Investing & Markets
Chips, the AI supply chain, macro and money flows: slowly making sense of markets. 299 posts.
EUV Photomasks Are Getting Bigger: Why One 6×12-Inch Plate Stalled for a Decade
Listening notes on Asianometry's 2026-10-01 episode 'EUV Photomasks Are Getting Bigger.' Working from the TSMC–ASML High-NA timeline, it unpacks why the bigger-mask transition is a cost and coordination problem, and the conditions under which that read breaks. Educational notes on industry structure, not investment advice; no tickers, no price targets.
Yields at a 20-Year High, and Taiwan's Market Walks June's Loop Again — Notes on Caibaogou Ep. 568
Episode 568 of the Taiwanese podcast Caibaogou (Oct 1, 2026) on the US 10-year Treasury yield pushing above 5.2%, TSMC evaluating a second Texas campus, the labor squeeze in fab-facilities engineering, and NVIDIA's AI factory certification. An educational listening note that lays out the reasoning and the counter-case; no investment advice, no stock recommendations.
In All the Noise, Ask One Thing: Did This Cost Reach Anyone's Paycheck?
MacroVoices #552, October 1, 2026: David Rosenberg on why he won't buy the inflation narrative, what is actually driving real yields, and the November date nobody circles. Listening notes for education, not investment advice.
The ERCOT Battery Paradox: Revenue Down 84%, and We Still Need More
The October 1, 2026 episode of Catalyst with Shayle Kann on grid-scale batteries in Texas. Per-kilowatt revenue fell from $200 to $30 while the financing bar sits near $100 — and the market says it needs far more storage. A breakdown of the mechanism, the recovery thesis, and where it breaks. Educational, not investment advice.
Gooaye EP701: After a 30% Drawdown, He Rotated the Whole Book
Notes on Gooaye EP701 (30 September 2026): a Q3 review covering a 30% peak-to-trough drawdown in July, a new high by early September, and the reasoning behind Taiwan's small IC design names, AI-assisted chip design, and the TSMC Texas rumour. Educational listening notes only — no investment advice, no price targets, and the judgements here may be wrong.
The Index Is at Its High, My Stocks Are Down: Odd Lots on Why Markets Move This Fast
On the October 1, 2026 Bloomberg Odd Lots, Sherwood News's Luke Kawa unpacks a market 0.5% from its high with only 51.2% of stocks above their 200-day, and half of this year's earnings growth tied to hyperscaler capex. Educational listening notes, no investment advice, no single-stock calls.
Europe Is Betting the Winter on 80 BCM — Notes on Columbia Energy Exchange's Global Gas Episode
On 29 September 2026, Columbia Energy Exchange gathered three CGEP scholars to discuss Europe's gas position heading into winter: 80 BCM in storage, a record withdrawal of 74 BCM, and seven months of a closed Strait of Hormuz. An educational listening note on supply-demand structure and how to read it. Not investment advice; no individual securities discussed.
The Feeling Is Awful, the Price Is Fine — Notes on Weak Internals from The Compound and Friends
Notes on the September 29, 2026 WAYT episode of The Compound and Friends: consumer confidence at a 12-year low, the share of S&P 500 members above their 200-day average down from 73% to 51%, and the index still near its highs. I lay out the bullish case and the strongest counter-case side by side, and name the condition that decides it. Educational personal notes, not investment advice; no stock recommendations or price targets.
It Can Write the Code, It Just Doesn't Know Where Things Break: Notes on an Episode About AI in Chip Design
Supply Chained's September 29, 2026 episode 'Adventures in Chip Design' has John of Asianometry and Tim Culpan of Culpium on the current state of AI inside the chip design flow. These are my listening notes and extended reading — educational industry commentary, not investment advice, and no stock recommendations.
The Format War That Almost Happened: How DVD Got Settled in 1995 by a Company That Sold No Players
Listening notes on Asianometry's September 27, 2026 video, The Dramatic Birth of the DVD Boom: MMCD's 3.7GB per side against SD's 5GB, the roughly 3 cents per disc in CD patent royalties, and how IBM pushed both camps to one table in August 1995. Educational and for thinking practice only — no investment advice, no individual stock views or price targets.
Memory Prices Froze Device Specs, and Agents Are Eating the CPUs
Notes from The Circuit, 2026-09-28: what memory pricing is doing to consumer hardware, how Meta's Muse gives the assistant product a shape, and the CPU shortage sitting behind the Anthropic–Akamai deal. Educational commentary, not investment advice.
Three Things Under the Surface of Private Markets: Hamilton Lane's CEO on Dispersion, Secondary Discounts, and the Unfinished Sentence
Listening notes from the September 28, 2026 episode of The Compound and Friends with Hamilton Lane CEO Erik Hirsch: correlation with public equities, private credit default rates around 2%, and why a stake bought at 65 cents gets booked at a dollar. Educational and for thinking practice only — no investment advice, no individual stock views or price targets.
A Personal Assistant With No App — Notes on Noah Shinn and Instinct
Notes on Invest Like the Best EP.493 (2026-09-28): Noah Shinn on Instinct, an AI personal assistant with no app, how it turns trust into a measurable metric, and why a free-plus-take-rate business model decides whose side it is on. Educational, not investment advice.
From Printed Interconnects to Spinning Flywheels: Four Dutch Companies on Where AI Silicon Actually Jams
TechWave EP156 recorded four interviews at SEMICON, covering printed interconnects in advanced packaging, fiber alignment for silicon photonics, quantum chip testing, and flywheel power protection for data centers. These are my notes and extended reading — educational industry commentary, not investment advice, and no stock recommendations.
Where the Electrons Come From: A Debate About Building Your Own Power Plant
Notes on the 2026-09-28 Frontier Forum conversation on Catalyst with Shayle Kann. Bloom Energy's chief commercial officer on why data centers and factories are generating their own power, how delivered cost actually stacks up, and why communities are pushing back. Educational notes only — not investment advice, no stock recommendations.
Keep the Tool, Raise the Bar: Sweden's Governor on QE, Independence, and Cash
Notes on the 2026-09-28 Macro Musings episode with Riksbank Governor Erik Thedéen: why a central bank founded in 1668 decided to raise the bar for large-scale asset purchases, the three layers of that argument, where each one stops holding, and what breaks if you transplant it. Educational, not investment advice.
Getting a Crosswalk Painted in LA Takes a Few Years or More
Notes on the Odd Lots live episode from Hollywood, 2026-09-28: developer Zach Lasry and Calculated Risk's Bill McBride on LA zoning, permit queues, and the scramble for transformers. I used to blame interest rates for everything that doesn't get built. This one changed my mind. Educational notes only, no investment advice, no stock recommendations.
Laying Out One Week of Public Posts: The AI Buildout's Bottleneck Has Moved
An independent researcher covering the AI infrastructure upstream posted seventeen times on X between 2026-09-21 and 09-25. Lined up together, they show the bottleneck shifting away from GPUs toward CPUs, memory, and the optical upstream.
Podcast Notes Weekly: Sep 21–Sep 27, 2026
The takeaways from 28 podcast notes I wrote this week (Asianometry, Caibaogou (財報狗), Macro Musings with David Beckworth, Bloomberg Odd Lots, Serenity Weekly, The Circuit and more). Two to four sentences per episode, with a link to each full post.
When Kindness Becomes the Ceiling: Masako Aragane on DEI Practice in Japanese Companies and Impostor Syndrome
On 27 September 2026, InterFM's Investor's Sunday hosted DEI consultant Masako Aragane on what Japanese companies actually do: Hitachi embedding diversity in its sustainability strategy with quantified causal links, Kirin sending male managers to pick up colleagues' children for five straight days, Mercari narrowing its unexplained gender pay gap to 1.4%. Educational content, not investment advice, no view on individual stocks.
Taiwan's ETF Mania: Following the Crowd, or Actually Understanding It? — Notes on MacroMicro After Meeting EP 215
Fee ratios behind 0050 versus 006208, why Nikkei and TOPIX diverge, how to attribute an active ETF's good year, and the currency-and-price gap inside bond ETFs. Listening notes on one podcast episode. Educational content, not investment advice, no tickers recommended and no price targets.
When Every Headline Leads Back to One Trunk: Michael Every on the Geopolitical Puzzle (MacroVoices #551, Part 2)
Notes after listening to the MacroVoices #551 bonus episode: Iran's one-week deadline, the rumored diesel export ban, Canada's war game, and how Michael Every routes all of it back to the US-China contest. Educational listening notes, not investment advice; no tickers, no price targets.
High Bandwidth Flash Is Coming: 16x the Capacity, and What It Costs
Notes after watching Asianometry's 2026-09-24 episode 'High Bandwidth Flash Is Coming': HBF lifts per-stack memory from about 36GB to 512GB, but runs two orders of magnitude slower and survives only a few thousand writes. The opportunity, the costs, and what Optane taught us. Educational, not investment advice — no tickers, no price targets.
"My Wife Flatters Me Because She Is Partial to Me": Statementdog on Whether Memory Is Really Tight
Statementdog Podcast EP567's news roundup: how to read Acer's Chen Jun-sheng saying memory is 'not as short as people think,' the power-semiconductor price-hike timeline running from last year's TI to next year's Renesas, and the new outlets opening up for silicon carbide after Chinese price wars flattened it. Listening notes on judgment method — no stock picks, no price targets.