Markets Wrap: Gold Rallies, AI Briefly Blows Up and the UK Market Still Needs Saving

The last two weeks in markets have been a strange loop: a hedge fund blew up, South Korean retail investors got margin-called, gold bounced around, and the Federal Reserve did nothing. Yet by the end of it all, the dominant mood is back to exuberance — momentum is running, AI is still the dream, and interest rates are expected to stay low. As Merryn puts it, "everything's changed and nothing has changed."

The Hedge Fund Blow-Up That Wasn't

The most dramatic single event was the near-collapse of a hedge fund run by a trader named Leonard Aschon Berger. He had borrowed heavily to bet on AI stocks, got margin-called, and was forced to sell his public equity holdings at a steep discount to Ken Griffin, the veteran hedge fund tycoon. The deal saved the fund, and Berger even dropped another half a billion on a private company and is still in business. Merryn notes dryly that if you're going to make this kind of mistake, "you should do it in your twenties because that'll stop you from doing it in your forties." The wedding he was about to have went ahead, and all bills were paid.