Welcome to Markets Desk, here's what's moving the conversation today.
Deutsche Bank has downgraded SoftBank to hold, citing concerns over AI mania driving the Japanese conglomerate's valuation beyond what fundamentals can justify. The call lands as investors globally are growing more skeptical about whether the extraordinary capital being poured into artificial intelligence will ever translate into proportional returns.
That skepticism has a high-profile voice behind it now. Sam Altman himself acknowledged that questions about AI's return on investment are, in his words, the most fair criticism the technology faces right now. That's a notable concession from the man running the world's most prominent AI company, and it lands at a moment when at least one prominent researcher has called AI spending the greatest capital misallocation in history.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin has slipped below seventy thousand dollars for the first time since April, after its largest institutional holder disclosed a sale for the first time since two thousand twenty two. That disclosure rattled sentiment in a market that had been riding institutional credibility as one of its core bullish arguments, and the selloff reflects just how quickly that confidence can reverse when a major holder starts reducing exposure.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
