Weyerhaeuser Company (WY) is one of the world’s largest private owners of timberlands and a major U.S. producer of wood products. The company manages millions of acres of timberlands across the U.S. and Canada, harvesting trees and turning them into lumber, oriented strand board, engineered wood products and other materials used in construction. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Weyerhaeuser has a market capitalization of roughly $16.1 billion.

Weyerhaeuser also generates revenue from timberland real estate, natural resources, energy and emerging climate solutions, giving the company several ways to monetize its vast land portfolio. That scale has pushed WY into “large-cap” territory, sitting comfortably above the commonly used $10 billion threshold for large-cap stocks.

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Shares of Weyerhaeuser have had a rough stretch lately. Shares are down 21.4% from their 52-week high of $27.75, reached on Feb. 12. The weakness has continued over the past three months, with WY stock falling 12%, while the S&P 500 Index ($SPX) has managed marginal gains over the same period.

And if you zoom out a little, the picture does not get much prettier. Over the past 52 weeks, WY has slipped 12.6%, even as the S&P 500 has climbed 14.3%. So far in 2026, the gap remains visible, with WY down 7.9% compared with a 10.3% gain for the broader index.

The technical picture adds another layer of caution. WY is trading below both its 50-day and 200-day moving averages, suggesting the stock remains under pressure.

Weyerhaeuser’s weak stock performance over the past year has largely reflected a problem that is bigger than the company itself – the U.S. housing market. After the post-COVID construction boom faded, higher mortgage rates and expensive financing have kept homebuilding activity under pressure. And with long-term rates still elevated, investors have little reason to expect a quick turnaround. Fewer homes being built ultimately means less demand for lumber and other wood products, which has weighed on expectations for WY’s earnings.

There is a bit of a twist, though. Lumber prices have recently bounced back as supply constraints tightened the market. That sounds encouraging, but investors appear more focused on whether those higher prices can last when residential construction and renovation activity remain soft. With demand recovery potentially stretching into 2027, the earnings outlook remains difficult to read.

Meanwhile, higher manufacturing and transportation costs have added another headache, while broader economic uncertainty has kept housing-linked stocks out of favor.

WY’s performance looks a little less concerning when you put it next to its peer Rayonier Inc. (RYN). While the two operate in the same broader space, RYN stock has also struggled, falling 7.4% YTD and 22.7% over the past 52 weeks. That means RYN has actually held up slightly better than WY so far in 2026, but its decline over the past year has been steeper, giving WY a slight edge over the longer timeframe.

Despite WY stock’s underperformance, analysts remain moderately optimistic. The stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from 13 analysts in coverage, and the mean price target of $30.42 represents a premium of 39.5% to current levels.

On the date of publication, Sristi Jayaswal did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com

Binance is expanding its derivatives offering into foreign exchange with the launch of 24/7 perpetual futures, starting with a US dollar-Brazilian real contract on Monday.

Unlike traditional FX markets, which close for the weekend, Binance’s contracts will trade continuously using a dual-mode pricing system. During regular FX trading hours, prices will track a weighted index from third-party data providers, while weekends and public holidays will use an orderbook-based pricing mechanism.

The USDBRLUSDT contract will go live on Sept. 21, settle in USDT and offer up to 100x leverage, according to a Friday announcement. Binance said the weekend system uses an exponentially weighted moving average of orderbook prices, rather than relying on external price feeds.

Binance trading head Shunyet Jan said the contracts are intended to extend price discovery beyond traditional FX trading hours, while giving traders a venue to hedge or take positions around the clock.

Related: Binance brushes off Lagarde MiCA speculation, reaffirms Europe commitment

Crypto exchanges expand into foreign exchange

The launch comes less than two weeks after Bybit introduced 24/7 perpetuals tracking EUR/USD, GBP/USD and USD/JPY, also settled in USDT and offering up to 100x leverage.

Other crypto exchanges entered the market earlier. Kraken launched FX perpetuals tracking the euro, British pound, Australian dollar, Japanese yen and Swiss franc in April 2025, with up to 50x leverage. The exchange had offered spot FX trading since 2020 and reported $5.7 billion in FX spot volume in the first part of 2025.

The products give crypto traders exposure to currency movements without owning the underlying currencies, tapping into a market that handles more trading than any other financial market. Global OTC FX turnover averaged $9.6 trillion a day in April 2025, according to a report from the Bank for International Settlements.

Magazine: Bitcoin treasury firms can outperform BTC… but is the risk worth taking?

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

Fake YouTube tutorials promoting AI-powered crypto arbitrage bots have tricked 224 victims into deploying malicious smart contracts that stole 274.6 ETH worth about $517,000.

TRM Labs said in a Sep. 14 report that the operation disguised malicious Ethereum contracts as automated trading tools built with Anthropic’s Claude, allowing the scammers to steal funds without relying on conventional phishing links or suspicious wallet approvals.

The blockchain intelligence firm traced 234 contracts deployed by victims, although the campaign affected 224 people because some participants created more than one contract. Funds taken through the contracts eventually reached six collection addresses controlled by the operators.

Based on ETH’s value when the transfers occurred, the 274.6 ETH stolen was worth approximately $517,000. TRM calculated a median loss of 1 ETH per incident, showing that the total did not depend on a single large victim.

Fake AI trading bot tutorials turned victims into contract deployers

Rather than sending users to a page that immediately requested access to their wallets, the operators presented the scheme as an educational process. Victims found the videos, followed the instructions, and took each onchain step themselves.

TRM identified nine nearly identical YouTube tutorials presented under different creator identities. AI-generated virtual hosts and voiceovers gave the videos the appearance of independent guides, while each tutorial promised to help viewers create a fully automated crypto arbitrage bot using Claude.

During the videos, users were told to copy code and open a compiler website selected by the presenter. Some of the websites copied the design of Remix, a commonly used browser-based development environment for writing and deploying Ethereum smart contracts.

Victims then connected their wallets, compiled what appeared to be trading software, and deployed the resulting contracts. Because the users initiated and approved each action, the transactions looked different from attacks in which a fraudulent site asks for a direct token allowance or an unclear signature.

Funding the newly deployed contracts completed the trap. Users believed they were supplying capital that the bot would use to exploit price differences between trading venues, but TRM found no arbitrage system or AI function in the malicious contract variant it examined.

The malicious contracts drained deposits above 0.05 ETH

In one version of the scheme, a backend script ignored the source code that victims pasted into the compiler. The website instead retrieved a separate contract from a server operated by the scammers and prepared the replacement for deployment.

As a result, the clean code displayed in the browser was never placed onchain. Victims saw one program on their screens while their wallets deployed another, preventing them from verifying the real contract through a visual check of the compiler window alone.

The replacement contract could accept ETH deposits, matching the expected behavior of a trading bot that needed funds to operate. Once its balance exceeded 0.05 ETH, however, the contract was set to transfer the money to an address controlled by the operators when the user selected either the Start or Withdraw function.

Both buttons therefore served the same purpose despite carrying labels associated with normal bot controls. Pressing Start did not activate a trading strategy, while pressing Withdraw did not return the deposited funds to the user.

No AI model interacted with the deployed contract, according to TRM’s findings. The Claude branding formed part of the sales pitch, while the onchain code only received deposits and moved qualifying balances to the scammers.

The method also reduced the chance that common wallet protections would interrupt the process. A wallet could accurately show that its owner was deploying a contract, sending ETH to it and later calling one of its functions, yet still lack the context needed to determine that the tutorial and compiler had misrepresented the code.

AI trading bot scam bypassed common phishing defenses

Traditional crypto phishing campaigns often depend on copied domains, poisoned search results or prompts that request broad token permissions. Blocklists and wallet simulations can sometimes identify a known malicious address, deceptive domain, or transaction that grants an attacker control over existing assets.

The AI trading bot operation used a different path because each victim became the deployer of a newly created contract. A fresh address would not necessarily appear on an existing blacklist, and the wallet owner authorized the deployment and funding transactions without surrendering a seed phrase.

In July, crypto.news explained how drainers commonly abuse legitimate blockchain permissions. Such tools often convince a user to approve a malicious contract, which can then transfer tokens while the blockchain processes the action as authorized.

The campaign described by TRM moved the deception one step earlier by controlling the code-generation and deployment process. Instead of asking victims to trust an existing contract, the tutorials convinced them that they were creating the software themselves.

A separate Hyperliquid phishing case in August showed how online advertising can also direct crypto users toward malicious infrastructure. One user lost about 550,000 USDC after a sponsored Google result led to a fake Hyperliquid website linked by security firm Salus to the Inferno drainer ecosystem.

Salus said the infrastructure in that incident automatically divided stolen funds among addresses connected to the operation. Investigators linked related groups to approximately $52.74 million in losses, showing how backend services can handle theft, swaps, consolidation, and revenue sharing while separate operators focus on attracting victims.

U.S. users can report crypto losses through the FBI

For U.S. users, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center accepts reports involving cryptocurrency fraud and other cyber-enabled crimes. The bureau says complaint data can help investigators identify connected cases, follow emerging methods and, in some situations, freeze stolen funds.

The FBI recorded $16.6 billion in reported internet-crime losses during 2024, up from $12.5 billion in 2023, according to figures published by the center. The agency advises victims to file reports even when they are unsure whether a complaint meets a specific crime category because submissions may be shared with federal, state, local, or international law enforcement agencies.

Onchain security groups have also increased their focus on attacks that use valid user actions to execute theft. In February, the Ethereum Foundation backed a Security Alliance engineer assigned to track and disrupt wallet drainers targeting Ethereum users.

Security Alliance cited data placing drainer-related losses at $84 million in 2025, the lowest level on record. Its security network includes MetaMask, Phantom, WalletConnect, and Backpack, which share threat intelligence designed to identify phishing campaigns and other malicious infrastructure.

AI researcher and investor Leopold Aschenbrenner is suspected of being behind the purchase of $96 million worth of SanDisk, Micron, Intel, and Marvell call options.

Aschenbrenner runs hedge fund Situational Awareness, most famous for losing billions of dollars during a sudden downturn in AI stock prices. It was a wipeout the Financial Times ranked as the largest in hedge fund history.

JPMorgan Chase subsequently terminated its lending relationship with the fund.

Although SEC filings haven’t yet disclosed the name of the buyer, Jim Cramer posted today, “If I didn’t know any better I would say Leopold is back!”

ZeroHedge agreed.

Options provide financial leverage by design, and their short time to maturity makes these contracts even more volatile. All these options expire on October 2.

Situational Awareness previously ran on leverage as high as 400%, growing from $225 million at launch in 2024 and soaring past $45 billion in July before liquidating assets in a fire sale to Ken Griffin’s Citadel. 

ZeroHedge listed four particularly bullish prints of October 2 expiry calls:

• $44 million worth of Micron $1,000 per share strikes
• $41 million worth of SanDisk $1,600 per share calls
• $11 million worth of calls on Intel and Marvell

Read more: Leopold Aschenbrenner is back to losing money in AI stocks

The theory that Aschenbrenner is behind these trades rests on pattern-matching, not definitive proof. Predictions are, after all, one the most popular activities on X.

How ‘back’ is Leopold Aschenbrenner?

First of all, it is true that Aschenbrenner has returned to buying options on AI stocks this month, generally speaking.

He’s previously proven his ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for his hedge fund, so the size of his portfolio could easily be sufficient to take on these positions.

Second, he’s fond of the AI industry and short-term financial leverage, so the trades certainly match his profile.

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Third, SanDisk and Micron in particular were Aschenbrenner’s two largest positions in his fund’s latest regulatory disclosure, so two matching tickers provides further pattern-matching.

CNBC reported on September 11 that Situational Awareness was also buying options this month, so options are certainly another clue.

After Situational Awareness lost billions of dollars and lost a JPMorgan relationship in July, the fund told investors it would rebuild. It mentioned potentially less risky products like FLEX options.

So far, if Aschenbrenner is actually the person behind these trades, his portfolio is probably doing well this week.

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Over the last five trading days, SanDisk is up 6%, Intel is up 3%, Micron is up 2%, and Marvell is up 1%. Although these gains are modest, leveraged products like options trade idiosyncratically, often amplifying losses and gains dramatically.

Situational Awareness’s SEC Form 13F for the third quarter of 2026 is due in mid-November, which might be the next time the public learns about Aschenbrenner’s precise stock picks.

Until then, social media commentators are happy to name the man behind the tape and imagine his day-to-day profitability.

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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