Volatility Pulse - Bear Down
One In Three Peaked
More than a third of stock markets around the world made new 52-week highs last week, the best showing since February. The percentage of US industry groups making new highs expanded too.
Source: Willie Delwiche, Hi Mount Research
Rank this Bull
The S&P 500 is up 116.9% since this bull market began on October 12, 2022. That ranks fifth of the eight bull markets since 1966, which is a long way from the biggest.
Source: Yardeni Research
Priciest Since 2007
The Treasury's 10-year auction priced at 4.683%, the highest yield it has had to pay since 2007. The market yield finished the session right on top of it.
Source: Bloomberg
The Forecasts Keep Climbing
Hyperscaler capex forecasts for 2027 and 2028 have kept marching higher rather than settling down. Every revision so far has gone the same direction.
Source: BofA via Joe Weisenthal
Tokens Tripled Since January
Token consumption tracked by OpenRouter has more than tripled since January. Whatever the models cost to build, people are using them a lot more than they were seven months ago.
Source: John Authers, Bloomberg
Best CEO, Richest Staff
Jensen Huang topped Glassdoor’s best-CEO list for 2026. Roughly half the employees at his company are now worth over $25 million.
Source: Gavin Baker
The Rest Of The World Too
Forward earnings estimates for the MSCI ACWI ex-US index are up 34.6% year over year. Excluding rebounds out of earnings recessions, that is the strongest in 20 years.
Source: Kevin Gordon
Stocks Are Retiring People
Labor force participation for Americans aged 55 and older keeps falling, and the 35%+ gain in the S&P 500 over two years may be a reason why. The rally might be quietly shrinking the workforce.
Source: BofA via Luke Kawa
Data Centers Built Towns
Counties that build data centers are seeing new housing, higher home values, lower unemployment and faster job growth. The AI buildout is showing up in local property records, not just capex slides.
Source: Wells Fargo via Sara Eisen
The Emergency Tank Is Low
US strategic petroleum reserves have been drawn down to their lowest level in four decades. The country's emergency oil cushion is thinner than it has been since the early 1980s.
Source: Lisa Abramowicz
Five Times In Seventy Years
Gold miners just posted a weekly gain matched only five other times in more than 70 years. The last one, in 2016, was followed by an 85% gain in the index over the next 26 weeks.
Source: Dean Christians, Turning Point Market Research
Nice Trade Sergey
Google's reported stock portfolio is now 95% SpaceX: $94.2 billion of a $99.1 billion book, against $4.9 billion spread across 27 other holdings. The $900 million stake it took in 2015 is up roughly 105x and is now worth more than everything else it has reported across 51 filings since 2013 combined.
Source: SEC 13F filings via Muskonomy
Just Because...
Nintendo Is Older Than the airplane
Nintendo was founded in 1889, hand-making playing cards from mulberry bark - decades before video games, common light bulbs, or the airplane.
