1/ Preview of a speculative hypothesis
hormuz > fertilizer shortage > vulnerable food supply chain > food insecurity > existing migratory pressures exacerbated > peripheral country crisis in EU
=mkts 📉
unassimilated immigrants + rise of Right > violent clashes in EU
=mkts 📉
Rates are the lever to stop the capex cycle.
As the capex spigot churns so too do earnings. As long as capital is bid for datacenter financing, the cycles continues.
Don’t fight the trend. Rates aren’t restrictive. The party continues.
Rates will call top.
Rates are the lever to stop the capex cycle.
As the capex spigot churns so too do earnings. As long as capital is bid for datacenter financing, the cycles continues.
Don’t fight the trend. Rates aren’t restrictive. The party continues.
Rates will call top.
I have been heavily invested in tech and in memory. Not as much as others with 100% exposure but enough to capitalize upon the theme.
This is 100% bubble. Miles Deutscher went from having crypto/BTC maxi in his bio to now being an AI extraordinaire. The top beckons.
The last three years have been a fascinating case study for how traditional “macro” may be broken. Ordinarily Andy’s logic would be right. We all have our different focuses. Macro investors aren’t supposed to be concerned by individual stock picks.
But, I’d argue, as I’ve argued repeatedly in the past, that AI was fundamentally different. That it was destined, even back in 2023 if not certainly by 2024, to be a first order end-all-be-all macro factor or driver, dominating the vicissitudes of traditional metrics macro investors are used to tracking.
As recent as early last year, some macro investors were still pushing back on the macro impact of AI by questioning the missing productivity impact of AI or challenging the GDP growth attributable to AI capex. I think it’s becoming increasingly clear today that AI has begun to consume all aspects of the economy.
AI is now a major locomotive for growth, directly and indirectly. Directly through the AI capex demand for construction, transportation, energy, materials. Indirectly AI creates demand through enormous wealth and income effects. Unlike other previous tech shocks, AI investment is on the order of US GDP.
The initial signs of what AI would eventually become appeared in corners of the US stock market as early as 2023-24 if one looked closely at how widely the beneficiaries straddled across so many sectors. The fact that NVDA revenue growth and stock appreciation were so explosive despite its already big size was a big sign.
But to really understand and appreciate the macro impact of AI, a macro investor would’ve needed to dig a little deeper into the actual tech of AI, the LLM transformer, and the physical infra requirements, and just the extraordinary sheer size of the buildout required to achieve the scaling that was being suggested by AI industry leaders.
Part of the reason the cycle has lasted as long as it did (remember people said the AI trade was done in Jan 2025 and then 2026?) is that it’s inherent wonkish. There’s a lot of highly technical details in the schematics of data centers and multi-layered compute supply chain.
This is very different from a consumer tech cycle which is much more demand side and the average user sees it and interacts with the product directly. The analogy with the late 90s internet buildout is helpful but also pales in comparison by sheer scale.
Anyway, to wrap up, I remember when I first raised this point a couple years ago I got the pushback: “he’s a macro investor, why would he care about single name stocks?” I think ordinarily this pushback would be exactly right. But in the case of AI, the single name stocks provided the early signals for this transformative tech revolution well before the traditional macro signals did.
It would’ve been (still is) beneficial for a macro investor to focus more on the development of AI than traditional macro metrics, which I’d still track albeit less closely, to get a more accurate and timely picture of the broader economy. AI is in everything and everything is AI now.
Gauss meets real life.
Also - Notice how people lifting 95 already say, “Fuck it, let’s do 100” - so there’s a discontinuity point.
Mathematical theory faces reality.
Imo several underpriced risks in the mkt currently:
1) end to the memory supercycle. Annihilation of software names curtails the bid to memory/semis — negative feedback loop
2) inflation risks underpriced in rates given where commodities are clearing
3) geopolitics
“Whenever you can in life, optimize for independence rather than pay. If you have independence and you’re accountable on your output, as opposed to your input — that’s the dream.”
-@naval
It is easy to interpret the vastness of the universe as a precondition for invalidating the meaning of life.
But it is the improbability of existence that gives life meaning.
Participating in the rare game of life is the greatest opportunity any of us will ever be given.
When you look at a large apartment building in passing, you see a representation of modern urbanization.
But if you pause for a moment, simply to digest the view, you’ll realize there are thousands of stories, experiences, and lives harbored there — many quite similar to you.