What you need to know on Wall Street right now

Finance Insider is Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours.

Pfizer just outbid numerous competitors for Medivation, a cancer drugmaker with just one approved drug.

The $14 billion deal, at $81.50 a share, is a notable premium to the $9.3 billion offer the pharma giant Sanofi had made earlier this year. Here's why the deal is such a game-changer.

Business Insider has just published a series of big picture pieces, and they're definitely worth a read.

• 'Hedge fund' doesn't mean anything anymore.
• Central bankers are doing something that hasn't happened in 5,000 years - and drastically changing the world economy.
• One move almost always sets off chaos in the currency market.

In other news, the newest stocks in the market have some good news for investors, hedge fund managers are waiting for the world to change, and Folger Hill Asset Management has lost a third of its assets.

In macro news, calling for more government spending has become a mainstream consensus view, and it's time to talk about "Fed watching."

The oil sell-off may not mean anything for the stock market, and energy companies are facing another huge problem.

Bonnie Baha, DoubleLine's director of global credit, has died.

Finally, Kobe Bryant has set up a $100 million venture capital fund.

Here are the top Wall Street headlines at midday:

BOUTIQUE BLOWOUT: 3 tiny firms will make a killing on a $14 billion pharma deal - Guggenheim Securities and Centerview Partners advised Pfizer on the deal, while JPMorgan and Evercore advised Medivation.

Costco's credit card nightmare just got even worse - Costco's marriage to Visa has been rocky pretty much from the start - and this weekend, shoppers faced a new problem, despite assurances that issues in the relationship were being ironed out.

Here's why Wall Street hasn't innovated anything since the ATM - Wall Street has a serious innovation problem.

Valeant poached a new CFO from the animal-health company Zoetis - The embattled drugmaker Valeant Pharmaceuticals is hiring a new chief financial officer from an animal-health company.

STIGLITZ: Italy could be the 'cataclysmic event' that leads to the fall of the eurozone - Europe is heading towards a "cataclysmic event" that could lead to the collapse of the euro and the end of the European project as we know it, according to Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Welcome to the 'self-driving car of finance' - Everyone is talking about blockchain.

TECH INVESTOR: We're in a huge bubble - but it's not what you think - What links Walmart's $3 billion purchase of Jet.com, Unilever buying up Dollar Shave Club for $1 billion, and GM buying Cruise for $1 billion?