China Dominates the Humanoid Robot Market
China’s Unitree Robotics stunned 1 billion viewers with fully autonomous kung-fu humanoid robots, available today for $16,000. Germany’s Chancellor visited Hangzhou, signaling the West is noticing. Unitree leads globally with 90% of shipments, 330+ models, and 140+ manufacturers, while Tesla’s Optimus remains in R&D and unavailable commercially. State support, aggressive pricing, and mass deployment mirror China’s EV strategy. The physical intelligence revolution is live in China, leaving Silicon Valley behind unless Tesla captures significant market share by 2027. Source: Shanaka Anslem Perera @shanaka86
Norway’s $2.2T Oil Fund Uses AI to Monitor ESG Risks
Norges Bank Investment Management is now using AI to screen all 7,200+ portfolio companies for ethical and reputational risks. Anthropic’s Claude generates daily ESG reports, flags issues like forced labor or corruption, and allows early exits before markets react. This system is especially valuable for small or emerging-market companies. With sustainability and governance tied to financial performance, AI gives NBIM a competitive edge in capital allocation, showing that the future of investing combines returns with responsibility and speed. Source: CNBC
Jack Dorsey’s AI-Driven Workforce Revolution
Jack Dorsey’s Block Inc cut over 4,000 jobs, more than 40% of its workforce, as part of an AI-driven restructuring while reporting strong Q4 and full-year 2025 results. Revenue and profits are growing, EPS beat expectations, and AI tools have boosted productivity by 40%, making roles redundant. Wall Street rewarded the move with a 22% stock gain. This sets a new precedent for corporate America, showing that AI adoption can reshape incentives and workforce strategies faster than ever. Source: StockMarket.news
2026 Winter Olympics medal count by Voronoi
Great to see switzerland ranked #8 !
BREAKING Beer
Beer Shipments on track for worst year since the 1980s Source: Barchart @Barchart
Disruption risk from AI, a sector point of view
The most exposed are in the high/right corner, and most of these have a negative YTD return. Source: Credit From macro to micro @Credit_Junk
Here's a MarketWatch article on how AI could eventually lead to a job-destroying feedback loop leading to double-digit unemployment rate in the US.
The piece, co-authored by Citrini Research and guest Alap Shah, managing partner at Lotus Technology Management, is written as a lookback from June 2028, when the unemployment rate has just risen to 10.2% and the S&P 500 is down 38% from its Oct. 2026 highs around 8,000. It starts with software-as-a -service companies losing sales as client demand falls, but AI usage quickly this year becomes the default among consumers and businesses constantly finding the cheapest and best option, reducing margins and profits. This leads to a collapse in white-color hiring (white-collar workers represent 50% of employment and drive roughly 75% of discretionary consumer spending), but the downturn will be secular as companies lean into AI, "a feedback loop with no natural break". Initial jobless claims spike to 487,000 by next February, the S&P 500 drops, and by the second quarter of 2027 there’s a recession when “the daisy chain of correlated bets” will start to fracture rippling through the economy impacting everything from house prices to elections. "This isn’t bear porn or AI doomer fan-fiction. The sole intent of this piece is modeling a scenario that’s been relatively underexplored,” they say. Source: Citrini Research, Neil Sethi @neilksethi
Here’s a mental framework by InvestingVisual on the software universe.
The market keeps selling off high quality names. Not all software is created equal, but the market is treating it like that. Some buying opportunities?
