Robert Armstrong

…Amazon, you'll remind me the ones I'm forgetting. Meta, yeah. That has been the consistent pattern. When the market is strong, those stocks are strong. When the market is weak, those stocks are weak. That changed in May. And the leadership of those stocks just completely fell away. And we can talk about them individually . But none of them are doing especially well since then. And they have been replaced in market leadership by silicon stocks. And if you think about where our heads are at about AI, this makes perfect sense, right? This is actually quite a rational change in leadership because we know for a fact that the next two years is going to be all about building artificial intelligence infrastructure. And we know for a fact that's going to require a lot of memory chips and a lot of networking chips and GPUs and everything else. Those companies are making out like bandits and there's no reason to expect they will stop making out like bandits anytime soon. Whereas the implications of AI for the business models of the Magnificent Seven, in particular Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta, far from clear, could be great for them. Could not be so great, right?…From: this video · 6 claims mined from it

…leadership by silicon stocks. And if you think about where our heads are at about AI, this makes perfect sense, right? This is actually quite a rational change in leadership because we know for a fact that the next two years is going to be all about building artificial intelligence infrastructure. And we know for a fact that's going to require a lot of memory chips and a lot of networking chips and GPUs and everything else. Those companies are making out like bandits and there's no reason to expect they will stop making out like bandits anytime soon. Whereas the implications of AI for the business models of the Magnificent Seven, in particular Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta, far from clear, could be great for them. Could not be so great, right? And so I would hate to make any predictions about that. And I think the market in general, after having made a bundle of money in those names for years, it's like, what's the next step? And they're spending a lot of money. They used to be free cash flow machines . They're not free cash flow machines anymore, right? And so like part of the nervous top here is about that change in leadership , which I think is super interesting. It's super interesting.…From: this video · 6 claims mined from it

…I frankly don't really understand very well. Obviously, the AI story and in particular, the microchip story is a very prominent part of it, cause a lot of volatility. We've seen that in the last few days. There are some mild questions about the US consumer. Maybe those are resolved now that the oil price is coming down, but there's worries about that. And also the market is just expensive. The SpaceX IPO has not exploded upward. It did it first, but then it sort of weakened. There's questions about the further IPO is going. So we're like at a nervous top right now, kind of hitting sideways. That is exactly how I would characterize it too. Nervous top sounds right to me. And we will get into what we think will happen next, because that is obviously the question that everyone wants to answer. But let's just linger for a moment on the history of 2026, because it is a fascinating one. And let's just go through how some of these different sectors have performed. I'm going to go back to my predictions that I laid out at the beginning of the year, and sort of check in on how they're all going so far. And then we can sort of get into it.…From: this video · 6 claims mined from it

…There's these discussions like, when the Fed says two is the target, do they mean two is the first number of the target? (both laughing) Or do they mean two with 2.0? Anyway, the question is, if it goes up again, I think that's a disaster. I think markets can live with core inflation, that's a percentage point above target. It has been living with it. It's not ideal or whatever. But if it gets loose from there, I just can't see how, given what we know about the historical relationship, given the instability that brings, I just can't see how markets can stay at this high level if inflation is above target and rising again. Yes. I don't know. If I could predict inflation, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. That's for sure. (both laughing) But so it's bad. If it stays the level of bad, it is now okay, we can live with that. If it gets to another level of bad, I'm scared. And I think this ultimately does, this is where Iran comes back into the mix, because yes, we can strip out energy as much as we'd like, but supposedly the straight is open, currently. Some boats are going through. I think we know that, that there are some boats going through…From: this video · 6 claims mined from it

…statistical package you want, and you get kind of inflation is like 2 .7 and in a bad month it's like 3.5. And we're kind of going along sideways in this clearly above target by call it roughly on average a percentage point, right? And the markets can probably live like that. You know what I mean? The difference between two and three. There's these discussions like, when the Fed says two is the target, do they mean two is the first number of the target? (both laughing) Or do they mean two with 2.0? Anyway, the question is, if it goes up again, I think that's a disaster. I think markets can live with core inflation, that's a percentage point above target. It has been living with it. It's not ideal or whatever. But if it gets loose from there, I just can't see how, given what we know about the historical relationship, given the instability that brings, I just can't see how markets can stay at this high level if inflation is above target and rising again. Yes. I don't know. If I could predict inflation, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. That's for sure. (both laughing) But so it's bad.…From: this video · 6 claims mined from it

…the Fed is getting about the economy will be distorted by the fact that we give forward guidance. To me, this makes no sense whatsoever, because you can be damn sure the markets are, no matter what the Fed does, how the markets respond to the economy is going to be conditioned by who they think the Fed is and what they think the Fed's going to do. It's always going to be a muddled signal. So I think that is just a silly story that he's telling to justify himself. This is what I think is really going on . He is a person who thinks the market counts on the Fed as a backstop. And he wants less of that to be happening. He wants the market to be more volatile and more scared because he thinks the market is too dependent on the Fed put and Fed put like stuff. If we get in trouble, if we leverage ourselves too far, if we whatever, the Fed will always bail us out. And he wants to take that anesthetic out of the system. And I think the communications policy is part of that. Like you guys figure it out for yourselves. And if you find that scary, if you find it scary to operate without us telling you what we're going to do, good. I want you more scared. That's how I like it. You know, that that would be my interpretation of that. And we will see how that goes.…From: this video · 6 claims mined from it