A growing number of developers and AI power users are taking to social media to accuse Anthropic of degrading the performance of Claude Opus 4.6 and Claude Code — intentionally or as an outcome of compute limits — arguing that the company’s flagship coding model feels less capable, less reliable and more wasteful with tokens than it did just weeks ago. The complaints have spread quickly on Github ...
A growing number of developers and AI power users are taking to social media to accuse Anthropic of degrading the performance of Claude Opus 4.6 and Claude Code — intentionally or as an outcome of compute limits — arguing that the company’s flagship coding model feels less capable, less reliable and more wasteful with tokens than it did just weeks ago. The complaints have spread quickly on Github , X and Reddit over the past several weeks, with several high-reach posts alleging that Claude has become worse at sustained reasoning, more likely to abandon tasks midway through, and more prone to hallucinations or contradictions. Some users have framed the issue as “AI shrinkflation” — the idea that customers are paying the same price for a weaker product. Others have gone further, suggesting Anthropic may be throttling or otherwise tuning Claude downward during periods of heavy demand. Those claims remain unproven, and Anthropic employees have publicly denied that the company degrades models to manage capacity. At the same time, Anthropic has acknowledged real changes to usage limits and reasoning defaults in recent weeks, which has made the broader debate more combustible. VentureBeat has reached out to Anthropic for further clarification on the recent accusations, including whether any recent changes to reasoning defaults, context handling, throttling behavior, inference parameters or benchmark methodology could help explain the spike in complaints. We have also asked how Anthropic explains the recent benchmark-related claims and whether it plans to publish additional data that could reassure customers. As of publication time, we are awaiting a response. Viral user complaints, including from an AMD Senior Director, argue Claude has become less capable One of the most detailed public complaints originated as a GitHub issue filed by Stella Laurenzo on April 2, 2026, whose LinkedIn profile identifies her as Senior Director in AMD’s AI group. In that post, Laurenzo wrote ...
Wife of Pawel Bukowski criticises care husband received over depression he suffered following failed procedure A man who took his own life was suffering from depression after a failed dental procedure in Turkey left him without any teeth, an inquest has heard. Pawel Bukowski, a 48-year-old forklift driver, had travelled to a private clinic in the country in January 2025 to have his teeth replaced ...
Wife of Pawel Bukowski criticises care husband received over depression he suffered following failed procedure A man who took his own life was suffering from depression after a failed dental procedure in Turkey left him without any teeth, an inquest has heard. Pawel Bukowski, a 48-year-old forklift driver, had travelled to a private clinic in the country in January 2025 to have his teeth replaced after suffering from periodontal disease, a chronic bacterial infection that can erode the gums and lead to tooth and bone loss. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie . In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org . In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...
Monty Rakusen/DigitalVision via Getty Images I keep waiting for people to notice copper. Gold is everywhere right now. Bitcoin dominates every financial headline. And copper? It hit record highs above $13,000 per metric ton earlier this year. An 84% one-year return for the Sprott Copper Miners ETF. Barely a whisper about it. Maybe that is actually the bullish signal. What Is COPP The Sprott Copper...
Monty Rakusen/DigitalVision via Getty Images I keep waiting for people to notice copper. Gold is everywhere right now. Bitcoin dominates every financial headline. And copper? It hit record highs above $13,000 per metric ton earlier this year. An 84% one-year return for the Sprott Copper Miners ETF. Barely a whisper about it. Maybe that is actually the bullish signal. What Is COPP The Sprott Copper Miners ETF tracks something called the Nasdaq Sprott Copper Miners Index. Sixty-one holdings. Almost all pure-play copper miners. Launched March 2024. About $288 million in AUM now. Expense ratio sits at 0.65%, the same as Global X’s COPX. Here is what caught my eye, though. Freeport-McMoRan is 28.21% of this thing. Twenty-eight percent. Teck Resources is second at 9.82%. Antofagasta is third at 9.23%. So you have one stock that is basically three times the size of everything else in the fund. I’d argue that is not accidental. Freeport is the biggest publicly traded copper miner on Earth. If you think copper goes higher, owning the king of copper isn’t crazy. COPP also holds physical copper through the Sprott Physical Copper Trust at about 3.76%. Nobody else does that. Not COPX. Not ICOP. Just COPP. The Returns Speak Sprott, ETF.com (April 2026) COPP was up 84.42% in the year ending March 31, 2026. Calendar year 2025 was 73.04%. Since inception? Cumulative NAV return of 112.72%. No, that pace doesn’t continue forever. But the Sharpe ratio over the trailing year came in at 1.96 versus 0.92 for the S&P 500. That is not a fluke. The upside capture ratio versus the S&P was 177%, while the downside capture was only 53%, which means COPP caught roughly twice the upside it took of the downside over that period. Favorable asymmetry like that gets my attention. YTD through March? Only 1.76%. March itself was brutal. Down 19.52% in one month. Volatility runs north of 40% annualized. Beta is 1.43. This is not the kind of fund you buy and forget about. You need to be comfortable watch...
If you're having trouble deciding on a color for a new MacBook Neo, you might not have to choose just one. The folks over at MacWorld found that Apple doesn't appear to limit the colors of spare parts you can buy for your Neo, potentially allowing you to deck out your indigo laptop with pink-tinted keyboard caps or a citrus green bottom cover. You'll have to pay for these spare parts on top of the...
If you're having trouble deciding on a color for a new MacBook Neo, you might not have to choose just one. The folks over at MacWorld found that Apple doesn't appear to limit the colors of spare parts you can buy for your Neo, potentially allowing you to deck out your indigo laptop with pink-tinted keyboard caps or a citrus green bottom cover. You'll have to pay for these spare parts on top of the Neo's $599 starting price , though. While the bottom case costs $34.32, the keyboard caps are $39, and the top case is $175.12 . A replacement for the entire keyboard is priced at $139.92 (with a $29.40 return credit). The MacBook Neo and its spare … Read the full story at The Verge.
Chevron Corp. is set to expand its oil footprint in Venezuela, benefitting from its almost 20-year bet to remain in the country amid political and economic turmoil. The government in Caracas will award the US oil major two additional oil fields in Western Venezuela as soon as Monday, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified ahead of an official announcement. Ven...
Chevron Corp. is set to expand its oil footprint in Venezuela, benefitting from its almost 20-year bet to remain in the country amid political and economic turmoil. The government in Caracas will award the US oil major two additional oil fields in Western Venezuela as soon as Monday, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified ahead of an official announcement. Venezuela’s plan to grant more acreage to Chevron, which Bloomberg first reported in February, comes amid a push to open up the nation’s energy industry to foreign investment and revive production. Since US forces captured Venezuela’s former President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, the Trump administration has lifted restrictions on outside investment and on the purchase of Venezuelan crude. The US-backed effort to restore Venezuela’s oil sector to its former position as one of the world’s leading crude exporters has received additional impetus in recent weeks from the Iran war and the resulting squeeze on Middle East crude supply and global energy prices. Chevron didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The imminent award of acreage to Chevron was reported earlier by Reuters, which said the company had agreed to return an offshore gas field to Venezuela as part of the deal. Reuters also reported that Shell Plc is on the cusp of signing an agreement to operate the Loran offshore gas field straddling the border between Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela. Chevron’s involvement in Venezuela dates back more than a century. While some other foreign oil companies such as Shell and Repsol SA have kept a toehold in the country, US rivals Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips were pushed out after their assets were expropriated. Since sanctions were imposed on the country eight years ago, Chevron has received US Treasury waivers, allowing it to keep drilling. Chevron holds four ventures in Venezuela: two in the Orinoco Belt and two in Zulia, the cradle of the country’s oil indu...
Getty Images I recently covered Lloyd's ( LYG ), another strong contender for quality banks found in the United Kingdom. In this article, I'll be tackling an analysis using similar and supplemental research for Barclays PLC ( BCS ), with the native ticker BARC. As usual, I do recommend investing natively (BARC in this case) where possible, but the company's NYSE ticker is a very liquid one - it me...
Getty Images I recently covered Lloyd's ( LYG ), another strong contender for quality banks found in the United Kingdom. In this article, I'll be tackling an analysis using similar and supplemental research for Barclays PLC ( BCS ), with the native ticker BARC. As usual, I do recommend investing natively (BARC in this case) where possible, but the company's NYSE ticker is a very liquid one - it means it can be easily invested in without much worry for liquidity, like we usually need to look at for a non-US company. Barclays seems to be a well-loved bank at this time. Seeking Alpha, Wall Street, and Quant all have this bank at a "Buy" rating - especially since the material deterioration in share price/valuation that we've seen since about mid-February 2026. We've recovered a bit, but the overall stance is that this is a good play. In this article, I will give you a from-the-ground-up look at Barclays, what I see in terms of overall appeal, and why I might not see the overall upside that other analysts see - at least not as big as they see it. While Barclays is fundamentally improved from the troubles it once had, I see the market as perhaps underestimating some of the risks the company comes with. This means that I view the company's price targets as lower than other analysts do. At Wolf of Value, I cover other financials and banks similar to Barclays that I consider to be more attractive than this one, as well as other interesting investments for both conservative, income-oriented investors and more growth-oriented investors. To say that Barclays' 20-year history is anything but fraught with challenges would be, in my view, a misrepresentation of the last two decades. If you had invested back during the GFC, you'd still be at negative return numbers today, even with all of the dividends that Barclays paid. It's therefore up to Barclays to convince us as investors that its losing streak (such as between 2013-2016) is over and we're now able to see long-term growth. F...
Tesla stock context after recent performance Tesla (TSLA) has drawn fresh attention after recent share moves, including a 1 day return of about 1% and a negative month return, prompting investors to reassess expectations around its electric vehicle and energy businesses. See our latest analysis for Tesla. At a share price of $348.95, Tesla’s near term share price performance has been weak, with a ...
Tesla stock context after recent performance Tesla (TSLA) has drawn fresh attention after recent share moves, including a 1 day return of about 1% and a negative month return, prompting investors to reassess expectations around its electric vehicle and energy businesses. See our latest analysis for Tesla. At a share price of $348.95, Tesla’s near term share price performance has been weak, with a 30 day share price return of 10.8% and a year to date share price return of 20.34%, even as its 1...
With its China business now franchised, Starbucks ( SBUX ) has less international exposure. Alongside a stabilized U.S. business, Jefferies upgraded the coffee chain to Hold from Underperform as visibility into its turnaround has “improved.” Starbucks’ ( SBUX ) international business represented ~33% of global system sales, 27% of revenue, and 25% of operating profit prior to the April 2 China tra...
With its China business now franchised, Starbucks ( SBUX ) has less international exposure. Alongside a stabilized U.S. business, Jefferies upgraded the coffee chain to Hold from Underperform as visibility into its turnaround has “improved.” Starbucks’ ( SBUX ) international business represented ~33% of global system sales, 27% of revenue, and 25% of operating profit prior to the April 2 China transaction, giving the company the least exposure to international markets than McDonald’s ( MCD ), Yum! Brands ( YUM ), Restaurant Brands ( QSR ), and Domino’s Pizza ( DPZ ). “We think there is somewhat low visibility into global growth accelerating meaningfully in out years, but the bar/expectations are set low enough,” said Jefferies’ Andy Barish, who models 1.5% net global growth in FY26 and 1.8% in FY27. With the company targeting ~2K global units in FY28 with 1.5K in international markets, this gets the company to 6% to 7% annual growth, while U.S. growth returns to ~2%. Barish’s neutral rating on Starbucks ( SBUX ), however, reflects an “unwarranted large premium to its global, asset-lite peers.” Nonetheless, expectations appear finally closer to realistic levels after the last 18 months of optimism since Brian Niccol became CEO. In addition to an upgrade, Barish raises his target price for Starbucks ( SBUX ) by 7% to $92, which is a 5% discount to Friday’s closing price. More on Starbucks Starbucks: The Financial Brew Sours Starbucks Corporation (SBUX) Shareholder/Analyst Call - Slideshow Starbucks: Full Price For A Half-Brewed Turnaround Starbucks Workers United accuses company of negotiating in bad faith -- update Starbucks taps Chipotle exec to lead coffeehouse design—report
Walmart (NASDAQ:WMT) and Costco (NASDAQ:COST) both posted strong quarterly results, though their dividend growth rates differ sharply. Walmart is a Dividend King with 52-plus consecutive years of increases. Costco is growing its regular payout at more than twice Walmart’s recent rate. Omnichannel Momentum vs. Membership Machine Walmart’s Q4 FY26 results showed a business firing across ... Walmart ...
Walmart (NASDAQ:WMT) and Costco (NASDAQ:COST) both posted strong quarterly results, though their dividend growth rates differ sharply. Walmart is a Dividend King with 52-plus consecutive years of increases. Costco is growing its regular payout at more than twice Walmart’s recent rate. Omnichannel Momentum vs. Membership Machine Walmart’s Q4 FY26 results showed a business firing across ... Walmart vs. Costco: One Dividend Is Growing Twice as Fast as the Other
The looming shortage of medicines and fertiliser is only going to get worse with the latest US blockade. Europe and the UK need to step up diplomatically Not our war, not our problem. For weeks now, that has been Europe’s increasingly confident position on the conflict in Iran: that it didn’t ask for this ill-judged fight, can hardly be expected to join in when it has no idea what war crimes Donal...
The looming shortage of medicines and fertiliser is only going to get worse with the latest US blockade. Europe and the UK need to step up diplomatically Not our war, not our problem. For weeks now, that has been Europe’s increasingly confident position on the conflict in Iran: that it didn’t ask for this ill-judged fight, can hardly be expected to join in when it has no idea what war crimes Donald Trump might be contemplating next, and certainly isn’t obliged to extricate him from his own wilfully deep hole. For Keir Starmer in particular, staying out of the war and letting slip his exasperation has been that rarest of prizes: a chance to do what the Labour party desperately wants to do, but which also happens to be both the right thing and the popular one . However, the trouble with “not our war, not our problem” is that, as of this weekend, only half of it remains true. Continue reading...
PM Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images The market so far in 2026 has been crazy, with commodity prices skyrocketing, particularly energy commodities ( XLE ), recently, with the war in Iran and the threat to the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz. Additionally, there seems to be a never-ending stream of scary headlines talking about the impending crash of private credit ( BIZD ), while at ...
PM Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images The market so far in 2026 has been crazy, with commodity prices skyrocketing, particularly energy commodities ( XLE ), recently, with the war in Iran and the threat to the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz. Additionally, there seems to be a never-ending stream of scary headlines talking about the impending crash of private credit ( BIZD ), while at the same time, there remains scant evidence of it among the large leading lenders in this space. On top of that, the US government continues to spend aggressively and run up massive deficits in the process, while the war in Ukraine rages on and the threat of conflict between the US and China in the Pacific, especially over Taiwan, and the alarming implications that would have for the AI trade and global economy, loom large. Not only that, but mega-cap tech stocks ( QQQ ) continue to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into capex with the hope of advancing AI's capabilities rapidly, which leads to the final point, which is that suddenly a sector that was expected to be a big winner from AI, namely software [IGV], is now deemed to be one of the most likely to be disrupted, leaving the segment lower, and even AI powerhouses like Palantir Technologies ( PLTR ) and Microsoft ( MSFT ) have seen their stocks flounder recently. This also piles on another reason for investors to doubt private credit, given that many BDC portfolios have significant exposure to software loans. With all those factors mingled into the mix, year-to-date, the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF ( SCHD ) is up sharply, thanks to its heavy concentration in energy prior to its recent reconstitution, while the S&P 500 ( SPY ) is flattish, due in part to its heavy exposure to software stocks, which are down significantly this year. Data by YCharts Inflation: Tame at the Core, Hot at the Pump Meanwhile, the most recent inflation reading shows that, on a core basis, inflation remains quite tame, though the headline...
onurdongel/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis Midstream companies hold a dear place in my heart. It’s one of the areas I like to write about the most and invest in as well. I haven't covered Plains All American Pipeline ( PAA ) before, but that changes today. The yield sits at a very compelling 7.76%, with PAA also reporting a 16.69% average growth rate for it over the past 5 years. Operati...
onurdongel/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis Midstream companies hold a dear place in my heart. It’s one of the areas I like to write about the most and invest in as well. I haven't covered Plains All American Pipeline ( PAA ) before, but that changes today. The yield sits at a very compelling 7.76%, with PAA also reporting a 16.69% average growth rate for it over the past 5 years. Operationally it's a beast, capable of continuing to pay out capital to unitholders. Even if the top line fell YoY, the operating costs fell faster, leading to resilient distributable cash flow figures still at $2 billion, converting to 13.4% of the current market cap. As if the yield wasn’t compelling enough to swing someone to buy, the v aluation looks discounted compared to the sector. This lowers the downside risk in the short and medium term for a larger correction. I’m rating units a Strong Buy as I begin coverage. Operational Overview Operationally, PAA has a pretty substantial footprint all across North America. This is also part of the moat for PAA. See the image below for the actual footprint, stretching from the north of Canada all the way to the U.S. Gulf. But crucially it has access to the Permian, Eagle Ford and Bakken. The moat, you ask - well, that comes from the logistical and regulatory pain that another company would have to go through to build out something like this as well. Last year, though, PAA did announce it was selling the Canadian NGL part of the business. It’ll still have a presence here through its crude oil assets, though. The argument provided by management is that this will help enable cash flows going towards areas of the business where the returns would be greater. As part of the sale PAA is looking at $3.75 billion in proceeds from this sale. PAA Footprint (PAA FY2025 10-K) Because of PAA being a midstream company, acting as the transportation from the well to the refinery, the revenues remain incredibly stable even through market turbulence lik...