Daily Commentary

MarketMinder’s View: A decent portion of this piece focuses on sociological issues (e.g., income inequality), so please remember sociology isn’t a market driver. We highlight this discussion because it illustrates one of the big headline worries weighing on sentiment today and counterbalancing creeping AI enthusiasm. Namely, rising stocks (especially a couple big names going public) are supposedly enriching a handful folks, but most regular folks are purportedly falling behind as elevated energy prices eat into real (inflation-adjusted) wage growth—and that distress is showing up in recent tumbling sentiment surveys. Perhaps this is true. Losing purchasing power at the grocery store or gas pump can certainly be frustrating and may be a hardship for some families. While it is normal for real wages to drop when inflation first erupts since faster wage growth tends to follow inflation, helping folks eventually catch up, that is probably cold comfort now. Overall though, we see a big gap between sentiment and reality here. As the article notes, over half of US households own stocks and are also therefore benefiting from the ongoing bull market. And despite people’s feelings, household balance sheets are in good shape, as we showed here. But That inflation worries and generally dour sentiment (outside Tech) remain atop many commentators’ minds is counterintuitively bullish, as false fears are bull market fuel.

MarketMinder’s View: Some sobering statistics from across the pond: “UK banks reported almost 15,000 investment scams in 2025 as criminals use artificial intelligence to dupe people out of their money. About £221.5m was lost to scams in which people were persuaded to move their money to a fake investment or a fictitious fund, a rise of 40% from the year before, according to the report from UK Finance.” As we have seen stateside, fraudsters are increasingly using AI technology to imitate financial professionals, celebrities or even loved ones. From there, “criminals will promise high returns on investments that could range from gold, property and carbon credits to cryptocurrencies and wine.” AI advances now allow bad actors to cast a wide net, meaning potential victims must be hyperaware of the tactics. As sophisticated as the technology has gotten, though, many frauds feature common red flags. For example, flashy returns that sound too good to be true are a common one, as they are meant to appeal to greed. An inbound communication purportedly coming from a celebrity should always be a red flag. And if you can’t tell if someone is a loved one or a scammer, simply hang up or ignore their message and contact that person directly to verify. We find a calmer, cooler approach can go a long way in avoiding rash, emotion-driven decisions.

MarketMinder’s View: Here is an interesting thing that may be coming down the pike, pending the 60-day public comment period and final rulemaking. The SEC proposed nixing a 2005 rule requiring “trading platforms to execute buy and sell orders at the best possible price. The agency on Thursday proposed the elimination of the trade-through rule, which forbids platforms from completing a trade at a price that is worse than the best available price across all U.S. exchanges, even if that means filling the order at a competing market.” Regulators believe that while the rule made sense in 2005, basically the dark ages for electronic trading relative to today, modern connectivity makes them moot—and a financial albatross for brokers, forcing them to pay through the nose for “expensive market data feeds linked to a bevy of exchanges, including overlapping ones that proliferated as a direct result of the rule.” To us, this looks procedural and shouldn’t affect the overall trade execution you get when you decide to buy or sell. Brokers already have a duty to seek best overall execution for their clients, which stretches well beyond the execution price to include liquidity, speed, mitigating the risk of trade failure and more. If the rule changes, it would essentially give brokers more flexibility to fulfill this duty rather than being hamstrung by a price mandate (and given how bid/ask spreads have narrowed, the difference may amount to a penny or less per share). Not that we are taking a stance for or against—just pointing out that this tweak, should it go through, looks highly unlikely to leave investors worse off.