Hello there,
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Welcome to the new issue of Readiance...

Today’s topics

• Bitcoin Slips Under $90K
• Oracle’s $374B Faceplant
• Target’s Holiday Trouble
• Scientists Discover Everyone’s Been Kissing for 16 Million Years
• NASA finds a Mars rock that definitely isn’t from Mars

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BUSINESS

Bitcoin Slips Under $90K

Bitcoin dipped below $90,000 on Wednesday, marking the start of its “uhh… scratch that” phase. The top crypto has erased all its year-to-date gains and now sits roughly 30% below its October high. Rough week for anyone who added “crypto prodigy” to their bio. The culprits are familiar: the Fed’s mixed signals on rates, plus whales and retail traders unloading their stacks like they just remembered bills are due. BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF even posted its largest single-day exit ever — over half a billion dollars pulled. Brutal.

Oracle’s $374B Faceplant

Oracle torched $374B trying to woo OpenAI. Oracle’s massive $300B arrangement with OpenAI is already blowing up in its face. Since the September announcement, the company has shed as much as $374B in market cap — basically vaporizing a blue-chip firm for fun. The snag: Oracle is bankrolling this “AI flex” entirely through debt, while cash flow is projected to stay negative for half a decade. Capex jumps from $35B this year to $80B annually by 2029, and total debt nearly doubles by 2030. Investors are looking at the math and slowly stepping away. Oracle insists it’ll all pay off once OpenAI builds gigantic data centers and brings in $166B in cloud revenue by 2030. For now, the market reaction is: nice pitch, but nope.

Target’s Holiday Trouble

Holiday season still looks soft for Target. Target trimmed its profit forecast after another sluggish quarter with shoppers staying in bargain-mode. Foot traffic is down, carts are leaner, and the company is lowering full-year earnings expectations to $7–$8 per share, mostly below last year’s results. The holiday stretch doesn’t look much brighter — Target still anticipates a slight sales dip in Q4. Incoming CEO Michael Fiddelke gave the standard upbeat script about “momentum,” while quietly green-lighting a $5 billion investment next year to refresh stores and spark growth. Sales have basically flatlined for four years, rivals are squeezing every category, and the brand is still feeling heat from its DEI controversy earlier this year. That big red bullseye is starting to feel more like a pressure point.

TECH & SCIENCE

Scientists Discover Everyone’s Been Kissing for 16 Million Years

Turns out kissing didn’t start with humans — it’s been a thing for at least 16 million years. Meaning long before we existed, ancient creatures were already locking lips… or whatever counted as lips back then. Gorillas, orangutans, baboons, fish, even ants have their own versions of smooching, which is kind of wild considering some people today can’t even commit to a second date. Scientists still can’t explain why kissing exists at all — it doesn’t boost survival, barely affects reproduction, and mostly spreads germs, feelings, and questionable decisions. But it does demand trust, which basically makes it the earliest version of a “soft launch.” The kicker: Neanderthals might’ve kissed early humans, suggesting cross-species make-outs weren’t just fan fiction. Researchers now want more data on how and why different species kiss — because if apes, bugs, birds, and ancient humans were all doing it, kissing might be planet Earth’s oldest pastime.

NASA finds a Mars rock that definitely isn’t from Mars

NASA’s Perseverance Rover just stumbled on a rock that clearly didn’t originate on Mars — the space equivalent of finding a total stranger in your family photo. The 31-inch boulder, nicknamed “Phippsaksla,” sticks out like a sore thumb among the flat, dull Martian scenery. Scans revealed it’s packed with iron and nickel, the typical signature of a meteorite rather than a native Mars rock. These iron-nickel types usually form in the cores of massive asteroids, meaning this thing likely slammed into Mars a long time ago. It’s also the first meteorite Perseverance has ever spotted, so the rover is basically celebrating its own milestone discovery. Scientists still need to verify it, but if it’s truly an ancient interplanetary visitor, it could unlock clues about Mars’ early days — or at least give the rover something cooler to analyze than dust and lonely pebbles.

OTHER

At 63, Cruise Gets a “You’ll Get a Real One Soon” Trophy

Tom Cruise snagged an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards and immediately went full Tom Cruise mode: he simply wouldn’t leave. While everyone else bolted for the doors the second the event wrapped, Cruise hung around like an overexcited labrador at a fancy mixer — shaking hands, taking photos, chatting up anyone who made eye contact. An hour later, the ballroom was nearly deserted, crews were literally dismantling the stage, and Tom was still there beaming like it was the premiere of Mission: Impossible: Infinity. Someone even whispered, “Wait… he’s still here?” Oh, he absolutely was. At 63, he’s technically too young for the classic “you survived Hollywood” award, but they handed him one anyway — maybe hoping the shiny statue would distract him from dangling off aircraft for a bit.

The world’s most expensive street

London just claimed the title for the world’s priciest retail stretch. New Bond Street is now officially where wallets go to suffer, leapfrogging Milan and New York after rents surged an absurd 22% in a single year. The street is basically a luxury catwalk lined with names you either love or pretend to recognize — Burberry, Dior, Gucci, Louis Vuitton — with Sotheby’s chilling nearby like, “Sure, feel free to drop a casual million on art you don’t have a wall for.” Planning holiday shopping there? Adorable. Unless you belong to the “buys a new Rolex because it’s Tuesday” income class, stick to gazing through the windows. The glass is free — everything past it definitely isn’t.

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