Overloaded: From Trinkets To Compute And Market Structure

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

Last weekend we published that the market was sitting on Multiple Inflection Points. We were concerned that many of the inflection points would resolve themselves negatively for the market:

• Iran, which we didn’t even give the full “inflection” point treatment to, has deteriorated. While Brent finished the week at almost $90, up from just above $70, it seemed to be a “side story” at this stage. However, with the news of the U.S. service members killed on Friday in Jordan, the question becomes how this alters the U.S. strategy to pressure Iran to stop its attacks on shipping in the Strait and return to the table to continue negotiations.

• AI Spend was the most important inflection point and that seems to be resolving itself rather negatively with the Philly Semi Index down 10% on the week! More on this later.

• Russia/Ukraine. General (ret.) Spider Marks, Rachel Washburn, and I spent a lot of time talking about this conflict. I continue to be optimistic, maybe even a bit more optimistic than the consensus Geopolitical Intelligence Group view, but that’s my take.

• Japanese Yen. The infamous carry trade did little last week, but strength in the Yen remains a risk for the broader market.

• Crypto and DATCos. With the volatility in other markets last week, the stability in this space was noticeable. The jury is still out on which way this inflection point will resolve itself, but the case that it is forming a solid base is growing.

• Inflation. As one of the last people looking for not just cuts before hikes, but also cuts as early as September, Tuesday’s CPI numbers helped a lot! Some would argue that “Core” remains high, but it is artificially inflated by the “mysterious” way we choose to represent shelter inflation. (Yes, I’m hoping to get some call, out of the blue, to help re-evaluate what data decisions should be based on). Unfortunately, the resumption of increased hostilities in the Middle East and the limited amount of oil left in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve don’t help my take on inflation continuing to decline. Though any material slowing in the AI Spend would push the Fed (on both inflation and jobs) to consider cutting. Last weekend (according to WIRP) the market was pricing in 1.5 hikes by the end of the December meeting. It is now at 1.26 hikes. I think that expectation will continue to come down. Will consider this week a “decent” win as expectations for hikes declined even as oil prices ripped higher.

The risk that these “inflection points” are at risk of overloading markets remains high!

SPCH SPCF LOFF SPCU SPAL SPCL SPCM

This may set a “new low” in terms of gobbledygook for a heading in the T-Report. I’m hoping you are wondering what the heck triggered such an insane looking heading!

Those are the ticker symbols for 7 ETFs that provide 2X the daily return of SPCX! I’ve listed them in order from largest to smallest. In total they have “only” about $420 million in AUM (it was probably higher before most of these ETFs saw a decline of over 50% since their highs). SPCL tracked a larger “index” pre-IPO but converted to SPCX only with the IPO, presumably to be “first to market” on the SPCX-leveraged IPO. In all fairness, there are at least 4 ETFs allowing investors to short (on a leveraged basis) SPCX.

I’m kind of reminded of some vague saying about rabbits. You start with 2 (presumably male and female) and wind up with a LOT of rabbits very quickly!

Does one IPO really need to inspire at least 10 single stock ETFs?

Apparently (I was too lazy to pull up the tickers) there are already a half dozen or so single stock ETFs that track the newly launched SKHY ADR.

It is already a complex process to price an IPO. That process can be made more difficult when only a portion of the float is sold initially. I have zero clue how any of these single stock ETFs help in terms of allocation of capital, or price discovery! If anything, they tend to amplify moves, as the leverage creates forced end of day buying or selling! That is the opposite of helping price discovery or establishing orderly markets.

I’m assuming any 4 letter combination of CHAT, OPEN, LLM, etc. has been purchased/registered in the “ticker” world. CHTU (Chat Up) or CHTD (Chat Down) seem obvious ones to own, to sell to an ETF manager (though, again, it is likely that they are already taken). Kind of reminiscent of when people were buying up domain names hoping to sell them.

I probably ranted too long to make the point that leveraged ETFs (single stock and index) tend to amplify moves in both directions!

SOXL

We might as well transition from market structure to the AI spend, with SOXL.

3X leverage on the NYSE Semi Index, with $19 billion of AUM, tends to amplify moves.

One “characteristic” of these market-structure impacting ETFs (in my opinion, and one I’m certainly guilty of) is that:

• When a stock or sector that XYZ recommends goes higher, all the credit is attributed to the idea. It is all ixnay on the market structure when the market structure is helping support a move.
• When a stock or sector that XYZ recommends goes lower, XYZ (whoever that may be) is quick to pull out the “technicals” or “market structure” card, as the culprit.

Leveraged ETFs (single stock and index) and Zero-Day to Expiration Options (0DTE and other short-term options) all tend to amplify moves. It is the nature of the beast. If there is potential for stop losses to be triggered, the amplification effect is even more powerful.

Is it time to buy the dip? If the parabolic move higher in the various semi-conductor indices owes some thanks to market structure (and I think it does), that market structure may have shifted from a tailwind to a headwind (or worse, a tailwind in the other direction).

From Cheap Trinkets to Cheap Compute?

I find myself admonishing myself and cautioning clients to put China circa 2005 out of their mind. The argument is basically that yes, China used to make “cheap” trinkets. That much of what they made was of lower quality and fell apart. No one really picked up an item that had a “Made in China” label and thought it was fine engineering!

In general, that just isn’t true in 2026. China makes high-quality components. China makes high-quality products. Intellectual Property ownership has shifted. Through a variety of methods (ranging from companies willingly exposing themselves to Chinese companies to access via less savory means), China has closed the gap on IP. In some areas, China is ahead on IP.

I admit, I checked out a BYD showroom when I was in Munich last week (please try not to judge how I occupy my free time ). The vehicles looked kind of cool and I already had decent expectations, unlike I would have had a few years ago.

Is Cheap Compute the “New” China 2005 Story?

I’m not sure why I say “2005,” but I do (I hope it gets the point across that we are talking about what China was like a couple of decades ago, when they really started to dominate global trade).

My take is:

• China wedged their foot in the door by making some things at cheaper prices than anyone else could.
• China was willing to accept things, like pollution and horrible labor conditions, to do that.

We ceded more and more manufacturing to China, and they got better and better at it.

• China Inc. ensured that the Chinese government and Chinese corporations were in “sync,” making it easier to coordinate their push into global markets.
  • Unfair advantages at home, flooding markets to lower prices abroad, etc., were tools in their arsenal to dominate global manufacturing.

Over time, they made the shift from Made in China to Made by China:

• Selling your brands makes more money for your country and companies than just making someone else’s brands.

Globally, companies now compete with China on a much more equal footing, in terms of product quality, while China has the ability to work as China Inc. (typically an advantage).

That has played a role in our construction of the ProSec theme, which we provided a mid-year update on.

Increasingly, I’m concerned that we may be at a “2005” moment in compute?

General (ret.) Groen discussed this and much more with me on a call this week. I will paraphrase much of what was discussed:

• Are Chinese LLMs (and AI in general) as good as U.S. versions?
  • In general, no. Yes, it made big news on Friday, when a Chinese model did very well on some specific benchmark tests. For all we know, it was created/trained specifically for some benchmarks, which means it will do very well on those tests, but not necessarily perform well in the “wild.”
    • There are allegations and questions about how Chinese models attempt to train themselves on U.S. models, greatly reducing the cost and timing of training. Bad if true, but can it be stopped?
    • I’m told the politically correct term for this sort of “training” is to “distill” their models.
• Is China selling compute cheaper than U.S. compute is being sold for?
  • Yes, potentially 5 to 10 times cheaper. This is where I keep circling back to my “2005” date. Were dinky cars made in China as good as elsewhere? Ummm, I guess if you take out lead paint concerns and other things, sure, but the reality was we all kind of “knew” that there were issues with them. But you could buy a pack of 5 for the price of 1 made elsewhere, and the decision got more complex (apologies to Spider, who wanted me to use snow globes, but I decided to stick with dinky cars).
  • I do NOT have TikTok installed. I’ve only been on TEMU twice in my life. I haven’t even been tempted to try one of the Chinese models (and those of you who know me know I’m easily tempted). Yet, kind of like the dinky cars, you can see the appeal.
• The Half-Life of AI model domination seems to be shrinking. Probably an overly complicated (on my part) way of saying that AI is advancing rapidly. Every time you look at the benchmarks, there are models that have risen to the top of the charts that I barely knew existed (and I’m paying some attention).
  • Is AI able to generate new iterations of AI even faster? If you were, say, 3 generations behind, can you get to 1 generation behind extremely quickly? Seems plausible, especially if you are willing (or able) to “cut corners” on training?
• Electricity. Does the U.S. have the electricity generation capacity to feed the demand for AI (and the general public)? Do we have the ability to get that power from where it is generated to where it needs to be (the grid)? How do we compare to China on that front?
  • While I don’t have the details, it seems on the surface that China has more capability for “plug and play” on the AI front than the U.S. does. Electricity, energy production, and transfer are near the TOP OF THE ProSec list for a reason.
• NIMBY. We have discussed the AI Revolution as much as anyone (I think). We have been arguing that Data Center and AI construction (and electricity and to a lesser extent water) would be a major political issue in 2028 or sooner! No idea that it would be an issue that is defining some primaries already! New York State seems to be imposing a 1-year moratorium. I haven’t checked how that will work, but the fact that it is a talking point tells us something.
  • The AI industry needs to do better on community outreach. On top of everything else, there are National Security concerns at play. I’m not sure how the industry, or the national security apparatus, changes the direction in the U.S., but they need to increase their efforts.
    • There are plenty of areas building and pitching for more data centers and AI, so we are a long way from being out of the game, but we need to do a lot to not only protect the lead but also add to the lead (maybe the English coach could have applied that logic to the last 30 minutes as well).
  • I’m pretty sure that there is no equivalent of NIMBY in China. There are some things that one culture has that another culture doesn’t have, but at least there is some understanding of why you have that thing, or think that way. I’d be willing to bet the vast majority of people in China would just stare at you blankly, bemused by the concept of NIMBY getting in the way.

Bottom Line

Many of the “inflection” points have demonstrated a clear direction to which way they are headed, but with everything going on, expect more downside for the markets. DeepSeek was a moment. Treating cheap compute like manufacturing was treated circa 2005 is NOT a “moment.” I’m trying to avoid getting “sucked into the hype of the moment,” and wish I’d written the section on cheap compute Wednesday morning, before the recent news hit (we’d look a bit more proactive, rather than reactive), but I didn’t. The AI spend is at risk on multiple fronts, and while I expect earnings to be important, it now seems clear that even strong earnings, with very visible, very strong guidance for years to come, might not be enough! Last weekend, my perception was that earnings could propel sectors, especially the “compute” sector, higher, but I’m less convinced of that now. The story on “compute credit” seems to have deteriorated, even though we think it is overdone. It does seem like we might need a “debt diet” moment, where some company takes steps to make creditors happy, and finds that their stock responds positively to that action. While the Middle East is not helpful for lower inflation, any slowdown in the AI spend would be (though it would be awful for the economy). While I’m loath to end with a chart, today we are going to end with a chart.

While the Nasdaq 100 has been in a range for the past few weeks and has started moving lower, the S&P 500 equal weight index has been grinding higher and is extremely close to its all-time highs. In some ways it seems “crazy” to think that the S&P 500 equal weight and the Nasdaq 100 should have similar returns (we saw the post-Liberation Day rally in the Nasdaq 100), but finally the two indices closed the gap (noticeably the separation closed when both indices were moving lower).

Who knows, by Monday, the President may have sent something on Truth Social to change all of this (he controls the Iran narrative, and he did push back on the New York data center moratorium). If he does, we should find out at the same time as everyone else, because I don’t think “fast access” on Truth Social has been implemented yet (Trump Media Subscription Plan).

This should be an interesting week. Buy the dip, or get bearish? Of all the things listed, the concept of “cheap” compute from China concerns me the most!