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October 9th, 2026 | AI Investment Boom, Jobs Report Accuracy, AI Investing Agents, Historical Market Trends, Consumer Spending Trends & More
-The Trillion-Dollar Math of AI
We have officially entered the era of trillion-dollar math, and some of the numbers being thrown around should make investors stop and think.
A recent Barron’s article highlights the extraordinary financial assumptions behind the AI boom. Anthropic is reportedly targeting a valuation around $2 trillion while the company has projected enormous future infrastructure commitments. The business lost $42 B last year on $4.6 B in revenue. While revenue has improved substantially this year and as of July the company has an annual run rate of $65 billion, it expects to spend $518 B on cloud computing and infrastructure obligations in the coming years. At the same time, a Brookings estimate puts the total AI infrastructure buildout from 2025 to 2032 at roughly $10.3 trillion…
-How reliable is the jobs report? Look at the revisions
One of the biggest things investors should understand about the monthly jobs report is that the headline number is not a final number. It is an estimate, and in some cases, it is an estimate based on a surprisingly small amount of information.
The September establishment survey is a perfect example. The initial collection rate was just 53.1%. That means barely more than half of the reporting locations had provided information by the time the initial estimate was produced. BLS continues…
-What happens when everyone has an AI agent managing their investments?
A recent Barron’s highlighted the growing use of AI-driven investing. Since Robinhood launched agentic trading in May, more than 150,000 customers have opened agentic trading accounts, and AI agents are now using Robinhood’s tools nearly 30 million times a day. Public says customers created 20,000 AI agents within a month of making them available to all users, with more than $200 million in assets now overseen by AI agents…
-History is Helpful, But It Is Not a Guarantee
The four-year presidential cycle has historically been a useful guide for understanding market trends, and the numbers heading into the next few years are certainly interesting.
Since World War II, the pre-election year, which would be 2027, has been the strongest of the four years on average. In fact, the S&P 500, including dividends, has not experienced a negative pre-election year since the 1930s. One possible explanation is that policymakers tend to favor economic growth heading into an election, using fiscal policy to create more favorable economic conditions…
-Why Does Consumer Spending Look So Good?
The final revision of second-quarter GDP showed the U.S. economy growing at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 2.2%, up from the previously reported 1.5%. Much of the upward revision came from stronger personal spending, which increased at a 3.8% annualized rate, compared with the earlier estimate of 3.2%. Overall GDP growth was weighed down by spending on imports and a drawdown in business inventories. Excluding those factors, domestic final sales grew at an impressive real 3.9% annualized rate. That represents a significant acceleration from the 2.4% growth recorded in the previous quarter and just 0.5% in the quarter before that. While this sounds like the consumer is feeling good, it seems to conflict with what consumer surveys are telling us…
-Financial Planning: Big Changes Coming to Social Security…
The Claiming Age Clarity Act seeks to simplify Social Security terminology by renaming certain claiming milestones. Currently, the terms “early eligibility age,” “full retirement age,” and “delayed retirement age” are used for claiming benefits at ages 62, 67, and 70, respectively. The legislation would replace these terms with “minimum monthly benefit age” at 62, “standard monthly benefit age” at 67, and “maximum monthly benefit age” at 70... that’s it. Unfortunately, this legislation does nothing to address the far more significant issue facing Social Security, its long-term financial sustainability. Changing terminology does not increase funding, reduce the projected shortfall, or prevent future benefit cuts. While clearer communication may have some educational value, it is difficult to view this as meaningful progress when Social Security’s underlying financial challenges remain unresolved…
-Company Discussed: Starbucks Corporation (Ticker: SBUX)
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