Daily JAM
July 13, 2026 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Just three technology stocks worth $4.4 trillion–Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Samsung Electronics, and SK Hynix–now make up more than 30% of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. That’s as big a concentration as the concentration of the Magnificent 7 in the U.S. Standard & Poor’s 500. Overall, technology accounts for 45% of the emerging market index. Funds including JPMorgan Asset Management and Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo are turning to bets on the broader economy — such as gaming, energy, and even a Vietnamese milk company. JPMorgan is looking at India and China for diversification away from the giant tech companies, one of them in Taiwan and two in South Korea. “This type of concentration is never easy for a portfolio manager, it’s always difficult,” Warren Chiang, portfolio manager for systematic equity at GMO in Berkeley, California told Bloomberg. “The point here is to look for opportunity in as many places you can, but the absolute risk will be there no matter what.”
Which sets up a classic dilemma for investors: Stick with the potential outperformance from these tech stocks or diversify in a search for lower volatility.
July 11, 2026 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
News, data, news, and more data. All of it capable of moving the stock market. Next week marks the beginning of earnings season for the second quarter of 2026. JP Morgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs (GS), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Citigroup (C) all report on Tuesday. What does Wall Street expect? Very good things on earnings and potentially troubling news on inflation.
July 9, 2026 | Daily JAM |
In a crowded market for AI tools, Meta Platforms (META) Mark Zuckerberg wants to win on price.
Meta Platforms unveiled a version of its most advanced artificial intelligence model, Muse Spark 1.1, that includes a new paid tier for developers, marking the first time Meta has charged businesses for access to its models and providing a new revenue stream. It’ll be among the most affordable options on the market, Zuckerberg said in an interview ahead of the release.
Meta is also introducing a new Meta Model API system, which will be used to collect fees from developers. Its API pricing is roughly 25% of the cost advertised by other top models from OpenAI and Anthropic PBC. Developers will be able to use Meta’s model for free, but only up to a point; they’ll be required to pay for access after reaching a certain token threshold, Zuckerberg said. “The pricing from some of the other labs is very extreme and has very high margins,” Zuckerberg said, underscoring that his strategy is to get Meta’s technology in front of as many people as possible. “We think that there’s a real ability to be able to offer frontier or very high-level intelligence at a much more affordable cost.”
July 9, 2026 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
U.S. mortgage rates climbed to 6.49% this week, reversing last week’s drop, after President Donald Trump declared the ceasefire with Iran over, fueling concerns that renewed fighting may push up oil prices and keep borrowing costs elevated. The average for a 30-year, fixed loan rose from 6.43% a week earlier, Freddie Mac said in a statement Thursday. The rate was 6.72% a year ago.
July 8, 2026 | Daily JAM |
New car buyers are taking out longer loans, putting less money down and financing more as they struggle to keep pace with new vehicle prices that today average close to $50,000. Nearly 24% of new-car loans were for at least 84 months, or seven years, according to analysis of second-quarter sales data by Edmunds.
July 8, 2026 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
SpaceXAI’s (SPCX) Grok mobile app continues to lose market share in the U.S., while Meta AI (META) has snuck into fourth place, according to an analysis by Apptopia.
July 8, 2026 | Daily JAM, Long Term, Morning Briefing, NVDA, Stock Alerts, Top 50 Stocks |
I sold Nvidia (NVDA) out go my long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio on March 18 at a closing price of $180.40 My thinking then was that after a huge run Nvidia’s share had moved to an excessively optomistic valuation and it was time to give the shares a rest with expectations that the shares would correct and offer a lower rick re-entry price.
Turns out I was a “bit” early. Nvidia continued to climb until it hit an all-time high of $235.47. The shares closed at $196.93 on July 7. Now, though, I see the rebuying opportunity I was expecting. After losing roughly $1 trillion in market value in less than two months, Nvidia Corp.’s stock is the cheapest it’s been since before the AI boom kicked off and sent the shares into the stratosphere.
July 7, 2026 | AMZN, Daily JAM, Long Term, Top 50 Stocks |
Amazon (AMZN) has become the latest company to sell bonds to fund its AI ambitions. The company is looking to raise at least $25 billion from a U.S. dollar bond sale.
The deal would also boost total AI-related bond sales this year to about $335 billion globally, or more than twice the levels seen in 2025, according to Bloomberg data.
July 7, 2026 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Financial markets increasingly believe inflation is coming down, but borrowing costs are headed higher. Rising bond yields are pointing to higher real interest rates even as inflation expectations moderate
.This means that the decline in oil prices has brought little relief to rate-sensitive sectors. Mortgage rates have bounced around near 6.6% in recent weeks, well above the 6% rate in late February before the attack on Iran.
July 6, 2026 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Saudi Arabia made big reductions to its main crude oil price for buyers in Asia, selling barrels at a discount for the first time since it embarked on a price war in 2020, as a surge of global supply heightens competition to find buyers. State producer Saudi Aramco will lower Arab Light oil for next month by $11 a barrel to $1.50 below the regional benchmark, according to a price list published Monday. The last two times it sold the grade at a discount were during price wars in 2020 and 2015, while it marks the largest monthly reduction in official selling prices since at least 2000.
July 5, 2026 | Daily JAM |
Oil. Again. Talks between the U.S. and Iran on ending their war have unleashed a wave of supply, overwhelming demand from buyers and prompting talk of a glut of crude.
It’s a staggering turnaround: less than three months ago the world’s main physical oil benchmark hit an all-time high, and only a few weeks ago senior industry executives were warning that global inventories were reaching critically low levels. Today U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate trades at $69 a barrel and international benchmark Brent crude trades at $ 72. Brent crude futures have erased all their wartime gains–tumbling 43% from a high in late April–while the physical oil market is flashing signs of weakness more extreme than any time since the demand collapse of Covid.
July 5, 2026 | Daily JAM, GDX, GDXJ, GLD, Jubak Picks |
You can see it–maybe–if you carefully squint at the year-to-date chart for gold. From $5311 an ounce on March 2, the price of gold has moved consistently lower to 4009 on June 24. And then, it looks to me, gold has formed a low ar that level. The precious metal closed at $4,126 an ounce on July 2. On the fundamentals this “should” be a bottom too. Inflation, gold’s best friend rumbles along at 3% to 4%, depending on the index you follow. The U.S. Federal Reserve has signaled that it sees inflation moderating with the end of the Iran war. (Oh, it’s over? I must have missed the press release.) And that, therefore, there’s no need to raise interest rates at the July or September meetings. More central banks than ever expect to increase their gold reserves, a sign one of the key forces behind bullion’s record-breaking rally remains intact despite this year’s pullback. In a survey of 74 central banks, 45% said they plan to buy in the coming year, the biggest-ever share in data collected by the World Gold Council and YouGov Plc since 2018. Just one said it planned to cut holdings, the WGC said in a report Tuesday. Even the big recent drop in oil prices may be more of a plus than a minus for gold. Since while lower oil prices are likely to damp inflation, lower oil prices also relieve the pressure on the currencies of oil importing countries, such as India, to sell gold to defend their currencies.
