Top Down Finance

I lived on an island once... Manhattan.
I take Wall Street level nonsense and break it down so you don't have to. Not Financial Advice.

[Thierry from arvy 🇨🇭 @ThierryBorgeat]

51% of the S&P 500's market cap is in stocks trading above 10x sales.

Half the index.

In 2002, after Sun Microsystems crashed 90%, CEO Scott McNealy famously said this about his own stock at 10x sales:

"At 10x revenues, to give you a 10-year payback, I have to pay you 100% of revenues for 10 straight years in dividends. Zero costs. Zero R&D. Zero taxes. Zero employees. What were you thinking?"

He was explaining why investors had been insane to pay it.

Today, half the S&P 500 trades there.

Different decade. Same math.

[kristen shaughnessy @kshaughnessy2]

Japan Only Has 2 More Shots to Save the Weak Yen

Japan has burned one of its limited “yen-saving” moves to stop the currency from getting too weak.

Bloomberg reports that under IMF rules, it can only do two more big 3-day interventions by November or it risks losing its “free-floating” currency status and looking like it’s heavily managing the yen

$USDJPY. USD/JPY

[Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes]

American foods are cleverly changing their names because they no longer qualify as that legal food

- Pringles used to be potato chips, now they’re labeled as “potato crisps” per FDA rules
- McDonald’s Shakes are now called “shakes” (not legally milkshakes in some states)
- Klondike Bar is no longer a chocolate shell, it’s a Chocolatey shell (not real chocolate)
- Dairy Queen: All items are “treats” (no “ice cream” on the menu)
- Oreo changed the spelling to “creme” (alternative spelling, not real cream)
- Tyson changed spelling to “Wyngz” (It’s a processed chicken labeling trick)
- Costco Blueberry Bagels labels as Imitation blueberry bagels (no actual blueberries)
- Pearl Milling Company Syrup (formerly Aunt Jemima) Now ‘Original syrup’ not maple syrup. The first ingredients is corn syrup

Our food is a science experiment

Make America Healthy Again

[sophia•of•the•Crows🐦‍⬛ @DSEDunn]

So. If you are in ANY emergency situation — let’s say you park in your driveway, & only as you begin taking your groceries from the car, you see movement in your home that is supposed to be empty. And a broken window. You cannot drive away to somewhere safer to get help. Your car refuses.

You are at a traffic light. Suddenly someone is trying to get into your car (this has happened to me). You have a split second to accelerate & leave him in the dust. Your car shuts down power.

The school calls. Your daughter has fainted. You cannot drive to the school to pick her up because your car notices your eyes are wide & you’re breathing fast.

Your car now controls whether you live or die in an emergency situation. And those controls cannot be overridden.

[Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes]

American proves Amazon is robbing you

The more you look at the price of items, the more the price increases (just like airline tickets were caught doing)

She has 2 items she was looking at last night, she left the screen open

In the morning she clicks refresh. The price updates and now the same items cost 28% more

There were no ending sales to account for the change. This is just a system jacking up prices because you showed interest

$45.98 -> $58.98

This is exactly what airlines were caught doing

[Desiree @DesireeAmerica4]

Wendy’s CEO was ready to drop $20 million on new digital menu boards.

​The goal? To change the price of your burger in real-time. If the drive-thru got busy, your lunch suddenly cost more.

​They called it "dynamic pricing." We called it what it was: a $20 million investment to price-gouge the consumer.

​But then the internet exploded. The backlash was so fierce and so fast that Wendy's folded almost overnight.
​They tried to play us, and we shut it down. Never forget who actually holds the power.

​What corporate giant needs this kind of reality check next?

[Nabila Jamal @nabilajamal_]

🚨 Oracle layoffs

Ex-employee alleges algorithm targeted senior executives with unvested stock... she says:

"It seems layoffs follow an algorithm of high level individual contributors and mid-level managers - especially those with outstanding stock options"

She hinted that the job cuts at Oracle may have disproportionately affected experienced employees with unvested equity

[Negligible Capital @negligible_cap]

It’s actually even worse than this- Kobeissi is showing the delayed quote

After Friday close, $ORCL 5 year CDS spreads are now at 198 bps, the highest in history (including the GFC)

Oracle’s implied cumulative probability of default over 5 years is roughly 15.3%

Dividend cut is coming. More layoffs are coming. Likely more equity issuance is coming. $ORCL is in trouble. Updated CDS spreads shown below

[HealthRanger @HealthRanger]

And here comes massive price inflation in supply chains...

[Christopher Webb @cwebbonline]

We need to start taking pictures of the shelf prices because they might change by the time we get to the register.

📌 Walmart is rolling out digital price tags in every store.
Prices can now be changed across the entire chain in seconds.

[johnny crash @WndowsSucks]

i got an offer to do this and they wanted to pay $17.50/hr

[Green Eggs-n-Sam @HamEggsnSam]

The price of plastic just doubled. . .

[Lord Bebo @MyLordBebo]

🛢️ The oil market has blown away all possible prediction models.

That’s why insider knowledge always wins … and nothing else can be comparable

[barney @barneyxbt]

so let me get this straight…

the us invested nearly half a trillion dollars into ai in 2025 and all we got was 17 billion gallons of water drained, hundreds of thousands of jobs deleted, and zero positive impact on society.

but yeah let’s keep going

[healthbot @thehealthb0t]

In 2021 Fauci and Bowser get completely owned.

I don't know who this guy is but he is my hero..

[Lynn Becker @LynnBecker]

Walgreen’s race to the bottom: now only offering their own house brands in paper products. Same high prices; Dollar General vibe.

[Tim Butterly @timbutterly]

Ah yes you will make NBA money as a plumber after every potential plumbing customer loses their job.

[Global Markets Investor @GlobalMktObserv]

⚠️The US budget gap is set for another historic year:

The US budget deficit reached $1.00 trillion in the first 5 months of Fiscal Year 2026, the 3rd-worst year in history.

By comparison, the only higher readings for this period were $1.05 trillion in 2021 and $1.15 trillion in 2025.

At the same time, interest payments on the national debt surged +7% from 2025 to a record $425 billion.

Lastly, the US national debt is up another $400 billion year-to-date and reached a record $38.9 trillion.

[Financial Physics @FinancialPhys]

To equal the same spending power a minimum wage boomer had in July of 1971

You’d need to be paid

$9150 per week now (AU 1971)