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• Renaissance Technologies has lost money in its two public funds for the year after a rough October.
• Quants started October on a losing streak but, on average, recovered by the end of the month.
• Early October felt similar to the summer troubles that stung many big-name quants.

October felt like summer for many quants — at first.

Last month started with one of the worst four-day trading periods on record for computer-run hedge funds, according to a Goldman Sachs client note, which said the average quant fund lost 1.8% through October’s first week.

For many quants, the painful start of October brought back memories of June and July, when systematic funds were slammed due to crowded trades, a momentum sell-off, and artificially inflated junk stocks.

Indeed, in the first week of October, Renaissance Technologies — the legendary quant firm founded by the late billionaire Jim Simons — had given away all of its gains on the year in its two biggest funds for external investors. According to HSBC’s Hedge Weekly report, the two funds finished the month in the red for the year.

Renaissance’s Institutional Equities fund was down more than 14% in October, and the strategy’s 2025 losses stand at 8.3%. The Diversified Alpha strategy lost more than 15% last month, putting its year-to-date losses at 10.5%.

Renaissance Technologies declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Paris-based Capital Fund Management’s two largest funds — Stratus and Discus — also lost money in October; the pair were down 1.3% and 2.9%, respectively, for the month, but still positive for the year at 6.5% and 1.2%, a person close to the firm told Business Insider.

Like this summer, the tides eventually turned in October for most funds. A Goldman note from the end of the month states that the last four days of trading in October were positive for quants, helping the average systematic fund finish the month flat.

Despite 2025’s choppiness, Goldman said, stock-trading quants are up 13% year-to-date.

Engineer’s Gate ended October slightly positive, gaining about 0.6%, putting its year-to-date gain at roughly 5.5%, two people familiar with the firm’s performance said. Qube’s flagship strategy was up 1.4% last month, according to a person close to the $34 billion London-based manager. The fund’s year-to-date figures are not known, and the firm declined to provide them.

Man Group’s Numeric Quantitative Alpha fund was flat for the month and is up more than 16% year-to-date. Marshall Wace’s TOPS fund reportedly returned 1.2% in October and has made close to 15% this year so far.

$9.4 billion Walleye’s quant portfolios were the biggest contributors to the firm’s 0.8% gain in October, the firm told investors in a monthly update, with “strength in Asia offsetting weakness in US exposures.”

• Apple launched Digital ID, letting users store their US passport in Apple Wallet.
• Digital ID works at TSA checkpoints in over 250 US airports.
• However, it doesn’t fully replace your physical passport.

Apple’s latest iPhone feature could save you from having to fumble for your passport while traveling.

The tech giant launched on Wednesday a way for iPhone and Apple Watch users to carry a virtual version of their US passport using information from the real thing. It can be used for domestic travel at TSA checkpoints at more than 250 US airports, the company said.

The new Digital ID feature in the latest version of iOS 26 adds passports to a range of government-issued IDs that can be included in the Apple Wallet. The iPhone maker touted the security and privacy of the feature.

“We’re excited to expand the ways users can store and present their identity — all with the security and privacy built into iPhone and Apple Watch,” Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet, said in the news release.

Apple said Digital ID expands access to virtual versions of government IDs and could present an additional ID option for people without Real ID-compliant identification. It can also be used to book some flights or hotels.

However, this new feature doesn’t mean you should leave your physical passport at home. Digital ID can’t be used for international travel or crossing borders, Apple said.

However, for domestic travel, Digital ID allows you to carry your passport, boarding pass, and ID all in one place on your iPhone or Apple Watch.

Here’s how to set it up.

Grab your passport and open up Apple Wallet

Apple Wallet is where you store your debit or credit cards, transit cards, boarding passes, and more. Starting Wednesday, your Digital ID can be found under the Driver’s License and ID card tab.

Before setting up Digital ID, make sure you have your passport in hand. You’ll need the physical copy to create your virtual one.

You’ll find out more about what Digital ID can do

Once you’ve confirmed that you want to proceed, Apple will provide you with information about Digital ID. Then, it’s time to open your US passport to the photo page and scan it with your iPhone’s back camera.

Keep your passport open

Turn to the back of your passport book, and find the barcode. Don’t worry if you, like me, don’t know where to find this; Apple displays a helpful image to guide you. Your phone should read the chip embedded in your passport.

Get ready to take a few selfies

To verify your identity, Apple requires a clear image of your face from multiple angles. This means taking a still photo, plus doing a few movements to get a proper scan.

I had to close my eyes, tilt my head from side to side, and smile before the verification was complete.

Wait for the verification to process

Now that all of your selfies and scans are complete, your verification should be processing. No need for further action — Apple will let you know once it’s done.

For me, it took only one minute to go through. Then, I was all set to use my Digital ID next time I travel domestically.

• The US Mint produced the final penny on Wednesday.
• The coin costs almost $0.04 to make, and ending production will save more than $50 million annually.
• There are still around 300 billion pennies in circulation.

It’s a sad day for piggy banks everywhere. And 99-cent stores. And parents trying to teach their children the most basic idiom about frugality.

On Wednesday, the US Mint produced the final penny, ending the coin’s 232-year-old life. Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach struck the last one-cent coin in Philadelphia, the US Mint said.

Born in Philadelphia in 1793, the penny had become a copper-coated emblem of government waste for some. The White House DOGE Office targeted the coin earlier this year, and politicians of both major parties have questioned its value. President Donald Trump criticized the penny in a Truth Social post in February.

The US Mint estimated that ending penny production will save $56 million in material costs every year, a spokesperson previously told Business Insider. Each $0.01 coin most recently cost almost $0.04 to produce, according to the US Mint.

Though production has ended, the US Mint said there are still around 300 billion pennies in circulation.

• For years, the pay TV business seemed to defy gravity.
• Even as people were flocking to the internet, cable TV subscriptions stayed in place.
• That’s no longer the case. The business has been eroding for a decade, and it just crossed a symbolic milestone.

You know that the cable TV industry is in steep decline.

You know it because of all the evidence around you. And you know it because we tell you about it over and over.

Still, sometimes you see a stat that helps put it all into even sharper perspective. Like this:

Fifteen years ago, nearly 9 in 10 US households had a pay TV subscription. By the end of 2025, that number will be down to five out of 10.

That estimate comes from Madison and Wall, the technology/media advisory firm. CEO Brian Wieser also helpfully shows what those stats — which include traditional pay TV providers like Comcast, and digital ones like YouTubeTV — look like in chart form:

(That 50.2% number is for Q3 of this year; Wieser thinks that should get down to 50% or lower by the end of December.)

Again, this is not news for people who invest in or operate media companies. It explains, for instance, why everyone from Comcast to Warner Bros. Discovery to A&E is trying to sell, spin off, or otherwise ditch most of their cable TV assets. (Larry and David Ellison’s Paramount, meanwhile, insists that it won’t spin off its cable channels, even while it acknowledges that “each quarter is accelerating decline.”)

It also has implications for advertisers, who stuck with TV for a long time, even when it became clear it was in decline, because that was a tried-and-true way of reaching a lot of people. No longer.

“Linear TV can still deliver high levels of reach and retains an outsized share of inventory, but higher levels of audience reach can be found elsewhere,” the Madison and Wall report published Tuesday notes. “As consumers migrate to streaming, endemic digital video, and even social video, those environments increasingly deliver similar awareness outcomes.”

As many TV executives, employees, and investors note, pay TV isn’t shutting down tomorrow — the business still makes money, even as it shrinks. Which reminds me a bit of my AOL’s dial-up internet business, which stuck around for many years after just about everyone had moved on to broadband.

AOL finally shut it down in September.

• Inference rolled out an open-science CEO named “Project AELLA.” The OnlyFans model Aella responded: “Lmfao.”
• Aella is a sex worker and Substack researcher whose theories have been praised by Marc Andreessen.
• CEO Sam Hogan changed the name and responded to Aella on X, “I didn’t know who you were until today.”

Inference CEO Sam Hogan announced the open-science initiative Project AELLA on Tuesday. Nine hours later, he changed it to Project OSSAS.

In the hours leading up to the change, Hogan learned that Aella wasn’t just the name of an “open-science initiative to make scientific research accessible via structured summaries created by LLMs,” as the company described it. It was also the name of a famous OnlyFans model, sex worker, and Substack researcher.

“Thank you to those who brought the context surrounding this name to our attention, and to our partners and the research community for their ongoing support,” Hogan wrote on X.

Aella reposted Hogan’s renaming: “Lmfao.”

In 2020, Aella was in the top 0.04% of OnlyFans creators in terms of monthly revenue generated, telling Business Insider that she made up to $100,000 a month. She is also an escort. On the “Dating Talk” podcast in February, Aella said that she charges $4,000 for the first hour, and then $1,000 for every additional hour.

Now, Aella makes most of her money through research, she said on the podcast. Aella launched the Substack “Knowingless,” which analyzes sex and relationships via data mining. Her approach has taken off within tech circles. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen called one of her ideas “fantastic.”

The naming debacle sparked a broader conversation between Hogan and Aella.

“I didn’t know who you were until today,” Hogan wrote. “Now I do! Love your work.”

“Your work seems great too!” Aella responded. “I love ppl working on making science better.”

Hogan’s Inference closed an $11.8 million seed round in October, per PitchBook. The round was led by Multicoin Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.

On LinkedIn, Hogan described Inference as “the world’s largest GPU cluster for LLM inference.”

The exchange between Hogan and Aella seems to have ended with an opportunity for collaboration. “Would be cool to do visualizations for some of your surveys,” Hogan wrote. Aella responded: “I’d love that!”

There are also signs that the name change itself may be short-lived.

“After seeing your work I don’t think naming this project AELLA is crazy at all,” Hogan wrote. “If you’re open to it, could we have your blessing to change the name back?”

Aella responded that he was welcome to, though “it might be confusing/googleable issues for people tho.”

She suggested an alternative: “maybe some mild modification AELLA-B or something idk?”

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