ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
A cost reckoning for AI is finally happening. A recent convergence of references and stories about the high cost of running AI systems at enterprise scale caught my attention over the last week. Together, they provide increasing evidence that the adoption of AI may hit a speedbump some time this year. Agentic AI has become … Read more
Housing Market Intro and Summary The U.S. housing market ended 2025 with mixed signals. Builder stocks are stuck in trading ranges, builder confidence has stalled, and affordability remains strained. Pockets of strength in sales activity is likely coming from a softening price environment and higher inventory levels. The data points do not tell a single, … Read more
Stock Market Commentary A week ago, buyers did their best to push against topping stock indices by restarting overbought conditions. That overbought period lasted just 3 days as a Fitch downgrade of U.S. Treasury debt freshly cooled the summer of loving stocks. The resulting selling confirmed topping conditions and greased the skids of the stock … Read more
I earlier claimed that market breadth would only push higher with the participation of small cap stocks. Well the big moment of truth already arrived as the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) punched through its bear market line for the third time in 11 months. With the S&P 500 (SPY) and the NASDAQ (COMPQ) relentlessly … Read more
NVIDIA Races Ahead Money manager Cathie Wood of ARK Invest is known for being unconventional by making concentrated bets on highly speculative companies, what Wood calls betting on innovation that solves problems. So of course Wood has AI-related bets in the various ARK funds. The ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (ARKQ) in particular holds … Read more