Justin B. Smith

Last year was a transformative year for the creator economy. Where does the industry go from here? I spoke with more than a dozen of the power brokers shaping the creator economy — including Reed Duchscher, Sean Atkins, Jade Sherman and Alice Ma — about what actually changes in 2026. Their message was unusually consistent: the creator economy is entering its most consequential year yet. The easy growth is over. Scale alone no longer guarantees leverage. Discovery is breaking. AI is about to flood the feed. And for the first time, a creator-built company may be preparing to test Wall Street. #creatoreconomy https://lnkd.in/gKAHpSbU

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Balyasny portfolio manager Allen Zhang joins Cinctive Capital. Former Point72 and Balyasny money manager has joined US-based multi-strategy hedge fund Cinctive Capital. Allen spent a year at Balyasny before becoming a part of Cinctive's team in January. He previously worked at Cinctive from 2022 to 2024 and served at Steve Cohen's Point72 from 2012 to 2021. Hedge fund hiring has picked up pace with firms trying to grab the best portfolio managers across different regions. Full story: https://lnkd.in/ej4gZ4vk

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The battery supply chain issues perhaps take center stage here as Powin files for chapter 11 in New Jersey having taken sponsor and debt commitments from KKR Trilantic North America Energy Impact Partners and GIC in recent years and NPM US (New Project Media) will have full coverage of the situation....

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Swedish firm EQT Group received more than $10 billion in investor commitments for its latest pan-Asia #privateequity fund, putting it on track to reach its #fundraising goal despite the market volatility. The #Stockholm-listed group said it plans to announce the first close of the BPEA Private Equity Fund IX next week, according to an emailed statement on Wednesday. The fund could hit its $12.5 billion fundraising target by the summer, with the so-called hard cap of $14.5 billion slated for later this year. Conditions for raising funds in private capital have become increasingly bifurcated as investors opt for either large asset managers with a range of strategies or specialist firms focused on niche markets. Some are doubling down on their relationships with top performers and cutting down on others as they seek to mitigate a slowdown in returns. Reporting with Swetha Gopinath, Fion Li. https://lnkd.in/dxqxXzmt

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Fed chair Jerome Powell got about as close as he would ever come to saying a rate cut is coming in September, saying "the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance." From Maria Volkova https://lnkd.in/ee88D-UQ

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As the SEC looks to reform its disclosure requirements – using “materiality” as the North Star as SEC Chairman Paul Atkins recently noted in a speech – it got me thinking about the judicial interpretation of materiality harkening back to the Supreme Court’s TSC Industries v. Northway and Basic v. Levinson definitions: “a substantial likelihood that a reasonable shareholder would consider it important in deciding how to vote/invest.” Pulling from those cases, the question is not: “Would someone care about this?” – but rather the question is: “Is there a substantial likelihood that a reasonable investor would view the information as having significantly altered the total mix of information available?” So who is a “reasonable investor”? It depends on the context – so this standard would be applied differently from someone who has invested in a speculative biotech startup versus a mature utility company versus a SPAC during peak de-SPAC season. Investors in each would reasonably expect different types of risk and volatility. My question is whether the context differ when the investor is an AI agent making the investment choices for you? It’s true that algorithms have long helped professional investors make their trading decisions for decades. Those algos have been programmed for those investors. Does it matter if retail investors begin to more directly rely on algos – in the form of AI agents that are freely available – to decide how to trade? My guess is probably not if those investors have made the conscious decision to select and rely on those AI agents. Still, it’s worth posing the question because when it comes to how various judges decide securities law cases, the biggest difference between judges isn’t how they define the reasonable investor, it’s how they conceptualize what a particular investor understands about business risk, assumes about corporate optimism and expects in terms of disclosure precision. Some judges implicitly assume the reasonable investor is market-savvy, aware that companies are optimistic and are familiar with industry volatility. But some don’t. Will those that don’t change their view if an unsophisticated investor has access to AI agents that are sophisticated and have all those traits? Does access to AI agents level the playing field between unsophisticated and sophisticated investors? It’s an interesting set of questions as I’ve read a lot about how AI levels the playing field in the workplace as we all get access to the same level and depth of knowledge in a way that wasn’t true with mere access to Google. The same might be said that the playing field has been leveled when it comes to making investment decisions. John Jenkins weighs in - read the blog https://lnkd.in/eRpj9tmi

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Continuation vehicles (CVs), once primarily viewed as end-of-fund-life liquidity solutions, are now increasingly being used as tools to raise capital for trophy assets that do not face exit constraints, shared three senior executives of TPG NewQuest. - via Kavitha Nair

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In chat with XED CEO John Kallelil on why they chose Gift City for floating the IPO, and why he is not concerned about liquidity. XED is the first company to eye listing in the financial hub--an event many are watching for the success of the Gift City ecosystem. Full story: https://lnkd.in/gF8dTw6g

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Goldman Sachs: "The negative trends in US governance and institutions are eroding the exorbitant privilege long-enjoyed by US assets, and that is weighing on US asset returns and the Dollar, and may continue to do so in the future unless reversed."

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