Iran Asserts Control Over Strait of Hormuz

Amazon Warns Of "Degraded" AWS Service In UAE After "Power Issues" Amid Middle East Conflict Iran's retaliatory attack ramped up on Sunday after the U.S.-Israeli Operation Epic Fury killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday morning. Follow-on strikes were reported in Israel, across multiple Gulf states, and maritime incidents affected commercial shipping lanes in and around the Strait of Hormuz. One notable and unexpected point of disruption has emerged in the Middle East critical infrastructure on Sunday morning, with Amazon reporting that its Middle East (UAE) data center region has...

Mark Walter Probe Puts Wall Street's Insurance-Private Credit Machine Under DoJ Scrutiny An ongoing federal investigation into billionaire Mark Walter's business empire is raising alarm bells about Wall Street's use of insurance capital to finance private credit and other illiquid investments.  Bloomberg reported that Walter's TWG Global holding company said in a filing that it will wind down its exposure to affiliated businesses by up to $6.5 billion after the transactions drew scrutiny from federal investigators. This comes after the Department of Justice homed in on loans that should've been marked...

"The Value Didn't Arrive": Bain Finds Cost-Savings From AI Are Falling Far Short Of Projections Now that attention within the AI revolution has one again firmly turned toward the cost-benefit equation (i..e., ROI) of tokens (see "From Singularity To Tokenomics: The AI Narrative Just Hit A Serious Snag") in particular, and the trillions behind the AI spending rollout in general, and we say once again because every few months we get some iteration of the following report from Goldman published almost two years ago today... ... we have more bad news: according...