Friday, 5 June 2026
Friday 5 June 2026
[1] Victoria’s Secret, whose products rarely remain a secret when worn, changed the company’s stock ticker from VSCO to VSXY, which looks like “Very Sexy”. While the company has seen declining revenue for years, the change coincided with the biggest one-day gain in its history as a public company, with the share price climbing 47% (we are starting to understand why Buffet retired).
To be fair, they also reported a strong quarter and the share price gain was as a result of a short squeeze (a term akin to Voldemort in investing. A short squeeze is when there are a large amount of bearish traders who bet against a stock and when an earnings surprise sends the stock up, traders have to buy back shares to unwind their position and cap losses. As demand climbs, so does the price).
We’re not kidding, look at the 3-day share price:
Source: Bloomberg
Very sexy, indeed.
[2] Banks are going absolutely crazy over SpaceX’s IPO, almost as though they stand to gain a collective $500 million from the listing, which they do.
Goldman Sachs installed silver rockets on black pedestals resembling SpaceX’s Starship in the lobby of its NYC headquarters. Morgan Stanley has blanketed its Time Square HQ elevators in turnstiles with SpaceX branding and JP Morgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon will personally pitch the IPO to thousands of its high-net-worth clients this week, part of an unprecedented nationwide push.
DNF finds it strange that the banks are promoting the shares, which are finite in number, so aggressively to the public, almost as though they don’t want them themselves.
We look forward to seeing the trading profit from the short positions in SpaceX that the banks will probably report in their next quarterly filing. Indeed, hedge funds are already reaching out to Jefferies Financial to arrange bets against the share price once they go public.
Careful you Musk sycophants, the financial services industry is not known for publicly parading good trading ideas, and rarely come out of a deal with a weak hand. Long-volatility is probably a better idea (not investment advice, nothing we say is, ever, do your own research).
(Technically, the banks can’t directly buy the shares themselves. They underwrite the shares and get paid to promote them. DNF, however, would be very surprised if there is not a structural backdoor or derivative arrangement that allows them to gain exposure. Take it at face value and move on, we don’t want investment bankers whining in the comments).
[3] To gain exposure to the SP500, investors buy products called ETFs from providers. The SP500 is simply a list of 500 companies, to buy into the index you need a financial services company to buy all the shares and hold them in a basket. Many providers offer these products, but the most famous two are the VOO (which Vanguard manages) and the SPY (which State Street runs).
The VOO has passed $1 trillion, the first ETF to do so in the world. Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard, disliked ETFs originally, arguing that the ability to trade intra-day is irrelevant for long-term investors who simply buy and hold stocks (agreed). SPY already had $100 billion in assets when VOO launched in 1993. Brand, distribution power and simply a cooler name gave Vanguard the edge.
Anxieties that passive funds warp indexes and can be gamed are increasing.
Here is the problem in simple language: you buy the SP500 because your dad told you it is a good investment. You have spent no time researching the stocks and probably don’t know which stocks are in your new ETF, only dreaming of early retirement. If you resist the temptation to sell some of your ETF for Yacht Week in Croatia (which you should, but again, not investment advice), your money stays in the index, regardless of the performance of the constituents. As more and more people buy into the ETFs, Vanguard needs to buy more and more shares in the underlying companies (especially the big ones, because the index is market cap weighted). The more shares they buy, the higher the index price runs, the more people invest in the index.
You see the problem? The ETFs become self-fulfilling prophecies and the efficient market hypothesis, which is fundamental to the health of a stock market, breaks. If you want to have a look at the Grossman-Stiglitz Paradox, which states that a perfectly efficient market is impossible, please do.
[4] Donald Trump has said that the negotiations with Iran are, and we quote, “very boring” and that he “couldn’t care less”. The President seemingly prefers picking out golden door handles for his ballroom over negotiating for global peace.
DNF feels that this is similar to when the primary school bully refuses to let you play with his soccer ball and you strike back by saying “I didn’t want to play anyway”.
The president also whipped out a chart which compared the length of the Lincoln Reflective Memorial Pool (which he did not build or expand, but renovated, at almost four times the original budget) with buildings (?).
DNF wonders which White House Intern was instructed to design and print the chart, called “Our Pool Is Bigger Than Skyscrapers”. What we do know, however, is who chose that title…
Source: Yahoo. We checked and double checked the authenticity, and to our great disappointment, it’s real.
[5] Broadcom, which designs, develops and supplies semiconductor infrastructure and software solutions, forecasted lower than expected revenues from AI chips and the share subsequently dropped 14.51%. After the share price surged on the back of deals with Alphabet and Meta, the market was hoping for a stronger AI related earnings forecasts. Hm. Hmm. Hmmm.
[6] You can say what you want about Kim Jong Un, or as Trump calls him, “Little Rocket Man”, but the guy loves nukes. After North Korea suffered a major failure during the launch of a war ship last year (during its launch, the ship slipped and essentially immediately sank while Kim watched, keep the lead engineer of the project in your thoughts), it seems like he has returned his focus to land-based weaponry.
The dictator inspected a newly commissioned production plant, according to state media. South Korea said that it is clearly a uranium enrichment plant.
[7] Meta announced that they have no release date for their new frontier AI model, two months after Meta’s AI chief Alexandr Wang told developers to expect a release “soon”, which raises questions about how quickly Meta can monetize its massive investment in building new AI models (HMMMMM).
Meta plans up to $145 billion in capital expenditures this year, largely to build out AI infrastructure. This follows a previous Meta AI flop, which saw the company failing to release a model called “Behemoth” last year, citing difficulties with improving its capabilities (not so big after all).
DNF would like to know: how often have you used that “Ask Meta AI” textbox that appeared on your WhatsApp and Instagram not too long ago?
Never?
Superb. If you can find him in the Metaverse (what a stunning failure), let Zukerberg know.
[8] 60 Minutes, a television show, is the most successful program in American television history based on viewership ratings since it moved to its current timeslot back in 1975. Long-time 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley had a fight with CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss at a staff meeting on Monday. Pelley was subsequently fired.
60 Minutes is owned by CBS, which was recently acquired by Paramount. Paramount’s CEO is David Ellison, son of software billionaire Larry Ellison (Larry co-founded Oracle Corp.) Larry is a close friend and political donor to Donald Trump. The day after Trump was inaugurated, he said “In the case of Larry, Larry Ellison, it’s well beyond technology, sort of CEO of everything” (we suspect that Trump had no idea which company Ellison co-founded).
When David took over the company, he instructed Weiss to enact change (read “start promoting pro-Trump propaganda”).
Pelley kicked against this, wanting to air the truth, and was sacked as a result. It is a sad day for honesty and transparency in media. The politicization of news outlets is significant and attempting to change it is nearly impossible. DNF advises readers to consume a wide variety of news from various outlets and to be particularly discerning between facts and opinions.
[9] We reported on Partners Group, the Swiss PE fund, limiting redemptions yesterday. The private market has been hit with another blow after Blackstone Inc. limited redemptions from their private credit fund to 5% as well, according to a filing yesterday.
This follows the previous quarter, which saw a record 7.9% redemption which required senior executives to help finance the withdrawals with their own cash (if the senior executives of your private investment fund have enough cash to help finance your exit, you really should be asking questions). The snowball effect will continue to unfold, as investors become more jittery, redemptions requests will increase, liquidity will be constrained and executives will max out Amex Black cards.
[10] Larry is a domestic tabby cat that lives at 10 Downing Street, where the UK Prime Minister sub-leases from him. Larry has lived at 10 Downing Street during the premierships of six prime ministers: David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss (who he apparently never met…), Rishi Sunak and current PM Keir Starmer.
The fact that a cat has outlasted 5 UK PMs gives you a sense of how things are going in the country. DNF will be shifting our focus from the US to the UK next week to give Trump a chance to regain energy for his Iran negotiations.
[11 !?]Daily News Flow ends its first full week of publishing with nearly 70 subscribers, more than 1,200 views across all articles and slight regrets about not choosing to name ourselves Weekly News Flow.
Jokes aside, thank you for your support. Take some time over the weekend to catch up on past articles (narratives build over time, contrary to popular belief, you cannot develop an understanding of or opinion on a topic in a single 20 minute YouTube video) and, as always, consider subscribing below, as well as sharing this content with someone you think will enjoy it.
Have a stunning weekend, see you on Monday.