Vanessa Cato romped home in last week’s world-famous news haiku competition™ with this little stunner about high oil prices driving Europeans to adopt electric vehicles and solar energy in record numbers:

Here’s your celebratory gif, Vanessa:

And she was up against some stiff competition, too:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No dinosaur sludge. Boys, why did it take a war, to let the sun shine? ~Kaitlyn Pino (61)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ L'essence coûte si cher… ¿Qué hacemos?!  Blimey, mate: Sonnenenergie! ~Mike Boguszeski (14)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Sun—reliable. Iran—unreliable. Europe goes solar! ~Margaret Lea (66)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ All oil is ours now! World adopts renewables. Oops, our bad. What now? ~Greg Manahan (31)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ High energy costs, Drive Europe to buy new cars, And drive me to drink ~Lodro Rinzler (56)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Oil lover in chief, spurs mass solar investment—Cosmic irony!! ~Vanessa Cato (185)

413 Votes

This week’s world-famous news haiku competition™ is about how financial disclosures for President Donald Trump showed hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of transactions involving securities in major American companies including Nvidia $NVDA ( ▼ 4.42% ) , Palantir $PLTR ( ▲ 0.19% ) , Paramount $PSKY ( ▼ 2.18% ) , and Boeing $BA ( ▼ 3.8% ) in the first three months of 2026. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers.

Let’s cut to the news chase…

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

News You Need2Know

• This AI chipmaker’s firm soared 68% on its IPO

• How to buy a used EV, the most affordable car!

• How an app will counter health misinformation

• President made thousands of stock trades in Q1

• Anthropic went from $350B to $900B in 3 mo’s

• Poll of the day: Conflict, or loss, of interest?

What’s the stock market up to, eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 1.24% ) $DJI ( ▼ 1.07% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  

Companies mentioned in today’s newsletter

$CBRS ( ▼ 10.08% )  $NVDA ( ▼ 4.42% )  $AMZN ( ▼ 1.15% )  $PLTR ( ▲ 0.19% )  $PSKY ( ▼ 2.18% )$BA ( ▼ 3.8% )  $TSLA ( ▼ 4.75% )  $AAPL ( ▲ 0.68% )  $META ( ▼ 0.68% )  $V ( ▲ 1.0% )  $C ( ▼ 1.12% )  $QCOM ( ▲ 0.71% )  $GE ( ▼ 3.43% )  $AMZN ( ▼ 1.15% )  $MSFT ( ▲ 3.05% )  $ADBE ( ▲ 4.47% )  $WDAY ( ▲ 5.27% )  $UBER ( ▲ 0.54% )  $COST ( ▲ 0.74% )$INTC ( ▼ 6.18% )  $WBD ( ▼ 0.52% )$NFLX ( ▲ 0.09% )  $ANTHROPIC ( 0.0% )  

This AI chipmaker’s firm soared 68% on its IPO

Cerebras $CBRS ( ▼ 10.08% ) , a Silicon Valley-based manufacturer of advanced AI chips, made a historic market debut on Thursday, with its shares opening at $185, and closing the day up 68 percent at $311.07. The incredible surge rocketed the company's valuation to $67 billion, cementing it as the largest global tech debut since 2019.

To understand what is driving this frenzied investor demand, we spoke with Julie Choi, the chief marketing officer of Cerebras (above). Celebrating the monumental day, Choi explained that the market's reaction reflects a profound "hunger and need for AI infrastructure that's extremely fast."

At the heart of Cerebras's success is its uniquely engineered hardware. The company produces the "wafer scale engine," (also, see 👆🏻) which is recognized as the largest computer chip ever built. "This is 58 times larger than GPUs," Choi noted, holding up a square chip roughly the size of a dinner plate. By co-locating massive amounts of compute and memory on a single giant surface, Cerebras unlocks the world's fastest data movement for AI.

While Nvidia $NVDA ( ▼ 4.42% ) currently dominates the AI market, Cerebras is positioning itself as a formidable alternative, specifically for running—or "inferencing"—deployed AI models. Choi highlighted that their chips are "15 times faster than GPUs," allowing developers to execute complex AI reasoning in "seconds versus minutes or hours."

Backed by at least $5.5 billion in newly raised capital, Cerebras plans to expand its infrastructure globally. Bolstered by deep partnerships with tech titans like OpenAI and Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 1.15% ) , the company is proving it can navigate beyond its early reliance on major investors like the UAE-backed G42. As the AI race accelerates, Cerebras is simply "thrilled to help bring some excitement back to the IPO market,” Julie said.

Is it just me, though, or is making bigger chips a remarkably simple chipmaking innovation that shouldn’t necessarily be worth the entire GDP of the Dominican Republic?

Quote of the Day

How to buy a used EV, the most affordable car!

With rising oil prices and a flood of vehicles coming off leases, used electric vehicles (EVs) have become the most affordable personal transportation on the market. But how do you pick a reliable one? The Wall Street Journal has been trying to solve this very question, and they offer several practical strategies for buyers.

First, be honest about your needs; an EV is perfect for average commutes with overnight home charging, but frequent road-trippers or those towing heavy loads might prefer a hybrid or gas car. Second, hunt for deals by using local listing sites like Carvana (see above 👆🏻), CarGurus, or Autotrader, as dealers often have used EVs sitting on their lots. To avoid lemons, always check the NHTSA for unaddressed recalls, and purchase a complete vehicle history report from a company like Carfax.

Crucially, you must check the battery health. You can look at the dashboard’s miles-per-kilowatt-hour reading or plug an OBD2 dongle into the car's diagnostics port to analyze cell health and fast-charging history via a smartphone app. Additionally, know the hidden costs, such as extra state registration fees, EV-specific low-rolling-resistance tires, and potentially higher insurance premiums. Finally, forget brand loyalty—excellent options exist under $25,000 across many different major automakers.

With nearly 300,000 used EVs returning to dealer lots this year alone, you don't need to rush. Be picky, take some test drives, and negotiate hard for the best deal. Or, you know…keep driving that gas guzzler.

I think I feel a haiku coming on about all this.

How an app will counter health misinformation

With millions of people turning to social media for medical advice, the rapid spread of misinformation is a growing concern. To combat it, Health Central has launched "Drops," a groundbreaking vertical video-based social platform tailored specifically for health content. Justin Chase, the firm’s CEO, explains that his organization has pivoted from an endemic publisher into a comprehensive "health experience company.”

The fundamental challenge with general social media platforms is that algorithms prioritize engagement over accuracy. Chase notes that the shift from “Dr. Google to Dr. TikTok and Dr. GPT" often results in patients demanding specific, sometimes unwarranted, treatments from their doctors. To solve this, Chase emphasizes, "We built drops completely differently with an algorithm that is optimized towards medically accurate content and trust."

To ensure absolute reliability, Health Central utilizes technologies from "Medfluencers," the top medical influence company in the world. Creators must pass through a "Creator Academy" to learn how to create accurately before posting. Chase highlights that health information requires a high bar of entry. "Instead of saying these five things are gonna cure my MS, you'd say, these five strategies have helped me mitigate my MS, maybe they can work for you," Chase explains, stressing the importance of "framing and contextualization."

But where am I gonna get my peptide injections from to completely cure my baldness, Chase? (You’re fired yet again, Matt. —Ed).

Song of the Day: Genesis Owusu, ‘Big Dog’

I assume you begin your Monday looking for a self-assured synth-heavy banger blending electronic undercurrents with squirrelly bass lines, just as we all do. Hence this track. Woof!

President made thousands of stock trades in Q1

Is the leader of the free world cashing out at the stock market before the midterms? Regulatory filings reported on by the Financial Times reveal that during the first quarter of 2026, President Donald Trump’s accounts engaged in hundreds of millions of dollars in securities transactions, far more trades than in the entirety of 2025. (The New York Times previously reported that Mr. Trump has used the presidency, so far, to make himself more than $1.4B).

The massive flurry of trading involved an extensive list of major American corporations, including tech and aerospace giants such as Nvidia $NVDA ( ▼ 4.42% ) , Palantir $PLTR ( ▲ 0.19% ) , Paramount $PSKY ( ▼ 2.18% ) , Boeing $BA ( ▼ 3.8% ) , Tesla $TSLA ( ▼ 4.75% ) , Apple $AAPL ( ▲ 0.68% ) , Meta $META ( ▼ 0.68% ) , Visa $V ( ▲ 1.0% ) , Citi $C ( ▼ 1.12% ) , Qualcomm $QCOM ( ▲ 0.71% ) , GE Aerospace $GE ( ▼ 3.43% ) , Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 1.15% ) , Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 3.05% ) , Adobe $ADBE ( ▲ 4.47% ) , Workday $WDAY ( ▲ 5.27% ) , Uber $UBER ( ▲ 0.54% ) , Costco $COST ( ▲ 0.74% ) , Intel $INTC ( ▼ 6.18% ) , Warner Bros $WBD ( ▼ 0.52% ) , and Netflix $NFLX ( ▲ 0.09% ) .

With so many trades overlapping directly with presidential policy and diplomacy, concerns naturally arise. However, the Trump Organization has firmly pushed back against any notion of impropriety, telling the Financial Times: “President Trump’s investment holdings are maintained exclusively through fully discretionary accounts independently managed by third-party financial institutions with sole and exclusive authority over all investment decisions.” They emphasized that neither the President nor his family plays any role in directing these specific investments.

Yet you tell me: Can the public completely ignore the optics? Many of the top executives from traded companies like Nvidia, Apple, and Boeing accompanied the President to Beijing last week. Furthermore, Trump's accounts traded shares of Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery right as their $110 billion merger sits in the hands of regulators. When the government holds a nearly 10 percent stake in heavily traded Intel, and U.S. envoys are publicly declaring that buying Boeing will "make the President happy," today’s poll of the day (👇🏻) asks: Even with blind, third-party accounts, does a portfolio of the President’s scope, nature, and scale represent an unavoidable conflict of interest?

Or have you, you know, lost interest?

Anthropic went from $350B to $900B in 3 mo’s

It seems we've officially reached the point in the tech industry where money is more of an abstract concept. Just three months ago, AI lab Anthropic $ANTHROPIC ( 0.0% ) was apparently scraping by with a pitiful valuation of $350 billion. But don't worry, they’ve just agreed to terms for a massive $30 billion funding round that nearly triples their worth to a staggering $900 billion.

Let's do some quick math. A $550 billion valuation gain actually exceeds the entire gross domestic product of whole countries, including minnows like Singapore, Sweden, and Argentina. That means a single tech company gained more theoretical value in 90 days than entire developed nations produce in a year.

How did they justify this? By pointing to annualized revenues extrapolating a full year's revenue based on just a few recent weeks. These show that their revenues are expected to cross $45bn imminently, marking a fivefold increase from the end of last year.

Here’s how the company’s valuation has grown over time:

Nobody actually wanted to put their name on the record to discuss this financial miracle. Anthropic and its lead investor Sequoia declined to comment, while other investors including Dragoneer, Altimeter, and Greenoaks didn’t even respond to reporters from the FT. My guess is they were all out spending the money they haven’t actually liquidated just yet…

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Should you check your 401(k) today?

👎️ 

No.

Poll of the day: Conflict, or loss, of interest?

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