MONITOR LABOR DATA

“Alternative Asset Managers are very rate-sensitive. Higher for longer rates, they compress private equity deal activity, they slow realizations, they reduce fundraising momentum. There's definitely a lot of downside risk because of how private investments are valued and oftentimes you don't know how bad things are in private markets until they get really bad.”

“A 20 year old man allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at the gate of Sam's home. No one was hurt, but according to the criminal complaint against the suspect, this was someone who had a document that identified views opposed to artificial intelligence, also had a list of names and addresses of other AI executives, investors, and board members. This is someone who was very clearly concerned about the existential risk that AI posed in his opinion, and so decided to take matters into his own hands and go try to attack Sam Altman.”

“Traders have abandoned their bets on a stronger dollar, and the greenback is on course for its worst month since August. Dollar index is down 2.3% from its late March peak. The euro has recovered almost all the losses it made in the conflict's first week. The dollar's loss ground against every major currency except the yen so far in April.”

“In a way, it is a toll road on America's aging water pipe replacement cycle. But daily average sales growth is down. There is a clear demand cooling trend. Private construction is soft. Tariff driven input costs, uncertainty, another overhang here. It is, in many ways, a high quality infrastructure distributor at a multi-year low valuation.”

“Traders have abandoned their bets on a stronger dollar, and the greenback is on course for its worst month since August. Dollar index is down 2.3% from its late March peak. The euro has recovered almost all the losses it made in the conflict's first week. The dollar's loss ground against every major currency except the yen so far in April.”

“In a way, it is a toll road on America's aging water pipe replacement cycle. But daily average sales growth is down. There is a clear demand cooling trend. Private construction is soft. Tariff driven input costs, uncertainty, another overhang here. It is, in many ways, a high quality infrastructure distributor at a multi-year low valuation.”

“Goldman Sachs published a note late last Thursday, revealing that systematic hedge funds, the algorithm driven funds known as CTAs or Commodity Trading Advisors, bought 86 billion of stock exposure over the last five trading sessions. That ranks as one of the largest buying surges in the history of these funds. They further estimated another 90 billion could follow over the next five sessions if the signal stays aligned.”

“There is a fundamental difference between financial markets and the real economy. They are not the same thing. Markets can be at all time highs while the economy is struggling. Now, where we are right now is not a struggling economy. It is a labor market that is a bit more weak, a bit weaker than it was last year. It's a consumer that is a bit more strained by inflationary pressures.”

“There is a fundamental difference between financial markets and the real economy. They are not the same thing. Markets can be at all time highs while the economy is struggling. Now, where we are right now is not a struggling economy. It is a labor market that is a bit more weak, a bit weaker than it was last year. It's a consumer that is a bit more strained by inflationary pressures.”

“The industries where they said we'd see the most wage gains from reduced labor supply are actually seeing slower growth in the broader economy. Employment in those 41 immigrant dependent industries fell by 90,400 in February from the previous February, while overall employment grew 298,000. The fundamental economic concept at work here is a lump of labor fallacy.”

“Goldman Sachs published a note late last Thursday, revealing that systematic hedge funds, the algorithm driven funds known as CTAs or Commodity Trading Advisors, bought 86 billion of stock exposure over the last five trading sessions. That ranks as one of the largest buying surges in the history of these funds. They further estimated another 90 billion could follow over the next five sessions if the signal stays aligned.”

“The industries where they said we'd see the most wage gains from reduced labor supply are actually seeing slower growth in the broader economy. Employment in those 41 immigrant dependent industries fell by 90,400 in February from the previous February, while overall employment grew 298,000. The fundamental economic concept at work here is a lump of labor fallacy.”

“I mean, one thing that I've been thinking about over the past few days is, like, this is happening at a time when unemployment is below 5 percent, and the S and P 500 is near a record high. And so if all of this is starting to happen when things are relatively good, economically speaking, in this country, I think the fear and the expectation among the leaders of these companies is that it will get much worse if and when AI does actually start to cause, like, mass disruptions to the labor market.”

“Words have power too. There was an incendiary article about me a few days ago. Someone said to me yesterday, they thought it was coming at a time of great anxiety about AI and that it made things more dangerous for me. I brushed it aside. Now I'm awake in the middle of the night and pissed. So what do you make of the idea, Kevin, that a reason for the negative sentiment against the AI companies and the industry at large is being driven by investigative journalism?”

“There's a new report out from Stanford this week, the 2026 version of their AI index, which sort of catalogs various trends in the AI industry. And, basically, their takeaway was that, in The US, people have very low trust in not only AI, but on the question of whether their own government can regulate AI in a responsible way. The global average on that question was 54 percent of, like, do you trust your own government to responsibly regulate AI? In The US, that is only 31 percent.”

“CTA flows are a short-term momentum signal. They are not, not, not, not, a fundamental endorsement. The algorithms are buying because prices are rising. They don't know and they don't care whether the war ends, whether earnings hold, or whether the consumer cracks. The smart money is in. But the smart money isn't always right. It's just faster.”

“CTA flows are a short-term momentum signal. They are not, not, not, not, a fundamental endorsement. The algorithms are buying because prices are rising. They don't know and they don't care whether the war ends, whether earnings hold, or whether the consumer cracks. The smart money is in. But the smart money isn't always right. It's just faster.”

“Alternative Asset Managers are very rate-sensitive. Higher for longer rates, they compress private equity deal activity, they slow realizations, they reduce fundraising momentum. There's definitely a lot of downside risk because of how private investments are valued and oftentimes you don't know how bad things are in private markets until they get really bad.”

“The state of Maine recently passed a temporary moratorium that would ban data centers larger than 20 megawatts until November 2027. There's a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Port Washington, which is gonna be the home of one of these big OpenAI Oracle Stargate data centers. That town recently voted overwhelmingly in favor of restricting the building of future data centers. Basically, you have to get voter approval before you do any of these things. Then there's also similar efforts going on in places like Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, Georgia, North Carolina.”