This Week in Barrons: 9.28.2025

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•  Mississippi poet Talisha Jones secured a $3m record deal … for her AI-generated R&B persona Xania Monet.  Xania Monet debuted high on Billboard’s charts and racked up 10m streams in the U.S. alone last week. The latest AI music generation models have already reached quality levels imperceptible from human / professional tracks.  That means the flow of AI’s cheaper, faster & equal quality music has started to move into the mainstream music scene.

• Where did Customer Service (C/S) go?  C/S has evolved to be a shadow of its former self.  Companies would rather NOT be held accountable or responsible for their actions.  C/S is viewed as a cost center where management works on depersonalizing interactions, minimizing time spent, and only uses the refund policy to ‘make-things-right’.  Per Seth Godin, it’s cheaper to offer a refund and move on than doing virtually anything else.  Unfortunately, customers are rarely seeking a refund, but would like C/S to listen, understand, and solve / respond.  Not only is this cheaper than a refund, but it increases customer knowledge and opens the gates for an up-sell from C/S.  A good C/S Department doesn’t cost you money; it makes you money.

• What really concerns me … is the U.S. brain drain.  This administration is gutting our high-ranking MBA programs of up to 70% of their new and existing foreign student enrollment via visa threats.  Worse is the short-sightedness associated with the new $100k H-1B visa fee.  Just like tariffs, the increased visa fee will end up hurting us – more than our competition.  H-1B visa holders account for only 0.26% of the US total workforce but a much larger percentage of our highly skilled medical, tech, AI, scientific and engineering talent.  I’m still waiting for the Mag-7 to stand up and have their voices heard.

• Chinese researchers just developed a swallowable robot capsule … that navigates (using magnetic guidance) through your digestive system – collecting fluid samples for diagnosis.  No scopes, no surgery – just swallow and read the data in real-time.  This magnetic micro-device will diagnose conditions from early-stage cancer through end-of-life diseases – by simple capsule ingestion.  It will transform internal medicine by making diagnostics that much easier.

• Chm. Powell admitted: “We’re now collecting a good bit of revenue - $300 to $400B a year from tariffs.  Thus far, the middlemen (retailers and importers) are paying the tariffs and NOT passing those charges along to consumers.”

• A pioneering gene therapy has successfully … slowed the progression of Huntington’s disease by 75%.  Currently, there is no treatment capable of slowing or halting the Huntington’s advance as it destroys brain cells and impairs movement, cognition, and behavior. 

• Free Speech - think again …If you’re looking for precedent for Pres. Trump’s move against Free Speech – look no further than the Biden administration. This week Alphabet told the House Judiciary Committee that the Biden administration pressured them to take down COVID content that ran afoul of the White House’s party line.

• Survey sez: Virtually all Millennials, 20% of Gen Z’ers, 25% of Gen X’ers, and 9% of B-Boomers - have given up on retirement.

• Prices are up - Jobs are down … Tyler Cowen sees Stagflation within the next 18 months with: 4% inflation, 7% unemployment, and no good options for our FED.  Brace for an economy that will get worse before it gets better.

• Perplexity adds AI-powered E-mail assistant that … schedules meetings, organizes emails, and drafts replies using AI.

• TikTok Deal:  The U.S. will hold 6 of 7 Board seats.  Oracle and PE firm Silver Lake will be part of the buyer-consortium.  And ByteDance’s stake will be less than 20% to comply with the national security law.

• Abu Dhabi by 2027, will be the first AI-native government … They will deploy 200+ AI solutions across their region.

• AI is turning Big Tech into Big Utility … as Big Tech’s capital expenditures have gone from 4% to 15% of revenues.  This year Meta alone will spend 35% of sales on data centers and servers.

• OpenAI is rolling out ChatGPT Pulse … a feature that crafts personalized morning reports overnight.  Users get 5 to 10 AI-generated briefs based on news, their email, upcoming calendar, and past chats.

• The PCE inflation indicator was in line with estimates of 2.9% … We’ve arrived at a place where if it’s NOT ‘worse than we feared’ – our FED can still cut rates. What about all the healthy economic numbers that give them no reason to cut rates?  Assuming inflation IS growing faster than reported, what if they cut rates in the face of higher inflation?

•  If crypto skipped every September:

  o Bitcoin & Ethereum would be double in price, and

  o Cardano would be up over 150%.

• The AI Bubble Metric is flashing red … The metric takes the S&P 500 and divides it by the average of its inflation-adjusted earnings over the past 10 years.  The gauge reached a previous high in November 1999 – four months before the S&P 500 peaked.

• By December, the SEC will draft new crypto regulations … Chair Paul Atkins is floating an exemption idea that will let businesses quickly enter the market.

• NYU Research confirmed that AI models … from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic can now pass all three levels of the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) exam – including the essay questions.  With AI’s rise, softer aspects like client relations and contextual judgement will become important hiring traits.  [FYI: The models completed the exam in minutes versus the 1,000 hours humans typically spend studying.

• Aster is the new Perp Casino of Choice … It lives on the Binance blockchain and is a decentralized exchange (DEX) built by APX Finance and Astherus. 

  o Retail traders get one-click “1001x” margin for instant dopamine.

  o Desk traders get a Pro order book, so they don’t look like human liquidity piñatas. 

  o Their token launch is following the HYPE playbook.

  o HYPE (HyperLiquid) was the benchmark for perp DEXs but is seeing its token price crash following Aster’s latest volume and revenue numbers.

• Rumor has it that … Vanguard (with $10T under management) is set to offer a Bitcoin ETF to its clients.  Trillions of new, traditional assets could soon have seamless and safe access to crypto.

• Mr. Market makes no sense…  Initial jobless claims were below expectations.  Durable goods orders were up 2.9%, vs expecting a red number.  The final reading of Q2 GDP increased from 3.3% to 3.8%.  That means that the economy is firing on all cylinders, and our FED does NOT have to cut rates any time soon.

• Buy GOLD & Silver:

  o Commodities are in a multi-year bottoming process.  The logical next step is a new cyclical bull market.  The strong run higher in gold is a key indicator as inflation & unemployment will be key themes in 2026.

  o Gold mining ETF allocations are barely off the lows, and pale in comparison to previous peaks = more room to run for the miners.

  o Investors are grossly underexposed to a prospective new bull market in commodities.

• Bkgd:  We just witnessed something that hasn't happened in a long time.  On Friday, we had 90 products advancing while the market was simultaneously dropping like a rock.  That’s not supposed to happen.  We also saw:

  o The SPX rally +40, sell off for -40, then rally another +40 points.  It touched both edges of its expected move in a single session.

  o It seems that high degrees of market correlation has returned and is making its presence felt.

  The explanation is simple:  On Friday 90% of stocks moved higher, but mega-cap tech couldn’t get out of its own way – so less than 7 stocks sucked the entire marketplace down.  When correlation spikes this high, everybody ends up on the same side of the boat.  And boats tip gradually … then suddenly.  Next week's SPX expected move is a sleepy $85, and bitcoin is sitting at a critical $110k support level.  If our Mag-7 continue to break lower, Bitcoin and crypto won’t be far behind.

• SPX Expected Move (EM):

  o Last Week = $84 … we touched both the lower & upper edge of the Expected Move.

  o Next Week = $85 … which tells me to buy (not sell) sell short-dated options. 

•  I’m watching:

  o  Gold (GLD) moving to (+18%) $4,500/oz.,

  o Silver moving to (+66%) $70/oz., and

  o GDX (the mining ETF) will be significantly higher.

  o VZLA == BUY (Silver Miner).

  o RXRX == BUY ($4.60). This is NVDA’s way of bringing AI into the pharma marketplace, AND it moves in tandem with NVDA.

  o BTC is a pure reflection of global liquidity. SecForm4.com/insider-buy-sell-ratios – tracks Insider moves.

  o  EPU for an International / Peru banking play.

  o PLATINUM: ABRDN Physical Platinum Shares ETF (PPLT) = $140.  Comes with a healthy options market.

  o NVDW ($45.18) == Roundhill NVDA WeeklyPay™ ETF:  ETF = provides weekly income/returns that are 1.2X Nvidia’s stock. 

  o  NVDY ($16.25) == YieldMax NVDA Option Income Strategy ETF.  ETF = generates monthly income by selling Call Options on NVDA.

• Factually: (a) Seasonality is soft into Oct, (b) Defensive equities are dangerously discounted, (c) Tech valuations & allocations are at generational highs, and (d) Commodities look bullish and investors are underexposed. Overall, per Callum Thomas: when many of the most interesting charts are sounding warning signs you just can’t ignore them.  The week ahead is giving off bearish vibes, but it’s the commodity sector (including precious metals) that is getting me excited and that not many people are talking about.

• HODL’s: (Hold-On for Dear Life)

  -  (+) IBIT – Blackrock’s Spot Bitcoin ETF ($61.9 / in at $24)

  - (+) ETHA – Ethereum ETF ($30.4 / in at $13.5)

  - (+) Physical Commodities = Gold @ $3,789/oz. & Silver @ $46.3/oz.

  - Bitcoin (BTC = $109,900 / in at $4,310)

  - Ethereum (ETH = 4,040 / in at $310)

  - (+) GLD – Gold ETF ($346.7 / in at $212)

• Options for Income:  De-Risking a Portfolio… (using IBIT for example)

  - BUY-n-HOLD the IBIT ETF

  - BUY PUTs: 1 Std. Dev. Lower, Expiring = 3-weeks away, OTM (out-of-the-money) for protection.

  - SELL Covered CALLs: 0.75 to 1 Std. Dev. Higher, Expiring = 2-weeks away, OTM for income and to finance the PUTs.

• ‘De-Gen’ Economy:

  - Chainlink (crypto) == LINK: ($20.8 / in at $19.4)

  - Aave (crypto) == AAVE: ($265 / in at $254)

  - GDX (gold miners) == ($74.6 / in at $52)

  - SLV (silver ETF) == ($41.8 / in at $27)

• Building an AI basket based upon:

  - NVDA, FN, TSM, CLS, IREN, ALAB, CRDO, and AEHR

   

  Please be safe out there!

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