while those who don't (Meta) got punished.

As far as the Fed, Chairman Wash spoke out of both sides of his mouth this week to justify staying put on rates despite internal dissent at the Fed. 

Maybe he knew of a major hedge fund imploding and decided this wasn't a good week to raise rates, but the longer the Fed puts off hiking rates, the bigger the risk they will hike more aggressively in the future.

As far as market action,  let me show you the 5-day chart of two of  Leopold Aschenbrenner's major holdings -- Sandisk and CoreWeave:

 

Both of them were down on Fed day (Wednesday) and then surged Thursday and Friday morning before closing red today.

Elite hedge funds -- not just Citadel, which bought Aschenbrenner's book at a discount -- knew there was blood on the Street, they were all aware of Situational Awareness's margin calls, and they pounced at the right moment to trade these stocks. 

In fact, I can tell you that shares of Sandisk were down 8% on Wednesday around noon, two hours before the Fed's decision, then were up 7% at 3 p.m. before closing down 7% that day. Then they surged over 30% Thursday and Friday morning before closing down 5% today.

It looks like short covering took place in both stocks, so I agree with Dr. Michael Burry, too soon to declare the downtrend is over. 

So, pay attention to Aschenbrenner’s positions, all 34 of them available here.

That's where the market action is these days but more broadly, pay attention to  momentum, because there too, it just looks like short covering this past week, with the downtrend intact:

I can say the same about tech shares in general, despite this week's pop (short covering?), they remain in a downtrend:

 Anyways, insane week, full of action!

Leopold Aschenbrenner's hedge fund blew up and that's not a shocker; his fund was levered four times in AI growth stocks. It's fun when they're going parabolic, but painful when momentum shifts the other way.

I've personally seen so many of these whiz kids blow up in Hedge Fund Land, and stupid investors give them money without realizing they have no money management experience or concept of risk management. 

There's a reason why I recommend all investors who invest in hedge funds read When Genius Failed, it documents how smart people do stupid things with leverage, and they all eventually succumb to Mr.Market.

Lastly, when the week began, Leopold Aschenbrenner was preparing for his wedding. The plan was for a multiday celebration in Carmel, a seaside town in Northern California, with the ceremony at a Tuscan-style villa. 

By the end of the week, his hedge fund had imploded and Ken Griffin's Citadel was there to pick up the scraps.Griffin has built a successful business profiting off the misfortunes of others. 

A good reminder of who makes the real money in Hedge Fund Land. 

Alright, that's a wrap. It's Friday and I don't think people realize everything that went on in markets this week.

Here are the top-performing large-cap US stocks this week (full list here):

And the worst-performing US large-cap stocks this week (full list here): 

Below, Bloomberg's Hema Parmar details the massive selloff of AI assets from Situational Awareness, one of the world's biggest hedge funds and how Citadel's Ken Griffin stepped in to buy the investments. Parmar said that this move is part of Griffin's 'playbook' and he will often jump in to get a good deal when firms are in distress.

Also, Karl Schamotta, chief market strategist at Corpay, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss the markets and the outlook for the loonie.

Lastly, DoubleLine CEO-CIO Jeffrey Gundlach joins CNBC’s Scott Wapner following Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh’s second FOMC press conference. Gundlach’s read is that the market didn’t buy what Chairman Warsh was selling. 

While the Fed held rates steady, Gundlach points to the US Treasury yield curve’s sharp steepening during the press conference as the real story, undoing much of the flattening the market had rewarded Chairman Warsh with back in June. 

His view is straightforward: If Chairman Warsh is truly committed to getting inflation to 2%, and not a “whisper above,” then holding rates steady while war-driven commodity prices keep climbing is inconsistent with that goal. Gundlach argues the bond market is essentially calling that bluff and now expects the Fed to hike in September to claw back some of the credibility it just gave up.

Layan Odeh of Bloomberg reports OMERS hires CAAT’s Buzanis to lead private equity funds business: 

Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System hired a longtime executive from CAAT Pension Plan to help build its private equity funds strategy as it makes such investing a more central part of its buyout business.

CAAT’s head of private markets, Adam Buzanis, will join Omers as head of funds. In that role, he’ll develop the external private equity funds strategy and advance efforts to ramp up co-investments, according to the pension plan.

The move is the latest change in Omers’ investment team over the past several weeks after the departure of chief investment officer Ralph Berg, who left to join Singapore’s Temasek. Earlier this month, the pension plan elevated Michael Hill to global head of infrastructure and private equity and gave Michael Block a wider mandate for private capital investments.

Omers has revamped its private equity unit in the past two years, halting direct buyout investments in Europe and shifting its focus to investing alongside partners and through external private equity managers.

Buzanis worked for CAAT for about seven years, running its private equity strategy before becoming head of private markets. He joins Omers on Aug. 3 and will report to Block.

“Omers has made meaningful progress building our funds program, and Adam’s arrival marks an important next step in that work,” Block said in a statement emailed to Bloomberg. “He brings deep experience across global private markets, strong expertise in fund investing and portfolio construction, and a broad network of manager relationships.” 

I wasn't going to blog today, and will keep this short and sweet.

Adam Buzanis was hired at OMERS for one reason: to bolster its private equity funds program, which is where the strategy is shifting.

He has a stellar reputation and was the Head of Private Markets at CAAT Pension Plan, where he oversaw the Plan’s global private markets platform, spanning private equity, private credit, infrastructure, and real estate.

More specifically, he was responsible for overall strategy and portfolio construction and led a team that originates, executes, and actively manages investments across these asset classes, delivering long-term performance and diversification for the Plan.

He is a CFA charterholder and holds a Master of Finance from the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University.

I wish him much success in this new and important role at OMERS.

I also want to dispel any rumours that he left CAAT Pension Plan because of the governance brouhaha that hit that organization.

He loved working at CAAT Pension Plan and it wasn't an easy decision to leave, but he had a better offer and will play a pivotal role in transforming the way OMERS invests in private equity funds.

It was a tough decision, but he made the right one and will add value at OMERS.

As far as CAAT Pension Plan, they can hire from within to replace him or go external.

There is a lot of talent out there and CEO/ CIO Kevin Fahey will hire the right person for this important job.

That's all I have to say on this subject. I typically do not cover these executive moves but think this is an important addition to OMERS PE.

I am sure OMERS will make a formal announcement on LinkedIn, and I will edit this comment when it does.

Below, the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast sat down with Brookfield Private Equity CEO Anuj Ranjan. They were live from Berlin at the marquee private equity conference, SuperReturn Berlin (June). 

Great discussion, take the time to listen to it. 

Veselina Petrova of Renewables Now reports Elia, CPP Investments buy 1.8-GW North Sea grid link project from CIP:

Belgian transmission system operator Elia Group SA (EBR:ELI) and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) said today they have acquired the 1.8-GW Tarchon, a subsea interconnector project planned to link Germany and the UK to allow the countries to share surplus clean electricity.

The project will be bought from Copenhagen Infrastructure V, a fund managed by Denmark’s Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP). Specifically, CPP Investments will buy a majority stake in the project, spending CAD 1 billion (USD 709.7m/EUR 622.5m) on a 75% ownership, while Elia will own the remaining 25%. The Belgian company will acquire minority holding through its WindGrid subsidiary, which invests in electricity transmission and offshore wind grid infrastructure.

The new asset will extend CPP Investments’ commitment to invest in developing European energy infrastructure and support Elia’s core regulated transmission activities. The deal is pending regulatory clearance and is expected to close by end-2026.

Tarchon will be a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) link consisting of an underground and subsea cable network with a length of around 760 kilometres (472 miles), stretching between Germany and East Anglia in the North Sea. The facility will connect the two countries’ energy markets and help enhance the security and reliability of their electrical systems. The power to be transmitted through the grid link will help supply up to 1.9 million households.

The interconnector project is still in an early development phase and its exact route in the UK, Germany and Dutch territorial waters is yet to be determined. 

Nadja Skopljak of offshore Energy also reports the 760-kilometer UK-Germany interconnector gets new owners, construction start expected in 2030:

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) and Elia Group, through its international development platform WindGrid, have acquired a subsea interconnector project that will link the UK and Germany from Copenhagen Infrastructure V, managed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).

Approved by Great Britain’s energy market regulator Ofgem in 2024, the Tarchon interconnector will be approximately 760 kilometers long, connecting East Anglia and Niederlangen, Germany, and will deliver up to 1.4 GW of electricity capacity.

As a regulated asset, the project is progressing through the relevant regulatory approvals process in the UK and Germany.

“We are delighted to be partnering with Elia Group on the development of the Tarchon interconnector. This acquisition is rooted in a shared commitment to long-term value creation and responsible infrastructure development,” said James Bryce, Head of Infrastructure at CPP Investments.

“By combining CPP Investments’ global investment capabilities with Elia Group’s proven expertise in designing, building and operating complex transmission systems, the partnership is well positioned to deliver a project such as Tarchon, while also allowing us to generate strong risk-adjusted returns for CPP contributors and beneficiaries.”

CPP Investments will provide a C$1 billion commitment for a majority stake in the project, while Elia Group’s investment through WindGrid is structured as a minority participation, representing a 25% look-through stake, and remains limited in scale relative to the group’s overall investment program, consistent with its disciplined financial policy.

The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of 2026, subject to regulatory and closing conditions. 

The earliest start date for the construction of the link in the UK is 2030, with commercial operations targeted for 2034.

“Tarchon is an important project for WindGrid and reflects our partnership-led approach to supporting selected transmission infrastructure opportunities that are complementary to Elia Group’s core regulated activities. As electrification progresses and power systems become increasingly interconnected, well-developed cross-border infrastructure will remain important for the energy transition,” said Daniela Baratto, CEO of WindGrid.  

Earlier today, CPP Investments issued a press release stating it is expanding its partnership with Elia Group by acquiring the Tarchon interconnector project from Denmark’s Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners:

TORONTO, Canada / BRUSSELS, Belgium (July 29, 2026, 1:00 a.m. EDT / 7:00 a.m. CEST) – Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (“CPP Investments”) and Elia Group, through its international development platform WindGrid today announce the acquisition of Tarchon, a subsea interconnector project between Germany and the UK, from Copenhagen Infrastructure V (managed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners). The investment is being made by CPP Investments alongside WindGrid to extend CPP Investments’ ongoing commitment to invest in developing European energy infrastructure while complementing Elia Group’s core regulated transmission activities.

The partnership reflects the continued evolution of a trusted and well-established collaboration between CPP Investments and Elia Group, built on a strong alignment of interests, complementary capabilities, and a shared long-term perspective.

At a time when the energy transition requires significant investment in grid infrastructure, projects such as the Tarchon interconnector will contribute to a more resilient and interconnected European power system. Tarchon will provide a 1.4 GW high-voltage direct current (HVDC) link between the United Kingdom and Germany, that will strengthen cross-border electricity flows, enhance security of supply, and enable the efficient integration of renewable energy across markets, supporting the long-term decarbonisation of both systems. As a regulated asset, the project is progressing through the relevant regulatory approvals process in the UK and Germany.

CPP Investments will provide a C$1 billion commitment for a majority stake in the project. Elia Group’s investment through WindGrid is structured as a minority participation, representing a 25% look through stake, and remains limited in scale relative to Elia Group’s overall investment programme, consistent with its disciplined financial policy.

James Bryce, Head of Infrastructure, CPP Investments: “We are delighted to be partnering with Elia Group on the development of the Tarchon interconnector. This acquisition is rooted in a shared commitment to long-term value creation and responsible infrastructure development. By combining CPP Investments’ global investment capabilities with Elia Group’s proven expertise in designing, building and operating complex transmission systems, the partnership is well positioned to deliver a project such as Tarchon, while also allowing us to generate strong risk-adjusted returns for CPP contributors and beneficiaries.”

Bernard Gustin, CEO Elia Group: “By enabling more efficient energy exchange between regions, the Tarchon interconnector project contributes to balancing supply and demand, while supporting the decarbonisation of energy systems. The project also reflects the strength of the partnership between Elia Group and CPP Investments in advancing energy infrastructure, highlighting the continued importance of cross-border projects in building a more integrated, resilient and sustainable European grid.”

Daniela Baratto, CEO WindGrid: “Tarchon is an important project for WindGrid and reflects our partnership-led approach to supporting selected transmission infrastructure opportunities that are complementary to Elia Group’s core regulated activities. As electrification progresses and power systems become increasingly interconnected, well-developed cross-border infrastructure will remain important for the energy transition.”

The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of 2026 subject to regulatory and closing conditions.

About CPP Investments

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments™) is a professional investment management organization that manages the Canada Pension Plan Fund in the best interest of the more than 22 million contributors and beneficiaries. In order to build diversified portfolios of assets, we make investments around the world in public equities, private equities, real estate, infrastructure and fixed income. Headquartered in Toronto, with offices in Hong Kong, London, Mumbai, New York City, São Paulo and Sydney, CPP Investments is governed and managed independently of the Canada Pension Plan and at arm’s length from governments. At March 31, 2026, the Fund totaled C$793.3 billion. For more information, please visit www.cppinvestments.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram or on X @CPPInvestments.

About Elia Group

Elia Group is an international electricity transmission group acting as a catalyst for the energy transition. As a stocklisted company employing more than 4,500 people globally, we ensure that power systems evolve in line with society’s and industry’s needs. Through our entities Elia Transmission Belgium, 50Hertz (Germany), Elia Grid International (EGI) and WindGrid, we design, build, operate electricity systems and provide expertise to make electricity accessible, reliable and affordable for society. Operating more than 19,600 km of high-voltage grids across Belgium and Germany, the Group plays a key role in Europe’s energy backbone, supporting electrification, strengthening cross border exchanges and accelerating the transition to a more decarbonised society.

We bring power, today and tomorrow.

About WindGrid

WindGrid is a leading developer of cross-border and offshore grids, powering the energy system of tomorrow. As part of the Elia Group, we develop, invest in and operate transmission assets that connect renewable energy sources to key markets and demand centres.

By combining a developer’s mindset with industry-leading transmission expertise, we help strengthen energy security, accelerate renewable energy integration and enable a more resilient and interconnected energy system. 

Energy is a very important theme for CPP Investments and I'm talking about energy at large (not just renewables).

Why is this deal important? From a simple Google search: 

Cross-border interconnectors are essential for Germany's energy transition, enabling renewable integration with neighboring countries and balancing demand to lower system costs. Policy frameworks aim for significant increases in interconnection capacity to optimize the European market, alongside the expansion of internal HVDC corridors. Read more from Agora Energiewende regarding the integration of the Nordic and German electricity systems here.

Clearly, interconnectors are essential for Germany's growing electricity needs and energy transition, as well as the UK's and other neighbouring countries.

The Tarchon subsea interconnector project and other similar projects will play an integral role in this energy transition.

This is a smart way to invest in the future energy needs of Europe, one that will deliver consistent, inflation-adjusted cash flows once this project is operational in 2034.

That is why CPP Investments is providing a substantial C$1 billion commitment for a majority stake in the project (75%).

Partnering up with Elia Group will allow them to have a partner with in-depth operational expertise via its Windgrid subsidiary.

On LinkedIn, CPP Investments posted this:

We’re committing C$1 billion alongside Elia Group and WindGrid to invest in Tarchon, a 1.4 GW subsea high-voltage interconnector project between Germany and the UK. The partnership reflects the continued evolution of a trusted and well-established collaboration between CPP Investments and Elia Group, built on a strong alignment of interests, complementary capabilities, and a shared long-term perspective. Tarchon will provide a 1.4 GW high-voltage direct current link between the United Kingdom and Germany, that will strengthen cross-border electricity flows, enhance security of supply, and enable the efficient integration of renewable energy across markets, supporting the long-term decarbonisation of both systems. 

Again, this project will take time to develop and is a long-term investment, but by getting in there early with a strategic partner, CPP Investments will reap great long-term returns. 

This may be the first greenfield infrastructure project CPP Investments has invested in (not pure greenfield, as CIP got the project off the ground, but they definitely don't do these types of projects often, that's for sure).

And that also speaks volumes about this deal.

Below, at the heart of Europe, Germany has the advantage of being able to source electricity from its many neighbors. That's why construction is underway on the next generation of interconnectors, which is creating lots of business opportunities. 

Watch this clip, it's obvious that interconnectors are quickly becoming the cornerstone of the EU's energy policy and by 2050, many of these projects will be operational, providing energy and allowing countries to realize on their net zero targets.

On June 9, the Republican majority on the U.S. House Appropriations Committee approved a 2027 budget that slashes funding for worker protection agencies.

The bill includes a combined $71.9 million cut for the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Further, the measure implements a 3% cut to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). While the legislation slightly increases funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that the Trump administration has weaponized for political reasons, the amount overall remains insufficient. The appropriations measure now moves to the Senate, where the budget cuts face an uncertain future.

If enacted, these reductions would further strain these agencies that have faced over a decade of flat funding that hasn’t accounted for inflation or rising labor force participation (see Figure A). This chronic underfunding has severely impacted their ability to enforce worker protection laws.

Figure A The consequences of underfunding worker protection agencies

The Department of Labor serves the nation’s workers by administering and enforcing most federal worker protection laws, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act. Within this framework, the WHD ensures that workers receive wages earned while OHSA evaluates safe workplace conditions and standards. Moreover, independent agencies such as the EEOC enforce a range of anti-discrimination laws while the NLRB enforces private-sector labor law, including workers’ rights to a union and collective bargaining. Together, these government agencies are designed to equip workers with the tools to combat workplace abuses and rectify unequal bargaining power. However, enforcement agencies are unable to fulfill their mandates with reduced staffing and resources.

Since 1992, OSHA has experienced a 16.0% decrease in inspectors. OSHA has been left with so few resources that it would take 191 years for its inspectors to visit every workplace under its coverage just once. Furthermore, a recent Government Accountability Office report flagged critical agency shortcomings, noting OSHA’s weak efforts to address the rising tide of workplace violence against health care and social service workers.

WHD has faced similar staffing challenges. The number of WHD investigators is at its lowest point since at least 1973, despite being tasked with protecting many more workers. As a result, the total number of resolved WHD investigations has dropped significantly over the past few years (see Figure B).

Figure B

Meanwhile, the EEOC has experienced an uptick in discrimination claims over the decades alongside rising labor force participation, yet its resources have not matched the pace of these shifts. For the NLRB, funding for the agency has remained flat except for a recent $6 million reduction in case-handling. The lack of funding has severely impacted field offices—the primary point of contact for union elections—with six closing between 2014 to 2025. In 2024, the NLRB released a statement describing their struggle to meet responsibilities such as conducting hearings and elections amid funding and staffing shortages. The consequence of these challenges is evident. Although favorability for unions nears a record high, major efforts to undermine worker organizing persist.

House budget cuts would leave workers more vulnerable to exploitation

If enacted, the House’s budget cuts would exacerbate an already precarious workplace reality. There were 5,070 fatal work injuries in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (see Figure C). Put another way, a worker died every 104 minutes from a work-related injury. Foreign-born Latinx workers were disproportionately impacted. Reducing OSHA funding and staffing will make it even harder to ensure preventable deaths do not occur.

Figure C

Additionally, amid eroding worker protections, workers have had billions of dollars of wages stolen each year. Undocumented workers are especially impacted, with many fearing to report violations especially amid the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies.

Furthermore, workers continue to face discrimination, filing an average of 83,000 charges per year since 1997. Political attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion have only eroded the mechanisms designed to address these injustices.

The House budget proposal claims to champion efficiency, but true efficiency cannot be achieved by dismantling an already vulnerable labor protection ecosystem or by slashing public-sector resources. The chronic underfunding of worker protection agencies turns legally guaranteed protections into hollow promises and leaves workers exposed to unchecked exploitation and vulnerability. A budget that truly supports U.S. workers would pass robust funding for staffing, investigators, and programs that guarantee safety, fairness, and justice across every workplace.