AI Is Becoming a Stock Picker's Market

(upbeat music) This is the markets. I'm Chris Hosse and today is Wednesday, September 30th, and I'm here in the Goldman Sachs trading floor with Pete Callahan, who is our US technology media and telecommunications sector specialist within FIC and equities. Pete, thanks so much for joining us again on the markets. Thanks for having me. All right, let's get to it because we had kind of a meh summer. When you look at the 10 biggest tech stocks, half of them are up, half of them are down. Is the AI trade getting long in the tooth? What are customers telling you? Yeah, listen, I think tech in the AI story is still intact, but you're right, it's like nuanced now, right? There's a lot more dispersion, which could be euphemism for bad market breath, right? But what you're starting to see now is much more of a stock picker's market. We're kind of year three, year four of the AI cycle. There's a lot of things to be excited about. There's also a lot of questions that investors are asking, and so I do think the trend for tech is still higher. I still think earnings growth, valuations, and thematic tailwinds are on its side. But to your point, we can kind of go through these laws after a really good start to the year, call it Jan through June. We've kind of been in consolidation mode of the summer, and I think it's a fair thing as investors sort of wrestle with the handful of AI puts and takes down the stretch of the year. Not to mention, of course, rates and oil and macro, and all of those are parts of the conversation today that were a little bit less so in the first half of this year. Yeah, I want to get into the macro, but before we do that, let's keep exploring that AI trade for a little bit, because is the complexion of the AI trade starting to change now? Originally, this was an AI infrastructure trade. It started with the semis. It went into the hyperscalers. Is it now making the move into applications? Things like a gentick AI? How do you look at it? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, let's just start it. We had our big flagship technology conference early in September, and it's kind of hard to walk out of that conference and not feel good about the state of AI and the state of tech. And so I kind of like, that's the backdrop, and that's a good constructive backdrop. But you're right. For the first couple of years, when people said AI, they just said seven conductors, kind of capex beta, we want to be picks and shovels. In the last couple of months, you've really started to see more focus up the stack, some of the scaffolding at the infrastructure software, security software layer, some of the tools and companies that help organizations adopt and deploy AI. That's what you're starting to see. So yes, a gentick commerce is part of it. Cybersecurity's been a piece of that. Some of these data infrastructure stocks have been a piece of that. So I would say the trade has broadened out. And then so some capacity could say, okay, well, it looks flatter and broader. But I think that broader breadth of the trade, you could argue is a good thing, even if it creates a little bit more of a stock pickers, rather that it's sort of a single thematic narrative underneath of it. >> All right, terrific, Pete. You mentioned Communicopy and Technology, our big conference that we had in September. Did you hear from a lot of people there that these types of AI implementations are working? And that you're getting those types of productivity improvements that people are looking for? >> Yeah, you are. Listen, there's a bunch of sound bites that are coming out of corporates these days around productivity, sort of new revenue opportunities, things like that. It's just the measuring stick, right? Because we're spending, you know, trillions of dollars on CapEx. And so I think the market writ large is getting what they want from a productivity narrative, from a use case narrative. Now that's maybe emerging on the consumer side with the Ryzee's personal assistance. But it's always about the measuring stick of how much is going into the ground versus how much companies are getting in the back end. And so of course with three key earnings around the season, we'll get this sort of numerical measuring stick and how companies are benefiting from generative AI. >> Okay, Pete, expand that a little bit on the AI build out here. What are investors most worried about there? Are they worried that we're gonna run out of money and stop doing it? What exactly is the risk that they're focused on? >> Yeah, it's a good question. I think most of it would be more about the just the linearity of the deployment. And so I think investors believe this theme has a decade-long mega trend. And so I think investors feel pretty good about the end point. But the linearity's gotten a little bit more uncertain, right? And that's a comment on sort of the deployment and the physical sort of standing up of these data centers and turning them on. And so I think that's the part of the conversation that's gotten trickier. And again, not to come back to it, but there's just a lot of noise when you look where the rates market is or the oil market is. And so there's just a lot more considerations that investors have today versus kind of that 23, 24 cycle of generative AI. >> Okay, Pete, enough about AI, let's move on to the broader tech space. Let's talk about software. That was a group that really got taken out earlier in the year. Had a nice summer though, but the last month it's been under a little bit of pressure. Where does software stand today? >> You're going to catch me using the word nuance to get this version, right? Because part of software is that cybersecurity story, that data infrastructure story. And that's become a really big theme for investors to latch onto. And you can kind of call those inference plays, if you will. This sort of course, SaaS and application layer of software, the market's still wrestling with that stuff. That's the market where the market's still trying to figure out product market fit and pricing and where they sit alongside that new model layer that's emerged over the last couple of years. And so it's really kind of a dispersion trade within software, but that's a lot better. I mean, the first half of this year was kind of correlation one type of price action. And that's not great for anybody. And so it's nice to see dispersion. You're starting to see stock picking come back to software. But the trend has been higher. The group's treated much better over the last couple of months. And I still think position is a tailwind in that subsector. So if you're a software company that can help implement AI or keep AI safe, you're in good shape. But if you're a software company that has to use AI in order to make their software better, not so yet. >> Yeah, or deliver that end product to the customer. That's where the market's trying to figure out how that story plays out over the next couple of months and quarters. >> Okay, let's cut the macro. Tech and rates have always been closely correlated. What's going on today? >> Yeah, listen, rates have definitely come part of the conversation and a consideration for tech investors. This year, you've seen Nasdaq multiple compress about 20%. Now, there's a lot of things that drive that. But I think certainly rates is a piece of that. We know of 10-year yields certainly north of five and a quarter, right? So I think that's been a piece of this story. Now, tech still generated great returns this year. And why is that? That's because the theme is intact. And the earnings growth is intact. And so we look at rates and we're obviously careful if you sort of lose the long end of the curve. But from a, is it keeping people out of tech? >> No, but is it putting more pressure on earnings due to the heavy lifting rather than multiple? Certainly, and I think we've seen that this year. >> Now, you mentioned this about the earnings and the PE multiples having come in. Is that a symptom of healthy skepticism in the marketplace around earnings that people just don't, they don't think the earnings are going to be as strong as you think? >> Yeah, that's right. I think part of it's the rate story. And then of course, part of it is how long can we compound at this 20% plus earnings growth story, right? It's been a great stretch. If you get the productivity from AI in the coming years, you see corporate margins stay healthy. I think that story stays intact. You climb that wall of worry on 27 and 28. And that's probably the path higher for the tech sector. >> All right, great, let's put a bow on it. What's the trade? >> Yeah, I get two things in focus, right? One, of course, semiconductor is, we talked about it. But that's a group that hasn't gone anywhere for a while, multiples of compressed. And we kind of talked about this sort of personal assistant, consumer AI story starting to pick up over the last couple of weeks. So I'll be watching for semiconductors into three Q earnings to hopefully find its footing again. And then the other one, consumer services and consumer experiences. Consumer stocks have one of their biggest months of underperformance in over 10 years in the month of September. Of course, rates in oil weigh heavy on the group. But you could argue that's an opportunity to climb a wall of worry down the stretch of 26. And that would be an area I would start to re-engage and sharpen pencils and find some good 80s and credit ideas. >> In the tech world, does that mean e-commerce? What does that mean? >> Yeah, exactly, internet service is commerce. And then some of the live events and experiences that we have in the sector. >> All right, what are you watching for in the month ahead? >> Yeah, of course. So early month macro data, right? We have a fed me to the end of this month. Right now the market is about a 40% chance of a hike priced in. So we'll see if the macro data tilts that one or the other. We'll kick off corporate earnings in the middle of the month. Of course, all about finding that return on a vested capital, vis-a-vis AI, both in the tech sector. But of course, outside of the tech sector is well, increasingly important. And then finally, we have midterm elections, some 30 odd days away, that it was sort of being the background as we headed to earning season. And so it was something to watch as well. >> Pete, thanks so much for joining us, really appreciate it. >> Thanks for having me. >> That does it for this week's episode of the markets. I'm Chris Hussie, thanks for listening. 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