HigherIQ — Wednesday, January 28, 2026

Good morning... It's Wednesday, January 28th, 2026 and welcome to your HigherIQ briefing. Here's something worth knowing: about a quarter of people are natural early birds, roughly eight percent are true night owls, and the rest of us fall somewhere in between. The twist? This isn't really a choice. It's largely genetic. And yet society is basically designed for morning people—school starts early, most jobs do too, and "the early bird gets the worm" is literally a proverb. If you've ever felt like you're fighting your own body just to show up on time, you might not be lazy. You might just be wired differently. New research out today suggests your chronotype might matter more than you think—we'll come back to that. But first, let's talk about what's happening in the world—including a billionaire who just solved one of sports' most embarrassing problems. Starting next week, when Team USA heads to Milan for the Winter Olympics, something will be different. For the first time, every American Olympian and Paralympian will receive two hundred thousand dollars just for making the team. Not for winning. For showing up. Ross Stevens, a billionaire who runs Stone Ridge Holdings Group, put a hundred million dollars into the U.S. Olympic Foundation to make this happen. Here's why it matters: the United States is basically the only major country whose government doesn't fund its Olympic athletes. China provides lifetime stipends to medalists. South Korea exempts gold medalists from mandatory military service and pays them monthly pensions. Germany and Australia fund training centers, living expenses, and coaching. American Olympians? They survive on sponsorships, side jobs, and medal bonuses. Gold gets you thirty-seven thousand five hundred dollars. Silver, twenty-two five. Bronze, fifteen thousand. That's it. According to the Olympic Foundation, fifty-seven percent of U.S. athletes earn less than twenty-five thousand a year from their sport. When they retire — often in their late twenties — they've sacrificed the years when most people build careers and savings. Stevens structured this cleverly. Half the money doesn't arrive until twenty years after your Olympic appearance or when you turn forty-five. It's a forced retirement fund. The other half goes to your family when you die. Athletes earning over a million annually aren't eligible. The foundation notes that sixty percent of U.S. Olympic medals come from repeat athletes. Financial security, it turns out, helps people keep competing. One private citizen just did what the government wouldn't — which brings us to what governments are actually doing right now. Yesterday, India and the European Union finalized a free trade agreement covering two billion people and roughly a quarter of global GDP. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called it "the mother of all deals." This deal had been in negotiation since 2007. Nineteen years. What finally got it done? Partly Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which made Europe desperate for new partners. But mostly the United States slapping fifty percent tariffs on Indian goods and threatening Europe with its own punitive measures. The specifics: India drops tariffs on European cars from a hundred and ten percent to ten percent. Wine tariffs fall from a hundred fifty percent to twenty or thirty percent. Machinery, pharmaceuticals, chemicals — dramatic cuts across the board. In exchange, Europe eliminates duties on Indian textiles, leather, and gems. Indian officials expect six or seven million new jobs in textiles alone. Here's the bigger picture: India has been balancing between the U.S. and China for years. Europe has been America's most reliable partner. Now they're building infrastructure that routes around Washington. The EU has signed similar deals with Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, and Mercosur in the past year. They keep using the phrase "strategic autonomy." What that really means: we're tired of depending on an unpredictable partner. The deal won't take effect until early 2027, but the signal is immediate. Rules-based cooperation is alive. It just might not include us. Which raises a question: what does all this global reshuffling mean for your portfolio? The S&P 500 hit a new record yesterday. If you've been following headlines, you'd think everything is booming. But is the rally actually broad, or is it still just seven companies in a trench coat? The encouraging news: it's finally broadening. The S&P 500 Equal Weight Index — where every company counts the same regardless of size — has been outperforming the regular S&P 500 lately. Smaller and mid-cap companies are participating. That's healthier. When only the megas rise, it's a narrow rally that can reverse fast. When the whole market lifts, it usually means the economy underneath is actually doing okay, not just the AI trade. But the concentration hasn't disappeared. The Magnificent Seven still account for roughly thirty percent of the S&P 500 by weight. A hundred thousand dollars in an index fund means thirty thousand riding on just seven stocks. When people say "the market is up," they often mean "these seven stocks moved." Tonight matters. Microsoft, Meta, and Tesla report earnings after the bell. Apple reports Thursday. These results will show whether AI spending is translating into profits or if we've been pricing in a future that keeps getting pushed back. The Fed announces at two o'clock today — everyone expects them to hold rates steady. The real question is what Powell says about future cuts. His term ends in May, Trump is expected to name a replacement any day, and the June meeting would be the first under new leadership. Predicting Fed policy is now predicting politics. One buried data point: UnitedHealth dropped twenty percent yesterday after the administration proposed keeping Medicare Advantage rates flat. One company, one bad day, and the Dow went negative while everything else rallied. Even "diversified" indices can get wrecked by concentration. Consumer spending powers this economy, though — and how people spend is shifting in ways that might surprise you. New research from Cornell tracked what happens when people start taking GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. The headline: households spend about five percent less on groceries within six months. Savory snacks dropped ten percent. Sweets, baked goods, cookies — similar declines. But here's the twist. While people buy less food overall, they spend more per item. According to Circana, GLP-1 users actually outspend non-users in total — they're buying higher-quality food instead of more food. Eighty percent say they'll pay more for products with health benefits. Fresh fruit and yogurt are up. Protein bars are having a moment. And counterintuitively, GLP-1 users spend more at restaurants even though they eat out less often. When they go, they choose sit-down places over fast food. Fewer meals, better experiences. The food industry has noticed. Conagra is slapping "GLP-1 Friendly" on Healthy Choice packaging without changing anything about the product. Circana projects that households with GLP-1 users will account for thirty-five percent of food and beverage sales by 2030, up from twenty-three percent today. One caveat: about a third of people stopped taking the medication during the study. When they did, spending reverted to pre-medication levels — and some started buying more candy than before. The drugs work while you take them. The behavior change might not stick. That idea — that our habits shape our health in ways we don't always see — shows up in another study released today. Research published this morning in the Journal of the American Heart Association studied over three hundred thousand adults and found that night owls had seventy-nine percent higher rates of poor cardiovascular health compared to people with intermediate sleep patterns. They also had a sixteen percent higher risk of heart attack or stroke over fourteen years. Before you panic: the researchers note this isn't entirely about sleep timing. Night owls in the study were more likely to smoke, get inadequate sleep, and have poorer diets. Control for those factors and the risk drops considerably. The evening chronotype seems associated with behaviors that hurt your heart, not necessarily the late bedtime itself. The lead researcher put it this way: evening people often experience "circadian misalignment" — their internal clock doesn't match their daily schedule. If you're a natural night owl forced to wake at seven for work, your body is constantly fighting itself. The takeaway isn't to force yourself into becoming a morning person. It's that if you know you're an evening type, you might need to be more intentional about the stuff that comes easily to early risers: regular exercise, limiting alcohol, not skipping breakfast, getting enough total sleep even if it comes at odd hours. That's your Wednesday. The world is making deals without us, the stock market rally might finally be real, and Ozempic is reshaping how America eats. And if you're a night owl who's been beating yourself up about it—ease up. Your wiring isn't the problem. The behaviors are what you can control. Stay informed, stay curious, and go make someone at dinner a little smarter tonight. We'll see you Thursday.