As a long-time Mint user, I was frustrated to say the least when news broke at the end of 2023 that Intuit would shut Mint down. I, like millions of others, enjoyed how easily Mint allowed us to track all accounts in one place and monitor credit scores. I also used it regularly to track spending, set goals like pay my mortgage down faster and with general money management.

So I set out to find the best Mint alternatives in the wake of its disappointing demise. I gave Credit Karma, Intuit’s other financial app, a try but found it to be a poor Mint substitute. The following guide lays out my experience testing some of the most popular Mint replacement apps available today in search of my next budgeting app.

Our pick for best Mint alternative remains Quicken Simplifi, even long after Mint shutting down, thanks to its easy to use app, good income and bill detection and its affordable price. But there are plenty of other solid options out there for those with different needs. If you’re also on the hunt for a budgeting app to replace Mint, we hope these details can help you decide which of the best budgeting apps out there will be right for you.

Table of contents

• Best Mint alternatives in 2025

• Other Mint alternatives we tested

• What is Plaid and how does it work?

• How to import your financial data from the Mint app

• How we tested Mint alternatives

• What about Rocket Money?

Best Mint alternatives in 2025

No pun intended, but what I like about Quicken Simplifi is its simplicity. Whereas other budgeting apps try to distinguish themselves with dark themes and customizable emoji, Simplifi has a clean user interface, with a landing page that you just keep scrolling through to get a detailed overview of all your stats. These include your top-line balances; net worth; recent spending; upcoming recurring payments; a snapshot of your spending plan; top spending categories; achievements; and any watchlists you’ve set up.

Another one of the key features I appreciate is the ability to set up savings goals elsewhere in the app. I also appreciate how it offers neat, almost playful visualizations without ever looking cluttered. I felt at home in the mobile and web dashboards after a day or so, which is faster than I adapted to some competing services (I’m looking at you, YNAB and Monarch).

Getting set up with Simplifi was mostly painless. I was particularly impressed at how easily it connected to Fidelity; not all budget trackers do, for whatever reason. This is also one of the only services I tested that gives you the option of inviting a spouse or financial advisor to co-manage your account. One thing I would add to my initial assessment of the app, having used it for a few months now: I wish Simplifi offered Zillow integration for easily tracking your home value (or at least a rough estimate of it). Various competitors including Monarch Money and Copilot Money work with Zillow, so clearly there's a Zillow API available for use. As it stands, Simplifi users must add real estate manually like any other asset.

Dana Wollman / Engadget

In practice, Simplifi miscategorized some of my expenses, but nothing out of the ordinary compared to any of these budget trackers. As you’re reviewing transactions, you can also mark if you’re expecting a refund, which is a unique feature among the services I tested. Simplifi also estimated my regular income better than some other apps I tested. Most of all, I appreciated the option of being able to categorize some, but not all, purchases from a merchant as recurring. For instance, I can add my two Amazon subscribe-and-saves as recurring payments, without having to create a broad-strokes rule for every Amazon purchase.

The budgeting feature is also self-explanatory and can likely accommodate your preferred budgeting method. Just check that your regular income is accurate and be sure to set up recurring payments, making note of which are bills and which are subscriptions. This is important because Simplifi shows you your total take-home income as well as an “income after bills” figure. That number includes, well, bills but not discretionary subscriptions. From there, you can add spending targets by category in the “planned spending” bucket. Planned spending can also include one-time expenditures, not just monthly budgets. When you create a budget, Simplifi will suggest a number based on a six-month average.

Not dealbreakers, but two things to keep in mind as you get started: Simplifi is notable in that you can’t set up an account through Apple or Google. There is also no option for a free trial, though Quicken promises a “30-day money back guarantee.”

Monarch Money grew on me. My first impression of the budgeting app, which was founded by a former Mint product manager, was that it's more difficult to use than others on this list, including Simplifi, NerdWallet and Copilot. And it is. Editing expense categories, adding recurring transactions and creating rules, for example, is a little more complicated than it needs to be, especially in the mobile app. (My advice: Use the web app for fine-tuning details.) Monarch also didn’t get my income right; I had to edit it.

Once you’re set up, though, Monarch offers an impressive level of granularity. In the budgets section, you can see a bona fide balance sheet showing budgets and actuals for each category. You'll also find a forecast, for the year or by month. And recurring expenses can be set not just by merchant, but other parameters as well. For instance, while most Amazon purchases might be marked as “shopping,” those for the amounts of $54.18 or $34.18 are definitely baby supplies, and can be automatically marked as such each time, not to mention programmed as recurring payments. Weirdly, though, there’s no way to mark certain recurring payments as bills, specifically.

Dana Wollman / Engadget

Not long after I first published this story in December 2023, Monarch introduced a detailed reporting section where you can create on-demand graphs based on things like accounts, categories and tags. That feature is available just on the web version of the app for now. As part of this same update, Monarch added support for an aggregator that makes it possible to automatically update the value of your car. This, combined with the existing Zillow integration for tracking your home value, makes it easy to quickly add a non-liquid asset like a vehicle or real estate, and have it show up in your net worth graph.

The mobile app is mostly self-explanatory. The main dashboard shows your net worth; your four most recent transactions; a month-over-month spending comparison; income month-to-date; upcoming bills; an investments snapshot; a list of any goals you’ve set; and, finally, a link to your month-in-review. That month-in-review is more detailed than most, delving into cash flow; top income and expense categories; cash flow trends; changes to your net worth, assets and liabilities; plus asset and liability breakdowns. In February 2024, Monarch expanded on the net worth graph, so that if you click on the Accounts tab you can see how your net worth changed over different periods of time, including one month, three months, six months, a year or all time.

On the main screen, you’ll also find tabs for savings and checking accounts (and all others as well), transactions, cash flow, budget and recurring. Like many of the other apps featured here, Monarch can auto-detect recurring expenses and income, even if it gets the category wrong. (They all do to an extent.) Expense categories are marked by emoji, which you can customize if you’re so inclined.

Monarch Money uses a combination of networks to connect with banks, including Plaid, MX and Finicity, a competing network owned by Mastercard. (I have a quick explainer on Plaid, the industry standard in this space, toward the end of this guide.) As part of an update in late December, Monarch has also made it easier to connect through those other two networks, if for some reason Plaid fails. Similar to NerdWallet, I found myself completing two-factor authentication every time I wanted to get past the Plaid screen to add another account. Notably, Monarch is the only other app I tested that allows you to grant access to someone else in your family — likely a spouse or financial advisor. Monarch also has a Chrome extension for importing from Mint, though really this is just a shortcut for downloading a CSV file, which you’ll have to do regardless of where you choose to take your Mint data.

Additionally, Monarch just added the ability to track Apple Card, Apple Cash, and Savings accounts, thanks to new functionality brought with the iOS 17.4 update. It's not the only one either; currently, Copilot and YNAB have also added similar functionality that will be available to anyone with the latest versions of their respective apps on a device running iOS 17.4. Instead of manually uploading statements, the new functionality allows apps like Monarch's to automatically pull in transactions and balance history. That should make it easier to account for spending on Apple cards and accounts throughout the month.

Monarch also recently launched investment transactions in beta. It also says bill tracking and an overhauled goals system are coming soon. Monarch hasn't provided a timeline for that last one, except to say that the improved goals feature is coming soon.

Copilot Money might be the best-looking budgeting app I tested. It also has the distinction of being exclusive to iOS and Macs — at least for now. Andres Ugarte, the company’s CEO, has publicly promised that Android and web apps are coming soon. But until it follows through, I can’t recommend Copilot for most people with so many good competitors out there.

There are other features that Copilot is missing, which I’ll get into. But it is promising, and one to keep an eye on. It’s just a fast, efficient, well designed app, and Android users will be in for a treat when they’ll finally be able to download it. It makes good use of colors, emoji and graphs to help you understand at a glance how you’re doing on everything from your budgets to your investment performance to your credit card debt over time. In particular, Copilot does a better job than almost any other app of visualizing your recurring monthly expenses.

Behind those punchy colors and cutesy emoji, though, is some sophisticated performance. Copilot’s AI-powered “Intelligence” gets smarter as you go at categorizing your expenses. (You can also add your own categories, complete with your choice of emoji.) It’s not perfect. Copilot miscategorized some purchases (they all do), but it makes it easier to edit than most. On top of that, the internal search feature is very fast; it starts whittling down results in your transaction history as soon as you begin typing.

Dana Wollman / Engadget

Copilot is also unique in offering Amazon and Venmo integrations, allowing you to see transaction details. With Amazon, this requires just signing into your Amazon account via an in-app browser. For Venmo, you have to set up [email protected] as a forwarding address and then create a filter, wherein emails from [email protected] are automatically forwarded to [email protected]. Like Monarch Money, you can also add any property you own and track its value through Zillow, which is integrated with the app.

While the app is heavily automated, I still appreciate that Copilot marks new transactions for review. It’s a good way to both weed out fraudulent charges, and also be somewhat intentional about your spending habits.

Like Monarch Money, Copilot updated its app to make it easier to connect to banks through networks other than Plaid. As part of the same update, Copilot said it has improved its connections to both American Express and Fidelity which, again, can be a bugbear for some budget tracking apps. In an even more recent update, Copilot added a Mint import option, which other budgeting apps have begun to offer as well.

Because the app is relatively new (it launched in early 2020), the company is still catching up to the competition on some table-stakes features. Ugarte told me that his team is almost done building out a detailed cash flow section as well. On its website, Copilot also promises a raft of AI-powered features that build on its current “Intelligence” platform, the one that powers its smart expense categorization. These include “smart financial goals,” natural language search, a chat interface, forecasting and benchmarking. That benchmarking, Ugarte tells me, is meant to give people a sense of how they’re doing compared to other Copilot users, on both spending and investment performance. Most of these features should arrive in the new year.

Copilot does a couple interesting things for new customers that distinguish it from the competition. There’s a “demo mode” that feels like a game simulator; no need to add your own accounts. The company is also offering two free months with RIPMINT — a more generous introductory offer than most. When it finally does come time to pony up, the $7.92 monthly plan is cheaper than some competing apps, although the $95-a-year-option is in the same ballpark.

You may know NerdWallet as a site that offers a mix of personal finance news, explainers and guides. I see it often when I google a financial term I don’t know and sure enough, it’s one of the sites I’m most likely to click on. As it happens, NerdWallet also has the distinction of offering one of the only free budgeting apps I tested. In fact, there is no paid version; nothing is locked behind a paywall. The main catch: There are ads everywhere. To be fair, the free version of Mint was like this, too.

Even with the inescapable credit card offers, NerdWallet has a clean, easy-to-understand user interface, which includes both a web and a mobile app. The key metrics that it highlights most prominently are your cash flow, net worth and credit score. (Of note, although Mint itself offered credit score monitoring, most of its rivals do not.) I particularly enjoyed the weekly insights, which delve into things like where you spent the most money or how much you paid in fees — and how that compares to the previous month. Because this is NerdWallet, an encyclopedia of financial info, you get some particularly specific category options when setting up your accounts (think: a Roth or non-Roth IRA).

Dana Wollman / Engadget

As a budgeting app, NerdWallet is more than serviceable, if a bit basic. Like other apps I tested, you can set up recurring bills. Importantly, it follows the popular 50/30/20 budgeting rule, which has you putting 50% of your budget toward things you need, 30% toward things you want, and the remaining 20% into savings or debt repayments. If this works for you, great — just know that you can’t customize your budget to the same degree as some competing apps. You can’t currently create custom spending categories, though a note inside the dashboard section of the app says “you’ll be able to customize them in the future.” You also can’t move items from the wants column to “needs” or vice versa but “In the future, you'll be able to move specific transactions to actively manage what falls into each group.” A NerdWallet spokesperson declined to provide an ETA, though.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that NerdWallet had one of the most onerous setup processes of any app I tested. I don’t think this is a dealbreaker, as you’ll only have to do it once and, hopefully, you aren’t setting up six or seven apps in tandem as I was. What made NerdWallet’s onboarding especially tedious is that every time I wanted to add an account, I had to go through a two-factor authentication process to even get past the Plaid splash screen, and that’s not including the 2FA I had set up at each of my banks. This is a security policy on NerdWallet’s end, not Plaid’s, a Plaid spokesperson says.

Precisely because NerdWallet is one of the only budget trackers to offer credit score monitoring, it also needs more of your personal info during setup, including your birthday, address, phone number and the last four digits of your social security number. It’s the same with Credit Karma, which also does credit score monitoring.

Related to the setup process, I found that NerdWallet was less adept than other apps at automatically detecting my regular income. In my case, it counted a large one-time wire transfer as income, at which point my only other option was to enter my income manually (which is slightly annoying because I would have needed my pay stub handy to double-check my take-home pay).

YNAB is, by its own admission, “different from anything you’ve tried before.” The app, whose name is short for You Need a Budget, promotes a so-called zero-based budgeting system, which forces you to assign a purpose for every dollar you earn. A frequently used analogy is to put each dollar in an envelope; you can always move money from one envelope to another in a pinch. These envelopes can include rent and utilities, along with unforeseen expenses like holiday gifts and the inevitable car repair. The idea is that if you budget a certain amount for the unknowns each month, they won’t feel like they’re sneaking up on you.

Importantly, YNAB is only concerned with the money you have in your accounts now. The app does not ask you to provide your take-home income or set up recurring income payments (although there is a way to do this). The money you will make later in the month through your salaried job is not relevant, because YNAB does not engage in forecasting.

The app is harder to learn than any other here, and it requires more ongoing effort from the user. And YNAB knows that. Inside both the mobile and web apps are links to videos and other tutorials. Although I never quite got comfortable with the user interface, I did come to appreciate YNAB’s insistence on intentionality. Forcing users to draft a new budget each month and to review each transaction is not necessarily a bad thing. As YNAB says on its website, “Sure, you’ve got pie charts showing that you spent an obscene amount of money in restaurants — but you’ve still spent an obscene amount of money in restaurants.” I can see this approach being useful for people who don’t tend to have a lot of cash in reserve at a given time, or who have spending habits they want to correct (to riff off of YNAB’s own example, ordering Seamless four times a week).

My colleague Valentina Palladino, knowing I was working on this guide, penned a respectful rebuttal, explaining why she’s been using YNAB for years. Perhaps, like her, you have major savings goals you want to achieve, whether it’s paying for a wedding or buying a house. I suggest you give her column a read. For me, though, YNAB’s approach feels like overkill.

Other Mint alternatives we tested

PocketGuard

PocketGuard used to be a solid free budget tracker, but the company has since limited its “free” version to just a free seven-day trial. Now, you’ll have to choose between two plans once the trial is over: a $13 monthly plan or a $75 annual plan. When I first tested it, I found it to be more restricted than NerdWallet, but still a decent option. The main overview screen shows you your net worth, total assets and debts; net income and total spending for the month; upcoming bills; a handy reminder of when your next paycheck lands; any debt payoff plan you have; and any goals. Like some other apps, including Quicken Simplifi, PocketGuard promotes an “after bills” approach, where you enter all of your recurring bills, and then PocketGuard shows you what’s left, and that’s what you’re supposed to be budgeting: your disposable income.

Although PocketGuard’s UI is easy enough to understand, it lacks polish. The “accounts” tab is a little busy, and doesn’t show totals for categories like cash or investments. Seemingly small details like weirdly phrased or punctuated copy occasionally make the app feel janky. More than once, it prompted me to update the app when no updates were available. The web version, meanwhile, feels like the mobile app blown up to a larger format and doesn’t take advantage of the extra screen real estate. Ultimately, now that the free tier is gone, it just doesn’t present the same value proposition as it once did.

What is Plaid and how does it work?

Each of the apps I tested uses the same underlying network, called Plaid, to pull in financial data, so it’s worth explaining in its own section what it is and how it works. Plaid was founded as a fintech startup in 2013 and is today the industry standard in connecting banks with third-party apps. Plaid works with over 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada and Europe. Additionally, more than 8,000 third-party apps and services rely on Plaid, the company claims.

To be clear, you don’t need a dedicated Plaid app to use it; the technology is baked into a wide array of apps, including the budget trackers I tested for this guide. Once you find the “add an account” option in whichever one you’re using, you’ll see a menu of commonly used banks. There’s also a search field you can use to look yours up directly. Once you find yours, you’ll be prompted to enter your login credentials. If you have two-factor authentication set up, you’ll need to enter a one-time passcode as well.

As the middleman, Plaid is a passthrough for information that may include your account balances, transaction history, account type and routing or account number. Plaid uses encryption, and says it has a policy of not selling or renting customer data to other companies. However, I would not be doing my job if I didn’t note that in 2022 Plaid was forced to pay $58 million to consumers in a class action suit for collecting “more financial data than was needed.” As part of the settlement, Plaid was compelled to change some of its business practices.

In a statement provided to Engadget, a Plaid spokesperson said the company continues to deny the allegations underpinning the lawsuit and that “the crux of the non-financial terms in the settlement are focused on us accelerating workstreams already underway related to giving people more transparency into Plaid’s role in connecting their accounts, and ensuring that our workstreams around data minimization remain on track.”

How to import your financial data from the Mint app

Mint users should consider getting their data ready to migrate to their new budgeting app of choice soon. Unfortunately, importing data from Mint is not as easy as entering your credentials from inside your new app and hitting “import.” In fact, any app that advertises the ability to port over your stats from Mint is just going to have you upload a CSV file of transactions and other data.

To download a CSV file from Mint, do the following:

1. Sign into Mint.com and hit Transactions in the menu on the left side of the screen.

2. Select an account, or all accounts.

3. Scroll down and look for “export [number] transactions” in smaller print.

4. Your CSV file should begin downloading.

Note: Downloading on a per-account basis might seem more annoying, but could help you get set up on the other side, if the app you’re using has you importing transactions one-for-one into their corresponding accounts.

How we tested Mint alternatives

Before I dove into the world of budgeting apps, I had to do some research. To find a list of apps to test, I consulted trusty ol’ Google (and even trustier Reddit); read reviews of popular apps on the App Store; and also asked friends and colleagues what budget tracking apps they might be using. Some of the apps I found were free, just like Mint. These, of course, show loads of ads (excuse me, “offers”) to stay in business. But most of the available apps require paid subscriptions, with prices typically topping out around $100 a year, or $15 a month. (Spoiler: My top pick is cheaper than that.)

Since this guide is meant to help Mint users find a permanent replacement, any services I chose to test needed to do several things: import all of your account data into one place; offer budgeting tools; and track your spending, net worth and credit score. Except where noted, all of these apps are available for iOS, Android and on the web.

Once I had my shortlist of six apps, I got to work setting them up. For the sake of thoroughly testing these apps (and remember, I really was looking for a Mint alternative myself), I made a point of adding every account to every budgeting app, no matter how small or immaterial the balance. What ensued was a veritable Groundhog Day of two-factor authentication. Just hours of entering passwords and one-time passcodes, for the same banks half a dozen times over. Hopefully, you only have to do this once.

What about Rocket Money?

Rocket Money is another free financial app that tracks spending and supports things like balance alerts and account linking. If you pay for the premium tier, the service can also help you cancel unwanted subscriptions. We did not test it for this guide, but we'll consider it in future updates.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/the-best-budgeting-apps-to-replace-mint-143047346.html?src=rss

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The offers and details on this page may have updated or changed since the time of publication. See our article on Business Insider for current information.

• My parents sold their home of 40 years and retired to Barranquilla, Colombia.
• They enjoyed 15 years there, but a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease changed everything.
• Now they're back in in Houston, and I'm navigating their care and finances.

When my parents retired at 70, they both knew immediately where they wanted to go.

With its year-round temperatures of 80 to 90 degrees, peaceful blue waters and a welcoming and lively culture the seaside city of Barranquilla, Colombia, called to them. After all, my Colombian father would be going back to his homeland, and my Cuban mother relished in the Latin culture that seemed so fragmented in the U.S.

They sold their home of more than 40 years in Houston and purchased a two-story condo with a partial ocean view for $135,000 USD. Their social security and retirement money went a long way in Barranquilla, where the average cost of living is much lower than it is in the US.

The move was great, until it wasn't

In the beginning, their retirement life was idyllic. They enjoyed afternoon coffee with friends at sidewalk cafes, they walked along the beach every morning and they would attend parties in their condo development with fellow retirees.

But one day, while they were visiting my family in Texas, my mother stopped and stared at my younger son splashing away in the pool. "Who's that little boy?" she asked. I stared at her face, as she scrutinized my son, with his dark curls and almond brown eyes that looked like mine. "Ma, that's your grandson," I said.

That's when I knew something was terribly wrong. On another visit, my father would wander in the kitchen aimlessly, looking for the cabinet where we kept our water glasses, despite the fact that he had no problem finding them a year ago.

A trip to the neurologist confirmed what I had already suspected. They both had Alzheimer's disease.

We needed to make a plan

While the diagnosis for both of them was still early-stage, I knew what the future held. My grandmother (my mother's mother) and my mother's brother both had Alzheimer's. Worst yet, my father seemed to be progressing at an alarmingly rapid rate. Unfortunately, retiring on the Colombian coast would be a dream unfulfilled.

They decided to move back to Houston to be closer to family and their doctors. They agreed to sell their condo and move in with us temporarily until we could find a suitable assisted living apartment. But it's been tricky. Some days, they would say they were moving back to Barranquilla permanently. It was a constant flip-flop, but my husband and I made an executive decision to keep them in Houston.

They've been living with us since February. In that time, I've had to reset all their passwords because they couldn't remember them. I spend every morning scrambling to the kitchen to make sure I'm there to give them their medication, a routine they consistently forget.

The biggest challenge, though, has been navigating foreign laws. One thing I did early on was get a power of attorney and medical power of attorney. While those two documents have been incredibly helpful in the states, I'm not entirely sure the legal weight these documents may carry in Colombia. I'm currently looking for a lawyer and a real estate agent abroad who can help me with the sale of their condo. Once that's taken care of, I then have to sell all the stuff they've amassed in the 15 years they've lived there.

I'm planning for my own future, too

Perhaps the biggest lesson I've learned in all of this is to be prepared. I plan to sign up for long-term care insurance so my children won't have to stress over how they plan to pay for my care in the same way I have had to with my parents. I've been taking steps to improve my health and I'm also financially prepared for the inevitable — when my parents pass away. Right now, though, I'm going to relish the time I still have with them, here, close to my family.

• Wall Street interns face pressure for return offers as summer ends.
• Internships are crucial for securing full-time investment banking roles.
• Regina Savage of Morgan Stanley emphasizes seizing opportunities and knowing strengths.

With Wall Street summer internships in their final stretch, young bankers in training have a new concern: the return offer.

On Wall Street, internships are more than a summer gig. They're often the main gateway to full-time investment banking jobs — making the stakes especially high.

Regina Savage knows a thing or two about building a successful investment banking career. A managing director at Morgan Stanley — a top Wall Street bank and coveted destination for aspiring bankers — she played a key role in taking electric vehicle company Rivian public in 2021

Savage began her banking career at Goldman Sachs in Los Angeles, advising on media mergers and acquisitions, before moving to Morgan Stanley in 2009, where she has remained since. She now serves as global head of the firm's automotive and mobility technology group, focusing on electric and autonomous vehicles at a time when companies like Waymo and Tesla are making waves. Savage is also cohead of North America industrials within the investment bank, advising manufacturing and other industrial clients on M&A. She is based in Chicago.

In an effort to understand how young bankers can succeed in this competitive industry and put their best foot forward, Business Insider spoke with Savage, who has spent many years interacting with interns. She talked about the importance of seizing opportunities when they arise, understanding your own strengths and "superpowers" rather than trying to emulate others, and described the way lists help keep her organized.

Checking things off the list

As a managing director, Savage travels a lot to interface with clients. For her, early mornings are key to productivity.

"I think people have to know when they're most productive," she said. "I'm actually really ruthless and conscious of how I spend my time, and so as part of that, I know that I'm most productive in the morning."

When she's not on the road (or in the sky), she uses the first hour or two of her morning to get through the less fun, more administrative stuff.

"I tend to be up really early," she said. "I get myself ready and I get myself a coffee, log in, and I try to triage what came in overnight."

Lists are also a key part of her organization, Savage said.

"I also keep a running list of my priorities. And I reset that list every week, and look at that and make sure that I'm spending my time on what those are," she said.

The right attitude

When it comes to hiring young talent, Savage looks for curiosity, enthusiasm, and a genuine interest in the work, rather than just technical skills.

"I think it's really important that they have curiosity about the job and what it is that we're doing and why we're doing it. So it's not just about putting together a slide, but why are we pulling this slide together?" she said.

"You're only going to be successful at this job if you find it interesting," she said. "Seeing people who really do want to understand how it all fits together is important."

The attribute that the most successful interns and young hires tend to share is a good outlook and attitude.

"Attitude is well more than 50% of what makes somebody truly great at that level," she said. "We can teach you the skills you need."

Seizing opportunities

Savage didn't plan to become an expert in the automotive space. Not long after arriving at Morgan Stanley, the bank needed someone to help lead Chrysler's restructuring after its bankruptcy. Savage raised her hand.

"You don't know where the opportunities are going to be. You just have to be ready to grab them when they come," she said.

After spending about a year on that deal, she saw a "white space" in auto coverage and decided to focus on technology within the sector just as electric and autonomous vehicles were taking off. Aspiring bankers, take note.

"Being resilient and adaptable and, when you see an opportunity, jumping at it and with both hands, I think that's the number one piece of advice I would give."

Savage also warns not to dwell on "what could've been."

"There's no point in looking at closed doors or other paths that are closed to you. I feel like people worry that they missed something," she said. "Don't waste calories, energy, brainpower on regret."

Know your superpower

Savage advises young people trying to find their way in the industry to be really honest with themselves about their strengths and weaknesses.

"Know your superpower," she said. "I find people try to emulate others, but nobody is you."

She gave herself as an example: "There are some people who strut into a room and they just command the room immediately and ooze charisma — that's never going to be me. But I know what I am really good at. I'm really good at making connections and synthesizing information and being able to see patterns across different things," Savage said.

Savage suggests starting by looking for people you admire who have similar strengths as you and at what they've done. This advice is particular important for young women, she said.

"It's a lot less likely that there's another woman that you're working with that has a similar skillset to you that you can emulate. So being able to take little bits from everybody that you meet that you think is successful, and seeing how that works with your style, is really important."

Are Tesla investors losing confidence in Elon Musk’s vision of the future? Or are they still inflating the company’s value based on their faith in the cofounder?

For the past several quarters after Tesla has unveiled earnings, I’ve been calculating a metric that I’ve dubbed The Musk Magic Premium. The figure estimates both the portion of the EV-maker’s valuation that’s justified by its current, baseline earnings, and the extra part based on CEO Musk’s promises for sensational products that have yet to be fully or even partially commercialized. That categories ranges from autonomous robotaxis, to full-self driving kits for retrofitting Teslas now on the road, to the manufacturer’s forthcoming humanoid “Optimus” robots.

Tesla’s Q2 report, issued after the market close on July 23, continues a series of highly disappointing quarters for the company’s EV sales, reflecting continuing weakness in China and Europe, even after a series of sharp discounts. Auto revenues dropped 16% versus Q2 of last year, and a rise in energy storage, services and other businesses failed to fill the gap, so that overall revenue declined by low-double-digit percentages. The sales headwind sent GAAP net profits down 17% to $1.17 billion—about a third what Tesla was netting per quarter in 2022.

But even the official earnings number overstates what I’ll call Tesla’s bedrock, “core” profits, defined as what it generates excluding special items that aren’t part of fundamental operations, and are unlikely contribute significantly in the years to come.

The first of the two big exclusions: Sales of regulatory credits to other carmakers that fail to meet the U.S. CAFE and other domestic and international emissions standards. The Trump administration is effectively axing the CAFE payments that have provided a huge bounty to Tesla, and Musk has acknowledged that the company’s lucrative “regulatory credits” revenue line won’t last too far into the future.

The second unusual item: unrealized profits and losses on Bitcoin holdings, currently worth around $1.4 billion. As we’ll see, the cryptocurrency careens from a positive to negative contributor depending on the quarter; the shifts in value have no impact on the cash Tesla collects and carry no tax penalty or benefit.

Tesla continues a streak of weak ‘core’ earnings

Hence, Tesla’s reported figure of $1.17 billion for Q2, though low, still overstate its current earnings power. The automaker booked regulatory credits worth an estimated $338 million after-tax, and added $284 million in paper gains from the big jump in Bitcoin prices. Subtract those two ephemeral items, and Tesla’s core earnings, by my definition, shrink to $550 million. In Q1, Tesla did even worse, making just $303 million using this metric (it took a loss on Bitcoin that I added back to get the core number). And for the past four quarters, it’s repeatable, durable profits total just $3.66 billion.

That’s a huge comedown from $12 billion registered by my measure in 2022.

So where does that result put the Musk Magic Premium? Investors disliked the Q2 results, sending Tesla’s shares reeling 8% as of market close on July 24. At that point, its market cap had dropped below the $1 trillion mark to $989 billion.

Let’s first establish what Tesla’s likely worth as a “standalone” maker and seller of cars and energy-saving equipment. Though sales are declining, we’ll award the current no-growth model the S&P 500’s generous overall PE of 29.3, an extremely high mark by historical standards. Running numbers on what it’s doing today, Tesla’s worth $107 billion. (That’s the multiple of 29.3 times trailing 12-month core earnings of $3.66 billion.)

The difference between that modest figure and Tesla’s still Brobdingnagian valuation is what’s known as Tesla’s “future growth value” or what I call the Musk Magic Premium. Today, the MMP stands at around $882 billion (today’s cap of $989 billion less a value based on what it does today of $107 billon). That’s actually slightly higher than it stood in March, when I last calculated it.

It’s intriguing that at least for today, investors are expressing a lot less confidence in Musk’s promises. Their doubts shaved no less than $89 billion from Tesla’s cap so far. Still, their faith extends well beyond anything that even the most optimistic growth estimates can reasonably explain. Say you want a 10% annual return for buying, or continuing to hold, Tesla shares over the next seven years. To deliver, Tesla’s valuation would need to double over that span, hitting nearly $2 trillion. Even if Tesla boasts a premium PE of 35 at that point, the required earnings bogey by mid-2032 reaches $55 billion a year. Ringing that bell would mandate annual profit growth of around 45%. That’s possible for a startup, but for a mature giant that’s arguably as much about metal bending as grounddbreaking technology, it sounds like the ultimate stretch.

Musk’s statements rival his most head-spinning pledges to date

On the earnings call, Musk predicted that by year end, “We’ll probably have autonomous ride hailing in probably half the population of the U.S.,” and that “the number of vehicles in operation will increase at a hyper-exponential rate.” But the most revealing part of Musk’s declaration was his cautionary interjections that because they’re so unusual, deserve close attention.

Musk acknowledged that the U.S. regulatory “tax credits are poised to go away.” He added, “We’re in this weird period where we’ll lose a lot of incentives in the U.S. We probably could have a couple of tough quarters.” He then reprised the super-promoter persona: “Once you get to autonomy at scale…certainly by the end of next, year I’d be surprised if Tesla’s economics are not very compelling.”

What? Investors need to wait to the end of 2026 to see big profits start rolling in? The farther the Musk horizon recedes, the more folks and funds will lose confidence in his fabulous vision, and the more days like today its stock will suffer. Going back to the numbers, they contained an even worse sign than the puny earnings. Tesla’s CFO stated that the company will spend over $5 billion in capital expenditures for the rest of the 2025. That’s more than what it collected in cash from operations in the first two quarters, suggesting its free cash flow could go negative. If that happens, Tesla will be spending more on expansion than it’s collecting in earnings.

The warning sign: All of these revolutionary products continue to be extremely expensive, and capital intensive, to fund. Getting the kind of returns Tesla needs will require huge returns on every new dollar it invests, along the lines of the Alphabet or Nvidia mold. Yet the heavy capital outlays keep coming. Musk heralds the promised land ahead. Investors are starting to see a fading mirage.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images

Greg Davis visited Fortune this month dressed like a Wall Street titan—and bearing a very un-Wall-Street message about a tepid future for U.S. stocks.

On July 11, Davis––the president and chief investment officer of Vanguard Group––came to our offices in Manhattan’s Financial District for a chat with this reporter. Though Davis works from Vanguard’s mother ship (its buildings are all named for British vessels from the Napoleonic wars) in the tiny hamlet of Malvern, Pa., west of Philadelphia, he arrived attired in a tailored gray suit and purple silk tie combo that would have fit right in with the most formal of the investment banking cadre and portfolio managers headquartered nearby.

Yet Davis’s message couldn’t have been more contrary to the fashionable view among the neighborhood’s rosy prognosticators.

The 25-year Vanguard veteran’s outlook contradicts the prevailing position advanced by the big banks, research firms, and TV pundits that despite serial years of big gains, U.S. stocks remain a great buy. That bull case rests mainly on optimism that the Big Beautiful Bill’s deregulatory agenda and tax cuts will spur the economy, and that the AI revolution promises a new world of efficiencies that will shift earnings to super-fast track going forward. The powerful momentum that has driven the Nasdaq and S&P 500 to all time highs this week bolster their argument for more to come.

Davis follows the Vanguard mindset that, arguably more than any other, revolutionized the investing world over the past half-century. The company’s founder, John Bogle, created the first index funds for ordinary investors in 1975, following the conviction that funds choosing individual stocks regularly fail to beat their benchmarks after fees, and that a pallet of diversified index funds, and later ETFs, that hold expenses to an absolute minimum, provide the best platform for achieving superior gains over the long-term.

The top testament to the enduring validity of the Vanguard model: Over 80% of its ETFs and indexed mutual fund beat their peer-group averages over the past 10 years, measured by LSEG Lipper, largely courtesy of those super-tight expense ratios. The Vanguard model’s won such overwhelming favor that it now manages 28% of the combined U.S. mutual fund and ETF universe, and it’s gained 7 points in market share in the past decade. At $10 trillion in AUM, it ranks second only to BlackRock among all U.S. asset managers.

Besides offering over 400 super-low-cost funds worldwide, Vanguard also provides investment advice as a firm, and through its army of financial advisers. A big part of the Vanguard formula: Periodically rebalancing from securities that get extremely pricey by historical standards into areas that are undervalued versus their norms. In our discussion, Davis provided a master class on how the dollars in profits you’re getting for each $100 you’re paying for a stock influences future returns, and why now is such a crucial time to shift from what’s highly, even dangerously expensive into safe areas that look like screaming buys.

Put simply, Davis argues that U.S. equities are a victim of their own success. For Davis, the fabulous ride in recent years virtually guarantees that future returns will prove extremely disappointing versus outsized, double-digit gains investors have gotten used to, and that the investment pros predict will persist. The reason is simple: U.S. stocks have simply gotten so costly that their forward progress is destined to radically slow. “Our investment strategy group’s projection is that U.S. equity market returns are going to be much more muted in the future,” Davis warns. “Over the past ten years, the S&P returned an average of 12.4% annually. We’re predicting the figure to drop to between 3.8% and 5.8% (midpoint of 4.8%) over the next decade.”

The basic market math, he contends, points to that outcome. Davis notes that the official price-to-earnings multiple on the S&P now stands at an extremely lofty 29.3. And when Vanguard uses a preferred gauge based on Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller’s Cyclically Adjusted Price-to-Earnings multiple, or CAPE––a measure that adjusts the PE by normalizing for spikes and valleys in earnings––it concludes that US stocks hover 49% over the top end of the group’s fair value range.

Davis also points out that corporate profits are now extremely high by historical levels, and hence won’t grow nearly as fast from here as their jackrabbit pace of recent years. In other words, don’t count on an EPS explosion to solve the valuation problem. In fact, this reporter notes that contrary to what we’re constantly hearing about forthcoming double-digit increases in profits, the sprint has already slowed to a stroll. From Q4 of 2021 to Q1 of this year, S&P 500 EPS grew from $198 to $217, or 9.6% in over three years, a puny pace that doesn’t even match inflation.

Huge gains have knocked portfolios out of balance

Davis explained how the longstanding bull market has wildly distorted the standard “60-40” portfolio. That classic construction of 60% stocks and 40% bonds has worked well in many periods, he notes. But today, folks who started at 60-40 a decade ago, and didn’t rebalance into bonds as equity prices swelled year after year, are now banking far too heavily on those richly-valued U.S. equities. “In the past 10 years, interest rates have mainly been very low, so bonds returned only around 2% a year, or 10% less than stocks,” declares Davis. “So the stock portion kept compounding at a high rate and getting bigger, and the bond portion kept shrinking as a share of the total. As a result, what started as a 60-40 mix is now 80-20 in favor of stocks.”

To make matters worse, says Davis, “U.S. stocks outperformed international equities by 6 percentage points a year in the past decade. So 10 years ago, if you started with the standard split 70% U.S. and 30% foreign, you’d now be at 80% U.S. and 20% foreign.” Hence, sans rebalancing, an investor’s overall share of U.S. stocks would have gone from 42% to around two-thirds, a gigantic leap.

Those weightings, he says, are lopsided in the wrong direction, in two ways—by holding far too big a percentage of stocks and not enough bonds, and within the equity portion, not owning enough foreign shares. “If you look at the bond market today and the way yields have risen, we’re projecting that you’re going to pick up very similar returns in a mix of U.S. and foreign bonds as you’ll get in U.S. equities, or also 4% to 5%. So the expectations are comparable, but you’ll have much less volatility on the bond side,” avows Davis, adding, “What’s the big advantage to betting on risky stocks when you can get 4.3% on three-month Treasuries?”

Hence, Davis makes a daring recommendation: Investors should reverse the classic blend and go with 60% bonds and 40% stocks. For the fixed income portion, he notes, Vanguard’s Total World Bond ETF (BNDW) offers a blend of domestic and international fixed income, encompassing government bonds, corporates, agencies, mortgages, and asset backed securities.

In addition, Vanguard projects that foreign shares over the next ten years will generate average returns of 7%, waxing the 5% or so for U.S. equities. Hence, Davis recommends that in the 40% dedicated to stocks, investors lean heavily to the international side by splitting the allocation evenly, or 20% and 20%, between stateside and international stocks. The Vanguard FTSE All World ex US ETF (VEU) would fit the slot reserved for the international allotment.

In summary, Davis is advising a radical rebalancing for folks who let their U.S. stocks swallow a bigger and bigger part of their portfolios as bonds and international shares underperformed year after year. So here’s are allocations he’d recommend for the decade ahead: 60% fixed income, 20% international equities, and—gulp—just 20% in U.S. stocks. Once again, that number compares to the around two-thirds you’d hold in U.S. equities if you’d started at 60-40 ten years ago and just let your gains on U.S. stocks rip without any rebalancing.

I ran some numbers on the returns you’d garner in the two scenarios: First, if you don’t rejigger and keep holding two-thirds of your portfolio in U.S. stocks, and second, if you do what Davis advocates and put 60% in bonds, and park more of the equity share abroad. In both cases, the projected future return is just over 5% yearly. No big difference in returns over the next decade.

So why choose the Davis formula? The edge in making the big shift: The path will be much smoother, predictable, and less nerve-rattling that sticking with a huge over-weighting in U.S. stocks. Of course, Davis recommends rebalancing gradually, and funding as much of it as possible with fresh savings and reinvestment of dividends and high interest payments from fixed income assets.

Davis is no fan of cryptocurrencies

Davis isn’t recommending crypto investing as a means of boosting your returns at a time when U.S. stocks won’t come close to matching their past performance. “I got into this business around the time of the dot.com era,” he told me. “Anything with a dot.com behind it went to the moon. Some were actually really good businesses, however the majority were not. Good things can come out of crypto like blockchain, and that technology can reduce costs in the financial sector and improve speed, so we think there are some good fundamental components to it. But to us investing in Bitcoin is speculation.”

For Davis, Bitcoin offers none of the advantages of traditional investments that generate interest payments, or earnings that feed capital gains and dividends. “It’s not investing in a cash flow generating business, it’s not investing in bonds where you have a commitment to getting a coupon payment every six months, then principal at maturity,” he explains. “It’s basically looking to sell to someone willing to pay more than you did. And the whole idea that a limited supply of Bitcoin will drive up its value is questionable when you consider that there’s an unlimited supply of new types of crypto that could be created. So I personally don’t get it. Vanguard won’t launch a Bitcoin fund. We just don’t see it as a core part of an investment portfolio.”

Davis grew up on an Army base near Nuremberg, Germany, the child of a father in an Airborne division and a German mother. As a kid, he mainly spoke German, including with his grandmother, and didn’t live in the U.S. until age 7. “When I go to Germany and speak the language, people can tell I’ve kept the Bavarian dialect,” he declares. He started at Penn State pursuing aeronautical engineering, but lack of skill in mechanical drawing forced him to switch—to a major in insurance. “Penn State was one of the few schools that offered that unusual major,” he says. Davis went on to get an MBA at Wharton, and after a brief stint in a Merrill Lynch training program, got an offer from Vanguard that would require a move from Wall Street to the sleepy suburbs of Philly.

Davis took the job in part because Vanguard was then a fast-growing shop, where he figured his chances of advancement would be better than at a huge bank or brokerage. He was especially attracted to Vanguard’s highly unusual “cooperative” model, where the funds––meaning the investors––are the shareholders. “So because we have economies of scale where over time our revenues grow faster than expenses, we can rebate that money back to investors by lowering fees,” he says. Davis proudly notes that Vanguard has made 2,000 such reductions in its history, and especially that in February it announced the biggest decrease ever—a cut of $350 million across 68 mutual funds and ETFs in equities and fixed income.

Vanguard’s whole approach where the objective is to constantly lower fees is highly un-Wall Street. So is Davis’s contrarian counsel to follow what the valuations and history tells us, to shift from stocks that are extremely expensive and whose prices can’t grow to the sky, despite what the bulls are saying. It’s a sobering, cautionary tale. But it’s one that makes eminent sense.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Hollie Adams/Bloomberg via Getty Images

• Otter Rock is the latest member of the extended Tiger Management family tree.
• The long-short equity fund is a great-grandcub, as its founder worked at Tom Purcell's Alua Capital.
• Alix Karlan previously worked for Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global as well.

Alix Karlan is taking advantage of the renewed appetite for old-school stock pickers.

The former technology sector head for Tom Purcell's $3 billion hedge fund Alua Capital is planning to launch Otter Rock in the fourth quarter of this year, a person close to the firm told Business Insider. The fund's commingled vehicle is expected to raise $300 million before launch, and there's a chance the firm might take on additional capital via a separately managed account, the person said.

Karlan declined to comment.

The new fund will invest in stocks across different sectors, with a focus on companies undergoing technological disruption, the person said. It will be based in Stamford, the Connecticut town that is also the headquarters for Steve Cohen's Point72 and Paul Tudor Jones' long-running investment manager.

So far, the firm has hired Dan Beckham as chief operating officer. Beckham, according to his LinkedIn profile, has worked in various executive roles in asset management for decades, most recently as the head of investor relations and business development at private equity firm Saturn V Capital.

Karlan started as an analyst at Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global before going to Stanford Business School. He joined Purcell's firm in 2015 and worked there until the start of 2024, when he began trading his own capital using the strategy he plans to deploy at Otter Rock.

He's the latest addition to the extended Tiger Management family tree, which includes big-name managers known as Tiger Cubs, such as Tiger Global, Coatue, Lone Pine, and the aforementioned Viking, as well as funds started by former employees of these managers. Alua, for example, is run by Purcell, a former executive at Viking, and Marco Tablada, a onetime Lone Pine investor.

Despite Julian Robertson, the billionaire founder of the legendary firm, passing away in 2022, his firm is still active and continues his legacy of backing external managers. The Tiger Cubs, started by former analysts of Robertson's, have spawned the next generation of stockpicking hedge funds, led by Viking in particular.

Former Viking investors who have become founders include Purcell, D1 founder Dan Sundheim, Avala Global founder Divya Nettimi, and Voyager Global founder Grant Wonders. The industry is also closely tracking the progress of former Viking executive Ning Jin's soon-to-launch firm, Avantyr Capital.

Shares of ASML, the Dutch semiconductor equipment giant, tumbled 11% on Wednesday after the company announced it could no longer confirm that it will grow in 2026. The drop wiped out over $30 billion in market value and sent shockwaves through global tech markets, as investors digested the implications for the broader semiconductor and AI industries.

The selloff followed ASML’s second-quarter earnings report, which beat expectations on revenue and net profit, with robust bookings of $6.4 billion. However, CEO Christophe Fouquet’s comments overshadowed the strong results: “While we still prepare for growth in 2026, we cannot confirm it at this stage,” he said, citing escalating macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty, especially the threat of new tariffs on semiconductor equipment.

Smart money watches ASML for signals on the tech cycle’s health; a growth warning here may be the market’s early clue that the AI and semiconductor supercycle is reaching a plateau—or at least preparing for turbulence.

Why ASML’s outlook matters more than most

This isn’t just a company-specific event—it could be a canary in the coal mine for the global tech and AI ecosystem. Why? ASML is the world’s exclusive supplier of EUV lithography machines—the ultra-precise fabrication equipment that makes cutting-edge semiconductors possible. Every state-of-the-art AI accelerator, every data-center chip that powers generative AI, traces its technological lineage back to ASML’s tools.

So when ASML tells the market it “cannot confirm” growth for 2026—despite beating on current earnings—it’s signaling not just caution about its own pipeline, but a potential inflection point in the most future-critical segment of the electronics supply chain. In other words: if ASML’s order book slows, it means that downstream chipmakers may anticipate softer demand, have rising uncertainty about capex returns, or are bracing for policy headwinds.

The context matters: This is a moment when AI demand has been surging, but in 2025 it’s now colliding with macro uncertainty, particularly driven by U.S.-EU tariff threats, China export restrictions, and capex fatigue after a historic tech investment wave. ASML’s lead times are 12 to 18 months—with orders today reflecting confidence in global chip demand well into 2026. If that confidence is wavering, it ripples through the entire innovation economy.

ASML is not just another tech stock—it is the linchpin of the global semiconductor supply chain. The company is the world’s sole supplier of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, the critical technology that enables the production of the most advanced chips used in everything from AI accelerators to smartphones and data centers.

What’s behind the growth warning?

Several factors converged to cloud ASML’s outlook. One was tariff uncertainty. President Trump’s threat of 30% tariffs on European imports, including semiconductor equipment, has rattled ASML’s customers. The company warned that tariffs on new systems and parts shipped to the U.S., as well as possible retaliatory measures, could directly hit its gross margins and delay customer investment decisions.

Ongoing trade disputes and export controls, especially involving China and the U.S., have made it harder for ASML to forecast demand. Clients are increasingly cautious, with some potentially postponing or scaling back orders. While Q2 bookings were strong, Barclays analysts noted ASML would need to double its current order pace to meet previous 2026 growth forecasts. The backlog coverage for 2026 is at its lowest in three years, raising doubts about near-term momentum.

Market reaction

The market’s response was swift and severe as ASML shares fell 11%, their steepest single-day drop since October 2024, when a disappointing third-quarter earnings report led to the stock price falling 16%. Wednesday’s selloff dragged down the broader European tech sector and hit U.S. semiconductor equipment peers such as Lam Research and Applied Materials.

In contrast, AI chipmakers such as Nvidia and AMD rose, buoyed by positive news on U.S. export policy to China, highlighting a divergence between chip designers and the equipment supply chain.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Hollie Adams / Bloomberg—Getty Images

• Beef prices continue to climb as egg prices fall. Since January, the average price per pound has jumped 9% to $9.26. Over the past year, steak prices are up 12.4%.

Breakfast is starting to become affordable once again as egg prices have finally seen price drops, but if you’re thinking of firing up the grill, you might want to check your savings account first.

Beef prices are hitting new record highs. The Department of Agriculture shows that since January, the average price per pound has jumped 9% to $9.26. Over the past year, steak prices are up 12.4%.

Hamburger’s not much better off. The price of ground beef is up 10.3% in the past year.

Demand has remained high while herds have been shrinking—hitting their lowest levels in 74 years. Feed prices are higher and Imported beef is costing more as well.

Egg prices spiked due to avian flu concerns, which resulted in the slaughter of millions of chickens and a subsequent shortage of domestically produced eggs. Chicken populations eventually started to recover from the slaughter, though, which increased the supply, bringing costs back down.

It won’t be that easy with beef.

While herd sizes can grow, it takes longer for a cow to mature—and the rising price of feed isn’t expected to decline anytime soon, meaning it costs a fair bit more to raise the cattle. Imports, meanwhile, are likely to be subject to tariffs moving forward, and those make up about 8% of U.S. beef consumption.

The best chance for a price drop is the scenario everyone wants to avoid. If household incomes drop to the point that beef becomes a luxury, prices will decline, but that will also hurt farmers, whose incomes are already perilous.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Patrick T. Fallon / AFP—Getty Images

Mergers may have slowed but one asset class continues to increase in valuation and interest: sports team franchises. Some of the largest investment banks, such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, have created dedicated sports teams to cater to this group.

Valuations for major sports teams surged to record levels this year, with several leagues seeing their price tags increase by double and triple digit percentages. The highest price ever paid for a professional sports team was notched in June when Mark Walter, CEO of Guggenheim Partners, agreed to buy a majority stake in the Lakers in a deal that valued the basketball team at $10 billion. This surpassed the prior record holder—the $6.1 billion sale of the Boston Celtics to a consortium led by private equity executive William Chisholm—which was also clinched earlier this year.

Scarcity is one big reason sports team valuations have soared in the past 25 years, said Eric Menell, JPMorgan’s global co-head of sports investment banking. There are roughly 1500 billionaires in the U.S., but only about 200 professional sports teams. (This includes seven men’s and women’s sports leagues.) Controlling stakes in these teams “don’t go up for sale that often,” Menell said.

Interest in sports leagues is so high that stock market volatility and politics have little impact, Menell said. Valuations for high-profile NBA teams have jumped by more than 1000% in the past quarter century. In 2000, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant led the Los Angeles Lakers to the NBA Championships. The team was valued that year at a meager $360 million, according to Forbes. The Lakers’ sale this year for $10 billion represents a gain of around 2677% over 25 years. By comparison, the S&P 500 has increased by more than 300% for the same period. (The Buss family, which is selling the Lakers, originally acquired the franchise for $67.5 million in 1979—a gain of 14,714.8%.)

In 2002, Wycliffe Grousbeck led an investor group to buy the Celtics for $360 million and their $6.1 billion sale in June represents a 1,594% increase. There’s also the Washington Commanders football team, which was sold for $6.05 billion to a group led by PE exec Josh Harris in 2023. Twenty-five years ago, when the team was still known as the Washington Redskins, the franchise was considered the most valuable in the NFL with a $741 million market value. Their $6.05 billion price represents a near 710% gain.

Wall Street’s attraction

JPMorgan Chase has long advised on sports deals. In 2024, the bank consolidated its sports efforts, naming Menell and Gian Piero Sammartano co-heads of a dedicated sports investment banking group. The unit coordinates with bankers across the firm, including JPMorgan’s private bankers who cater to wealthy clients, such as team owners. (Customers of the private bank must maintain a minimum $10 million balance.) 

JPMorgan now offers advisory, financing and wealth management for sports teams and their owners. Another key part of its strategy is stadium financing. The effort is led by Zach Effron, a 20-year industry veteran who has spent the last nine years at JPMorgan. The bank provides loans for infrastructure projects, with past financings including SoFi stadium in Los Angeles and Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu stadium.

The investment bank will often provide the financing for the transactions while the clients, or owners, are typically customers of the private bank. JPMorgan estimates that it has financed well over $10 billion in sports-related deals since 2021, including debt financings for owners, teams, stadiums and leagues.

“Ten of the last 15 major sports transactions that have happened in the world have been financed by J.P. Morgan,” said Mary Callahan Erdoes, CEO of JPM’s asset and wealth management division, during the bank’s investor day in May. 

Bulge bracket firms catering to the rich and sports-oriented aren’t new. Goldman Sachs in 2023 launched a global sports franchise division that offered rich clients opportunities to invest in professional sports teams, leagues and related entities. The group is led by Greg Carey and Dave Dase. Citi has a long-standing sports advisory and financing group that caters to the world’s wealthiest individuals and families who are considering investing in sports as an asset class. It also advises leagues, teams and aspiring team owners on M&A and capital raise transactions. The group is led by John Hutcheson, head of global sports advisory, and Ivo Voynov, head of sports finance for North America. (Hutcheson is part of investment banking at Citi while Voynov is with the wealth business.)

While the price of sports teams has skyrocketed, the wealthiest potential buyers typically don’t have $1 billion in cash sitting around to buy these teams. “They need liquidity,” Menell said. 

That’s where JPMorgan’s private bank will step in to help with the financing. The bank will typically lend against personal assets, like an art collection that a potential buyer owns, to help them secure a loan that complies with league rules.

“As deals have gotten more complicated, the need for a full-service bank to do everything [has grown]. It’s one-stop shopping,” Menell said.

Here are 10 deals where JPMorgan has advised or provided financing.

Courtesy of Al Bello/Getty Images

1. The Boston Celtics

In July 2024, the Grousbeck family decided to sell the Boston Celtics. They hired JPMorgan, along with  Bryan Trott’s merchant bank BDT & MSD Partners and Jordan Park Group, a month later to find a buyer.  As part of the deal, JPMorgan’s private bank contacted roughly 186 international clients to find a buyer, the Wall Street Journal reported. A sale was announced in March. 

For a few months in 2025, the $6.1 billion sale of the Celtics was the highest price ever paid for a sports team. It was then eclipsed by the $10 billion Los Angeles Lakers sale. JPMorgan advised the Grousbeck family on the deal.

Courtesy of Michael Owens/Getty Images

2. Miami Freedom Park

Miami has waited for its new soccer-specific stadium for over 10 years. Miami Freedom Park, a 25,000-seat stadium, is scheduled to be the home of Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami football club. Construction is scheduled to finish later this year, with the stadium opening in 2026.    

JPMorgan served as lead arranger on $650 million in loans to fund Inter Miami CF’s new stadium and refinance the team’s existing debt. The deal represents one of the largest financings for a major league soccer franchise to date.

Courtesy of Federico Gambarini/Getty Images

3. ICE District (Canada)

For over a decade, the ICE District—a 25-acre mixed-use sports and entertainment district in downtown Edmonton, Alberta—has undergone extensive renovation and redevelopment. Its transformation was led by Canadian billionaire Daryl Katz, owner of the Edmonton Oilers. In March, Oilers Entertainment Group Canada (Edmonton Oilers) secured $200 million canadian ($145.6 million) in bonds to fund improvements in the ICE District surrounding the arena. Oilers Entertainment had previously obtained about $700 million canadian ($510 million) in bonds and debt ($524 million canadian in bonds plus a $150 million loan canadian) to fund general corporate purposes and further build out the ICE District. JPMorgan arranged all three transactions. 

Courtesy of Jess Rapfogel/NHLI via Getty Images

4. Capital One Arena (Washington D.C.)

The Capital One Arena in Washington D.C. is home to the Capitals (NHL) and Wizards (NBA) teams. Renovation of the 20,000-seat stadium began in late 2024 and is expected to finish during the summer of 2027. The cost of the transformation is estimated at more than $800 million.

In March, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the sports and entertainment company that owns Capital One, raised $135 million in bonds to fund the revamp. JPMorgan helped with financing. It also guided Monumental Sports in negotiations with the District of Columbia, which is buying the arena and leasing it back to MSE. The renovations are expected to keep the Wizards and Capitals in D.C. through at least 2050.

Courtesy of Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images

 5. Everton Stadium (UK)
The Friedkin Group, led by CEO Dan Friedkin, completed its acquisition of English Premier League club Everton FC in December. One big reason for the deal, estimated at 400 million pounds ($537.2 million), is Everton’s new stadium which is expected to enhance the team’s long-term value.

In February, Everton Stadium Development, a subsidiary of Everton FC, raised 350 million pounds ($470.1 million) in bonds for the new Everton Stadium. The more than 52,000-capacity stadium, located on Liverpool’s waterfront, is scheduled to host its first competitive Premier League game in August. Everton also secured a 130 million pound loan ($174.6 million) to support its operations under Friedkin’s new ownership. JPMorgan structured both deals.

Courtesy of Jordan Bank/Getty Images

6. Etihad Park (New York City)

Etihad Park has been in the works since 2022.  The soccer-specific stadium is the new home of New York City FC. Located in Willets Point, Queens, Etihad will have 25,000 seats, features a bowl design that is intended to make it more intimate, and a transparent roof to allow more light. Construction of the stadium is expected to finish in 2027.  In November, JPMorgan arranged a $425 million construction loan for New York City FC’s new stadium.

Courtesy of Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images

7. FC Porto (Portugal)

Founded in 1893, FC Porto is one of the big three football clubs in Portugal, alongside Benfica and Sporting CP. Always successful domestically, FC Porto was facing pressure from its debt load, which exceeded 500 million euros ($581.3 million). In November, Dragon Notes S.A., a financing company created by the club, raised 115 million euros ($133.7 million) in bonds to refinance FC Porto’s debt. The debt securities are guaranteed by revenue from Porto StadCo, which handles the commercial and economic aspects of Estádio do Dragão (the football stadium in Porto, Portugal that’s home to FC Porto). JPMorgan organized the financing.

Courtesy of Nicolò Campo/LightRocket via Getty Images

8. Manchester United (UK)

As valuations rise, more soccer clubs have gone up for sale. In February 2024, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, a British billionaire and CEO of INEOS, acquired a 29% stake in the Manchester United football club. The deal was valued at 1.25 billion pounds ($1.6 billion). The Glazer family remained the majority owner. JPMorgan served as advisor to Ratcliffe and INEOS.

Courtesy of Chris Unger/Zuffa/Getty Images

9. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)

In 2023, World Wrestling Entertainment merged with Ultimate Fighting Championship to form TKO Group Holdings. Endeavor Group, the sports and entertainment conglomerate then led by CEO Ari Emanuel, took a 51% stake in TKO, while existing WWE shareholders received the rest. The deal was valued at $21.4 billion. JPMorgan advised WWE in the transaction.

Courtesy of Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty Images

10. Centennial Yards (Atlanta)

For decades, the city of Atlanta has sought to redevelop the area known as “the gulch,” an underutilized area in its downtown that was originally a central hub for the city’s railroad industry. Atlanta’s city council in 2018 approved a major financing package to back the development of Centennial Yards. The 50-acre mixed-use site is adjacent to Mercedes Benz Stadium and State Farm Arena. The $5 billion project will feature over 1,000 hotel rooms, thousands of apartments as well as restaurants, bars, and retail shops. Completion of Centennial Yards is expected by 2030. JPMorgan arranged $575 million in financing for the project.

CIM Group, a real estate investment firm led by Richard Ressler, is the master developer of the Centennial Yards project. A group led by Tony Ressler, principal owner of the Atlanta Hawks, has co-invested. (Tony and Richard are brothers. Tony Ressler is also co-founder and executive chairman of Ares Management.)

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Courtesy of JPMorgan

Apple's Irish tax break problems are officially over. Ireland's Department of Finance has reported that the entirety of the €14.25 billion fund in Apple's escrow account for the case has been fully transferred to the Exchequer or Ireland's central fund. The escrow account has, therefore, been closed. This marks the end of one of the world's largest antitrust cases that started way back in 2013 when the European Commission launched an investigation to determine whether Apple was enjoying better tax rates than warranted under the bloc's laws. 

The commission found that the tax breaks Ireland gave Apple back then was illegal shortly after its investigation started. Then in 2016, after years of investigation, the commission ruled that the company had to pay back the "illegal state aid" it received over a 10-year-period before the probe into its tax practices was launched, since it was given "significant advantage" over its rivals. 

Apparently, Apple created Irish subsidiaries that owned most of its intellectual properties. Every time the company sells a product, the Irish subsidiaries get paid for the use of Apple's IPs. And thanks to the company's agreement with Ireland, Apple was only paying a 1 percent tax rate on European profits that became as low as .005 percent in 2014. The Commission ordered Apple to pay back the €13.1 billion in taxes it owed from between 2003 and 2014, with an interest of €1.2 billion on top. 

In 2018, the company transferred €14.3 billion to an escrow account as it appealed the Commission's ruling. The EU's General Court ruled in Apple's favor in 2020, explaining that there wasn't enough evidence to show that the company had broken the bloc's rules. But in 2024, the European Court of Justice overturned that decision and confirmed the Commission's original ruling in 2016. 

As The Irish Times has reported, the funds continued depreciating in value since it was deposited into escrow until 2023. It only managed to regain €470 million within 16 months before the account's closure in May, thanks to higher interest rates and investments with higher yields. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apples-%E2%82%AC143-billion-irish-tax-break-case-is-officially-over-113755771.html?src=rss

©

© Apple

• Michael Shvo and partners purchased three Miami Beach hotels in 2019.
• Plans to turn them into a luxury destination were never finished, and the site remains empty.
• A new buyer is lined up, but Shvo could still match the roughly $275 million offer.

The Raleigh, a prominent condo and hotel project along the glitzy Miami Beach waterfront, could soon change hands after six years of stalled development.

Two people with direct knowledge of sales discussions said Nahla Capital, a New York City-based residential builder, has won a bidding process to purchase the property. One of those people said Nahla agreed to pay around $275 million for the project.

They requested anonymity because the sales discussions are confidential.

Real estate developer Michael Shvo, who acquired in the Art Deco district of Miami Beach in 2019 for roughly $243 million, is attempting to match Nahla's offer and retain control of the project, the two people said. They cited a provision that gives Shvo a first right of refusal on bids. To proceed, he would have to raise fresh capital to pay off his partners in the project and also potentially arrange new debt or extend his current loan.

The Raleigh development consists of three adjacent hotels in the Art Deco district of Miami Beach: the Richmond, the South Seas, and the 80-year-old namesake property, the Raleigh.

Among Shvo's chief financial backers was Bayerische Versorgungskammer, a large German pension system known as BVK that has invested in several US real estate deals with Shvo.

"BVK generally does not comment on market rumors and speculation about transactions," a BVK spokesman wrote in an emailed statement.

A deal could herald a new chapter for the project, which for years has consisted of little more than the derelict remains of the three hotels and a vacant dirt lot.

Shvo has said he would restore and redevelop the hotel properties, build an exclusive beach club and restaurant abutting a famous historic pool at the site, and raise a new ultra-high-end condo tower designed by the star architect Peter Marino.

But aside from preliminary site work, including demolition of existing structures, the development never got off the ground. In January, a team from the commercial real estate brokerage and services firm Newmark was hired by an undisclosed partner in the project to shop it to interested takers, as Business Insider has previously reported.

Helping to push a sale is the project's $190 million of debt, which was due to expire on July 16. BH3, the Miami-based commercial lender and developer that provided the loan, recently agreed to a three-month extension to allow the Nahla, or Shvo, to arrange an acquisition, one of the people with knowledge of the deal said.

Holding the property has saddled the current owners with considerable costs. As Business Insider previously reported, the group paid nearly $20 million in interest on the project's loan in 2023 alone and millions of dollars more in taxes, insurance, and other charges.

Have a tip? Contact Daniel Geiger at [email protected], via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1-646-352-2884, or Twitter DM at @dangeiger79.

• JPMorgan and Citi reported strong consumer spending and borrowing despite economic uncertainty.
• Investment banking activity also rebounded as companies shrugged off tariff concerns.
• The data surprised Wall Street watchers, but the economy is not out of the woods yet.

The labor market is rocky, costs are climbing, and uncertainty hangs over the economy. Yet consumers and businesses are showing few signs of strain — at least according to some of Wall Street's biggest banks.

Bank earnings season kicked off Tuesday with JPMorgan Chase and Citi reporting strong consumer spending and borrowing, and unexpected jumps in fees tied to M&A and other investment banking activity.

"We continue to struggle to see signs of weakness," JPMorgan's chief financial officer, Jeremy Barnum, said in a Tuesday conference call to discuss the results. The consumer "basically seems to be fine," he added.

The comments suggest that American households — even amid stubborn inflation and higher borrowing costs — are still swiping, spending, and managing their finances, in many cases more than expected.

Businesses are also showing signs of resilience. Both JPMorgan and Citi also said investment banking activity rebounded last quarter as companies decided to ignore tariff uncertainty and move ahead with mergers, acquisitions, or capital raising.

In one potential sign of consumer strength, JPMorgan said it's seen "positive early reactions" to the costly refresh of its marquee Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card, which now costs $795, up from $550.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon acknowledged on Tuesday that some people were taken aback by the cost hike but said many are continuing to pay the hefty annual fee.

"I've got a lot of comments from people, from friends of my kids," he said, adding that some people have said they are keeping it for what he called "value-added" benefits like access to the Chase Sapphire lounge at the La Guardia Airport.

Inflation remains a factor

At JPMorgan, revenue in the Consumer and Community Banking division rose 6% year-over-year to $18.8 billion, while net income increased 23% to nearly $5.2 billion. Spending on credit and debit cards increased 7% from a year earlier, and average loans across the consumer segment ticked up 1%. Charge-offs on card loans, a key measure of borrower stress, held relatively steady at 3.4%.

Citigroup reported an 11% increase in branded cards revenue, and said average card loans rose 5% in the quarter to $114 billion. Spending volumes increased 4% from the year before to $136 billion. Retail banking revenue also jumped, helped by higher deposit spreads, the firm said.

"We saw good growth in branded cards while retail banking benefited from higher deposit spreads," CEO Jane Fraser said. She expressed a positive outlook for Citi's core consumer business.

The data follows signs of an improving job market in June, even as tech giants and other large companies slash jobs in an effort to cut costs, and the Trump administration warns of looming cuts to government jobs.

Inflation ticked higher in June, rising to 2.7% from 2.4% the month before, according to new government data released Monday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's the second straight month prices have accelerated, with increases seen in food, clothing, rent, and furniture.

The bump was partly blamed on new tariffs, and it may give the Federal Reserve pause as it weighs whether to cut interest rates later this year. For now, markets are dialing back expectations for a rate cut in July or September, analysts said in reactions to the data. One analyst predicted the full impact of Trump's tariffs wouldn't materialize in inflationary data till later this summer.

JPMorgan's investment banking fees rose 7%, driven by gains in debt underwriting and advisory work. Citi reported a 13% jump in fees, led by equity capital markets and advisory — two areas that have struggled since the Fed's rate-hiking cycle cooled dealmaking in 2022 and 2023.

• $12.5 trillion BlackRock had a record first half for fundraising in its iShares ETF line.
• The firm wants to lean more heavily into higher-fee private market offerings.
• CEO Larry Fink and CFO Martin Small laid out the firm's goals on BlackRock's earnings call Tuesday.

There are lots of big numbers that come up on BlackRock earnings calls. It's what happens when you're the largest asset manager in the world.

The key thing for investors in the firm and competitors tracking the behemoth from afar is deciphering which of the gaudy current-day figures will keep growing and which of the optimistic projections will actually happen.

BlackRock already manages $12.5 trillion in assets across institutions, insurers, pensions, and wealthy people, mostly in public markets. It's spent the last year and a half acquiring businesses that would help it move more of that money into lucrative private markets, where fees are higher and capital is stickier.

At its investor day last month, the firm laid out its goal to hit $35 billion in annual revenue in 2030, an increase from $20 billion in 2024.

Business Insider highlighted five stats from the firm's Tuesday call with analysts to demonstrate asset manager is currently and where it hopes to be in five years.

$152 billion

The net inflows into BlackRock products in the first half.

The influx of assets was led by a record six months from the firm's iShares ETF line, which brought in a net $192 billion of new money.

BlackRock's existing business, particularly its low-fee index investing funds, is the biggest pile of money in the industry and is still growing consistently.

Still, the first half of the year was not perfect, as some of the firm's actively traded products experienced a performance dip.

58%

The decline in performance fees collected by BlackRock in the first half of 2025 compared to the first half of 2024.

Rocky equity and bond markets worldwide, caused primarily by the trade policies proposed by President Donald Trump, have been challenging for investors of all sizes to deal with.

At BlackRock, the firm's profit margin dipped to 43.3% this quarter compared to 44.1% in last year's second quarter, and CFO Martin Small attributed 75% of that drop to the decline in performance fees.

Active equity funds in particular have had a rough 12-month stretch, the firm's earnings supplement shows: Only 40% of assets are above the index or peer median.

The firm also noted that private market funds brought in fewer performance fees than last year, but the firm's ambitions for that space remain as large as ever.

$450 million

The amount of revenue HPS Investment Partners is expected to add to BlackRock's coffers in the third quarter, according to Small. The deal for the $165 billion private credit shop closed at the start of July, and Small said the firm will issue the equivalent of up to 13.8 million shares of BlackRock common stock to retain the team at the firm.

The retention of HPS's team will be critical for BlackRock, which wants to fundraise significantly for its private-credit and infrastructure offerings over the next five years.

$400 billion

The fundraising goal for private market fundraising through 2030. Small said he expects it to ramp up in 2028 as HPS and Global Infrastructure Partners, the firm's other large private market investor acquisition, become more ingrained in the firm.

CEO Larry Fink said that he was in Asia last week, where demand for infrastructure and other private-public partnerships is already "beyond our imagination."

Those partnerships — the firm has pulled in Singapore's Temasek in its artificial intelligence infrastructure push — will be needed if the manager hopes to hit its revenue goals.

30%

The proportion of the firm's revenue that it wants to derive from its private markets funds and tech services platform, led by Aladdin, by 2030.

The New York-based firm made nearly $10.7 billion in revenue in 2025's first half, driven by its equity ETFs, which hauled in $2.8 billion in revenue alone. Tech services, meanwhile, made roughly a third of that in the same time frame.

BlackRock's Aladdin platform already serves more than 200 institutional clients, effectively making the firm an infrastructure provider to many of its clients and some of its competitors.

But the firm's fundraising push for its private market offerings also includes the hope that individual retirement accounts in the US will soon be open to such options.

Fink and Small both said that litigation reform is needed before that could happen, but are optimistic about what they've heard out of Washington on the subject.

"We think we have all the building blocks here," Small said.

Correction July 15, 2025: An earlier version of this story misstated BlackRock's revenue target for its private markets and technology businesses by 2030. The goal is for these segments to account for 30% of the firm's revenue, not 40%.

• Zombie funds are on the rise as private equity dealmaking and distributions slow.
• We asked recruiters about the reputational impact of working at a zombie fund.
• They suggested looking for an exit, especially if you're an investor or fundraiser.

Have you heard the news? A new contagion is turning formerly healthy private equity firms into the walking dead. It's not fungal, like in "The Last of Us," a virus, like in "28 Days Later," nor a magical reanimation like the original Haitian Vodou Zombis.

Instead, it's the result of a dealmaking slump, pickier investors, and macroeconomic conditions that have turned some private-equity firms into glorified estate sales, auctioning off their dusty holdings before closing up shop.

There are many definitions of a zombie fund — but no matter how you slice it, it can be bad for your career.

To some, a zombie fund is one that's passed its investment deadline, but is still holding onto capital to invest. Others say it's a firm that can't raise new money and is stuck managing and selling off its current portfolio. Zombie fund can also refer to a fund that has invested capital but is delaying the process of returning money to investors while it continues to collect management fees.

The phrase has picked up steam amid a multiyear lag in M&A and IPOs that has slowed private equity dealmaking and distributions to investors.

Private markets data firm PitchBook said the number of US funds that haven't made an investment in a year, despite raising money in the last six years, is up 50% from 2021 to June 2025, to 651. Internationally, they're up 40% in the same period to 1203.

We spoke to recruiters about the rise of the zombie funds and what that means for people working for them. Here is what they said.

When to run

Recruiters said employees, especially in certain roles, should start job-hunting at the first sign of zombification, though they warned that not every slowdown signals trouble.

"If they are working at a firm that has no plans to fundraise for the foreseeable future, that is usually their sign to go straight to exploring the market," Jessica Xu, head of investor relations recruiting at Selby Jennings, told Business Insider.

This is especially true for people in fundraising roles, where success means growing the firm's assets under management and building strong and deep relationships with investors.

Bill Matthews, partner at BraddockMatthewsBarrett, said it's also true for people in investment roles because a zombie fund will drag down your investment track record.

"Folks have to pick their head up and move," he said, adding, "On the investment side, you want to have a track record of doing deals and exiting deals, and if there's a zombie fund, that's not going to be the case."

Of course, fundraising has slowed across the board and isn't necessarily a death knell. It's important to differentiate between a slowdown due to market conditions and one caused by dissatisfied investors. Just make sure you're keeping busy during the slowdown, said Lisa Steele, a partner at BraddockMatthewsBarrett.

"You're maintaining relationships and keeping current LPs up to date, which is also critically important to these long-term partnerships," she said, referring to limited partners, the industry's catchphrase for fund investors.

You should also be developing new relationships, which Steele said will prove "hugely valuable when you go back to market."

How to interview

A candidate running from a zombie fund may feel tempted to hide their current situation in a bid to make the candidacy more enticing. That would be a mistake, recruiters said.

Matthews said hiring firms tend to know which of their peers are zombie funds from conversations with investors and other intermediaries.

"It's important for candidates to be as transparent as possible with potential employers about their reasons for wanting to leave their current firm, and working at a zombie fund is an understandable reason," Xu said.

The trick is to do it smartly. Recruiters warned against badmouthing the current employer or divulging confidential performance information. Focusing on personal gain is key, they said.

"Many candidates in these situations feel constrained in their ability to drive growth and create meaningful value for their investors," said Xu, adding that they are "seeking environments where they can contribute more strategically."

By focusing on how you'd benefit from moving to a better-performing fund, you come across as a good player on a bad team. And it's worth remembering that there are worse situations to be in.

"A hiring firm's biggest fear is unknowingly hiring another firm's castoff," Matthews said. "A zombie fund situation is obviously a good and valid reason why someone would want to leave."

• This post originally appeared in the Business Insider Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Good morning. Linda Yaccarino has stepped down after two years as CEO of X.

She was hired by Elon Musk with the goal of revitalizing the platform's advertising business. Her most crucial responsibility turned out to be something else: a clean-up crew for Musk.

A global team of BI reporters has broken down how she went from Musk's fixer to out of a job in two years.

In today's big story, a Sequoia Capital partner's tirade against Zohran Mamdani signals venture capital's extreme new "fame game."

What's on deck:

Markets: Nvidia just made it into the stock market hall of fame. Test your knowledge of the market's hottest company.

Tech: Big Tech is hiring contractors to train its AI chatbots not to lecture you.

Business: Federal workers react to the Supreme Court allowing DOGE cuts.

But first, they're getting louder …

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If this was forwarded to you, sign up here.

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The big story

Venture capital's extreme fame game

Do you hear that? The clatter of keyboards. The clash of opinions. The clamor of social media posts going viral.

It's the sound of tech investors becoming very loud online.

One of those investors is Sequoia Capital's Shaun Maguire. In a July 4 post, Maguire wrote that New York City mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani "comes from a culture that lies about everything" and sought to advance "his Islamist agenda."

Maguire's post racked up more than 5 million views, became national news, and prompted an open letter demanding that Sequoia make a public apology, signed by self-identified employees of Microsoft, Google, and Apple.

Maguire's response to the outrage heralds a new era: He doubled down.

A second open letter followed the first, this time offering support to Maguire, signed by the likes of Josh Wolfe and David Marcus.

In a market where the demand for capital outweighs the supply, investors can afford to ruffle feathers. It may even benefit them.

Venture capital is largely "a fame game," says a VC at a multistage firm. "We all sell the same money. So brand awareness matters a lot, both in seeing and in winning deals."

The situation is also precarious for founders who disagree with Maguire. Speaking out risks severing a critical relationship with Sequoia.

For early-stage VCs, that relationship can mean the difference between a modest outcome and a breakout win, especially when Sequoia leads a later round and drives up the valuation.

Elite VCs have learned they can be loud, bold, and polarizing, and still secure deals, BI's Melia Russell writes.

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3 things in markets

1. Nvidia makes market history — to the tune of $4 trillion. The chipmaker added a new achievement, becoming the first-ever company to hit a $4 trillion market cap on Wednesday morning. (Test your knowledge of the company and its milestones with BI's Nvidia Trivia.)

2. Three things could spoil the market's "Goldilocks" setup. The market is in an ideal place where economic growth isn't too hot or too cold, but there are still significant risks, Goldman Sachs said. Stagflation, interest rate shock, and further dollar declines could all upend a coming rally.

3. Trump Media wants to launch a crypto ETF. The Truth Social parent company submitted an S-1 filing with the SEC on Tuesday to launch the Truth Social Crypto ETF. The new fund would hold mostly bitcoin alongside other top tokens. It's the latest move by Trump and his companies to deepen ties to crypto.

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3 things in tech

1. Is your AI chatbot judging you? Tech companies, like Google and Meta, are using contractors to crack down on "preachy" chatbot responses, training documents exclusively obtained by BI reveal. AI and human researchers told BI that "preachiness" is among the most important aspects for model companies to tackle because it can instantly put users off.

2. We've answered the question you're too afraid to ask. As xAI's chatbot makes headlines for controversial rants, you may be wondering, what actually is Grok? From the instructions Grok's "tutors" are given to help train the chatbot to the AI's latest update, here's everything we know about the chabot (which is actually two different things).

3. Law firms' new competition isn't a law firm. "Law Firm 2.0" is a small, fast, and inexpensive business that uses AI to handle routine legal matters. It was launched by LegalTech Lab, an accelerator that's looking to boost more companies rethinking how legal services are delivered.

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3 things in business

1. The Supreme Court is allowing DOGE cuts. What happens now? The mood among federal workers is bleak — they're scared for their own security and worried about the future of public service. Agencies could fire en masse or offer buyouts. Here's how further cuts could play out.

2. Can you spell T-Mobile without DEI? The carrier thinks so. In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, it said it's ending diversity policies "not just in name, but in substance." T-Mobile has been waiting for FCC approval on two separate deals, each reportedly valued at over $4 billion.

3. Prepping for ICE. Companies have plans for extreme weather and workplace violence, and now some are planning for immigration raids — even if they believe everyone on their payroll is legally permitted to work in the US. Human resources, crisis management, and legal professionals say having a plan ensures workers and customers stay extra safe.

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In other news

• Amazon Flex workers' schedules aren't so flexible after all, a new report suggests.
• How Tony Hawk spends his 5-to-9: From playing with his grandson to his creatine routine.
• Trump's border policies are interrupting honeymoons, weddings, and vacations.
• 8 million student-loan borrowers enrolled in Biden's affordable repayment plan are about to see their balances grow again.
• Pricing data shows Trump's tariffs are making some US-made products more expensive.
• A Whole Foods executive shares three leadership tips that help her in the C-suite.
• NATO is stepping up its anti-submarine warfare game. This flying hunter is key, a top admiral says.

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What's happening today

• Delta Air Lines reports earnings.

• OPEC launches annual World Oil Outlook.

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  Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Akin Oyedele, deputy editor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in New York. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Ella Hopkins, associate editor, in London. Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York (on parental leave).

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Intuit and American Express detailed how their companies are embracing agentic AI to transform customer experiences, internal workflows and core business operations.Read More

• $6 billion New Holland Capital has started a new unit to recruit internal investment staff.
• The firm had previously invested in external funds in a structure similar to a fund-of-funds.
• Former North Rock Capital COO Omar Qaiser was hired to lead the new platform named Plum Island.

The competition for top investing talent is higher than ever.

Megafunds like Izzy Englander's Millennium, Ken Griffin's Citadel, and Steve Cohen's Point72 offer moneymakers tens of millions in potential payouts and top-tier perks. Up-and-coming funds and new launches such as Verition, Walleye, and Jain Global are constantly scouring the landscape for investors. Explosive growth in private market assets means PE funds and new private credit firms need head count.

In short, it's a labor market that favors the employee, not the employer. Englander himself called it a "talent bubble" in 2023.

Despite this dynamic, $6 billion New York-based New Holland Capital is expanding from its traditional, fund-of-funds structure with a new unit focused on bringing investment talent in-house. Plum Island Partners, named after a small spit of land off Long Island discovered by Dutch explorers in the 17th century, will be run by Omar Qaiser, according to a note sent to clients seen by Business Insider. Qaiser is the former COO of investment platform North Rock Capital.

"While the majority of our platform will continue to be composed of external teams, we've now established Plum Island Partners to serve as New Holland's internal trading and operations arm," the note reads.

"While our focus on niche, capacity-constrained strategies will not change, this evolution allows us to expand the universe of potential PMs to include those who have no interest in running a business," the note adds.

When it comes to potential payouts, small platforms cannot compete with firms like Millennium and Citadel. But there are investment strategies that can only manage a certain amount of money — say $100 million — that are not of interest to the biggest players because the potential returns are too marginal to make a difference, several smaller platforms have said.

Some tenured investors are also looking for more customized risk parameters, which the largest funds struggle to offer given their organizations' size.

It's why places like New Holland, among other smaller funds, have decided to bring more talent in-house even as bigger firms like Millennium increasingly allocate to external managers.

"We're trying to be indifferent — we want to find good talent and have a home for them," said New Holland CEO Scott Radke, who noted that he still expects most of the firm's investors to be external.

He said the manager has more than 40 external managers right now, while Plum Island has one internal PM, an equity capital markets investor. The new unit expects to add several more this year, but has no set goal.

New Holland began as an investment advisor for Dutch pension plans and has since become independent. Last month, it hired former Brevan Howard executive Stephan Brohme as its chief risk officer.

• Shannon Liu Shair and her husband started saving for college for their children when they were born.
• She puts money into 529 plans and custodial Roth IRAs for both of them.
• The 529 plans have around $100,000 each, and she plans to grow them to $200,000 by college time.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Shannon Liu Shair, a 38-year-old estate planning attorney in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. It has been edited for length and clarity.

As an estate planning attorney at Liu Shair Law, I work with families to plan for the future and establish their legacy. Many of my clients have children, and their primary goal is to ensure their children are provided for through college and beyond.

In addition to understanding each client's goals, I ask how they've already invested and saved for their family. This is something that's deeply personal for me, too, as my husband and I have faced the same questions.

These conversations in my work and my own life have given me a unique perspective on how to get started and stay committed. It helps my clients to have someone they can trust with their sensitive information who also "gets it."

Saving and investing for our kids was not instant or overnight; it's taken years of learning and contributing. First, we had to make sure our own retirement and savings were healthily funded.

Here's how I set up my kids for financial success.

I started 529s for each of my two kids when they were born

529s are special accounts that allow you to save tax-free for education expenses. My parents did the same for me before I was college-age. Not needing to worry about finances, loans, and tuition made it much easier for me to focus on my studies.

We set up these accounts because we want our kids to have flexibility. I want them to be able to comfortably search for their ideal job fit since they already have a savings cushion.

My husband and I have saved over $100,000 in each of their 529s. I fund their accounts so that they'll be similarly situated based on the year they attend college.

Every state has its own 529 providers. I decided to use California's plan, Scholar Share, because it was easy to set up. I want to save 100% of what is expected for a public university in California. The target goal for each of the 529s is $200,000.

We don't have a specific backup plan for the money if one of the kids doesn't attend college, but up to $35,000 can be diverted to a Roth IRA. Additionally, the funds can still be withdrawn (with a penalty on earnings), which is not an issue for us.

We could also change the beneficiary to a different family member (e.g., hypothetical grandchild). I'd rather be over-prepared financially than under-prepared and have to scramble to figure things out.

I also set up custodial Roth IRAs for them

Custodial Roth IRAs are retirement accounts in which a child can deposit earnings from a job while they're minors, allowing them to start their retirement savings early. I've saved five figures in each of their custodial Roth IRAs.

For business owners, there are ways to employ your kids to set up a Roth IRA legally. Now that my kids are 10 and 8, they've been able to help me with shredding paperwork and other small tasks. They know that they're earning money for the work that they contribute to my business.

Anyone can set up a 529 for their loved ones, but custodial Roth IRAs are only available if a child has earned income. If someone is not a business owner and their child is old enough, the child can work and still have a custodial Roth IRA. The work can be with an established business, or even helping others in the community with babysitting and other chores.

They also have their own bank accounts

Their UTMA bank accounts are kept leaner, in the hundreds of dollars. UTMA bank accounts hold money that your child owns, and an adult is the custodian until the child becomes an adult. A portion of birthday money or gifts goes into the UTMA account.

Birthday and Christmas gifts in cash are typically from grandparents or other family members. Because these gifts are not earned income, the "save" goes to UTMA accounts and not to their Roth IRAs.

I don't have a set savings strategy. I add funds when I have more money in my account.

There are 2 things I could've done differently

I could do better at automating a monthly amount to ensure consistency and streamline the process.

Another thing I could've done differently is deeper research into 529 providers. I'm OK with our California provider, but researching more couldn't hurt. 529s can have differences, such as the types of investments available, the funds set up, the minimum amount required to get started, or the maintenance fees.

I tell my clients it's a good idea to teach financial acumen at a young age so their children don't spend their savings inappropriately. Our kids know how much is in their retirement accounts because I want them to learn cause and effect.

They used to get annoyed about helping me with the administrative tasks, but since I've educated them, they understand these funds will help alleviate stress when they enter the job market.

My advice to parents is to see this as a long game

There will be dips, and people need to understand the time value of money and compounding. If they move things around or make big shifts every time there's a decline in the market, it could be counterproductive and go against their goals.

For 529s, I've taken a more passive approach and use age-based funds (enrollment-year portfolios) rather than risk-based portfolios or guaranteed investment options. I have not changed the fund allocations during market shifts.

If you're just getting started or aren't in a position to make big contributions, saving even a few dollars a week or a month is better than nothing. It makes a difference. It's especially helpful if your children are young and time is on your side.

• Lucia Soares is helming Carlyle's AI transformation after years of bringing tech to big companies.
• She spoke to BI about the firm's AI rollout and how it's already resulting in cost savings.
• She also spoke about life as a bicoastal executive and what she learned from her immigrant parents.

Lucia Soares had been working for Carlyle for four years when the private equity giant's CEO called to ask if she would take on a new role.

"I originally focused on using tech to create portfolio value," she told Business Insider, referring to the companies Carlyle controls. "Then, two years ago, our new CEO called me and said, 'Can you please do what you're doing for our portfolio companies but for our own company internally?'

Now, Soares — as Carlyle's chief information officer and head of technology transformation — is taking on a new challenge: Bringing artificial intelligence to the investment giant's 2,300 global employees.

She spoke with Business Insider about the rollout, including the successes, the pitfalls, and how the company is implementing checks and balances. She explained where the company is already seeing cost savings, for example.

She also walked us through her life as a bicoastal tech executive — and how she learned to hustle from a young age, helping her immigrant parents sell plants at the flea market on weekends. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are your tech goals for Carlyle?

In my 27 years in technology, I've learned that you can't start with technology itself as the goal. People said that e-commerce is the goal, or that digital is the goal. Now, they say AI is the goal. And actually it's not.

Instead, we start with our business goals: we want to grow, create efficiencies, and build a strong tech foundation. AI and other technologies are levers to achieve these goals.

Tell us about Carlyle's AI rollout.

Increasing our employees' AI fluency is a strategic priority. They get AI training from the day they start at Carlyle, and are introduced to a wide range of tools they can use.

Now, 90% of our employees use tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot. We also have an AI champions' council where early adopters can play around with tools and eventually share best practices.

We're using AI to transform our workflows through Project Catalyst, which automates processes. We're also developing custom tools that leverage proprietary data to deliver insights instantly—saving investors from sifting through endless materials. Today, Carlyle's credit investors can assess a company in hours using generative AI, instead of spending weeks on research.

How is AI impacting the average worker at Carlyle? Are they required to use the technology?

It depends. Some business leaders have made it a requirement to put all investment committee memos in an AI tool for them to review. Others are not so direct about it, but everybody is seeing how it can make their jobs easier and challenging their teams in meetings to talk about the value they are deriving from AI tools.

As a firm, we have a return-on-investment strategy, and my team aims to deliver a certain amount of ROI every year.

We're not eliminating people's jobs, but we believe that it can help reduce dependency on outside services costs. For example, we can use AI to review legal invoices and catch errors that will reduce our costs. We've seen real savings as a result.

How do you balance autonomy with the risks of adoption?

I think a lot about that. I worry about kids in school using a tool to write an essay and not being able to think. But you have to wonder how people felt when the calculator came out, and if they thought no one would ever be able to do math on their own again.

We never allow AI to make a final decision. There's always a human in the loop, and someone needs to be accountable for the final results.

For example, when employees use AI to write a report, we have employees write a final paragraph summarizing the output to ensure they're thinking critically about it.

Can you give examples of success and failure in Carlyle's tech transformation?

Let's start with success.

When investors invest with us, we can at times receive up to 80-page documents with questions about everything from our employees to cybersecurity training. It's very manual.

We had one team decide they'd try to use AI to make investor diligence easier. Despite having just one technologist, this team found a solution to automate the process, which we're launching later this year.

We seek to empower people to solve things themselves, with embedded technologists across the organization.

We experienced more challenges dealing with regulatory restrictions on large language models globally. We learned the hard way that these regulatory hurdles require a lot of evaluation. We're launching solutions, but it's taking longer than expected to deploy.

You might think you can go fast with AI, but it doesn't always work that way, especially in today's global climate.

Has any single piece of career advice stuck with you over the years, and what is it?

Early on, I was advised to always raise my hand for the extra hard assignments. In other words, take a risk and bet on yourself.

My parents are immigrants, and I learned work ethic, courage, and audacity from them. But when I entered the workforce, I had impostor syndrome. With blue-collar parents, the office environment was completely different for me.

By taking on difficult assignments, I created relationships and visibility and was able to learn and grow more.

Tell me about your parents.

They are from the Azores Islands in Portugal. They came to the US during the dictatorship years. My dad only went to school up until the age of 10, because his family could not afford to pay for more education. He can add, subtract, and multiply, but was never taught how to divide.

He came to the US after serving in the Portuguese Army to give his family a better future. He knew no English.

He became a custodian, cleaning schools, and had a side hustle selling house plants at a flea market on the weekends. We all helped cultivate and sell the plants. I learned a lot from my parents.

What does your morning routine look like?

I am bicoastal: I spend one week a month in DC and also time in New York, but I live on the West Coast and work out of our Menlo Park office.

On the East coast, I might start my day — work permitting — listening to news podcasts, going for a run, meditating, and eating a healthy breakfast.

At home, I start really early in the morning. I don't always get that workout in, but I start with some early calls, and then take a break to drive my daughter to school before heading to the office.

When I get to my desk, I write down the day's priorities. I've done this my whole career, and try not to let constant fire drills overtake those priorities. When you're driving transformation, you have to keep strategy at the forefront.

What are the most important meetings of your week?

The most important meetings are the unplanned ones. For example, I run into a coworker, and we start talking about our kids. Then they bring up a company we should partner with. Or I run into an administrative assistant, and they show me new ways they're using Copilot. I get inspired by solving problems with people in real time.

The second most important meetings are the ones where we drive strategy and brainstorm. As technologists, you can fall into the Dilbert category of employees, where you just work through problem resolutions. So I force strategy onto the calendar to ensure we think big and ambitiously about tech transformation.

• The biggest hedge funds are battling it out to attract and retain top talent and outperform peers.
• Business Insider has talked to elite hedge funds to get a peek into their recruiting processes.
• From internships to high-paying tech jobs, here's what we know about their hiring practices.

The battle for talent in the hedge fund world is fiercer than ever — and it cuts across all levels and positions.

With six-figure starting salaries, intense work environments, and the chance to work alongside some of the industry's top investors, these roles are among the most competitive in finance.

Internships can pay over $5,000 a week. Salaries for entry-level analysts and software engineers are often in the six-figure range. Portfolio managers with winning strategies can take home tens of millions.

Business Insider spoke with top hedge fund managers like Citadel, Millennium, and Point72 about how they attract and evaluate talent, and what advice they'd give to anyone hoping to break in.

Here's everything we know about getting a job at a large hedge fund.

Internships

Years ago, the opaque and secretive world of hedge funds might not have been an obvious career choice for most college graduates on their path to Wall Street. However, these investing behemoths are now investing in getting young, diverse wunderkinder, especially mathletes, familiar with their brands as early as high school.

Internships are another talent pipeline for some of the biggest multi-strategy hedge funds, which employ armies of traders and engineers. Programs can be uber-competitive and harder to get into than many top Ivy League schools.

Citadel's summer internship program, for example, has become increasingly competitive. This year, the hedge fund accepted around 300 interns to spend 11 weeks at Griffin's hedge fund or his market maker, working with stock-pickers, quants, engineers, and more. The firm told BI that there were more than 108,000 applicants for the programs, with an acceptance rate of roughly 0.4%.

• Here's how to land a spot at Citadel's summer internship
• Citadel's associate program is a separate internship that puts rising college seniors on track to land a full-time investing role at the $66 billion fund.
• Ken Griffin's advice to interns: Hustle during your 20s and be aggressive when asking for a promotion

We also spoke to Point72 and D.E. Shaw about what they looked for in interns and how to stand out for a potential job offer down the line.

• Here's what it takes to stand out as an intern at Steve Cohen's Point72 and land a job offer
• A D.E. Shaw internship could land a dream gig at the secretive hedge fund. Here's what it takes.

Analyst and investment training programs

In the past, hedge funds acquired investment talent from investment banks. Increasingly, however, the industry's top players are recruiting college students through intensive training programs that can lead to jobs straight out of college.

Creating a pipeline of portfolio managers has been an increasingly popular strategy for hedge funds locked in an increasingly expensive battle for top talent.

• How to get accepted into Point72's ultra-elite analyst training program, whose acceptance rate is less than 1%
• Inside Point72's PM incubator LaunchPoint, where Steve Cohen is known to grill up-and-comers who think they're ready for the big time
• Inside Balyasny's Anthem training program, where aspiring portfolio managers are handed hundreds of millions of dollars to prove they can cut it
• Behind the training programs at Balyasny, which is looking to get ahead in the war for investment talent

Tech jobs and training programs

Hedge funds have long been competing with the finance industry and top tech companies for top technologists. Engineers and algorithm developers are key to helping researchers, data scientists, and traders develop cutting-edge investment strategies and platforms. Quant shop D.E. Shaw also has a unique approach to finding talent.

• Inside Citadel's exclusive engineering program that's helped the hedge fund snap up talent from Google and Goldman Sachs
• Here's how to get a tech job at Millennium, from the programming language to know to the interview questions to prep for

Inside Man Group's popular training program for non-tech employees that teaches them skills to automate tasks and reduce errors in their work

A rundown of some of the gatekeepers to know

The "business development" role is one of the most important at hedge funds, as it specializes in scouting and evaluating investment hires. Knowing these in-house talent scouts and external recruiters is crucial.

• The rise of the hedge-fund talent whisperers
• The talent brokers of quant trading: The headhunters at the forefront of Wall Street's systematic-trading and data-science hiring frenzy
• Try our searchable database of more than 350 Wall Street headhunters to find your dream job in private equity, investment banking, or hedge funds

Other resources and advice

Here's a look at how some firms find and vet new employees, what skills and qualities they're looking for …

• Why quant giant D.E. Shaw seeks out academics, doctors, and veterans to work at the hedge fund
• Citadel portfolio manager explains how he rose in the ranks of the hedge fund and what he looks for in a new hire
• Inside the 5-hour psychological interview that can make or break your career at Citadel, Blackstone, and other finance titans

• Inside the spycraft hedge funds use to vet multimillion-dollar traders, which is edging into murky legal territory