Year-to-date performance of the main asset classes
Source: Finviz
What a journey for the Nasdaq 100...
If you had invested $10,000 in the Nasdaq 100 ETF $QQQ at the PEAK of the dot-com bubble in March 2000, your investment would be worth around $61,650 today — a gain of +516%, or +7.2% annualised. And that’s despite navigating through 9/11, the 2001–2002 recession, the Global Financial Crisis, COVID-19, and major geopolitical conflicts including Russia-Ukraine and tensions in the Middle East. As Warren Buffett famously said: “Never bet against America.” Source chart: Rand Group
Samsung and SK Hynix now account for ~13% of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the benchmark for more than $1 TRILLION in assets under management.
SK Hynix alone now commands a weighting equivalent to Tencent and Alibaba combined, after more than doubling in market value this year. Together with TSMC, the 3 chipmakers account for more than 25% of the entire index and have contributed over 70% of its gains so far in 2026. This is reminiscent of late 2020, when Chinese companies accounted for more than 40% of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. When Chinese stocks peaked in February 2021 and subsequently collapsed, the broader EM index entered a 15-16 month bear market, falling ~50% from peak to trough. Even emerging market indexes are extremely concentrated. Source: Global markets Investors, Bloomberg Opinion
History has been kind to Fed Chairs in their first year. Besides Greenspan, who got handed Black Monday...
Source: TrendSpider
Another "K-shaped economy" chart
Source: Lawrence McDonald, Bloomberg
The IRS just agreed to never audit Trump again.
A one-page addition quietly attached to yesterday's $1.8 billion settlement permanently bars the IRS from examining Trump's tax returns, his family, and his companies. The original settlement said nothing about taxes. This showed up the next day. Former IRS commissioner Danny Werfel said he was "unaware of a single precedent where the IRS has agreed in advance to permanently forgo examination of previously filed tax returns for a specific person or business." The settlement was sold as accountability. The extra page is a lifetime audit exemption for the president. Source: POLITICO, FT
When rates start to matter... NASDAQ versus inverse US 10-year yields remains one of the biggest macro dislocation charts out there.
Let's keep in mind that bond volatility is exploding higher JUST AS hyperscalers enter the most capital-intensive spending cycle in modern tech history. Source: The Market Ear
Since the start of the war, gold has been negatively correlated to oil. Oil up, gold down. Why? Because the marginal gold buyer is not the West, it is EM Asia and Turkey.
Higher oil prices crush import-dependent economies like India: Oil ↑ → Growth ↓ → Currency ↓ → Import costs ↑ → Gold demand ↓. That’s why gold has been weak despite geopolitical chaos. India is curbing gold imports to defend the Rupee. Turkey already burned reserves. China is temporarily balancing the system by cutting crude imports. The real story isn’t “gold vs fear.” It’s commodities, FX, and EM liquidity transmission. Mental flexibility > rigid macro views. Source: Alexander Stahel on X Bloomberg
