Eye On The Market

Many client questions I received last week in California were laden with a sense of foreboding: third rail questions about the US Federal debt as ten year yields blow through the Bessent Maginot line, the elevated share of US market returns and growth attributable to AI, the sustainability of US equity markets close to all-time highs, Anthropic’s dire warnings about open weight models and cyber risks, rising stress in private credit and European deindustrialization. Watch the video

Over the last year, the Eye on the Market included views on sectors, rates and currencies. For this back-to-school piece, I prepared a rear window post-mortem on each. Watch the video

The Year of the Trojan Fire Horse: China’s imbalanced economy and unrelenting mercantilism While there’s plenty of evidence to support Stephen Roach’s thesis of unsustainable imbalances in China’s economy, China is living up to anthropomorphic characteristics of this year’s zodiac, the Fire Horse, in at least one regard: bold moves, self-reliance, speed, action and innovation in the energy transition. Watch the video

I mean pretty as an adverb, as in pretty cautious on cyber risks, open and closed weight challenges to the frontier labs seeking to go public and some market technicals related to AI. Watch the video

Semiquincententacles: The US grip on markets on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence Behold the Aquilaceph, half-bald eagle and half-octopus. On the semiquincentennial 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence, this imaginary beast is a metaphor for the continued US grip on financial markets. In this special issue we look at the details: US reserve currency status, capital flows, the much anticipated but still unprofitable “Sell America” trade, US corporate profitability and productivity in the age of AI, investing in Security & Resilience, equity market concentration, energy independence and the revival of the US IPO market. The biggest medium-term concerns for investors in US assets, other than the sustainability of the US Federal debt and cyclical inflationary pressures: the increased unpredictability in the rule of law, and government defunding of science and sidelining of scientific expertise. Watch the video

The new Fed chair Kevin Warsh, like Kevin McCallister in Home Alone, faces a lonely vigil: survive until the adults get home again. The latest on inflation, rising Treasury yields, shrinking equity risk premia and pressure from the White House. Also: investing in China’s home-grown AI ecosystem, and the predation in prediction markets. Watch the video

Abandon Ship! Topics: midterm elections, Spring thaw in US economic data, Strait of Hormuz oil rationing timeline, AI and data center update, Gulf State pipe dream, Congressional redistricting and Mythos update Summary: Despite improving US leading indicators and economic/stock market resilience, GOP House members are abandoning ship at a record pace. The midterm challenges for the GOP include declining blue-collar employment, soaring ACA premiums, a surge in commodity prices, rising inflation expectations and some unorthodox choices at the Department of Justice. Watch the video

Salem’s Lot: an update on the Gulf War. Topics include international commodity price pass-throughs to the US, the limits of energy independence, Gulf temperatures and their relevance to US military options, the proposed Iranian toll on the Strait of Hormuz, the cost per payload of asymmetric warfare and our commodity price tracker. Also: the history of Presidential firings of senior US military officers, and a US fossil fuel reliance fever dream. Watch the video

Fighting Words. This year we look at energy arguments, battles and debates: the impact of data centers on power prices, the cost of solar plus storage as baseload power, the “primary energy fallacy” that ignores waste heat, the true cost of small modular reactors, Germany’s decision to shut down nuclear, China’s dominance of renewable supply chains, solid oxide fuel cells as turbine alternatives, the materiality of demand response, staffing cuts at the EIA, the hype around geothermal and geologic hydrogen, the misplaced fascination with small country energy transitions, satellite vs factor-based oil & gas basin methane emissions, the mostly profitless EV industry, xAI mobile gas plant permits, negligible progress on carbon capture and renewable fuels, and the unfavorable economics of charging my Jeep Wrangler hybrid. Watch the video

New York City now has one of the tightest housing markets since 1960. Watch the video

In this year’s EOTM Outlook by Michael Cembalest, we focus on four risks: US power generation constraints, China on its own, Taiwan and hyperscaler profits. View video here

On the surface not much has changed since our last review two years ago. View video here

While the prior decade was defined by disruption in content distribution, the next decade will be defined by disruption in content creation, augmented by generative AI. This month’s Eye on the Market looks at the rapidly shifting fortunes in legacy cable/broadcast shares vs streaming, the rise of social media as a platform for consuming all forms of content, rising acceptance of user-generated content and the increasing democratization of text-to-video tools used to create it, the value of the legacy content moat in film/tv libraries and the best movies of the 21st century (as ranked by me). View video here

Mad Libs. This piece is not about how mad liberals are at the administration, although the latest polling data indicates that it could be. Instead, it’s a fill-in-the-blank exercise regarding the impact of tariffs and immigration policy on growth, the impact of Chinese critical mineral export restrictions, Oracle’s debt levels and borrowing capacity, central bank gold reserves and the gender balance of psychiatric medication. View video here

In this piece, we look at the AI and data center takeover, and the OpenAI-Oracle deal; the US government equity investment in Intel, the origins of TSMC and how many countries support national champions via industrial policy; efforts in China to reduce excess capacity and consequences for equity investors; crime and municipal solvency in Chicago and Illinois; how tight net new equity supply has been supporting US equity markets since 2011; and pictures from Chilliwack, Canada. View video here

Assessing US earnings and economic trends during one of the broadest policy shifts since FDR; partisan redistricting, the Supreme Court, the Census and the balance in the US House of Representatives. View video here

Every summer, I answer questions from the Eye on the Market client mailbag. View video here

Take a look back at 30 standout insights which are just as relevant for the future as they were for the past. Explore our insights

Throughout history, non-FDIC insured short-term dollar denominated debt redeemable at par on demand has been prone to runs, whether in money market funds, repos or uninsured deposits. Why would lightly regulated stablecoins be any different? View video here

A brief note on the debt and deficit impacts of the House budget reconciliation bill, Henery Hawk and Foghorn Leghorn. View video here

With some kind of tariff equilibrium possibly within reach, we return to some regularly scheduled programming: artificial intelligence and language models which were the primary drivers of equity markets before the trade wars began. View video here

Like his predecessor Robespierre, Dogespierre (Elon Musk) also brought down the proverbial guillotine with indiscriminate cuts to Federal employment, contracts, leases and grants. With Dogespierre now stepping back to spend more time on his core businesses, we take an early look at DOGE’s impact on US government spending, the likely overestimation of estimated savings, negative fiscal feedback loops from firing IRS workers, conflicts of interest and possible consequences of DOGE spending cuts. Also: the latest data from the Trump Tracker and some comments on the Spanish power outage. View video here

Straight talk from the CEO front lines on Liberation Day. Almost all the news on tariffs and declining CEO business confidence that’s fit to print, with only a few minor redactions. View video here

Here’s the interesting thing about the stock market: it cannot be indicted, arrested or deported; it cannot be intimidated, threatened or bullied; it has no gender, ethnicity or religion; it cannot be fired, furloughed or defunded; it cannot be primaried before the next midterm elections; and it cannot be seized, nationalized or invaded. It’s the ultimate voting machine, reflecting prospects for earnings growth, stability, liquidity, inflation, taxation and predictable rule of law. While market consensus assumed the administration would carefully balance inflationary, anti-growth policies with pro-growth policies, it has come storming out of the gate with more of the former than the latter. The only surprise is that it’s happening before 50 days has passed since the inauguration. View video here

Solar capacity is booming around the world, both utility scale and residential applications, and is often accompanied by energy storage whose costs are declining as well. Yet after $9 trillion globally over the last decade spent on wind, solar, electric vehicles, energy storage, electrified heat and power grids, the renewable transition is still a linear one; the renewable share of final energy consumption is slowly advancing at 0.3%-0.6% per year. Our 15th annual energy paper covers the speed of the transition, electrification, the changing planet, the high cost of decarbonization in Europe, nuclear power, the Los Angeles fires, Trump 2.0 energy policies, renewable aviation fuels, superconductivity, methane tracking and the continually wilting prospects for the hydrogen economy. View transcript View video here

From Here to Eternity: tracking Trump’s economic, market and constitutional milestones Whether you’re elated or despondent about the blizzard of changes taking place in Washington, let me remind you of something: two years is an eternity in US politics. In this month’s note, we include a Trump policy impact tracker, and an assessment of the statutory and constitutional challenges that Trump policies face as the administration explores the outer limits of executive power. View video here

Trump 2.0 is a hodgepodge of distinctly American political strains: the bare-knuckled nationalism and anti-elitism of Andrew Jackson, the tariff-loving protectionism of William McKinley, the small-government/pro-business policies of Calvin Coolidge, the unforgiving enemies lists of Richard Nixon, the deportation policies of Dwight Eisenhower, the manifest destiny of James Polk and the isolationism of 1914-era Woodrow Wilson. American First policies announced yesterday create risks for investors since its supply side benefits collide with its inflationary tendencies; there’s not a lot of room for error at a time of elevated US equity multiples. View video here

Deregulation, deportations, tariffs, tax cuts, cost cutting, crypto, oil & gas, medical freedom and Agency purges: What could possibly go wrong? Sections include the AI Golden Goose, the invisible nuclear renaissance, DOGE Quixote, the two China traps, Dr. Seuss goes to Europe, a crypto update and the 2025 Top Ten list. View the video here

I was visited by six ghosts recently warning me of dangers related to predictions, allocations, apparitions, legalizations, expurgations and ablations. Here’s what they said.View video here

A reflection on the 2024 election and who tells your story. On Trump’s victory: market implications of a supply side boost from deregulation clashing against inflationary impulses of tariffs and deportations. The ten year Treasury will be the most reliable barometer of all. To conclude, an ode to vaccines and an RFK bibliography.

For participants in the China equity rebound trade: once you hit your return targets, take the money and run. Click here to read the full PDF and view the video.

Candidate policy comparisons in a historically polarized US Election; China stimulus package The US is about to conduct its most polarized Presidential election in 100 years. Today’s note looks at candidate policy differences and implications for investors: government spending, taxation, tariffs, trade, immigration, regulation, NATO, energy, price controls and the Electoral College. We conclude with analysis of the China stimulus package, which might have a better chance of succeeding than recent failed efforts.

NVIDIA and its GPU customers are now a large driver of equity market returns, earnings growth, earnings revisions, industrial production and capital spending. View video here

A surge in the Japanese Yen is resulting in home repatriation of Yen-funded positions overseas, and close-out of Yen-funded positions abroad. While Google was found guilty of home bias anti-competitive search engine behavior, any judicial remedies may be worse for recipients of Google’s “shelf space” payments than for Google itself. Work-from-home trends have plateaued at ~30%, which has important implications for distressed office investors. Most distressed sales now require discounts of 60%+ vs pre-COVID levels; the fundamentals of the office sector explain why. View video here

From 1930 to 2010, there were six extended periods of small cap outperformance as it dominated large cap over that entire period. But since 2010, small cap sits alongside value stocks and non-US stocks in the unholy trinity of underperforming portfolio strategies. While poor profit fundamentals argue against a prolonged period of outperformance vs large cap, small cap stocks are at their cheapest levels in the 21st century with potential market and political catalysts in their favor. First, a few words on the CrowdStrike outage. View video here

The Supreme Court vs the Regulatory State. Recent Supreme Court rulings may now usher in the largest pushback on the regulatory state since the Reagan Administration. A look at the end of Chevron deference, a revised statute of limitations for challenging government regulations, the Major Questions Doctrine, the right to a jury trial and a District Court injunction against Biden’s LNG export moratorium.

Investing in professional sports leagues and related businesses. As rules around private equity ownership of sports leagues expand, we review team valuations and profitability, emerging sports categories, streaming and broadcast revenues, the decline of regional sports networks, drivers and comparisons of league parity, relegation and financial pressures in the English Premier League, stadium subsidies, sport betting and other adjacent businesses, antitrust issues, the esports winter, the worst teams that money can buy and the best basketball players of all time. View video here

With spring planting season having arrived in Zone 7, it’s a good time to review agriculture from an investor’s perspective. Topics include agricultural price inflation in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; public and private equity investments in agriculture, farmland ownership and the drivers of farmland returns; seed bio-engineering designed to reduce consumption of fertilizer, fungicide and water; and some satellite data on the immense agricultural damage occurring in Gaza and Israel. The Appendix addresses the avian flu’s impact on agriculture and the food supply. View transcript View video here

Cicadian Rhythms: the fading prospects of a US disinflationary boom; Japan’s structural reform/M&A emergence; and Eye on the Market mailbag responses to questions on Tesla/Musk, GLPs, housing, China, Truth Social and Meta’s latest open source model View video here

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: an investor lens on tech valuations, AI, energy and the US Presidential Election. View video here

This Eye on the Market is about the predominant vision for the future which involves the electrification of everything, powered by solar, wind, transmission and distributed energy storage. View video here

Five Easy Pieces: on Magnificent 7 stocks, open source large language models, the No Labels movement, the Armageddonists and bottom-fishing in Chinese equities. View video here

This Eye on the Market is about all the things that can be true at the same time. The collapse of the political middle in Congress should not be an excuse for everyone else to abandon the ability to believe things that may appear contradictory, but which are all part of a more complicated reality. View video here

A top ten list on what might happen… not what will happen, in honor of strategist Byron Wien View video here

The impact of weight loss drugs on equity markets. View video here

Falling US inflation and possible Fed easing are increasing talk of a soft landing rather than a hard landing and bear market. Our 2024 Outlook takes a closer look at equities, fixed income, China, Japan, antitrust, weight loss drugs and ten surprises for 2024. View transcript View the video here

A review on industry returns in private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, commercial real estate, infrastructure and private credit View video here

Six questions and answers on the intersection between geopolitics, US politics and financial markets View transcript View video here

Comments on NYC compared to 21 other US cities with respect to urban recovery, commercial real estate, mass transit, crime, outmigration, work-from-home trends, tax rates, economic pulse, fiscal health, unfunded pensions, energy prices, industry diversification and competitiveness. View transcript View video here View deck here

I asked Chat GPT-4 questions on economics, markets, energy and politics that my analysts and I worked on over the last two years. This piece reviews the results, along with the latest achievements and stumbles of generative AI models in the real world, and comments on the changing relationship between innovation, productivity and employment. View transcript View video and charts here