This week's interesting finds

A few charts worth discussing

“Short-term price moves for semiconductor (SMH) and software (IVG) companies have been extreme. These violent rotations are creating opportunities for those who know the value of a business.”

- Greg Sinclair

“Consumer spending increased in World Cup host cities.”

- Jason Liu

Other charts worth pointing out

After-tax wage growth by household income

Semiconductors vs. hyperscalers – Free cash flow

Semiconductors vs. software – total returns ratio

Market cap of largest memory companies

Intel share price

S&P 500 Index – top 5 weight

Market cap concentration of the top 10% of large U.S. stocks

Large Language Model visits by month

Length of U.S. business cycle expansions

U.S. dollar to Japanese yen exchange rate

Japan finance minister urges giant pension fund to invest more at home

Japanese stocks surged almost 2 per cent and the yen rose from a multi-decade low after the country’s finance minister called on domestic pension funds and the public to shift more assets into domestic markets.

Traders in Tokyo described Satsuki Katayama’s comments on Friday as a form of “stealth intervention” in currency and bond markets.

Greater support from domestic investors would ease pressure on Japan’s currency and sovereign debt. The yen strengthened 0.6 per cent to ¥161.36, while yields on 10-year Japanese government bonds dropped 0.1 percentage points to 2.77 per cent.

Katayama said in a press conference that encouraging Japanese pension funds and households “to invest more in Japanese financial assets” was a policy measure that the administration wanted to pursue. She explicitly included the Government Pension Investment Fund, which manages a global portfolio of roughly $1.8tn.

Katayama herself cautioned that changing the asset allocation policy of the GPIF was not something she could do alone and that further discussions across the government would be necessary.

The prospect of a sustained repatriation of Japanese assets led by pension funds has long been seen by analysts and traders as a missing ingredient for a full revival of Japan’s capital markets.

Abbas Keshvani, Asia macro strategy director at RBC Capital Markets, said a rotation by Japanese investors from foreign to domestic assets would be “the impulse the yen needs to strengthen”.

“[The] GPIF is the largest investor. When they start to move it influences smaller asset managers to follow suit,” he said. But he cautioned: “I think this kind of verbal announcement will be very short-lived if it is not followed through with actual asset allocation changes.”

The Nikkei 225 index has climbed 73 per cent in the past 12 months and rallied a further 1.8 per cent on Friday with AI-related stocks following gains for US technology shares a day earlier, as well as getting a boost from Katayama’s comments.

Other strategists noted that the move by Katayama appeared to be a shift in approach to strengthen the yen instead of direct intervention in the foreign-exchange market.

Masahiko Loo, senior fixed-income strategist at State Street Investment Management, called it a “smart policy signal” when markets had increasingly questioned how much firepower the finance ministry had left for interventions.

This week’s fun finds 

Christine from the Operations Team hosted a fantastic moai featuring authentic Filipino cuisine. Vibrant, flavourful and a great way to bring the team together at the end of the week.

Plein Air — A painting for right now, wherever you are

Plein air — French for in the open air — was the discipline of painting outdoors, in front of the weather, the way Constable studied clouds in Suffolk meadows and Monet painted the same haystacks at every hour of every season. The painters took the canvas outside because the light couldn't be remembered later, only stood inside as you painted. Plein Air stands you next to one of those paintings. The sky over your head and the sky in the painting share the same kind of hour — the same long afternoon, the same threatening storm, the same fog clinging to the river. One painting, chosen for right now. Tap the title to see why it was picked.

This week's interesting finds

A few charts worth discussing

“Money growth accelerating. Inflation.”

- Derek Skomorowski

“Déjà vu all over again.”

- Derek Skomorowski

“Two sides to China’s energy transition.”

- Claire Thornhill

Other charts worth pointing out

S&P 500 Index – 2026 YTD return bridge

Russell 2000 Index vs. S&P 500 Index – sector weights and 2026 YTD returns

Russell 2000 vs. Goldman Sachs AI basket – return correlation

S&P 500 Index – Top 10 constituent weight

S&P 500 Index – semiconductor weight

Equity and mutual fund holdings by wealth cohort

ETF net inflows in the first six months by year

Retail options – average daily premium by investment theme

Leveraged ETF AUM by market segment

S&P 500 Index – historical performance in real terms

U.S. 10-year Treasury yields

Corporate bond refinancing by borrowing cost

Magnificent 7 vs. broader market – profit margins

Trump Accounts create new generation of 6 million US ETF investors
Chris Flood, chief correspondent, ETF Stream | 3 July 2026

Trump Accounts go live on July 4 with more than 6 million American kids already signed on to the new tax-advantaged investment scheme for US-born children with the $1,000 contribution of “free” government money providing a powerful draw for the new programme.

All of the contributions will be invested in ETFs tracking the US stock market, another clear vote of confidence in ETFs as trustworthy investment vehicles. Prior to the 2008 financial crisis, passive index-tracking ETFs would not have been considered for this role, a testament to how ETFs now act as a cornerstone in America’s financial system.

Trump Accounts will “reinforce the role of ETFs as mainstream long-term investment vehicles for retail investors and potentially create a significant new source of ETF assets over time,” says Debbie Fuhr, the ETF industry’s global ambassador.

State Street Investment Management stands to be the immediate winner after the US Treasury Department announced this week that all contributions to Trump Accounts would initially be invested in the State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF (SPYM). Assets in SPYM stood at just under $155bn on July 1 so it should be possible to see early next week just how much the Trump Accounts programme has initially gathered.

Parents and guardians will be allowed at a later date to switch some or all of the contributions into four other ETFs that also provide broad exposure to the US stock market: BlackRock’s iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV), Vanguard’s Total Stock Market ETF (VTI), State Street’s SPDR Portfolio S&P 1500 Composite Stock Market ETF (SPTM) and BlackRock’s iShares Core S&P Total US Stock Market ETF (ITOT).

The “choice” of ETFs available feels somewhat akin to Henry Ford's famous comment that customers could have a Model T car painted in any colour that they wanted “so long as it is black.”

The main difference between these ETFs is that VTI (3,484 constituents), ITOT (2,497 constituents) and SPTM (1,510 constituents) own mid-sized and small US companies that have contributed to a modest drag on returns over the past decade compared with the outstanding performance of the larger companies that make up the S&P 500 which are held by SPYM and IVV.

The top management at Vanguard and BlackRock might feel aggrieved that Trump Account contributions will not flow immediately into their ETFs as some of the money is likely to prove “sticky” after landing in SPYM.

Rival financial players - such as Fidelity, Charles Schwab, JP Morgan, Bank of America, UBS, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley - will also be disappointed not to be included in the creation of future generations of younger investors through Trump Accounts.

The big selling point of Trump Accounts is undoubtedly the $1,000 seed contribution - free money - provided by the federal government for every eligible child born between 2025 and 2028. This will not count towards the $5,000 annual contribution limit for each Trump Account.

Almost anyone will be able to make contributions to Trump Accounts, including parents, family members or other individuals as well as employers, charities and state governments.

This week’s fun finds

‘The greatest cosmic movie ever made’: Historic telescope kicks off an unprecedented survey

Every 40 seconds of nighttime for the next 10 years, a camera the size of a small car will capture strikingly detailed images of the southern sky, stitching together a time-lapse panorama of intergalactic evolution that could help unlock some of the universe’s lingering mysteries.

The historic effort, called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), began on Tuesday, according to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the state-of-the-art facility in Chile that houses the world’s largest digital camera weighing 6,600 pounds.

During its decade-long study, a series of colored filters will give the camera superhuman vision as it scans the sky each night and creates a living image of how celestial objects — from asteroids to supernovae — morph and move.

The project has several goals, including creating a new inventory of our solar system and the Milky Way, as well as chipping away at the mystery of dark matter by observing the distorted light of distant galaxies.

This week's interesting finds

EdgePoint reading and listening list

Summer's almost here and so is our annual summer reading (and listening) list. The Investment Team shared some of their top recent reads and podcasts, including deep dives into some of the largest companies in the world today.

A few charts worth discussing

“Canada is falling behind on business investment per worker. Both the numerator and denominator are impacting this trend – Canada has combined liberal immigration with regulations and policies that have made business investment more difficult and less attractive.”

- Sydney Van Vierzen

Submitted by Jason Liu:

Other charts worth pointing out

Chinese vs. U.S. AI model usage

Top AI models by price

Chinese solar panel export revenue

Solar panel installation in China

Chinese clean-tech exports

2-year Treasury yields vs. Brent crude oil prices

U.S. equity market capitalization vs. global GDP

U.S. corporate bond index duration

AI sector corporate bond supply

MSCI US Momentum Index vs. S&P 500 Index (equal weight) – relative returns

MSCI US Momentum Index vs. S&P 500 Index (equal weight) – relative 3-month performance

Russell 2000 Index vs. Russell 1000 Index – YTD performance by sector

MAG7 vs. Semiconductor index performance

Apollo’s flagship private credit fund hit by 17% redemption requests

Investor redemption requests at Apollo’s flagship retail private credit fund surged to 17 per cent of the vehicle’s value in the second quarter, underscoring fears of falling returns and rising stress in debt markets.

The firm’s $15bn Apollo Debt Solutions fund pitched to wealthy individual investors reported roughly $2.4bn of withdrawal requests in the most recent period. The fund met less than 30 per cent of the withdrawals it faced in the quarter, capping redemptions at 5 per cent of the value of the vehicle.

The Apollo fund, which has an investment portfolio worth nearly $26bn, had been hit with withdrawal requests of 11 per cent in the first quarter.

The rising withdrawal requests at the fund signal that the broader investor exodus from private credit has not abated, even as public markets have rallied and a sell-off in loans to private equity-backed software companies has moderated.

The funds have been a significant fundraising source for private investment groups, offering lucrative fees for the asset managers. However, private credit has faced scrutiny over its lending to the software industry, given the risks companies face from advances in AI.

Investors have sought to pull nearly $15bn from nine major funds tracked by the FT in the second quarter. The funds, which manage roughly $200bn across their investment portfolios, have met less than 40 per cent of the withdrawal requests.

Apollo said it recorded $300mn of new commitments to the fund, which it said would limit net outflows to $400mn in the quarter. It also noted that redemption requests were concentrated from investors in its offshore funds, typically pitched to non-US investors.

This week’s fun finds

Devin (left) from the Compliance Team organized a fun build-your-own-taco moai. It was a fun way to bring everyone together for delicious bites and great company. 

In This Polish Village, All 5,600 Residents Live on the Same Street

When a drone captured a bird’s-eye view photo of a sleepy Polish town, one feature stood out, taking the village from a relatively unknown dot on a map to a social media phenomenon.

That wow-worthy feature? Everyone in Suloszowa — with a population of 5,672 in 2023 — lives on one single street. What impresses in the aerial picture is not only the 5.6-mile road with homes dotted on either side of it, but the billowing ribbons of yellow, green, and gold fields stretching out from behind them, forming living art in the surrounding countryside.

Suloszowa is located about 21 miles northwest of Krakow, in a rural pocket of southern Poland. The main industry is farming, with residents raising livestock and growing crops like wheat, oats, and rapeseed. Local life tends to revolve around agriculture, and annual harvest festivals with names like Strawberry Days and Potato Days bring the villagers together to celebrate the seasons’ bounties.

This week's interesting finds

A few charts worth discussing

“Note from this chart how EU medtech stocks' multiples are much lower than they have been over the past several years. More importantly, notice how they have largely converged to trade at very similar multiples, with little differentiation for differences in quality and growth prospects. This is quite rare.”

- Geoff MacDonald

“The following chart is an index of loss-making companies (i.e., they cost more to run than they make in revenue). Previously we saw this index go up 400% during Covid as people bid up speculative stocks, only for the index to later fall 77% a few years later. This index has now surged over 200% as investors pivot to AI and tech related companies that are losing money. Will history repeat like last time with these companies giving up the bulk of their gains?”

- Jeff Hyrich

Other charts worth pointing out

U.S. household spending by income level

U.S. household spending by category

Corporate tax rates in major markets – 1980 to 2025

30-year government bond yields by country

Decomposition of long-term S&P 500 Index return on equity growth since 1985

Return on equity – Mega-cap tech vs. rest of the S&P 500 Index

S&P 500 Index borrow costs vs. U.S. 10-year treasury yield

Unemployment rates – all workers vs. recent college graduates

U.S. social media platform engagement

Momentum vs. market performance – U.S. and emerging markets

Indexed performance – asset-heavy vs. asset-light companies

Year-to-date regional index equity return breakdown

Sector performance comparison – pre- and post-pandemic

Indexed stock price performance – Kodak vs. Polaroid

S&P 500 Index performance during the 1973–1974 oil embargo

The electric vehicle transition gets heavy

This is a year of celebration at Daimler Truck, the world’s biggest producer by sales of heavy-duty lorries. The German company is holding a series of events and exhibitions to mark the 130th anniversary of the world’s first motorised truck, which was brought to market by its founder in 1896.

But Chinese rivals are looking to crash the party — by going global with electric models that are casting doubt on the future of the combustion-engine trucks pioneered by Gottlieb Daimler.

Conventional wisdom has long held that heavy commercial vehicles — the backbone of global road freight — will go electric at a sluggish pace, due to the onerous weight of the batteries required, concerns about charging infrastructure and the prohibitive upfront cost.

Even after electric vehicles seize the lion’s share of passenger car markets, the story goes, we can expect rumbling diesel truck engines to keep disgorging greenhouse gases and noxious pollutants for many more years to come.

The China effect

Chinese truckmakers are now putting that theory to a tough test. Global sales of electric heavy freight trucks (weighing 15 tonnes or more) almost tripled last year to about 230,000, according to the International Energy Agency. This was driven overwhelmingly by growth in China, where electric models accounted for 28 per cent of total heavy truck sales.

Last Friday, the country’s transport ministry unveiled a new national strategy to accelerate the transition in the sector. By 2030, it said, “new energy” models should account for 40 per cent of all heavy trucks sold in China, and a fifth of all those on the roads.

More striking — and more ominous for truckmakers elsewhere — is the fact that Beijing has now identified China’s electric truck sector as a national priority. The move comes as China steps up efforts to reduce its reliance on imported fossil fuels, following turmoil in the oil and gas markets caused by the Strait of Hormuz crisis.

Officials are tasked with implementing a wide range of supporting policies, which include ensuring the creation of 30,000km of “zero-carbon highway transportation corridors” and 3,000 truck charging and battery-swapping stations, as well as broader backing for technological development in the space.

Westward bound

Chinese truckmakers are now using the surging domestic demand — driven by plunging battery costs as well as supportive government policy — as a launch pad for international expansion. Half a dozen are set to launch this year in the European market, which is still dominated by European truckmakers such as Daimler.

Electric models accounted for less than 2 per cent of EU heavy truck sales last year, with roughly 5,000 units sold, according to the International Council on Clean Transportation. But electric sales are set for a boost from EU green rules, which require manufacturers to progressively reduce average emissions from their trucks over the coming years. By 2040, these must fall at least 90 per cent from 2019 levels.

Like their peers in the passenger car sector, European truckmakers have been lobbying hard for concessions on the EU’s emissions rules — but have won only limited relief.

Unlike the carmakers, however, their share prices have been doing rather well. Daimler’s stock is up 41 per cent since it was spun out from Mercedes-Benz in December 2021 — compared with a 36 per cent fall for Mercedes and a 52 per cent slump for Volkswagen (a fall that would have been significantly heavier without the robust stock market performance of truck business Traton, which is mostly owned by VW).

The road ahead

Fewer than 4,000 electric heavy trucks have been sold to date in the US, according to analysts at Wood Mackenzie, with high prices acting as a brake on demand. But they reckon the picture could change dramatically with this year’s full commercial launch in the US of Tesla’s long-awaited Semi heavy truck, and a competing model from China’s Windrose, assembled in US factories.

Both are expected to sell for less than $300,000, compared with typical prices well above $400,000 for electric models at present on the market. That’s still a fair whack more than the price of diesel models — but given the lower running costs, fleet owners could recoup the difference in as little as three years, Wood Mackenzie estimates.

A big question hanging over this shift is whether charging infrastructure can be rolled out at the scale required, both at fleet operators’ own depots and at public charging stations. In the US, the federal government’s pro-fossil fuel agenda will raise doubts about this prospect.

And while the EU has promised to support vast investment in charging systems, this is materialising far too slowly, Daimler and other European truckmakers wrote in a letter to EU officials on May 27, complaining that this was undermining their efforts to bring zero-emission trucks to market.

This week’s fun finds

Japanese fans win hearts cleaning up Dallas Stadium after World Cup match

Fans of Japan's national team have captured and warmed hearts, though it had nothing to do with the match against the Netherlands and everything to do with what happened when it was over.

When the Japan vs. Netherlands FIFA World Cup match ended, many fans headed for the exits, but Japanese fans reached for trash bags instead.

Viral cleanup effort captures global attention

The now viral photos show hundreds of Japanese fans cleaning up their section of Dallas Stadium. Trash bags in hand, they picked up cups, wrappers and anything left behind.

The Japanese men's team even left their locker room spotless. No one asked them to do it.

"It's kind of a habit or natural, I guess," said Nina Shimaguchi, with the Japan American Society of Dallas-Fort Worth.

Shimaguchi wasn't surprised. The value of cleaning up is a sign of respect and the habit starts young.

"The Japanese education system, we don't have custodians from elementary to high school, so we have to take care of hallways, restrooms," she said.

But for many, it goes beyond being tidy. Shimaguchi says it's tied to what's called "Shintoism" and the belief that everyday things carry meaning.