Trade Pact Sealed

The U.S. and Taiwan struck a key deal covering tariff cuts and investment boosts.

Author

Ankit Sinha
February 13, 2026

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🎯 In this issue:

  • Banana Bits: Finance headlines that actually matter

  • Market Summary: Tech earnings sent equities into another rout

  • What’s Ripe / Rotten: The tastiest and most disgusting stocks today

  • Technical Trip: Interview Q&A from Two Sigma

  • Lesson from the Library: See how leverage, cash flow, and timing shape returns — the true physics of private equity.

  • Deal Deep Dive: M&A, IPO, and transaction breakdowns

  • The Daily Poll: See how you stack up

  • Mentor Spotlight: Building a Sustainable Career in Finance

Market Snapshot

📉 Banana Bits

Market News

Tech Earnings Sent Equities Into Another Rout

Prices buckled across several asset classes as concern about tech profits and weakness in commodities sent stocks down the most in over three weeks.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 slipped 1.6% and 2%, respectively. Cisco Systems Inc. plunged 12% as a tepid margin outlook signaled that higher memory-chip prices are taking a toll. All megacaps fell, and an ETF tracking software firms slumped 2.7%.

Wall Street’s jitters over the outlook for the industry that has powered the bull market have grown despite solid results from megacaps, with traders dumping a broad range of tech shares amid mounting fears of disruption.

What's Ripe

Fastly Inc. (FSLY) 72.3%

  • FSLY soared 72% after the IT infrastructure company beat Wall Street’s fourth-quarter earnings target and issued solid guidance.

  • William Blair analyst Jonathan Ho upgraded the stock to Outperform from Market Perform, citing the boost in traffic that Fastly’s cloud platform is getting from large-language models and AI.

Equinix Inc. (EQIX) 10.4%

  • EQIX rallied 10%. The data-center real estate investment trust missed Wall Street’s fourth-quarter funds from operations per share target but issued strong annual revenue guidance, citing rising artificial-intelligence and cloud demand.

What's Rotten

Baxter International Inc. (BAX) 16.0%

  • BAX slumped 16% as the medical device maker fell well short of fourth-quarter earnings expectations.

AST SpaceMobile Inc. (ASTS) 15.2%

  • ASTS Dropped 15% to $82.22 as the company priced $1 billion worth of debt due in 2036 that can be converted into shares at around $116.30 apiece.

🧠 Technical Trip

Interview Q&A from Two Sigma

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📚 Lesson from the Library

🎥 LBO Dynamics: How Debt, Cash Flow & Returns Really Move

See how leverage, cash flow, and timing shape returns — the true physics of private equity.

🦈 Deal Dispatch

M&A, IPOs, And Other Notable Transactions

📊The Daily Poll

What’s the biggest impact of the US–Taiwan deal?

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Previous Poll:

Who’s likely to fuel the next deal boom?

PE funds: 50.5% // Big banks: 20.8% // Cash-rich firms: 17.8% // Everyone hunting: 10.9%

🌟 Mentor Spotlight

Building a Sustainable Career in Finance | Mentor Insights

👉 Check out more on WSO YouTube

Banana Brain Teaser

Previous

Team A and Team B are competing against each other in a game of tug-of-war. Team A, consisting of 3 males and 3 females, decides to line up male, female, male, female, male, female. The lineup that Team A chooses will be one of how many different possible lineups?

Answer: 36

Today

If n = (33)^43 + (43)^33, what is the units digit of n?

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Charlie Munger

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Happy Investing,
Chris, Vyom, Ankit, Mitchell, Fernanda, & Patrick