Good morning and welcome to First Trade. I’ll be hosting a discussion later today about the escalating debate around an AI bubble. First Trade contributor Will Edwards and I will break down both sides, and how to invest, depending on where you come out. Check out the livestream today at 2 p.m. ET.

Rundown

But first, a look at Japan’s tech cowboys.

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Market musings

SoftBank’s hail mary

Picture a team that, no matter what they do, commands all of the attention and ink of a captive media. They make splashy trades, blockbuster acquisitions, and have no problem cutting ties with outperformers in pursuit of greater dominance. They may not win all the time, but they’re always at the center of discussion.

No, I’m not talking about the Dallas Cowboys, although they certainly fit the bill.

I’m instead referring to the Japanese investing conglomerate SoftBank, which made typically large waves on Tuesday when it sold its entire stake in Nvidia.

The messaging on the company’s ensuing earnings call ended up boiling down to: “Don’t worry, we have a plan.” That will probably sound familiar to Cowboys fans used to owner Jerry Jones’ unapologetic approach to transactions. He is the unquestionable driving force behind all decisions, just like founder Masayoshi Son is for SoftBank.

SoftBank’s plan? To use the proceeds from the sale to continue investing heavily in OpenAI, as well as chip designer Ampere Computing, which it acquired in March.

The overarching message, at least as it relates to Ampere? We don’t need the pricey incumbent. We’ll develop our own, younger, less expensive version over time, and hopefully achieve the same result in the long run. (I can again hear all the Cowboys fans nodding knowingly.)

Of course, no comparison to the Cowboys can be complete without a discussion of actual performance.

The unequivocal high for SoftBank was its $20 million Alibaba investment, made in 2000. It paid off huge, blossoming into a $60 billion stake by 2014, a roughly 3,000-times return. The Cowboys also reached the peak of the pro football mountain in the 90s, winning the Super Bowl three times between 1992 and 1995.

But since their respective peaks, both parties lumbered along for years, unable to recapture their past greatness. Save for a COVID-era boom in 2020 and 2021, SoftBank stock has posted steady, if unremarkable gains. Its first Vision Fund ended up losing tens of billions, featuring underperforming investments like WeWork, OYO, and a $500 million robot-pizza startup called Zume.

The Cowboys had a similarly disappointing existence over the same period. They had some solid teams, but no true title contenders.

In 2025, however, SoftBank has been doing its best to buck the trend. Until a recent valuation-driven sell-off that rocked all AI- and tech-focused stocks, shares were up 195% year-to-date. It accomplished that largely by embracing the AI theme, which is what makes its offloading of Nvidia — the most successful AI stock — so risky.

It’s like the Cowboys starting a season 15-0, then trading their star player. There may be a method to the aggressive madness, and only time will tell which side of history they land on.

Ultimately, regardless of what happens, it’ll be entertaining and unique. Those qualities will always be baked into the SoftBank experience, for better or worse.

On the move

CoreWeave — a former darling that saw its stock run up as much as 359% after IPOing in March — has had a particularly tough couple of weeks in the market.

It first fell 25% in a matter of days, hit by a mass sell-off aimed at any AI-linked tech names with valuations viewed as overextended. But the most drastic blow came on Tuesday, when the company fell 16% after cutting its revenue forecast, citing the delay of a key data center.

Such is life for a high-flying AI stock these days. Investors seem to be punishing companies for lofty valuations first, and asking questions later. And when there’s an actual fundamental reason to sell, game over.

BI market mix

Culture confidential

Business Insider’s Will Edwards spotlights a hot trend dominating Wall Street and the finance industry.

Wall Street’s ubiquitous vests can elicit scoffs from those outside the finance world, but they are beloved within the ranks. But there’s one fashion accessory that divides opinions even within the industry: banker bags.

They’re standard, blue, cylindrical gym duffels that are customized with a firm’s branding. Banks give them out to their employees when they first start. What’s there to dislike?

A lot of it boils down to rank. More tenured bankers stick their nose up at the bags because they’ve become the unofficial signifier that one is an early-career analyst who hasn’t earned their stripes, yet is eager to show off where they work.

“If you’re fresh out of college and it’s like your first finance job, that’s fine. But if you’re over the age of 25 and you’re still rocking that thing, I don’t know,” one New York City influencer said in a video last year. “I think people think they’re a status symbol, but they’re just giving cringe.”

Or, as one of my banker friends put it: “They’re more akin to a five-year-old getting a cap when he joins his first tee-ball team than a high school senior getting a letterman jacket.”

Underneath all of the teasing, however, seems to be an appreciation for the Wall Street staple. Finance meme account Litquidity sells its own branded version of the bag. There’s also a cottage industry on eBay of people selling the bags secondhand.

Lisa McCullagh, the founder of bagmaker Scarborough and Tweed — whose first financial clients were JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs — told BI that the conversation around the bags is flattering, even if it sometimes takes a critical tone.

“They poke fun at themselves, but they do love it,” McCullagh, who gets orders for thousands of bags a year, said. “It’s like this little rite of passage into the community.”

After all, the bags are quite useful for people who often find themselves working long hours at the office. One banker told me that you typically put gym clothes into them, as well as a change of clothes for the evening hours when you want to wear a more comfortable outfit. Plus, they don’t wrinkle your clothes like putting them in a backpack would.

So, what do you guys think? I, for one, think they look pretty cool. I mean, the classic color schemes, the step and repeat branding on the handles — they’re timeless.

Joe, can we get some custom-made First Trade bags?

— Will Edwards

The First Trade team: Joe Ciolli, executive editor and anchor, in Chicago. Akin Oyedele, deputy editor, in New York. William Edwards, senior reporter, in New York. Steve Russolillo, chief news editor, in New York. Huileng Tan, senior reporter, in Singapore.

And just like that, the man behind the dumbest trade in the history of the NBA is out of a job. Who could’ve seen this coming? Nine months after Nico Harrison decided it was time to get out of the Luka Doncic business—still such a comically unfathomable, shortsighted move—Dallas Mavericks owner Patrick Dumont finally came to the conclusion that enough was enough on Tuesday. 

Before we get to what happens next, let’s recount just how disastrous Harrison’s tenure was. After making a couple of key trades that sprung Dallas to a surprising NBA Finals run in 2024, Harrison got high on his own supply and exchanged a 25-year-old with limitless ability for Anthony Davis, an injury-prone 31-year-old who got hurt immediately after the trade and has already missed half of this season with a sore calf. (Remembering all the details just made brain fluid leak from my nose: Only one first-round pick—a Los Angeles Lakers first in 2029—was in the package, and probable 2026 All-Star Austin Reaves was not included.)

In doing this deal, Harrison short-circuited his franchise’s lengthy runway by swapping it for what he claimed to be a three- or four-year championship window. A debatable assertion, at best. Defense matters. So does having a top-three player on your roster. Again, this was one year after the Mavericks made the Finals because Doncic was on the team. It still makes no sense, and it was understandably received with anger and disgust by a traumatized fan base that subsequently refused to give Harrison a moment of peace. “Fire Nico” chants have serenaded American Airlines Center on a nightly basis, as pretty much every decision he’s made since that fateful trade (hello, Quentin Grimes!) has also gone wrong.   

Now, on the heels of several reports about Dumont’s waning trust in Harrison as a general manager, the timing here is interesting. We’re not even a dozen games into the 2025-26 season, but the Mavericks have the second-worst offense in the league and, at 3-8, currently sit in 14th place. “Though the majority of the 2025-26 season remains to be played,” Dumont wrote in an open letter to Mavs fans, “this decision was critical to moving our franchise forward in a positive direction.”

Last night, Dallas lost a very winnable game to Milwaukee that, even in defeat, highlighted the immense promise of new franchise player Cooper Flagg. In the final minute of a one-possession game, head coach Jason Kidd put the ball in his star rookie’s hands and watched him get into the paint to draw a shooting foul on Kyle Kuzma. One play later, Flagg converted a gorgeous go-ahead layup through Giannis Antetokounmpo’s vertical contest. It was a level of craft no other 18-year-old on planet earth can match:

There are many reasons to fire Harrison, but the most meaningful one right now is that he’s the last person anyone should want in charge of a team that must now build around Flagg, whose development and future are far too precious to be undermined by someone so pot committed to the present. Harrison was the absolute worst man for this job, and getting rid of him is a notable step in the right direction for the organization, which would be lost beyond measure had the no. 1 pick not fallen into its lap. 

As of this writing, we don’t yet know how involved Dumont will be in his team’s personnel decisions or who will ultimately get appointed to shepherd Dallas’s basketball operations going forward; Mavericks executives Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi will reportedly be running the team on an interim basis. But whoever it is will not be beholden to Davis and Kyrie Irving like Harrison clearly was. 

This, obviously, is meaningful. Trading Davis before this year’s deadline is a no-brainer. After next summer’s draft, the Mavericks do not have control of their own first-round pick until 2031. They should do whatever they can to bottom out and pair Flagg and Dereck Lively II with another blue-chip prospect. What they can get for AD is a subject for another day, but the longer Dallas holds on to him, the more his trade value will diminish. Davis is extension eligible this summer and under contract for another two seasons before he can opt in or out of a $62.8 million player option in 2027-28. 

Dumont should not be let off the hook for twiddling his thumbs as Harrison took a wrecking ball to a franchise that had genuine momentum and a generational talent heading into his prime. But today’s move was definitely the right one, and it is a promising indication that he finally understands what’s going on. The Mavericks are now, officially, Cooper Flagg’s team.

As the government shutdown enters its 41st day, flight delays and cancellations are mounting at DFW and Love Field, where new FAA flight reductions are stranding travelers and stretching air traffic controllers who continue to work without pay.

On Monday, dozens more flights were reduced under the FAA’s new mandate, requiring airlines to cut schedules by 10% because of air traffic controller shortages amid the shutdown.

“Once I got in on Friday, I knew I was flying out Monday. It was going to be a little worse, and now I got here and 10 minutes before I was supposed to board, they cancelled my plane,” said Teddy Starnes, who was traveling to Boston for work.

Federal employees unpaid for over a month

These shortages come as controllers and TSA agents continue working without pay. Many federal employees have not been paid in over a month,  despite, in some cases, continuing to work overtime just like they had been prior to the shutdown.

“It’s frustrating, I feel bad for the people caught in the middle,” said Heather Moore, who lives in DFW but was in New Orleans for work. “The TSA workers, it’s nice that they’re still here, still working for us even though they’re not getting paid to do so, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll get back pay, but I just appreciate them.”

Air traffic was cut by 4% on Friday, but the FAA’s order will require that number to jump to 6% by Tuesday and 10% by Friday, if the government shutdown continues.

“The trouble is it’s going to get worse,” said aviation expert Kit Darby. “Ten percent is a fair amount, but as long as we don’t have anything else, like weather or communication outages, all the things that we’ve dealt with, but if you combine anything like weather with this, it’s going to be significant.”

FAA halts most non-commercial flights at DFW amid shutdown  

Monday, the FAA also closed most non-commercial air traffic at 12 major airports, including DFW. Darby said that this, on top of flight reductions, is going to have a large impact on the country.

“People don’t realize how many small airplanes are involved in our economy daily, so it’ll affect everything nationwide. You won’t realize it for a while, but these are responsible for a huge portion of our national business,” he said.

While the FAA’s order closes the airport to general aviation and non-scheduled aircraft, there are exceptions for emergencies, medical flights, law enforcement and military operations. But with holiday travel fast approaching, Darby said time is running out for airports to bounce back. The FAA order on non-commercial flights is in place until 6 p.m. Monday.  

“If there’s any way possible, they’re going to get back to full capacity for Thanksgiving, assuming that the shutdown ends quickly,” Darby said. “If it’s next week, it’s going to be even tougher, and of course, if it’s still going on, it’s going to be a real mess.”

CBS News Texas contacted UPS and FedEx regarding airport changes and whether they will be impacted, but both said most of their flights operate at night, so they will be able to continue operation without interruptions.