TheChek News Flow

Is it time to sell your AI stocks?

Avoid the hype — most companies are seeing no return on generative AI spending

Managing investments has three principal parts: deciding which to own, which to ditch and — crucially — implementing those decisions.

Over the years I have heard too many tales of woe from investors who had decided what to do but had not got around to doing it until it was too late. 

Many global equity investors will be sitting on decent gains from the rise of the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks. In dollar terms the MSCI All World Index is up over 15 per cent annually over three years. A former colleague used to say that when investors get rich they often think they have become more intelligent. 

If they are intelligent, they will be looking nervously at those gains and asking if now is one of those moments to act. For me the best herald of danger is valuation.

Those megacap Mag 7 companies that have driven so much of this growth now make up more than 20 per cent of global equity indices. It’s worth examining which are flashing red on valuations. 

The ratio of price to earnings is a crude measure that shows how many years’ earnings it would take to pay for one share. By this measure, it would take nearly two centuries to pay for your Tesla shares.

Earnings — or profits — can be understated if a company is investing heavily for growth, building AI data centres, for example. Looking at the ratio of a company’s share price to its sales gives you a sense of how much these revenues must grow to generate the earnings the share price merits when that capex is done. Few shares trade at more than five times sales for long. Nvidia shares would either have to fall a lot or their sales grow at this speed for many years to come to sustain this valuation. 

Revenues are growing strongly in most, but this growth appears to be slowing. AI might improve profitability for a company such as Microsoft — but only if its customers value it sufficiently to merit paying more.

That is a gamble. I am not surprised by recent research showing that 95 per cent of organisations get zero return from their investments in generative AI. On the other hand, the application of AI to diagnostics and factory automation looks like it is raising productivity.

​I would not own Nvidia, Tesla or Alphabet now. If I held Apple, I probably would hang on to it as it is not an AI stock and it’s the AI hype I’m trying to avoid.

Beyond these megacap stocks, not everything related to AI is expensive. Taiwan Semiconductor still looks reasonable value, and we bought cyber security specialist Fortinet on its recent stumble.  

There are still attractive places to have your money. Take Thermo Fisher. This is the world leader in scientific equipment for medical research and diagnostics. It is priced at 21x earnings and 4x sales. Yaskawa makes the blue robots that have the largest share in semiconductor manufacturing and many other areas of factory automation. It is priced at 18x earnings and just 1.5x sales.

Both businesses have seen their growth hampered in recent years by the slowdown in Chinese demand, but this now seems to be moderating and even turning. These are the sorts of companies active fund managers tend to favour. 

Those most exposed to the hot stocks are investors in low-cost global equity trackers. These have outperformed most active funds, including my own. They may continue to rise. I have no fear of missing out.

Over the years I have built a record of selling too early. It means my portfolio will underperform the index when it gets frothy, as now. However, my priority is to ensure every investment I have is underpinned by value for money.

I have no idea when a correction might come. I also had no idea in 2000, but we sold most of our tech stocks anyway because the valuations told us to. It was the same selling British banks in 2007, when they were trading on a stretched multiple of book value. You didn’t need to know that a financial crisis was coming, you could avoid the worst of it by being disciplined on valuation, and we did.  

No great flare went up at the top to tell you to sell. You just had to follow your investment disciplines and not let timing questions get in the way.

The San Francisco Bay Area, long the dominant region for startup investment, took a step back in this week’s tally of the largest funding rounds. The biggest investments went to companies based in the Seattle area, Southern California, New York and Austin, Texas, while only two of this week’s top 10 are Silicon Valley startups.

But while the geography may look different this week, investors’ appetite for AI remained a dominant theme. One exception, however, was the week’s largest round, for Group14 Technologies, a developer of advanced silicon battery materials.

1. Group14 Technologies, $463M, batteries: Group14 Technologies, a developer of advanced silicon battery materials, raised $463 million in a Series D round led by SK and included a long list of existing investors. The Woodinville, Washington-based company also obtained full ownership of a South Korean factory launched as a joint venture with SK.

2. Field AI, $405M, robotics and AI: Field AI, developer of a “single software brain” used to power robots in a variety of environments, announced that it secured $405 million in two consecutive rounds of $314 million and $91 million. Temasek Holdings, Bezos Expeditions and Prysm Capital co-led the financing for the Irvine, California-based company.

3. EliseAI, $250M, AI: New York-based EliseAI, a provider of AI automation tools for the housing and healthcare sectors, landed $250 million in a Series E backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, Sapphire Ventures and Navitas Capital. The company also said it plans to triple the size of its team.

4. Ontic, $230M, security: Ontic, a provider of intelligence tools for corporate security, raised $230 million in a Series C round led by funds managed by KKR. The Austin, Texas-based company will use the money to invest in AI technology for threat detection and automation for security teams.

5. Overhaul, $105M, supply chain: Austin, Texas-based Overhaul, provider of an in-transit supply chain risk management platform, locked up $105 million in Series C funding led by Springcoast Capital Partners. The round brings total funding to date for the 9-year-old company to more than $304 million, per Crunchbase data.

6. (tied) Aalo Atomics, $100M, nuclear energy: Aalo, an Austin, Texas, startup planning to build nuclear power facilities with an initial focus on supplying energy to data centers, closed a $100 million Series B financing led by Valor Equity Partners.

6. (tied) Eight Sleep, $100M, sleep tech: Eight Sleep, a startup developing “sleep fitness” products, announced that it has raised $100 million in a Series D led by HSG. The round brings funding to date for the 11-year-old, New York-based startup to more than $260 million, per Crunchbase data.

8. Nuro, $97M, autonomous vehicles: Mountain View, California-based Nuro, a developer of autonomous driving technology and software, announced that it picked up $97 million in a Series E extension at a $6 billion valuation.

9. Bonus Homes, $65.5M, real estate finance: Phoenix-based Bonus Homes, a provider of financing for homeowners in lieu of selling their homes, raised $65.5 million in early-stage funding from backers including Solyco Capital, Alpaca VC, Redwood Trust and NextView Ventures.

10. TinyFish, $47M, AI agents: TinyFish, a developer of enterprise web agents, or AI infrastructure systems that carry out workflows on the web, launched publicly with $47 million in committed funding. Iconiq Growth led the financing for the Palo Alto, California-based startup.

The social media company finds itself outspent by bigger rivals—and needing to beckon a new generation of young people.

For nearly as long as Evan Spiegel has run Snap Inc., his big bet has been on Spectacles, the company’s augmented reality glasses. All together, he has poured $3 billion into the effort—a fraction of what Mark Zuckerberg at Meta Platforms has invested in wearable technology, but a major expense for a company of Snap’s modest size. Spiegel still hasn’t seen a blockbuster hit.

Spiegel may be ready to ask for some help. Snap has begun to discuss ways to raise outside money for its Spectacles project so it can compete with deeper-pocketed rivals like Meta, according to a person with knowledge of the conversations. The company has considered possibilities such as raising money from outside investors to fund the development of Spectacles, much as Alphabet has done for its Waymo robotaxi subsidiary. It has also discussed a nuclear option: spinning off Spectacles—something that would greatly pain Snap, since its core Snapchat app shares augmented reality technology with Spectacles.

The discussions reflect a broad reality for Spiegel: Snap is in an unsteady position and competing with far more powerful social media rivals like Meta and TikTok. Snapchat does remain a popular messaging platform for many young people, and the company has carved out a place for itself within the creator economy through features like Spotlight, a TikTok competitor. Its subscription service, Snapchat+, has doubled to nearly 16 million subscribers over the past year, contributing to an annual revenue run rate from the offering of $700 million.

But another worrisome problem could be on the horizon. Senior leaders are concerned that Generation Alpha—those currently between the ages of one and 15—so far aren’t adopting the app the same way their Gen Z and Millennial predecessors did, according to two people familiar with the internal discussions, which haven’t been previously reported.

Meanwhile, a slew of departures over the past year or so has thinned out Snap’s leadership team. Patrick Harris, who ran the company’s North American business, bowed out in March. In June, Colleen DeCourcy, chief creative officer, left, and so did David Levenson, the company’s director of growth. July and August brought two more exits: Darshan Kantak, revenue product chief, and Eric Young, engineering chief. To fill Young’s spot, Snap’s other co-founder, Bobby Murphy, will assume oversight over the engineering team, along with chief business officer Ajit Mohan.

And as for the AR effort, Snap hasn’t yet progressed to doing a formal fundraising process to line up investors, but it has existing relationships with sovereign wealth funds that could fund such a deal, according to the person with knowledge of the situation. (When asked about the possibility of raising outside capital for the AR glasses, a Snap spokesperson said the company sees its free cash flow as its “most capital efficient option” for funding such a project.)

All the turbulence surrounding Snap has hit its stock, which has fallen sharply over the past few years from a high of more than $83 in 2021. Earlier this week, it traded at a little over $7.

Earlier this month, Snap reported lackluster second-quarter results. The company’s ad revenue increased just 4%, in stark contrast to double-digit growth from its much larger rivals including Meta Platforms and YouTube.

“It’s very hard to reconcile the trajectory of Snap’s ads business,” said Mark Shmulik, a senior analyst at Bernstein. “Everyone else’s numbers show acceleration.”

Lately, Snap has worked to keep influencers using its app with new ways to make money through its lucrative ad-revenue sharing program, and other initiatives like Snap School, where it invites creators to its Santa Monica, Calif., headquarters and offers them tips and pointers for growing their audience and creating content.

Snap has done over 300 Snap School sessions. Alyssa McKay, a 25-year-old creator who lives in New Jersey, has attended some of them, and they have helped her think of new approaches to chronicling her life for 2 million Snapchat followers.

McKay posts more than 100 disappearing Stories a day to Snapchat, sharing virtually every part of her day—from her breakfast to a step-by-step skin care routine. She’s made more than $2.5 million from Snapchat over the past three years, according to her manager.

“With Snapchat, it’s fairly raw, unedited and filmed in the moment. It definitely gives the audience a more personal look into your life,” McKay said. She was comparing it to Instagram and TikTok, where creators spend more time editing and curating their photos or videos.

The company’s pitch to creators like McKay and advertisers alike is that it’s a key place to reach young people. Snapchat often touts that it reaches more than 75% of 13- to 34-year-olds in many parts of the world, including the U.S. While it has maintained a hold over Gen Z for now, failing to capture the next generation of younger users could spell serious trouble for Snapchat. Users have typically been aging out of the app, while they generally stick with rival apps like Instagram and TikTok as they get older.

Within Snap, there’s concern among some employees that Generation Alpha, generally considered to be born between 2010 and 2024, may be using smartphones less than prior generations, one potential reason for slower adoption of Snapchat, according to people involved in these internal discussions. Unlike previous generations, Gen Alpha also faces stricter school restrictions on phone and social media usage, which eats into their overall screen time.

At the same time, some of the features that made Snap different, such as disappearing messages or Stories, are now widely available on other services. While Gen Alpha is still using Snapchat, many of its members aren’t using it every day as previous generations did, leading to a drop in the crucial daily active user metric, the two people said.

To boost growth in North America, where Snapchat lost daily users in the second quarter, Spiegel told Wall Street investors earlier this month that the company is thinking about how to encourage users to share more content with each other on the app, but he didn’t offer any specifics. He said people are moving from posting their own disappearing Stories for their friends to sharing other types of content with friends, such as sending them videos or Stories to start a conversation.

Snapchat’s TikTok competitor, Spotlight, has shown signs of life. It now makes up 40% of the time people spend watching content on the app. It averaged 550 million monthly users at the end of June.

Even so, the feature lags behind competitors like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and TikTok in terms of viewership and showing users a feed of relevant and hyperpersonalized videos. For example, 2.5 billion people a month watch YouTube Shorts, while TikTok has more than 1 billion global users.

And the company hasn’t successfully been able to turn large numbers of average users into influencers with their own wide following in the same way platforms like Instagram and TikTok have. Doing so could boost its advertising business. Snapchat’s core usage is still private messaging, but encouraging more of its users to spend more time watching content could bolster its ad business. (Snapchat has also started earning money from private messaging by inserting ads in a user’s chat inbox, which the company sees as a significant revenue opportunity.)

Right now, Snapchat may just not have enough content to effectively personalize Spotlight. On TikTok, for example, users react to other videos and make their own videos that piggyback off trends on the app. The volume of content they generate makes it easier for TikTok to serve people personalized videos. Over at Meta, Instagram is seeing a boost in engagement from friends directly messaging each other short-form videos.

Snapchat has faced some bumps in its content efforts. In April it abandoned a redesign effort, known as “Simple Snapchat,” after working on it for nearly a year. That redesign would have put Spotlight videos and other content more front and center by simplifying the app down to three tabs from five, including one with a TikTok-like feed of videos from creators and publishers. (When asked about abandoning the redesign, a spokesperson defended the decision by saying Snapchat’s users are “very passionate” about its current look.)

Jack Settleman, a sports-focused creator who has been posting on Snapchat since 2017, offered a stark assessment of Snap’s standing. “Culturally, it has no impact,” he said. “It’s almost siloed into its own little world.”

With its core business under significant pressure, Snap has a lot riding on Spectacles.

Bigger rivals like Meta, which has a monster ads business, can stomach spending billions on experiments in artificial intelligence and virtual reality goggles. “You have to earn that right,” said Shmulik, the Bernstein analyst.

A major reason why Snap has been able to sink as much money into Spectacles as it has is because co-founders Spiegel and Murphy have supervoting shares that give them control of most matters presented to shareholders. And they are unapologetic about using that control.

“If investors aren’t aligned with our long-term vision, then they can sell our stock and go buy another stock where they see more long-term opportunity,” Spiegel said at an event hosted by The Information in June.

None of the previous three iterations released to the broader public has taken off with customers, causing some to wonder if any ever will. Versions of the fifth generation released to developers still look large and clunky, though Spiegel has teased that the sixth iteration made public next year will be more lightweight, with see-through lenses that will allow users to browse and stream on the go.

The actual experience of using AR glasses like Snap’s still feels odd to many consumers, argues one former senior Snap employee. “It’s been 10-plus years that a lot of people have been working on it, and it’s still not natural,” this person said, describing the complicated hand gestures you need to learn—and master—to use the gadget.

Snap, for its part, says it has a headstart on the complicated technology and the recent rush of interest from other tech players is confirmation that it made the right gamble. “I think today if you look at this investment area…people’s realization [is] that this is the future form factor for computing,” Spiegel said in June. “That’s given us a lot of conviction to double down even though it is expensive.”

Despite all the risks, Snap has already “bet the farm” on Spectacles, said one former employee: It’s the device that could give the company a real boost of growth.

“It’s a big bet, right—with huge competitors—but if it wasn’t for that, I don’t know what investors would see in this platform or what the future would be,” this person said.“It just becomes another midsize media company.”

The rating agency's move was expected and follows Saks Global's completing a debt restructuring involving an exchange of notes providing the luxury retailer with much-needed increased liquidity.

Standard & Poor’s, in a move that was largely expected, on Friday downgraded Saks Global.

The ratings agency downgraded Saks Global to “selective default” from “CC” and its issue-level rating on notes issued in December 2024 to ‘D’ (default) from ‘CC.’ S&P has been concerned about Saks’ liquidity, revenue declines, overdue payments to vendors, and inventory shortages.

While being downgraded is not a good look for Saks, S&P’s anticipated move is viewed as more of a technicality that shouldn’t have any tangible impact on the retailer’s operations or near future financing ability.

The downgrade comes in the aftermath of Saks Global completing its debt restructuring on Aug. 20, which included the exchange of notes issued in December 2024 used to finance Saks’ $2.7 billion acquisition of the Neiman Marcus Group.

Referring to the debt restructuring, S&P stated, “We view the transaction as tantamount to a default because it included a debt exchange at a discount and the re-tiering of its outstanding senior secured notes issued in December 2024,” which means certain creditors were deprioritized. “Therefore, we lowered our issuer credit rating on Saks Global to ‘SD’ (selective default) from ‘CC’ and our issue-level rating on its notes issued in December 2024 to ‘D’ (default) from ‘CC’,” which is already a very low rating suggesting a company’s vulnerability.

“As part of the exchange transaction, the company has received new money totaling approximately $600 million from participating lenders, improving its liquidity position,” S&P stated. “We view the transaction as tantamount to default because of the company’s weakening liquidity position leading up to the transaction and free operating cash flow deficit. Furthermore, initial senior secured note lenders are getting less than originally promised due to the below par debt exchange, which resulted in an overall discount of about $115 million compared with pre-transaction amounts and the re-tiering of its position in the capital structure…We expect incremental annual interest expenses will represent an additional hurdle to the company’s ability to generate free operating cash flow.”

Still, S&P also indicated that it will evaluate the company’s revised capital structure and its recent strategic initiatives “when we have sufficient information on the go-forward capital structure and expect to raise the issuer credit rating to the ‘CCC’ category at that time.” That should happen very soon.

S&P expects that Saks Global will use the $600 million to rebuild its inventory position, which has been depleted due to certain vendors either discontinuing or reducing shipments. S&P also expects the money will be used to pay the retailer’s vendors and invest in synergies from the Neiman’s acquisition.

Responding to the downgrade, a Saks Global spokesperson said, “This update was anticipated following the close of our recent transaction, in which we secured $600 million in financing from existing bondholders. It is important to note that these rating actions apply to the notes issued in December 2024, and not to the new notes issued in August 2025, which are currently unrated.

“S&P expects to upgrade its rating as it learns more about our new capital structure and go-forward strategic initiatives,” the spokesperson added. “There is no default under Saks Global’s existing agreements, and the rating has no impact on our operations. We remain confident in our ability to deliver for our stakeholders.”

In addition to the debt restructuring, Saks Global’s liquidity position should improve because the company is working hard to capture synergies through the addition of NMG into its portfolio, involving consolidating various functions and layoffs to reduce costs. Saks Global expects to reduce annual costs by $600 million within the next few years.

The Net-a-porter founder claims that she has spent more than $95 million during their relationship on “expensive properties, lifestyle expenses, vacations” and introduced Torstensson to the likes of Anna Wintour and the Beckhams.

LONDON — Natalie Massenet, the founder of Net-a-porter has filed a civil case against her former partner, Erik Torstensson, the cofounder and creative director of the denim brand Frame.

According to the paper filed, Massenet is suing for breach of contract; fraud and intentional deceit; promissory estoppel, and intentional/negligent infliction of emotional distress.

The case was submitted on Wednesday at the Superior Court of California County of Los Angeles.

Massenet and Torstensson first met in 2009, when Torstensson approached Massenet about launching a menswear arm of Net-a-porter, which is now Mr Porter.

The pair started a relationship in late 2010, after Massenet had sold her portion of the business for “tens of millions of dollars,” according to the court filing.

Massenet and Torstensson were in a 14-year relationship and welcomed a son together in 2017.

In the filing, Massenet claims to be “not only heartbroken, but also cash strapped with his child” in the paper. The paper adds that Torstensson is demanding joint custody of their child.

She alleges that she has spent more than $95 million during their relationship on “expensive properties, lifestyle expenses, vacations and more based on Torstensson’s promises to repay her in kind.”

The Net-a-porter founder, who is currently a New York resident, is demanding “a fair, equitable return on the investments she made, value she created and costs she carried.”

Signs of trouble in paradise began to occur in 2024, according to the paper.

Massenet claims Torstensson became “emotionally distant, drank more heavily, disappeared for nights and became physically and emotionally unwell,” and that she found him to have “frequent bouts of bad stomach infections, influenza, panic attacks and hives.”

In the paper, Massenet alleges that in May 2025 she found her partner to be a “‘liar, drug addict, alcoholic and sex addict,’ who had been actively doing drugs including cocaine, ecstasy and oxycodone, hiring and sleeping with prostitutes, and engaging in multiple affairs with younger women during the majority of their 14-year relationship.”

The paper goes on to add that “Massenet found a prescription bottle of Valacyclovir filled by Torstensson in January 2025, which he told her was for the hives. Massenet later learned that Valacyclovir is used to treat herpes infections.”

Massenet claims that Torstensson was using their relationship for “social clout” to rack up investment and equity positions worth “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The filing specifies that when Torstensson launched the label Frame, Massenet supported him by launching its first collection on Net-a-porter.

n the paper, Massenet states that she used her expansive Rolodex to introduce Torstensson to the likes of Vogue U.S. editor in chief Anna Wintour; designer Diane Von Furstenberg; Michael Ovitz, the cofounder of Creative Artists Agency; Jimmy Choo’s cofounder Tamara Mellon; Glossier founder Emily Weiss, and British power couple, David and Victoria Beckham.

The filing features a text message sent to Victoria Beckham by Torstensson asking to “Send me sizes for yourself, David and Brooklyn and I will send you a package of Frame goodies. So glad you like them.”

In Massenet’s and Torstensson’s 14-year relationship, it’s clear that the lines between their professional and personal lives became intertwined and blurred.

The reason for Massenet filing in California is because of its links to her and Torstensson’s life.

She was born in Los Angeles and attended the University of California, as well as building “extensive personal and professional ties to California,” said the paper.

The paper reveals that Torstensson is also a New York resident, but a majority of his business operations are based in California. Torstensson was an early shareholder of Skims and Good American, the shapewear brand founded by Kim Kardashian and the denim-centric brand cofounded by Khloé Kardashian and Emma Grede.

According to the paper, “The equity value of Torstensson’s stake in Skims alone is estimated to be in excess of $300 million.”

The filing details that the couple used a relationship counselor based in Los Angeles and both work with a physician in the city that “routinely provides prescriptions to Torstensson.”

The paper alleges that Torstensson’s drug use and infidelity materialized in California.

Torstensson is yet to file a response to the claims made by Massenet.

Massenet was unavailable to comment. Torstensson could not be reached for comment at time of press.

In 2000, Massenet founded fashion online retailer Net-a-porter. In the year before she stepped down from her role in 2015 following the Yoox Net-a-porter merger, the Net-a-porter Group recorded net revenues of almost $1 billion.

In 2016, she was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her contributions and services to the U.K. economy.

In 2017, Massenet became nonexecutive co-chairman of Farfetch, a role she left in August 2020.

She teamed up with Nick Brown, formerly a partner at the venture capital firm 14W, to set up Imaginary Ventures in 2018, focusing on innovations at the intersection of retail and technology.

The firm closed its first fund of $75 million in 2018, which included investments across the beauty, wellness, food and beverage, lifestyle and fashion sectors.

Its brand investments have ranged from Glossier, Camp, Bread Beauty Supply, Dirty Lemon, Universal Standard and Goodfair to Mejuri and Skims.

Torstensson found his business footing in 2003 with his business partner, Jens Grede. The pair founded their own agency Saturday, which would later be renamed as Saturday Group that rapidly expanded into 12 separate companies spanning advertising, branding, public relations, e-commerce, entertainment and apparel distribution with offices in New York, London, Paris and Milan.

In 2012, Torstensson and Grede launched Frame with one pair of skinny jeans and quickly grew into a lifestyle label for women and men that generated $170 million in sales by 2022.

Trump administration says it wants to review national security implications of $1.5bn project that is 80% complete

The US has halted construction on a $1.5bn offshore wind farm off Rhode Island, dealing a new blow to Danish energy group Ørsted as it tries to repair its balance sheet.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a stop-work order on Friday, citing the need “to address concerns related to the protection of national security interests”. The agency did not provide further details.

Revolution Wind, which Ørsted is developing with Skyborn Renewables, a unit of BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners, is 80 per cent complete. The project has finished installing foundations and 45 of the 65 planned turbines. 

It was due to begin operations next year and supply enough power for 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut under 20-year contracts.

It is the second time the Trump administration has intervened in a big US offshore wind project. In April, the White House paused, and then later approved Equinor’s $5bn Empire Wind project, which was at an earlier stage of development than Ørsted’s. 

On Saturday, Ørsted said it has obtained the necessary permits and was “evaluating its options”, including legal action. The company said it would update the market on the financial implications of the order “in due course”.

The potential delay, or loss, of revenues from the project piles greater pressure on the world’s largest offshore wind developer, which launched a $9.4bn emergency rights issue this month after struggling to attract partners for its Sunrise Wind project off New York. The share sale triggered a sharp sell-off in Ørsted stock.

Revolution Wind, the halted project, is part of 8.1GW of wind projects globally that Ørsted said it was relying on to put its finances back on track. It is one of five offshore wind projects in the US that are under construction. 

“This is the kind of stuff that happens in third-world countries and instead it’s happening in what is supposed to be the bastion of the free market. It’s just not serious,” said a spokesperson for the Global Wind Energy Council, an industry group. 

“It has an extremely chilling effect in the sense that the US is not a safe place for investment.”

The stop-work order represents the latest setback to Washington’s Nato ally Denmark. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to take control of the giant Arctic island of Greenland from Denmark, and has not ruled out using force.

He has also trained his sights on Novo Nordisk, the pharmaceutical group that has reduced prices on its weight-loss drugs in the US sharply in recent weeks.

Denmark, which is buying F-35 fighter jets from the US, has offered to increase its focus on Arctic security.

But on Friday, Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen was in California where he signed a new partnership with the state’s governor Gavin Newsom, who is the self-appointed head of the “resistance” to Trump. 

It has been a wild ride for Intel over the past few weeks. Eight times the stock has seen a one-day move of plus or minus 3%.

The volatility stems from all of the issues roiling markets these days: geopolitics, trade, artificial intelligence, U.S. industrial policy, and a micromanaging executive branch.

In Intel’s case, everything is amplified by a decadelong struggle with technology.

The headlines whipping the stock have focused on Intel’s financing, but money alone won’t solve the company’s problems, which are rooted in manufacturing.

Those challenges have led to turnover in Intel’s executive suite, undermining a well-respected longtime engineer in Pat Gelsinger, who stepped down in December after failing to mount a turnaround.

The new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, has limited options and time to fix the situation. On Aug. 7, President Donald Trump kicked off the latest round of Intel’s stock volatility when he wrote on social media, “The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem.” Intel shares declined more than 3% that day.

But another solution emerged after Tan visited the White House to gain the president’s favor. On Aug. 11, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Mr. Tan and my Cabinet members are going to spend time together, and bring suggestions to me during the next week.” Intel stock was up more than 3% that day.

This launched two weeks of stories surrounding Intel’s financing through the U.S. Chips Act and private investors. Late Friday, Intel agreed to a deal in which the U.S. government gets a 9.9% stake in the company, in return for fulfilling its full payout under the U.S. Chips Act, a total of $11.1 billion.

The law passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in 2022 never called for equity stakes for that funding. But political dynamics have shifted. Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind., Vt.), a self-described democratic socialist, had called for the government to receive equity in exchange for funding, but his policy wasn’t included in the final legislation.

The Biden administration granted Intel $11.1 billion from the Chips Act, spread over five projects, including a $3.2 billion special contract with the U.S. Department of Defense. The grants were disbursed based on capital investment progress. Intel had received only $2.2 billion, leaving most of it up for grabs. What had been free to Intel now comes with a heavy price.

To complicate matters, on Monday Intel and SoftBank Group announced a $2 billion cash infusion in exchange for about 2% of Intel, another seemingly dilutive deal. The price of $23 per share is a small discount to Intel’s closing price earlier that day. On Wednesday, CNBC reported that Intel is seeking similar deals at discounted share prices with other private investors.

Intel needs this funding. At the end of June, the company had $21 billion in cash and short-term investments. On the other side of the ledger, subtracting capital expenditures from operational cash flows, Intel lost $45 billion over the past 3½ years, $6 billion of that in 2025. New financing is crucial, but it won’t be enough to get Intel back into the lead.

As of Friday, the stock is down 64% since its last peak in early 2020.

It’s tempting to look at the decline and see a cheap stock. Indeed, the stock trades right around its book value, which means that investors don’t think it’s worth more than what’s on the balance sheet—assets minus liabilities. Back in 2020, Intel traded at 3.8 times book value.

A rebound would probably provide a giant windfall for shareholders. But Intel has been trying to right the ship for four years, and in 2025 it doesn’t seem any closer to success.

In 2021, with the company already in crisis, new CEO Pat Gelsinger announced an ambitious plan to launch five new manufacturing processes in four years, an unheard-of pace. The goal was to get Intel’s technology back on track quickly after it had lost leadership to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and, like Taiwan Semi, provide service to outside customers.

So far, only the first of these five “nodes” can be considered a success, having made five different lines of Intel chips from 2021 to 2023. There have been three subsequent nodes, and each was a different sort of failure, allowing Intel’s main competitor, Advanced Micro Devices, to surpass its technology. AMD uses Taiwan Semiconductor to manufacture its chips.

The third of the five nodes was meant to launch Intel as a manufacturer for other chip companies. That didn’t happen, and it was used only sparsely by Intel. The fourth node was supposed to feature Qualcomm as the launch customer, but that went nowhere, and the node looks to have been scrapped.

In the first half of 2025, Intel has earned $53 million from outside customers for its manufacturing segment, which featured an operating loss of $5.5 billion.

While Tan has said that the fifth of the five nodes will make three generations of Intel chips, the company’s foundry still doesn’t have a large external customer. Intel hit its four-nodes-in-five years timeline, but only the first node, and maybe the fifth, have proved to be very useful.

Since 2021, Intel has spent over $100 billion building these nodes, with little to show for it.

Sure enough, Tan has a new approach. Instead of his predecessor’s “build it and they will come” attitude, he is essentially saying, we’ll build it, if they come.

Now, it’s a question of who shows up.

The world’s largest hedge fund made changes to its portfolio in the second quarter that culminated in the sale of several major Chinese technology stocks.

Bridgewater Associates exited its investments in a handful of companies, including Alibaba, Baidu, and NIO, by the end of the second quarter, filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show.

The fund sold 5.7 million shares of Alibaba, 2.1 million shares of Baidu, and 1.7 million shares of Nio. The firm also exited auto maker Li Auto through the sale of 12,826 shares it held in the first quarter, and exited JD.com through the sale of 2.8 million shares.

Bridgewater didn’t respond to a request for comment. As of mid-July, the fund had roughly $136.5 billion discretionary assets under management.

Since July 1, Alibaba’s ADR has risen 6.4%, outpacing a 4.1% gain for the S&P 500. Baidu and NIO’s ADRs have gained 4.4% and 37%, respectively.

The portfolio adjustments come against the backdrop of a cooling economy in China. New yuan loans fell unexpectedly in July, representing the country’s first contraction in two decades and sparking concerns about a worsening economic downturn.

While Alibaba posted solid earnings in February, it underperformed estimates in May. A myriad of rivals, including JD.com, Meituan, and Temu parent PDD Holdings, have heaped pressure on China’s largest e-commerce platform.

Baidu, an artificial-intelligence heavyweight and a leader in autonomous driving, has expanded its footprint outside China through partnerships with Lyft and Uber. While Baidu broke a three-quarter streak of falling revenue in May, uncertainty persists amid competitive pressure from rivals like DeepSeek and questions over the company’s ability to find new growth drivers.

NIO, the maker of electric cars, has had a similarly bumpy ride. The company reported a wider-than-expected loss in the first quarter against a backdrop of intensifying competition in the premium EV market. Deliveries came in at 21,017 vehicles for July, up 25% from last year but down from 24,925 in June.

Japan sustained a one-two punch in late July. The perennially governing Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority in parliament’s upper house, throwing politics into turmoil. Three days later, the U.S. imposed 15% tariffs on exports that exceed 3% of Japanese gross domestic product.

Investors reacted...positively. The iShares MSCI Japan exchange-traded fund has climbed 9% since the trade deal with Washington was announced on July 23, consolidating a 20% gain year to date.

Job prospects for Shigeru Ishiba, the prime minister who led the LDP to a third straight election debacle, are looking up, too. “The likelihood of Ishiba surviving this political crisis has increased,” says Tobias Harris, founder of consultant Japan Foresight.

The 15% levy could spell relative advantage for automobiles, Japan’s No. 1 export to the U.S., notes Drew Edwards, head of Japan value equities at GMO. “With U.S. auto makers paying 50% tariffs on imported steel, the Japanese may stand to pick up market share,” he says.

Further gains in Japanese stocks could come harder. “The latest rally has taken us to our limit on Japan,” says Alex Wolf, head of macro investment strategy at J.P. Morgan Private Bank.

Other managers are shifting focus from industrial heavyweights to domestic-facing stocks, particularly financials. Monetary conditions are favorable for Japanese banks, argues Daniel Hurley, a portfolio specialist in international equities at T. Rowe Price. The Bank of Japan is holding its prime rate at 0.5%, while the yield curve for longer-term borrowing tips sharply upward, offering generous interest margins. His picks in the sector include Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Resona Holdings, a regional player based in Osaka.

The yen could appreciate sharply in the medium term, adds Aaron Hurd, senior currency portfolio manager at State Street Global Advisors. Japanese interest rates should inch up while the Federal Reserve cuts and U.S. growth slows, reducing the pull of U.S. assets. The yen, currently at 147 to the dollar, “will be in the low-130s by the end of next year and 120s after that,” Hurd predicts.

A stronger currency would depress earnings for global manufacturers like Toyota Motor and Sony Group, but spell relief and looser wallets for consumers coming to grips with Japan’s first inflation in decades. “Japanese authorities will be pretty happy with a stronger yen,” Hurd expects.

The LDP’s electoral defeat, and need to entice new coalition partners, increases chances for some crowd-pleasing fiscal stimulus that could juice consumer spending in the meantime, Edwards says. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see some populist measures like a cut in taxes on fuels,” he says.

He is focusing on healthcare stocks, which have a surprisingly low weighting in the world’s oldest country. Picks include surgical supplier HOGY Medical and laboratory network H.U. Group Holdings.

A longer-range tailwind for Japanese stocks remains a governance sea change toward returning more capital to shareholders and reducing the deadweight of cross-shareholdings. Share buybacks jumped by more than half last year to $108 billion, according to Nikkei Asia. “Investors expect Japanese companies to allocate more money to active investments and shareholder returns,” says Kazunori Ito, director of Japanese equity research at Morningstar.

Japan cannot escape being a trade-reliant nation in a trade-war era. Exports have exceeded 20% of GDP for the past few years, twice the U.S. proportion. Other strengths are keeping some investors hopeful, though. “Japan remains the most overweight position in our portfolio,” GMO’s Edwards says.