Rising mortgage rates and no apparent Fed concern about yields make BlackRock's bullish turn on Treasuries feel early. Mortgage rates reached 7.4% after seven straight weekly increases. x.com 

Broad deterioration beneath the surface keeps meaningful US large-cap exposure premature despite selective growth setups. Deepvue's breadth dashboard puts 56% of stocks in Stage 4 declines, while Friday saw 498 new lows against 170 new highs. A handful of medical/healthcare and software leaders can be tested in positions of 3%-5% of portfolio equity, but total exposure has a 15% hard ceiling, not a target. Adding depends on those leaders following through, better market conditions and results. … Show more

US large-cap equities are vulnerable because earnings have not caught up with total market capitalization. The market is farther from its 200-week moving average than at any point in 18 years, and cracks are starting to show; staying bullish ignores these risks. Rate hikes remain possible, oil is still high, and yields may climb again, so now is the time for caution. x.com  x.com 

The US large-cap correction isn't over until interest rates top and bonds bottom, which hasn't happened yet. The summer 2023 S&P 500 correction ended right when bonds bottomed in October, with TLT trading massive upside volume, and there is no sign of that now. Higher rates keep pressuring real estate, where lots of money has been trapped since 2022, a possible source of downside dislocation, and an aggressive further rise in rates could bring a panic bottom. x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com 

The AI-led S&P 500 peak will likely end somewhere between 2000 and the Nifty Fifty: painful, but not a 34-year Japan-style wait. Breadth is ugly, with record index highs while most stocks bleed; @RestlessCentaur notes over 70% of S&P 500 stocks are down more than 10%. Today's leaders trade around 30x forward earnings, while the 2000 and Japan tops were two to three times pricier. x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com 

Blackstone, KKR, Apollo, Ares and Carlyle face a re-pricing, not a correction, because AI capex is artificially inflating S&P 500 earnings. Hyperscaler capex becomes Nvidia revenue, whose profits make the index look healthy, but those are front-loaded accounting gains, not durable cash flows. When the capex cycle slows, the reversal hits everything downstream, including alternative managers and private credit. Per @Fiscal_ai, drawdowns already run from 33% at Carlyle to 46% at KKR and Ares. … Show more

Improving breadth supports a possible IWM reversal. IWM may form a higher low today, but must first reclaim its 20-day EMA. Net new lows are easing, NYSE stocks above their 40-day average rose to 34%, and LS breadth's bear count is near the -300s from -450. A -450 reading has marked selling exhaustion. In bull-cycle pullbacks like this one, breadth rebounds tend to precede continuation; in bear markets, another leg lower tends to follow. The next move is uncertain. x.com 

US stocks look increasingly vulnerable: high interest rates are making long positions harder, while more bearish setups are appearing as the market worsens. x.com 

Rocket Lab's institutional base is holding and growing, not leaving. Q2 13F filings show BlackRock up 6.8% to about 110 million shares, Vanguard accounts up about 2.4%, State Street up 3.7%, Morgan Stanley up 28.1%, and JPMorgan reported a new position of about 27.5 million shares. Baillie Gifford cut its stake 43.6% amid broader growth-stock rebalancing. Q2 filings predate the Iridium deal announced June 28, so Q3 is the real test of whether big holders back the new strategy. x.com 

US stocks could face a meaningful correction because the macro backdrop is deteriorating across bonds and inflation. The secular bull market is still expected to continue afterward, with a key factor potentially limiting the correction's severity. x.com  x.com