{"slug": "animal-spirits-when-genius-failed-again", "title": "Animal Spirits: When Genius Failed, Again", "summary": "Leopold Aschenbrenner's $45 billion AI hedge fund, Situational Awareness, collapsed in late July 2026, triggering a 75% volatility spike in semiconductor stocks (SOX Index), the third such instance after March 2020 and April 2025. The fund's liquidation also caused the largest one-day retail outflow of $243 million since the Covid crash, according to Vanda Research. The event drew comparisons to the Long-Term Capital Management blowup, as detailed in 'When Genius Failed.'", "body_md": "## Today’s Animal Spirits is brought to you by YCharts**:**\n\nThis episode is sponsored by YCharts. To get your copy of Top 10 Visuals, and receive 20% off your first YCharts Professional subscription through Animal Spirits. Visit\n\n[https://go.ycharts.com/animal-spirits](https://go.ycharts.com/animal-spirits)(Offer valid for new customers only.)\n\n## On today’s show, we discuss:\n\n[A Bull Market in Nostalgia](https://chartkidmatt.com/p/a-bull-market-in-nostalgia)[His Wedding Guests Were Arriving–Just as His $45 Billion Fund Was Falling Apart](https://www.wsj.com/finance/leopold-aschenbrenner-situational-awareness-ai-fund-597633d3)[Inside the Meltdown of a Wunderkind’s A.I. Hedge Fund](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/business/situational-awareness-leopold-aschenbrenner.html)[The 24-Year-Old AI Wiz Who Counts Jane Street as an Investor](https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/the-24-year-old-ai-wiz-who-counts-jane-street-as-an-investor-1c30d751)[Balancing Innovation and Inflation in Portfolios](https://www.gspublishing.com/content/research/en/reports/2026/07/10/ce510cb7-570e-477c-932b-8b706e7188d6.pdf)[Boaters Are Splurging to Make Fishing Yachts Run Like Supercars](https://www.wsj.com/business/boaters-are-splurging-to-make-fishing-yachts-run-like-supercars-78d33212?mod=e2fb)[Here Comes the Next Wave of GLP-1s. They’ll Treat a Lot More Than Obesity.](https://www.barrons.com/articles/glp-1-obesity-drugs-eli-lilly-novo-nordisk-stocks-19200dcc?mod=hp_LONGREADER_A_1)[UBS helped trigger exodus from Blue Owl private credit fund](https://www.ft.com/content/4c75ea97-8411-445d-b1fd-393b2b4222f8?syn-25a6b1a6=1&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email)\n\n## Listen here:\n\n## Charts:\n\n## Tweets/BlueSky:\n\nDispersion within the S&P 500 is massive\n\nS&P 500 -0.1% in July\n\nDespite top 3 stocks positive\n\n[$NVDA]: +0.3%[$AAPL]: +6.8%[$MSFT]: +24.6%6/11 sectors had 1%+ returns\n\n[$XLE]: +12.1%[$XLF]: +6.2%S&P 500 Momentum: -11.1%\n\n[@CarsonResearch][@RyanDetrick][pic.twitter.com/YsINnDydyg]— Sonu Varghese (@sonusvarghese)\n\n[August 3, 2026]\n\nSince I sent this tweet 2 days ago:\n\nAAPL is down 12%\n\nMSFT is up 17%\n\nMETA is down 7%\n\nAMZN is up 18%\n\nMarkets never let you catch your breath anymore\n\nEverything happens at warp speed now\n\n[https://t.co/K3zmTCUbpt]— Ben Carlson (@awealthofcs)\n\n[July 31, 2026]\n\nThe Leopold liquidation pushed semiconductor single-stock volatility up to 75% (SOX Index).\n\nThis is only the third time semi volatility has reached this level. The other two instances: March 2020 and April 2025.\n\n[pic.twitter.com/D02L22tgji]— Warren Pies (@WarrenPies)\n\n[July 31, 2026]\n\nCrazy how this Situational Awareness blowup is right inline with the Long Term Capital Management blowup on the Netscape/ChatGPT timeline. Gray shading is When Genius Failed…\n\nPast performance is no guarantee of future results.\n\n[pic.twitter.com/O4FizP5kWp]— Bespoke (@bespokeinvest)\n\n[July 30, 2026]\n\n\"Retail sold a net $243m of single stocks yesterday, marking the largest one-day outflow since the Covid crash\"–\n\n[@vandaresearch]— Gunjan Banerji (@GunjanJS)\n\n[July 29, 2026]\n\nI still don't like the group, but noteworthy that investors are starting to throw in the towels on the Mag 7 ETF.\n\n3-month outflows approaching the peak level of net inflows the fund saw at its January 2025 peak\n\n[pic.twitter.com/posIIYmlEG]— Scott Brown, CMT (@scottcharts)\n\n[July 27, 2026]\n\nJust to update through y'day: I estimate DRAM earned a ~88% since-incept cumul. NAV return. But investors lost a cumul. ~$1.6B over that span (at NAV) bc flows arrived late. Not mgr's fault but shows potential pitfalls of streaky products. Hopefully investors stay put, it rallies\n\n[https://t.co/mMENlzDvsZ][pic.twitter.com/LyZxDVRVwq]— Jeffrey Ptak (@syouth1)\n\n[August 1, 2026]\n\nBank of America says the market's reaction to Kevin Warsh resembles an emerging market facing a credibility shock\n\n[pic.twitter.com/OHmzODwUSg]— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart)\n\n[August 3, 2026]\n\nFor me, this was the standout comment from the ISM Manufacturing survey for July:\n\n“No normalcy in sight in the world of metals. It makes me yearn for the coronavirus pandemic chaos, which was more manageable than whatever this is that we are in.”\n\n— Kevin Gordon (@KevRGordon)\n\n[August 3, 2026]\n\nOver the next few years you are going to have to fight with everything you’ve got to retain your humanity. They will try to convince you to give up connecting with each other, to give up truly being alive. It will be the most important fight of your whole life\n\n[https://t.co/Qj59OMORsy]— BuccoCapital Bloke (@buccocapital)\n\n[July 31, 2026]\n\nWell, that happened quickly.\n\nMore than 100,000 customers have opened agentic trading accounts.\n\n[https://t.co/6BcWtIcDdY]— Vlad Tenev (@vladtenev)\n\n[July 31, 2026]\n\nJuly 23, 2026, was the busiest day for commercial air travel ever, according to data from\n\n[@flightradar24].A whopping 153,359 commercial flights were tracked worldwide.\n\n[pic.twitter.com/0fJ9mcjZkY]— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch)\n\n[July 25, 2026]\n\nHollywood scores its biggest collective weekend in box office history with more than $406M grossed domestically across all films.\n\n‘SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY’ ($355M)\n\n‘THE ODYSSEY’ ($51M)[pic.twitter.com/hyyqHmn3uQ]— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates)\n\n[August 2, 2026]\n\nRick Moranis gets a Hall H standing ovation during the\n\n[#Spaceballs]: The New One’ panel at Comic Con.[#SDCC][pic.twitter.com/rMu7DxC4Iy]— Rotten Tomatoes 🍅 (@RottenTomatoes)\n\n[July 25, 2026]\n\n## Recommendations:\n\n[Obsession](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMC8kkwbIQQ)[House of the Dragon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZUavocHU2g)[Masters of the Universe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X21JsHLHnY8)[The Odyssey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzw2ttJD2qQ)[Shrinking](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjHfjQDWl1A)[The Men Who Would be King by Nicole Laporte](https://www.amazon.com/The-Men-Who-Would-Be-King-audiobook/dp/B003KWL5VI/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0)\n\nFollow us on [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/animalspiritspodcast/?ref=settings), [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/animalspiritspod/?hl=en), and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBRpqrzuuqE8TZcWw75JSdw).\n\nCheck out our t-shirts, coffee mugs, and other swag [here](https://idontshop.com/).\n\nSubscribe here:\n\n*Nothing in this blog constitutes investment advice, performance data or any recommendation that any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction or investment strategy is suitable for any specific person. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. Any opinions expressed herein do not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship, or recommendation by Ritholtz Wealth Management or its employees. *\n\n*The Compound, Inc., an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, received compensation from the sponsor of this advertisement. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. Investing in speculative securities involves the risk of loss. Nothing on this website should be construed as, and may not be used in connection with, an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or hold, an interest in any security or investment product.*", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/animal-spirits-when-genius-failed-again", "canonical_source": "https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/08/animal-spirits-when-genius-failed-again/", "published_at": "2026-08-05 11:15:28+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-05 12:48:39.918650+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-startups", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["Leopold Aschenbrenner", "Situational Awareness", "Jane Street", "Vanda Research", "Long-Term Capital Management", "YCharts", "Bank of America", "Kevin Warsh"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/animal-spirits-when-genius-failed-again", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/animal-spirits-when-genius-failed-again.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/animal-spirits-when-genius-failed-again.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/animal-spirits-when-genius-failed-again.jsonld"}}