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The company’s fortunes have been buoyed, curiously, by the U.S. jobs report-a document so routinely misinterpreted by markets that it now reads like a sacred text to the financially unmoored. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, in its infinite wisdom, reported 22,000 non-farm jobs added in August, a figure so far below the 75,000 forecast that it might as well have been a eulogy for economic optimism. Yet here we are, celebrating the apocalypse as a catalyst.

This decline wasn’t entirely random, mind you. No, it was fueled by two major forces: jobs data so weak it could barely hold up its own trousers, and insider sales that made investors wonder whether they were being sold snake oil-or perhaps something even less useful, like enchanted toads’ eyeballs.^[1]

Now, what could possibly account for such a kerfuffle? Ah, dear reader, the answer lies in a veritable cocktail of bearish catalysts. First up, the U.S. jobs report arrived like an unwelcome guest at a garden party, bearing news far less rosy than anticipated. Just 22,000 nonfarm jobs were added-a figure so paltry it would make even the most optimistic economist clutch their pearls. True, this softness does lend credence to whispers of an interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve, but investors, being the nervous Nellies they are, seem more concerned about the broader implications for the economy. A dashedly tricky situation, what!

Nektar’s rezpegaldesleukin, a promising contender in the battle against alopecia areata and atopic dermatitis, has been graced with not one but two fast-track designations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The first came in February for atopic dermatitis, and the second arrived like an encore at the end of July for severe to very severe alopecia areata. One might say the FDA has taken quite a shine to Nektar’s wares, though whether the market will follow suit remains to be seen.

The market, ever prone to orgiastic excess, has propelled Nvidia from $345 billion to $4 trillion with all the logic of a fever dream. Yet as the champagne of success settles, the perennial question arises: Is this the crescendo or the overture?

But lo and behold, dear reader, something *has* stirred the pot this fine morning. Shares popped more than 5% faster than you can say “ludicrous mode,” settling at a still-respectable 2.8% gain by midday. And why, you ask? Because Tesla just rolled out a pay package proposal for its ringmaster, Elon Musk, so audacious it makes Barnum & Bailey look like amateurs. Let me break it down for you, folks, because if there’s one thing I love more than money, it’s explaining how people make even more of it.