Easy Markets
@easymarkets
Everything going on in Financial Markets.
July is on pace to be the worst month for Goldman Sachs’ basket of “retail favorites” since April 2022
For weeks, we have been writing about the risks to semiconductors and momentum-factor equities. The semiconductor sector is now -20% off its recent highs. See our latest note here: open.substack.com/pub/easymark...
Hedge Funds Most Bearish On Yen Since 2007 They Are Ramping Up Short Yen Positions
The technology sector carried returns in Q2. It was the first time only 1 sector outperformed the S&P 500 in a quarter.
Ten companies are now 43% of the S&P 500. The 250 smallest companies in the index? 8%. Combined.
Semiconductors = 16% of the entire US stock market More than 5x increase in weight since 2023
There is a lot of leverage beneath the surface. Margin debt has grown quite a bit in the last year.
Gold has faced short-term headwinds. The structural tailwinds of central bank and sovereign buying remain strong.
US net capital inflows surged to a record +$884 billion in the 12 months ending April 2026. This acts as a multiplier on US equities gains. The problem is it will add to the downside pressure when things finally reverse.
What a divergence: Inflation expectations have plunged, while the Fed has only become more hawkish.
All of big tech’s free cash flow is going to Semiconductor companies. An unsustainable trend.
Let’s not forget the big picture. US stocks are at all-time high valuations.
Micron beating earnings is a good reminder, their profits are someone else’s spending. Higher semi prices (and Korean exports) point to higher tech-related inflation.
Hyperscalers (big-tech) have severely underperformed semiconductors since the initial release of ChatGPT.
Over the past quarter century, buybacks and M&A have consistently reduced the supply of publicly listed US equities. That tailwind is slowly turning.
Wall Street Consensus for big-tech free cash flow. Investors are pricing a world where ‘every’ LLM is making a trillion in revenue. See our latest note: “Leveraged (unrealistic) Expectetions” open.substack.com/pub/easymark...
Part of the reason we never got $200 oil: The SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve) got massively drained.
We are living through 1 of the 2 largest investment booms in the history of the United States. Bigger than the internet. Bigger than the railroads. Bigger than Apollo.
Shelter disinflation has bottomed - this was a major contributor to the decline in CPI. Rent inflation was up 2.92% in May, after rising 2.79% in April and bottoming at 2.68% in February.
If you believe the AI hype, it’s going to need power. To power AI you need more infrastructure. Infrastructure requires materials.
51% of the S&P 500's market cap is in stocks trading above 10x sales. Half the index. However, there are cheap stocks still out there! See our latest Substack: “Rising Inflation and Cheap Bottlenecks” open.substack.com/pub/easymark...
US consumers almost out of savings: in the last 2 months, personal savings rate collapsed by 1% to 2.6%, just shy of all time low
Gold pain: "The public buys the most at the top and the least at the bottom." — Bob Farrell