Cash-secured puts offer investors a disciplined, income-generating approach to acquiring high-quality stocks at discounts. The strategy involves selling a put option with a strike price below the current stock price, using the premium to fund the potential downside risk—no margin is required. If the stock remains above the strike, the premium is kept as profit; if it falls to or below the strike, the investor is assigned and buys the stock at the strike price minus the premium collected, effectively at a discount.

This approach is ideal for long-term investors seeking consistent income and stock acquisition opportunities, particularly in elevated volatility environments where premiums are higher. It is not suited for traders pursuing rapid capital appreciation but aligns with a structured, repeatable investment process. Tools like Barchart’s screener help identify high-quality setups.

[Note: The publisher had no positions in the securities mentioned; this is for informational purposes only.]

Goldman Sachs general counsel Kathy Ruemmler (GS) announced her resignation following the release of emails and documents showing close往来 with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The trove of roughly 8,400 records, reviewed by The Associated Press, depicted frequent personal exchanges, gifts including a Hermes handbag, Apple Watch, and Fendi coat, and advice on public defense. The firm requires pre-approval for gifts from clients to avoid conflicts and allegations of impropriety.

Ruemmler, who joined Goldman in 2020 and was COO since 2021, said in a statement her focus was on the firm’s legal, reputational, and regulatory matters and its core value of integrity. Goldman CEO David Solomon (GS) praised her decision, and the firm said she will wind down responsibilities to ensure a smooth transition. Her last day is June 30, 2026.

Arabica (KCB26) and robusta (RCB26) coffee prices climb sharply on February 13, 2026: arabica up +3.25 (+1.08%) to $187.50, robusta up +67 (+1.75%) to $1,177.50. Second consecutive daily gain follows a recent sell-off as coffee roasters rebuild inventories amid renewed demand.

Key context: Robusta fell to a 6-month low on Wednesday and arabica to a 6-month low on Monday after Brazil’s 2026 output forecast rose 17.2% to 66.2 million bags (arabica +23.2% to 44.1M; robusta +6.3% to 22.1M). Rain in Minas Gerais improved weather outlooks. Vietnam’s January exports surged +38.3% to 198,000 MT, supporting robusta.

Supportive factors include tighter inventories: arabica stocks at 461,829 bags (Jan 7), robusta at 4,662 lots; ICO-reported exports for Oct-Sep at 138.658 million bags, down 0.3% y/y. Output forecasts: global 2025/26 at 178.848M bags (arabica -4.7% to 95.515M; robusta +10.9% to 83.333M); Brazil -3.1% to 63M; Vietnam +6.2% to 30.8M.

EddieBauer LLC, the operator of Eddie Bauer stores in the United States and Canada, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on February 13, 2026. The company seeks to sell about 200 stores, with most locations expected to remain open during the process. If the sale does not materialize, closures are possible, though timing for individual stores has not been disclosed. Declining sales, supply chain challenges, inflation, and uncertain tariff policies under the Trump administration are cited as key factors. The brand's operations outside North America continue under other licensees. EddieBauer’s e-commerce and wholesale activities were transitioned to Outdoor 5 LLC. This marks the third Chapter 11 filing for the 100-year-old retailer, following 2003 and 2009. The filing reflects broader retail weakness this year, following Saks Global’s January Chapter 11 filing.

SpaceX is evaluating a dual-class share structure for its planned IPO in 2026, according to Bloomberg News, citing知情 sources. The firm is targeting a valuation exceeding $1.5 trillion, with discussions ongoing about adding board members to oversee the offering and expand oversight beyond its core rocket and satellite businesses. Dual-class structures typically grant greater voting control to founders or early investors through differing voting rights. Tesla, which does not currently use such a structure, is Musk’s other major holding, and Musk has stated he needs roughly 25% equity to maintain significant influence. A final IPO structure is not yet confirmed.

Cameco (CMB.TO) released results showing fourth-quarter revenue up 22% to CDN$1.38 billion, driven by higher uranium prices and strong mine production. Full-year 2025 profit surged 53% to CDN$294 million, exceeding guidance. The company attributed the gains to higher realized prices and improved operational efficiency at its Saskatchewan and Northern Saskatchewan mines. Management expects pricing to remain firm through 2026 amid continued global supply constraints.

Binance has fired at least five investigators, including three with law enforcement backgrounds, following internal reports of potential violations of U.S. sanctions laws. The findings allege over $1 billion in transactions routed via Tether on the Tron blockchain to entities tied to Iran between March 2024 and August 2025. The firings began in late 2025, as the exchange operated under a DOJ-monitorship following a $4.3 billion settlement in November 2023 forAML/KYC and sanctions violations.

The company issued a statement Wednesday denying specific personnel details and policy breaches, reaffirming its compliance with laws and ongoing collaboration with law enforcement. At least four other top compliance staff have also left or been removed in the past three months. Binance is seeking a replacement for chief compliance officer Noah Perlman, who is expected to step down later this year.

The timing follows a Trump administration rollback of crypto oversight and a pardon for Binance founder Changpeng Zhao in October 2025. The company is expanding its compliance workforce, aiming to reach 645 full-time equivalents by year-end 2026.

Coinbase reports a $666.7 million fourth-quarter loss, or $2.49 per share, down sharply from a $4.68 per share profit in the same period of 2024. Fourth-quarter revenue was $1.78 billion, a 21.6% year-over-year decline and below the $1.81 billion FactSet forecast. The company holds about 12% of the world’s cryptocurrency and has seen Bitcoin fall from roughly $125,000 in October 2025 to about $60,000 earlier this month.

“We don’t try to predict the future too much,” said co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong. “I do think these down markets allow us to keep building.” CFO Alesia Haas noted nine consecutive quarters of native inflows, with the company’s monthly verified users at 9.2 million as of December 2025, down from 11.2 million at the end of 2021.

For Q1 2026, Coinbase projects subscription and services revenue of $550M–$630M. The Everything Exchange, launched in Q2 2024, now includes 12 products on track to generate over $100 million in annualized revenue, up from 8 in 2025. The company expanded its partnership with Standard Chartered in late December to include institutional crypto services, and Klarna plans to issue short-term funding in USDC stablecoins.

Bitcoin rose intraday to $69,450 before closing near $69,321, up 3.69% in 24 hours, as the global crypto market cap reached $2.36T, up 4.3% from the prior day. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index remains at 8 (extreme fear), with traders pricing in 55% odds of BTC hitting $55K before reaching $84K.

However, technicals suggest weakness: ADX 51.3 (strong bearish trend), RSI 35.0 (oversold), and the 50-EMA well below the 200-EMA (bearish). The recent bounce is likely noise within a broader downtrend. The 4-hour chart shows ADX 20.6 and RSI 53.6, with a momentum squeeze, potentially allowing scalps to play $70K-$72K, but daily bulls need a stronger retest of key resistance.

Standard Chartered lowered its price target to the $100K range from $300K, citing a potential first test at $50K. ETF outflows totaled $410M yesterday. The CPI report on February 16 is expected to show 2.5% YoY inflation; a hotter print may support prices above $60K, while a cooler print could deepen the bearish bias.

NVDA-US shares trade in a range as major AI-capital-expenditure boosters fail to translate spending into renewed gains. The stock has declined about 1% since late last year, lagging the S&P 500, and closed Friday at $184.33, down 1.39% after a intraday dip of 2.6%.

Enterprise spending on AI infrastructure is estimated to reach over $600 billion in 2026, yet investors question whether this will generate commensurate revenue and profit growth. Advisors Capital Management’s JoAnne Feeney highlights concerns that continued expansion may accelerate market saturation, while cyclical dynamics in semiconductors suggest growth will放缓: revenue guidance implies a 58% rise in 2026, down to 28% in 2027. The company’s P/E of about 24x is in line with the Nasdaq 100 and above the S&P 500, but below its 5-year average of 38x.

The next critical test comes on February 25 with the earnings report. Analysts closely watch guidance on data center chip demand and the outlook, as hyperscalers continue to be a key driver of NVIDIA’s sales. While a bearish expenditure growth trajectory could benefit “hardware” issuers, current valuations and profit expectations remain sticky, with the market awaiting clearer signals from the company.

DOJ Antitrust Chief Abigail Slater resigned shortly after being informed of her removal by the White House on February 13, 2026. Her ouster followed months of tension with business-friendly factions and leveraging influence from MAGA-aligned lobbyists, including Mike Davis, who has been securing settlements and appealing directly to senior DOJ officials.

Slater, a former FTC chair with a Biden-era enforcement style, faced pushback from Davis and others who sought faster approvals and fewer probes. The HPE-Juniper case highlighted the growing role of political connections in antitrust decisions, with Davis later credited with促成 a settlement before a jury trial was set.

DOJ merger activity slowed in 2025 to 16 major probes, the lowest in 15 years, down from 27 in the first year of Trump’s first term. With Woodward advocating for expedited settlements, the agency’s independence is increasingly questioned as lobbyists and administration allies shape outcomes.

Companies such as HPE, Compass, and Live Nation have hired Davis to navigate reviews, citing his ability to move above Slater and access higher-ranking DOJ and White House officials. The shift reflects a broader realignment in Trump’s second term toward business interests in antitrust enforcement.

The Department of Defense’s Special Operations Command and the Defense Innovation Unit have selected two contractors to compete in a $100 million challenge to develop voice-controlled, autonomous drone swarm systems. OpenAI is providing its open-source speech-to-text and command translation capabilities for the initial software phase, with no involvement in weapon integration or operational control. The six-phase competition progresses from software coordination across air and sea to target-related awareness and launch-to-termination, with live platforms and multi-domain operations trials in later stages. The Pentagon seeks to enhance lethality and effectiveness by enabling commanders to issue high-level instructions such as “Move all USV pods 5 kilometers east.” OpenAI’s participation is limited to translation and installation support, consistent with its stated preference to avoid making generative AI control weapons decisions.

American Airlines has filed with the U.S. Transportation Department to operate U.S. flights to Caracas and Maracaibo via Miami using Envoy, its wholly owned regional carrier. The filing follows the rescission of a 2019 ban on U.S. flights to Venezuela by Secretary Sean Duffy at the direction of the Trump administration. Services are expected to resume pending government approval and security assessments, marking the first such flights in over six years.

Anthropic has added former Microsoft and General Motors executive Chris Liddell to its board to prepare for a potential initial public offering, with the company assessing a year-end listing. The move underscores strengthening capital markets experience as Anthropic, a developer of the Claude chatbot and a major competitor to OpenAI, evaluates its IPO timeline.

Liddell, who oversaw a $230 billion IPO during General Motors’ bankruptcy restructuring and previously served in the White House, brings deep expertise in finance, governance, and technology. The company has signaled it may push for an IPO as early as late 2026.

Anthropic’s board also includes co-founders Daniela and Dario Amodei, Reed Hastings of Netflix, Yasmin Razavi of Spark Capital, and Jay Kreps of Confluent. The firm recently closed a $300 billion financing, valuing the company at $38 billion, led by GIC and Coatue, with participation from D.E. Shaw Ventures, Dragoneer, Founders Fund, ICONIQ, and the Abu Dhabi AI Fund MGX.

Fourth-quarter truckload logistics stocks experienced a volatile ride as earnings season unfolded, trading up to 40% in the weeks before major reports, only to range sideways after the first few results. A positive manufacturing PMI in January briefly lifted sentiment, but a white paper from a small AI firm, Algorhythm Holdings (NASDAQ: RIME), touting a disruptive freight brokerage platform sparked a mid-teens percentage selloff in 3PLs and mid-single-digit declines in asset-based carriers. Analysts and industry participants largely panned the feasibility of the stated synergies due to the need for broad collaboration and existing siloed tech stacks.

Key Q4 reports showed mixed results: J.B. Hunt (NASDAQ: JBHT) beat with margin expansion but softer demand guidance; Knight-Swift (NYSE: KNX) reported a net loss but guided for 2026 margin improvement; Marten (NASDAQ: MRTN) posted y/y declines but sequential gains; Schneider (NYSE: SNDR) and Covenant (NYSE: CVLG) missed expectations amid weather, healthcare and insurance costs; Heartland Express (NASDAQ: HTLD) logged 10 consecutive quarterly net losses but improved margins; and Werner (NASDAQ: WERN) reported a net loss before adjustments, restructuring its one-way unit and acquiring FirstFleet for $283 million, with accretion expected to begin in Q1.

The broader S&P 500 gained 6% over the same period, underscoring sectoral divergence.

The Bank of England’s chief economist, Huw Pill, said the MPC made an error by cutting interest rates too far and too fast, contributing to persistently higher inflation than expected. Since 2022, inflation reached 11.1% in October 2022, peaked, and the base rate was cut to 3.6% as of February 2026. Pill warned headline inflation (excluding Budget measures) is running at 2.5%, not 2.0%, and underlying inflation may not reach the target until 2026.

“This suggests we should have been setting policy through the middle of 2024 to hit 2pc in the middle of 2026,” Pill said. He voted against rate cuts at the February meeting and advocates for higher rates or greater caution. The Bank projects inflation will fall to 2pc with support from energy bill measures announced in the November 2025 Budget. Markets expect two more cuts this year, bringing the base rate to 3.25%.

Existing home sales in January 2026 fell 8.4% from December, annualized below 4 million, keeping activity near three-decade lows despite historically low mortgage rates averaging 6.1%.

“The decrease in sales is disappointing,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

Inventory remains far below pre-pandemic averages, with January median home prices at $396,800, up 0.9% from a year earlier. Low supply and elevated prices limited affordability, while a cold, wet January likely depressed new listings.

Economists project improved conditions once weather warms, but meaningful gains in sales activity are expected to be capped by persistent supply constraints and moderate price appreciation.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission closed its investigation into bankrupt electric vehicle startup Fisker on September 20, 2025, according to a FOIA response in January 2026. The agency typically does not release records when probes are active, indicating the matter was concluded by September 2025.

The SEC first mentioned the probe in an October 2024 filing in Fisker’s bankruptcy case, noting it had issued subpoenas and may need to subpoena additional documents in the future. The closure follows settlements and closures in probes into Nikola, Lordstown Motors, Canoo, Hyzon Motors, and Lucid Motors, and comes amid a 27% drop in enforcement actions during the second term of President Trump, with only four such actions targeting public companies and a 45% decline in monetary settlements from 2024.

Fisker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2024 after delays, financial difficulties, and a pivot away from its initial bold technological promises. The company sold its Ocean SUV inventory to a vehicle leasing firm and liquidated other assets during bankruptcy.

The Indian government’s Startup India initiative has partnered with Alibaba.com to support Indian startups in onboarding and scaling small and medium exporters onto the platform, offering commissions and technical support to help them access over 50 million active buyers in 200+ countries. The collaboration comes after India’s 2020 bans on consumer-facing Chinese tech apps, reflecting a selective economic engagement with Alibaba’s B2B export capabilities.

According to the latest Economic Survey, MSMEs account for nearly half of India’s exports and 31% of GDP, driving the government’s focus on expanding digital market access. Alibaba.com’s Trade Assurance program, introduced in India in June 2025, aims to reduce cross-border transaction risks with tools for payment protection and dispute resolution.

Alibaba.com’s head of India business, Rocky Lu, noted the company’s two-decade presence in India and continued commitment to helping “Made in India” products scale globally through digital transformation. The initiative is part of India’s differentiated approach toward China, maintaining restrictions on consumer tech while enabling economic engagement where benefits are clear.

On February 12, 2026, a wallet tied to the September 2023 Mixin Network cross-chain hack moved $3.85 million in Ethereum into a new wallet, which then split the funds into 20 transactions to Tornado Cash. The wallet tagged by Arkham Intelligence remains dormant after nearly two years.

The September 2023 exploit targeted Mixin’s cloud provider database, draining roughly $200 million across multiple chains. Mixin suspended deposits and withdrawals following the breach and issued Mixin Debt Tokens (MDTu, MDTb, MDTe) to represent claims, with repayment timelines announced only for MDTu ($23 million) by September 23, 2026.