What we’re reading (12/2)
“Strong Start To Online Holiday Shopping Masks Signs Of A Fragile U.S. Consumer” (Reuters). “Consumer confidence fell again in November. Still, Americans spent a record $44.2 billion online during the period retailers call Cyber Week - the U.S. shopping bonanza that runs from Thanksgiving through the following Monday - according to Adobe (ADBE) Analytics, which tracks shopper visits to online retail websites.”
“OpenAI Declares ‘Code Red’ As Google Threatens AI Lead” (Wall Street Journal). “Altman said OpenAI had more work to do on the day-to-day experience of its chatbot, including improving personalization features for users, increasing its speed and reliability, and allowing it to answer a wider range of questions. The companywide memo is the most decisive indication yet of the pressure OpenAI is facing from competitors that have narrowed the startup’s lead in the AI race. Of particular concern to Altman is Google, which released a new version of its Gemini AI model last month that surpassed OpenAI’s models on industry benchmark tests and sent the search giant’s stock soaring.”
“AI Adoption Rates Starting To Flatten Out” (Torsten Sløk, Apollo). “Data from the Census Bureau and Ramp shows that AI adoption rates are starting to flatten out across all firm sizes, see charts [enclosed].”
“Can Arizona Miners Unleash An American Copper Boom?” (Wall Street Journal). “Advances in mining technology, insatiable demand for the metal that is essential to everything electric, and President Trump’s push to boost U.S. raw-material output have made it worthwhile to revisit old mines and marginal deposits around copper-rich Arizona…The U.S. has plenty of copper in the ground, but smelting capacity is a pinch point. A big chunk of U.S. mine output is shipped abroad and sent back in processed forms that manufacturers can use.”
“The Great Equity Reset - Global Dispersion” (Disciplined Systematic Global Macro Views). “What remains the key theme to watch is the rotation into global equities and emerging markets, which are up respectively by 29.84% and 22.40% through November. These indices are beating large, mid, and small-cap US stocks by a significant margin. Buying a broad set of US stocks is not the direction for success in the equity markets. We are seeing low correlation across US stocks and high dispersion. Investors need to be selective with their stock choices. This is a global stock-pickers market. If you are not a stock picker, you can see it in the differentials across risk premia. High beta and momentum factors are showing strong returns, while low volatility and dividend stocks are underperforming, even amid the current talk of market bubbles.”
