1. American Gold Reserves at 90-Year Low

Gold reserves. "How long can America afford to sit out the global rush for gold? US gold reserves are now at 90-year lows, while the rest of the world has pushed their holdings to near 50-year highs. At one point, America held over 50% of global gold reserves. Today? Just 20%."

2. Ex-Tech U.S. Economy Negative Real Growth

Jim Reid Deutsche Bank My colleague George Saravelos wrote an interesting short blog here yesterday that discussed how ex-tech spending, the US would have been close to, or in, recession earlier this year. This was first highlighted by our equity strategists here.

George argues that this huge AI capex can help explain why weak payrolls aren’t hurting growth and why global trade is resilient (a chip trade scramble).

It's fair to say expectations are that this surging AI capex spend won't stop until there is a reason to doubt the potential profitability of it. So it will continue to be a big top-down theme of 2026.

Simplifying it, perhaps Nvidia, which employed only 36,000 people at the last update earlier this year, holds the keys to all global macro in 2026! Traditional macro models will surely struggle to capture this.

See George’s short blog for more detail and his latest Blueprint here, from this earlier week, for all his latest FX forecasts.

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3. S&P Sector Returns Around Fed Rate Cuts

In the four cycles since the 1970s where the Fed delivered only one or two cuts after pausing at least six months, cyclical sectors like financials and industrials outperformed, per Ned Davis. In cycles where four or more cuts were needed, investors leaned defensive.

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4. Defensive Sectors About to Break Internet Bubble Lows vs. S&P 500

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5. Platinum Breaks-Out of Sideways Pattern…New Highs

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6. FNMA -22% Correction…Up Over +200% YTD on Go Private Trade

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7. Robinhood Crypto and options trading drove almost 80% of the brokerage’s transaction-based revenues in the second quarter….PERPS Majority of Bitcoin Volume

Get Rich or Get Wiped Out: Bitcoin’s Hottest New Trade

Perpetual futures offer traders extreme leverage to bet on cryptocurrencies

By Gunjan Banerji

The emergence of ‘perps’ suggests that financial markets will continue growing more speculative. 

The market for cryptocurrencies is known for boom-and-bust trades. It is about to get even wilder.

Traders seeking rapid returns have made a speculative bitcoin play one of the most popular crypto bets globally: so-called perpetual futures. These potentially offer returns of 10, 20 or even 100 times an initial investment—or huge losses that could leave a trader with nothing

Known as perps, the contracts give traders access to extreme leverage and have exploded in popularity during a rally that has sent bitcoin prices up more than 70% over the past year. Though popular in other parts of the world, perps were largely unavailable until recently to U.S. traders on regulated venues.

Their emergence is a sign that financial markets, which have steadily grown riskier since 2020, will likely keep growing more speculative. Although U.S. stock indexes keep hitting records and a host of other assets are richly valued, many traders are enthusiastic about making ever-bigger bets. https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/bitcoin-perps-cryptocurrency-trading-leverage-238e53ff?mod=finance_lead_story

8. Boom of Multilayered SPVs………SPV Special Purpose Vehicles Inside Other SPVs

Multilayered special-purpose vehicles, where SPVs are nested inside others, are on the rise as investors clamor for slivers of hot venture-backed companies like OpenAI and SpaceX.

But the boom is also raising new questions about their complex fee structures, and their opacity has left some investors unclear about ownership of the underlying equity. Private market investment company Linqto’s recent bankruptcy highlighted those issues and sparked broader scrutiny of how these vehicles really work.

Some companies have started to denounce unauthorized sales of their equity, including in the form of digital tokens. Some prominent secondary marketplaces are opting out of allowing layered SPVs outright.

“When you have these SPVs that go into other SPVs that go into other SPVs, we don’t know whether the underlying SPV actually has the shares or the company or not,” said AngelList CEO Avlok Kohli. “We don’t want to be in a position where we are facilitating an SPV where, years later, when a company goes public or gets acquired, the investors are wondering, ‘Hey, where’s our distribution? Where’s our capital?’ And it’s like the shares weren’t there to begin with.”

SPV management fees are mounting

The proliferation of layered SPVs comes as secondary sales are soaring, with LPs and GPs looking to create some long-awaited liquidity.

SPV issuers typically impose an origination fee to cover administrative setup costs. But issuers are increasingly now charging ongoing management fees beyond that.

And recurring management fees for SPVs are becoming commonplace as competition heats up: At the top of the VC market in 2021, 41% of SPVs with more than $10 million of assets charged a management fee, according to Carta. In 2023, the latest available SPV data from Carta, 67% charged a fee.

The difficulty for many high-net-worth individuals and family offices to get into the fast-moving funding rounds for high-flying AI startups has ramped up the appeal of SPVs, said Hans Swildens, founder and CEO of secondaries firm Industry Ventures.

Private wealth advisers have also been pushing SPVs onto their clients, he added.

“SPVs have gone mainstream, as you’ve seen, and yes, people are starting to monetize them more through fees and carry,” said Swildens. Rising fees are disproportionately hitting smaller investors, while fund managers often waive SPV fees for existing LPs they invite to co-invest.

Read more: Private wealth capital adds pricing pressure for secondaries market

Larger SPVs are getting cheaper to set up, according to Anthony Cimino, Carta’s head of public policy. But costs continue to mount for layered SPVs, he said, which are usually smaller assets.

“What we’re trying to figure out is how do we help that broader fund marketplace provide clarity and credibility?” he said. “It’s no longer a situation where the costs around NAV reporting or the [setup] fee structures are basically creating a moat, where only the biggest and most-established players can do it.”

9. Unmanned Naval Vessels Booming

Boom in unscrewed surface vessels

A USMC LRUSV at dockside with eight Hero-120 loitering munitions in a green box and a munitions launcher tube shown on the pier.

Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) are revolutionizing how we explore and protect our oceans. These autonomous vessels, operating at or near the sea surface without any onboard operators, are increasingly being employed across various sectors. From monitoring marine life to enhancing military surveillance, piracy control, and safeguarding offshore industries like gas, oil, and renewables, USVs are becoming indispensable due to their ability to collect data over extended periods at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional research ships, International Defense, Security and Technology reports.

Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) have rapidly emerged as a game-changing military technology, with nations across the globe investing heavily in their development. These autonomous vessels offer the potential to revolutionize naval warfare, providing enhanced capabilities, reduced risks to human operators, and cost-effective solutions for a range of missions. However, as their capabilities grow, so does the threat they pose to maritime security.

Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV ) is a vehicle that operates at or near the sea surface and  has no vehicle operators on board. The USV are increasingly employed as they collect data for longer periods of time, at a fraction of the cost of Research ships, and with wide ranging scientific and industrial applications – from monitoring marine life to military surveillance, piracy control, fisheries protection and the offshore gas, oil and renewables industries.

Ukraine’s Strategic Use of USVs: Disrupting Modern Naval Warfare

Ukraine has strategically employed Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) as a powerful tool in its ongoing conflict with Russia, particularly in the Black Sea. These versatile and cost-effective unmanned vessels have proven to be disruptive assets, capable of executing high-impact missions against Russian naval forces while minimizing risks to Ukrainian personnel. Ukraine’s innovative use of USVs underscores their growing role in modern naval warfare, offering new avenues for asymmetric strategies and tactical advantages.

One-Way Attacks and Swarming Tactics

Ukraine has primarily utilized USVs in one-way attack missions, deploying them to target Russian naval vessels with explosives. These expendable vessels are designed to deliver devastating payloads before being destroyed, ensuring maximum impact on enemy forces with minimal resource investment. Furthermore, Ukraine has employed swarming tactics, where multiple USVs are launched simultaneously to overwhelm enemy defenses. This tactic increases the likelihood of a successful strike by saturating the target area with multiple threats, making it difficult for defensive systems to neutralize all incoming vehicles. Additionally, USVs provide Ukraine with the ability to launch surprise attacks, exploiting vulnerabilities in enemy defenses and catching them off guard. In some cases, USVs are also used as diversionary tools, drawing attention away from other key areas or operations, further complicating the enemy’s ability to respond effectively.

https://navalinstitute.com.au/boom-in-unscrewed-surface-vessels/

10. The End of Football Punters-Morningbrew

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Greetings. We regret to inform you—and that one kid from your high school who could randomly kick a football really far despite otherwise being unathletic—that punting is dying. NFL teams are punting just 3.65 times per game this season, the fewest in history. That’s because:

• Offenses are starting with better field position, thanks to new kickoff rules.

• Coaches are increasingly willing to go for it on fourth down.

• Field goal kickers are getting more accurate from long range.

All of these developments could render the lowly punter irrelevant. Finally, a job is becoming obsolete and it has nothing to do with AI.

—Matty Merritt, Sam Klebanov, Dave Lozo, Adam Epstein, Neal Freyman, Holly Van Leuven

https://www.morningbrew.com/

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