TOPLEY’S TOP 10 August 25, 2026

Author

Matt Topley
August 25, 2026

1. Chart: Stocks vs Bonds Long-Term Cycles—Everyone Hates Bonds

Stocks beating Bonds should be no surprise for those paying attention.  Stocks are in a raging bull market.Bonds are in brutal a bear market.  But you might be surprised by the extent of it (see chart below).  The rolling 10-year annualized total return spread (i.e. including interest for bonds, dividends for stocks) of stocks vs bonds just cracked 15% —the highest since 1960 (and eclipsing the 1929 high).

@Callum Thomas (Weekly S&P500 #ChartStorm)

2. China Gold vs. U.S. Treasury Holdings

Otavio (Tavi) Costa

3. Gold Miners Pulled Back to 12 Month Levels…Now Making Run at New Highs

StockCharts

4. Target Comeback…TGT +77% vs. WMT -6% 2026

Ycharts

5. Buy Now Pay Later Klarna Group -50% 2026

Google

6. Unicorns $1B+ Value Private Companies Growing in Europe

Europe’s unicorn herd is worth over €600 billion ($701 billion)—almost €100 billion more than their value at the end of last year—as dealmaking among the region’s €1 billion-plus VC-backed companies rebounds, according to our latest European VC Valuations Report.

The addition of 18 new startups to the herd last quarter boosted the total, bringing the number of VC-backed companies worth over €1 billion to 175, the highest count to date.

PitchBook

7. Iraninan Oil Flows to China Plunge

Bloomberg Much of this scarcity is down to the success of a US blockade, which has left loaded Iranian vessels trapped inside the Persian Gulf and a fleet of empty ones stuck outside. The result is that just 40 million barrels of oil are now in waters east of peninsular Malaysia, a popular holding and transhipment area for Chinese and other Asian buyers — and only an estimated 4 million of those remain unsold, according to data intelligence firm Kpler. That’s the equivalent of two supertankers.

Bloomberg

8. American Public AI Opposition Growing…Updated Chart Almost a Double of “Strongly Oppose”

Semafor

9. U.S. Household Leverage is the Lowest in 50 Years

Mike Zaccardi

10. The 10 Most Expensive Metro Areas

NY Times