Four megacap earnings reports, a Federal Reserve meeting and an inflation print, all in one week. Financial media calls this a "risk." I call it a calendar.
The AI trade is faltering. Imagine that. A trade built on the idea that a chatbot will replace every accountant is wobbling because accountants are still here, billing hourly, laughing.
Here is what the pundits want you to do. Read the earnings. Parse Jerome Powell's tone. Wait for the Consumer Price Index like it's a verdict from a jury of your peers. Then buy or sell based on a number that was revised before you finished reading it.
Here is what the chart says. Lines go up. Lines go down. Sometimes they go sideways, which is the market's way of telling you to go outside. You won't. You'll refresh a brokerage app in a parked car.
Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta will each tell you the future is bright and expensive. They will spend billions on chips to build software that writes emails you didn't want to receive. Then analysts will ask a question about "capex discipline" and the CEO will say "disciplined" four times. Stock moves eight percent. Nobody knows why. Not even the stock.
The Fed meets too. Powell will speak in a voice designed to be forgotten. Traders will treat a single adjective as scripture. "Patient." "Vigilant." "Moist." Whatever he says, a man in Ohio with a margin account will interpret it as a personal message.
I feel for you. Truly. You bought the AI dip in the spring, the AI dip in the summer, and now you're holding the AI dip like a toddler holding a dead bird. You keep asking it to wake up.
The week will be volatile. Or it won't. Either way, you'll tell your spouse you "saw it coming," and she'll nod the way people nod at a golden retriever.
Close the app. Eat a sandwich. The sandwich has better fundamentals than your portfolio and has never once been downgraded.
Photo by Marcus Reubenstein on Unsplash
Leave a Comment