Hacker News

points by chollida1 3 days ago | 0 comments

Alot going on today. a 4% drop in a day is pretty darn big.

3 different pods are being liquidated that i've heard of. And the data center trade has been unwound in just 2 days is a pretty violent shock.

Lots of rumors about situational awareness also in alot of trouble. I feel for this guy a bit. He did really well to get a good slug of Anthropic shares that made his investors alot of money.

But since about July when it was clear that Anthropic was done going up like a rocket ship his investors have probably been hounding him about how he's going to make money outside of Anthropic.

his first foray into the public markets was a disaster and might set a record for fastest wipe out from start to finish that forced him to have to sell his public book escape a wind up.

But due to Anthropic taking a possible IPO valuation cut he's had to go back to the public markets at the worst time and if rumours going around today are correct, he's looking at how to liquidate his public portfolio for the second time in the quarter.

[–] TheAlchemist 2 days ago

> And the data center trade has been unwound in just 2 days is a pretty violent shock.

It's very very far from being unwound. If (or when) it does, many companies in the space will be down 90-100%. Definitely not today.

[–] bwfan123 2 days ago

> It's very very far from being unwound.

The grind-down has barely started. We were waiting for a catalyst and it was unexpected. The narrative has shifted to a widespread negative ai-vibe and is hard to counter with any amount of propaganda by the pro ai-crowd. Datacenter debt will be repriced and along with that capex-cuts. These take time and have barely started. The markets have smelt that these are around the corner.

[–] kunai 2 days ago

The writing is on the wall. They lost. No amount of whining from SV people who don't go outside, who do not live in the real world, and who are high on their own supply of agents and harnesses who vibe-code all day in their small EA/rationalist bubbles and produce very little of actual economic value for normal people and who are so arrogant they are attempting to impose their dystopian will upon people will change this.

Investors are not rationalists or effective altruists. They chase the money. If the fundamentals and DD does not math to allow data centers to be profitable, and governments honor the people's will, they will jump ship and quicker than you think. And if governments do not honor the people's will (which is firmly in opposition to the odious people behind this push) then we have far bigger problems to worry about.

[–] Tadpole9181 2 days ago

> And if governments do not honor the people's will... then we have far bigger problems to worry about.

Oh, yeah, sure. They'll get right on that. Patriot act is going away any day now. Climate change and healthcare and judicial / law enforcement reform going to be addressed any second.

[–] next_xibalba 3 days ago

> And the data center trade has been unwound in just 2 days is a pretty violent shock

Is this true? Coreweave is down ~66% over the last 6 months, with that decline occurring somewhat linearly over that period (i.e. not last 2 days). Very similar chart for Applied Digital.

[–] 1970-01-01 2 days ago

4% isn't much in context. It wouldn't make the list of 20 biggest drops over the last 20 years.

[–] russli1993 2 days ago

Semi stocks have fallen more than 50% from the peak or in just the past 30 days.

[–] OrangeDelonge 2 days ago

The drop was 5.5% and from what I can see, its number 5 on the list of biggest Nasdaq drops in a single day in history.

[–] louiereederson 3 days ago

Do you have sources to share on this besides Reddit?

[–] paulpauper 2 days ago

it's just panic selling, with Ai as the ad hoc justification.

[–] chollida1 2 days ago

> Do you have sources to share on this besides Reddit?

Sources for what specifically?

If you meant for pods and funds blowing up:

https://x.com/SpecialSitsNews/status/2118415084280242230

Gives a decent list. Though most of the ones i know of are from contacts on the sell side who are assisting with wind downs.

And I don't think i mentioned reddit, you might be replying to the wrong thread?

[–] LightBug1 2 days ago

Sorry, I don't read twitter. Do you have another link?

[–] paulpauper 2 days ago

there are like a zillion of these pod shops and tiny firms. doesn't mean much. wake me up when a big fund fails

[–] actualeff0rt 2 days ago

I work in quant trading - I can guarantee you at least 4/7 of the firms on that list are well-known, well-respected, and would count as "big funds". Can't comment on the actual pods that apparently went bust though, but generally you should expect the average pod at these places to be at least reasonably good considering the sink-or-swim environment they are perpetually in.

[–] empath75 2 days ago

Pods can go broke on a 4% _rise_ in the stock market. They make levered bets and it's easy to get way on the wrong side of one.

[–] chollida1 2 days ago

Those are Billion dollar funds, those are large fish:)

Troluce and Axebrook had more than $1.5B pulled from them by Millennium.

Walleye is a $17B AUM fund.

> there are like a zillion of these pod shops and tiny firms. doesn't mean much. wake me up when a big fund fails

I get that not everyone knows the industry but consider this your wakeup call:)

[–] mamonster 2 days ago

The names are well known, the most surprising one for me is Axebrook. ITD from 2020 the Credit Alpha fund is like 1.3 Sharpe.

This and Arini in the same year is pretty bad for credit managers.

[–] paulpauper 2 days ago

I mean if you have 1000+ firms, statistically , some will fail no matter what? Like, selling to many calls in a rally, or too many puts in a correction etc.

[–] chollida1 2 days ago

I agree with the first part of your sentence but to be fair you said to wake you up when a big firm failed and i was only pointing out that, several big firms have failed as I pointed out:)

I fully understand that very few people on hackernews actually are in the capital markets and i happen to be one so I'll always have a far better understanding than outsiders like your self.

I'm just trying to provide some colour to people regarding what's happening today and why fund closures are magnifying this.

[–] georgeecollins 3 days ago

Thinking a 5% drop in one day is a big deal is recency bias. Other people have pointed out that statistically it is not that rare. We just have been living through an amazing run for equities.

I am not saying I know it will be fine or I know it will be terrible. I am saying I have lived through many 5%+ drops and they happen on the way up and down.

[–] chollida1 2 days ago

> Thinking a 5% drop in one day is a big deal is recency bias

In the past 5 years the S&P 500 has dropped 5% 1 time. the Nasdaq has done it 3 times.

You are ofcourse welcome to your own definition of a big deal but to me something that happens that rarely is a big deal.

At worst you'd have to agree that hte language is defensible:)

[–] georgeecollins 14 hours ago

If your time horizon is 5 years, that’s not really investing.

[–] dcrazy 2 days ago

I think the argument is that we have been in a massive everything bubble since summer of 2020, so you have to look back farther to truly understand the rarity of a 4% drop.

[–] excorxism 2 days ago

The index isn't even the story.

Chips/Memory/data center everything AI has got absolutely destroyed this month.

Look at LITE, FLEX, FIX, TER, WDC, the Kospi.

[–] paulpauper 2 days ago

Lots of rumors about situational awareness also in alot of trouble. I feel for this guy a bit. He did really well to get a good slug of Anthropic shares that made his investors alot of money.

What is there to feel for him? he took huge bets and lost , although he will still be wealthy no matter how much $ his clients lose. How he got so much attention and money is a mystery; just another example of mediocrity being rewarded. No wonder so many people think society is rigged or screwed. We see in Washington or on Wall Street . The same reckless people keep failing forward, keep being immune to the consequences of their actions and incompetence.

[–] coffeebeqn 2 days ago

It’s giving me Cathie Wood vibes during Covid years. Bet everything on the bubble and look like a genius while the bubble inflates. Afterwards not so much

[–] achandra03 3 days ago

> He did really well to get a good slug of Anthropic shares that made his investors alot of money.

His wife is chief of staff to Dario isn't she? Not saying this guy isn't smart but let's call a spade a spade here.

[–] kgwgk 3 days ago

Last I heard he was buying options... but maybe he ended up buying the dipping dip.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/11/leopold-aschenbrenners-situa...

[–] empath75 2 days ago

> Alot going on today. a 4% drop in a day is pretty darn big.

Yeah, but it's up 50% in the last 5 years. 4% drop puts us back where it was, oh, in July of this year.

[–] grey-area 2 days ago

Only has to fall by 33% to go back 5 years then.

A few days at > 10% and that's perfectly doable in a week. Unlikely I'll grant you but this is a large move at the top of a bull market amid huge concentration and weakening fundamentals. There are reasons to pay attention to it.

[–] paulpauper 3 days ago

The Nasdaq rebounds so fast though. it's not that big of a deal. bought the dip. I think it's just noise. markets sometimes look for any reason to sell

[–] bagacrap 2 days ago

Where are the situational awareness rumors? I enjoy some good schadenfreude, but he pinky swore he was done with leverage, so how can he blow up again? Unless he's getting a flood of redemptions.

[–] porkshoe 2 days ago

Why would you feel for him?

He's an overconfident dipshit who made a few large, successful bets that made heaps of money; but he didn't practice any sort of risk management with his portfolio, and kind of did the opposite.

And despite that failure, he made immense personal wealth and will definitely have the opportunity to run more money in the future.

I'd love to fail as badly as he did.