Talking Points Memo

The global stock market got Molly Whopped today. It's difficult to pin down exactly what led to the Molly Whopping, however. Look around and you'll see many headlines that include words like "frothy," "AI," and "valuations," and you'll see other headlines that point to AI-powered high frequency trading desks in South Korea that are amplifying losses. But there's not really a single smoking gun. No specific earnings report that shows such and such company falling off a cliff. The most granular details available were things like this from Bloomberg: "Market watchers cited a combination of forced liquidation hitting retail investors trading on borrowed money, compounded by a wave of selling tied to leveraged exchange traded funds tracking the two chip giants." The two "chip giants" in question are Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. 

What does this have to do with TPM? Well, not much, to be honest. But here's the point: We all "invest" in things every day. Every purchase is an investment of sorts. There are sad folks in South Korea today who borrowed and then lost a bunch of money on SK Hynix. They could have easily set some of that money aside for an annual or even a monthly TPM Prime membership, and then today, instead of just being bummed about all the money they lost because of FOMO, they'd at least know about things like:

• A Definitive History of Tucker Carlson’s Shapeshifting Politics

• A Very Blue, Very Rich District in New York Chooses Among 2026 Democratic Avatars

• ‘Real, Actual Villains’: What’s Driving the Remarkably Bipartisan Backlash to Data Center

Consider investing in yourself by purchasing a TPM membership. It's better than losing money on AI stocks.