FT : Jeff Bezos’s new lab hires xAI co-founder from OpenAI

Jeff Bezos’s new lab hires xAI co-founder from OpenAI
Kyle Kosic joins Project Prometheus, the secretive start-up working on systems that can understand the physical world

A company owned by Jeff Bezos has poached an xAI co-founder from a role at OpenAI, as the tech billionaire’s secretive start-up rapidly recruits to pursue its ambition to create AI systems that can transform the industrial sector.

Kyle Kosic has joined Project Prometheus, a code name for the new company led by Bezos and former Google executive Vikram Bajaj, according to people familiar with the matter.

A co-founder of xAI alongside Elon Musk, Kosic led the infrastructure team behind its Colossus supercomputer before returning to his former employer OpenAI in 2024. He will continue to work on AI infrastructure projects at Prometheus, the people said.

His move marks the latest in a dizzying round of job changes as AI labs compete fiercely for top talent, often offering substantial salaries to lure staff from rivals.

Musk has seen all 11 of his xAI co-founders leave, with several departing in recent months, and some with complaints about Musk’s management. The last two, Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen, left the company at the end of March, according to people familiar with the matter as first reported by Business Insider.

Prometheus, meanwhile, has hired hundreds of staff at its headquarters in San Francisco and in its offices in London and Zurich. It has focused on hiring engineers, AI researchers and people with experience in “building out massive infrastructure projects”, one person familiar with its hiring said.

The start-up, launched by Bezos last year, is working on AI systems that can operate in the physical world and go beyond the language-based systems behind chatbots like ChatGPT or coding tools like Claude Code.

Project Prometheus declined to comment.

The company is particularly focused on the industrial sector. It envisions a model that can understand the laws of physics and is trained on data from specific domains, such as jet engine design, one person close to the company said.

They added that the company had already “assembled the largest corpus of data on engineering” and how such systems work.

Prometheus also plans to amass stakes in companies across sectors such as engineering, aviation, architecture and design. Those deals would include gathering data from these companies, which could be used to improve the start-up’s AI model.

Bezos and Bajaj are personally leading Prometheus’s efforts to raise tens of billions of dollars or more for a “permanent capital vehicle” that would acquire equity stakes in companies likely to be disrupted by AI in the future.

One person compared it to a “Berkshire Hathaway-type holding company”.

“Prometheus wants to back the progress of these industries, which will happen eventually with AI, but they don’t want it to take 10 years,” the person added.

The start-up plans to have its staff working within these companies, often known as “forward deployed engineers”. The investment and input from staff, it hopes, will improve margins and operations at the companies.

The AI industry has struggled to create models that truly understand physical space due to a lack of high-quality data that represents the real world, rather than more readily available text and computer code.

Competitors’ current efforts involve training on video data and simulations to mimic real-world environments.

Prometheus is also discussing investments in this vehicle with sovereign investment funds, including from Singapore and Gulf nations, multiple people said.

TSLA | The Real Reason Behind the SpaceX IPO — Musk's $139Bn Compensation Tri



From: Laurent Chekroun (MAKOR CAPITAL MARKET) At: 04/05/26 15:07:42 UTC+2:00
Subject: TSLA | The Real Reason Behind the SpaceX IPO — Musk's $139Bn Compensation Tri
The SpaceX confidential SEC filing of April 1 has been widely read as an IPO story. We think it is primarily a compensation engineering story — and the most consequential one in equity market history.

Here is the mechanism, in plain terms.

─────────────────────────────────────
THE TESLA COMPENSATION PLAN — STRUCTURE
─────────────────────────────────────

Musk's 2018 Tesla compensation plan — originally valued at $56Bn, now estimated at $139Bn following market appreciation following its Delaware reinstatement in February 2026 — consists exclusively of performance stock options structured around 12 market capitalisation tranches. Each tranche unlocks when Tesla's market cap crosses a predefined threshold. There is no base salary, no time vesting. Pure performance equity.

The plan carries no expiry risk tied to share price alone, but it does expire if the milestones are not achieved within the defined operational and market cap windows. Critically: the milestones are set on Tesla's standalone market cap.

─────────────────────────────────────
THE MERGER AS A MILESTONE ACCELERATOR
─────────────────────────────────────

Here is what changes with a SpaceX/Tesla merger:

1. The combined entity's market cap immediately reflects the sum of both valuations. Tesla alone trades at ~$1.58T. Add SpaceX at $1.75T (IPO price), and the combined entity sits at ~$3.3T — comfortably above every remaining milestone threshold in the 2018 plan.

2. A merger agreement typically requires the acquiring/surviving entity to assume, convert, or accelerate the target's outstanding compensation plans. In a Tesla/SpaceX combination, the recalibration of Musk's Tesla tranches is a central governance issue that must be resolved as part of deal terms. The independent Tesla board committee handling the merger will be forced to make a determination on the outstanding options.

3. The independent fairness opinion, which any proper merger process requires, will necessarily address whether the combined entity's market cap — at $3T+ — satisfies the spirit and letter of the remaining tranche milestones. It almost certainly does.

4. The result: a deal structure that mechanically triggers full vesting of the remaining tranches, generating an estimated $100–300Bn in option value for Musk depending on the exercise price and stock price at the time of conversion.

To put this in context: Bloomberg currently excludes the entire $139Bn plan from Musk's net worth as contingent. Forbes partially includes it based on milestone progress. A merger collapses that uncertainty in Musk's favour, permanently.

─────────────────────────────────────
WHY THE IPO COMES FIRST
─────────────────────────────────────

The sequencing matters enormously. SpaceX must be a public company with an independently verifiable market price before any Tesla/SpaceX merger can be executed without legal challenge. Without a public SpaceX price, any exchange ratio is a related-party transaction with no external benchmark — a certain target for Delaware class action litigation.

The confidential filing is therefore Step 1 of a two-step process:
→ Step 1: SpaceX IPO at $1.75T (June 2026) — establishes the fairness opinion anchor
→ Step 2: All-stock merger with Tesla — triggers the compensation milestone cascade

The passive index mechanics amplify the entire trade. Nasdaq 100 inclusion 15 days post-listing, followed by S&P 500 fast-track, generates an estimated $150–200Bn in forced buying from passive vehicles. This mechanically pushes SpaceX valuation higher ahead of the merger ratio negotiation — maximising Musk's exchange ratio and therefore the value of the Tesla tranches he receives in conversion.

─────────────────────────────────────
THE NUMBER
─────────────────────────────────────

If executed cleanly:
• Tesla comp plan fully triggered: est. $100–300Bn in option value
• SpaceX stake crystallised: ~$753Bn at IPO price
• Combined net worth (Forbes basis): $1.4–1.6T

This would represent the single largest individual compensation event in the history of public markets — by an order of magnitude.

─────────────────────────────────────
RISKS TO THE THESIS
─────────────────────────────────────

• Delaware independent committee on Tesla may reject the merger terms or propose an unfavourable exchange ratio — exactly the scenario that blocked the 2018 plan initially
• Antitrust scrutiny on a $3T entity controlling launch, satellite internet, defense, and AI simultaneously
• Market dislocation in Q2 2026 (US-Iran, Nasdaq correction) delays or kills the June IPO window
• xAI cash burn disclosed in S-1 creates a valuation overhang on the combined entity

─────────────────────────────────────

Full note (FR/EN) attached — covers the 4 consolidation scenarios, passive flow mechanics, cap structure, and complete flywheel.

Happy to discuss.

Best

SpaceX IPO — Initiation of Coverage | Graham Advisors | 5 April 2026



From: Laurent Chekroun (MAKOR CAPITAL MARKET) At: 04/05/26 15:24:23 UTC+2:00
Subject: SpaceX IPO — Initiation of Coverage | Graham Advisors | 5 April 2026
SpaceX IPO — Initiation of Coverage | Graham Advisors | 5 April 2026

We publish today our initiation note on SpaceX, following the confidential SEC filing on 1 April 2026 (target valuation $1.75T).

VERDICT: an extraordinary company at an immoderate valuation.

Key points:
— Mature business (Starlink + Launch) stands alone at $350-450B — 20-26% of IPO valuation
— 74-80% of valuation = pure option value on 10-20yr horizon projects (orbital data centres, Mars, mining)
— 113x 2025 revenue; $200-500B additional capex requirement post-IPO is structurally unfunded
— Fair institutional entry: $900B-$1.1T (35-45% post-listing correction)
— Dual-class structure confirmed → minority shareholders structurally voiceless
— Hyperscaler capex analogy holds — but at an order of magnitude with no precedent

Full note (FR/EN) attached. Available on request.

Graham Advisors SARL | Freienbach, Switzerland
This communication does not constitute investment advice.

>>> AI DRUG DISCOVERY — 2 NOTES ATTACHED



From: Laurent Chekroun (MAKOR CAPITAL MARKET) At: 04/05/26 20:13:45 UTC+2:00
Subject: >>> AI DRUG DISCOVERY — 2 NOTES ATTACHED
GRAHAM ADVISORS | INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH | 5 APRIL 2026

*** AI DRUG DISCOVERY — 2 NOTES ATTACHED ***

Following Anthropic's $400M acquisition of Coefficient Bio (reported by The Information / Eric Newcomer), we are publishing two complementary notes on the listed AI drug-discovery universe.

──────────────────────────────────────
NOTE 1 — SECTOR OVERVIEW & M&A CONTEXT
• The Coefficient Bio deal as a valuation anchor (~$40M/head acqui-hire premium)
• AI drug discovery supercycle: where we stand in 2026
• Strategic buyer landscape: Big Tech vs. Large Pharma
• M&A precedents and per-head valuation triangulation across 5 listed names
──────────────────────────────────────
NOTE 2 — DEEP DIVE: SDGR / RXRX / RLAY / ABSI / ABCL
• Individual profiles: platform, pipeline, financials, analyst consensus, catalysts
• Hierarchy of conviction: RLAY and ABSI as top picks
• 2026 catalyst calendar and comparative matrix
──────────────────────────────────────

TOP PICKS
▸ RLAY US — Phase 3 zovegalisib (BTD), $554M cash, multiple analyst upgrades to $19-22. M&A target for Novartis / Roche.
▸ ABSI US — Closest listed comparable to Coefficient Bio. $422M mktcap, generative AI antibody design, ABS-201 AGA data H2 2026. AZ / Lilly M&A angle.

CORE LONG
▸ SDGR US — SaaS compounder ($199M ACV, 74% gross margin), –58% from 52W high, Morningstar FV $26.66 vs. $11.55 current. Big Tech acquisition target.

WATCHLIST
▸ RXRX US — Post-Exscientia merger, 7 clinical readouts, CEO transition risk
▸ ABCL US — Premium platform, post-COVID revenue headwind, Lilly M&A optionality

All prices as of 1–5 April 2026. Please revert with any questions.

Laurent Chekroun
Graham Advisors SARL | Makor Capital Markets
Freienbach, Canton of Schwyz

>>> EQUITY STRATEGY | SPX '26 EPS vs. Multiple Divergence — The Mag7 Confession



From: Laurent Chekroun (MAKOR CAPITAL MARKET) At: 04/05/26 10:35:05 UTC+2:00
Subject: >>> EQUITY STRATEGY | SPX '26 EPS vs. Multiple Divergence — The Mag7 Confession
EQUITY STRATEGY | SPX '26 EPS vs. Multiple Divergence — The Mag7 Confession Season Begins | Q1 2026 Earnings Preview


━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I. THE CORE DISLOCATION: EPS STILL AT $323, MARKET PRICING RECESSION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The BofA chart making the rounds this morning crystallises what is arguably the cleanest macro signal of the cycle: S&P 500 2026E EPS has been revised UP +4% since January 1st to $323 — almost entirely on Mag7 margin and capex monetisation assumptions — while the index itself has violently de-rated. The divergence is not noise. It is a direct read on multiple compression: the market is not buying the $323 story.

The implied forward P/E on the way down is now ~18.8x vs. a 22x+ peak six weeks ago. Historically, that compression happens either because (a) estimates are wrong, or (b) the macro trajectory deteriorates faster than analysts can revise. Right now, both risks are live simultaneously.

What is not yet priced: analyst estimates are a lagging variable. Buy-side knows this. The sell-side coverage universe has NOT moved the Mag7 EPS pencil materially — cuts are coming on guidance, not on forward assumptions. That is the trap embedded in the BofA chart. The moment guidance wobbles on the April/May reporting cycle, the $323 floor becomes the $295–$305 ceiling, and re-rating lower accelerates.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
II. THE FULL Q1 2026 EARNINGS CALENDAR — SUPPLIERS FIRST, MAG7 AFTER
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

⚡ TIER 1 — CRITICAL READ-THROUGHS BEFORE MAG7 REPORTS

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ DATE │ COMPANY │ TICKER │ WHAT TO WATCH │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Apr 15 (BMO) │ ASML │ ASML │ EUV order book, China normalisation │
│ Apr 16 (BMO) │ TSMC │ TSM │ Hyperscaler CoWoS demand, 2nm ramp │
│ Apr 16 (AMC) │ Netflix │ NFLX │ Ad spend environment, digital CPM │
│ Apr 22 (TBC) │ SAP SE │ SAP │ Enterprise IT budget read-through │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

⚡ TIER 2 — MAG7 REPORTING WINDOW (APRIL 28 – MAY 20)

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ DATE │ COMPANY │ TICKER │ CONSENSUS EPS │ CONSENSUS REV │ KEY │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Apr 28 (AMC) │ Tesla │ TSLA │ ~$0.50 │ ~$23–24B │ AUTO │
│ Apr 28 (AMC) │ Alphabet │ GOOGL │ ~$2.10–2.20 │ ~$89–91B │ CLOUD │
│ Apr 29 (AMC) │ Amazon │ AMZN │ ~$1.95–2.10 │ ~$155–157B │ AWS │
│ Apr 29 (AMC) │ Meta │ META │ ~$5.25–5.50 │ ~$41–43B │ AI/AD │
│ Apr 30 (AMC) │ Apple │ AAPL │ ~$1.60–1.65 │ ~$94–96B │ IPHONE│
│ May 7 (AMC) │ Microsoft │ MSFT │ ~$3.45–3.55 │ ~$73–75B │ AZURE │
│ May 20 (AMC) │ Nvidia │ NVDA │ ~$0.90–0.95 │ ~$43–45B │ DC/AI │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Note: Consensus figures as of April 5, 2026. Dates subject to confirmation. Alphabet and Amazon dates remain unconfirmed; Tesla confirmed Apr 28.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
III. DEEP DIVE — MAG7 STOCK BY STOCK
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

───────────────────────────────────
1. NVIDIA (NVDA) | Reports ~May 20
───────────────────────────────────
Last print (Q4 FY2026, Feb 25): Revenue $68.1B (+73% YoY, +20% QoQ). Data Centre alone $62B (+75%). Non-GAAP EPS $1.62 vs. $1.54 est. Gross margins held at 75%. Q1 FY2027 guidance: $78B (±2%) — a further ~15% sequential step-up.

Management guided that Vera Rubin next-gen AI chips are tracking SIX MONTHS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE — one of the most significant positive datapoints in the tech cycle right now.

Key risk into Q1 FY2027: Blackwell ramp deceleration, gross margin pressure from CoWoS packaging constraints (TSMC-dependent), and export control overhang on H20 series into China. Any guide-down from the $78B level will be interpreted as a demand air pocket — and will re-price the entire AI infrastructure trade.

What we want to hear: (i) Vera Rubin pull-forward orders from hyperscalers, (ii) inference chip ramp (GB200 NVL72 rack systems), (iii) no margin compression below 73%.

Bull case: $85B+ Q2 guide. Bear case: $72–74B with margin pressure — stock gaps -15% or more.

───────────────────────────────────
2. MICROSOFT (MSFT) | Reports ~May 7
───────────────────────────────────
Last print (Q2 FY2026, Jan 29): Revenue $81.3B (+17% YoY). Azure +39% YoY — the standout metric. Microsoft Cloud $51.5B (+26%). Commercial RPO surged to $625B (+110% YoY) — a staggering forward demand indicator. GAAP EPS $5.16 (+60%). Capex guided at $99B for FY2026 (June year-end), with CFO Amy Hood confirming further growth in FY2027. OpenAI relationship evolving — Microsoft is simultaneously diversifying toward Anthropic ($5B investment).

The Azure +39% number is the single most important data point in the Mag7 universe. If it holds or accelerates in Q3 FY2026 (the quarter being reported in May), the AI monetisation thesis is intact. If it decelerates to +32–34%, expect material estimate cuts across the entire hyperscaler complex.

Key watch: Azure growth rate vs. expectations, Copilot seat monetisation velocity, capex commentary for FY2027.

───────────────────────────────────
3. META PLATFORMS (META) | Reports Apr 29
───────────────────────────────────
Last print (Q4 2025, Jan 29): Revenue $59.9B (+24% YoY). FY2025 revenue $201B (+22%). EPS $8.88 vs. $8.21 est. (+8.1% surprise). Ad impressions +18% YoY; average price per ad +6%. DAP 3.58B (+7%). FY2025 capex: confirmed in the $60–65B range — above prior consensus of $50.7B.

2026 capex guidance: Zuckerberg guided $110–125B+ for 2026 AI infrastructure. This is the single largest capex commitment of any company globally as a % of revenue. The market initially sold this hard (-28% from peak). Since then, META has partially recovered on ad monetisation resilience.

Q1 2026 key read: Ad revenue growth (is the +20% YoY revenue trajectory holding?), Reality Labs losses vs. expectations, any revision to the $110–125B capex band. If Zuckerberg signals capex optimisation, read that as ROI pressure — not discipline. If he doubles down, the market will want evidence of Llama/AI monetisation timelines.

───────────────────────────────────
4. ALPHABET (GOOGL) | Reports ~Apr 28
───────────────────────────────────
Last print (Q4 2025, Feb 4): EPS $2.82 vs. $2.63 est. Revenue $113.83B vs. $111.43B est. Net income +30% YoY to $34.46B. Google Cloud $17.66B (+48% YoY — the standout). YouTube ad revenue $11.38B — missed $11.84B expected. 2026 capex guidance: $175–185B — more than DOUBLE 2025 levels. Alphabet is betting the entire company on AI infrastructure.

Q1 2026 concern: YouTube miss in Q4 raises the question of whether digital ad CPM is starting to soften at the margin — a critical read-through for the broader ad market. Google Cloud growth of +48% must continue: if it decelerates to +35–38%, the AI monetisation premium evaporates. Search ad market share is also under scrutiny as AI-native search (Perplexity, OpenAI SearchGPT) gains enterprise adoption.

Key watch: Cloud revenue growth rate, Search ad market share commentary, YouTube CPM trends, any revision to the $175–185B capex commitment.

───────────────────────────────────
5. AMAZON (AMZN) | Reports ~Apr 29
───────────────────────────────────
Last print (Q4 2025): EPS $1.95 — slight miss vs. $1.97 consensus. AWS: consensus was $29.4B for Q1, operating margin ~35%. FY2026 capex: guided to $105B — nearly double 2023 levels.

AWS is the most important cloud read-through for enterprise AI spending. AWS growth vs. Azure growth will define the Q2 sector narrative. Amazon has additional complexity: tariff exposure on the e-commerce side creates a dual-risk print — if the core retail margin is squeezed while AWS is also guiding cautiously, the stock re-rates to a new lower bound. FX is an additional headwind given USD strength.

Key watch: AWS revenue growth rate (consensus ~$29.4B for Q1), operating margin trajectory, any tariff impact disclosure on retail COGS, North America advertising revenue (a stealth AI monetisation engine).

───────────────────────────────────
6. APPLE (AAPL) | Reports Apr 30
───────────────────────────────────
Last print (Q1 FY2026, Jan 29): EPS $2.84 vs. $2.67 est. Revenue $143.8B (+16% YoY). iPhone +23% to $85.27B. China recovery: +38% growth to $25.53B — the most positive surprise in years. Services $26.34B (+14%). Mac -7%. Wearables -2%. Demand outpaced supply.

Apple is paradoxically the SAFEST of the Mag7 into earnings — the last print was strong, iPhone demand held, and the Google Gemini deal for Siri overhaul adds an AI monetisation optionality layer that has not yet been priced by most models.

Key risk into Q2 FY2026 (April 30 report, which covers the January–March quarter): tariff exposure on Chinese manufacturing — Apple has ~90% of iPhone production in China. Every 10% tariff on Chinese goods is estimated at a ~$900 gross profit hit per iPhone. Tim Cook has been actively building out India capacity, but the ramp cannot cover FY2026 volumes. This is the one name where the tariff narrative could genuinely move the needle on estimates.

Key watch: Gross margin guidance (tariff pass-through), China revenue (can the +38% trajectory hold?), Services growth, India production ramp timeline.

───────────────────────────────────
7. TESLA (TSLA) | Reports Apr 28
───────────────────────────────────
Last print (Q4 2025, Jan 28): Revenue $24.9B (-3% YoY) — first annual revenue decline in company history. FY2025 revenue $94.83B vs. $97.69B in 2024. GAAP net income Q4 $840M (-61%). Non-GAAP EPS $0.50 vs. $0.40 est. (+25% surprise). Gross margin 20.1%. Cash $44.1B. Deliveries Q4: 418,227 vehicles.

Tesla is structurally the most challenged name in the Mag7 complex. Top-line has stalled, BYD has overtaken as global EV leader, and the valuation at 200x+ forward earnings is entirely dependent on Optimus/Robotaxi optionality — neither of which is contributing to 2026 earnings.

Elon's political visibility has created measurable brand damage in Europe and coastal US — a real headwind that has not yet been fully modelled into delivery forecasts. Q1 2026 delivery data (expected shortly) will be the first read on whether the Cybercab ramp is offsetting Model S/X weakness. Any delivery miss below 400K will re-open the debate on the 200x multiple.

Key watch: Q1 deliveries vs. 400K threshold, gross margin resilience, Optimus/FSD timeline update, any Robotaxi regulatory news.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
IV. THE CRITICAL SUPPLIER READ-THROUGHS — TRADE THESE BEFORE MAG7
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

───────────────────────────────────
A. TSMC (TSM) | Apr 16 — THE MOST IMPORTANT REPORT OF THE SEASON
───────────────────────────────────
TSMC guided Q1 2026 revenue of $34.6–35.8B (+38% YoY). Gross margin 63–65%. FY2026 revenue expected to grow ~30% in USD terms. The company is ramping 2nm Gate-All-Around (GAA) technology and managing Arizona Fab 3 costs simultaneously.

Why it matters: TSMC is the gating variable for the entire AI stack. NVIDIA relies on TSMC for 100% of its H300 and B200 accelerators. A TSMC beat and confident call validates hyperscaler demand is NOT rolling over. A miss or cautious commentary — particularly on HPC (High Performance Computing) order visibility — is an immediate negative read-through for NVDA, ASML, and by extension every hyperscaler capex story.

Additional risk: The Helium Crisis in late February (Ras Laffan, Qatar disruption) raised output questions. Watch for any supply-chain commentary on fab productivity.

● TSMC beat + $36B+ rev + strong HPC commentary → Buy Nvidia, Buy Microsoft, Buy Alphabet
● TSMC miss or cautious HPC guide → Sell everything in the AI stack before Mag7 reports

───────────────────────────────────
B. ASML (ASML) | Apr 15 — EUV ORDERS ARE THE LEADING INDICATOR
───────────────────────────────────
ASML reports April 15 (BMO). Q1 2026 EPS consensus: $7.67. Revenue guidance: €8.2–8.9B. FY2026 guidance: €34–39B. ASML guided that NVIDIA wafer requirements are rising from ~2.5 wafers to ~10 wafers per product by 2027 — a seismic demand signal for lithography intensity.

Key watch: Net bookings figure (Q4 2025 was a record €13.2B). Any deceleration in bookings = demand pull-forward risk. China: management guided China normalises to ~20% of total sales in 2026. Any upside in China is a risk factor given export control evolution. EUV/High-NA ramp commentary is the forward read on TSMC's 2nm/1.4nm timeline.

● ASML strong bookings + EUV confidence → confirm AI infrastructure capex cycle
● ASML booking slowdown → leading indicator of hyperscaler capex pause — front-run the Mag7 short

───────────────────────────────────
C. NETFLIX (NFLX) | Apr 16 — DIGITAL AD MARKET HEALTH
───────────────────────────────────
Netflix reports April 16 (AMC). Q1 2026 EPS: $0.76 consensus (+15.2% YoY). Revenue: $12.17B. FY2026 revenue guided at $51B (+14% YoY), operating margin 31.5%. Ad sales grew 2.5x in 2025 and management expects a DOUBLING in 2026 to ~$3B.

Netflix's ad-supported tier CPM pricing and ad sales growth is the most direct read on the digital advertising market that reports BEFORE Alphabet and Meta. If Netflix ad revenue is tracking strongly in Q1, that de-risks the Alphabet YouTube miss in Q4 and confirms Meta ad impressions are still monetising efficiently. A Netflix ad softness read = risk-off on both GOOGL and META into earnings.

● Netflix ad acceleration → green light for Alphabet and Meta estimates
● Netflix ad miss → go defensive on digital ad exposure ahead of GOOGL/META

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
V. THE DECISION FRAMEWORK — HOW TO TRADE THE SEQUENCE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The earnings season functions as a sequential de-risking (or re-risking) event. The sequencing matters:

STEP 1 — APR 15/16 (ASML + TSMC + Netflix): The true sentiment barometer. These three names tell you everything about the underlying demand picture before the Mag7 CEO conference calls add narrative complexity. Trade the read-throughs.

STEP 2 — APR 28/29/30 (Tesla + Alphabet + Amazon + Meta + Apple): The EPS anchors. Five of seven Mag7 in a three-day window. Expect extreme volatility. Each name's capex commentary will be cross-referenced against the others — any inconsistency in hyperscaler demand language (AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud) will be traded aggressively.

STEP 3 — MAY 7 (Microsoft): Azure growth rate is the definitive read on enterprise AI adoption velocity. This is the last nail in the coffin or the all-clear signal.

STEP 4 — MAY 20 (Nvidia): The season's final boss and the most binary print of the cycle. Guidance vs. the $78B+ Q1 FY2027 implied baseline — any miss here re-opens every debate about AI infrastructure overcapacity.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
VI. THE EPS SCENARIO TABLE — WHERE DOES $323 LAND?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SCENARIO EPS 2026E FAIR P/E SPX IMPLIED
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Estimates hold $323 20x 6,460 ✅
Mild cut (-8%) $297 19x 5,643 ⚠️
Hard cut (-15%) $275 17x 4,675 ☠️
Stress cut (-22%) $252 15x 3,780 🔴

The stress scenario assumes Mag7 guide-down + multiple compression from macro deterioration. It is not the base case. But at current index levels, it is not fully priced out either.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
VII. OUR POSITIONING VIEW
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

We are NOT buyers of the index ahead of earnings confirmation.

The BofA chart documents a classic late-cycle trap: the multiple compression has been violent, but the EPS anchor has not yet been stress-tested by management guidance. Until the confession season is complete — i.e., after Microsoft and Nvidia report in May — the $323 EPS line remains a working assumption, not a floor.

SELECTIVE TACTICAL VIEWS:
→ OVERWEIGHT: TSMC (TSM) into Apr 16 — strongest risk/reward in the AI stack with confirmed demand guidance
→ OVERWEIGHT: Microsoft (MSFT) — Azure trajectory and RPO backlog provide the most defensible earnings quality
→ UNDERWEIGHT: Tesla (TSLA) — 200x forward multiple with structurally declining deliveries; no margin of safety
→ UNDERWEIGHT: Apple (AAPL) into tariff clarity — China manufacturing exposure not yet quantified
→ NEUTRAL/WATCH: Meta (META) — capex discipline is the single swing variable; Zuckerberg tone on AI ROI timeline will define the stock in H2
→ NEUTRAL: Alphabet (GOOGL) — Cloud recovery is real; YouTube softness and antitrust remain structural overhangs
→ AVOID: Adding Nvidia beta ahead of May 20 print — asymmetric risk to guide-down after $78B implied baseline

The mid-May window — post all seven Mag7 prints — is where we see the highest-conviction entry point for the index if estimates prove durable.

>>> US After Hours Summary: Managed care names strong after-hours after CMS fina

After Hours Summary: Managed care names strong after-hours after CMS finalizes MA and Part D payment policies; AVGO +2.6% on agreement with Google; CASY +1.2% on news it will join S&P 500

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: None

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: HUM +11.6% (CMS finalizes 2027 Medicare Advantage and Part D payment policies), UNH +8.4% (CMS finalizes 2027 Medicare Advantage and Part D payment policies), CVS +7.7% (CMS finalizes 2027 Medicare Advantage and Part D payment policies), ELV +6.8% (CMS finalizes 2027 Medicare Advantage and Part D payment policies), STIM +4.5% (CFO to depart; reaffirms FY26 guidance; shareholder calls for review of alternatives), SCVL +4.3% (CFO bought 31,000 shares at $16.13 worth ~$500K), BNL +3.7% (to join S&P SmallCap 600), ORGO +2.6% (successful FDA meeting and plans to file BLA for ReNu), AVGO +2.6% (enters long-term agreement with Google) FLR +1.7% (contract with X-energy to support advanced nuclear project), CASY +1.2% (to join S&P 500), EPR +1.1% (Fun closes sale of six parks to EPR Properties), CI +0.8% (CMS finalizes 2027 Medicare Advantage and Part D payment policies), FMC +0.2% (EU approval for Isoflex active), GOOG +0.1% (enters long-term agreement with Broadcom)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: None

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: MNR -6.2% (stock offering by selling shareholders), URG -3.3% (files for $300 mln mixed securities shelf offering), MCS -1.8% (reports highest grossing Easter holiday weekend), DOCN -0.9% (to join S&P MidCap 400), PTEN -0.8% (reports March 2026 drilling activity), CBOE -0.3% (reports March 2026 trading volume), FUN -0.1% (closes sale of six parks to EPR Properties)

WSJ : He Turned Down Ken Griffin to Run His Own Fund. That Was $20 Billion Ago.

He Turned Down Ken Griffin to Run His Own Fund. That Was $20 Billion Ago.
Hamza Lemssouguer, 35, is shaking up the London finance scene with his big short bets

In 2020, Hamza Lemssouguer received an offer to manage several billion dollars for hedge-fund titan Ken Griffin, the founder of Citadel. He turned it down.

Now Lemssouguer manages $20 billion at his own hedge-fund firm. The 35-year-old launched Arini Capital with $1.3 billion and a reputation for bold bets in 2022 and has been the fastest-growing new hedge-fund manager since then, according to data-provider Hedge Fund Research.

He’s also drawn fire from competitors eager to see an end to his run of winning short trades, bets that prices of corporate bonds and loans would fall. Lemssouguer made prescient trades ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic and the software industry selloff this year.

Moroccan-born Lemssouguer sticks out in London’s clubby finance scene. He neither drinks alcohol nor drives a car and his hobby of choice is raising parrots. He has a casual demeanor and speaks English with an American accent picked up bingeing shows including “Entourage” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

“Being young and also being an outsider and unconventional allows [me] to not be arrogant towards the market,” Lemssouguer said in an interview at the 400-year-old Tudor estate outside of London where he and his wife live with their child and 160 rare parrots.

Arini is run by a tightknit team of analysts and traders from countries including Afghanistan, Turkey and Ukraine. The firm focuses on heavily indebted companies, offering loans to some while buying and shorting bonds of others—often supersizing its trades.

Competing fund managers and bank traders say Lemssouguer’s approach is overly aggressive, causing his performance to swing wildly.

“He has a lot of haters,” said Rupak Ghose, who advised hedge funds as an investment banker and is now a finance-industry commentator. The critics argue Lemssouguer relies heavily on borrowed money, or leverage, to boost profits, a strategy prone to backfiring.

“Look at the track record,” Lemssouguer said. “We’re able to outperform in up markets and down markets with our strong risk management.” The fund has returned an average of 15% annually, according to people familiar with the fund, compared to the 7% average return of HFR’s index of credit hedge funds.

But Arini’s main fund has also lost as much as 6% in a single month and delivered a ho-hum 9% return last year, according to the same people, in part because Lemssouguer put on short trades while most markets went up.


A series of short bets made in the third quarter of 2025 on software companies including headhunter marketplace ZipRecruiter and IT-services provider Unisys initially failed to deliver. They kicked in early this year when fear of a “SaaSpocalypse” swept debt markets.

Arini executives said the firm outperforms because it uses a complex hedging tool meant to protect it from big losses. The model hasn’t been tested in a prolonged market downturn.

Arini closed its main hedge fund to new investors when it hit $4 billion because getting bigger would hurt performance, Lemssouguer said. The firm is growing other businesses like collateralized loan obligations and private credit, which pay lower fees than hedge funds but can grow much bigger. About 60% of the money the firm raised comes from North America.

Unlike the pod-shop strategy of firms like Citadel, where many different teams compete against each other, Arini’s funds all communicate and draw on views from the same 20 industry analysts. The strategy is something Lemssouguer hopes will help Arini pounce faster on investments. One potential drawback: Investments in different funds may become correlated as a result.

The contrarian
Lemssouguer grew up with three siblings in a modest apartment in Casablanca. His mother was a teacher and his father worked in the port. He was known as a quiet kid who excelled at three things: drawing, raising parrots and math.

The latter earned him a spot at École Polytechnique, a French mashup of M.I.T. and West Point, and his first job in Credit Suisse’s London office in 2014.

He became one of the bank’s top bond traders and was managing about $100 million of its money by 2016, when he became convinced that Jaguar Land Rover was headed for a fall.

“Revenues were going up and everyone thought they were on the verge of a credit ratings upgrade,” he said. “I took the contrarian view.” He had canvassed Jaguar Land Rover dealerships, and learned inventory was growing, indicating the automaker’s sales would soon slow.

He put about 10% of his portfolio in credit-default swaps that would gain value if bond investors turned bearish on the automaker. When sales dropped in 2017, the bank made about five times its money.

Jaguar set the pattern for Lemssouguer: Analyze the data, find conviction and make the trade as big as possible. He celebrated wins by playing music by his favorite rapper, the Notorious B.I.G., on the trading desk. Word of the big paydays spread inside and outside the bank.

“When I heard about Hamza’s first year, I thought ‘Whatever, anyone can get lucky,’ ” said a former colleague at Credit Suisse. “Then he did it a second year and I thought ‘He’ll lose it all next year,’ but he never did.”

When Covid spread in early 2020, he made short bets worth about $1 billion on companies he knew were tight on cash, like auto rental firm Europcar Mobility Group. The strategy made a $220 million profit in the first quarter of 2020.

Citadel offered Lemssouguer a job that year running a European credit portfolio. He accepted it, then backtracked when Credit Suisse countered by proposing to launch a fund for him with his old trading team. Plans changed again before the scheduled launch in early 2021, when Credit Suisse’s hedge-fund business imploded; so he found another backer, a large hedge fund named Squarepoint Capital.

Lemssouguer and his wife, a former trader, bought the country estate in late 2020. The pandemic had set in and his then-10 parrots were fast outgrowing their London house.

These days, pastel and fluorescent birds groom, preen and bicker in enclosures behind the home. Lemssouguer says he is trying to breed flocks of them so they can be reintroduced to the wild. He gives visitors tours in go-karts and occasionally plays pickup soccer on the lawn. A red tagine pot sits in their kitchen as a reminder of home.

Arini’s launch in early 2022 began badly. Russia invaded Ukraine and global interest rates jumped that spring, sending European corporate bond prices tumbling in unison. The fund lost 15% from March to September.

Lemssouguer regretted starting without a dedicated trader to insulate the fund’s investments against such shocks. Though Arini finished 4% ahead that difficult year, he recruited Deutsche Bank trader Ardacan Celebi, another graduate of a French math school.

Celebi built what the firm calls a “risk-mitigation engine,” which uses derivatives, bonds, exchange-traded funds and other instruments to absorb shocks, allowing Arini to make aggressive trades even when markets turn choppy, Lemssouguer said.

The model focuses on limiting the maximum potential loss, or “drawdown” of the portfolio, Celebi said. “That’s what can get you out of business.”

WSJ : Pesticide Giant Syngenta Readies New Weapon Against Superweeds

Pesticide Giant Syngenta Readies New Weapon Against Superweeds
The chemical, launching first in Argentina, is designed to fight grass weeds in soybean crops

  • Syngenta will launch Virestina, a new weedkiller targeting herbicide-resistant grass weeds, in Argentina in June.
  • Herbicide-resistant weeds cost the U.S. agricultural industry $33 billion annually, driving a race for new weedkillers.
  • Agriculture companies are developing new herbicides, with Syngenta aiming for further approvals and Bayer planning Icafolin’s 2028 release

One of the world’s biggest chemical companies aims to strike a new blow against hard-to-kill weeds that can cost farmers billions of dollars.

Pesticide maker Syngenta said it would begin selling in South America this year a new weedkiller capable of eradicating grass weeds that have evolved to resist other common crop sprays, and threaten soybean and cotton crops.

The chemical, called Virestina, is part of a multibillion-dollar race among agriculture companies like Syngenta, Bayer and Corteva. The companies are pushing to research, develop and market herbicides after a decadeslong lull in launching new weedkillers.

Syngenta, owned by China National Chemical Co., said the weedkiller will launch in June in Argentina, the world’s third-largest soybean producer, after recently being approved for use there. The company aims to obtain approvals in Brazil and Australia next, while the U.S. is expected later because of its longer regulatory process, Syngenta said.

Heavy use of longstanding herbicides, like glyphosate, the main ingredient in Bayer’s Roundup, has contributed to resistance developing among weeds such as waterhemp and palmer amaranth. Herbicide-resistant weeds cost the U.S. agricultural industry roughly $33 billion each year, according to Colorado State University research.

Some weeds can now withstand four or five chemicals, industry officials have said. They decrease harvests for the two most popular crops in the U.S., corn and soybeans, by up to 91% and 79%, respectively.

​“It continues to grow faster than our original models,” Ioana Tudor, Syngenta’s head of crop protection marketing, said about weed resistance. “It is a huge problem for farmers.”

​Companies have been trying to identify and develop new chemical weedkillers after leaning for decades on established chemicals. Bayer recently developed a herbicide called Icafolin, due to be released in Brazil in 2028.

The key ingredient in Syngenta’s Virestina is a new molecule called metproxybicyclone, developed using machine-learning models. It disables specific growth enzymes in grass weeds, while the same enzymes in crops like soybeans remain unaffected.

While the new herbicide is primarily for soybeans, Syngenta officials said it could develop corn varieties genetically engineered to withstand it.

​The agriculture industry is pushing to launch herbicides while advocates of President Trump’s Make America Healthy Again coalition have railed against some widely used weedkillers. Seed and pesticide companies and trade groups representing farmers have been lobbying the administration to shield producers from legal liability.

Syngenta, the world’s largest pesticide supplier, estimated that it spends about $2 billion a year on research and development. Executives said it has 20 chemical and biological products in its research pipeline over the next 10 years.

FT :Sales of used EVs surge in US as petrol prices pass $4 a gallon

Sales of used EVs surge in US as petrol prices pass $4 a gallon
Americans are buying second-hand electric vehicles even as the market for new vehicles slumps

Sales of used electric vehicles are surging in the US as models bought during a post-pandemic boom flood back on to the market, offering prospective buyers relief from a sharp rise in petrol prices.

First-quarter used EV sales rose 12 per cent compared with the same period last year and 17 per cent on the previous quarter, according to Cox Automotive estimates. Sales of new EVs in the first quarter are estimated to have slumped by 28 per cent year on year following the Trump administration’s withdrawal in 2025 of a $7,500 consumer tax credit.

Analysts attribute the surge to a glut of hundreds of thousands of cheap pre-owned EVs that were purchased on leases in the early 2020s and which are now returning to market as those leases expire. According to credit bureau Experian, EVs will account for 15 per cent of all off-lease vehicles at the end of this year, up from 7.7 per cent in the first quarter.

The supply glut helped drive the average price of a used EV down by 8.5 per cent between February 2025 and February 2026, according to Cox, closing the average price gap between used EVs and used petrol-powered vehicles from $4,923 to $1,334.

“We’re seeing a meaningful reset in EV pricing,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, Cox’s director of industry insights.


Barclays analyst Dan Levy said that following the Biden administration’s introduction of the $7,500 credit in 2022, buyers were able to access new electric models on leases with lower monthly payments than for less expensive combustion-engine models.

He noted in June last year the average monthly payment for a leased Chevrolet Blazer EV, which had a base price of $44,600, was $515, compared with an average payment of $586 for its petrol-powered equivalent, which had a base price of $35,600.

The lease deals powered a surge in EV purchases, with their share of the overall US auto market doubling to 5.2 per cent between 2021 and 2022 and rising to 7.7 per cent in 2024, according to Edmunds, before falling back to around 6.5 per cent this year.

The deals also helped feed an aggressive price war led by market leader Tesla as it sought to defend its market share. That helped drive sales, but also drove down the value of used EVs.


Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at Edmunds, said that with more people shopping around for deals due to the soaring cost of car ownership, the heavily discounted used models flooding on to the market would probably act as a “gateway” to EV ownership.

Average petrol prices in the US pushed past $4 a gallon this week for the first time since 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while the average purchase price for a new car is at near-record levels. Analysts attribute sluggish overall sales in the first quarter of this year in part to mounting concerns over affordability.

Against that backdrop, Duncan Aldred, president of GM’s North America business, told an automotive forum in New York this week that the Detroit car giant had seen “some peaking of interest” in EVs among buyers during the past month.

However, analysts said it was still too early to predict if high petrol prices would translate into a meaningful rise in sales of new EVs, noting persistent concerns among mainstream consumers about their ability to go on long journeys in a large country with inadequate charging infrastructure.


Manufacturers including Ford and GM have announced plans for a new generation of more affordable EVs due to be released over the next few years. In the meantime, said Caldwell, shoppers were likely to be surprised by how much used electric models had improved since the last time they shopped.

“In 2022, the last time we saw a gas price spike, they would have been looking at vehicles from around 2019, when EVs weren’t quite there yet,” she said.

Mike Murphy, co-founder of the EVs For All America pressure group, added that many of the obstacles to EV adoption were quietly being addressed, noting that the build-out of US charging infrastructure had accelerated last year despite the slowdown in EV sales.

“The dream of mass EV adoption here in America is not dead yet,” he said.