Global Assets Surge in Unison: Risks Building Behind the "Everything High"
nashnova research
Global markets have entered a rare "Everything High" phase — earnings, capex, commodities, rates, and positioning all near historic extremes at once. The AI super-cycle is the core engine, but crowded positioning is making the risk of a synchronized reversal build fast.
What is driving everything up at the same time?
The core engine is the AI capex super-cycle. Consensus capex for U.S. hyperscale cloud providers over the next 12 months has risen from under $300 billion at the start of 2025 to $940 billion — more than tripling.
AI monetization is keeping pace: as of end-August, annualized AI-economy revenue reached $229 billion, up 3.5× in one year. This means → capex is not spinning idle; downstream revenue is following the spend.
Growth breadth is spreading beyond tech — emerging-market earnings growth expectations hit 72% this year, and the eurozone economic surprise index is at a multi-year high. In plain terms = this is not just a U.S. tech rally; the whole world is running hot.
How strong are earnings expectations?
The S&P 500's 2026 earnings-growth forecast has climbed to 34%, up sharply from 15% at the start of the year. This means → that kind of growth rate normally appears only during a post-recession earnings recovery — yet the U.S. economy has not had a recession.
Goldman Sachs notes tech-sector margins are at record highs; tech is expected to contribute roughly one quarter of global corporate profits over the next 12 months.
This reflects a market whose confidence in AI-driven earnings is running ahead of fundamentals — the faster expectations rise, the greater the damage if results disappoint.
Could inflation make a comeback?
Overheating growth is leaving traces in commodity prices: the refined-products crack spread — the margin refiners earn turning crude into gasoline and diesel — has hit a record high. Gasoline futures rose roughly 30% in one month; diesel is nearing $6 per gallon.
U.S. electricity prices are also setting new highs. In plain terms = energy is getting expensive, and once that feeds through to consumers and businesses, the "inflation is coming down" narrative faces a fresh test.
Gold is in a strong cycle too, with central banks still adding reserves. This signals that even as risk assets rally, large pools of capital are still buying macro-risk insurance.
Where is the biggest hidden risk?
More dangerous than any single asset being expensive is that positioning across markets is getting crowded at the same time. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield has risen to its highest close since 2023; the dollar net-long position sits in a historically elevated range.
Deutsche Bank data show that volatility-control strategies — quantitative strategies that automatically add or cut equity exposure based on market volatility — have pushed their equity allocation to the 100th percentile historically. Full exposure.
This means → the prolonged low-volatility environment drove these strategies to maximum equity positioning. Once volatility picks up, their mechanical de-leveraging could amplify the sell-off.
Under what conditions could this break?
The key question is not whether any single indicator has peaked, but whether earnings, capex, commodities, rates, and positioning reverse together after resonating at extremes.
As long as AI investment stays strong, this logic can continue. But once inflation or rates re-emerge as a constraint, extremely crowded positioning could make the speed of market correction far outpace the speed of fundamental deterioration.
Goldman Sachs expects dollar-denominated equity issuance in 2026 to reach roughly $700 billion — a record — with IPOs alone exceeding $225 billion. In plain terms = supply is also flooding in; if the demand side softens, there may not be enough buyers.
市场有风险，内容仅供研究参考，不构成投资建议。