Big Tech is spending billions to not employ people

Leveraged stock bets are ‘very concentrated in the AI ecosystem,’ Goldman Sachs warns

The inflow of money into U.S. equities is running well above the average this year, according to Christian Mueller-Glissmann and his team at Goldman Sachs. One aspect of that is that “Investors are increasingly deploying leverage to participate in the equity rally,” they said in a recent note. “Net margin borrowing”—where traders magnify the effect of their bets by borrowing a multiple of their own money—is now at about $1.4 trillion. That’s the equivalent of 1.8% of all U.S. stocks. While leveraged investors can make more money on their trades by borrowing against their own stakes, they also stand to lose by a similar multiple if their bets go wrong. That adds an extra level of risk into the market—traders forced to cover their losing bets may end up selling other stocks to raise cash, thus magnifying selling pressure in the markets. “Outside the U.S., margin purchases of Japanese equities have also climbed above $30 billion, the highest level since the GFC [Great Financial Crisis],” Mueller-Glissmann said in a note seen by Fortune . “Investor leverage remains very concentrated in the AI ecosystem.” As this chart from Jim Reid and his folks at Deutsche Bank shows, the big tech stocks have underperformed the S&P 500 so far this year. Reid names four reasons why: 1. The Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship ruling hands the U.S. economy a $7.7 trillion win - Diane Brady Nike’s earning numbers exceeded Wall Street’s expectations. Now a record 60% of Russians are pessimistic about their country’s outlook - Tristan Bove Stripe, Visa and over 140 other businesses to launch stablecoin to rival Tether and Circle - Camila Grigera Naón Netflix could turn NBC into its biggest bet yet — and this time, the math actually works - Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian ‘You can expect prices to be high and stay high’: Domestic airfare is skyrocketing faster than international flight costs, despite using less jet fuel - Sasha Rogelberg Remote-first fintech giant Revolut is making the office compulsory for new Gen Z grads—and they’ll earn flexibility like their peers after one year - Emma Burleigh KKR cofounder once impressed Roy Disney with a habit most analysts skipped—it turned a 1-hour meeting into all-day mentorship: ‘I thought I’d died and gone to heaven’ - Preston Fore From the annals of “things you never even realized were an issue,” comes research from two German academics that shows that when air pollution rises, the underdog team in a soccer match commits more fouls on the pitch. Given that AI capex is running at a pace that will hit $1 trillion in 2030, corporations must realize savings equivalent to the layoff of 10 million office workers to make that work. “The conclusion surprised me,” Clapham says. “The results have important implications not just for the hyperscalers, but for Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic, and almost every investor trying to profit from AI.” Trump Pulled in at Least $2 Billion After Returning to the White House - NYT Iran says it is selling oil at 20% premium as end of U.S. blockade sees 40 million barrels exported - CNBC Trump administration lifts restrictions on Anthropic's Fable 5 - Axios Climate Change Keeps Adding to the List of Uninsurable Assets, Allianz Executive Says - Bloomberg More than 3,700 furry and feathered residents of the Nashville Zoo are on the verge of getting a new, and unwelcome, neighbor—a data center a little bit bigger than a football field, Fortune ’s Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez . How are we to know this new data center will not lead to irreversible damage to the animals we exist to protect?”, it has said in a petition signed by more than half a million supporters. “No one has shared studies or environmental impact assessments.