The dominant investment theme is shifting. For two decades, capital favored intangible assets like fintech and cloud computing. Now, investors are rotating into 'real things' with significant supply constraints, representing a complete reversal of the prevailing trend.
The complex effects of AI are causing traditional market relationships, like yields reacting to economic surprises, to break down. In this new regime, broad diversification and passive strategies are ineffective as winners and losers become more distinct and dispersion explodes.
Benchmark revisions to 2025 jobs data show the labor market was significantly weaker than initially reported. This suggests a 'Main Street recession' occurred, which was papered over by massive AI capital expenditures and spending by top-percentile earners.
A key real-time indicator of crypto's viability is the action of its miners. Many are pivoting to provide power for AI infrastructure, signaling that economic incentives are currently superior in centralized AI. This represents a direct power struggle between the two ecosystems.
As AI investment boosts corporate margins, its negative impact on the labor market is becoming more pronounced. This creates a politically dangerous situation, especially in an election year, suggesting the 'backstop' for the AI boom is less certain than markets have priced in.
For the first time, the high-multiple software industry faces a potential existential threat from AI. Even the possibility of disruption is enough to compress valuations, causing massive dispersion where indices look calm but underlying sectors are experiencing extreme rotation.
Capital consolidation into a few mega-platform hedge funds causes market narratives to form and get priced-in 'light years faster' than before. This leads to sentiment becoming quickly overdone, creating opportunities for traders who can anticipate and trade these rapid shifts.
The current market shows extreme dispersion, with different indices peaking on different days. This indicates an insufficient liquidity regime where there isn't enough capital to support a broad rally, forcing liquidity to rotate between specific pockets and increasing market vulnerability.
A rare signal has triggered: the ISM PMI crossed 50 and manufacturing payrolls turned positive after a long downturn. Backtesting shows this combination has consistently preceded strong 12-month performance in 'real economy' sectors like materials, industrials, and energy.
The AI boom creates a cascading investment thesis. As component makers (e.g., memory stocks) see valuations soar, they will use their enriched stock as currency to invest heavily in their own supply bottlenecks, which are fundamental raw materials like rare metals and chemicals.