While there is quite a bit of attention on AI driving layoffs, most of the reasons cited in this data set are about "closing," "economic conditions," "restructuring," and "loss of contract." AI is a comparatively small factor behind the January jump in layoff news.

In an extreme scenario of the Strait of Hormuz being blocked, Bloomberg Bloomberg Economics estimates oil prices could spike to $108/barrel

Gold is up 9% in the first three weeks of 2026, and up 75% in the past 12 months.

While some international funds are considering diversifying away from US assets, there’s still a lot of money heading into dollar-denominated assets. US investment-grade bond spreads have fallen to the lowest since 1998.

Disruption is a feature of the tech cycle, but ruptures have big ripple effects. Private credit is taking a big hit from its software exposure, for example. Software now accounts for about 20% of investments in BDCs compared to around 10% in 2016: Barclays wsj.com/livecoverage/

It's been a boon to bank stocks, which are at record highs and up 66% from last April.

While everyone focuses on ruptures in tech, the US yield curve has steadily steepened. The gap between 2 and 10-year yields is now the widest going back to January 2022.

In 1985, IBM was America’s most valuable company & employed nearly 400,000. Today, Nvidia is nearly 20 times as valuable and five times as profitable as IBM was yet it employs roughly a 10th as many people. wsj.com/economy/jobs/c… Greg Ip

“High yield and leveraged loan tech spreads are in early-to-middle innings of pricing AI disruption risk…We expect AI disruption risk to be increasingly reflected over 2026–early 2027,” and more so in the US than Europe: UBS’s Matt Mish

Perhaps the trade this year isn't so much "sell America," but rather something like: "spend a lot more money everywhere else" - at least so far this year. For example, Asian stocks have made their best start over US equities since at least 2000: Bloomberg Terminal

A former karaoke company recreated itself as an AI-fueled logistics company, unveiled a new platform & spurred huge market losses in the latest “scare trade.” Neuberger’s Joe Amato called AI-disruption fears a “heat-seeking missile” in search of its next sector to target.

US exceptionalism is turning into global rebalancing: BofA’s Michael Hartnett. Stock funds in Europe, Japan and other international developed markets have drawn $104 billion this year vs the $25 billion that’s flowed into US funds: BofA citing EPFR Global. finance.yahoo.com/news/bofa-says

About one CEO in nine was replaced last year across 1,500 of the biggest publicly traded companies, the highest rate since at least 2010. More than 80% of last year’s incoming CEOs were first-timers, with no prior experience. wsj.com/business/c-sui…

Nearly one in five young men in the UK don't have a job, with the unemployment rate for this group rising to the highest in a decade, via Daniel Curtis

Almost 90% of global public bonds trade at a yield lower than 5%: Apollo's Torsten Slok. "With inflation at close to 3%, this means that investors in public fixed income only get a 2% real return each year."

Software stocks have lost a third of their value since the end of October.

JPMorgan's Bob Michele compared the move in CLO equity to ABX indices from 2005 through 2007. Two decades ago, traders dismissed some of those ABX moves as noise. Some are doing the same today with this move in CLO equity. (1/2)

This year's dispersion has been historic. The equal weight S&P 500 is having its best monthly performance versus the market-cap index since 2009, via chart master Daniel Curtis. While the Mag 7 are down more than 7% since late October, the equal weight index keeps hitting records.

Global investors are taking profits after earning a nearly 50% gain in South Korean stocks so far this year. bloomberg.com/news/articles/… Yesterday, DB's Jim Reid put out a chart showing how Korean stocks have gone from cheap, to beating everyone else, to downright expensive:

Pockets of leverage are being exposed, with the Kospi now in freefall after a 50% gain this year. “There’s been a lot of buying on credit, especially those heavyweight stocks, with investors putting down only 30%-40% in margin deposit.” bloomberg.com/news/articles/…