Week ending 9 October 2026

Nasdaq 100: +0.24%
S&P 500: +1.15%
My portfolio: −0.11%

Market pulse

American equities finished a volatile week higher, although gains were uneven. The Nasdaq 100 advanced 0.24%, while the S&P 500 gained 1.15%. Easing oil concerns, relief in Treasury yields and optimism ahead of earnings supported the early-week rally, taking the S&P 500 to a record closing high on Tuesday. Renewed pressure on bonds and semiconductor shares interrupted that momentum before Friday’s rebound.

AI investment remained central to market sentiment, but confidence became more selective. Thursday’s report that OpenAI’s annualised revenue was lower than previously indicated prompted renewed questions about the revenues supporting enormous infrastructure commitments. Differences in how the figures were measured complicated the comparison, but the report still triggered selling across semiconductor shares. Palantir and Alibaba moved in the opposite direction as bullish analyst calls strengthened confidence in their AI growth and profitability prospects.

Oil repeatedly disrupted the market’s advance. Brent crude rose 4.1% to $104.28 on Thursday as Middle Eastern shipping risks combined with production shutdowns ahead of Hurricane Isaias in the U.S. Gulf. Trump’s comments about productive discussions with Iran and avoiding attacks before the midterm elections provided some relief, helping oil retreat from its intraday highs. Energy costs nevertheless remained elevated, leaving a continuing threat to inflation and corporate margins.

Crowd vs. price

The week highlighted how differently investors valued the various parts of the AI investment story. Palantir and Alibaba benefited from greater confidence in future growth and profits, while semiconductor holdings faced tougher questions about financing, capacity and the durability of exceptional earnings. Samsung’s record profit forecast was insufficient to lift its shares, and a sharply higher analyst target offered Micron only temporary support. Investors remained willing to pay for AI growth, but expectations about how spending would translate into lasting profits increasingly determined which companies were rewarded.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

Palantir: +10.75%

Palantir advanced as two bullish analyst calls strengthened confidence in its AI growth prospects. Goldman Sachs upgraded the shares to Buy on Thursday while retaining its $230 price target, citing opportunities in customised applications and AI systems that allow customers to retain control of their data. Barclays subsequently initiated Overweight coverage with a $265 target, helping the stock rise 5.17% on Friday. The calls reinforced expectations that Palantir could expand its role among government and commercial customers seeking to apply AI to their own operations.

Read more

Nasdaq 100: +0.65%
S&P 500: −0.27%
My portfolio: +0.69%

Market pulse

American equities finished a volatile week with mixed results. The Nasdaq 100 gained 0.65%, while the S&P 500 declined 0.27%. AI investment continued to support technology shares, but rising Treasury yields and uncertainty surrounding Iran and oil supplies weighed on the broader market. Softer inflation and employment figures provided relief, culminating in Friday’s rebound.

AI infrastructure remained the strongest source of optimism. Anthropic’s IPO disclosures outlined $518 billion in computing and infrastructure commitments over coming years, reinforcing expectations for sustained semiconductor demand. ASML benefited from the resulting rally in European chip stocks. Micron’s strong results and revenue outlook added support on Thursday, while Friday’s reports that Broadcom was arranging approximately $60 billion in financing for customers’ AI-chip purchases strengthened expectations for demand flowing through TSMC’s factories.

Oil and diplomacy repeatedly interrupted that optimism. Trump’s rejection of an Iranian peace proposal helped trigger Monday’s selloff, as investors reassessed the prospects for easing disruption in the Middle East. Shipping risks and uncertain negotiations kept energy costs central to the inflation outlook. Treasury yields remained under pressure, with the ten-year yield reaching approximately 5.34% on Thursday, its highest level since 2002.

Economic data nevertheless reduced expectations of an immediate further increase in interest rates. Wednesday’s inflation figures were softer than expected, while Friday’s employment report showed just 29,000 additional jobs in September and downward revisions to previous months. The weaker hiring figures reduced expectations of an October Fed hike and supported a strong finish for equities. Relief in the bond market proved less durable, leaving high borrowing costs as an unresolved challenge.

Crowd vs. price

The week highlighted investors’ willingness to price substantial future AI demand before it becomes recognised revenue. Anthropic’s spending commitments and Broadcom’s proposed financing supported semiconductor shares by strengthening expectations for future orders. SpaceX’s successful launches offered a more immediate demonstration of execution. Elsewhere, Netflix’s engagement concerns and Alibaba’s heavy investment requirements showed that enthusiasm for growth remained selective. Investors continued to reward expansion, but the route from spending and adoption to profits mattered increasingly as bond yields rose.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

ASML: +8.56%

ASML’s Amsterdam-listed shares rose as Anthropic’s computing commitments reinforced confidence in sustained AI infrastructure investment. Reports of potential additional TSMC capacity provided further support for expectations of future chipmaking-equipment demand, although the expansion details and resulting orders remained unconfirmed. Tuesday’s semiconductor rally supplied a substantial part of the advance. Friday’s broader technology gains added momentum as weaker U.S. employment data reduced expectations of an imminent Fed rate increase.

Read more

Nasdaq 100: +3.25%
S&P 500: +1.21%
My portfolio: +3.16%

Market pulse

American equities advanced, with technology again setting the pace. The Nasdaq 100 rose 3.25%, comfortably ahead of the S&P 500’s 1.21% gain. Renewed enthusiasm for AI applications and the computing infrastructure behind them supplied the strongest support. The week also exposed the limits of that optimism: rising bond yields and renewed inflation concerns repeatedly interrupted the advance.

The clearest positive catalyst was the rapid adoption of Meta’s Muse AI assistant. Reuters reported 2.8 million downloads in its first two weeks, strengthening expectations for a new source of commercial revenue. Investors also reassessed the processing capacity needed by increasingly autonomous AI agents. Meta, Intel and AMD rallied sharply on Monday, while the semiconductor index gained 4.3%. Meta Connect subsequently extended that narrative through new devices and additional commerce partnerships.

Oil and diplomacy remained important sources of volatility. Falling crude prices and Treasury yields helped Monday’s advance, as investors considered the possibility of improved Middle Eastern supply and progress in negotiations. That relief proved fragile. Oil rebounded as uncertainty over Iran and shipping routes persisted, keeping energy costs central to the inflation outlook. The market continued to respond to changes in the prospects for de-escalation.

Economic strength complicated the interest-rate outlook. Wednesday’s flash composite PMI reached 58.4, its highest level since July 2021, while Federal Reserve Governor Michael Barr stressed that inflation was still too high and further policy adjustments were likely to be needed. Treasury yields rose, increasing the pressure on equity valuations. Following the previous week’s rate increase, investors were assessing how much additional tightening might follow. Strong activity supported the earnings outlook while limiting the prospect of relief from borrowing costs.

Crowd vs. price

The week rewarded evidence that a promising technology could find an audience and create additional demand. Meta’s early adoption figures strengthened its commercialization story, while Intel and AMD benefited from expectations that AI agents would need more general-purpose computing capacity. Investors were already pricing the infrastructure implications of wider adoption, even though the eventual revenue opportunity remains uncertain.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

Intel: +13.26%

Intel’s advance was concentrated in Monday’s approximately 12% surge, as investors reassessed the server-processor demand that could follow wider use of autonomous AI assistants. Meta’s Muse supplied the immediate catalyst, and Wednesday’s plans to extend it across more devices and services reinforced the outlook. Intel rallied again on Thursday before giving back some ground on Friday. The investment case driving the move centred on future CPU demand; the strength of the rally reflected how sharply investors revised those expectations.

Read more

Nasdaq 100: +0.94%
S&P 500: −0.08%
My portfolio: +3.13%

Market pulse

American equities finished the week divided. The Nasdaq 100 advanced, while the S&P 500 ended almost unchanged after recovering from losses earlier in the week. The closing figures concealed a volatile struggle between tighter monetary policy, expensive oil and renewed confidence in parts of the AI trade. Both indices recovered strongly on Thursday, allowing technology shares to finish the period in a better position than the broader market. Nasdaq 100 closing data, S&P 500 closing data.

The most significant development was the Federal Reserve’s decision on Wednesday to raise its policy rate by 0.25 percentage points to 3.75–4.00%. The unanimous decision reflected a combination of persistent inflation and resilient economic activity. The accompanying projections pointed to another quarter-point increase before year-end, followed by rates remaining at that higher level through 2027. For equities, the challenge was the prospect that borrowing costs would remain elevated for longer, increasing the pressure on valuations and financing-sensitive businesses. Federal Reserve statement, September economic projections.

Oil was the second major influence. Prices remained above $100 a barrel, with damage to Saudi Arabia’s East–West pipeline and disruption around key shipping routes keeping supply concerns prominent. Expectations that the pipeline could reopen at partial capacity, together with diplomatic efforts to restrain Houthi attacks, offered some relief. Nevertheless, expensive energy continued to complicate the inflation outlook. Ten-year Treasury yields remained around 5%, leaving companies and investors facing a demanding combination of high energy costs and expensive capital. Nasdaq’s weekly market review.

AI supplied the week’s sharpest change in sentiment. Calls from leading developers to slow the advancement of powerful models triggered an early selloff in semiconductor shares. Investors had to consider whether a more cautious development cycle could affect future infrastructure spending. The sector subsequently recovered, however, as attention returned to evidence of strong computing demand. The rebound helped explain why the Nasdaq 100 ultimately performed better than the S&P 500. Reporting on the initial semiconductor selloff, Nasdaq’s weekly review.

Economic data reinforced the impression that the American economy remained resilient. August retail sales increased 1.2% from July, while weekly unemployment claims fell to 196,000. Stronger spending and low layoffs supported the earnings outlook, but also reduced the urgency for the Fed to provide monetary relief. The market therefore continued to face a familiar tension: economic strength supported corporate revenues while making a sustained decline in interest rates less likely. Census Bureau retail-sales release, Reuters on unemployment claims.

Crowd vs. price

The week showed how differently investors could price companies associated with the same broad investment theme. AMD and Palantir gained strongly, while ASML finished lower. Exposure to AI alone did not determine the outcome; the immediate evidence surrounding each company mattered. AMD benefited from signs of strong demand for computing capacity, Palantir received renewed analyst support for its enterprise-AI business, and ASML remained exposed to concerns about the future pace of infrastructure investment. AMD coverage, UBS’s Palantir assessment, ASML and the AI selloff.

Investors remained willing to pay for growth when they could connect it to current demand, customer adoption or pricing power. They were less comfortable relying entirely on uninterrupted future expansion. That distinction becomes more important when bond yields are high: distant earnings have to compete with increasingly attractive returns available elsewhere.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

AMD: +8.46%

The clearest catalyst came on Thursday, when Nebius announced higher cloud-computing prices, including a 25% increase for instances using AMD EPYC Genoa processors. This was an increase in the customer’s cloud-service pricing, rather than AMD’s own chip prices, but it offered evidence that demand remained strong. AMD gained 6.36% that day, accounting for most of its weekly advance. The move reinforced the investment case that growing AI workloads can support demand for conventional server processors as well as accelerators. AMD’s Thursday rally, Reuters on Nebius’s pricing increases.

Read more

Nasdaq 100 −0.59%

S&P 500 −0.80%

My portfolio +0.16%

Market pulse

US equities finished the week lower, with the Nasdaq 100 declining 0.59% and the S&P 500 losing 0.80%. Renewed tensions around Gulf shipping drove oil prices higher, intensifying inflation concerns and pushing Treasury yields towards 5%. Friday’s inflation report reinforced expectations of a September Federal Reserve rate increase, with core consumer prices rising 0.3% month on month against expectations of 0.2%. Stocks nevertheless recovered on Friday as oil retreated on reports of efforts to negotiate a temporary shipping arrangement through the Strait of Hormuz. That rebound limited the weekly losses but left the market facing the same central pressure: expensive energy, persistent inflation and the prospect of tighter monetary policy.

Crowd vs. Price

The week exposed a widening divide within the AI trade. AMD and Intel gained strongly on improving growth and pricing expectations, while Meta benefited from a new commercial AI offering. Nvidia, however, finished substantially lower. Enthusiasm for AI therefore remained selective: encouraging company developments could overcome the difficult macroeconomic backdrop, but the theme alone was insufficient to lift every stock. The modest index declines concealed much larger differences between individual winners and losers.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): +8.07%

AMD led the list following upbeat management commentary at Citi’s technology conference on 8 September. Expectations for data-centre revenue to double in 2027, alongside progress on the Helios/MI450 rollout, strengthened confidence in future AI-related sales. Growing demand for server processors provided further support. Much of the weekly advance occurred on Tuesday, with the move reflecting stronger expectations for future growth rather than a new quarterly earnings release.

Read more

Nasdaq 100 +0.38%

S&P 500 +0.09%

My portfolio -0.92%

Market pulse

US equities finished the week ending 4 September little changed overall, with the Nasdaq 100 gaining 0.38% and the S&P 500 edging up 0.09%. Renewed US–Iran hostilities, higher oil prices and rising bond yields weighed on stocks early in the week, as investors reassessed inflation risks and the prospect of further Federal Reserve tightening. Technology shares subsequently helped the market recover, while Fed Governor Christopher Waller’s conditional support for leaving rates unchanged fuelled Thursday’s rally. However, Friday’s stronger-than-expected employment report—with 162,000 jobs added in August—revived rate-hike concerns and erased part of the broader market’s advance. The modest weekly gains therefore masked considerable swings in sentiment, with corporate earnings strength offset by geopolitical uncertainty and renewed inflation pressure.

Crowd vs. Price

The price action showed selective enthusiasm rather than a broad return to risk-taking. Even within technology, an encouraging AI narrative did not produce uniform returns. That distinction matters when interpreting the Nasdaq 100’s modest weekly advance: strong gains in individual shares coexisted with substantial losses elsewhere.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

Micron Technology (MU): +8.98%

Micron led the list as investors became more optimistic about the computing and memory requirements of more capable AI systems. Friday’s sharp advance accounted for much of the weekly gain. The rally also took place against a favourable memory-pricing backdrop, with AI demand absorbing supply. The move primarily reflected stronger expectations for future demand and earnings, rather than a new Micron quarterly earnings release.

Read more

Nasdaq 100 +0.43%

S&P 500 +0.49%

My portfolio + 2.82%

Market pulse

The week was essentially a contest between exceptionally strong AI-related earnings and renewed interest-rate risk. Nvidia and the broader software earnings wave demonstrated that AI investment was continuing to translate into rapid revenue growth. At the same time, sticky inflation and Warsh’s refusal to soften the Fed’s 2% objective prevented a more sustained re-rating of equities. The major indices finished slightly higher because the earnings evidence was strong enough to offset—but not eliminate—the monetary and geopolitical headwinds.

Crowd vs. Price

Investor positioning was considerably more cautious than the index performance suggested. Investors withdrew $22.33 billion from U.S. equity funds during the week ending 26 August, the largest weekly outflow since March. Large-cap funds alone lost $24.73 billion. At the same time, mid-cap funds received $2.24 billion and small-cap funds $794 million, suggesting that the selling was concentrated in crowded large-cap exposure rather than representing an indiscriminate abandonment of American equities. Technology funds still attracted $1.81 billion, while bond funds received $7.12 billion for their nineteenth consecutive week of inflows.

That produced a notable divergence:

• The crowd reduced broad large-cap exposure.

• The indices nevertheless rose.

• Investors continued buying targeted technology exposure.

The clean reading is that investors were not buying “risk” indiscriminately. They were willing to pay for visible earnings growth, recurring revenue and credible AI monetisation, while continuing to punish regulatory, competitive and execution risk. The indices looked calm because their largest companies absorbed most of the positive capital flows; the underlying market was substantially more selective.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

SSAB B: +7.02%

SSAB B was the portfolio’s strongest performer, rising 7.02%, principally because the breakdown of U.S.–Canada trade negotiations preserved the tariff protection enjoyed by SSAB’s American operations. The news reversed much of the previous week’s selloff, which had been driven by expectations of lower U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel. The rally received additional support later in the week from upward revisions to analyst earnings estimates and target prices, while firm prices and low inventories in the North American heavy-plate market strengthened the underlying case. The move should nevertheless be interpreted mainly as a repricing of U.S. trade protection rather than a general recovery in European steel demand.

Read more

Below you will find my full portfolio as of today 27 August 2026:

Read more

S&P 500 −1.43%
Nasdaq 100 −2.45%
STOXX Europe 600 −0.56%
EURO STOXX 50 −1.18%
My portfolio –1.51%

Market pulse

Global equities declined during the week ending 21 August as rising government-bond yields and higher oil prices outweighed resilient earnings and improving German manufacturing data. The bond sell-off was the central driver: expanding fiscal deficits, heavy sovereign issuance and persistent inflation pushed long-term borrowing costs to multi-year highs, producing particularly heavy selling in semiconductors and other valuation-sensitive technology shares. Iran-related uncertainty compounded the pressure by lifting energy prices and strengthening expectations that both the Federal Reserve and ECB would maintain restrictive policy. In Europe, the DAX fell 1.15%, from 26,440.31 to 26,136.56, with German technology and industrial companies affected by higher yields, producer-price inflation and low Rhine water levels. Strong manufacturing data produced a partial rebound on Friday, but not enough to offset the deterioration in financial conditions earlier in the week.

Crowd vs. price

The dominant longer-term market narrative remained constructive: corporate earnings were strong, AI investment continued to expand and several major research houses still expected further equity gains. Actual price action, however, showed that investors were unwilling to ignore the cost of financing that growth. All four tracked indices declined, the Nasdaq 100 underperformed markedly, and defensive healthcare and energy shares held up better than high-duration technology companies.

The week therefore looked less like the beginning of an earnings recession and more like a valuation and positioning correction. Investors did not abandon the AI or economic-growth narratives, but they demanded lower prices as bond yields rose. Friday’s rebound, together with continued strength in selected healthcare, energy and consumer shares, showed that the selling remained selective rather than indiscriminate. The market’s message was that earnings remained credible, but the price investors were prepared to pay for distant growth had fallen.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

Marvell Technology — MRVL: +6.77%

Marvell Technology gained 6.77% during the week, driven overwhelmingly by its expanded custom-silicon agreement with Google. The arrangement creates a potentially exceptional long-term revenue opportunity and validates Marvell as a major supplier of hyperscaler-designed AI infrastructure. It also suggests that Google is diversifying beyond its traditional custom-chip partners, improving Marvell’s strategic position in one of the semiconductor industry’s fastest-growing markets. The announcement landed immediately after a broad chip-sector sell-off, magnifying the rebound. Potential dilution from the accompanying Google warrant and short-term profit-taking limited the final weekly gain, but the commercial and strategic implications remained decisively positive.

Read more

S&P 500: +0.36%
NASDAQ 100: +1.09%
STOXX Europe 600: −0.36%
EURO STOXX 50: +0.24%
My portfolio: – 0.18%

Market pulse

The dominant equity-market driver was a conflict between two opposing forces: softer US inflation and consumption data reduced the expected probability of further Federal Reserve tightening, while renewed tension around the Strait of Hormuz restored the geopolitical premium in oil prices. Brent crude gained 6.0% over the week and WTI 5.4% as US–Iran negotiations stalled, tanker attacks resumed and the United States threatened to maintain its naval blockade indefinitely. At the same time, July consumer and producer inflation came in sufficiently mild for markets to reduce the implied probability of a September Federal Reserve increase to approximately 30%, from around 50% one week earlier. The result was not a broad risk-on rally, but a narrow US advance led by memory, AI infrastructure and rate-sensitive technology shares.

Monday and Tuesday were both negative sessions. On Monday, fading expectations of an agreement over the Strait of Hormuz pushed US crude approximately 5% higher to $82.13 a barrel. The S&P 500 declined 0.06%, while the NASDAQ 100 fell 0.34%. Intel also lost 4.1% after announcing a $15 billion share sale, and NVIDIA declined 2.9%. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 fell another 0.32% and the NASDAQ 100 0.33% as Iran said the strait would remain closed unless the United States accepted its conditions. Amazon declined 2.1% and Alphabet 3.8%, adding company-specific pressure to the technology indices. By Tuesday’s close, the S&P 500 was approximately 0.38% below the previous Friday’s level and the NASDAQ 100 approximately 0.66% lower.

Wednesday and Thursday produced the entire net advance for the week. US consumer prices increased only 0.1% in July, while annual inflation eased from 3.5% to 3.4%. Core inflation was 0.2% month-on-month and 2.5% year-on-year, down from 2.6%. The following day, headline producer prices were unchanged, compared with expectations for an increase. Markets interpreted the releases as evidence that the Federal Reserve could remain on hold in September. The S&P 500 gained 0.26% on Wednesday and 0.65% on Thursday, reaching a record close, while the NASDAQ 100 rose 0.74% and 1.15% respectively.

The inflation reports were market-friendly, but not uniformly benign beneath the headlines. Producer prices excluding food, energy and trade services increased 0.4% in July and 4.7% year-on-year, while consumer energy prices remained 14.7% above their level one year earlier despite falling during July itself. The market nevertheless concentrated on the lower headline figures and declining probability of an immediate rate increase. This was not, however, a conventional lower-yield rally across the full maturity curve: the two-year Treasury yield declined by approximately three basis points during the week, but the ten-year yield rose approximately four basis points. Investors therefore priced out some near-term Federal Reserve risk without concluding that longer-term inflation and fiscal risks had disappeared.

Corporate results supplied the fundamental support behind the technology rebound. CoreWeave rose 19% after beating quarterly expectations and increasing its annual capital-expenditure forecast. Nebius gained 34%, while other data-centre operators also advanced. On Thursday, Sandisk rose 13.7% after presenting ambitious long-term growth and profitability targets, pulling Micron 4.2% higher and strengthening the argument that AI-related memory demand could remain structurally tighter than in previous semiconductor cycles. Approximately 85% of the S&P 500 companies that had reported results had exceeded earnings expectations, while earnings were estimated to have risen 32.7% excluding mark-to-market gains at Alphabet and Amazon.

The rally nevertheless remained highly selective. Cisco declined sharply even after forecasting annual revenue above consensus because its gross-margin guidance disappointed and its AI growth was concentrated in relatively hardware-intensive sales. Applied Materials fell on Friday despite results that exceeded expectations, demonstrating that objectively good numbers were no longer enough when valuations already assumed strong AI demand. The market rewarded companies that could demonstrate scarcity, pricing power or an identifiable physical bottleneck, while punishing companies whose growth came with weaker margins or insufficient upside relative to expectations.

Friday’s US consumption data introduced a different risk. Retail sales unexpectedly declined 0.6% in July, their first fall in nine months and largest decline in 14 months. The economically important control group fell 0.4%, compared with expectations for a 0.3% increase, while preliminary University of Michigan consumer sentiment dropped from 55.2 to 51.0. Some of the decline reflected temporary factors—including Amazon moving Prime Day into June, falling gasoline receipts and the fading effect of unusually large tax refunds—but economists nevertheless reduced third-quarter growth estimates. The S&P 500 fell 0.17% and the NASDAQ 100 0.13% on Friday. Weak consumption lowered the probability of a rate increase, but it also began to move the market from “bad news is good news” toward the less favourable question of whether household demand was genuinely losing momentum.

European equities were caught between strong earnings and renewed energy risk. The STOXX Europe 600 declined 0.36%, ending a four-week winning streak, while the more concentrated EURO STOXX 50 gained 0.24%. Aggregate second-quarter earnings for STOXX 600 companies were expected to rise 23.4%, their strongest growth in almost four years, and 58.6% of reporting companies had exceeded expectations. Excluding energy, earnings growth was still estimated at 12.3%. Europe’s dependence on imported energy nevertheless made the rise in oil prices more damaging than it was for the United States, while the region had less exposure to the memory and AI-infrastructure companies responsible for the US technology advance.

The clean reading of the week is that it was a lower-Fed-risk but higher-oil-risk market. Softer inflation and consumer data supported the valuation of long-duration growth companies, but the return of the Hormuz premium prevented a broader cyclical rally and weighed particularly on Europe, Sweden and transport companies. The NASDAQ 100’s outperformance did not represent indiscriminate enthusiasm for technology. It was driven primarily by a small group of companies positioned at bottlenecks in memory, computing capacity and AI infrastructure.

Crowd vs. price

Investor positioning shifted forcefully back toward memory and selected AI-infrastructure companies. The immediate catalyst for the Korean rally was a report that Singapore’s Temasek was considering additional investment in Samsung and SK Hynix. Temasek subsequently clarified that it had not consulted the Korean government about the timing of any investment and had already owned both companies for more than two years, meaning that a new transaction was not confirmed. The size of the reaction therefore indicates that short-covering and position rebuilding amplified the headline. Sandisk’s long-term targets then provided a more fundamental justification for the wider memory-sector rerating.

The week further clarified the hierarchy within the AI trade. Memory producers, cloud-capacity providers and companies exposed to identifiable infrastructure constraints were rewarded. Cisco, by contrast, was punished because high AI order growth came with a hardware-heavy mix and weaker gross-margin guidance. Applied Materials was sold after its report because results that would previously have been considered strong failed to exceed already elevated expectations by a sufficient margin. Datadog’s rebound demonstrated that investors were willing to reverse an excessive selloff, but not that its customer-concentration problem had disappeared. The dividing line remained visible present demand and strategic scarcity versus valuations that required nearly flawless future execution.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

Samsung Electronics

+18.83%

Samsung Electronics gained 18.83%, making it the week’s strongest stock in the measured portfolio list. The most immediate catalyst was a Korean media report that Temasek was considering an investment in Samsung and SK Hynix. Both shares rose more than 7% on Wednesday and helped lift the KOSPI by more than 4%. The report should not be treated as a confirmed new transaction: Temasek said it had not sought advice from the Korean government about investment timing and had already invested in both companies more than two years earlier. The rally nevertheless continued as investors returned to Korean memory shares and reassessed the durability of AI-related demand. Expectations of stronger shareholder distributions supplied an additional catalyst after Samsung said that it was examining sustainable methods of enhancing returns and expected to provide details soon. The clean reading is that a speculative headline triggered a large positioning reversal, which was then reinforced by memory-sector fundamentals and the prospect of increased capital distributions. The scale of the move was substantially greater than the amount of confirmed new company information.

Read more

Below you will find my full portfolio as of today 14 August 2026:

Read more

S&P 500: +3.58%

NASDAQ 100: +5.12%

STOXX Europe 600: +1.70%

EURO STOXX 50: +2.61%

My portfolio: + 3.27%

Market pulse

The dominant equity-market driver was the simultaneous removal of two risks that had constrained valuations during July: the geopolitical premium in oil prices and the expectation of further Federal Reserve tightening. Hopes that negotiations could lead to a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz pushed crude oil and long-term Treasury yields sharply lower, while strong corporate earnings—particularly among semiconductor, AI-infrastructure and technology companies—provided a fundamental reason for investors to re-enter risk assets. The result was a broad rally, but one led decisively by the NASDAQ 100, which gained 5.12% and substantially outperformed all five other benchmarks.

Monday and Tuesday produced most of the week’s advance. On Monday, crude oil fell approximately 5% as the market anticipated negotiations over the Strait of Hormuz. Lower oil reduced near-term inflation expectations and pulled Treasury yields lower, helping the S&P 500 rise 1.48% and the NASDAQ Composite 2.13%. On Tuesday, another decline of roughly 5% in crude was accompanied by further optimism regarding a possible agreement, sending the S&P 500 up 1.79% and the NASDAQ Composite up 2.59%. Together, those two sessions accounted for approximately 92% of the S&P 500’s full-week gain. The underlying mechanism was straightforward: cheaper energy reduced pressure on consumers and corporate margins, while simultaneously lowering the probability that the Federal Reserve would need to raise interest rates again.

The rally was reinforced by unusually strong corporate results and renewed confidence that AI capital expenditure was creating revenue beyond the largest hyperscalers. Palantir rose 29.5% after raising its annual revenue forecast, while Caterpillar gained 5.6% as AI data-centre construction increased demand for its power-generation and construction equipment. Semiconductor shares rose particularly sharply, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index gaining 6.6% on Tuesday. By Friday, 85.1% of the 436 S&P 500 companies that had reported results had exceeded earnings expectations. The market therefore moved from questioning the entire AI investment cycle to rewarding companies able to demonstrate that the build-out was producing identifiable demand for chips, memory, networking, power and physical infrastructure.

Friday’s US employment report produced the final leg of the rally. Nonfarm payrolls unexpectedly fell by 23,000 in July, compared with expectations for an increase of 80,000, while the previous two months were revised sharply lower. The unemployment rate nevertheless declined to 4.1%, largely because workers left the labour force. Markets interpreted the report primarily through the interest-rate channel: the implied probability of a September Federal Reserve increase fell to approximately 44%, from 55% the previous day and 67% one week earlier. The S&P 500 consequently gained another 0.62% and the NASDAQ Composite 1.30%. This was a conventional “bad news is good news” reaction, although the deterioration in employment also created a risk that future weak data could eventually be interpreted as evidence of economic contraction rather than monetary relief.

European equities participated in the rally but were less exposed to the high-beta technology rebound. The STOXX Europe 600 recorded four consecutive record closes and finished the week at 660.25, supported by lower oil prices, improving US rate expectations and a broadly positive European reporting season. Technology was the index’s best-performing sector, while estimated second-quarter European profit growth rose above 22%, its strongest pace since 2022. The EURO STOXX 50 outperformed the broader STOXX Europe 600, while both Swedish indices gained approximately 2%. Europe benefited particularly from the decline in crude because its economies are generally more dependent on imported energy than the United States.

The advance was not indiscriminate. Several technology companies fell despite publishing objectively strong results because their guidance failed to meet expectations already embedded in their valuations. Datadog was the clearest example: the company reported 36% revenue growth, but investors focused on reduced usage by a major AI customer and a full-year forecast below the prevailing analyst consensus. AMD and several software companies also came under pressure during the middle of the week. The market was therefore not abandoning valuation discipline altogether; it was rewarding companies whose exposure to AI demand appeared immediate and independently verifiable, while punishing those dependent on flawless future execution or a small number of unusually large customers.

The clean reading of the week is therefore that it was a lower-oil, lower-yield rally, validated by earnings and extended by weak employment data. The market’s strongest preference was for semiconductor, memory, optical-connectivity and data-centre infrastructure companies. The principal question was no longer whether AI expenditure was excessive in the aggregate, but which companies controlled the physical bottlenecks through which that expenditure had to pass.

Crowd vs. price

Investor positioning moved rapidly back toward high-beta AI and semiconductor shares. Credo, Marvell, Intel, NVIDIA, ASML, Micron and Applied Materials all substantially outperformed the broader market. After the previous month’s semiconductor correction, stronger earnings and falling yields gave underexposed investors a reason to rebuild positions. The speed and concentration of the rebound suggest that short-covering and position rebuilding amplified the fundamental catalysts, although the precise contribution of those flows cannot be measured from public price data alone.

The week nevertheless exposed a more demanding hierarchy within the AI trade. Credo and Marvell were rewarded for exposure to memory, optical and high-speed connectivity bottlenecks. Intel benefited from improving operational results and renewed interest in higher-beta semiconductor turnaround stories. Datadog, by contrast, was punished even though current revenue growth remained strong because its forward outlook exposed dependence on the usage decisions of one major AI customer. The dividing line was not AI versus non-AI. It was visible demand and strategic scarcity versus valuation dependent on future expectations remaining almost perfect.

The two utility holdings demonstrated that company-specific events could still override the positive macroeconomic environment. NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy both declined after Virginia’s governor intervened in the regulatory review of their proposed merger. Their weakness was therefore not evidence of a general collapse in defensive equities; it principally reflected a reassessment of the transaction’s timing, conditions and implied value.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

Credo Technology (CRDO)

+20.73%

Credo Technology gained 20.73%, although the increase cannot be attributed to a single earnings report or financial disclosure. The most defensible explanation is a combination of product news, favourable policy read-through and the broad semiconductor rally. During FMS 2026, Credo presented new connectivity products designed to move data more efficiently between processors, memory and storage, including its OmniConnect Weaver memory interconnect and a PCIe 6.0 retimer for next-generation AI infrastructure. The company therefore benefited from growing recognition that data movement and memory access—not merely processor availability—are becoming major constraints on AI-system performance. Sentiment was reinforced by reports that the US government was preparing restrictions on imports of new Chinese optical transceivers used in data centres. Credo supplies high-speed electrical and optical-connectivity technology and could benefit if US customers are pushed toward non-Chinese suppliers, although that policy connection remains an investor inference rather than company guidance. The clean reading is that Credo was revalued as a potential beneficiary of both AI-connectivity demand and the possible exclusion of Chinese competitors, with the sector-wide semiconductor rebound magnifying the movement.

Read more

Below you will find my full portfolio as of today 04 August 2026:

Read more

S&P 500: +1.05%

NASDAQ 100: +0.52%

STOXX Europe 600: +0.73%

EURO STOXX 50: +1.23%

My portfolio: -1.37%

Market pulse

The dominant equity-market driver was another change in how investors interpreted the AI capital-expenditure cycle. The previous reporting period had ended with investors punishing hyperscalers for negative free cash flow and rapidly rising infrastructure expenditure. This week, Microsoft and Amazon demonstrated that the market will tolerate enormous spending when it is accompanied by visible cloud growth, margins and contracted demand. Microsoft rose more than 15% on Thursday after strong Azure growth and a forecast implying continued cash generation, while Amazon jumped 15.3% on Friday after AWS revenue increased 37%—its fastest growth in more than four years. The two reports transformed the late-week narrative from indiscriminate fear of AI expenditure into a more selective test of whether each company can prove near-term monetisation.

That distinction produced extreme divergence inside Big Tech. Amazon and Microsoft were rewarded; Meta remained under pressure after reporting a 91% decline in free cash flow, and Apple fell 7.4% on Friday after issuing a weak outlook linked to supply constraints and concern about demand at higher prices. The market was not embracing every company spending heavily on AI. It was rewarding the companies that could connect that spending to accelerating revenue and operating performance.

The rally also had to overcome a significant monetary-policy shock. The Federal Reserve kept the federal-funds target at 3.50%–3.75% on Wednesday, but the decision passed by a divided 9–3 vote, with three policymakers preferring an immediate increase. The lack of clear forward guidance from Chair Kevin Warsh increased uncertainty over September and helped push long-dated Treasury yields to multi-year highs. The S&P 500 fell 1.52% on Wednesday and the NASDAQ 100 2.06%. Strong Microsoft and Amazon results subsequently outweighed that pressure at index level, but higher discount rates remained an important restraint on expensive growth shares.

Semiconductors experienced the most violent version of this conflict. Before the Microsoft report, investors sold the sector on concerns about stretched valuations, the financing of AI infrastructure and stronger Chinese competition. Samsung Electronics fell 13.4% and SK Hynix 14.7% on Tuesday, while China’s CXMT surged 466% on its Shanghai debut and reports of domestic Chinese deep-ultraviolet lithography equipment raised fears of faster capacity expansion. Micron, AMD, KLA, ASML and other chip-related holdings were pulled into the same de-risking wave. Microsoft’s results then drove the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up 8.2% on Thursday, but the rebound was insufficient to erase the earlier damage for many individual holdings.

European equities were more broadly supported by corporate earnings. Estimated second-quarter STOXX 600 profit growth rose to 20.8% year-on-year; even excluding the energy sector, the estimate was 10.3%. Strong results across consumer, financial, industrial and energy companies helped the STOXX Europe 600 reach an intraday record on Friday, although it closed slightly lower that day. The EURO STOXX 50 outperformed both the broader European index and the NASDAQ 100 over the full period. The two Swedish indices performed best of the six benchmarks, with both gaining approximately 1.5%.

Oil remained an important but unstable macroeconomic variable. Brent crude fell sharply early in the week as hopes of U.S.–Iran de-escalation reduced the immediate supply premium, but renewed tension later pushed it briefly above $90 a barrel. Lower oil supported travel, consumer and rate-sensitive shares; higher oil benefited energy producers but revived inflation and interest-rate fears. The week’s swings in crude and Treasury yields repeatedly changed the relative performance of technology, energy, airlines and consumer stocks.

The market’s message therefore evolved beyond the simple division between companies receiving AI capital expenditure and companies funding it. Amazon and Microsoft showed that the funders can outperform when monetisation is immediate and measurable. KLA, Micron and AMD showed that suppliers can fall even while current demand remains strong when valuations imply perfect execution and investors become more concerned about competition, financing and future oversupply. The new dividing line is evidence versus expectation.

Crowd vs. price

Investor attention remained concentrated in AI, but the week exposed a more demanding hierarchy inside the trade. Amazon and Alphabet gained because investors became more confident that cloud and AI infrastructure could produce rapid revenue growth. Micron and AMD fell because the hardware side of the trade was forced to absorb concerns about Chinese competition, customer financing and valuations that already assumed years of exceptional growth.

The same AI investment cycle therefore generated both the portfolio’s three largest gains and its three largest losses. The crowd did not abandon AI. It moved toward companies offering visible near-term monetisation and away from companies whose prices required future demand, margins and competitive positions to remain almost flawless.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

Amazon (AMZN)

+17.00%

Almost the entire weekly gain occurred on Friday after Amazon reported its strongest AWS growth in more than four years. AWS revenue increased 37% to $42.2 billion, while the contract backlog reached $496 billion. Amazon simultaneously increased its expected 2026 capital expenditure by 10% to $220 billion. Under ordinary circumstances, that spending increase could have damaged the shares; instead, management said that most available AWS capacity for 2027 and some capacity for 2028 had already been reserved by customers. Investors therefore treated the expenditure as construction against identifiable demand rather than a speculative build-out.

The principal caveat is that trailing twelve-month free cash flow deteriorated from positive $18.2 billion to negative $7.6 billion. The rally was not evidence that the cost problem had disappeared. It reflected a judgment that the AWS acceleration and reservation data were strong enough to justify the cash burn. At least 15 brokerages raised their price targets after the report. The clean read is that Amazon gained because it supplied the clearest evidence of the week that enormous AI expenditure can already generate measurable revenue, margins and contracted demand.

Read more

S&P 500: −0.61%
NASDAQ 100: −1.62%
My portfolio: + 0.1%

Market pulse

U.S. equities finished the period lower, with technology again underperforming the broader market. The S&P 500 declined from 7,457.69 to 7,411.98, a loss of 0.61%, while the NASDAQ 100 fell from 28,592.66 to 28,128.34, a decline of 1.62%. The technology-heavy index therefore underperformed the S&P 500 by 1.01 percentage points. The stock portfolio declined by approximately 0.5% in SEK, roughly matching the S&P 500 and outperforming the NASDAQ 100 by about 1.1 percentage points. The portfolio received some currency protection from the dollar, which appreciated approximately 0.64% against the Swedish krona during the period.

The dominant market driver was a change in how investors interpreted the AI capital-expenditure cycle. Alphabet reported its first negative quarterly free cash flow, burning $5.9 billion despite Google Cloud revenue increasing 82%. The company simultaneously increased its expected 2026 capital expenditure by $15 billion. Tesla also reported negative free cash flow and sharply higher investment requirements. Alphabet subsequently fell approximately 7% on Thursday and Tesla 14.5%, while Meta and Amazon declined in sympathy. The market was no longer asking only whether AI demand was strong. It began asking whether revenue could grow quickly enough to exceed capital expenditure, depreciation, financing and operating costs.

The technology shock coincided with another increase in geopolitical and inflation risk. Brent crude settled above $100 a barrel on Thursday and U.S. crude above $92 as fighting involving the United States, Iran and the Houthis threatened shipping through both the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea. The ten-year Treasury yield approached 4.7%, its highest level since January 2025. Higher oil prices threatened household spending and corporate margins while also reducing the Federal Reserve’s ability to lower interest rates. The combination of weaker technology sentiment, higher energy costs and rising yields produced Thursday’s broad selloff.

The final weekly losses nevertheless conceal a powerful early-week semiconductor rebound. On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 5.2% as investors bought back shares following the previous week’s sharp correction. Micron gained 12.2%, and other memory, storage and AI-infrastructure companies rallied strongly. The buying reflected both oversold conditions and fear that investors had reduced their semiconductor exposure immediately before potentially strong technology earnings.

That rebound partially reversed on Friday. Intel fell 7.9%, the semiconductor index declined 4.5% and the NASDAQ Composite lost another 0.64%, even though the S&P 500 edged 0.05% higher. Oil fell nearly 4%, providing some support to consumer, real-estate and other rate-sensitive shares, but investors continued selling semiconductor and AI-related positions. The same hyperscaler spending that had supported chip demand earlier in the week was now being interpreted as possible overinvestment by the companies financing it.

The broader market was considerably more resilient than the headline technology selloff suggested. Energy shares gained approximately 3.8% over the week, while industrials, materials and real estate also advanced. This sector rotation explains much of the S&P 500’s outperformance of the NASDAQ 100. New U.S. tariffs of 10% or 12.5% on goods from 60 trading partners added a secondary inflation and margin risk, but tariffs were not the principal cause of the week’s decline. Earnings, AI spending, oil and Treasury yields were more immediate drivers.

The market’s message was therefore not that AI demand had disappeared. Demand remained exceptionally strong. The market instead divided the AI value chain into companies that receive capital expenditure and companies that must fund it. Memory, accelerators and networking suppliers initially benefited from evidence that infrastructure construction remained intense. Alphabet, Meta, Amazon and other platform companies were punished because that same construction reduced free cash flow and made the eventual return on investment less certain.

Crowd vs. price

Investor attention remained concentrated in AI, but the week exposed a significant split inside the trade. Micron, AMD rose because greater hyperscaler expenditure translates directly into demand for memory, accelerators, servers and high-speed connectivity. Alphabet, Meta and Amazon fell because greater expenditure translates into lower free cash flow, higher depreciation and greater execution risk. The same data-centre project can therefore be positive for the supplier and negative for the customer financing it.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

Micron Technology

+8.48%

The largest part of the gain occurred on Tuesday, when the shares rose 12.2% as the semiconductor index rebounded 5.2%. Micron had been hit particularly hard during the previous correction, making it one of the clearest candidates for a mean-reversion rally once investors began restoring semiconductor exposure. Continued hyperscaler construction also reinforced expectations of strong demand for high-bandwidth memory and conventional DRAM.

There was no new Micron earnings report during the period. The movement was primarily a repricing of existing memory-demand expectations rather than a response to newly disclosed company results. The shares surrendered a substantial part of their gain on Friday when investors again questioned the sustainability of AI infrastructure spending. The clean read is that Micron rose because the preceding selloff had become excessive relative to the continuing strength of AI-related memory demand, but the stock remained highly sensitive to changes in the market’s interpretation of hyperscaler capital expenditure.

Read more

Below you will find my full portfolio as of today 23 July 2026:

Read more

Weekly financial report

Reporting period: 10 July close to 17 July close

S&P 500: −1.55%
NASDAQ 100: −4.13%
My portfolio: approximately −4.35%

Market pulse

U.S. equities finished the period lower, with technology decisively losing market leadership. The S&P 500 declined 1.55%, while the technology-heavy NASDAQ 100 fell 4.13%, underperforming the broader index by 2.58 percentage points. The portfolio declined by an estimated 3.25%, placing it between the two indexes: its substantial exposure to semiconductors and AI infrastructure hurt performance, while gains in CrowdStrike, Cloudflare and Visa provided a partial offset.

The dominant market driver was a violent de-rating of semiconductor and AI-related shares. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell approximately 10%, its largest weekly decline in more than a year, and finished more than 20% below its late-June record. The correction reflected profit-taking after an extraordinary previous-quarter rally, growing scrutiny of the returns generated by AI capital expenditure and the unwinding of leveraged momentum positions. U.S. growth funds experienced $7.18 billion of net withdrawals, while value funds received $3 billion, confirming that the move extended beyond isolated company news into a broader portfolio rotation.

The market was not rejecting the existence of strong AI demand. TSMC reported a record 77% increase in quarterly profit and indicated that capital expenditure would remain exceptionally high, yet its shares still declined. This demonstrated that reported fundamentals were no longer sufficient when valuations already assumed near-perfect demand. Sentiment was further weakened by Moonshot AI’s introduction of Kimi K3, which raised questions about the competitive threat from lower-cost Chinese models, and reports that Google was behind schedule with Gemini 3.5 Pro. The central concern shifted from whether AI usage would grow to whether the enormous amount of infrastructure spending would ultimately produce adequate financial returns.

Geopolitical risk compounded the technology correction. Renewed fighting between the United States and Iran and continuing disruption around the Strait of Hormuz pushed oil prices higher, reviving fears that energy costs would feed back into inflation, Treasury yields and Federal Reserve policy. Energy was the only S&P 500 sector to rise on Friday, helping the broader index outperform the NASDAQ 100, while airlines, travel companies and other fuel-sensitive businesses came under pressure.

There were meaningful positive counterweights. June CPI declined 0.4% month over month, while core CPI was unchanged, and producer prices fell 0.3%. These reports reduced the immediate case for another interest-rate increase and supported temporary equity rebounds on Tuesday and Wednesday. Strong early bank earnings also indicated that corporate activity, trading and dealmaking remained resilient. However, the inflation data described conditions before the latest rise in oil prices, limiting the durability of the relief.

The market’s internal message was therefore negative for crowded trades but not uniformly negative for equities. Of the first 49 S&P 500 companies to report, 90% exceeded earnings expectations, and aggregate second-quarter profit growth was projected at approximately 26%. Nevertheless, the indexes fell because positioning, valuation and index concentration outweighed otherwise strong aggregate earnings. Investors remained willing to pay for visible demand and identifiable monetization, but became much less tolerant of companies whose valuations required uninterrupted momentum and flawless execution.

Crowd vs. price

Investor attention remained concentrated in AI, but crowding itself became the principal risk. Semiconductor shares had risen almost 88% during the preceding quarter, leaving many companies highly vulnerable to profit-taking. Strong operational results from TSMC and other industry leaders failed to clear the market’s elevated expectations, while leveraged products and momentum strategies amplified the decline. The companies that had benefited most from the AI rally became the easiest positions for investors to sell when risk appetite weakened.

At the same time, the market rewarded companies with immediate evidence of demand or concrete new revenue opportunities. CrowdStrike and Cloudflare benefited from greater urgency around enterprise cybersecurity, while Visa advanced after introducing products designed to turn stablecoins and generative AI into additional services for financial institutions. The clean message was not that investors had abandoned AI. They were rotating away from speculative, capital-intensive AI exposure and toward companies where demand, pricing power or monetization could already be identified.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

CrowdStrike (CRWD)

+8.49%

CrowdStrike was the strongest-performing holding over the period. The largest identifiable catalyst was IBM’s preliminary second-quarter warning on 14 July. IBM said customers had been distracted by rapidly evolving cybersecurity concerns even as they reprioritized technology budgets. What was negative for IBM was interpreted as positive evidence for specialist cybersecurity vendors: security remained urgent and comparatively difficult for enterprises to postpone. CrowdStrike and other cybersecurity shares rallied sharply following the disclosure.

CrowdStrike also expanded its strategic partnership with Schwarz Digits on 16 July. The agreement will bring the Falcon platform to European customers through the STACKIT sovereign cloud, while CrowdStrike agreed to acquire XM Cyber’s intellectual property, including attack-path visualization and exposure-management technology. The clean read is that CrowdStrike rose because IBM’s warning strengthened the case for durable cybersecurity spending, while the Schwarz Digits agreement added a concrete European distribution and product-expansion catalyst.

Read more

Below you will find my full portfolio as of today 14 July 2026:

Read more

S&P 500: +1.23%
NASDAQ 100: +1.69%
My portfolio: +0.53%

Market pulse

U.S. equities finished the period higher, with technology regaining market leadership despite considerable volatility beneath the index surface. Unlike the previous period, the technology-heavy NASDAQ 100 outperformed the broader market.

The most important market driver was the continuing debate over AI investment and semiconductor valuations. The period began with a strong rebound in AI-related shares, helped by Broadcom’s extended supply relationship with Apple. That recovery was interrupted on 7 July, when Samsung’s exceptionally strong results failed to meet the market’s elevated expectations. This triggered another sharp semiconductor selloff as investors questioned whether the enormous amount of capital being invested in AI infrastructure would generate sufficient returns.

The AI trade subsequently recovered. Nvidia benefited from reports that China could permit selected domestic AI companies to purchase limited quantities of its H200 processors. Broadcom continued to receive support from its Apple relationship, while Micron rebounded after presenting plans for more than $250 billion of U.S. investment through 2035. SK Hynix’s successful U.S. listing and Meta’s strong rally further reinforced demand for selected AI-related companies toward the end of the period.

Geopolitical and monetary-policy concerns nevertheless constrained the rally. Renewed tension between the United States and Iran pushed oil prices and Treasury yields higher, increasing the risk that energy costs could keep inflation elevated. The FOMC minutes also showed that Federal Reserve officials remained concerned about inflation, preventing investors from fully dismissing the possibility of another rate increase.

The market’s internal message was therefore mixed but constructive. Investors were still prepared to buy AI exposure, but only where there was visible evidence of demand, monetization or strategic value. Companies perceived as highly valued, excessively crowded or dependent on future expectations were vulnerable to severe corrections.

Crowd vs. price

Investor attention remained concentrated in AI, but became increasingly selective. The market moved sharply between valuation anxiety and renewed confidence in structural AI demand.

The market rewarded companies with concrete evidence of AI demand, differentiated technology, recurring revenue or identifiable monetization opportunities. It punished companies whose valuations appeared to require near-perfect execution or whose recent rallies had already incorporated much of the expected future growth. This explains how several prominent AI-related companies could move in opposite directions during the same period.

Holdings & Watchlist Notes

Meta Platforms (META)

+14.81%

Meta was the strongest-performing holding over the period. The rally was supported by renewed confidence in the company’s ability to convert its enormous AI investment into both product improvements and additional revenue opportunities. Investors responded positively to reports that Meta could rent out surplus computing capacity, reducing concerns that its infrastructure spending would remain entirely dependent on advertising returns.

The company also benefited from enthusiasm around its expanding AI capacity, custom-chip development and generative-AI products. These developments encouraged investors to view Meta’s capital expenditure as a potentially monetizable technological asset rather than simply a cost burden. The clean read is that Meta rose because the market became more confident that its AI investment could strengthen its core platforms while also creating new revenue streams.

Read more

Below you will find my full portfolio as of today 6 July 2026:

Read more