Is Hiding From AI Now The Most Crowded Trade Of All?

The AI trade has swallowed everything, including the trade designed to avoid it.

Since the summer, the only question that mattered in markets was AI or not-AI. Owning stocks meant owning that bet, and getting out meant buying the other side: staples, utilities, anything that doesn't need a data center to grow. In October, that escape route became the most crowded trade of all. Defensives in both the US and Europe just closed their best monthly performance versus the market on record, and as we noted last Monday, US consumer staples had their best month since October 2000.

One Axis To Rule Them All