Weekly Investment Update

Every great technological revolution creates two things: new industries and new fortunes. It is the second of these that investors can sometimes overlook.

The industrial revolution created the Carnegies and the Rockefellers. The personal computer created a generation of technology entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. The internet produced extraordinary wealth for the founders, employees and early investors in companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google. More recently, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies created another, younger cohort of millionaires.

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For decades, gold has been treated by many investors as an eccentric investment, something to buy if you fear inflation, financial crisis or the end of the world. But the evidence increasingly points to a much simpler conclusion: gold should be a permanent part of a diversified investment portfolio.

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US government borrowing costs have been rising again. That sounds alarming. Higher bond yields are often interpreted as a warning that investors are losing confidence in America’s finances, its central bank or its ability to control inflation.

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BJ Fogg has spent more than 25 years studying an apparently simple question: why do people do what they do?

Fogg founded Stanford University’s Behavior Design Lab and wrote the bestselling book ‘Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything’. His central idea is that lasting change rarely begins with a heroic burst of motivation. It begins by making the desired behaviour so small and easy that it becomes difficult not to do.

His entertaining TEDx talk, “Forget Big Change, Start With a Tiny Habit”, explains the method through examples such as flossing one tooth or doing two push-ups to start the new habit. It sounds almost comically insignificant. That is precisely the point.

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Many investors continue to be concerned that we could be living through an AI-led bubble in investment markets. 

Our view is that this discussion is extremely premature.

AI may eventually produce a bubble. Almost every transformative technology attracts excessive investment at some point. But the important question is not whether excess could develop, it is whether today’s market resembles the final stages of a speculative boom.

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While investors around the world focus on artificial intelligence, bitcoin, and other prominent investment trends, there is a hidden economic cycle developing much closer to home we think could be a major opportunity over the coming years.

Underneath the strong US and steady European economies, residential property has experienced one of its deepest downturns in decades, and is now ripe for a major recovery. 

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With Elon Musk, it is always difficult to separate the business from the circus.

There are the feuds, the political interventions, the outrageous predictions and the daily melodrama. Whether you love him or hate him, the Musk world has become a kind of global soap opera, played out across social media, financial markets and, increasingly, geopolitics.

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Saturday's Financial Times carried a headline built for maximum unease: US tech giants have slashed 140,000 jobs this year, even as they pour unprecedented sums into artificial intelligence. US tech companies have eliminated close to 140,000 jobs since January, accounting for more than a third of every layoff announced nationwide, per an FT review of corporate filings and Challenger data. Look closer and the picture is more layered than the headline allows. Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet are meanwhile budgeting $725B for data centers this year, with Oracle putting up another $70B, spending that dwarfs the savings from the cuts themselves. Interestingly, the market is not entirely convinced by the framing either. Companies citing AI as a factor in job cuts have underperformed the Nasdaq by almost 10% in the 30 trading days following their announcements, suggesting the market doesn't entirely buy the stories that the companies are telling.

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Congratulations are in order for Spain, crowned champions of the 2026 FIFA World Cup after a tense 1-0 extra-time victory over Argentina at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Spain won the FIFA World Cup with a 1-0 extra-time win over Argentina, marking the Spanish men’s team’s second World Cup title, after winning their first in 2010. Ferran Torres struck the decisive blow deep into extra time, and fittingly it was a defensive masterclass that got them there. Spain’s run to the title was a defensive masterclass, with wins over four of the world’s top ten teams, and they are the first World Cup champion to win the title while only conceding a single goal.

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