Lana

economic forecasts, and American short-term bond yields are sitting higher than many other developed countries — both factors that should support the greenback.

So the fact that it's falling anyway suggests investors are factoring in the country's political risk.

Some folks are ditching US assets completely, but many are holding American stocks and selling the dollar.

If that becomes standard practice, the currency could have bleaker days ahead.

To make matters worse, a weaker dollar would make it more expensive for the US government to service its debt at a time when its IOUs are already worth more than the country's economy.

A weaker currency makes it more expensive for American companies to import goods from abroad.

And because they pass that cost on to shoppers, that can fire up inflation.

If the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates to tackle those price increases, that would lead to higher borrowing costs for you.

That's it for today.

I'm Lana.

I'll see you tomorrow.

Hey, I'm Lana with your daily brief for Friday, February 13th.

Coming up, SoftBank celebrated a year of straight profit and its star investment deserves a lot of the credit.

And investors quickly deemed three sectors to be at existential risk from AI and dumped the stocks before they got the chance to disappoint.

We'll also check in with Carl to get his answers to your burning questions.

More on the way, but first, a word from Guy at Finimize HQ.

SoftBank's quarterly results meant it stayed in the black all year, and it can thank its well-timed focus on OpenAI.

The Japanese tech investor made $1.6 billion in profit last quarter.

Even though that was shy of analysts' forecasts, it rounded up a year of turning a profit every quarter, a feat SoftBank last achieved in 2021.

For that most recent quarter, the firm owes OpenAI dinner.