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Rates, Breadth and the Bankpocalypse

Published on October 4, 2026

Jordi Visser

In this week’s video, I explain why rising yields alongside weak breadth make sense, and using history to measure the impact of rising rates of the past ignores how much the economy has changed. Since the GFC this economy has changed to one driven by the digital economy seen through the revenue and market cap make up of the S&P 500. Nominal GDP is about 6.5%, yields aren’t even mid-range of times at this level, and the negative-yield years from Lehman to post-COVID shouldn’t be viewed as normal.

Technology plus Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Tesla went from just over 10% of the S&P during the financial crisis and before the launch of the iPhone to 56% today, and these companies don’t need low rates. In 2015, Nvidia and Micron had combined revenue of $21 billion. Today it’s $535 billion, more than GM and the four major homebuilders combined. Breadth is weak because old-economy names are being disrupted, not because the economy is breaking. Staples are making new lows against the S&P. When breadth’s 14-day RSI drops below 25, six-month returns have historically skewed higher.

The next inflection is consumer agents. Instinct AI says its compute needs are doubling effectively every week, and OpenAI plus Anthropic revenue this year will exceed the entire software sector. Agents also bring a bank apocalypse: the BKX closed below its 200-day average, and trust is moving to cryptography and instant settlement. I see Visa and Mastercard as today’s BlackBerry.

Timestamps

(00:00–01:46) Intro: This week brought 13 subscriber releases, including a new report on consumer agents. People who spend the next two months learning crypto will have a big investment advantage over the next year ahead of adoption.
(01:46–03:39) Bonds: Rising rates with falling breadth makes sense and is not the dot-com bubble. With nominal GDP near 6.5%, yields aren’t even mid-range, and Jordi only worries if they get well above 7%.
(03:39–07:13) A Different Economy: Technology plus Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Tesla went from just over 10% of the S&P during the financial crisis to 56% today. Nvidia and Micron’s revenue grew from $21 billion in 2015 to $535 billion, while GM and the four major homebuilders grew only 2.4% a year.
(07:13–08:40) Financial Conditions: Since 1999, higher rates have stopped tightening financial conditions the way they did in the 1970s. Rates jumped far more in 2022 than they have now, and that still didn’t cause a recession.
(08:40–13:21) Breadth: Staples are making new lows against the S&P, and new lows are piling up in staples and utilities, not tech. When breadth’s 14-day RSI drops below 25, six-month returns have historically skewed higher.
(13:21–16:09) Bank Apocalypse: Strategists who called for a broadening-out trade are now hoping for a crash to prove them right. The BKX closed below its 200-day average, and Jordi sees banks facing the same multiple compression software went through.
(16:09–19:30) Crypto vs. Banks: Crypto held up while rates rose and gold broke down, which argues against the debasement explanation. Copper, gold and the dollar have offered no trend, while the AI trade keeps climbing.
(19:30–24:36) The AI Trade: The 10-name concentrated portfolio is up 106% for the year, and Micron’s revenue jumps 11-fold. Rogers raised its numbers from $3 to $14 at its investor day, a step-up Jordi traces through his 100-name basket.
(24:36–33:59) Consumer Agents: The founder of Instinct AI says their compute needs are doubling effectively every week, and 40% of users gave it a credit card within three weeks. OpenAI and Anthropic will take in more revenue this year than the entire software sector.
(33:59–37:24) Breadth Dashboard: The 20-day breadth reading jumped to 74, its highest since the peak, and the share of stocks above their 200-day average turned up decisively. Jordi also walks through the Jev tool and how his 21-year-old son’s AI fluency has made him stand out at his internship.
(37:24–48:51) The Trust Shift: Illia Polosukhin, William Mougayar and Joseph Chalom make the case for Ethereum as the trust layer for agentic finance. Jordi sees Visa and Mastercard as today’s BlackBerry, and argues faster settlement is also safer, pointing to the shift to T+1 after GameStop.
(48:51–56:23) Wall Street Moves: Jordi gives an update on the 46-token index and the first two of its 10 crypto verticals, along with a prompt based on Peter Lynch’s approach. Morgan Stanley is building a crypto lab, Citi is partnering with Coinbase and Franklin Templeton is using tokenized money market funds as crypto collateral.

Watch here

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