The 30Y yield goes parabolic as the administration pivots to digital fiat debasement. USA is Exporting its Debt Through Stable Coins The 30Y yield goes parabolic as the administration pivots to digital fiat debasement. Sep 24 READ IN APP None of this is financial advice. Do your own research. By reading this newsletter, you acknowledge and accept the terms and conditions outlined in our disclaimer . GM Investors The Treasury market did not have a bad afternoon. It had a demand failure. Wednesday’s $70 billion five-year note sale stopped at 5.033%, the highest five-year auction yield since 2006, and tailed by more than three basis points. That is not a rates story. That is the buyer stepping away. The rest of the curve followed. The 10-year jumped 14.7 basis points to 5.113% as the largest one-day move since the Liberation Day tariff pause in April 2025. Bitcoin sold off with duration, slipping from the mid-$86,000s toward $83,000–$84,000 after tagging the high $87,000s. The tape looks like a Fed policy scare. Our desk reads it as a funding problem dressed as a growth print. Hot PMI killed the cut narrative. A $6 billion long-bond buyback cap against a TGA still sitting near $900 billion told the market the official tool is too small for the hole. Minutes later, Bloomberg reported Washington is weighing an overseas dollar-stablecoin push explicitly to manufacture Treasury demand. That sequence is the story. Here is what our desk is watching. This Is The Only "Buy The Dip" That Matters In September. TOKEN2049 ticket prices go up Sept 23. The discount code expires with your window. You wouldn't fade a 10% discount on a trade. Don't fade it on the one conference where Vitalik, CZ, and BlackRock share the same stage. $539 with code CRYPTOBANTER. Sept 23 is your cutoff. GET 10% discount and register The Auction Was the Tell, Not the PMI S&P Global’s flash manufacturing PMI jumped to 57.0 in September from 53.9, against expectations near 53.6. Services printed 58.7. The composite hit 58.4, the strongest growth rate since July 2021. Production rebounded at the fastest clip since April 2022. New orders accelerated to a four-and-a-half-year high. Employment rose at the fastest pace since February 2021. That is a real economy, not a recession print, and it is why rate-cut odds collapsed in a single session. Macro trading desks will now spend the week arguing about Fed policy. Fair. A five-year-high PMI does not invite easing. It does not, by itself, explain a second-worst five-year tail in the post-2018 sample, exceeded only by the June 2022 auction after the first 75 basis-point hike. Foreign and official accounts, the indirect bid that used to clear this paper, did not show up in size. That is the distinction our research keeps drawing. Strong data can reprice the front end. It should not force the Treasury to pay the highest five-year coupon in two decades unless the structural buyer is gone. Foreign demand for coupons has been deteriorating for months. One tape check circulating on the desk put that bid down roughly 80% from prior-cycle norms. The 2-year is already at a 2024 high. The 5-year is through 5%. The 10-year is through the 2007 line. The 30-year broke out, with voices on our call, including Ben Cowen, talking 6% to 6.5% if the long end keeps losing sponsorship. Global yields ripped with the U.S. curve. This is not isolated U.S. duration. It is a synchronized refusal to fund long paper at yesterday’s price. Equities can live with higher yields for a while. History is not kind only in one regime: the 1966–1981 bond bear, when the S&P spent years going sideways while yields marched. In most other episodes, stocks take a short-term punch and eventually trend higher. That is the base case for risk assets if this is a one- or two-week squeeze. It is not the base case if auctions keep tailing and the official sector keeps advertising a bid it cannot deliver. How Washington Tries to Manufacture a Bid If the foreign official account will not buy the five-year, someone has to package the short end into a product that will. That is the stablecoin channel. Issuers already sit on nearly $200 billion of bills and other short Treasuries, per Treasury’s own recent comments. Bessent has said, more than once, that stablecoin growth is Treasury demand. Our research treats that sentence as a quantity, not a slogan. The administration is weighing joint ventures with private firms to push dollar-backed stables overseas, with Treasury, State, and the Development Finance Corporation potentially in the room. The stated aims are reserve-currency defense and more buyers of U.S. debt. The timing is not subtle. You do not float an offshore distribution plan for a product that warehouses T-bills on the afternoon a five-year tails unless the funding desk is already thinking in those units. This is the mechanism, stripped of the press language: Foreign coupon demand is missing. Indirects at 54.3% made that visible. Short-end paper is what stables actually hold. That is the only bid Treasury can still manufacture at scale. An overseas dollar-stablecoin push is an attempt to recreate the old official bid through private balance sheets. The GENIUS Act plumbing is the domestic on-ramp. The overseas JV talk is the export version of the same idea. Crypto market analysis that stops at “risk-off because yields are up” is reading the first derivative and missing the second. Altcoins will trade the beta. On-chain data will show stables expanding or stalling. That expansion is the tell for whether the manufactured bid is real. If USDT, USDC, and the newer dollar coins keep absorbing bills while coupons tail, the policy is working at the margin and failing at the duration the market actually cares about. Our desk does not need a conspiracy. We need the incentive map. A Treasury that cannot sell fives at 5.03% will try to sell days and weeks into a product with offshore distribution. That is rational. It is also an admission th

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Hot PMI killed the cut narrative. The auction told you the buyer is gone. 🚨5 Smart Trades as Yields Are Constraining the World Hot PMI killed the cut narrative. The auction told you the buyer is gone. Sep 24 READ IN APP None of this is financial advice. Do your own research. By reading this newsletter, you acknowledge and accept the terms and conditions outlined in our disclaimer . Hey Traders, The tape is digesting a funding shock, not a ceasefire. Yields stayed elevated after Wednesday’s weak five-year auction and a hot PMI print that killed the easy-Fed story. Equities slipped with duration. This is still a demand problem in Treasuries, not a one-day rates scare. Oil gave back part of Wednesday’s jump after Iran said it would keep talking, but the war premium did not leave. Hormuz stays constrained, diplomacy is open and far from done, and Xi’s Washington visit is the other geopolitical hinge. Crude is off the spike. It is not cheap, and it is not calm. Bitcoin faded with risk into the low $80,000s after rejecting the recent high. Crypto is trading the same stack as stocks: tighter-for-longer policy, a missing bid for US paper, and a war that can reprice oil in a session. The risk bid is softer. It has not rolled over. Here is what we are watching. Poll of the Day ( Presented by Rain Trade ) 🎯 POLL With structural dilution crushing legacy beta baskets, what wins the next leg? 🔄 100% revenue buyback tokens 🏛️ Real-world asset ⚡ High-fee DEXs & perps 👑 Pure BTC maxi allocation Today’s Charts: Chart #1 – Solana(SOLUSDT) 8-Hour Chart #2 – Circle(CRCLUSDT) 4-Hour Chart #3 – Pendle(PENDLEUSDT) 8-Hour Chart #4 – Ordinals(ORDIUSDT) 6-Hour Chart #5 – British Pound(GBP) 12-Hour Chart #1 – Solana(SOLUSDT) 8-Hour Chartist: Chaoss (For the chart screenshot, ) Trade idea to wait for SOL to dip down into the long area below, bullish order block and we also have an anchored VWAP from October 2025, which has recently acted as both support and resistance. We can also see multiple engulfing candles on the chart as marked with EG, historically you can see how this can signify a pullback. We have left room below on the stop loss for a liquidity sweep too. Target is based on horizontal levels and previous resistance areas. As we approach the lower order block we will look for a combination of reversal signs on the chart, the bearish divergence currently present to end and RSI to curl up on the oscillator and signs of selling exhaustion. Trade Levels: Entry: $108.50 Stop Loss: $105 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $129 Powerful narratives create powerful moves. With 247 Research , you get the insights to be early to the biggest trends in crypto. Chart #2 – Circle(CRCLUSDT) 4-Hour Chartist: The Nagel (For the chart screenshot, ) CRCL has claimed the POC of the mini range formed at the lows , so looking for a retest of the POC and using the VWAP from the lows as support as well as the 0.382 Fib, this POC needs to hold to avoid a visit Back to VAL. Trade Levels: Entry: $85.96 Stop Loss: $79.3 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $111 Chart #3 – Pendle(PENDLEUSDT) 8-Hour Chartist: Panda (For the chart screenshot, ) Pendle currently retracing after recent major trend break that led to break of structure and shift in the chart’s momentum to the upside. Clearly setting a local top/high after a squeeze due to the flip of a macro bearish vwap/horizontal level, Pendle is currently retracing to set what could be a new higher low signaling a potential continuation. With BTC currently finding major resistance and markets are pulling back, a throwback and a sweep into the breakout region on Pendle represents a potential long opportunity. Areas of confluence – 2025 highs vwap + .382 fib from Apr lows + 8h OB + vwap from Aug lows + breakout horizontal. Trade Levels: Entry: $2.079 Stop Loss: $1.923 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $2.297 This Is The Only “Buy The Dip” That Matters In September. TOKEN2049 ticket prices go up Sept 23. The discount code expires with your window. You wouldn’t fade a 10% discount on a trade. Don’t fade it on the one conference where Vitalik, CZ, and BlackRock share the same stage. $539 with code CRYPTOBANTER. Sept 23 is your cutoff. GET 10% discount and register Chart #4 – Ordinals(ORDIUSDT) 6-Hour Chartist: Trader J (For the chart screenshot, ) Looking for a long on ORDI into the 0.786 Fib + 50-day SMA + anchored VWAP from the July 30 low. Price remains in an uptrend and is retesting the horizontal support that led to the previous breakout, while the 100-day and 200-day SMAs are curling higher below. Trade Levels: Entry: $4.042 Stop Loss: $3.850 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $4.415 Chart #5 – British Pound(GBP) 12-Hour Chartist: The Nagel (For the chart screenshot, ) (GBP refers to the forex currency British pound and not a cryptocurrency.) Looking for a swing long on GBPUSD back at the bottom of the major range, an area that has repeatedly produced strong bounces. We have excellent confluence from the 0.786 Fib, rising trend support, major horizontal support, with the monthly 50 EMA sitting below. We also have a daily RSI reversal signal, adding to the setup. Trade Levels: Entry: $1.3190 Stop Loss: $1.31175 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $1.33870 25,000 People. One Building. 48 Hours. Zero Excuses. TOKEN2049 Singapore is where the next cycle’s partnerships get signed. If You’re Not At Marina Bay Sands Oct 7–8, You’re Reading The Recaps. Two Weeks To Lock $539 Entry To The Biggest Crypto Room Of The Year. Use code CRYPTOBANTER at checkout for 10% off the $599 . Banter’s Take The week is being priced as funding first and diplomacy second. The auction showed the buyer is missing, crude only cooled at the margin, and the tape is waiting to see if Washington can manufacture a bid before the next coupon sale. Equities paused with yields. Crypto faded. It did not break. That split still matters. Traditional markets are trading PMI and speakers. Digital assets are trading the same funding gap and the fact that a f

The Chinese leader is in the US... September 24, 2026 Presented By G’day. If you’re looking for a way to spend 18 hours, Qantas said it’s planning to start selling tickets for direct New York to Sydney flights next year, with the first flights taking off in 2028. That’s just an hour shorter than the world’s current longest flight (New York–Singapore), but it’ll be two hours shorter than the soon-to-be longest, the 20-hour London–Sydney flight Qantas plans to debut next year. None of these flights are recommended for passengers who hog the armrests, take their socks off, or listen to audio without headphones. — Dave Lozo, Molly Liebergall, Matty Merritt, Abby Rubenstein In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into: Xi Jinping’s high-stakes US visit McDonald’s plan to lure back diners Robots walking a fashion runway Markets Nasdaq 26,936.04 -1.13% S&P 7,706.03 -0.76% Dow 51,511.59 -0.68% 10-Year 5.114% -- bps Bitcoin $84,107.34 -2.81% Royal Caribbean $230.3 -1.95% Data is provided by *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 10:30pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean. Markets: If red’s not your color, you may want to avoid looking at yesterday’s stock charts: Stocks fell as bond yields surged (more on that later). Stock spotlight: Investors did not respond royally to Royal Caribbean’s announcement that it’s buying a 50% stake in the parent company of Sandals and Beaches Resorts for $3 billion, sending the cruise operator’s stock to a 52-week low during the day. Markets Sponsored by Doroni A soon-to-be potential $9t opportunity: That’s flying cars by 2050. And 15k+ investors believe Doroni will seize it, targeting commercial deliveries by 2028. Invest at $3.30/share by Oct. 22 . TAKE XI TO YOUR LEADER Xi is in the US for talks with Trump Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) China’s President Xi Jinping arrived yesterday for a state visit to the US. It’s his first time here since 2015, and he and President Trump will have a three-day huddle that concludes tomorrow and could have ramifications for artificial intelligence, trade, and the war in Iran. Trump made the grand gesture of meeting Xi when his plane landed at Joint Base Andrews in Washington, DC, yesterday rather than at the White House, not unlike when people met their loved ones at the airport gate during that montage in Love Actually . Tonight, Trump will host a slew of CEOs at a state dinner for Xi, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Tesla’s Elon Musk. One major announcement has already been made: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News yesterday after Xi arrived that a trade truce between the US and China that ended steep duties on Chinese goods by the US and Beijing’s tight restrictions on rare earth exports had been extended to Jan. 10. There’s a lot to talk about The big items on the agenda for the first meeting between Trump and Xi since the former went to Beijing in May include: AI: Less than two weeks after a warning about AI growing too quickly from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the AI race will be atop the Trump/Xi agenda. Both the US and China are racing to assert dominance in the tech. Middle East: China is Iran’s top trading partner. Some US lawmakers have implored Trump to push Xi into pressuring Iran into reopening the Strait of Hormuz. However, it’s unlikely that China will exert influence on Iran. Taiwan: Xi will forcefully stake China’s claim to Taiwan . It’s an awkward topic for the US, which sold Taiwan $11 billion in arms in December and has another $14 billion arms purchase that’s been on hold for months, per Reuters. Trump said after May talks with Xi that the latter deal was “a very good negotiating chip.” However… experts aren’t expecting many deliverables from the summit, unless you count the memes Musk will create on his way home from the dinner tonight. —DL Sponsored By Doroni As flying cars lift off, share prices change The real opportunity is now, before Doroni takes to the skies and hits the big stage. They’ve unveiled the showroom model of their flying car after nearly a decade of R&D. It’s great timing, too. The urban air mobility market is worth $4.8b today. By 2040, Morgan Stanley puts it at $1t. By 2050, $9t. Now, with 600+ reservations for Doroni’s aircraft and commercial deliveries planned for 2028, Doroni’s scaling fast. Earlier this year, they reserved the Nasdaq ticker $DRNI. But the real opportunity is now, at the private stage. Join 15,000+ early-stage shareholders. Invest in Doroni at $3.30/share before the share price changes after Oct. 22. World Tour de headlines Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images 👓 Meta unveils camera-free Ray-Bans and Meta VR Glasses. In its continued quest to be the company whose tech you wear on your face, Meta announced new glasses products at its developer conference yesterday. The company is expanding its line of smart glasses with the camera-free Ray-Ban Meta Audio, which will start at $349. Camera-free models get longer battery life. They could also help Meta beat the “pervert glasses” rap that critics with privacy concerns have given smart glasses—though the audio aspect still raises some privacy fears. CEO Mark Zuckerberg further revealed plans to fuse smart glasses with Meta’s popular AI agent Muse, as well as other Muse hardware . The company also debuted Meta VR Glasses—and they’re called glasses rather than a headset for a reason. There’s no head strap and they resemble large black sunglasses with several major components in an external pack. And at $1,299, they’re cheaper than Apple’s Vision Pro. 🇮🇷 Iran’s president defiant in UN speech. A day after President Trump stood at a United Nations podium and threatened to “annihilate” Iran, the country’s President Masoud Pezeshkian accused the US and Israel of creating global instability. Pezeshkian signaled during his UN General Assembly remarks that Iran was open to further talks to end the conflict, but

Plus: Subpocalypse now? | Thursday, September 24, 2026 Axios Markets By Emily Peck and Matt Phillips · Sep 24, 2026 🧗🏽♀️ Thursday. Nearly there. 😡 The bond market is not a happy place at the moment. This morning, U.S. stock futures are negative, and long-term Treasury bonds hit a 22-year high. 🗓️ Today, we try to make sense of it all. Then, we look at why Wall Street thinks Meta's new AI agent Muse can disrupt the subscription economy. Let's get into it: 1,052 words, a 4-minute read. 1 big thing: Those soaring Treasury yields By Matt Phillips Data: FactSet; Chart: Axios/Matt Phillips Treasury yields are soaring, with the 30-year Treasury bond climbing to its highest level since 2004 Thursday. The selloff in bonds started to accelerate Wednesday after a sizzling early report on the economy in September. The big picture: The moves were big. Bigly even. Yesterday's gain of roughly 0.15 percentage point in the 10-year Treasury yield was the biggest since April 2025, when President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcement rocked markets. Flashback: Markets heads remember that it was ructions in the bond market — "They were getting yippy ," the president famously said at the time — that prompted Trump to walk back some of the most extreme tariff policies. Yes, but: This time, the dynamics driving the bond market are more complicated, global and difficult to manage. Treasury yields have been moving higher for months on a combination of stronger-than-expected economic activity coupled with uncomfortably high inflation. The surge in data center-related borrowing in the bond market is also pushing up interest rates, as tech borrowers compete with the U.S. Treasury for investor dollars. Case in point: The big driver of yesterday's surge in yields — which means, remember, that bond prices were falling — was one of the earliest economic reports on the U.S. economy in September. These surveys of corporate purchasing managers suggested booming business in both the U.S. manufacturing and services industries. (JPMorgan economists said they were consistent with a 5% annual run rate for GDP growth.) But they also showed that the prices these companies were paying were soaring as well. (In other words, more inflationary pressures are in the pipeline.) Zoom out: Inflation is anathema for bond market investors as it erodes the value of the interest payments bondholders collect, making them less attractive assets. Between the lines: Lurking in the background of the inflation-driven market move is the specter of a U.S. diesel export ban, which the Trump administration is reportedly considering . But there's deep uncertainty about what such a ban would mean for overall inflation. Some industry voices warn that such a ban could actually push prices of other refined products, like gasoline, sharply higher because of the way refineries operate. What they're saying: "The proposed U.S. diesel export ban will not play out as the U.S. administration expects," wrote Susan Bell, an oil analyst with the consulting firm Rystad Energy. "While it may temporarily lower domestic diesel prices, it will cause the prices for all other refined products to soar as U.S. refineries cut run rates to balance their diesel production with the domestic demand." "There is little flexibility to minimize diesel yield without cutting overall refinery throughput," Bell said. The bottom line: The inflationary pressures appear to be building in the economy, which will be a headache both for politicians in the final stretch of the midterm elections and for policymakers like Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warsh. A MESSAGE FROM AXIOS Simplify: Do 50% more with 50% less With AI upending work and life, Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen & Roy Schwartz, the bestselling authors of "Smart Brevity" offer a one-stop survival guide to dramatically improving your life, work and happiness. The idea: Toxic complexity clogs our inboxes and calendars. We can do more, but first we need to simplify. Get your copy. 2. Muse is proving to be one tough customer By Matt Phillips Data: FactSet; Chart: Axios/Matt Phillips Companies that stand to profit from revenues linked to the kind of auto-renewals that benefit from customer inattention and inertia have slumped since the well-received release of Muse, Meta's new AI agent . Why it matters: One of the beauties of the subscription model — at least for the companies collecting the revenue — is that customers often keep paying for subscriptions long after they stop valuing or using the service. The big picture: And that subscription economy has boomed: gym memberships, streaming services, meal kits, home security, video games and dating sites, as well as pricier stuff like GLP-1s and concierge health care. Stunning stat: Spending on non-utility subscriptions rose 7.7% in July from a year ago, outpacing overall credit card spending, Bank of America said earlier this month, citing its payments data. Zoom in: A paper in the American Economic Review last year looked at purchase-level data from a payment card network for 10 popular subscription services. Using that data, economists Liran Einav, Ben Klopack and Neale Mahoney then tried to estimate the impact of customer inertia on subscription revenues more broadly. "We estimate that these cancellation frictions roughly double seller revenues on average," they wrote, while cautioning that there could be substantial differences in the impact that customer inertia has on different kinds of products and services. What they're saying: "People are paying for many months of subscriptions that they no longer value," Mahoney, a Stanford economist and one of the coauthors, told Axios last year . "That allows companies that don't perhaps have a viable business model to continue bringing in money." The latest: Meta's Muse seems to be quite good at identifying and keeping track of redundant, seldom-used or soon-to-renew subscriptions and then canceling them. In a review , the New York Times' El

Plus: Looking beyond the ETF wrapper with ProShares CEO Michael Sapir. September 24, 2026 Good morning. Even a silver spoon ain’t enough to protect you from inflation. Rapidly rising prices have been hanging over Americans’ heads for what feels like forever. The pain has spread everywhere, from the gas pumps and grocery stores to hospital wings and the housing market. Inflation is now the top concern among family offices, followed by interest rate changes and financial stability, according to a recent Citi survey. Concerns about trade wars and tariffs, which topped the list last year, have fallen significantly. With practically everything getting more expensive, preserving wealth has become just as important as generating returns. Sorry, kids. Looks like Santa’s only bringing one yacht this year. INDUSTRY NEWS New AI Tool Aims to Replace Advisors Photo by Rob Hampson via Unsplash There’s a divide in the AI financial advice world, and it’s not between Claude and ChatGPT users. Former PayPal CEO and Evergreen Wealth founder Bill Harris has launched a new direct-to-consumer venture that aims to bring AI financial advice to the masses. The new app, Evergreen.ai, is available now in its beta version for free and uses AI to answer users’ financial questions about everything from taxes to personalized retirement plans. The move is the latest by a major industry player to make artificial intelligence a mainstay and to push the idea that the era of financial advisors — at least for clients with less complex needs — may be waning. While others argue that AI will only ever be a tool, when asked whether he sees his app as eventually replacing advisors, Harris was unequivocal: “Yes.” “The industry, or at least people who are aggressive in terms of their use of AI within the industry, will be able to give very good financial advice, financial planning, investment management to households of, let’s say anyone with assets of up to $20 million,” Harris said. “I think that’s pretty easy, without the direct impact or the direct participation of a human advisor.” Putting Up Guardr(AI)ls It’s no secret that people are already turning to AI for financial advice: One recent survey found that roughly 40% of Americans had asked it for tips, with about a quarter of Gen Z using it in the past year. But usage comes with real risks — the most popular models reportedly get the facts wrong more than half the time . Evergreen.ai seeks to avoid this by citing its sources and relying on a “calculation engine” (rather than a typical large language model) to generate more math-based answers, Harris said. But that company isn’t alone in trying to bring AI financial advice to people’s phones: Earlier this year, ChatGPT began allowing some clients to link their bank accounts to the platform. The US crypto exchange Coinbase also rolled out AI investing apps in June that even let users engage in tax-loss harvesting and multi-asset event trading. Tool or Toolshed? Despite the growing availability of AI financial advice, skeptics doubt it can replace the personal touch. Clients will always value the reassurance that comes with having a real-life advisor to turn to, said Adrian Johnstone, CEO of the AI-based CRM Practifi. “What [AI] can do is add efficiency to the advisor. It can add richness to the relationship,” he said. “It can do both of those things at a scale that a human advisor can’t do, but AI in and of itself doesn’t really have a memory. It can’t read the unwritten context.” Written by Lilly Riddle PRESENTED BY Active ETFs: Helping Bolster Portfolio Resilience in Uncertain Markets In turbulent markets, active management matters. Active strategies can help investors stay invested, building a diversified portfolio designed to manage risks and capture potential opportunities in volatile markets. Active investment encompasses a range of strategies, from funds that lie between active and passive strategies to fully active funds that take greater risks in pursuit of significant outperformance . Active ETFs, which combine the research and rigor of active management with the flexibility and transparency of the ETF wrapper, offer investors a range of potential solutions to help navigate market turbulence. Learn more about Goldman Sachs Active ETFs. PRACTICE MANAGEMENT Tend Your Garden: RIA Founders Can Struggle With Life Outside of Work Financial planning has a lot to offer as a profession, but aiming for a rich personal life is easier said than done. Planners help make their clients’ hopes and dreams come true. They coach people through life’s highs and lows, financial and otherwise, seeing firsthand how the creation of wealth can transform a family’s future. The pay’s not bad, either, with median compensation reaching $195,000 in 2026, according to the CFP Board. The job can take a toll, however, as the same deep connection to clients that makes the work meaningful can also challenge work-life balance. So can the allure of winning new clients and boosting compensation to new heights. While their individual experiences differ, founders of independent registered investment advisor firms agreed on one common point: It takes as much planning and intentionality to maintain strong family relationships as it does to grow a successful RIA business. Striking a Balance Autumn Knutson, a former teacher and counselor who launched Styled Wealth in late 2023, is among the many founders navigating these tensions. “Sometimes we can hyperfocus so much on the numerical outputs of our businesses that we forget what the whole point of the business is in the first place,” Knutson said. “The clearer we can be on the life we want to build toward and the person we want to be in that process, the clearer the role of work and building an RIA can be in our lives.” Company founders should regularly “check in” on their work-life balance, she said. In her case, that happens monthly and in direct collaboration with her spouse. “Family time needs to be sched

Plus: McDonald’s turnaround plan leaves a bad taste in investors’ mouths. September 24, 2026 PRESENTED BY GREEN COFFEE COMPANY Good morning. There’s telling your boss you had an email whoopsie and then there’s this. A Morgan Stanley employee accidentally sent clients a document containing confidential information on over 100 investment banking deals the firm is working on in Asia, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday. Mohamed Atmani, the investment bank’s Asia-Pacific head of financial sponsors, had meant to send a client-specific version of the file that only contained general updates. Instead, he included an internal version with details on potential IPOs in China, India, South Korea and elsewhere, as well as information on private equity and pension fund backers of deals in the works, Bloomberg reported. Most embarrassing of all, someone posted a blurred copy on Instagram. MARKETS S&P 500 7,706.03 ▼ -0.75% DJI 51,511.59 ▼ -0.68% MCD $238.32 ▼ -4.81% Stock data as of market close on September 23, 2026. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Meta Keeps Muse Momentum as Rivals Push New AI Models Photo via IMAGO/Louis Grasse/IMAGO/PxImages/Newscom OpenAI and Anthropic tried to crash Meta’s party this week but got turned away at the door. Both of the companies that have led the AI revolution released new, cheaper AI models Tuesday. OpenAI’s two new models, GPT-6 Sol and Luna, are part of the company’s tiered system: Sol, built for complex tasks like coding, is a step below the most advanced model Astra, while Luna handles repetitive clerical tasks and is a level below Sol. OpenAI says the latest versions of the two models cost 50% less. Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5, meanwhile, is the most powerful version of the Claude lineup and comes with a cost cut compared to its predecessor. They’re no competition for Meta’s Muse, but that’s because Meta isn’t trying to play the same game. An AI Agent Made for Normies Meta had been largely written off in the AI race, as its models lagged behind rivals in terms of their ability to quickly handle complex tasks. Then Meta decided to drop out of the race to become the most powerful model. Instead, Meta and a freshly put-together team of AI experts recruited from rival companies designed a product that’s made for everyday people, not Eli Lilly or the Department of Defense. The advantage of starting from behind is being better able to size up the competition ahead, and identify any gaps they may be missing. Meta has done just that with its consumer-facing agent: Muse is the first publicly available AI agent built by Big Tech. But before Muse, OpenClaw proved that people wanted a personal AI agent to order their groceries and organize their calendars. The vibe-coded one-off became the fastest-growing project on developer platform GitHub as devotees donned lobster hats and claws. Meta’s head of product in its AI sector acknowledged Tuesday on X that OpenClaw “heavily inspired” Muse. But while OpenClaw was cumbersome to set up and use, requiring users to manually input text scripts, Muse is made for people who didn’t major in computer science. Basically, Meta pulled a Snapchat on OpenClaw, taking a popular concept (Stories in Snap’s case) and tweaking it for wider appeal. Muse’s app has racked up 2.5 million downloads since its September 8 debut, Sensor Tower found, more than Claude and Grok during the same period. Torment Nexus Debate: Meta has been pulling ahead as the wider industry slows down. Anthropic pushed back its IPO to November amid warnings that AI could go Terminator mode on humans in the not-too-distant future. OpenAI on Monday proposed new safety and security standards the industry could adopt. Even Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a podcast that any dangerous AI models should be shut down . Amid the clamor, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stood by Muse, saying it was rigorously tested before release. Written by Jamie Wilde PRESENTED BY GREEN COFFEE COMPANY A Bullseye for This Colombian Coffee Icon Photo via Green Coffee Company Over 30 million guests shop at Target every week. That’s roughly equivalent to the population of Texas. And no one is more perfectly positioned to capture these ravenous consumers than Green Coffee Company (GCC) , which grew its presence 445% in Target stores after introducing the iconic Juan Valdez coffee brand to its shelves. Holding the exclusive rights to this beloved Colombian coffee brand across the US and Canada originally landed GCC a 55-location deal with Target. But it flew off shelves so fast the major retailer increased that number to over 300. But GCC isn’t stopping there. Now, they’ve just announced their entrance into Canada through Loblaws, the country’s biggest food retailer. For a limited time, invest at $1.10/share until the share price changes after 9/30. * ENERGY Big Oil Says Diesel Export Ban May Drive Fuel Prices Even Higher Photo via Daniel Torok / B66 / Avalon/Newscom Will they or won’t they? That is the combustible question. Politico reported Wednesday that the Trump administration is readying a plan to halt diesel exports from the US for 90 days in an effort to lower record energy prices. The White House called it “fake news.” Just one day earlier, President Donald Trump said he supported the idea of a ban and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said its feasibility was being studied. But on Wednesday, the White House pointed to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who, without offering specifics, told The Wall Street Journal the administration may restrict exports, but won’t ban them outright. Fuel for Thought Diesel prices have been driven to all-time highs since the start of the Iran war in February and by Ukraine’s recent attacks on Russian refineries. An average gallon of diesel in the US cost a record $6.52 on Wednesday, up from $3.69 one year ago, according to AAA. Farmers and truckers , who rely on diesel in their daily work, are feeling the immediate pain, but that could soon spread. JPMorgan Wealth Management cautioned

PLUS: BTC and crude are pricing in peace. Bonds disagree. 🥛 Two ways to be wrong 📉 PLUS: BTC and crude are pricing in peace. Bonds disagree. Rohit Chauhan GM. This is Milk Road, the crypto newsletter that's the training montage set to your favorite song. Here’s what we’ve got for you today: ✍️ Two ways to be wrong. 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: From Bitcoin to Hyperliquid: Crypto’s Next Phase Is Already Here . 🍪 Galaxy adds $100M of Sky-issued USDS stablecoin to its corporate treasury. Prices as of 2:00 p.m. ET. Powered by CoinGecko. EVERYONE’S PRICING PEACE EXCEPT FOR BONDS President Trump took the stage at the United Nations yesterday and said exactly what the markets wanted to hear. He spent 9 of the 37 minutes on stage talking about Iran, the centerpiece of his monologue. Trump claimed that since the naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Navy has successfully escorted more than one billion barrels of oil and continues to move 22-37 ships daily. He said, “More oil is flowing than at any point since the war started”. But it was his two-options theory that really spooked the gathering. Trump said , there are two options on the table regarding his next move against Iran: Option 1: Strike a deal that lets Iran rebuild into “one of the greatest” countries. Option 2: “Annihilate the Islamic Republic… drive them into hell”. As you can already see, he’s playing the good cop, bad cop. If history’s any indicator, we know Trump Always Chickens Out, or TACO. So we believe a peace deal is on the cards. And this time around, the signal didn’t just come from the U.S. alone. Iranians told Qatari mediators they’re willing to reopen the Strait within the week, provided Washington eases military pressure and lifts the blockade on Iranian ports. Brent is trading at ~$96.15, down ~9.6% since Sep 11, while WTI, the U.S. benchmark, is down ~12.4% over the past week and now trades at ~$93.69. Both markets have been trading above $100 since Sep 10, following the largest wave of tanker and shipping attacks since the Iran war began in late February 2026. The U.S. forces destroyed five Iranian oil tankers while Iran and Houthis launched multiple retaliatory strikes across the Strait, and the Houthis seized control of Yemen’s port of Mocha. Everyone's talking about Bitcoin hitting an eight-month high. The thing that got it there is the oil chart. Source: TradingView August's inflation data is where the connection starts. Headline inflation came in at 3.4%, but core inflation (which strips out food and energy) came in at 2.4%. The lowest since March 2021. Which should tell you the broader economy is fine, and the real issue lies at the pump. Put differently, the inflation problem is a gasoline problem wearing a CPI costume. Source: BLS This is what made the Fed's September 16 move so strange. It hiked the Fed Funds Rate by 25 bps, its first increase since 2023, into an inflation problem that was almost entirely about oil. Raoul Pal, who was on The Milk Road Show last week, put it best: The Fed didn't hike rates during the first Iraq war in 1990 because Greenspan called it a supply shock that would slow the economy on its own. Raising rates doesn't produce more oil. So the Fed is squeezing, and the only thing that actually fixes this is tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz again. Which brings us back to the UN headquarters in New York yesterday, where Trump indicated that the deal will probably land right after the midterms, which are six weeks out. Iran says seven days, Trump says six weeks, but one market thinks they're both wrong… The next inflation report lands on October 14 and covers September, the same period that Brent crude oil climbed from $92 to $103. So the cooling in oil won’t show up in the data until the October numbers arrive in mid-November. In short, anyone waiting on inflation data to confirm the peace trade will be waiting until it's long over. But the bond market isn't waiting. Since August 18, the yield on the 2-year Treasury has jumped 64 basis points, while the 30-year has moved 8 basis points. Source: FRED The 2-year is the market's bet on what the Fed does over the next couple of years. The September hike accounts for 25 of that 64 bps move, while the remainder suggests traders are pricing in further hikes. A dozen Fed officials said the same thing in their September projections. So oil is down 10%, Bitcoin is at an eight-month high, and the front end of the bond market is positioned for a Fed that keeps squeezing. Point being, they can't all be right, and the 30-year is telling us a story. When traders bet that hard on rate hikes, the 30-year usually climbs right alongside the 2-year. This time it barely flinched. That's Raoul's argument showing up in a price. You can't hike your way out of an oil shock, so nobody is willing to pay up for that view past the short end. Which leaves us with two ways to be wrong. If Trump gets his deal, oil keeps falling, those extra hikes never arrive, and the 2-year is the one that got it wrong. Crypto keeps running. If it slips past his six-week mark, oil and Bitcoin are in for a rude shock to the downside. Iranian state media has already denied the seven-day timeline, and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf says the Strait will remain closed until Iran's conditions are met. All eyes are on the Oil chart now. A move below $95 and the Bitcoin rally likely continues. A break above $100 and Bitcoin could suffer. AI AGENTS WILL TRADE BILLIONS ONCHAIN. BUT WHERE WILL THEY TRADE? John Gillen just sat down with Louis Regis, Founder and CEO of Proper. In this episode, they talk about: How prop trading works. Why they chose to build on Hyperliquid. What it means for agents to manage portfolios onchain. Watch the full video here . BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪 Galaxy adds $100M of Sky-issued USDS stablecoin to its corporate treasury. CFTC weighs enforcement probe into Kalshi perp markets. BlackRock report calls BTC the savings account of AI a

Plus: Key yield shoots higher | Wednesday, September 23, 2026 Axios Closer By Nathan Bomey · Sep 23, 2026 Wednesday ✅. Today's newsletter is 851 words, a 3-minute read. 📉 The dashboard: The S&P 500 closed down 0.8%. 🔥 Today's stock spotlight: IonQ (+4.4%) jumped after the company announced what it called "a major milestone," a breakthrough that helps quantum computers catch and fix their own errors using regular computer chips instead of expensive specialized ones. 1 big thing: Golden overhaul Illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios McDonald's outlined a comprehensive turnaround strategy today predicated on a major investment in its franchised restaurants, AI and new products, including hand-breaded chicken items. Zoom in: McDonald's executives said at their investor day in Illinois that they'll invest $8.5 billion over the next decade in the " NEXT " plan, which includes: Modernizing stores with features like lockers for delivery and pickup. Retraining millions of workers through what global chief people officer Tiffanie Boyd described as the largest upskilling effort in the brand's history. Adopting a new AI-powered ordering system nicknamed Archy. Developing and rolling out new products, including protein-based items geared toward GLP-1 users. ( More on that below 👇) 🥊 Friction point: The investment plan calls attention to the natural conflict in a largely franchised business between corporate ownership and local proprietors, who are often reluctant to embrace investment plans without a clear ROI. Fast-food franchisees are facing a stiff competitive atmosphere with inflation driving increases in the cost of labor and materials, while consumers are picky about where they're spending. 💸 Follow the money: McDonald's CFO Ian Borden projects that the plan for technology and operational improvements would boost gross annual cash flow for the average McDonald's U.S. restaurant by about $100,000. But "we expect a portion of that will be reinvested" in the business, he added. The investment will cost about $800,000 per U.S. location, Borden estimates, with McDonald's helping franchisees shoulder the added cost through rent relief and capital support. The impact: Investors are not lovin' it. McDonald's shares closed down 4.8%. Go deeper 2. Key Treasury yield shoots higher Data: FactSet; Chart: Axios/Matt Phillips The yield on the 10-year Treasury note is surging to 19-year highs, Axios' Matt Phillips writes . Why it matters: That yield is a benchmark of the costs the U.S. government pays to borrow, which also influences the costs of borrowing throughout the economy. TL;DR: When it goes up, it typically means that loans for businesses and consumers will be going up, too. (See 7% mortgages , for example.) The latest: Some of the earliest numbers out on the U.S. economy this month— S&P Global's preliminary September reading on U.S. manufacturing and services released this morning — showed booming activity. It also showed the highest readings on the prices businesses are paying suppliers since the post-Covid inflation of 2022. In response, investors are boosting the odds of additional rate increases from the Federal Reserve. And at an auction of U.S. five-year notes by the Treasury Department, investors demanded the highest yields since 2006 from Uncle Sam, suggesting that they are quickly incorporating expectations for higher inflation and higher interest rates into their views on the bond market. The bottom line: It should be pretty clear by now that the low rates that prevailed for much of the last 20 years are quickly disappearing. 3. Other happenings Photo: Tom Pennington/Getty Images ⛽️ Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the Trump administration is looking to implement restrictions on diesel exports, rather than an outright ban, but provided few details of what restrictions might look like. ( WSJ ) A separate report said the administration is preparing a plan to ban diesel exports for 90 days. ( Politico ) 😳 A Morgan Stanley banker in Hong Kong accidentally sent an email to clients containing an internal document listing details of more than 100 potential IPO deals in the firm's pipeline. ( Bloomberg ) 🤝 Royal Caribbean confirmed a deal to take a 50% equity stake in Sandals for $3 billion. ( CNBC ) A MESSAGE FROM AXIOS Everything you need to simplify "Simplify," a new book by the co-founders of Axios, is a step-by-step playbook for spending your time on what makes you perform and feel your best. The takeaway: Learn the Confront, Delete, Amplify framework used by the world's most effective leaders to cut complexity and reclaim focus. Grab a copy today. 4. Chickening out Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios McDonald's is leaning further into a GLP-1 friendly menu, considering new protein-based products to keep a growing customer cohort coming back. The big picture: McDonald's is looking to make sure it doesn't get left behind as America's waistline shrinks . About 1 in 8 American adults are taking the medication to treat obesity or diabetes, and changing their eating habits in the process. And tens of millions more Americans are actively hunting for more protein in their diet, per McDonalds. Chains from Chipotle to Dunkin' to Subway have pushed out protein-packed launches as the trend pushes deeper into everyday menus. Driving the news: McDonald's USA president Skye Anderson today said 84% of households with GLP-1 users already visit the Golden Arches. Those customers "want more protein, greater portion flexibility and food that leaves them feeling satisfied without feeling like too much," Anderson said at the company's investor day. "We're exploring bowls, grilled chicken and egg bites to expand protein-forward options across breakfast, lunch and dinner." A MESSAGE FROM AXIOS Ready to simplify? "Simplify: Do 50% more with 50% less" is a toolkit for work in the AI era, from the authors of "Smart Brevity." It's built on a three-step framework: Confront the complexity. Delete what's draining energy. Amplif

Most chains lost their fees. NEAR replaced them. Marc Arjoon Don’t fade NEAR When price and fundamentals move together, that catches my eye. NEAR has nearly doubled in a week and is now up 178% since mid-August, helped by confidential perps and a Zcash fueled swap business. The rally looks sudden, but the business underneath it has been changing for much longer. Underneath the re-rating, REV has regained momentum but under a different business model. Since January 2025, execution fees fell 83%, from $120K a week to $20K. However, every dollar of that loss was replaced by NEAR Intents (a transaction type that lets users perform actions across different blockchains without manually managing execution routes or gas fees). Before the fee switch activation in February 2026, NEAR routed Intents volume and captured none of it. Intents now constitute ~85% of NEAR REV and NEAR is up 350% since the activation. This focus on Intents came at the cost of native activity. Relayer-paid (delegated) transactions were 78% of NEAR's volume in Q1 2026 and had been the bulk of it since 2024. These were gas-subsidized consumer apps, and the subsidy stopped. The effect can be seen in the fee data. Token burn has fallen from 100K NEAR in January 2025 to 20k NEAR in August 2026. The monthly burn rate now sits at 0.7%, though with an all-time high of 3.4% in March 2024, the burn was insignificant anyway. The activity mix for NEAR Intents is mainly deposits, withdrawals and swaps. But swaps are where the money is made and SwapKit, a cross-chain swap SDK embedded in wallets like Ledger Live, BitPay and Trust Wallet, is the largest channel. I did find an area of concern with this setup. SwapKit is 35% of Intents volume but 61% of fees. NEAR cannot see which wallet the flow came from and SwapKit routes NEAR Intents as one of four interchangeable providers alongside THORChain, Maya and Chainflip. So NEAR's position is re-contested on every single quote. We see below that stablecoins, BTC, ETH and ZEC are the vast majority of the flow. So NEAR’s Intent revenue rests on who can provide the best quote, with no visibility into who leaves. Speaking of no visibility, NEAR is also benefiting from the privacy narrative, so it's worth checking the size of it. Zcash deserves some credit as ZODL (the Zcash wallet) doubled its fee share to 16% in September and ZEC is 9% of Intents volume. But these aren’t dominant shares. Confidential Intents TVL is the one genuinely vertical line, up from $28M in mid-August to $131M since perps launched. However, 50% of it is wrapped NEAR, deposited into a program that pays credits out of staking yield. Essentially, the protocol's own token farming its own emissions. Strip that out and external confidential deposits are roughly $65M. What about the AI narrative? The AI pivot contributes nothing measurable. NEAR AI Cloud publishes no revenue, customers, or GPU count and no disclosed path to the token. So I can’t say much here. Two years into being an AI company, everything that reaches NEAR holders comes from Intents and most of Intents arrive through SwapKit, which decides on every quote whether NEAR gets the trade, and won't say which wallets are behind it. However, Intents is a useful product for AI agents simply because it's a useful product. SwapKit’s share continues to fall while volumes continue to rise and confidential TVL is accelerating, regardless of the mix. Meanwhile, most other chains have seen their fees collapse by over 90% and have nothing to replace them with. NEAR built something, turned it on, and it’s working. Don’t fade a project with proven execution, a giga-brain team, and the intent to keep shipping. — Marc DAS Asia is coming up this Oct. 7 in Singapore. Hear from the biggest names in onchain finance. Ticket prices increase this Friday, so grab yours now! Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here © 2026 Blockworks 133 W 19TH ST New York, New York 10011, United States