"So you aggregate the Mag7... you're talking like 20-30% of the overall S&P 500 buyback. So that's a huge point because... buybacks are like 7-8x the largest source of demand for equities over the past 15 years." -Charlie McElligott www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Trump picked a Fed chair he thinks he can count on. Three presidents thought the same thing. None got what they expected. The ghosts of Burns, Miller, and Martin (not to mention Powell) loom over Trump’s choice of Kevin Warsh. www.wsj.com/economy/cent...

“.. a simple chart of large cap US energy companies. In the words of a client who has been-there-and-done-that, we’re moving into the ‘revenge of the dinosaurs’ phase of the game now.” - GS desk #$XLE

‘In the past hundred years, whenever a currency’s value fell significantly vs. gold (in other words, it took more currency to buy gold, or “the gold price went up”), signs of “monetary inflation” erupted soon afterwards. This is what happened in 1973.‘ www.forbes.com/sites/nathan...

‘Big tech’s dramatic ramp-up in projected capex this year will all but wipe out free cash flow for Amazon, Google and Meta Platforms. That will force some of those companies to make some difficult choices such as whether to end stock buybacks or borrow more.’ www.theinformation.com/articles/cap...

The paradigm has shifted. Time to update your priors.

NEW POST: Another Changing Of The Guard thefelderreport.com/2026/02/07/a...

‘Natural gas has grown extremely volatile as US liquefied natural gas exports and the artificial intelligence boom supercharge demand.’ www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“A similar pattern emerged in 2000. After Tech peaked in March of that year, Consumer Staples, Utilities, and Healthcare rallied about 40% to 45%, even as Tech and Communications slumped 51.8% and 39.4%, respectively.” www.barrons.com/articles/tec...

’Big Tech’s AI push is bigger than the railroad expansion of the 1850s, the Apollo space program that put astronauts on the moon in the 1960s and the decadeslong build-out of the U.S. interstate highway system that ended in the 1970s.’ www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-s...

‘The era of tech buybacks has ended.’ www.dailychartbook.com/p/850 via @dailychartbook.bsky.social

‘The Mag Seven topped out vs the energy sector in December of 2025, at the same level it did back in October of 2020, when #$XLE bottomed and ran 250% over the next two years.’ www.dailychartbook.com/p/850 via @dailychartbook.bsky.social

“Energy funds see 2nd biggest weekly inflow ever.” www.dailychartbook.com/p/850 via @dailychartbook.bsky.social

'Across three AI companies where we have data (Anthropic, Minimax and Z.ai), compute accounts for more than salaries, marketing, and all other spending combined. Across all three, expenses were 2-3x larger than revenues.' epochai.substack.com/p/in-both-ch...

'The AI capex spending multiple has collapsed and gone negative.' paulkedrosky.com/chart-of-the...

‘Solid tech earnings mask a more concerning trend emerging: returns on invested capital among hyperscalers are starting to decline.’ blinks.bloomberg.com/news/stories...

‘The job-opening rate for finance workers reached 2% in December, the lowest since the survey began 15 years ago. In professional and business services, openings were at the lowest since April 2020, the early days of the pandemic.’ blinks.bloomberg.com/news/stories...

A widening gap between the VIX and individual S&P 500 stock volatility suggests stress may be spreading stock-by-stock, not just at the index—appearing near Nasdaq 100 highs. We break down what it could mean in the February Financial Forecast. tinyurl.com/44w5tbzs

‘Buybacks have been a major source of equity demand in recent years. But now, the landscape has shifted again as the biggest companies in the market started opt to spend their money on AI. And so companies themselves are no longer acting as volatility dampeners.’ www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

'It is important to keep in mind that the precious metals mania is just one extreme area of excess in the financial system. In cryptocurrency, private capital and indeed the current AI-fuelled stock market boom, periods of spectacular gains should act as red flags.’ www.ft.com/content/0397...

"Higher capex telegraphs that it may take longer for AI strategies to play out. Not welcome news for investors that are already fixated on when AI-related revenue will start to show up.” www.ft.com/content/0e7f...

B of A: “.. THIS IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST INFRASTRUCTURE/INVESTMENT THEMES OF OUR LIFETIME. Inflation adjusted.”

‘Bernie Sanders and Ron DeSantis don’t agree on much but the data-center boom is a rare exception. Vermont’s Democratic Socialist senator and Florida’s right-wing governor want to slam the brakes on the hundreds of new AI facilities springing up across the country.’ www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

“For DATs with no revenue, no operating business, and no way to exit their treasury positions without destroying the market for those positions, the drawdown is existential. We call this the Hotel California trade: You can check in, but you can’t check out.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

‘Inflation pressures are building, driven by higher wages, higher commodity prices and a weaker dollar.’ www.apolloacademy.com/inflation-ou...

‘The volume of leveraged loans to software companies considered distressed doubled in January. And the recent examples of private loans held near cost that were marked down dramatically shortly thereafter might have investors in a doubtful frame of mind.’ www.wsj.com/finance/inve...

‘We are now up to 8 Hindenburg Omen signals over the past six months, which is a pretty high reading.‘ www.mcoscillator.com/learning_cen...

‘Software makes up 13% of the Morningstar LSTA U.S. Leveraged Loan Index. The sector makes up an even larger percentage of private-credit loans made by asset managers directly to companies, with estimates putting the share at around 20% to a third of those loans.’ www.wsj.com/finance/inve...

‘Expressed in ounces of gold, the price of oil is near a record low.’ thedailyshot.com/2026/02/06/j... via @thedailyshot.bsky.social

'A weaker dollar will reduce the weight of American assets in global indices, forcing benchmark-hugging investors to sell them. That will further weaken the greenback, feeding a vicious cycle.' www.economist.com/finance-and-...

‘Altman’s frustration perfectly illustrates how AI companies have driven themselves into a corner. Either they can charge a hefty monthly fee to cut their losses and reassure investors or scare away users through annoying ads.‘ futurism.com/artificial-i...

‘If there is a danger of financial disruption, it comes from the effect on quant investors’ portfolios.‘ www.bloomberg.com/opinion/news...

I wrote about the crypto crash and why this is the worst crypto winter in the industry's history. Sub to the Odd Lots newsletter here www.bloomberg.com/account/news...

‘Europe’s largest asset manager Amundi is reducing its exposure to US dollar assets and turning to European and emerging markets, its chief executive has said.’ www.ft.com/content/20d0...

‘Investors and advisers to companies planning to go public this year are concerned not only about initial trading, but also that the standard six-month lockup period might prompt significant selling that pressures shares.’ www.wsj.com/finance/stoc...

“The real risk in private credit is not a sudden explosion, it’s a slow burn: losses that stay hidden for a long time, then show up quietly in lower returns, weaker insurer balance sheets and disappointed savers, without ever triggering a classic financial crisis.“ www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

‘While some buyers of gold and silver are motivated by narratives about the demise of fiat money, others just want to buy whatever has gone up. These return-chasing investors are pursuing a wealth-destroying strategy of “buy high, sell low.”’ www.acadian-asset.com/investment-i...

This seems important www.kedglobal.com/korean-chipm...

‘As for the GENIUS Act, having set the stage for another destructive experiment in free banking, it may well be remembered as the Reckless Idiot Act. The current US approach is a recipe for financial and economic instability.’ www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/c...

’Spending 40% of annual revenue on AI chips and related infrastructure is a sizable gamble. And that comes as the market is growing more worried about how AI will disrupt established tech players including many cloud software providers that are major customers of Google.’ www.wsj.com/tech/ai/goog...

‘Pundits have a long record of claiming that a new form of media had made advertising dollars recession-proof, only to be disproved by a subsequent downturn.’ www.economist.com/finance-and-...

China Trader Who Made $3 Billion on Gold Bets Big Against Silver www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

‘Japan’s policy makers need to stop battling symptoms like Yen depreciation or yield spikes and focus instead on confronting the underlying problem, which is the public debt overhang.’ robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/japans-fx-... by @robin-j-brooks.bsky.social

“This is a very split market. 16% of S&P 500 stocks are at 52 week highs while 5% are at 52 week lows. This only happened 3 other times: July 1990, August 2015, March 2025. Each were followed by at least a -10% #$SPX correction in the next 2 months.” www.dailychartbook.com/p/848

”Cyclical leadership is usually a positive for stock market returns; however, Energy leadership has been the exception. The S&P 500 has fallen at a greater than 7% annualize pace when Energy has been the top-performing sector, on average.” www.dailychartbook.com/p/848 via @dailychartbook.bsky.social

RENMAC: “.. While there is quite a bit of attention on AI driving layoffs, most of the reasons cited in this data set are about ‘closing,’ ‘economic conditions,’ ‘restructuring,’ and ‘loss of contract.’ AI is a comparatively small factor behind the January jump in layoff news.”

* US Companies Announce Most Job Cuts for Any January Since 2009 @bloomberg.com

remember that VIX is not a fear index (as many believe). it’s a temperature gauge of the market that informs of SPX is sick/weak or healthy/strong. the correct interpretation isn’t, “people are scared” it’s “something may be wrong”

Utter buying panic in Walmart. The stock now topping 43x forward earnings for the next 12 months. Echo of last year's momentum stampede into Costco (which peaked on Feb. 13)?