Torsdags aktiemarked udløste en af de kraftigste sektor rotationer i år. De professionelle investorer flokkes nu om de tidligere taber-sektorer: cykliske aktier, industri og forbrug – mens de trak deres kapital ud af de tidligere supervindere, momentumaktierne inden for semiconducters, chips og memory aktier.
De “nye vindere” er altså især de aktiver og sektorer, der bliver begunstiget af en rotation væk fra AI-/momentumaktier og over mod mere defensive eller tidligere oversete positioner. Altså i høj grad mange af de danske storaktier, som har præsteret meget svagt i år.
Obligationer og guld er også klare vindere. De svage amerikanske jobtal — kun 57.000 nye jobs — sænkede markedets forventninger til yderligere renteforhøjelser. Det gav støtte til obligationsmarkedet, mens dollarfaldet samtidig løftede guld, som ifølge notatet kom tilbage over 4.100 dollar.
På aktiesiden er finans og forbrugscykliske aktier som relative vindere. Hvor tech, energi og forsyning haltede, klarede finanssektoren og consumer discretionary sig bedre. Det er vigtigt, fordi markedet på overfladen så nogenlunde stabilt ud, men under overfladen var der en kraftig rotation væk fra de hidtidige AI-/momentumfavoritter.
En anden gruppe “vindere” er de såkaldte momo-losers — altså aktier og strategier, der tidligere havde tabt terræn, men nu steg, mens de tidligere vindere blev solgt hårdt ned. Det er et dobbelt slag mod momentumtradere: vinderne faldt, og taberne steg. Det betyder, at traditionelle momentumstrategier blev presset fra begge sider.
Hyperscalere og “check writers” nævnes også som relative vindere i forhold til chip- og memoryproducenterne. De selskaber, der køber AI-kapacitet, har klaret sig bedre end “check receivers” — især semis, memory og AI-leverandører, som ellers havde været blandt markedets største vindere. Det tolkes som en begyndende markedsbekymring for, om AI-investeringerne giver nok afkast til at forsvare de høje værdiansættelser i leverandørleddet.
Endelig fremstår bitcoin/krypto som en kortsigtet vinder. Bitcoin steg over 5 % på to dage og kom tilbage over 62.000 dollar — den bedste todages-stigning siden krigens start i februar.
Samlet er pointen, at de nye vindere ikke nødvendigvis er stærke væksthistorier, men snarere modtagere af en tvungen rotation: obligationer, guld, bitcoin, finans, forbrugscykliske aktier og tidligere tabere vinder, fordi kapital flytter ud af overfyldte AI-, memory-, semis- og momentumpositioner.
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Uddrag fra J P Morgan Goldman og Zerohedge
H2’26 has started off with an unwindy/rotation bang as momentum winners have collapsed (AI/memory/semis) and momo losers are surging (no obvious catalyst aside from META’s ‘excess compute’). Weak payrolls pushed bond yields lower and gold higher as rate-hike odds dropped. Oil down on the week as flows picked up. Korea’s carnage was crypto’s gain (BTC’s best 2 days since feb).
Three numbers gained Goldman’s Chris Hussey’s attention this week:
1. 57,000. That’s the number of non-farm payroll additions we got in June. That’s also a lot fewer net new jobs than consensus expected. And while the unemployment rate (which is derived from a different household survey) fell 10bp to 4.2%, it declined only because the number of people seeking jobs declined faster than the number of jobs that were available. Curious stat of the day: The 720k person decline in the size of the labor force was mostly driven by a very large decline (-700k, or -1.6pp) in the size of the labor force for workers aged 25-34.
2. 53.3. That’s the latest ISM Manufacturing Index, down 0.7 from last month’s reading but still comfortably in expansion territory after having spent much of the post-pandemic echo-boom in contraction.
3. 70. That’s the front-month Brent oil futures price — down from $112 in mid-May as markets quickly reset for a normalized oil market amidst a re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Taken together, Hussey says the three numbers paint a picture of a US economy in flux.
Our economists’ 2Q26 GDP growth tracker sits at 2.1%
Many have written about a K-shaped economy where the upper income cohorts are accelerating at the same time as the lower income cohorts are facing headwinds.
The trio of numbers this week, however, may be pointing to an apples and oranges economy.
The apples are enterprises. Engaging with AI models to boost productivity, enterprises may be emboldened to hire fewer employees in anticipation that AI models can do the job just as well.
The oranges, however, are the people (consumers, workers, etc.). The Conference Board’s index of consumer sentiment was revised lower this week. And today’s payrolls numbers suggest that finding a job may be getting increasingly difficult even as the S&P 500 sits near an all-time high.
So with that color, let’s survey the damage in this holiday-shortened week…
Oil
Oil deepened its slide below pre-war levels as flows from the Persian Gulf soared, heightening the prospect of a supply surplus.
WTI has continued to decline after their biggest quarterly drop since the pandemic in 2020, with a loss of more than 40% from their peak at the height of the war.
As Bloomberg reports, crude oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz surged to 14 million barrels on July 1, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
That’s in addition to bypass cargoes from Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast and the UAE port of Fujairah, which have been exporting about 6.2 million a day between them.
While a single day’s flows offer only a very limited snapshot, they nevertheless demonstrate how fast oil supply from producers in the Persian Gulf can rebound. The collective rate of exports via Yanbu, Fujairah and Hormuz stood at about 18 million a day in February.
The result of the pickup in exports, Saudi Arabia’s flows have hit 90% of their prewar rates, has been a gush of oil into the market at a time when many of the wartime supply workarounds are still in place – including releases of emergency reserves and depressed imports by China.
“A wave of oil is about to enter the market,” said Natasha Kaneva, head of commodities research at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
“And here lies the paradox. The surge in oil supply is about to collide with a market that, at least for now, simply does not need it.”
And while Dated Brent prices have plunged, the front-end of the crude curve has shifted significantly more ominously bearish (biggest contango since Dec 2022)…
The correlations between oil, stocks, and bonds have ‘broken’…
Stocks
Point-to-point this week, the US Majors are hiding a lot of pain with the S&P and Dow leading, Small Caps lagging modestly, and Nasdaq bouncing to a small gain…
Nasdaq’s bounce came today as it tested its 50DMA…
Financials and Consumer Discretionary sectors outperformed while Tech joined Energy (and Utes) in the red…
But, below the surface it was a bloodbath…
…as the reality of ‘peak Tokenmaxxing’ suddenly hits economic reality…
AI winners have been clubbed like a baby seal over the last two days (with Goldman’s AI Beneficiaries vs ‘At Risk’ pair crashing 16% – its worst two-day drop ever)…
The ‘check writers’ have made a modest recovery relative to the ‘check receivers’ in the last couple of days…
Momo has crashed over 18% in the last two days…
…its worst two-day drop since Nov 2020 (when high growth tech stocks collapsed on positive COVID vaccine news while financials and energy outperformed)…
And the realized vol of momentum has exploded higher (not great for VaR budgets)…
Momo traders were hit with a double whammy of winners crashing and losers rallying…
Memory stocks are a bloodbath, down over 18% in the last two days… the biggest two-day drop in memory stocks in at least 12 years (GS data)…
AI Semis were slaughtered (worst two days drop since Liberation Day)…
SNDK entered a bear market…
…and with memory/semis getting slaughtered, Korean stocks cratered…
…as traders are reminded that leverage works both ways…
And one more thing, hedgies were hammered the last couple of days, dragging their performance proxy (VIP Longs vs Most Shorted) down 21% YTD (vs S&P +9%)…
And maybe none of this should come as a surprise, since momentum seems to have had a hell of July the last few years…
Rates
A weaker than expected payrolls print punched rate-hike expectations lower today (though the market still remains more hawkish than pre-Warsh)…
“It’s a great report for Kevin Warsh and it’s a good report for the bond market,” Jeffrey Rosenberg, senior portfolio manager at BlackRock told Bloomberg Television. It will help Fed Chairman Warsh to be patient, he added.
Treasury yields ended the holiday-shortened week higher, despite a solid bid today after payrolls (most focused in the short-end)…
Steepening the yield curve (2s30s) back to pre-Warsh levels…
And one more thing before we leave bond-land, Bloomberg’s Alyce Andres noted that long-end breakevens, a real-time gauge of the market’s confidence that the Fed will return inflation to its 2% target over time, briefly widened after a limp payroll report as traders pared expectations for additional Fed tightening.
But the move faded as markets stopped short of pricing a lasting deterioration in the Fed’s inflation credibility.
Everything Else
The dollar dumped the most in two months today with overnight weakness accelerated by a weak payrolls print. However, the dollar is still up significantly post-Warsh..
The dollar’s loss was gold’s gain with the barbarous relic back above $4100…
Korean chaos seemed to spark joy in crypto with Bitcoin jumping over 5% in the last two days back above $62,000 – its best two-day gain since the start of the war (end Feb).
Finally, while one often hears that there is loads of dry powder thanks to the large balances in money funds, Bloomberg’s Cameron Crise notes that what gets less attention is that those balances are essentially vulturing from bank deposits, since those don’t pay much interest these days. Combine the two metrics and express it as a percentage of SPX market cap, and you’ll find that we’re nearly back to the extremes of the 2000-era peak.
At the same time, margin balances are exploding higher; as of the end of May, margin debt was up some 53% y/y. The times that the growth rate has been higher saw margin growth peak in March 2000, July 2007, and March 2021. All of these were followed by major market peaks within a year.
…probably nothing!?
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