Houston J. Hess

Avory Foundational ETF $AVRY | Director @AvoryCo. | Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing. Ex. Merrill Lynch, Deutsche. USF Football. *Not Advice

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

Very cool moment here at Avory & Co. Ringing the bell is just the start! Excited for this moment and what’s to come.

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

Here comes September. How has it performed?

Day by day, the share of days that closed positive for each date. The back half has carried more of the weakness.

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

Here comes September. How has it performed?

Since 1976 it is the only month with a negative average S&P 500 return, near minus 0.7 percent. The weakest month on the calendar.

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

Every path to midterms diverges.

SPX Aug 27 to election day, indexed to 100, over 8 cycles.

Average: +1.5%
Median: -0.6%
Positive: 4 of 8

Wide dispersion. Setup matters more than the calendar.

$SPY

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

Real wages are still positive.

Nominal AHE +3.2% Y/Y.
Truflation-adjusted real +1.4% Y/Y.
Core CPI-adjusted real +0.7% Y/Y.

Both measures. The consumer keeps working because the consumer is ahead of prices.

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

Low VIX is not complacency. It is a regime.

VIX 14.5 sits in Q2 of the historic distribution.

12M forward median SPX return in Q2: +11.6%.
Positive 89% of the time.

Calm markets pay.

$SPY $QQQ

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

The US consumer is not levered up.

Revolving credit card debt as a percent of disposable personal income: 5.7%.

2003 to 2019 average: 7.7%.

Incomes stretching further than headlines suggest.

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

Nvidia Q2 FY27.

$96.2B revenue in.
$59.7B net income out.
Data Center +117% Y/Y.

75% GM. 66% OM. AI ecosystem leaning on them harder, not less.

$NVDA

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

The backlog test.

Okta Q2 FY27:
Revenue +11%
cRPO +14%
RPO +17%

Backlog outrunning revenue. Exactly the shape the underwrite wants to see.

$OKTA

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

Real wages are still positive.

Nominal AHE +3.2% Y/Y.
Truflation-adjusted real +1.4% Y/Y.
Core CPI-adjusted real +0.7% Y/Y.

Both measures. The consumer keeps working because the consumer is ahead of prices.

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

The US consumer is not levered up.

Revolving credit card debt as a percent of disposable personal income: 5.7%.

2003 to 2019 average: 7.7%.

Incomes stretching further than headlines suggest.

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

Nvidia Q2 FY27.

$96.2B revenue in.
$59.7B net income out.
Data Center +117% Y/Y.

75% GM. 66% OM. AI ecosystem leaning on them harder, not less.

$NVDA

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

11 charts, one clear takeaway 📝

This week's newsletter:

• Software and AI aren't competing anymore
• Consumer, wages, and jobs are stable
• VIX regime historically bullish

Read and subscribe:
https://t.co/wAV6itf8GP

$NVDA $OKTA $ZM $CRM

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

We just published a new Around the Desk.

Software and AI are running together, not against each other. Sean walks the four layers of the AI stack and why the SaaS apocalypse trade was wrong.

Apple: https://t.co/oGzmnLHiw1

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

Interesting read from our desk.

Net interest hit $827B through June FY26. Now the #2 federal outlay, ahead of Medicare and Defense.

Why yield stability matters.

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

One from the desk.

Kimi K3 scored 60 on AA Intelligence Index. First open-weights model inside the top tier. Behind only Claude Opus 5 and Claude Fable 5.

Model labs getting squeezed from below.

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

Interesting one from our desk.

Anthropic passed OpenAI on Ramp's AI Index in May 2026. Now 43.5% vs 39.7%.

Lead has held for months.

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

NVDA reports tomorrow after close.

Last 4 quarters averaged a 5.2% beat, range 3.5-8.5%. Historical avg closer to 10%. Bogey is likely 3-5%.

Guide matters as much as the print.

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

Great data point we just discussed.

Median company on Ramp spends $11.95 per employee/month on AI, up from $2.32 a year ago. Top 1% at $7,400.

Real gap between who's using it at scale and who's not.

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

Interesting one from our desk.

Burry surfaced Etched last week and everyone's asking what it is. We've been on this for months.

Disaggregating the compute stack is closer than the market thinks.

[Houston J. Hess @HoustonAVORY]

Our Founder & CIO Sean is out with IWD 327. 13 charts.

Burry's puts got the headlines. Etched taping out Sohu with Meta was the story underneath.

📩 https://t.co/WZUUdNmrWC