1. Semiconductor Market Cap Surges to New Highs.

Semi Surge: After a period of consolidation around the previous all-time highs, US semiconductor stocks’ market cap weighting has surged onto fresh record highs (looking rather like a bull flag!). So, who knows, maybe we’re still early in the hype cycle? (and maybe that was all just a healthy correction/consolidation…)

Source:  Topdown Charts

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2. SPAC IPOs are Back…Last Batch Massive Outperformance vs. S&P with 90% Below Offering Price.

https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/spacs-trigger-bad-case-wall-street-amnesia-2025-05-28

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3. International Revenues/Weak Dollar

Equities have returned to record highs, but performance during the fall from grace earlier this year and the subsequent rebound off the April lows has not exactly been even.  With tariff headlines being one of the main focuses of the market this year, performance has been sensitive to how exposed a given stock is to international trade. One proxy for this international exposure is the percentage of revenues that a company generates inside versus outside of the US.  As shown below, from the election last November through Liberation Day when President Trump first announced reciprocal tariff rates, the best-performing cohort of Russell 1,000 members was those that do not generate any revenues outside of US borders (about 27% of member stocks in the index). That group averaged a 1.36% gain over that span compared to an average loss of 6.24% for the stocks that generate over half of their revenues outside the US (a little less than 20% of member stocks) or a more modest 2.65% average loss for all stocks in the index.  Obviously, with the index trading at fresh records, stocks have amazingly been in rally mode in the wake of Liberation Day, with the average Russell 1,000 now sitting on a 4.6% gain in that span. Those internationals that had formerly been hit the hardest have since shifted to the best performers, averaging a 6.28% gain.

https://www.bespokepremium.com/interactive/posts/think-big-blog/international-revenues-2

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4. Weaker Dollar will Help META and AAPL….Tech International Revenue.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-tech-stocks-exchange-rates-trade-tariffs-cd86caaf?mod=past_editions

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5. AMD Data Center Business Growth.

https://x.com/StockMKTNewz/status/1939337218419839152

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6. AI Data Centers CO2 Emissions.

That’s a considerably greater share of total emissions than the entireaviation industry— a sector often admonished for its carbon footprint — notched at the last count, when the flying business took 2.5% of global CO2 emissions. It would also exceed the emissions contributed by both Germany (1.75%) and Saudi Arabia (1.58%) combined in 2022, per estimates from the IEA.

www.chartr.com

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7. Consumer Spending?  Restaurant ETF New Highs.

©1999-2025 StockCharts.com All Rights Reserved

www.stockcharts.com

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8. U.S. Deficit as a Share of GDP-Prof G Blog

https://www.profgalloway.com/the-grown-up-tax-bill/

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9. Call an UBER.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-carlson-cfa-97661244/

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10. Education is Free Learning is Expensive-Seth’s Blog

That’s a complete reversal of how it used to be.

Colleges used to be measured by how many books they had in the library. Access to courses was restricted. If knowledge was power, controlling access was essential.

They even call it the ‘admissions office.’

Part of the status that comes from higher education is that they controlled who could find the information and who was left behind.

Today, of course, all of the information is there, a click away. Billions of people have a smartphone with access to everything ever recorded and written, but also to a trillion dollar AI system that can offer informed guidance.

So why hesitate? Why do we get stuck or avoid even acknowledging that it’s possible?

Because learning is hard. It creates tension. It takes time. Most of all, it requires a commitment to becoming someone else, a bet we’re making that might not turn out the way we hope.

The system has called our bluff. If you want to learn, learn.

But we pay for it with effort.

https://seths.blog

1. How the Bunker Buster Bomb Works

The Guardian

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2. America Has 40-50k Troops Across 19 Bases in Middle East

Al Jazeera

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3. Israeli Stock Market Hits All-Time Highs….Tel Aviv 125 Chart

Investing.com

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4. This Chart Shows Nuclear Energy ETF (NUKZ) vs. Semiconductor ETF (SMH)…Nuclear Outperforming

StockCharts

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5. Defensive Sectors at 35 Year Low Weight in S&P 500

Defensives vs. SPX. As a share of the S&P 500, the combined weight of Defensive sectors is at a +35-year low.

Daily Chartbook

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6. Crypto Year-to-Date

Nasdaq Dorsey Wright

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7. The Average Home Owner Pays 2.5% Premium in Rates to Move Right Now

Bespoke

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8. Gun Related by State

Visual Capitalist

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9. The Greatest Stock Pickers of All-Time-Warren Buffett, Jim Simons and NANCY PELOSI.  Pelosi +54% 2024 Crushing All Global Hedge Funds…Huge Start to 2025

NY POST-Pelosi raked in millions last year — and her portfolio out-performed every large hedge fund with stunning returns.

She might be the She-Wolf of Wall Street.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) raked in between $7.8 and $42.5 million in 2024 — meaning her estimated net worth with venture capitalist hubby Paul Pelosi could now top out at $413 million, new financial disclosures showed.

The staggering sum is an eye-popping jump from 2023, when financial disclosures showed the couple’s net worth topping out at a possible $370 million. The Pelosi’s added between $7.8 and $42.5 million to their net worth in 2024. Pelosi’s exact net worth is not known because lawmakers are only required to disclose ranges.

Market research firm Quiver Quantitative, which estimates a single figure based on daily stock values it tracks, placed the pair’s 2024 worth at $257 million — up $26 million from a year earlier.

But the value of their various other ventures — which include but are not limited to a Napa Valley winery, ownership in a political data and consulting firm and a stake in a Bay area Italian restaurant — mean Pelosi’s worth could be far higher in the estimated range.

A large chunk of the couple’s fortune has come from a sizable stock portfolio and timely trades, all done in Paul Pelosi’s name.

The former House Speaker, who’s so infamous for trading Missouri Rep. Josh Hawley named a bill after her, and her husband dumped 5,000 shares of Microsoft stock worth an estimated $2.2 million in July — one of their largest sales in three years — a few short months before the FTC announced an antitrust investigation into the tech giant.

They also sold 2,000 shares — worth an estimated $525,000 — of Visa stock, less than three months before the credit card company was hit with a DOJ monopoly lawsuit.

Some have nicknamed Pelosi the “Queen of Stocks.” Getty Images for The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)

Their best trade though might have been exercising a call option in December they bought in late 2023 at an estimated premium of $1.8 million, allowing them to nab 50,000 shares of hot AI chip stock NVIDIA for $12 a pop — less than one tenth of its market price.

In total the couple paid an estimated $2.4 million for the investment, which on paper is now worth more than $7.2 million.

NVIDIA wasn’t their only AI play of 2024.

The couple also paid between $600,000 and $1.25 million for a call option on California cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks in February, the same week it was revealed the White House briefed lawmakers on a serious national security threat related to Russia.

The shares rose close to 20% in the days after the move.

A bill aiming to ban lawmakers and their spouses from trading individual stocks was named “The PELOSI Act.” Jack Forbes / NY Post Design

The option allowed the pair to scoop up 14,000 shares of Palo Alto in December at a $100 strike price — half its trading value. The company has been crushing earnings over the past year and the investment is now worth around $2.8 million.

But the Queen of Stocks did suffer one setback — when she and Paul Pelosi ditched 2,500 shares of former Department of Government Efficiency boss Elon Musk’s Tesla in June, losing somewhere between $100,000 and $1 million on the trade.

In all, their investment portfolio pulled in an estimated 54% return in 2024, more than double the S&P 500’s 25% gain — and beating every large hedge fund, according to numbers in Bloomberg’s end-of-year tally of hedge funds’ returns.

The couple is already off to a rocking 2025.

In January, they bought call options for then-little-known artificial intelligence health firm, Tempus AI, which has since inked a $200 million deal with AstraZeneca and doubled its stock price.

Pelosi and her good fortune have been at the center of arguments about why Congress shouldn’t be allowed to trade stocks. Ron Sachs – CNP for NY Post

The formidable profits come amid growing calls to ban Congress from trading individual stocks, arguing lawmakers have access to market-moving information ahead of the public.

Pelosi in the past rejected calls for a ban, stating “we’re a free‑market economy.”

She has since softened her stance in the face of growing criticism. When asked in May whether Congress should pass a trading ban, she replied, “If they do, they do.”

“Speaker Pelosi does not own any stocks, and she has no prior knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions,” a spokesperson told The Post.

The couple also took out call options for energy company Vistra — whose stock climbed last month after it unveiled a massive $1.9 billion deal to acquire natural gas facilities across the country from a private equity firm, citing rising US power demand.

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10. Invest in Your Human Capital for a Good Life

Psychology Today: What economics can teach us about happiness.  Insights from economic concepts.

In her search for a more balanced and fulfilling life, van Horen found unexpected wisdom in economic concepts.

Constrained optimization refers to the idea of maximizing satisfaction within our given limits, explains van Horen. In economics, it’s about getting the best possible outcome given constraints like time, money, or other resources. In life, it means making the most of your energy, attention, and circumstances—not by doing more, but by choosing wisely.

Too often, we chase a single goal in isolation. For example, we might pursue career success or financial security, without accounting for what we might have to sacrifice elsewhere, including our health, relationships, or peace of mind. Constrained optimisation invites a shift. Instead of asking, “How can I achieve the most in this area?” it asks, “How can I find the best balance across everything that truly matters to me?”

Opportunity cost is the understanding that every decision comes with a trade-off. Saying yes to one thing means saying no to something else.

“Every action has a cost, even if it’s not always obvious,” says van Horen. “Often, we ignore the cost and focus only on the benefit.”

For example, if you agree to take on a task—perhaps to avoid disappointing others—the opportunity cost might be the time you won’t spend working on something meaningful to you. Placing our options side by side and consciously considering the opportunity cost can help us make more informed decisions. Ask yourself: What am I gaining? What am I giving up in the process? The key, according to van Horen, is awareness: realizing that doing one thing always comes at the expense of something else.

The law of diminishing marginal returns tells us that as you increase the amount of input or effort, the additional benefits or output will gradually decrease. In fact, beyond a certain point, additional effort can backfire, yielding even negative results.

In our striving and overachieving cultures, where perfectionism is pervasive and productivity is often fueled by pushing ourselves harder, slowing down can feel like a radical act.

1. AI Growth

AI Report Card…Exponential View with 3 Charts:

Nearly every public benchmark has moved upward since last year, making previous standards of excellence look decidedly ordinary

The length of tasks AI can do is increasing.

Perhaps even more crucially, the unit costs of AI are plunging exponentially. Azeem Azhar: “This is central to my definition of exponential technology—not solely about improving performance but about rapidly collapsing costs for a given capability.”

Zach Goldberg Jefferies

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2. 195 Countries in World Today….32 Have an AI Data Center

NYT

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3. MAG 7 Returns 2025

Charlie Bilello

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4. Strait of Hormuz Oil Destinations

Social Site News

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5. Israel and U.S. Bomb Iran—Oil Collapses

Daily Chartbook

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6. HIMS -35% in One Day…Still Not Back to May Lows….Still +66% Year to Date

StockCharts

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7. Largest 3-Month Outflows from Small Cap Stocks Since 2007

The Irrelevant Investor

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8. $320B Flows into Money Market Funds 2025

Bloomberg-Households have been a key driver of the inflows. Since the Fed started raising rates in March 2022, total assets under management in US money funds have swelled by roughly $2.5 trillion, and retail investors have accounted for about 60% of that, Investment Company Institute data show. Data from ICI exclude firms’ own internal money funds, unlike Crane Data, which tracks the money market industry.

VettaFi

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9. Condo Sales Fall to 2012 Levels

Wolf Street

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10. Walter Williams on Education

Thomas Sowell

1. May/June Higher Bullish

Ryan Detrick

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2. Automation Deflationary and Upside Operating Cash Flow

The Upside of Automation…MS shows, the potential operating cash flow upside from GenAI automation.

Zachary Goldberg Jefferies

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3. Dollars Decline Information

Yahoo!Finance

Analysts at a handful of banks including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. all point to recent shifts in so-called cross-currency basis swaps — a gauge of how much it costs to exchange one currency for another beyond what would normally be implied by borrowing costs in the cash markets. As demand for a particular currency increases, that extra cost or premium rises, and likewise declines or even can go negative when appetite isn’t as strong.

These analysts note that when markets melted down in April following US President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement, the preference for dollars as measured by basis swaps was relatively minor and short-lived. Meanwhile, demand for other currencies such as the euro and yen has grown. That stands in sharp contrast to previous scrambles for safety over the last two decades, such as the onset of the pandemic, which saw the dollar command a premium in global funding markets for a sustained period.

Over time, this waning preference for dollar liquidity, particularly relative to the euro, could ultimately make it more expensive to borrow Europe’s common currency relative to the greenback — presenting a challenge for the US currency at a time when its preeminent position in world finance is facing growing doubts.

“Recent cross-currency basis movements suggest investors have less appetite to buy dollar-denominated assets and more appetite to buy those denominated in euro and yen,” the Morgan Stanley team including Koichi Sugisak and Francesco Grechi wrote in a June report. In fact, the US tariff impact appeared to be “triggering a temporary withdrawal from dollar assets,” the Morgan Stanley analysts wrote.

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4. A Decade Worth of Volatility in 5 Years

A Wealth of Common Sense

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5. Where Does America Get Its Uranium?  27% from Russia

Visual Capitalist

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6. American Golden Dome Budget

MarketWatch

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7. Big Gap in the Sky

Flightradar

Via Morning Brew: The Israel–Iran conflict has made vast swaths of airspace out of bounds for commercial aircraft in recent days, highlighting how the rising prevalence of wars is scrambling air travel.

A live flight map on FlightRadar24 displays a gaping hole in the plane swarms above Israel, Iraq, and Iran. Many airlines have also nixed flights to nearby hubs like Dubai and Doha as tensions escalate across the region.

Passengers have been stranded, while airlines face revenue losses and higher costs from longer, rerouted flights that burn more fuel. As a tenuous Israel–Iran ceasefire took hold yesterday, air carriers began restoring some flights in the region, while European and US airline stocks rose sharply.

But no-fly zones persist

Aviation issues didn’t start with the most recent conflagration:

• Parts of the Middle East are still off limits to aircraft, while a planeless territory has existed over Ukraine and parts of western Russia since the war between the two countries began in 2022.
• The square mileage of conflict zones has increased by 65% since 2021, according to risk consulting company Verisk Maplecroft.

This makes piloting harder…as flight reroutes lead to more crowded skies, creating congestion and straining control tower resources. Pilots flying near warzones also have to contend with GPS jamming, forcing them to rely on experience to gauge location and altitude.

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8. 15% of Pending Home Sales Cancelled in May

Liz Ann Sonders

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9. Progressive/Leftist Wins NYC Mayoral Primary…See Below

WSJ

Visual Capitaist

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10. Mastering Time Management with Ravi

Reads with Ravi

1. Historical Price to Sales S&P

The Irrelevant Investor

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2. Most Crowded Trades Gold

Crowded trades. ‘Long gold’ remains the most crowded trade (3rd consecutive month) followed by ‘Long Mag7’ and ‘Short USD’.

BofA via mikezaccardi

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3. Ethereum ETF Big Rally Off Lows…Right Back into Range 2023-2025

StockCharts

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4. Trade Between U.S. and China Rolling Over Hard

Ritzholz

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5. M&A Deals Down But Total Value +3.8%

FinChart

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6. More Demand from Energy Grid…Summer AC Use at Records

Sherwood

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7. Wealthiest 10% Now Account for Half of U.S. Consumer Spending

Bloomberg

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8. Credit Card Points are the World’s Third-Largest Currency

Point.Me

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9. Pew Research on Budget Bill

Pew Research Center

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10. Every Leader Should Be a Student of Psychology

To lead well, one must understand what drives and influences relationship.

Key points

• Leadership is inherently relational, not positional, and technical skills alone are not enough.
• Emotional intelligence is foundational to leadership success.
• The study of psychology should be a deliberate practice for leaders.

Via Psychology Today: There’s a pervasive myth that still lingers in leadership classrooms: the idea that good leaders are simply born with presence, confidence, and instinct. While those traits may help some individuals ascend to positions of authority, they are insufficient for navigating the human complexities that leadership demands. To be effective in today’s ever-evolving organizational landscape, leaders must be students of psychology (in both principle and practice) if they hope to lead effectively.

About Leadership

Three things matter in Leadership: Relationships, Relationships, and Relationships. Leadership is, at its core, a relational practice. It is not about authority (or positional power); it is about influence. And influence is rooted in an understanding of human behavior, motivation, emotion, and interaction. It is important that a leader understand the behavior of others as well as their own.

As I often remind students and colleagues alike, no matter how technically skilled a leader may be, their impact is limited if they cannot connect with, motivate, and adapt to the emotional and psychological needs of their teams. In the program I direct at Teachers College, Columbia University, we require students to take two foundational courses that emphasize this belief: Self-Awareness Training and Social-Emotional Learning.

Emotional Intelligence: Leadership’s Secret Ingredient

One of the most foundational psychological principles in leadership is emotional intelligence (EI), a concept introduced by Mayer and Salovey1 and later popularized by Daniel Goleman. Goleman’s research demonstrated that EI contributes more to workplace success than IQ, particularly in high-pressure environments2. Why is that the case? Emotionally intelligent leaders can perceive and regulate their own emotions (especially during stressful moments), empathize with others’ experiences, build trust, and de-escalate conflict.

A study conducted in Palopo, Indonesia, for example, revealed that school leaders with high EI had a direct and positive impact on teacher performance. This success stemmed from their capacity to recognize emotions, manage relationships, and create workplace harmony3.

In practical terms, when individuals feel seen, understood, and supported, their ability to perform and collaborate improves significantly.

Why This Matters

We are living in a time defined by constant change, social complexity, and new demands on leadership. Today’s teams are more diverse, geographically distributed, and dynamic than ever before. Leaders who understand the psychology of their people are more likely to foster positive cultures, reduce conflict, and increase performance/productivity4.

Those who use emotional intelligence and motivational theory to inform their leadership behaviors are not only better equipped to lead diverse teams but also more capable of sustaining organizational well-being over time. The most effective leaders going forward will not necessarily be those with the loudest voices or the most polished résumés. They will be those who understand how people think and feel, who communicate in ways that resonate, and who create environments in which people feel psychologically safe. These are not “soft skills” (as often labeled). They are critical survival skills for effective leadership through today’s challenges.

If you are in a leadership role (or aspire to be in one), consider this your invitation to become a student of psychology. Not for the sake of theory, but for the sake of better practice. Start by exploring the basics: emotional intelligence, motivational theory, and self-awareness. Read. Reflect. Ask better questions. Challenge your assumptions. And above all, lead with curiosity and compassion.

Leadership is not about you. It is about those you serve. And understanding the psychology of leadership may be one of the most powerful tools you can include in your box.