Nvidia, Memory & the Next Phase of the AI Trade | Protect the Pile Episode 29 w/ Felix Wang

But just to level set, it is October 23rd, and it is the 204th trading day of 2026.

The S&P is at 76.24 last time I looked.

I'm here two and a half percent off the all time high.

Felix, a real correction is going to melt brains.

Meanwhile, small caps are down almost 10%.

So there's been a quiet sort of, you know, collapse in the breadth in the last month and a half.

Credit spreads have been widening.

Double Bs are at $340 over Treasury.

Triple C is at $1,100 over, so that's a 16% cost to borrow for those keeping score.

The 10-year bond has come back in just under 5%.

Yield curve is compressed.

That's the landscape.

I mean, we could get into all kinds of other stuff, but I think that's enough to let people know what the temperature's looking like out there while we get into the main meat of this thing.

So I'm going to kick off with a big, wide-ranging question, Felix, that'll just get us going.

If you could watch one data point over the next three or four months... to tell you what is the direction of travel here, what would it be? You can broaden that to two or three if it makes it easier to answer the

question.

So I'll tell you what the markets I think are most focused and carrying on.

And I'll tell you kind of where I'm sort of the indicator I'm looking at to kind of gauge where the AI trade is going to go into 27.

Market, hands down, the key indicator is hyperscale or CapEx.

That's it.

Hyperscaler CapEx is continuing to...

Because that's so relevant to all of these commitments, guarantees, all these deals, circular financing.

It goes through...

I don't want to say hyperscaler because large AI companies...

Um, get backs.

But just to level set, it is October 23rd, and it is the 204th trading day of 2026.

The S&P is at 76.24 last time I looked.

I'm here two and a half percent off the all time high.

Felix, a real correction is going to melt brains.

Meanwhile, small caps are down almost 10%.

So there's been a quiet sort of, you know, collapse in the breadth in the last month and a half.

Credit spreads have been widening.

Double Bs are at $340 over Treasury.

Triple C is at $1,100 over, so that's a 16% cost to borrow for those keeping score.

The 10-year bond has come back in just under 5%.

Yield curve is compressed.

That's the landscape.

I mean, we could get into all kinds of other stuff, but I think that's enough to let people know what the temperature's looking like out there while we get into the main meat of this thing.

So I'm going to kick off with a big, wide-ranging question, Felix, that'll just get us going.

If you could watch one data point over the next three or four months... to tell you what is the direction of travel here, what would it be? You can broaden that to two or three if it makes it easier to answer the

question.

So I'll tell you what the markets I think are most focused and carrying on.

And I'll tell you kind of where I'm sort of the indicator I'm looking at to kind of gauge where the AI trade is going to go into 27.

Market, hands down, the key indicator is hyperscale or CapEx.

That's it.

Hyperscaler CapEx is continuing to...

Because that's so relevant to all of these commitments, guarantees, all these deals, circular financing.

It goes through...

I don't want to say hyperscaler because large AI companies...

Um, get backs.