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In this week’s Crypto Long & Short, LMAX Group’s Jenna Wright argues that markets break down not from too little capital but from capital stuck in the wrong place, trapped by settlement cycles while risk reprices by the minute. She makes the case that stablecoins and tokenization are quietly becoming the plumbing that lets money move as fast as the risk it supports.

Every year, millions of retirees eagerly await news about the next Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). It’s one of the few ways retirees can see their monthly checks increase after starting benefits, helping them keep pace with rising prices.While the official 2027 COLA won’t be announced until October, early estimates are already beginning to take shape. These projections can provide a useful glimpse into what retirees might expect next year, but they’re far from set in stone.In fact, the summer months we are in now have the biggest impact on the final COLA for 2027. Here’s why.Read: The latest Social Security warning is here; retirees should pay attentionWhy Social Security COLAs matterMany people collect Social Security benefits for decades. As inflation pushes up the cost of groceries, housing, healthcare, and other everyday expenses, benefits would steadily lose purchasing power if they weren’t eligible for a raise.COLAs are designed to help Social Security beneficiaries maintain their purchasing power by increasing benefits when consumer prices rise.What the latest 2027 COLA estimates look likeAlthough an official Social Security COLA announcement is still months away, several respected forecasters have already released preliminary projections.The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan advocacy group, currently estimates that the 2027 Social Security COLA will be 3.8% based on the latest inflation data available. Meanwhile, independent Social Security and Medicare policy analyst Mary Johnson projects a slightly lower 3.7% COLA.While the difference between those estimates is small, both suggest that retirees could receive a larger adjustment than they did in 2026, when benefits rose just 2.8%.The coming months matter the mostThe Social Security Administration (SSA) doesn’t simply average inflation over the entire year to calculate COLAs. Instead, it uses a very specific formula.Each year’s COLA is based on the average Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) during the third quarter of the year. Those figures are then compared with the third-quarter average from the previous year. If prices have increased, Social Security benefits receive a COLA reflecting that change.Because of this system, the inflation readings released over the next few months are the most important ones to look at. Even modest changes in inflation during July, August, or September could move the final COLA estimate higher or lower.A smaller COLA isn’t necessarily bad newsIf you’re on Social Security, you may be hoping for a generous raise in the new year. But if the official COLA comes in lower, that’s not necessarily a negative thing.Smaller COLAs are a clear indication of cooling inflation. If grocery prices, energy costs, and other everyday expenses aren’t rising as quickly, benefits don’t increase as much.To put it another way, a 2.8% COLA in a year with moderate inflation may have the same financial impact as a 4.7% COLA in a year when prices are rising more quickly. And that ties into one key fact about COLAs all retirees should understand.Social Security COLAs are not designed to help retirees get ahead financially. They’re simply meant to help beneficiaries keep up with rising costs.The official announcement won’t come for a whileSince Social Security COLAs are based on third quarter inflation readings, the SSA won’t be able to officially announce a COLA until mid-October. That’s because September’s CPI-W can’t be calculated until data from the entire month is collected.But whether the official COLA comes in at 3.7%, 3.8%, or something else entirely, it’s important to remember what COLAs are designed to accomplish. It’s also important to keep in mind that a smaller COLA isn’t necessarily bad news and a larger COLA isn’t automatically a win.Of course, psychologically speaking, a larger Social Security COLA might sit better than a smaller raise. But the one thing to remind yourself is that at the end of the day, COLAs are a break-even tool. So if 2027’s ends up being less generous, it’s not that you’ve lost out on money. It’s that you simply didn’t require such a large raise because prices stayed fairly stable.This story written for TheStreet by Nifty 50+

Every few quarters, the debate around Nvidia moves. For a while, it was about whether AI demand was real. Then it was about whether margins could hold. Now, heading into its August 26 earnings report, the question is whether the next product cycle can keep a company already running at this pace from slowing down.Bank of America thinks it can. And the note behind that view is worth reading before the earnings date arrives.Bank of America Nvidia earnings preview and $350 price targetIn a note shared with TheStreet on August 7, Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya called Nvidia (NVDA) his top sector pick ahead of the company’s fiscal Q2 FY2027 results. He expects revenue of $94 billion to $95 billion, roughly $3 billion to $4 billion above Nvidia’s own $91 billion guidance. That guidance excludes any China data center compute revenue, meaning actual results could come in higher if modest shipments to that market resume. Third-quarter guidance, he says, should come in at $107 billion to $108 billion, well above the approximately $104 billion Wall Street is currently modeling.For context, Nvidia reported Q1 FY2027 revenue of $81.6 billion in May, up 85% year over year, with data center revenue of $75.2 billion. The Q2 guidance of $91 billion implied continued sequential growth. BofA’s $94 billion to $95 billion estimate would extend that momentum further.Related: Nvidia’s CEO just sent strong signal to stock market investorsBut Arya isn’t really writing about the next quarter. “The commencement of Vera Rubin next-generation chip deliveries marks the beginning of an extended upgrade cycle spanning multiple quarters,” he wrote. That’s the argument. Not just a beat. A new cycle.Arya has a $350 price target on Nvidia, representing roughly 56% upside from $223.96 at the time of the note. He points out that the stock is trading at about 16 times forward earnings, its lowest valuation in roughly a decade, even as the earnings trajectory continues to rise, as TheStreet reported.Why Nvidia Vera Rubin could trigger a multi-quarter upgrade cycleNvidia confirmed at GTC Taipei in June that Vera Rubin has entered full production. The platform pairs Rubin GPUs with the new Vera CPU and is expected to be available from cloud partners in the second half of 2026. AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft and Oracle are already preparing deployments, with OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX among the first customers. Nvidia is targeting enough capacity to require 2 gigawatts of power for the buildout, as TheStreet reported.GPU spot rental prices are near all-time highs, Arya notes in the note. The B200 is running at about $5.66 per hour, the H100 at $2.80 per hour, the A100 at $1.64. That data point matters because it addresses one of the persistent doubts about the AI trade. If customers can still rent compute at those prices and make money from it, they have every reason to keep buying the next generation of hardware. The concern about return on investment fades when the rental market is this strong.More Nvidia:Nvidia just made a move Wall Street wasn’t ready forNvidia just locked down deal that changes AI raceNvidia stock is doing something it hasn’t done in yearsThe Vera CPU is the part of Rubin that Bank of America finds most interesting beyond the GPU story. An earlier note from the bank called it “the single greatest new addition since the GPU.” Arya’s current note projects Vera CPU sales in the second half of fiscal 2027 at roughly $20 billion, with an annual run rate of $50 billion or more by fiscal 2028. That trajectory, if it holds, would make Nvidia the largest server CPU vendor.Nvidia gross margin and memory cost inflation outlook for 2027Memory cost inflation has become one of the louder concerns about Nvidia’s margins. DRAM now makes up 40% to 50% of total production costs, up from 15% to 20% historically. The worry is that as Nvidia moves to more memory-intensive architectures, those rising costs eat into its famously high gross margins faster than the company can price around them.Arya’s note pushes back on that directly. For Vera Rubin compute racks specifically, the memory cost increase amounts to about 60 basis points of gross margin pressure versus Blackwell Ultra. Gross margins are expected to settle at 73% to 74% over time, down modestly from about 75% now. That is not the kind of structural margin erosion that would break the investment case.The bigger number is at the pod level. Complete AI pods, which bundle in more memory and storage, could see up to 500 basis points of margin impact. But Arya expects that mix to stay small initially. Nvidia’s long-term supply agreements with SK Hynix and its pricing power, given GPU rental rates near all-time highs, give the company room to pass through costs rather than absorb them.

Nvidia confirmed at GTC Taipei in June that Vera Rubin has entered full productionOta/Getty Images

Nvidia OpenAI circular financing and free cash flow explainedNvidia has committed roughly $70 billion in direct equity stakes to ecosystem partners. That includes $30 billion to OpenAI, up to $10 billion to Anthropic, and $5 billion to Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence. Some investors have questioned whether these arrangements are circular, essentially Nvidia financing the customers who buy Nvidia chips.Arya’s note addresses this directly. Against the $70 billion in direct investments, Nvidia is expected to generate roughly $470 billion in free cash flow across 2026 and 2027. The $70 billion represents about 15% of that. There is room to keep returning approximately 50% of free cash flow to shareholders while making these investments, according to Benzinga.The $250 billion backstop tied to an OpenAI and SB Energy campus in Ohio is a different kind of commitment. It is not upfront cash. It is a contingent guarantee that only triggers if OpenAI defaults on the lease, with exposure back-loaded to 2028 and beyond. When Nvidia is expected to be generating $300 billion to $500 billion per year in free cash flow by then, the risk profile looks different than the headline number suggests.NVDA stock valuation at decade low and the BofA bull caseAt 16 times forward earnings, Nvidia is at its cheapest in about a decade. The bank’s EPS projections put Nvidia at more than $13 per share by 2027 and more than $25 by 2030, assuming the AI data center market develops along Arya’s model. That model assumes Nvidia holds more than 70% share of a market the bank sees growing past $1.7 trillion in AI data center systems.The risks are real. AMD is gaining ground in AI accelerators. The major cloud companies are building more of their own custom chips. China export restrictions remain an overhang. Hyperscaler capital spending could get more uneven if the returns on AI infrastructure disappoint. None of those go away.But the setup Bank of America is describing is a company with this level of earnings power sitting at a valuation that doesn’t reflect it. Whether August 26 confirms that or not almost misses the point. The bigger question is whether Rubin delivers what Arya’s note says it will. If it does, one earnings report is the start of something, not the thing itself.Related: Nvidia’s CEO just pointed at the part of AI that worries him most

Excitement is building for Coherent’s earnings report after upbeat results from Lumentum.

About 20 million barrels of petroleum liquids pass through the Strait of Hormuz every day. That is roughly 20% of global oil consumption moving through a waterway just 21 miles wide at its narrowest point. Iran sits on one side of it. That geography has given Tehran one of the most powerful pieces of economic leverage in the world.On Aug. 8, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sat down for an interview and said that leverage is about to disappear. And one oil major is already positioned at the center of the plan he described.What Scott Bessent said about the Strait of HormuzSpeaking with host Mark Curtis on 12 News, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked whether the Strait would ever return to the way it was before. He said no, and then went further.”The Strait is never going back to the way it was because the Iranians have used, or tried to use it, as a choke point,” Bessent said. “What we are going to see over the next two years, the Strait is going to become irrelevant. It is going to become just another body of water, and I would say that more than 50 or 70% of the energy that moves through the Strait now is going to go through underground pipelines,” The Mary Sue reported.More Oil & Gas:Iran de-escalation just hit energy stocksDrivers lose control over gas price squeezeGoldman sends a fresh warning to the oil marketAbout 20 million barrels of petroleum liquids crossed Hormuz in 2024. The EIA puts that at roughly 20% of global oil consumption. In early August, Brent crude slid more than 5% in a single session on news of possible Hormuz deal talks, then reversed on setbacks. Asian refiners were already looking for alternative supply routes. The waterway’s closure was not theoretical. It happened, as CNBC reported.Why Chevron is studying the Haditha-Baniyas pipelineChevron (CVX) is participating in feasibility studies for the Haditha-Baniyas pipeline. The route runs from Iraq’s oil network at Haditha to the Syrian port of Baniyas on the Mediterranean coast. Iraqi oil producers would have a second export option. They would not need to send barrels through the Persian Gulf and Hormuz.The Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline ran through Syria to the Mediterranean decades ago, but it stopped operating. Haditha-Baniyas is a different proposal. It needs new studies, financing, security arrangements, and agreements between Iraq, Syria, and other parties.Chevron generated $33.9 billion in operating cash flow and $20.2 billion in adjusted free cash flow in 2025. It returned $27.1 billion to shareholders. Chevron’s financials do not depend on this pipeline. The project is an addition, not a foundation. Washington is actively pushing alternative Hormuz routes. Chevron is inside one of them.

Bessent’s broader argument is that a pipeline is permanent infrastructure, while a missile interceptor is a one-time expenditure.Tim/Getty Images

The gap between existing pipeline capacity and HormuzSaudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have about 4.7 million barrels per day of unused pipeline capacity that can bypass Hormuz. That sounds significant until you compare it to the 20 million barrels crossing the Strait every day. The gap is roughly 15 million barrels per day. Bessent’s claim that 50% to 70% of Hormuz traffic will move through pipelines represents an increase of 10 to 14 million barrels per day of new capacity that does not yet exist.One pipeline will not close that gap. Washington’s strategy requires a network of alternative routes. Saudi Arabia is expanding its East-West Petroline. The UAE has been routing more through its Fujairah pipeline. Iraq is studying overland corridors including Haditha-Baniyas. While each project adds capacity, none of them alone comes close to replacing Hormuz.Pipelines also carry their own risks. A route through Iraq and Syria could face missiles, drones, sabotage, and political instability. The current proposal requires cooperation between Iraq, Syria, and other regional stakeholders. Financing for large-scale infrastructure in a conflict zone is difficult to secure. Even projects that win approval can take years to build. Bessent’s two-year timeline is therefore ambitious.What Bessent’s Hormuz call means for Chevron stockBessent’s broader argument is that a pipeline is permanent infrastructure, while a missile interceptor is a one-time expenditure. The U.S. military has reportedly depleted portions of its missile inventories during the Iran conflict and after years of supporting Ukraine. Rebuilding those stockpiles takes time and money. That creates an additional reason for Washington to favor infrastructure over indefinite military protection of Hormuz.For Chevron investors, the Haditha-Baniyas study is not an imminent earnings catalyst. The project is preliminary and could face years of delays or never advance to construction. But if Washington genuinely shifts from defending Hormuz to building around it, Chevron’s role in one of the most significant proposed alternative routes puts it in a strategically relevant position.Bessent did not say one pipeline makes Hormuz irrelevant. He said a network of pipelines will. Chevron is already studying one of them.Related: Scott Bessent’s economy claim is raising eyebrows on Wall Street

The Boston Red Sox have gotten an update from a former starter and local fan favorite who is pushing 50 years old.

Kalshi betting odds gave Hong more than a 95% chance of winning on Tuesday.

Riot Platforms (RIOT) has built its company for years around one exceedingly volatile asset: Bitcoin.Artificial intelligence may be offering it a completely unique future.Riot has signed a deal with Anthropic, the company behind Claude, to offer 191 megawatts of data-center capacity at its Rockdale, Texas, site, Barron’s reported, in a deal worth about $9.1 billion for 20 years.There’s a major caveat, however. Riot is not getting $9.1 billion up front, Bloomberg noted. That sum is estimated revenue over 20 years. The overall deal’s worth may reach approximately $16.1 billion with two possible five-year extensions.Riot entered the announcement with a market worth of about $7.3 billion, according to Business Insider, suggesting the headline value of the original deal exceeds the company’s pre-deal equity value. Riot made a total revenue of $647.4 million in 2025.Shares rose after the announcement as investors reevaluated what Riot’s infrastructure was really worth.But the main story isn’t that Riot discovered a major new customer. It’s that the infrastructure built for Bitcoin mining, land, power hookups, and massive computing facilities has suddenly become appealing to an AI sector that’s desperate for electricity.The buildout may have been Bitcoin-funded.I suspect AI will eventually determine what is valuable.Riot Platforms is turning Bitcoin infrastructure into AI infrastructureThe Anthropic deal is for 191 megawatts of computing capacity at Riot’s location in Rockdale.That’s important, since electricity is becoming one of the main bottlenecks to artificial intelligence growth.AI companies can buy those advanced chips, but they need a place to run. You need land, you need transmission capacity, you need cooling, you need networking, and you need tremendous amounts of reliable power to do hyperscale computing.Riot already has a lot of the hard part. Its Rockdale facility has about 700 megawatts of developed capacity spread across 200 acres or so, while its Corsicana, Texas, location has access to about 1 gigawatt. Riot says it has almost 2 gigawatts of completely certified power in its portfolio.These assets were worth something at first, because Bitcoin mining requires a lot of electricity. Now they intersect with what the AI businesses need.This might be a significant shift in Riot’s business model.Bitcoin mining revenue is a function of token values, difficulty of mining, and energy prices. Long-term data-center contracts can offer a considerably more reliable revenue source.Related: Toy mania gears up during holiday shopping seasonBut the possibility isn’t as simple as integrating AI computers into an old mining operation.High-performance AI data centers demand considerable additional infrastructure, including improved cooling, networking, redundancy, and extremely high uptime standards. Riot will have to spend a lot and execute effectively to turn electrical power into commercial computer capacity.And that difference counts.Power gives the opportunity, but the economics are execution-driven.AMD gave Riot its first proof of conceptAnthropic isn’t Riot’s first large customer of AI infrastructure.The corporation had already inked a data-center contract with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) for 25 megawatts of key IT capacity at Rockdale, Barron’s confirmed.AMD later exercised an option for an additional 25 megawatts, doubling its contracted footprint to 50 megawatts.Riot also claimed $33.2 million of data-center revenue in the first quarter and said it was an active data-center operator generating revenue. That bond now seems increasingly important.After successfully delivering capacity for the chipmaker, AMD helped connect Riot with Anthropic, Barron’s says.The progression is straightforward: AMD provided proof of concept, then Anthropic provided scale.More AI:Nvidia just made a move Wall Street wasn’t ready forMicrosoft just took sides in AI policy fightOpenAI just disclosed something genuinely alarmingThe contrast with Riot’s prior business is impossible to overlook.Riot produced $647.4 million in annual revenue in 2025. The first Anthropic contract is about 14 times as large on the headline, but it will recognize those dollars slowly over several years.The potential value increases to $16.1 billion if the two options to extend are exercised.That doesn’t mean Riot is a $16 billion revenue corporation overnight. It does, however, mean investors may have to stop viewing the company through the lens of Bitcoin creation.

The power behind Bitcoin may be worth more than the Bitcoin itself.Bloomberg / Getty Images

Anthropic deal reveals why power may be AI’s next scarce assetRiot is part of a bigger change happening across the once-Bitcoin-mining business.For years, crypto miners have chased cheap electricity, negotiated big power hookups, and built buildings that could sustain the energy-hungry computation.Those same traits are a boon to AI engineers.The benefit is time. New data-center builders may spend years trying to get on the grid and access enough power capacity. Companies that already own those links may therefore have infrastructure with drastically increased strategic value.Riot says its development strategy is “power-first.” The corporation creates the infrastructure around huge power installations, rather than buying land and hoping there will be electricity someday.Anthropic has now put a very significant dollar value on that tactic.What Riot investors should watch next$9.1 billion: Estimated value of the initial 20-year Anthropic agreement191 MW: Computing capacity Riot is expected to provide at Rockdale$16.1 billion: Potential contract value if both five-year extensions are exercised700 MW: Developed capacity at Riot’s Rockdale campus2 GW: Riot’s fully approved power portfolio50 MW: AMD’s contracted capacity at Rockdale$647.4 million: Riot’s total 2025 revenueThe bull has a solid argument. Riot occupies enormous power positions at a time when AI businesses are fighting over that very resource. Its long-term contracts could also make its future revenues less dependent on the well-known volatility of Bitcoin.But investors still face significant execution risk. The company then has to fund and create the infrastructure to serve Anthropic’s workloads, fulfill strict dependability standards, limit construction costs, and generate acceptable returns on the necessary capital.If the underlying economics aren’t sound, it’s not a major concern.That’s why the deal with Anthropic is so significant. It allows Riot to demonstrate that its power portfolio can sustain something considerably larger and more predictable than Bitcoin mining.For years, investors have basically valued Riot based on how much cryptocurrency the company could produce.The AI boom raises a different question: What is access to power worth?Anthropic may have just given the first serious answer.Related: Anthropic clarifies stance on open-weight AI models