Brendan Franco

28yr , Product Manager.
Always Pay attention . ♟️

[Darth Powell @VladTheInflator]

Nothing about the United States is free market capitalism

Stop pretending the entire fucking country isn't some form of socialism.

The WHOLE FUCKING POINT of the Federal Reserve is socialism for the rich

[Ed Elson @edels0n]

29% of buy now, pay later users are now using it to buy groceries, per CNBC. Among those, 35% missed a payment.

This is where we're at.

[Brendan Franco @BrendanFranco6]

@KobeissiLetter Consumer cracked also with inflation lol makes sense

[Boring_Business @BoringBiz_]

Fantastic write up on a complicated Chapter 11 situation

If you are interested in restructuring, distressed debt investing or bankruptcy law, recommend giving these guys a follow

[Darth Powell @VladTheInflator]

The median household income in 1988 was $27,230

This house was 3.13x median income

Median income is now $83,000

To be the same relative price this house would need to sell for $260,000.

So what is the REAL value of this house?

Simple: Take the mortgage rate in 1988, 10.65%, PITI etc = $1,254.04

Adjust for inflation: $3,519.24

So this house would need to be $450,000.

Here's the problem, that was for a NEW house.

This house is 40 years old. Pipes typically last 50 years.

So a solid price on this house would be more in the $350k - $450k range.

Listing it for $350/sf when you can built NEW at that price is a fucking joke

[QE Infinity @StealthQE4]

Fascinating read:

The COVID era totally destroyed our way of life.

Businesses can no longer run profitably so they close.

Inflation is killing everything:

[Steven Kelly @StevenKelly49]

History of Ken Griffin playing the John Pierpont Morgan role:

[Darth Powell @VladTheInflator]

1 in 8 FHA mortgage borrowers are behind on their mortgage.

They should sell.

[Fireside Tapes @firesidetapes]

In 2007, a rival fund called Ken Griffin on a Sunday needing to dump a $30 billion book before Monday's open to meet margin calls. The senior banker on the competing bid went to bed.

Citadel owned all of it by 6AM.

This is him telling the whole story -- the 50-person team assembled in hours, the all-nighter, and the banker on the competing bid who called from Greenwich to say he was going to bed:

"And he said, look, it's getting late, this isn't gonna get done tonight. I'm heading off to bed, I'm telling my guys to go home, and we'll pick this up in the morning."

"And I said, there will be nothing to pick up in the morning. We're going to get this done. he sort of laughed and hung up."

"6AM before the opening of the markets, we bought that entire portfolio."

The quote he lands it on, from President Lincoln:
"Things may come to those who wait, but only those things left by those who hustle."

Bookmark & watch ↓

[Goshawk Trades @GoshawkTrades]

a 24-year-old ex-openai researcher ran a fund to $45 billion with eight people, was up 439% net through june, and by the end of july had sold his entire public stock portfolio to ken griffin in a single block trade.

griffin described this exact failure mode two years ago, asked why portfolio managers wash out at citadel:

"you have a portfolio that is extraordinarily highly concentrated, you have large positions, you cannot demonstrate a clear and concise competitive advantage in why you own those positions."

"and there are some people that just, with full information, are unable to help themselves and get to a better portfolio construction."

he was also asked the opposite question in the same interview, why citadel keeps working, his third and final answer was this:

"it's experience. it's the price paid in losses and pain that converts into wisdom. my leadership team, we've been through a lot of very difficult moments of the markets together. we've learned some very bitter lessons. but it makes us much more effective as investors in periods of turmoil and crisis."

citadel started in november 1990. situational awareness started in 2024, long AI infrastructure and short software at roughly 4x leverage. both legs went against it in the same three weeks.

there was no bitter lesson priced into that book yet.

that's what got bought.

he wasn't wrong about AI. he was wrong about the construction of his book.

[unusual_whales @unusual_whales]

BREAKING: Leopold Aschenbrenner’s entire stock portfolio was reportedly sold in a single block trade to Ken Griffin’s Citadel, per Bloomberg

[Brendan Franco @BrendanFranco6]

Yikes

[Shay Boloor @StockSavvyShay]

THIS HAS TO BE THE STORY OF 2026

Ken Griffin’s Citadel was pushing surprise-rate-hike fears just days before the AI trade collapsed and forced 4x-levered Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness to unload its book near the lows.

Citadel then reportedly bought most of those assets at significantly lower prices knowing that if sentiment deteriorated enough the fund could be forced to sell which makes the entire sequence look absolutely ruthless.

This is why the stock market is the greatest game on Earth.

[Brendan Franco @BrendanFranco6]

@VladTheInflator 🎯

[Kevin Carpenter @kejca]

Taylor Morrison CEO Sheryl Palmer: "Berkshire buys companies because they believe in them and want them to continue doing what they do so well."

"This [acquisition] is like homebuilding history. We're joining one of the most reputable companies in the world. A company that's going to back us fully."

"When you combine the Berkshire builder group — Clayton Properties Group — and Taylor Morrison, it will allow us to serve the market even better."

(h/t Bloomberg Television)

[Satya Nadella @satyanadella]

Some more detail on the ROIC Intelligence App I built yesterday and mentioned on today's earnings call.

I took the PDF that Brian Nowak at Morgan Stanley put together for Hyperscale ROIC this week and used Copilot code (coming in our new superapp) with a single prompt + skill (/drill-me) to create the plan, then used autopilot in auto to create the full app (with history, lookups, scenarios, what-ifs, etc). And /rubber-duck to test.

And the best part is that all the artifacts are in my enterprise environment. My app is in Copilot, my code is in GitHub Enterprise; all my data pipelines/lake/semantic models are in Fabric. And everything is under Agent 365 IT/Sec/FinOps control!

So this is not about Tokenmaxxing or vibe coding. Every step of the way the rails are engineered to create value, making everything a long-term reusable asset, with governance/security, and cost controls.

This is the full system to drive business value. Disclosures: This is all pulled from public sources, and for illustrative purposes only...not financial advice! :)

Here is the app and architecture...

[QE Infinity @StealthQE4]

The Fed failed them today. No rate hike to slow down the inflation train.

Next meeting isn’t until September.

The wars continue.

People feel ignored/forgotten.

[QE Infinity @StealthQE4]

If inflation isn’t stopped soon you’re going to see a revolt in this country.

Many in the Middle Class are nearing the tipping point.

If we continue to ignore the needs of Americans at home to fight wars abroad it’s not going to end well.

[Boring_Business @BoringBiz_]

Working in finance for long enough will make you realize just how many people use work as their escape from having to develop a personality or character as an adult