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20 Low Budget Breakfast Recipes


I’m a frugal woman, so spending a lot of money on breakfast has never made much sense to me.

Some of the best breakfasts are also the cheapest. Eggs, oats, bread, potatoes, and a few pantry staples can easily feed the whole family without spending more than $5.

I also like breakfasts that don’t require a sink full of dishes or an hour in the kitchen. Mornings are busy enough, especially with kids, so the simpler the recipe, the better. If I can make something filling, tasty, and inexpensive in just a few minutes, that’s a win in my book.

The best part is that eating on a budget doesn’t mean settling for boring food. With a little creativity, inexpensive ingredients can be turned into breakfasts everyone actually looks forward to eating.

These low-budget breakfast recipes are easy to make, family-friendly, and proof that you can serve a delicious breakfast for under $5 without anyone leaving the table hungry.

You’ll love: 20 Dirt-Cheap Meals Under $5

1. Japanese Soufflé Pancakes

Tall, jiggly, and impossibly fluffy, these soufflé pancakes get their signature height from stiffly beaten egg whites folded gently into the batter.

They’re cooked low and slow under a lid, so the outside stays golden while the inside stays cloud-soft, and a simple dusting of powdered sugar and fresh berries is all the topping they need.

Get the idea here ↗

2. Blueberry Pancakes for Beginners

This forgiving, beginner-friendly stack is built on a classic dry-and-wet mixing method with a short rest so the batter relaxes before it hits the pan.

Fresh blueberries fold in right at the end, giving every pancake pockets of juicy fruit without turning the batter purple.

Get the idea here ↗

3. Easy Keto Frittata

Loaded with broccoli, red pepper, feta, and crispy bacon, this oven-baked frittata is a low-carb way to use up whatever vegetables are hanging around the fridge.

It bakes in well under 30 minutes and tastes just as good served cold, making it a smart one-and-done breakfast for the week.

Get the idea here ↗

4. Skillet Breakfast Potatoes

Crispy on the outside and tender in the middle, these diced potatoes get their signature crunch from a hot skillet and a light hand with the oil.

A simple blend of garlic powder, onion powder, and smoked paprika gives them that deep, savory diner-style flavor.

Get the idea here ↗

5. Keto Waffles with Almond Flour

Golden and crisp outside, soft and airy inside, these almond flour waffles deliver classic waffle texture at a fraction of the carbs. They come together in under 20 minutes and freeze beautifully, so a batch on Sunday covers weekday mornings too.

Get the idea here ↗

6. Slow Cooker Peaches & Cream Farro

This hands-off breakfast lets a slow cooker do the work, simmering chewy farro with sweet peaches, honey, and cinnamon until tender. A stir of Greek yogurt at the end turns it thick and creamy, no heavy cream required.

Get the idea here ↗

7. Slow Cooker Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Bars

Ripe bananas, creamy peanut butter, and hearty oats come together in the slow cooker for a grab-and-go breakfast bar that also satisfies a sweet tooth. Peanut butter chips help push the sweetness over the top without needing a lot of added sugar.

Get the idea here ↗

8. Steamed Hard-Boiled Eggs (No Steamer Basket Needed)

This clever method steams eggs in just half an inch of water, skipping the need for a steamer basket altogether. The payoff is eggs that peel cleanly every time, with tender whites and yolks cooked exactly to your liking.

Get the idea here ↗

9. No-Egg French Toast

Rich, custardy, and crisp at the edges, this eggless French toast proves you don’t need eggs to get that classic texture. A quick milk-and-cornstarch soak does the binding work instead, making it a great option for egg allergies or simply when the fridge runs dry.

Get the idea here ↗

10. Banana Cinnamon Overnight Oats

A no-cook, make-ahead breakfast, these oats get their natural sweetness from mashed banana and a warm hit of cinnamon. Mix everything the night before, let it chill, and breakfast is ready to grab straight from the fridge.

Get the idea here ↗

11. 4-Ingredient Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Made with just banana, oats, nut butter, and a scatter of chocolate chips, these naturally sweetened cookies are soft, no-flour, and simple enough for a busy morning. They’re just as good eaten as a quick snack or dessert.

Get the idea here ↗

12. Cottage Cheese Banana Bread

Blending cottage cheese right into the batter keeps this banana bread incredibly moist and adds a boost of protein without changing the flavor. It’s a healthier spin on a classic loaf that still tastes like the real thing.

Get the idea here ↗

13. Banana Cottage Cheese Pancakes

Blended smooth with oats, banana, and eggs, these high-protein pancakes have a soft, fluffy texture with zero trace of the cottage cheese hiding inside. They’re a great way to turn spotty, overripe bananas into a filling morning stack.

Get the idea here ↗

14. Strawberry Mini Muffins

Bite-sized and bursting with fresh strawberries, these mini muffins get a pretty finish from a few reserved berry pieces pressed into the tops before baking. A sprinkle of sugar on top adds a delicate, slightly crisp finish.

Get the idea here ↗

15. Homemade Belgian Waffles

The secret to these deep-pocketed, extra-fluffy waffles is separating the eggs and folding whipped whites into the batter at the end. The result is a crisp, golden exterior with a light, airy center that holds plenty of syrup.

Get the idea here ↗

16. Vegan Biscuits and Gravy

A dairy-free spin on the Southern classic, this dish pairs warm, fluffy vegan biscuits with a rich, peppery gravy built from plant-based sausage and non-dairy milk. It’s comfort food through and through, with none of the animal products.

Get the idea here ↗

17. Vegan Butter Swim Biscuits

This one-pan Southern shortcut skips rolling and cutting entirely — the dough goes straight into a baking dish already pooled with melted vegan butter. The butter fries the edges as it bakes, leaving crispy sides and a tender, fluffy center.

Get the idea here ↗

18. Keto Ham and Cheese Egg Muffins

With just three ingredients — ham, cheese, and eggs — these low-carb muffins couldn’t be simpler to throw together. Each ham slice is pressed into a muffin tin to form a cup, then filled with cheese and a cracked egg before baking.

Get the idea here ↗

19. Keto Peanut Butter Waffles

Made without any flour, these waffles get their fluffy texture from a quick blend of peanut butter, eggs, and a handful of keto-friendly pantry staples. They taste remarkably close to a “real” waffle, peanut butter flavor and all.

Get the idea here ↗

20. Creamy Mushroom Toast

Mushrooms sautéed in butter with fresh thyme and garlic get finished with a rich, creamy sauce, then piled onto thick toast. It’s simple enough for a weekday breakfast but feels special enough for a lazy weekend brunch.

Get the idea here ↗

[YMMV] Chase Increased Sign Up Bonuses (175k Chase Sapphire Reserve, 125k Chase Sapphire Preferred & More)


The Offer

No direct link to offer, showing via app. Might also show when checking for pre-approved offers?

  • Chase is offering some people increased offers on credit cards when they check for pre-approved offers. Some sample offers:
    • Chase Sapphire Reserve: 175,000 points after $6,000 in spend (current public is 100,000 points)
    • Chase Sapphire Preferred: 125,000 points (current public is 75,000 points)
    • Chase Freedom Unlimited: $300 bonus (current public is $200)

Our Verdict

Recent increased offer on Sapphire Preferred was 100,000 points and on Sapphire Reserve it was 150,000 points so these offers are bigger than this. As mentioned the reddit user that posted this saw it in app but the image shows them as pre-approved so I wonder if checking the pre-approval tool will help? 

Hat tip to reddit user etmesee_0525

F.A.Q’s

Will these bypass 5/24?

Some ‘selected for you’ offers bypass 5/24. I’ve never seen a ‘you’re approved’ offer bypass it. 

How do I get targeted?

You don’t. You’re either targeted or your not. 

Where do these offers show up?

Can you stack a referral bonus with this?

No

Which offer is best?

Depends on how you value the benefits on each card but for most people either the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve will be the best option. 

Are there any offer card issuers that do this?

Yes. Periodically most of the major card issuers offer higher bonuses via pre-approvals. There is a full list of places you check for pre-approvals here.

Meet San Diego’s 10 Fastest-Growing Businesses. Several Are Riding the Health And Wellness Boom



The 2026 Inc. 5000 list recognized 81 companies from the San Diego metro area. Here are the top 10.

In-Line CPI Report Takes Pressure Off Mortgage Rates, But Major Relief Still Elusive


An in-line CPI report released this morning means mortgage rates should continue to avoid going much higher.

At the same time, they seem to be enjoying little relief when the good news does arrive.

Which kind of speaks to them being further entrenched at these levels, and also in need of a deal with Iran to really experience positive movement.

That means it’s likely going to be more of the same high-6s for the 30-year fixed until something material changes.

But it could have been a lot worse if inflation increased more than expected.

Mortgage Rates Ease as Inflation Cooperates

It wasn’t a cold inflation report, but it also wasn’t a hot one either.

Simply put, July’s CPI report matched the consensus forecast, with prices up 0.1% during the month and 0.2% when you strip out volatile food and energy (core CPI).

For the year, prices were up 3.4% and 2.5%, respectively, both slight improvements from the prior month.

However, inflation continues to remain above the Fed’s 2% target, putting pressure on Fed chair Kevin Warsh and company to act.

And it’s been above target since March 2021 as the pandemic roiled the global economy.

That means an in-line report, despite being above the Fed’s mandate, might be enough for them to hold steady.

Many expected a Fed rate hike in September, but if the data keeps cooperating, they could opt to stay put instead.

Those Fed rate expectations could serve as a tailwind for mortgage rates and allow them to trickle lower instead of continuing to rise toward 7% again.

Upward Pressure Remains on Mortgage Rates Without a Deal

Both the monthly jobs report being cool last month and this CPI report coming in at consensus have helped mortgage rates avoid getting worse.

And that’s kind of the rub recently. You’ll notice that mortgage rates haven’t experienced any major relief lately.

These reports coming in cooler-than-expected or at forecast have simply kept mortgage rates from getting worse.

That tells me there’s more upward pressure than downward pressure on mortgage rates currently.

The trend is decidedly higher instead of lower, likely driven by the conflict with Iran that remains unsettled.

Just yesterday there were fresh attacks on ships in the Gulf of Oman and Red Sea as key oil thoroughfares remain risky to navigate.

It’s not just the Strait of Hormuz, creating urgency to strike a deal before a precedent is set that tolls must be paid instead.

Until this gets resolved, it’s hard to imagine bond yields and mortgage rates coming down by any significant margin.

Not a Loss, But Also Not Much of a Win for Mortgage Rates

Perhaps the best way to characterize today’s CPI report is that it wasn’t a loss, but it’s also not much of a win.

It keeps mortgage rates at bay, and avoids things deteriorating further, but it’s not some sort of victory either.

Judging upon the movement of the 10-year bond yield, which moves in lockstep with 30-year fixed mortgage rates, today’s mortgage rate movement will be muted as well.

They could tick down a few basis points, but that would still put them around 6.75%.

That’s just an eighth of a percent or less above the 52-week highs and rates remain about 0.25% above their year-ago levels.

So sure, you can focus on the silver lining, that the Fed might not have to hike in September.

That might mean we continue to avoid 7-handle rates. But without a deal, it’ll be hard to get back to the low 6s again too.

And the longer this persists, the more mortgage rates seem to be getting entrenched at these higher levels.

Colin Robertson
Latest posts by Colin Robertson (see all)

₹7.5 Lakhs to ₹7 Crores Investments | Smart Investment Choices That Built Massive Wealth #investing



Discover how a ₹7.5 lakh investment grew into assets worth ₹7 crores through smart investment decisions, long-term planning, and wealth creation strategies.
In this video, we break down the investment choices, asset allocation, and financial decisions that contributed to this incredible wealth journey. Learn valuable lessons about investing, compounding, diversification, and building long-term wealth.

In this video:

₹7.5 Lakhs to ₹7 Crores journey
Investment portfolio breakdown
Real estate investments
Stocks & mutual funds
Wealth creation strategies
Lessons every investor can learn
Long-term investing mindset

📌 Subscribe for more finance, investing, and wealth creation content.

#Investing #WealthCreation #PersonalFinance #StockMarket #MutualFunds #FinanceWithYu #LongTermInvesting #Compounding #FinancialFreedom #Money

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How To Close A Last-Minute Tuition Gap


It’s early August. The fall bill posted. You did the math, and you’re short… maybe by $2,000 or maybe by $20,000 (I hope not on that one).

This happens to a lot of families, and it happens for ordinary reasons. The financial aid package came in lower than the net price calculator suggested. Housing costs more than you budgeted. A scholarship you were counting on went to someone else. Or you simply didn’t add it all up until the invoice arrived with a number on it.

You have less time than you’d like, but you have more options than you think. The thing that determines whether this costs you a little or a lot is the order you work through them.

In partnership with Ascent Student Loans, here’s a guide on how to close a college funding gap so that you can enroll in classes on time. Check out Ascent Student Loans here >>

Would you like to save this?

We’ll email this article to you, so you can come back to it later!

First: Know Your Actual Number

Before you do anything else, know your numbers. Pull up the bill and work through it:

  1. Start with the school’s certified cost of attendance for the year, not just tuition. Housing, meals, fees, books, transportation.
  2. Subtract grants and scholarships.
  3. Subtract federal loans already offered in your student’s name.
  4. Subtract cash, 529 withdrawals, and anything else you’ve earmarked.
  5. Subtract Parent PLUS, if you’re using it, but read the next section first, because that number changed.

What’s left is the gap. Every decision from here should be sized to that number and nothing larger.

What Changed On July 1, 2026

If you were planning on a Parent PLUS loan absorbing the whole gap, run it again.

As of July 1, 2026, new Parent PLUS borrowers are capped at $20,000 per dependent student per year, and $65,000 total for that student’s undergraduate career. Before this change, Parent PLUS could go all the way up to the full cost of attendance. 

Some schools are even limiting the annual parent PLUS to $16,250 per year so families can stretch it out over 4 years.

Meanwhile, what a student can borrow federally in their own name hasn’t moved in more than a decade. For 2026–27, a dependent undergraduate is capped at $5,500 as a freshman, $6,500 as a sophomore, and $7,500 as a junior or senior, with a $31,000 lifetime aggregate.

Those two facts together are why more families than usual are staring at a gap this August. And with Parent PLUS loan rates 9.07% APR this year, shopping for a private loan with lenders like Ascent just makes sense.

The Order Of Operations

Work these in sequence. Steps one and two can reduce what you owe. Everything after that only finances it.

1. Appeal the aid package — this week

If your family’s financial situation has changed since you filed the FAFSA, you can ask the school to reconsider. It’s called an appeal, and financial aid offices grant them more often than families expect.

Qualifying circumstances typically include a job loss or significant income drop, a divorce or separation, high unreimbursed medical expenses, the death of a parent, or other circumstances. If the FAFSA snapshot no longer reflects reality, that’s the case you make.

Write a short, factual letter. State what changed, when, and what the financial impact is. Send it to the financial aid office directly and follow up by phone within three business days.

2. Keep searching for scholarships

Most large scholarship deadlines have passed for fall. But two things are often still live: departmental scholarships within your student’s major that get awarded late, and local scholarships from community foundations, employers, credit unions, and civic organizations, which frequently have summer deadlines and very few applicants.

The return per hour is high on small local awards specifically because almost nobody applies. It’s not going to close a $20,000 gap, but $1,500 you don’t borrow is $1,500 you don’t repay with interest.

3. Take the federal loan your student is offered

Accept the full Direct Loan amount, even if you plan to pay it down quickly. Federal loans carry income-driven repayment options and discharge protections that no private loan matches, and you can always pay them off early without penalty.

For 2026–27, Direct Unsubsidized loans for undergraduates are at 6.52% with a 1.057% origination fee.

If you’re going to use Parent PLUS, know that it’s at 9.07% for 2026–27 with a 4.228% origination fee — meaning a $20,000 PLUS loan disburses roughly $19,155 to the school. That fee is worth comparing against private options.

4. Then close what’s actually left

If you’ve done the first four steps and there’s still a gap, a private student loan is the reasonable tool for it.

One of the lenders we work with is Ascent. Their undergraduate loans go from $2,001 up to 100% of the school-certified cost of attendance, capped at $200,000 in total, with no application, origination, disbursement, late, or prepayment fees. You can check your rate in about three minutes with a soft credit check that doesn’t affect your credit score or your cosigner’s — so you can see a real number before you commit to anything. (Massachusetts residents have a higher $6,001 minimum.)

Whichever lender you use, three things matter more than the brand on the paperwork:

Apply with a cosigner. This is the single biggest lever on the rate a student will be offered. A parent or other creditworthy adult cosigning routinely produces a dramatically better rate than a student applying alone. Ascent lets students apply to release a cosigner after 12 consecutive on-time full principal-and-interest payments, once they can qualify on their own credit.

Choose the in-school payment option deliberately.
Ascent offers four — defer everything, pay interest only, pay a flat $25 a month, or pay full principal and interest. Deferring is the default and the most expensive, because interest accrues the entire time your student is enrolled. If you can cover the interest monthly during school, do it. Over four years it’s often a difference of thousands of dollars. Repayment terms run 5, 7, 10, 12, or 15 years.

Take Action Now

The most common way this goes wrong isn’t picking the wrong option — it’s starting too late.

Private student loans are school-certified, which means the financial aid office has to verify enrollment and cost before funds move. That step commonly takes one to three weeks, and it takes longer in the back-to-school crush.

If you’re needing to close that last minute financial aid gap, now’s the time to do it. Check out Ascent student loans and get a quote today. You can see your estimated rate in about 3 minutes online.

Get a quote from Ascent Student Loans >>

The post How To Close A Last-Minute Tuition Gap appeared first on The College Investor.

Fortune Tech: Nvidia’s creative capital; Apple’s political strategy, Google DeepMind drama


Good morning. Reporter Lily Mae Lazarus pinch hitting here today for Andrew.

Apparently, the PTA has a better portfolio than you.

Silicon Valley private schools are trading silent auctions for cap tables with a handful of Bay Area campuses now running miniature venture funds steered by parent-investors from Sequoia, Lightspeed, and Battery. The programs have become somewhat of Silicon Valley lore, Fortune’s Amanda Gerut writes. Saint Francis High School’s parent-run growth fund turned a $15,000 bet on Snap into roughly $34 million at IPO.

With SpaceX just pulling off the biggest IPO in history and Anthropic and OpenAI widely expected to follow, these school funds could be sitting on the next windfall.

Here’s what else moved tech and money today.

Want to send thoughts or suggestions to Fortune Tech? Drop a line here.

Nvidia wants your pension fund in the AI trade

Nvidia announced partnerships this week with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR to build financing platforms aiming to mobilize more than $500 billion for AI infrastructure—with the cash coming largely from “third-party investors” rather than Nvidia’s own balance sheet. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang framed it as treating AI compute like “productive infrastructure,” even offering residual-value support of up to 25% on some deals to sweeten the pitch.

Wall Street mostly likes it—Morgan Stanley and Bank of America both called Nvidia’s chips unusually financeable. But Stratechery’s Ben Thompson isn’t fully sold, warning it’s “a completely new nerve-racking thing to bring safety-seeking assets to bear” on a pile of GPUs. Eva Roytburg

Apple taps an airline lobbyist to run its D.C. relationship

Apple hired Nate Gatten (American Airlines’ head of government affairs since 2017, and a Republican with prior stints at JPMorgan and Fannie Mae) as its new vice president of government affairs, starting Aug. 31. He’ll report directly to Tim Cook

The hire may be Apple angling for a lobbyist who can align with the Trump administration. And it lands just weeks before Cook hands the CEO title to hardware chief John Ternus in September while staying on as executive chairman—a role in which he’s expected to also mingle with the D.C. crowd. Lily Mae Lazarus

Sergey Brin’s fingerprints on Google’s AI shakeup

Sergey Brin has reportedly spent months personally pushing Google DeepMind staff to move faster on Gemini, as Anthropic pulled ahead with its Claude Mythos preview, according to Reuters. Google allegedly delayed its next flagship, Gemini, by two months after internal testing showed its coding still lagged rivals. And last week’s shakeup handed day-to-day authority from DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis to his deputy, Koray Kavukcuoglu, who now has final say on major DeepMind decisions and reports to CEO Sundar Pichai.

The move marks a further erosion of DeepMind’s independence since Google bought the London lab in 2014, with some teams shifting into corporate Google. But other top talent—including Gemini’s original co-leads Jeff Dean and Oriol Vinyals—have headed out the door. —Lily Mae Lazarus

More tech

Vibe-coding startup Lovable raises $400 million at a $13.3 billion valuation, more than double its December price tag.

DeepSeek is quietly staffing up to challenge Anthropic’s Claude Code, posting job listings for a new AI-agent team.

Google’s newest wearables will track insulin resistance, a category first using AI and sensor data instead of continuous glucose monitoring.

Uber is quietly building a “tween” rides option for kids 10 to 12, based on code spotted in its latest iOS app.

New York City is probing Polymarket, Kalshi, Coinbase, and Titan over their ad practices, the latest legal headache for the booming prediction-markets industry.

Grubhub’s $23.8 million FTC settlement is finally reaching diners and drivers, with checks and PayPal payouts going to more than 640,000 people over misleading earnings claims and phantom restaurant listings.

Uber Freight is investigating a data breach claimed by hacking group Helix, which says it stole dispatch records and accounts payable files.

Trump Media is charging up to $100K a month for a head start on Truth Social posts, and nearly a dozen trading firms are already paying up—at least one economist is calling it insider trading.

Sam Altman says a Goldman Sachs internship “sounds unbelievably terrible now,” recalling the offer he turned down before founding OpenAI, which has since hired more than 100 ex-bankers itself.

UK Lawmakers Press Banks Over Restricted Services For Cryptocurrency Firms


A cross-party group of United Kingdom parliamentarians has formally challenged various banks over their reluctance to provide accounts and related services to companies focused on cryptocurrency and digital assets. The move highlights ongoing friction that industry participants say threatens the sector’s ability to expand within Britain.

On 11 August 2026, the co-chairs of the Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG)Labour MP Gurinder Singh Josan CBE and Lord Vaizey of Didcot, a Conservative peer and former digital economy minister — sent a “Dear CEO” letter to the heads of the country’s largest lenders.

The correspondence seeks detailed explanations of each institution’s policies toward crypto and digital asset businesses.

The lawmakers reported receiving consistent accounts of firms encountering repeated obstacles when attempting to open or retain bank accounts.

They also noted that several high-street and challenger banks have imposed limits or outright bans on payments and transfers linked to cryptocurrency platforms.

Institutions frequently mentioned in connection with such restrictions include HSBC, Nationwide, NatWest, Santander UK and Starling Bank.

In the letter, the co-chairs described access to basic banking facilities as potentially “one of the single biggest barriers to growth” for UK-based crypto enterprises.

They expressed concern that restricted services could hinder the development of licensed firms and deter international companies from locating or investing in Britain.

This issue is viewed as particularly significant ahead of the full implementation of the UK’s new crypto regulatory framework, expected to become mandatory in 2027 under the oversight of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

The APPG acknowledged that banks carry important legal and regulatory duties to combat financial crime and safeguard customers.

However, the group stressed that many digital asset companies argue decisions should rest on an individual firm’s risk profile rather than a blanket approach based solely on the sector.

Economic Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby had earlier indicated that, once firms are authorised under the forthcoming regime, they should not face banking restrictions merely because of their industry affiliation.

This letter forms part of a broader parliamentary inquiry launched by the APPG in July 2026.

The inquiry is examining the scale of banking access difficulties, their effects on businesses and consumers, the drivers behind the restrictions, and whether additional measures are required.

Written evidence from banks, payment providers, fintechs, crypto firms and other stakeholders is being accepted until 31 August 2026, after which the group intends to publish findings and recommendations for government consideration.

Industry data has previously suggested that banks block or delay a substantial proportion of attempted transfers to crypto exchanges — estimates have placed the figure around 40 per cent in some surveys.

Supporters of clearer banking access argue that unnecessary barriers create friction for legitimate businesses, while banks typically cite consumer protection, fraud prevention and volatility risks as reasons for caution.

The APPG’s intervention underscores a wider debate about balancing financial crime safeguards with the government’s ambition to position the United Kingdom as a competitive hub for digital asset innovation.

By seeking transparency from lenders, parliamentarians hope to identify practical solutions that allow compliant crypto firms to operate effectively without compromising systemic integrity. As the inquiry progresses and the new regulatory regime approaches, the responses from banks will be closely watched for any signals of policy shifts that could ease the current constraints.



If AI disappoints? The transmission of US big-tech earnings news – Bank Underground


There is growing concern among policymakers, international organisations, and even big-tech Chief Executive Officers (exhibits I, II and III) that the current artificial intelligence (AI) boom features valuations increasingly detached from fundamentals. The Bank’s February 2026 Monetary Policy Report noted that an asset price correction is a key risk to the global economy, while the Bank’s July 2026 Financial Stability Report presented a scenario for how an AI correction could unfold. In this post, we study how negative big-tech earnings news transmits to global markets, which informed discussions around this scenario. We find that the effects ripple far beyond tech: equity indices decline, credit spreads widen and the US dollar depreciates. This last result, together with the limited response of Treasury yields, suggests muted flight-to-safety dynamics, unlike other financial stress episodes.

Why would an AI crash transmit differently from a typical financial shock? One reason may be that the current AI boom has been linked to expectations of greater economy-wide productivity, since the tech-sector is increasingly a leading engine of growth in the US. This view has been a key driver of private sector capital inflows into the US even as reserve managers have shied away from Treasuries since 2015. Should expected AI-driven productivity gains disappoint, investors may retreat from both US debt and equity markets. That would be a sharp departure from typical stress scenarios such as the 2008 global financial crisis in which heightened global risk aversion precipitated a flight-to-safety alongside a significant correction in (US) equity markets.

Empirical setup

To study how big-tech news transmits across markets, we construct a daily shock series around the earnings announcements of the Magnificent 7 US tech companies. These tech giants have grown to represent over one third of the S&P 500 index, reflecting, in part, their dominance in developing and scaling innovative technologies – most recently related to AI – which may render news disclosed at their earnings relevant for aggregate productivity as well as the broader index’s profitability. By focusing on narrow windows around their earnings announcements, this approach follows the standard logic of event studies. Our contribution is to construct a new series of Mag-7 earnings shocks capturing news intrinsic to these firms. This procedure helps to partial out the effects of aggregate shocks (eg, monetary policy) that would jointly influence big-tech firms’ earnings and asset markets, although news regarding how Mag-7 firms’ earnings load on these aggregate shocks could still be present.

Formally, our ‘Mag-7’ equity price shocks, defined in Equation (1) below, are constructed as the percentage change in the stock price of a given Mag-7 firm around its earnings announcement. The weight  on these changes is given by the firm’s share in the S&P 500 to control for the fact that their collective market capitalisations have risen from 3% to 35% of the S&P 500 over our sample. Since these firms report earnings after markets have closed, we measure the change between the closing price on earnings day and the opening price on the following day. If more than one firm announces earnings on the same day, we add them up.

εtMag7=jωt1j(Pricetj,openPricet1j,close1)(1)\varepsilon_t^{Mag7} = \sum\limits_j \omega^j_{t-1}\left(\frac{Price_t^{j,open}}{Price_{t-1}^{j,close}} – 1\right)\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad(1)

Chart 1: Mag-7 equity price shocks

Source: Staff calculations.


Chart 1 plots our Mag-7 equity price shocks, which we construct from 2000 to the end of 2025. The shocks mostly lie between -0.5% and 0.5% and are larger after 2020, reflecting the Mag-7’s larger share in S&P 500 in recent years. By way of example, the largest negative shock in our sample occurred on 28 April 2022, when Amazon announced 2022 Q1 earnings that were significantly below market expectations. They also materially revised down their expected 2022 Q2 operating income. Together, these announcements led Amazon’s stock price to tumble by 10% in after-hours trading. This event triggered a significant market reaction. Despite Amazon constituting only about 3% of the S&P 500 at the end of 2021, the index fell by close to 4% within a day. The market reaction was not contained only to US stocks: over the coming days, UK stocks declined as well, credit spreads in both jurisdictions widened and the US dollar depreciated. Below, we establish that many of these dynamics represent systematic patterns following Mag-7 equity price shocks, which we argue may provide a plausible base case for how an AI crash scenario could transmit to financial markets.

Specification and results

Armed with our shock series, we now study how big-tech equity price surprises affect global asset prices using a parsimonious local projection framework.

yt+hiyt1i=β0h+β1hεtMag7+Xt1i+ut,hi(2)y^i_{t+h} – y^i_{t-1} = \beta_0^h + \beta_1^h\varepsilon_t^{Mag7} + X_{t-1}^{i} + u_{t,h}^i\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad\quad(2)

where  corresponds to an asset price of interest in country , including equity indices, effective exchange rates, credit spreads, nominal government bond yields and break-even inflation rates. Controls in  include lags of the dependent variable as well as other asset price changes. Our coefficients of interest, , measure the marginal effects of a negative 1% Mag-7 equity price shock on   business days after the earnings announcement.

Focusing first on the equity market, Chart 2 traces the reaction () of the S&P 500 and the FTSE 100 to a -1% Mag-7 equity price shock. Importantly, since the underlying Mag-7 stock price changes are weighted by each firm’s size in the S&P 500, a -1% shock mechanically implies a 1% fall in the S&P 500 index on impact. In Panel (a) of Chart 2, we see that the S&P 500 declines by nearly 2% to the shock, implying significant spillovers to other firms in the index as well. These spillovers are of comparable magnitude to the mechanical effect. Relatedly, within two days, the FTSE 100 declines by 1% as well despite no mechanical effect, showcasing that equity indices outside the US, in this case the UK, are significantly affected by news intrinsic to major US tech firms. Both effects are relatively persistent as well.


Chart 2: Equity-market response to a -1% Mag-7 equity price shock

Notes: The chart plots the response of the S&P 500 (left) and FTSE 100 (right) to a -1% Mag-7 equity price shock, as described in Equation (1) and estimated according to Equation (2). 68% (blue) and 90% (light blue) confidence intervals constructed with Newey-West standard errors.

Source: Staff estimates.


Turning to exchange rates, Chart 3 plots the responses of the dollar and the pound nominal effective exchange rates (NEER), which move opposite to one another. We estimate that a -1% Mag-7 equity price shock depreciates the dollar on impact, with a peak effective depreciation of 0.3% a week after the earnings announcement. Sterling, on the other hand, appreciates in effective terms by about 0.5% over a similar timeframe.

Overall, in combination with the earlier equity price responses, this USD depreciation suggests that negative US tech-sector earnings news leads investors to pivot away from US equities, depreciating the dollar by outweighing any other flight-to-safety dynamics into US government bonds. While our identification strategy imposes no restrictions on the underlying mix of structural shocks driving our Mag-7 equity surprises, these results are consistent with investors interpreting negative US big-tech earnings news as downward revisions to future US productivity (Chahrour et al (2024)).


Chart 3: Exchange rate response to a -1% Mag-7 equity price shock

Notes: The chart plots the response of the USD NEER (left) and GBP NEER (right) to a -1% Mag-7 equity price shock, as described in Equation (1) and estimated according to Equation (2). 68% (blue) and 90% (light blue) confidence intervals constructed with Newey-West standard errors.

Source: Staff estimates.


In search of these flight-to-safety dynamics, we study the responses of US and UK 10-year government bond yields. Panels (a) and (b) of Chart 4 show that yields in both jurisdictions fall by a couple of basis points on impact, in line with a muted flight-to-safety or a decline in aggregate demand, before rising, although this rebound is not statistically significant. A rise in yields following a negative Mag-7 earnings news is consistent with new evidence by Andrews and Farboodi (2026) on the release of new AI models, which is understood to be good news about future productivity. Lustig et al (2026) argue that this is the result of US fiscal sustainability increasing in productivity, meaning that US government bond holders are effectively long AI. These offsetting channels may explain the overall muted response on bond markets.

Interestingly, Panel (c) of Chart 4 shows that 10-year breakeven inflation rates meaningfully decline in the US following negative Mag-7 earnings news, potentially indicating important demand-side effects to the shock. As a result, US 10-year real yields rise. The response in the UK, however, is more attenuated on impact, but grows over time.


Chart 4: Government-bond market response to a -1% Mag-7 equity price shock

Notes: The chart plots the response of US 10-year sovereign nominal yields (top left), UK 10-year sovereign yields (top right), US 10-year breakeven inflation (bottom left) and UK 10-year breakeven inflation (bottom right) to a -1% Mag-7 equity price shock, as described in Equation (1) and estimated according to Equation (2). 68% (blue) and 90% (light blue) confidence intervals constructed with Newey-West standard errors.

Source: Staff estimates.


Finally, Chart 5 plots the responses of US and UK credit spread indices to the negative Mag-7 equity price shock. US credit spreads rise on impact, with the effect growing to between 5 and 10 basis points after three weeks. The results are similar for the UK spreads, although the on-impact reaction is more muted. Overall, these findings showcase that big-tech equity price shocks spillover to corporate credit borrowing rates as well.


Chart 5: Corporate credit market response to a -1% Mag-7 equity price shock

Notes: The chart plots the response of US (left) and UK credit spreads to a -1% Mag-7 equity price shock, as described in Equation (1) and estimated according to Equation (2). 68% (blue) and 90% (light blue) confidence intervals constructed with Newey-West standard errors.

Source: Staff estimates.


Conclusion

The current AI equity boom has been characterised by expectations of greater US productivity growth. In this post, we have explored how an AI correction could unfold, leveraging a novel high-frequency equity price shock around the earnings announcements of the magnificent-7 US tech companies.

These shocks provide evidence that what originates in Big Tech does not stay confined to Big Tech. On negative Mag-7 earnings news, equity markets decline, credit spreads widen, the US dollar depreciates, and bond yields are muted, suggesting that a downward revision to US productivity outweighs flight-to-safety dynamics. These findings have two policy implications. First, significant cross-border spillovers to equity and credit markets imply that policymakers should not rely on corrections to elevated US tech-sector valuations remaining confined to the United States. Second, a USD depreciation could exacerbate the macroeconomic effects of these spillovers, increasing the downside risks to an AI crash globally. In particular, foreign economies have historically benefitted from a USD appreciation in times of stress in terms of export competitiveness and a net wealth transfer that helps offset the valuation losses on their USD asset holdings. Accounting for a potential USD depreciation is therefore paramount for policymakers when considering AI crash scenarios.


Daniel Ostry, Roger Vicquéry and Emilio Zaratiegui work in the Bank’s Global Analysis Division.

If you want to get in touch, please email us at bankunderground@bankofengland.co.uk or leave a comment below.

Comments will only appear once approved by a moderator, and are only published where a full name is supplied. Bank Underground is a blog for Bank of England staff to share views that challenge – or support – prevailing policy orthodoxies. The views expressed here are those of the authors, and are not necessarily those of the Bank of England, or its policy committees.

Who is reading Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang’s AI manifestos?



Good morning. Phil Wahba writing this morning from New York. Earlier this week, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a few of his thoughts. Specifically 6,500 words outlining ways to spread the wealth and opportunity from AI to all people, including skeptics such as residents of communities that host data centers.

That word count made the piece about one-tenth the length of the average novel—and 10x his article on Personal Superintelligence a year ago.

And Zuckerberg is not alone: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei delivered the longest piece in this genre so far in 2024 with his 13,000-word “Machines of Loving Grace” essay, while Nvidia’s Jensen Huang has also joined in, as have other AI CEOs. The official explanation is high-minded: with Wall Street scrutinizing Meta’s tens of billions in spending and rival labs racing for dominance, these founders want to lay out their vision in exacting detail and bring regulators and the public along. As Columbia Business School professor Dan Wang told me, “They have to draw the boundaries around why AI can be useful even before they begin selling products.”

But there’s a less flattering read, and communications specialist Patrick Riccards put it best. “CEOs, particularly tech CEOs, believe that their words are gospel,” he told me. These essays, he says, are flags planted in the ground: “You essentially have five or six tech CEOs that are trying to demonstrate whose…[shall we say essay] is bigger.” In our era of short attention spans, that raises an obvious problem. Do people other than AI titans even read these? And if not, what’s the point?

For a model of what leadership via long form can actually look like, it’s useful to examine the master of the genre. Warren Buffett went long in his annual letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders—often 10,000-plus words, deep on the year’s lessons and the company’s results, sprinkled with folksy wisdom. But the length was never the point. Buffett wrote to be understood by anyone; he famously drafted his letters as if explaining the business to his own sisters, smart people who happened to be outside finance. People didn’t read him because he wrote a lot. They read him because he’d earned the right to be heard, over decades of results, and then chose to be plain about it. (His successor Greg Abel’s first letter as CEO this year followed that tradition.)

And there’s the distinction. Buffett knew exactly who his readers were. Zuckerberg, Amodei and the rest are writing to each other—a closed loop of founders, investors and the reporters who cover them, each essay answering the last. But is that the right audience? Zuckerberg is facing heat from the public who are wary of data centers in their communities and low on trust for Big Tech. A 6,500-word manifesto seems unlikely to change their minds. If there’s one lesson any CEO can take from Buffett, it’s that the writing is easy—earning the right to be read is the hard part.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

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Consumer prices rose 0.1% in July and 3.4% over the past year, matching expectations, as lower energy prices offset other price pressures. KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk wrote that the “economy is a mess,” warning that higher fuel costs could become more apparent in August’s report.

The markets

S&P 500 futures are up 0.097% this morning. The STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.11% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.41% in early trading. The Nikkei 225 is up 1.16%. South Korea’s KOSPI was up 3.56%. China’s CSI 300 was down 0.57%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.25%. India’s NIFTY 50 was down 0.34%. Bitcoin is slightly up at $63,788.

Around the watercooler

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CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.