Ana Sarda Rodrigues @nintingale: "𝘼𝙣 𝘼𝙄 𝙄𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙏𝙖𝙡𝙚: 𝙒𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙨,..."

Germany

𝘼𝙣 𝘼𝙄 𝙄𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙏𝙖𝙡𝙚: 𝙒𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙨, 𝙇𝙤𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙨, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙐𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙣𝙨 Is the AI Trade dead? Did we just experience a dead cat bounce? This is the question most of traders and investors are asking themselves right now. The reason is simple: AI-exposed names are roughly 40-45% of the S&P 500's market cap, though a handful of mega caps carry that weight, while the rest is probably indirected impacted by AI as well. This is the K-shape economy in it´s purest form: millennials and zoomers stretched thin, while AI capex has kept GDP and US indexes at new highs. Who were the Winners? Clearest winners sit at the capex bottleneck: GPUs ($NVDA), memory and DRAM ($SKHY (SK hynix Inc ADR), $MU (Micron Technology, Inc.), $SNDK (Sandisk Corp/DE)), optics ($COHR (Coherent Corp), $LUMN (Lumen Technologies Inc)). Every part of the stack powering a data center got bid up as capacity comes online, correction or not. And who were the Losers (so far!)? Hyperscalers need to monetize the capex they've been spending. Period. Combined capex is on pace to swallow nearly all operating cash flow this year, up from a third in 2023, some now leaning on equity raises, off-balance-sheet vehicles, real debt. This is a cash flow story turning into a leverage story. $META (Meta Platforms Inc) is the clearest case. Q2: ad revenue grew a healthy 27% to $59.4B, core isn't broken. But capex doubled to $31.1B, free cash flow collapsed 91% to $784M, full year capex guide pushed to $130-145B. Strong ad growth can't outrun that math. The Unicorns: who is in the path for the next legs higher? Bottlenecks and Hardware Further down the chain: chemicals behind chips, boards, advanced packaging, plating, printing, soldering, still carry zero AI premium. $ESI (Element Solutions Inc) has the same demand tailwind as the names above (Electronics segment up 41.6% last quarter, guidance raised again), but trades at a chemicals multiple because that's its coverage group. Same direction: $ENTG (Entegris Inc), $Q (Qnity Electronics Inc), $SMTC (Semtech Corp.), $5064.T, $COHR $CMI (Cummins Inc (Ex. Cummins Engine Inc)) Applied Use Cases A few companies are already integrating AI into daily ops and lifting margins. $TENB (Tenable Holdings Inc) is my best example: AI-infused cybersecurity market leader, vulnerability and exposure management. Tenable One unifies the attack surface into one view and it's working: record 50% of new business in Q2, revenue up 8.6% year over year, guiding to 40% of total revenue by year end from a third earlier this year. 65% of the Fortune 500 uses it. $CRSR (Corsair Gaming Inc) is pivoting toward AI workstations, hardware to run local models instead of paying for hosted ones. Q2: clean beat and raise, record 33.2% gross margin, full year EPS guidance raised to $0.85-0.94 against $0.72 consensus. Bear case essentially gone. Local models gaining ground as people understand tokens and LLMs: just starting. Robots Watched Transformers? Not a joke: AI-powered robots across industry and services is where this heads. AI is the brain, robotics the body, combination makes this real. Strongest players: $AMBA (Ambarella Inc) in the US, $HSAI (Hesai Group) in China, just raised 2026 lidar guidance to 3-3.5M units, doubling capacity to meet it. Semiconductors A few more quarters of boom left, semis outperform long term as AI and robotics get built into daily life, needing chips and memory. Main memory play remains $SKHY, around 5-6x forward earnings, alongside $EWY (iShares MSCI South Korea ETF) for Samsung and other Korean tech. Same direction: $ENTG, $Q. Energy: Natural Gas and Tankers Once data centers get built, two trends converge: reliable power around the clock, where natural gas fills the gap (US capacity built around Texas, the Permian Basin), and Middle East disruption, the Strait of Hormuz now weaponized, roughly 20% of global oil consumption moving through it, plus fertilizers, byproducts, over 90% of Qatar's LNG. Management quality and an integrated model matter here. $TTE (TotalEnergies SE) is my strongest case: fully integrated upstream to downstream, a trading arm to distribute energy where needed, oil, gas, renewables, capturing margin at every step. $BP moves the same direction, my two largest energy positions. Small legacy $EXE (Expand Energy Corp), $NBR (Nabors Industries Ltd), $APA (APA Corporation) positions from the Russia-Ukraine war should also benefit. Same direction: $GEV (GE Vernova LLC), $BTU (Peabody Energy Corporation ). The Big Threat Short term, real risk is a credit crisis paired with a sharp 10 year yield spike. Credit markets are sustaining the AI capex frenzy, with implications for every name above. For now that's fine: banks have underlent since 2008, appetite has returned, a big reason $UCG, $SAN (Banco Santander SA (US)-ADR), $BCS (Barclays PLC-ADR) have performed so well. But a liquidity or solvency shock could put it on hold. A too fast 10 year rise signals the Fed has lost control of policy and prices, bond market loses control, fiscal expansion retreats, and we risk recession, since government spending feeds that same commercial paper channel. Long term I think we'll be fine, especially in the names flagged here. Data centers will get built and need enormous reliable energy. Last 25 years were digital transformation. Next 25, I think, are physical: robots, energy, and the supply chains underneath both. My own views, not financial advice. Size your own risk.

Not investment advice. The author may have financial interests in the mentioned instruments.

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