As Anthropic preps for its initial public offering, there’s a math puzzle not even its ultrafrontier models can solve: What’s the right price?

Not just the price of its eventual IPO (though that’s certainly top of mind these days), but also the price of using its suite of high-powered artificial intelligence tools. On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that Anthropic is in talks to pay $6 billion for startup Decart, which makes software that improves chip efficiency, reducing the cost of training and running AI. It’s a big sign that it’s reading the room on cheaper open-source models.

Cost in Space

More and more US firms are right-sizing their AI needs to lower-cost (and often Chinese-made) open-source AI models, Citi said in a note to clients this summer. Meanwhile, SpaceX’s xAI unit this week announced Grok 4.6, its latest AI model that scores dead even with OpenAI’s top model and just behind Anthropic’s ultra-powerful Opus 5 and Fable 5 Max models on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. Worse for Anthropic, xAI boldly broke into the frontier while offering its model at roughly half the cost of Anthropic’s best models, per the index.

Still, everyone is feeling the heat of AI costs these days. Even DeepSeek, which made its name as the first cheap open-source Chinese alternative to expensive flagship US models. On Thursday, the Chinese firm said it is upping the price of its models during “peak hours,” moving from a previous price of $0.87 per 1 million output tokens for the V4-Pro model to $3.96. It will cost half that during non-peak hours. Grok 4.6 is offered at $6, while Claude Opus 5 runs for $25.

The good news for Anthropic? It’s still the clear pack leader in the US:

• Anthropic held a 43% market share for US businesses spending on AI subscriptions and tokens in July, according to a recent report from expense management platform Ramp. That’s well up from just 21% in January, better than OpenAI’s 40% (a share now in decline), and trounces the 6% and 4% market shares held by Google and xAI, respectively.
• Overall AI adoption continues to rise, too; 55% of US businesses now spend on AI tools, per Ramp, up from 47% in January and 44% a year ago.

Finish Line: All roads still lead to an IPO, possibly as soon as October. Investors are expecting the company to float at a valuation of $2 trillion or more, according to a Financial Times report on Thursday, though Anthropic has yet to affix a valuation target of its own. That would beat the record IPO valuation notched in June by SpaceX, which has recently seen its share price rocket 40% above a post-IPO low.

There’s no doubt about it: Evaluating Medicare’s alphabet soup of coverage options is challenging. There are Parts A, B and D to consider, plus the Advantage route and the opportunity to source supplemental coverage via Medigap plans, each with its own pricing and coverage dynamics to consider. It’s no wonder 75% of survey respondents said selecting coverage was a confusing and frustrating process, according to eHealth, an online health insurance marketplace.

Despite the challenge, Medicare claiming must be part of the broader retirement planning process because of the significant impact healthcare costs can have on a client’s monthly cash flow, said Whitney Stidom, vice president of consumer enablement at the company. One key decision every retiree must make is whether to go with the all-in-one simplicity of Medicare Advantage or opt for the traditional Medicare route with a Medigap supplement.

Both options have merit, Stidom told Retirement Upside, but the right coverage depends on individual factors such as the client’s health, anticipated medical needs, preferred care providers, travel habits, retirement income and comfort with unpredictable expenses.

Advantage vs. Supplemental

Medicare Advantage, also known as Part C, replaces Original Medicare through private insurers and bundles hospital, medical and (usually) drug coverage with extra perks like dental and vision. Medicare supplement, aka Medigap, works alongside Original Medicare to help cover out-of-pocket costs like copays and deductibles, offering total doctor freedom without networks. Clients cannot have both, so they should consider the following:

• Medicare Advantage makes the most sense if they want low monthly upfront costs and bundled, everyday extras like dental and vision.
• Traditional Medicare plus a supplemental Medigap plan makes sense if they prioritize absolute freedom to choose doctors and predictable healthcare spending without network restrictions.

In practice, Medicare supplement plans are often a superior choice, according to Stidom. “These plans work alongside Original Medicare and cover many of the deductibles, copayments and coinsurance costs beneficiaries would otherwise pay,” she explained. “Although clients generally pay a higher monthly premium than they might with Medicare Advantage, Medicare supplement coverage can make healthcare expenses more predictable.”

Whatever route one chooses, enrollment timing is an important part of the decision. Clients generally receive a six-month Medicare supplement open enrollment period beginning when they are age 65 or older and enrolled in Medicare Part B. During this period, insurers generally cannot deny coverage or charge more based on the applicant’s health history. Afterward, Stidom warned, medical underwriting may apply, and some applicants could pay more or be denied coverage outright.

Don’t Sleep on Advantage. Though preferred by many advised clients, a Medicare supplement is not the right choice for everyone. Medicare Advantage plans may offer lower premiums, for example, alongside bundled prescription drug coverage and additional benefits that Original Medicare does not cover. “Whether beneficiaries are enrolled in a Medicare Advantage, supplement or Part D plan, it is key to comparison-shop plan options every year, specifically during the Medicare annual enrollment period from Oct. 15 through Dec. 7,” Stidom said.

This year’s breakout star in the ETF world is a small fund, one with just $45 million in assets.

The Breakwave Tanker Shipping ETF (BWET) returned over 1,700% this year as of Tuesday, making it by far the best-performing fund on the market. And, that’s no small feat, given the preponderance of double- and even triple-leveraged funds. The closest fund, by performance, is the GraniteShares 2x Long Dell Daily ETF (DLLL), which has returned 732% so far this year. Excluding the lengthy roster of leveraged funds, the next-best-returning fund has been the Arm Holdings PLC ADRHedged ETF (ARMH), which, at an impressive 132% is still less than one-tenth the returns of BWET. Still, the Tanker Shipping ETF is intended to be a highly specific trading tool, not necessarily a buy-and-hold investment.

“The [trading] volumes have been incredibly strong, but assets under management have not changed much in the last few months, which tells me that most of the folks are in and out,” said John Kartsonas, founder of Breakwave Advisors. It’s common for a day’s trading volume to be twice as high as the fund’s AUM, for example, “which is very unusual for an ETF, but it seems that there are a lot of people who like the volatility, who would like to take a short-term bet either way,” he said.

Break the Mold, Make Waves

The fund’s unique strategy of focusing on crude oil tanker freight futures rates has benefited from the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz amid the Iran war. “It is hard to find something more niche than this,” said Todd Sohn, chief ETF strategist for Baird Strategas. “People are probably looking at it as more of a proxy than putting major dollars to work … If it was anything else, if you had a semiconductor ETF up this much year to date, it would be seeing massive inflows.”

While the fund has been the top performer in 2026, there are plentiful instances of ETFs getting triple-digit rates of return during the first six months in given years, especially recent ones, data from Morningstar Direct show.

Some examples, excluding leveraged funds:

• In the first half of 2021, Grayscale’s Ethereum Classic Trust (ETCG) returned 899.5%, which appears to be the strongest first-half performance of all time. Breakwave’s Dry Shipping ETF (BDRY) returned 264% during that time.
• During the first half of 2026, BWET returned 683.8%, compared with 225.6% for ARMH.

Low-Flow Tank: There’s a big reason why BWET isn’t soaking up assets: An agreement with Iran to reopen the strait would dramatically change the price of oil, and crude oil freight futures. “You had this crisis starting in March, and everybody was expecting this to end relatively soon … But we’re six months into the conflict, and it seems like not much has changed,” Kartsonas said. “There is a lot of risk … If there is a normalization in the Strait of Hormuz, you would expect freight rates to come down, and that would affect freight futures as well.”