Spacex Hits $1.77T Valuation, ECB Hikes 25bp

SpaceX reaches record $1.77 trillion valuation; direct listing preferred to avoid IPO underpricing. Early investor Antonio Gracias holds $650B stake.
ECB raises rates 25bp to 2.25%, Denmark follows; US wage growth trails inflation, real worker prosperity declines.
AI token costs fall 2-10x per year; OpenAI's heavy user subsidies are 2x Anthropic's and unsustainable.
AAII bearish sentiment spikes to 47.7%; consumer confidence rebounds but PPI final demand goods surge 2.8% MoM.
Muddy Waters shorts Ensign Group, alleging fraud that could cut FY2027 EBIT by ~35%.
US strategic petroleum reserve drained 60M barrels in 8 weeks; energy sector weight in S&P 500 is minimal.

SpaceX's valuation hit a record $1.77 trillion. Charlie Bilello argues a direct listing is more reasonable than an IPO because low pricing would trigger massive first-day selling. — via 1 2
IPO price per share is reportedly $135. Early investor Antonio Gracias has built a $650 billion stake through sustained investment and stands to be a huge beneficiary. — via 1 2
Post-IPO inclusion timelines for major ETFs: S&P 500 requires at least 1 year, Nasdaq 100 requires 15 trading days, total market ETFs 5 trading days, growth ETFs 5 trading days. — via 1
Ben Carlson and others note the surprising lack of media discussion about the SpaceX IPO given its scale. — via 1 2

ECB raised rates 25bp to 2.25%, the first since 2023; Denmark followed with 25bp to 1.85%. — via 1
US wage growth has fallen below price increases for the first time since 2023, reducing real worker prosperity. — via 1
US strategic petroleum reserve drained 60 million barrels in the last 8 weeks at a record pace. Lyn Alden notes the energy sector weight in the S&P 500 is very low and the US cannot permanently fill a Hormuz gap. — via 1
AAII sentiment survey shows bearishness spiked to 47.7%, while bullishness fell to 30.4%, a three-month low. — via 1
June Michigan consumer confidence rebounded to 48.9 from 44.8, above expectations; 1-year inflation expectations fell to 4.6%, 5-10 year to 3.4%. — via 1 2
Final demand goods prices surged 2.8% MoM in May, the largest increase on record, pushing core PPI 3-month annualized to 5.6%. — via 1 2
Muddy Waters Research released a short report on Ensign Group (ENSG), alleging it defrauds CMS and states by leasing nursing home administrator licenses. They estimate EBIT in 2027 could be ~35% below consensus, growth dropping from ~11% to ~2%, with massive FCA liability risk. — via 1
Lyn Alden notes that CPI is unlikely to surpass 2022 highs without another wave of extraordinary money supply growth. — via 1

AI token costs are declining 2-10x per year, making "hook them then raise prices" a viable strategy. However, OpenAI's subsidies for heavy users are nearly double Anthropic's, which is unsustainable. — via 1
The US needs a leader in open-source LLMs to avoid ceding the field to China. Jason suggests Apple's next CEO should fully commit to workstations running local open-source models, with seamless switching to frontier models when stuck. — via 1
Marc Andreessen warns that Europe is far behind in AI with limited options, with severe economic and strategic consequences. He argues companies must rebuild from scratch with a unified searchable system integrating observability, product metrics, and file changes as the new data foundation for AI; incumbents are unlikely to adopt, but companies built on this could achieve 100x efficiency gains. — via 1 2
Lyn Alden discusses the risk that AI winner-take-all dynamics could create an unfree society and trigger extreme backlash, but notes current AI tech does not show strong network effects or natural monopoly. She argues the most reliable path to avoid monopoly is limiting government power over AI. — via 1

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