US manufacturing is booming, expanding at the fastest pace since 2022 and beating expectations in many metrics for the month of July. Omar Sharif of Inflation Insights points out that the ISM production index rose by the most for any July since 1951. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

US investment-grade bonds of tech companies lost 2.2% last month, with yields on the debt rising to the highest levels since late 2023 (see below). This debt is in the crosswinds of both concerns about interest-rate risk and anxiety around the cost of the AI buildout.

Real yields on 30-year Treasuries are the highest since 2008. The rise in yields isn't just being driven by inflation expectations.

U.S. investment-grade bond yields have risen to about the highest since 2002 relative to a comparable measure - the earnings yield - on the S&P 500. Bond vigilantes are reasserting themselves, even as corporate profits keep climbing.

"Household equity exposure is near all-time highs, with data extending back to 1945...The risks to the stock market increasingly represent risks to the consumer:" Troy Ludtka of SMBC Nikko Securities Americas

Over the past year, 43% of hyperscaler debt supply consisted of bonds with maturities exceeding 10 yrs: BofA. By comparison, longer bonds made up 24% of M&A debt deals & 23% of other non-financial issuance. Spreads on the tech debt have steadily widened www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

US diesel prices, a key input to consumer prices on everything from groceries to new construction, are up 10% since July 5.

US initial jobless claims just came in at the lowest level since 1969.

Alphabet highlights how much the hyperscaler landscape has changed. These companies used to be cash-producing machines. Now, Google's parent company just posted its first negative free cashflow quarter since at least 2016.

US 30-year yields have remained above 5% for 27 days this year, including the last 12 days in a row - the longest stretch since 2007. Real yields on 30-year notes are the highest since 2008, at nearly 3%. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Real yields on U.S. 10-year Treasuries have reached the highest since 2023.

“NYSE margin debt is reaching historic levels:” Deutsche Bank analysts. This is partly due to a “surprise dovish Fed pivot in Dec’23…Since Oct’23, NYSE margin debt has increased 136%, which is the fastest rate of margin debt expansion on record” except for February & March 2000

Alphabet's 100-year Sterling debt has lost more than 7% since its issuance in February. This isn't entirely surprising given the duration, UK-related political risk and glut of Alphabet-related debt sales this year. (1/2)

The five biggest US banks reported a combined $50.53 billion from their trading units in Q2, more than a third of full-year 2025's $145 billion total: Bloomberg data

BlackRock has expanded its assets under management by nearly $5 trillion over the next two years, to $15.3 trillion.

Investors are pricing out the chance of a recession. Respondents to the latest BofA fund manager survey see a 54% of "no landing" for the economy, a record, w/only 2% seeing a hard landing. Sentiment is the most bullish since February; 83% see no Fed rate hikes before midterms

Yields on 2-year Treasuries surged to the highest since February 2025 today, spurred by rising oil prices and then accelerated by Fed Gov. Waller’s hawkish comments. The surge has happened in real yields, which are nearing the highest since 2024, not inflation expectations

The US stock market looks fairly stable, with a measure of overall index volatility remaining at low levels. But implied volatility in single-name stocks has surged to the highest in more than a year. The gap between the two measures has never been higher: Bloomberg's Simon White

The US sold $39 billion of 10-year notes at the highest yield since February 2025, at 4.58%. There was strong demand from investors, but they're demanding a relatively high level of compensation to own the debt. (February 2025 was before the Fed cut rates by 75bp.)

Amazon has borrowed more than $100 billion so far this year, including 40- and 50-year debt. Investors are growing a bit weary. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

This is the growing concern, that the US’s curbs on the latest Anthropic and OpenAI models will only accelerate a shift to cheaper, open-source Chinese models. Even if they’re not as good as the top US models yet, they’re good enough. (1/2) www.wsj.com/tech/ai/chin...

China Has Matched Anthropic in Cybersecurity, Resetting AI Race

A clampdown on top U.S. AI is fueling concern that Washington is handing Beijing a cyberwarfare advantage.

wsj.com

SpaceX’s bond investors are experiencing some buyers’ remorse. The company’s $25 billion bonds sold Tuesday had already suffered about $305 million of lost market value by late Thursday relative to Treasuries. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Bond Traders Stunned as Losses on SpaceX’s New Debt Keep Growing

SpaceX’s blockbuster bond sale is weakening so quickly in the secondary market that traders say they can’t recall another recent deal that widened this sharply.

bloomberg.com

One Columbia economist estimates that spending on the AI build-out through 2032 could come to about $8 trillion - nearly five times the market value of the entire New York City property market. www.wsj.com/economy/the-...

Microsoft shares are poised for their worst monthly loss since 2008, having plunged nearly 19% so far in June. Oracle is down 30%, Meta down 12%, Google down 8%. And yet the S&P 500 equal weight index is up 1% on the month.

Deutsche Bank’s Matthew Luzzetti changed his Fed forecast after the latest FOMC meeting to 50bp of rate hikes later this year. “We now expect the Fed to take action against sticky inflation…Our base case is that the Fed raises rates twice this year, in September and December.”

We're seeing the biggest contraction in the gap between US 2-year and 30-year yields going back to April 2025 following the Fed's rate decision and hawkish tone.

Inventories at the US’s largest commercial crude oil storage hub fell to the lowest since 2014. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The gap between yields on US 2-year and 10-year Treasuries has shrunk to the narrowest in a year.

SpaceX highlights a number of market trends with both its IPO last week and $60 billion takeover of Cursor today. Companies are staying private much longer, and they're doing bigger deals. The dollar volume of deals has surged to record highs this year, but the number has fallen.

“Private capital now earns twice as much of the lifetime returns of businesses that do eventually go public. You’d have to believe that SPCX’s market cap will exceed 20% of 2036 US GDP for it to buck this trend:” Carlyle’s Jason Thomas.