Tech
tech
Rani Molla
3/5/25

Is $20,000 a month enough for OpenAI to make money?

OpenAI is considering charging a whopping $20,000 a month for access to Ph.D.-level agents — AI that can take actions on behalf of users — according to a report from The Information. If you’re just a “high-income knowledge worker,” you could access a lower-end agent for $2,000 a month. Presumably agents would do enough work on behalf of their users to justify the price tag, but that remains to be seen.

This is the latest addition to the ChatGPT maker’s confusing product road map, and one that the company hopes will account for 20% to 25% of its revenue in the long term. Notably, these prices are much higher than what OpenAI, funded by MicrosoftMSFT $382.51 (0.02%), was charging for its most expensive non-agent chatbot tier, $200 a month, and still losing money.

OpenAI Plots Charging $20,000 a Month For PhD-Level Agents

OpenAI Plots Charging $20,000 a Month For PhD-Level Agents

This is the latest addition to the ChatGPT maker’s confusing product road map, and one that the company hopes will account for 20% to 25% of its revenue in the long term. Notably, these prices are much higher than what OpenAI, funded by MicrosoftMSFT $382.51 (0.02%), was charging for its most expensive non-agent chatbot tier, $200 a month, and still losing money.

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tech
Rani Molla
17h

One of Tesla’s biggest bulls is changing his tune on Elon Musk

Last week, known TeslaTSLA $237.30 (3.76%) bull Dan Ives added Tesla to Wedbush Securities’ “Best Ideas List,” meaning he thought the stock offers significant growth potential. Now he’s saying investors’ patience is wearing thin and is calling on CEO Elon Musk to “step up” and return to the office.

Last week:

“...we expect Musk will better balance his time between DOGE and Tesla/SpaceX over the course of 2025 and some of these distraction issues will fade. We continue to believe the best thing that ever happened to Musk and Tesla was Trump in the White House as this will create a deregulatory environment with a federal autonomous roadmap central to the Tesla golden strategic vision.”

Today:

“In a nutshell the word ‘balance" has been missing with Elon Musk and his ability to run Tesla as CEO... while instead focusing all of his energy and time driving his DOGE initiative within the Trump Administration... There has been little to no sign of Musk at any Tesla factory or manufacturing facility the last two months and perception has become reality for Tesla shares.”

What changed? Well, the stock has gone down quite a bit since the first missive was sent last Thursday, when the stock closed at $263.45. Yesterday, before the latest note, Tesla closed about 16% lower, at $222.15. Though many of Tesla’s headwinds — declining sales, lowered analyst estimates, growing competition, shrinking popularity, a rash of protests, and tariffs on Mexico and Canada — were present last week, they’ve gotten harder to ignore.

For what it’s worth, Ives maintains the firm’s outperform rating and $550 price target.

Tesla Cybertruck at a protest

Tesla’s terrible ride in 5 charts

From stock price declines to S&P ranking, a look at Tesla’s performance this year.

Rani Molla20h
tech
Rani Molla
22h

Meta is the latest AI company to debut its own AI chip

Another day, another AI company rolls out its own AI chip. Today, it’s news of MetaMETA $612.62 (1.24%) testing its first AI chip, a move that would reduce its reliance on NvidiaNVDA $110.25 (1.55%) and lower its mammoth AI infrastructure costs. Depending on how tests go, the company could ramp up production for wide-scale use. The other day it was AlibabaBABA $138.42 (4.91%), which launched its own open-source AI chip, a move that could help the company and its clients bypass US trade restrictions and provide an alternative to chips made by companies like IntelINTC $21.22 (-0.75%).

Exclusive: Meta begins testing its first in-house AI training chip

Exclusive: Meta begins testing its first in-house AI training chip
tech
Rani Molla
3/10/25

Today was Tesla’s worst day since 2020

It’s been a bad day for many major companies, but hey, at least they’re not TeslaTSLA $237.30 (3.76%). The electric vehicle company saw its biggest daily decline — more than 15% as of market close — since 2020, the year that was plagued by a global pandemic and ensuing supply chain chaos.

Back in September 2020, Tesla saw its biggest decline ever, 21%, after Standard & Poor’s didn’t add the company to its index of the 500 biggest stocks. Notably, Tesla, which is now on that list, is now the worst-performing stock on the S&P 500 for the year.

Tesla has been facing declining sales, lowered analyst estimates, growing competition, shrinking popularity, a rash of protests against the company and CEO Elon Musk, and tariffs on Mexico and Canada, where many of its parts are manufactured.

tech
Jon Keegan
3/10/25

Quit the yapping: New AI technique could cut costs 90% by saying less

A consensus is emerging in AI circles that the way forward involves models that use “chain of reasoning” to get better performance, at the expense of costlier computing resources. This process involves instructing the model to break a problem down into detailed step-by-step instructions. The problem is that these steps can be pretty verbose, and when it comes to AI, more words = more cost.

A new paper from researchers at ZoomZM $73.40 (-0.45%) shows that using a new technique dubbed “chain of draft,” if you tell a model to simply limit those steps to succinct “drafts” of only five words or so, rather than wordy sentences, not only can you still achieve high performance on responses, but you can cut computing costs by up to 90%.

AI models are priced by the number of “tokens” — or portions of words — that are input and output by the model. For example: OpenAI’s o3-mini “reasoning” model costs $1.10 per million tokens input, and $4.40 per million tokens of output. That may seem cheap, but when you’re processing millions of queries, this can really add up.

“By reducing verbosity and focusing on critical insights, CoD matches or surpasses CoT in accuracy while using as little as only 7.6% of the tokens, significantly reducing cost and latency across various reasoning tasks,” the paper reports.

Translation: it’s faster, cheaper, and sometimes better than chain of thought.

This approach is also notable for its ease of use. You can simply change the prompts you enter to get this benefit. That said, most of the gains were found using larger models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, while using smaller models resulted in poorer performance.

Go deeper: Here are OpenAI’s 50 Laws of Robotics

Chain of Draft: Thinking Faster by Writing Less

Chain of Draft: Thinking Faster by Writing Less

A new paper from researchers at ZoomZM $73.40 (-0.45%) shows that using a new technique dubbed “chain of draft,” if you tell a model to simply limit those steps to succinct “drafts” of only five words or so, rather than wordy sentences, not only can you still achieve high performance on responses, but you can cut computing costs by up to 90%.

AI models are priced by the number of “tokens” — or portions of words — that are input and output by the model. For example: OpenAI’s o3-mini “reasoning” model costs $1.10 per million tokens input, and $4.40 per million tokens of output. That may seem cheap, but when you’re processing millions of queries, this can really add up.

“By reducing verbosity and focusing on critical insights, CoD matches or surpasses CoT in accuracy while using as little as only 7.6% of the tokens, significantly reducing cost and latency across various reasoning tasks,” the paper reports.

Translation: it’s faster, cheaper, and sometimes better than chain of thought.

This approach is also notable for its ease of use. You can simply change the prompts you enter to get this benefit. That said, most of the gains were found using larger models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, while using smaller models resulted in poorer performance.

Go deeper: Here are OpenAI’s 50 Laws of Robotics

Latest Stories

Luke Kawa
13h

US stocks slump as traders ditch the stocks previously immune from the sell-off

Stocks whipsawed as President Trump floated fresh tariffs on Canada, with the S&P 500 ending down 0.8% and the Russell 2000 off 0.3% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 gained 0.2%.

Under the hood, it sure doesn’t seem like tariff talk played too large of a role today — General MotorsGM $48.48 (0.42%), perhaps the company most impacted by trade barriers with Canada, actually rose.

Telling the tale of the tape today is relatively easy: if a stock had been getting creamed since February 19, the most recent closing high, through March 10, then it did well today. Conversely, if a stock had been holding up well through the carnage, it ceded ground today.

Said another way, every S&P 500 constituent that’s down 30% since the S&P 500’s record close, like PalantirPLTR $80.26 (2.15%), rose on Tuesday. And only two stocks of the couple dozen that are up 10% since February 19 rose on Tuesday.

Interestingly, this was the first time during the S&P 500’s retreat from its all-time high where the benchmark index fell and the equal-weight S&P 500 suffered a larger loss than the iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETFMTUM $196.81 (0.33%) (which actually ended higher on the day!). Investors ditched the safer stocks that had been holding up well while beaten-up names caught a bid.

Every S&P 500 sector ETF finished lower, with industrials, communications services, and consumer staples suffering the largest losses.

Kohl’sKSS $9.24 (-24.07%) cratered, losing nearly a quarter of its value as its solid fourth-quarter results were overshadowed by abysmal guidance and a reduction in its quarterly dividend.

Dick’s Sporting GoodsDKS $199.03 (-5.72%) told a similar, but less severe, story and sold off after also exceeding its fourth-quarter earnings expectations while offering a dim outlook for 2025.

Shares of software company OracleORCL $145.04 (-3.15%) fell after posting lower-than-expected earnings and sales after the close on Monday.

VerizonVZ $43.19 (-6.58%) also tumbled after its CRO warned of a “challenging” first quarter for the telecom company.

Southwest’sLUV $30.68 (8.44%) was a particularly bright spot on the tape today, rising 8% after ditching its “bags fly free” policy, a move which passengers will invariably despise.

SPY
$559.22
-0.80%
Today
QQQ
$474.99
-0.22%
Today
IWM
$202.01
0.00%
Today
PLTR
$80.26
2.15%
Today
KSS
$9.24
-24.07%
Today
DKS
$199.03
-5.72%
Today
LUV
$30.68
8.44%
Today
Max Knoblauch
HEAVY BAGGAGE
14h
Wall Street likes Southwest’s new bag fee. Passengers hate it. Let’s see how this plays out.

What’s next, Delta’s going to destroy its cookie recipe?

A Southwest pilot gives a thumbs up
Jon Keegan
POWER PLAY
14h
They’ve got the power: Canada’s massive leverage over the US on electricity imports

The US power grid is extremely interconnected with Canada.

Transmission towers that carry high-voltage electricity. EAST CHINA TOWNSHIP, MICHIGAN
world
David Crowther
15h

The US Economic Policy Uncertainty Index is the highest it’s ever been — pandemic excluded

We’ve all heard a lot about how much “uncertainty” the Trump tariff announcements, reversals, and re-announcements have been creating, but how can we actually quantify what’s been happening?

Looking at the market reaction, which — until today — has mostly presented itself as a momentum reversal that’s hit tech stocks hardest, is one way. Other ways would be to check the VIX, a measure of the expected 30-day volatility for the S&P 500SPY $559.22 (-0.80%), or to look at what economists are forecasting, with Goldman Sachs’ chief economist cutting his US GDP forecasts yesterday from 2.4% to 1.7% for this year. An additional measure that’s helpful to check in with is the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index, a series of indexes created by researchers from Northwestern, Stanford, and the University of Chicago, to quantify based on mentions of words like “economic uncertainty.”

Using the daily measure of that index, and then taking a seven-day rolling average, reveals that the index has only ever been more elevated during the pandemic — when Covid dropped us all into truly unprecedented times.

Matt Phillips
17h
Palantir bounces, but damage has been done

Recent investors are deeply underwater, but bulls urge holding on.

Palantir on phone
markets
Nia Warfield
18h

Dick’s Sporting Goods scores Q4 earnings beat, but stock is down for the count after guidance strikes out

Shares of Dick’s Sporting GoodsDKS $199.03 (-5.72%) fell about 6% early Tuesday afternoon, on pace for their worst day since last July, even after the sports retailer scored a Q4 earnings beat. Revenue for the quarter came in at $3.89 billion, versus FactSet analysts’ estimates of $3.77 billion. Earnings per share also topped expectations, reaching $3.62.

But the outlook was more rocky: Dick’s is expecting full-year earnings per share to be between $13.80 and $14.40, short of Wall Street estimates of $14.82, according to FactSet. Meanwhile, net sales are expected to be between $13.6 billion and $13.9 billion, which is in line with the higher end of estimates of $13.88 billion. Shares of Dick’s Sporting Goods are still nearly 10% higher over the past year.

In the upcoming year, Dick’s plans to spend $1 billion on a net basis to build 16 of its 100,000-square-foot House of Sport locations. Dick’s also plans to capitalize on the rising popularity of women’s sports and the World Cup soccer matches in the US next year.

Dick’s Sporting Goods is latest retailer to forecast rocky 2025 as recession fears swirl

Dick's Sporting Goods Water Bottles

But the outlook was more rocky: Dick’s is expecting full-year earnings per share to be between $13.80 and $14.40, short of Wall Street estimates of $14.82, according to FactSet. Meanwhile, net sales are expected to be between $13.6 billion and $13.9 billion, which is in line with the higher end of estimates of $13.88 billion. Shares of Dick’s Sporting Goods are still nearly 10% higher over the past year.

In the upcoming year, Dick’s plans to spend $1 billion on a net basis to build 16 of its 100,000-square-foot House of Sport locations. Dick’s also plans to capitalize on the rising popularity of women’s sports and the World Cup soccer matches in the US next year.

markets
Matt Phillips
18h

Stocks lurch lower after Trump escalates tariffs

A fresh tariff threat from President Trump worsened the stock market’s losses Tuesday, pushing the S&P 500 closer toward a technical correction, or a drop of 10% from a recent high.

For the record, just because stocks fall into a correction doesn’t necessarily imply a bear market will follow. The 10% line in the sand is a relatively arbitrary Wall Street way of describing a market sell-off that’s a bit more than your garden variety slump, but not quite as bad as a bear market.

Live updates: Trump says he will double planned tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel

Live updates: Trump says he will double planned tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel
President Trump Departs White House For Florida

Trump threatens to “permanently shut down” the Canadian car business with more tariffs

President Trump promised further tariffs on Canada and its auto industry on Tuesday.

Max Knoblauch19h
markets
Luke Kawa
19h

Silver lining to the sell-off: Safe stocks are getting dumped as the momentum stock fever breaks

A glass-half-full view of another dour tape, as the S&P 500 lowers and President Trump ratchets up tariffs on Canada: the market’s hidey-holes are getting hit more than the momentum stocks whose breakdown has thus far been front-and-center in driving the overall sell-off.

The iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETFUSMV $92.12 (-1.41%), which, as the name suggests, holds stocks that tend to be less volatile than average (i.e. they have a lower beta), is down 0.9% as of 11:20 a.m. ET. Meanwhile, the iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETFMTUM $196.81 (0.33%), which holds companies with the strongest 6- and 12-month risk-adjusted performance, is up.

If sustained, this would mark the first time minimum volatility stocks underperformed momentum on a down day for the S&P 500 since the retreat from record highs began.

Over the history of these products, stretching back to 2013, the recent three-week performance of MTUM versus USMV has never been worse, as of yesterday’s close.

As a shorthand, perceived “safe” companies like VerizonVZ $43.19 (-6.58%), General MillsGIS $62.33 (-4.61%), and McDonald’sMCD $307.40 (-3.33%) are falling more than the S&P 500, while the likes of RedditRDDT $125.00 (14.65%), AppLovinAPP $267.00 (8.21%), and RobinhoodHOOD $37.15 (2.01%) bounce.

(Sherwood Media is an independently operated subsidiary of Robinhood Markets Inc.)

The only comparable stretch of momentum underperformance versus min vol was late 2021, a period that bears some resemblance to the current environment: an abrupt increase in policy uncertainty (Omicron variant then; tariffs, US growth, and AI concerns now), a big US bond rally, and the aforementioned shellacking of momentum stocks and herding into their min-vol counterparts.

markets
Jon Keegan
19h

Verizon down 6% on warning of weaker Q1 sales

VerizonVZ $43.19 (-6.58%) shares are down more than 6% today after CRO Frank Boulben spoke at the Deutsche Bank telecom conference and warned that intense competition is leading to a “challenging quarter.” Boulben said:

“We continue to have a disciplined approach. When we see less demand, we pull out of promotion. When we see demand picking up, like in March, we come back with a new promotion. So, it’s been a challenging quarter from a competitive intensity standpoint.”

In an 8-K filing, the company cautioned that postpaid phone net additions (new monthly subscriptions, less lost customers) for Q1 2025 would be affected by “3-5 basis points of churn incremental to the prior year period” due to recent pricing actions and flat to down postpaid phone gross additions.

In September, Verizon announced a $20 billion acquisition of Frontier, which will add 2.2 million fiber subscribers. The acquisition is expected to close at the end of the year.

VZ
$43.19
-6.58%
Today

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markets
Matt Phillips
19h

Oracle misses, stock down

Corporate software giant and aspiring AI big shot OracleORCL $145.04 (-3.15%) is down big Tuesday after reporting quarterly numbers last night that underwhelmed on virtually all fronts.

It missed on adjusted earnings per share (realizing $1.47 vs. expectations for $1.49) and the top line was soft at $14.13 billion compared to expectations for $14.40.

It also cut its guidance for its fiscal Q4, undershooting Wall Street expectations for earnings per share.

There was some good news in the report, as Oracle touted the fact its sales backlog — which it calls its “remaining performance obligations,” or RPO — hit $130 billion, driven by a $48 billion increase in fiscal Q3, suggesting surging demand for the company’s cloud computing services.

But in a note on Oracle’s results, Morgan Stanley analysts wrote that investor attitudes toward building big databases in the coming years to train AI have changed.

“An RPO performance like that seen in Oracle’s FY3Q25 would have likely driven a much more positive stock reaction 6 to 12 months ago, but rising concerns on the durability of training revenues (the scaling laws debate), margin impacts of a rising contribution [from Oracle’s cloud business], and a market backdrop less willing to accept those risks, leaves investors with more questions than answers.”

Oracle misses on earnings and issues weak revenue guidance

It also cut its guidance for its fiscal Q4, undershooting Wall Street expectations for earnings per share.

There was some good news in the report, as Oracle touted the fact its sales backlog — which it calls its “remaining performance obligations,” or RPO — hit $130 billion, driven by a $48 billion increase in fiscal Q3, suggesting surging demand for the company’s cloud computing services.

But in a note on Oracle’s results, Morgan Stanley analysts wrote that investor attitudes toward building big databases in the coming years to train AI have changed.

“An RPO performance like that seen in Oracle’s FY3Q25 would have likely driven a much more positive stock reaction 6 to 12 months ago, but rising concerns on the durability of training revenues (the scaling laws debate), margin impacts of a rising contribution [from Oracle’s cloud business], and a market backdrop less willing to accept those risks, leaves investors with more questions than answers.”

Nia Warfield
20h
Kohl’s tumbles after the department store chain slashes its dividend, warns of weak sales ahead

The OG department store chain sounded the alarm on a pullback from lower-income consumers.

Kohl's
markets
Jon Keegan
20h

Microsoft tumbled to a 52-week low

MicrosoftMSFT $382.51 (0.02%) shares hit their lowest point in a year yesterday as part of the wider market bloodbath. The shares closed down 3.3% at $380, and during the volatile day the stock slumped to just over $377, its lowest price in a year. The stock is under pressure as the AI fever fades and one report warned that the company may already have too many data centers.

Shares are up less than 1% today in early trading.

MSFT
$382.51
0.02%
Today
Luke Kawa
Private Eyes
20h
Companies that loaded up on private credit are cratering as public credit markets look unconcerned

Companies that loaded up on private credit are getting slammed even as spreads in public markets stay relatively well behaved.

Law & Order - Season 24
markets
Tom Jones
21h

Reddit shares got absolutely smoked compared to social media rivals like Meta and Snap yesterday, dropping 20%

Yesterday, RedditRDDT $125.00 (14.65%) shares suffered their worst drop since going public just under a year ago, as the platform’s rocky start to 2025 continues. After a pretty remarkable 2024, the stock is now down more than 35% so far this year.

With market misery across the board on Monday — the S&P 500 suffered its worst day of 2025 and the Nasdaq 100 notched its worst session since 2022 — Reddit wasn’t alone in falling, but the scale of its descent did separate it from the wider pack... especially compared with peers in the socials space.

Read more
David Crowther
DATA DROP
21h
Visualizing every day of the US stock market for the last 10 years

Just how common is a 2.7% drop like yesterday?

Retro abstract pattern with colorful curved stripes and rainbow palette
business
Max Knoblauch
21h

A tale of two skies: Southwest and Delta shares take off in different directions

After a bumpy month for all of the big four US airlines (they’ve shed about $24 billion combined), two carriers have been singled out by Wall Street on Tuesday.

Shares of SouthwestLUV $30.68 (8.44%) climbed more than 10% in early trading, while shares of DeltaDAL $47.30 (-7.25%) are down around 5%, significantly cooling off their up to 14% plunge after market close on Monday.

Investors are cheering news that Southwest will begin charging passengers to check bags for the first time — a significant pullback from its yearslong two free checked items policy. “Two bags fly free” is even a registered Southwest trademark. The move adds to a long list of recent cost cuts, some of them prompted by activist investor involvement, that include laying off 15% of the airline’s corporate workforce, ditching its open seating policy, and freezing hiring and promotions.

Delta’s sell-off, on the other hand, has to do with a deep cut to its first-quarter sales outlook yesterday evening. The airline said it now expects sales to grow 3% to 4%, down from the 7% to 9% it said as recently as January. Delta cited a reduction in consumer and corporate confidence as the reason for the reduction.

American AirlinesAAL $11.59 (-8.40%) similarly slashed its guidance on Tuesday, saying it now expects revenue to come in flat this year, as opposed to its guidance of up to 5% growth just two months ago.

LUV
$30.68
8.44%
Today
Delta at the airport

The two words in Delta’s profit warning that could have bigger implications

Delta’s decision to slash its forecast may indicate a deeper problem: it’s not just the consumers who are white-knuckling their wallets. It’s the companies.

Nate Becker21h
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