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It’s Sunday.
Ray Dalio is sounding the alarm on U.S. debt again.
The Bridgewater founder says investors should cut back on bonds and consider holding 10% to 15% of their portfolios in gold, alongside a small allocation to Bitcoin.
His concern is simple.
Washington is spending roughly $2T more than it collects each year, interest costs are approaching $1T, and trillions of dollars in debt still need to be refinanced.
Dalio believes that pressure could culminate in a U.S. debt crisis within the next three years unless the government meaningfully reduces its deficit.
Key Data Bites Over The Last Week:
Goldman Sachs named 20 stocks set to benefit from AI productivity gains.
BofA says Nvidia is trading at up to a 36% discount to the S&P 500.
71% of Americans oppose local data center construction.
Scott Galloway said SpaceX is worth as little as $10.
Spirit Airlines agreed to sell its data to Google for $10M.
Amazon to offer drone deliveries in nearly 500 U.S. cities this year.
Nvidia cuts OpenAI Ohio data center guarantee from $250B to $120B.
Ferrari sold its first fully electric vehicle for $40M at auction.
OpenAI posted just 18% QoQ revenue growth in Q2.
Anthropic meanwhile posted 145% QoQ revenue growth in Q2.
Nasdaq to launch overnight trading as it pushes toward 23-hour markets.
Big Tech reportedly has $3T in off-balance-sheet AI commitments.
Walmart posted weakest quarterly U.S. sales growth in over 6 years.
Alibaba saw net income plunge 75% on AI spending.
Broadcom is looking to >$60B in debt for AI chip financing.
In today’s newsletter:
💰 What The Rich Are Buying
📊 Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Portfolio
✔️ Nike’s Worst Crash Ever
🧾 Intel’s CEO Scoops Up Shares
🇺🇸 U.S. Debt Hits Record $40T
Let’s jump right in.
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The world’s biggest investors just went shopping.
The latest 13F filings reveal where some of the world’s best-known investors were putting capital at the end of the second quarter.
Berkshire Hathaway made one of the biggest moves, becoming a net buyer of stocks for the first time in 14 quarters and growing its Alphabet position to nearly $38B.
Bill Ackman also reshaped his portfolio with six new investments, including Netflix, Visa, Mastercard and S&P Global.
Elsewhere, names like Alphabet, Amazon, Visa and TSMC appeared across several of the most closely watched portfolios.
Leopold Aschenbrenner built his hedge fund around one enormous bet on AI infrastructure.
By the end of the second quarter, SanDisk and Micron alone accounted for more than half of Situational Awareness’s reported U.S. equity holdings.
Just weeks later, a sharp selloff in AI infrastructure stocks crushed the leveraged portfolio and forced the fund to unwind most of its public equity positions.
Situational Awareness reportedly lost 67% in July before Citadel stepped in to acquire much of the book.
Citadel has since sold more than 80% of the positions it purchased.
The filing is backward-looking, but it offers a striking snapshot of the portfolio immediately before one of the year’s biggest hedge fund blowups.
Nike just can’t do it.
Shares are trading near 12-year lows and nearly 80% below their 2021 peak, the deepest drawdown in company history.
The decline has been years in the making following a series of execution missteps.
More recently, Greater China sales fell 17% on a constant-currency basis as local competitors gained ground, while management warned conditions may not improve through at least the first half of fiscal 2027.
Nike is now rebuilding distribution and trying to restore product momentum.
That said, investors have yet to see any evidence the turnaround is working.
Intel’s CEO is putting his own money behind the comeback.
Lip-Bu Tan recently bought $10M of Intel stock at $95 per share, the same price public investors paid in the company’s concurrent secondary offering.
The purchase stands out because Intel has already rallied more than 260% over the past year.
Tan now beneficially owns more than 1.3M shares worth over $130M, making the latest purchase a sizable addition rather than a symbolic bet.
The business is also gaining momentum, with second-quarter revenue rising 25% to $16B.
After one of the biggest rallies in the market, Intel’s own CEO is still buying.
America’s debt clock is speeding up.
Total U.S. debt has crossed $40T for the first time, less than five months after reaching $39T.
The pace is staggering.
It took the country until 1981 to accumulate its first $1T of debt. Today, it is adding roughly that amount every five months.
The buildup has spanned both parties, driven by pandemic borrowing, persistent budget deficits and spending that continues to outpace revenue.
Higher debt is also making the bill harder to carry, with interest costs now consuming an increasingly large share of federal spending.
At $40T and counting, the challenge is no longer just how much America owes, but how quickly the total keeps growing.
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🚕 Cybercab Launch↗ – Tesla is reportedly preparing to publicly launch Cybercab in Austin as soon as this month.
💉 Cancer Vaccine↗ – Moderna more than doubled after its Merck-partnered mRNA melanoma vaccine reduced recurrence or spread in a study.
🍺 Drinking Slump↗ – U.S. alcohol consumption has stabilized near historic lows.
📈 Buyback Boost↗ – The Treasury plans to at least double buybacks of longer-term government debt to support market liquidity.
🇨🇳 China Closes↗ – The U.S. lead in the AI race with China is rapidly narrowing.
👀 iMessage Access↗ – OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT support for controlling Apple’s iMessage, raising potential privacy concerns.
🐳 Azure Whale↗ – Meta has quietly become one of Microsoft’s biggest AI customers, reportedly paying hundreds of millions a year through Azure.
Notable Companies Reporting Earnings Week of August 23rd, 2026:
Major Trades Published 8/17 - 8/21. Trades may be those of family members. [Source: Capitol Trades]
Buys
Tony Wied (R)
Company: Upstart Holdings ($UPST)
Amount Purchased: $15K - $50K
Sells
Tim Moore (R)
Company: AT&T ($T)
Amount Sold: $50K - $100K
Tony Wied (R)
Company: Salesforce ($CRM)
Amount Sold: $15K - $50K
David Taylor (R)
Company: Microsoft ($MSFT)
Amount Sold: $15K - $50K
Rick Allen (R)
Company: Abbott Laboratories ($ABT)
Amount Sold: $15K - $50K
Major Trades Published 8/17 - 8/21
Buys
Energy Transfer ($ET)
Insider: Kelcy Warren (Director)
# of Shares Purchased: 1,000,000
$ Amount: $21,263,521
SEC Forms: [1]
Sells
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