Fake Takeover, $8M bet on Nvidia, BYD Land Rover, China's $1T surplus and Jesus to Return?
56th Edition
Greetings folks and a warm welcome to the 56th Edition of Friday Finance,
In 2024, FTX’s bankruptcy estate sold its stake in the AI company Anthropic for about $1.3 billion. Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX had put in $500 million in 2021, and the stake was described as about 8% of the company at the time of the sale. This week Anthropic set a price range for its IPO that would value it at up to $1.4 trillion. Trading is expected to start around November 19. At that valuation, an 8% stake would be worth about $112 billion, before the dilution from everything Anthropic has raised since. Its filing shows about $17 billion of revenue last quarter, or roughly $1.3 billion a week. Bankman-Fried is serving 25 years in prison. FTX would have made more money by just hanging on to their investments. Let's get right to it.
The Fake Takeover
TL;DR: A London investor with just under £70,000 of shares in Touchstone Exploration invented a £154 million cash bid for the company. He used 4 fake identities, an AOL email address and an American accent. The forged papers were posted from a high-street stationery shop, and he got a suspended sentence.
A London investor has been sentenced for inventing a £154 million takeover bid. Christopher Woolcott, 44, owned just under £70,000 of shares in Touchstone Exploration, an oil and gas company listed in London and Toronto. In 2024 a private equity firm called Griffon Partners offered to buy Touchstone for cash, at almost double its share price. Griffon Partners didn’t exist. Neither did “Simon Jones,” the partner who made the first approach from an AOL email address. Woolcott made up 4 identities, including a solicitor at a real law firm. He told investigators he used ChatGPT “for document templates and guidance,” and took the logos from Google.
He then met Touchstone’s chief executive, Paul Baay, at the May Fair Hotel in London. He called himself “Greg Thomas,” spoke with an American accent and said his client was skiing in Switzerland. He pushed the board to announce the deal publicly. Touchstone’s executives decided it was too good to be true. Even his own barrister called the paperwork “surprisingly amateurish.” If the bid had worked, Woolcott stood to make about £70,000 from selling his shares.
The Financial Conduct Authority traced the 3 phone numbers used by the fake bidders to a single handset. A parking payment put his car near the Ryman stationery shop in Blackheath that the documents were posted from. Woolcott pleaded guilty to fraud and 3 counts of forgery. On Tuesday he was given 2 years in prison, suspended for 2 years, plus 200 hours of unpaid work and £4,627.73 in costs. A psychological report found he had “found it exciting to pretend to be a different character.” Well no sh*t Sherlock.
The $8 Million Nvidia Bet
TL;DR: On October 12, someone paid about $8 million for put options betting Nvidia would fall. Then the Jensen Huang scandal broke and he resigned. The bet is now worth about $196 million, roughly 24x what it cost, and nobody knows who placed it.
On October 12, someone paid about $8 million for a bet that Nvidia’s shares would fall. Nvidia was trading at about $226. According to Macro Risk Advisors, the trader bought 180,000 put options at $150, expiring in January, and paid for part of them by selling 280,000 puts at $100. The trade makes the most money if Nvidia is at $100 in January, up to about $892 million. With Nvidia now around $166, Macro Risk Advisors estimates the position is worth about $196 million, roughly 24x what it cost. Nobody knows who placed it.
On October 29, the New York Times reported that Jensen Huang had a close relationship with Alice Huang, no relation, an executive at a Singapore company that reportedly bought $4.8 billion of Nvidia chips in 2 years. US officials believe she is a Chinese spy. She hasn’t been charged. On November 8, Huang published a letter saying he had been unfaithful to his wife. This week he resigned as chief executive. Finance chief Colette Kress is running the company for now. Huang has agreed to testify to Congress before Thanksgiving.
Nvidia was worth a record $5.78 trillion in early October. It is now worth about $4 trillion. About $490 billion of that loss came after the affair became public, and the rest in the wider sell-off of AI stocks. The bet still has 2 months to run. It also costs the holder about $880,000 a day in lost time value. I am curious as to why Jeff Bezos didn’t get the same treatment as Jensen Huang. In any event, it seems that 'sexpionage' dates back to the Cold War.
BYD’s Land Rover Lookalike
TL;DR: Jaguar Land Rover says BYD’s new 7-seat SUV is a “slavish imitation” of the Defender. It raided BYD’s Dutch offices and seized its files. This week a court sided with BYD and told JLR to destroy those files within 24 hours or pay €50,000 an hour. The BYD costs about £24,000 less, avoids the EU’s EV tariffs as a plug-in hybrid, and Chinese brands are heading for Canada next.
Jaguar Land Rover has taken BYD to court in the Netherlands, saying BYD’s new Ti7 SUV is a “slavish imitation” of the Land Rover Defender. In August, bailiffs acting for JLR raided BYD’s Dutch offices and seized digital records, including launch plans and technical data. JLR suspects BYD took apart a Defender to copy its technology. On Wednesday a court in The Hague sided with BYD. It ordered JLR to destroy the seized files within 24 hours or pay €50,000 an hour, up to €500,000. The court said JLR didn’t need them, because the Ti7 isn’t on sale in the EU yet. BYD’s lawyers called the raid a “fishing expedition.” JLR has started more proceedings in Rotterdam and The Hague.
The Ti7 goes on sale in the UK in January at £47,995. The plug-in Defender 110 starts at £71,840. That’s about £24,000 less for a 7-seat SUV with 402 horsepower. The Ti7 is a plug-in hybrid, so the EU’s extra tariffs on Chinese cars, which only cover fully electric models, don’t apply. The UK never added them. The Defender is still selling well, with 29,500 sold in the 3 months to September, up 16%. Range Rover sales fell 8% over the same period. In October, Chery’s Jaecoo was the UK’s bestselling car.
Chinese brands had a record 14.2% of Western Europe’s battery-electric car sales in the first 5 months of the year. They now sell more than 120 models in Europe, against about 100 from European brands. Canada is next. Under the deal Mark Carney struck with Xi Jinping in January, up to 49,000 Chinese-made EVs a year can come in at a tariff of about 6%, down from more than 100%. So far, most of them are Teslas built in Shanghai. BYD, Geely and Chery are reportedly preparing to start selling in Canada by the end of the year. BYD plans about 20 sales locations.
China’s $1 Trillion Surplus
TL;DR: China’s trade surplus passed $1 trillion in 10 months for the second year in a row, about $3.4 billion a day. October exports jumped 35%, led by chips (+137%) and cars (+38%). It is on track to beat last year’s $1.19 trillion record.
China’s trade surplus has passed $1 trillion for the second year in a row, and it’s only November. The surplus for the first 10 months of 2026 was $1.04 trillion. That’s about $3.4 billion a day. Last year’s full-year record was $1.19 trillion, and China is on track to beat it. In October alone, exports rose 35.2% from a year earlier and imports rose 41.6%. Both beat forecasts. Part of the jump is a low base, after US tariffs hit trade last year.
The surge is coming from AI and cars. Chinese chip exports rose 137% by value in October, and car exports rose 38%. Exports to the US rose 33% in October, despite the tariffs. China’s surplus with the US was about $266 billion in the first 10 months. Its surplus with the EU was more than $310 billion. Last year the EU’s deficit with China came to more than $1.1 billion a day. Exports to Germany rose 34% in October, while imports from Germany fell 3%.
Beijing says it doesn’t want a bigger surplus. Its economy relies on exports while demand at home stays weak, and growth is expected to come in at 4.5% to 5% this year. A Natixis economist said simply, “The situation is not sustainable.” The US–China trade truce runs until January, and trade is expected to come up when Trump and Xi meet at the APEC summit in Shenzhen. Moody’s Analytics expects exports to stay strong through the end of the year, unless the AI boom slows. Nothing says “economic independence” like checking with your Chinese supplier to see how much it will cost.
Jesus to return?
TL;DR: Prediction markets put a December Fed rate hike at 92%. They can’t agree on who will run Nvidia. Traders have also bet $68 million on whether Jesus returns before 2027.
Macro: will the Fed raise rates in December? Traders on Polymarket and Kalshi both put a 25 basis point hike in December at 92%, with about $43 million bet between them. Polymarket gives a bigger hike 5% and no change 3%. A cut is below 1%. The Fed already raised rates in September, to 3.75% to 4.00%. October’s inflation came in hotter than expected, with prices up 0.4% in a month and core prices up 0.3%. The decision is on December 9. Canadians can trade this one: Kalshi’s economic contracts are available through Wealthsimple Predict. Polymarket is blocked in BC, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.
Corporate: who will be Nvidia’s next CEO? The two exchanges disagree. On Polymarket on Friday, Arm’s chief executive Rene Haas led at 31%, ahead of Nvidia’s Ian Buck at 23% and interim chief executive Colette Kress at 11%. On Kalshi the day before, Buck led at 42% and Haas had just 7%. Haas ran part of Nvidia’s computing business from 2006 to 2013, and Nvidia tried to buy Arm in 2020. Buck runs Nvidia’s data centre computing business. Apple’s hardware chief, Johny Srouji, is at about 9% on both. Kalshi gives 63% that a permanent CEO is named before February.
Wildcard: will Jesus Christ return before 2027? Polymarket puts it at 1%. Traders have bet $68 million on it. The market only pays out “Yes” if the Second Coming happens by 11:59pm Eastern on December 31, confirmed by “a consensus of credible sources.” Most of the money is on “No.” A No share at 99 cents pays $1 if nothing happens in the next 7 weeks. That’s about a 1% return in 48 days, or roughly 8% a year, about double what the Fed pays.
Skims, Kim Kardashian’s shapewear (it's an actual thing) brand, is giving refunds on its $148 Advent calendar. It had 12 doors. Behind them were 4 keychains, 6 hair pins, 6 scrunchies, 3 hair ties, 2 hair clips, 2 bra-strap headbands and a stress toy. There was no Skims clothing in the box. That works out to about $12.33 a door. In the UK it cost £158. One TikTok unboxing passed 47 million views in 2 days. Skims says it has personally contacted every customer, and is offering a full refund or store credit. The company was valued at about $5 billion last year. Strange world we live in, when a Kardashian scandal was dwarfed by a tech CEO (I guess ex-CEO).
“Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.” — Charles Caleb Colton
Have a fantastic weekend. I welcome feedback and please forward this if you see fit.
Many thanks,
Sam.
Market Snapshots
Note: US stocks fell 0.4% on Thursday as bond yields jumped after the Veterans Day holiday. The 10-year Treasury yield climbed to about 5.12%. Fed officials including Cleveland’s Beth Hammack and San Francisco’s Mary Daly said rates need to go higher, and a December hike is now close to fully priced. On Friday, wholesale prices rose 0.3% in October, less than expected, but 6.5% from a year earlier, the biggest annual rise since 2022. Oil rose after Trump said the US doesn’t need a deal with Iran and the Houthis attacked Saudi oil sites. Gold fell almost 3% on Thursday. In Canada the TSX lost 275 points, and the loonie slipped to 70.15 US cents.
1 USD = 1.426 CAD at Thursday’s close.
Sources
The Block, crypto.news, ValueAddVC, IPOScouter, TechCrunch (opener); Financial Conduct Authority, Yahoo News UK, AML Intelligence (Touchstone); FT Alphaville citing Macro Risk Advisors, TechCrunch, Trending Topics (Nvidia); The Guardian via AOL, Electrek, Yahoo Finance, Claims Journal, Drive Tesla Canada (BYD); AP via WISH-TV, DW via Yahoo Finance, Trading Economics (China); Polymarket, Kalshi, Kalshi News, The National, Sahm Capital, Canadian Gaming Business, Money.ca (prediction markets); TMZ, advent.center (closer); Yahoo Finance, BNN Bloomberg, TheStreet, Finwire (market data).
Market data pulled Friday November 13, 2026 using November 12 closes, with Friday morning’s moves noted. Prediction market odds were read live on Polymarket and Kalshi on Friday morning, except Kalshi’s Nvidia CEO odds, which are from Thursday. Live items this edition. Anthropic’s IPO terms come from its filing and press reports and may change before pricing; the 8% stake has been diluted since 2024. No one has said who placed the Nvidia put trade. US officials’ belief that Alice Huang is a Chinese spy has not led to charges. The Touchstone case is closed with a guilty plea. Currency at Thursday’s close.
