In this morning market commentary, Kenny Polcari reviews the latest market moves, highlighting the continued rally of AI‑related stocks and the semiconductor sector while noting a sharp sell‑off in companies vulnerable to personal AI agents. He explains the concept of consumer inertia and how AI assistants could erode it, threatening insurers, banks, telecoms, travel platforms, streaming services, and gym chains. Polcari then shifts to geopolitics, summarizing President Trump’s UN speech on Iran, the ongoing Kushner‑Witkoff negotiations, and the resulting dip in oil prices. He provides a snapshot of macro indicators – bond yields, the VIX, gold, and upcoming PMI data – and warns about complacency despite low volatility. The segment previews an upcoming UN Security Council briefing where top AI CEOs (including Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and others) will discuss AI safety, framing it as a US‑China technology showdown. Polcari offers a call‑to‑action for portfolio reviews, then concludes with a detailed recipe for a thin‑sliced T‑bone steak from Italy’s Trentino‑Alto Adige region, complete with cultural background and cooking instructions. The overall tone blends analytical market insight with conversational commentary and a light‑hearted culinary interlude.
Chapters
Well, good morning. Yes, it's me, Kenny Polcari, your host of the party. And today is Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026. And you see outside, it is still dark as, uh, I get ready to tell you the things that you need to know to get your day started. Well, the push is still on. NASDAQ made another new closing high yesterday. The AI beneficiary list is long. Well, the disruptors though, that paints an ugly picture for some. We'll talk about that in a minute. And Trump, well, he laid it out at the UN. Kushner and Whitkoff, well, they continue to negotiate with Iran and the news sounds good. Today it's all about the AI CEOs warning the UN of the AI risk to humanity. It's comical. And what do we have today? We're going to have the T-boat. I'll talk about that in a moment. So good morning to you. And the Nasdaq continues to push higher into uncharted territory yesterday, making another new record closing high as the AI trade continues to steal the show. Renewed hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran pushed oil lower, and that helped to stabilize the bond market. You put that all together and you got 3 reasons why investors continued to buy the market and to buy tech. At 4 PM, it was a mixed bag. The Dow lost 185 points. The S&P ended the day flat. The NASDAQ did edge higher, rising 122 points. The Russell gained 15 points. The transports sank further into the abyss. Remember we talked about that yesterday, losing 84 points while the Equal Weight added— Equal Weight SP added 2 points and the Mag 7 lost 102. Again, I would not say that it was a broad-based rally at all. It was just another example of a very specific move into AI and the semiconductor names. The SOXX, which is the semiconductor index, gained 2.4%, is now up 15% in 6 days. Memory names benefited from the excitement as well, sending the DRAM ETF up 3.3% and up 17% in 6 days. And MU surging 5%, SanDisk gaining 7% yesterday. And if that wasn't enough, investors continued to buy the picks and the shovel companies supplying the chips, the memory, the networking equipment and power needed to fuel the AI revolution. And the list of beneficiaries is long, and you know the names. NVIDIA, AID, and Broadcom supply the processors. Micron and SanDisk are memory and storage. Taiwan Semi manufactures the chips. Applied Materials, Lam Research, and KLA provide the equipment. Marvell, Dell, HPE, and Vertiv supply the networking and servers and power and cooling. And then you have Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet providing the cloud infrastructure. And Constellation Energy and GE Vernova helping to provide the electricity required to run it all. But yesterday's AI story also has an ugly side. While the chipmakers and other pick-and-shovel names rallied, investors sold companies that could ultimately be disrupted by the personal AI agents. Meta's Muse can do a lot. I mean, a lot. And so can the others. Think OpenCLAW, ChatGPT, Gemini, Siri, Grok, and Instinct. They can compare prices. They can make reservations, communicate with businesses, and complete transactions on behalf of their users. And that is you. And that raises a new question. What happens to companies that make money because their customers are too busy or just too frustrated to search for a better deal? That's called consumer inertia. We all know it. It means that customers keep paying, they keep renewing or staying because comparing alternatives and negotiating prices or switching providers is just too exhausting. and it takes too much time and effort. For example, okay, US, I'm going to give it to you. Insurance companies, think names like Allstate, State Farm, and Progressive. Banks and brokers, think JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Charlie Schwab, because comparing fees and financing is inconvenient if you have to do it. But if the AI does it, maybe it's different. Telecommunications, think your Verizon, your cellular, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, because it's a hassle to To switch the carrier, but maybe the AI agents make it easier. And what about travel? Things like Booking and Expedia. These names go— these are go-to names for so many of us when we're making travel plans, right? Streaming services like Disney, Netflix, and Paramount. It's easy to get lost in that mess. I mean, it's ridiculous when you look at it. Gym memberships, businesses that benefit from customers that keep paying without really using the service. How many times does that happen? Planet Fitness down 9.5% yesterday. Lifetime Fitness down 4.3%. Booking Holdings down 2.5%. Uber down 2.5%. Now, do I need to go on? Because look, the point is that the AI agent can do most of it, if not all of it, for you. Constantly comparing prices, negotiating bills, canceling unused subscriptions, and finding cheaper alternatives. In other words, it could eliminate the inertia. That is why insurers, banks, brokers, travel platforms, telecommunication companies, and subscription services businesses suddenly found themselves in the bullseye yesterday. As a result, we saw financials lose 2%, communications lost 1%, utilities were down 0.3%. But let's not get crazy. Mnuchin and the others are not about to destroy the banking, insurance, travel, or telecommunications industries. No, but the market does have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later when the narrative becomes the worry of the day. And that is important because the message from yesterday wasn't about how AI is going to lift every company associated with technology, but rather it was about identifying who supplies the AI, who benefits from the AI, and who's about to get whacked. And now on to New York City, the UN General Assembly, and Trump's speech. And in case you missed it, his message to Tehran was pretty clear. He defended the war as necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. He called on other countries to join the U.S. economically isolating Tehran. And then he laid out 2 very different paths. One, Iran can reach an agreement that allows it to rebuild. Or 2, it can continue fighting and face possible, as he said, annihilation of the whole Islamic Republic. It wasn't any more complicated than that. It was tough language, but here's the interesting part. Investors in markets did not react as if it was another military escalation was imminent. They reacted as if the speech was part of Trump's maximum pressure negotiating strategy. And this morning we find out that Stevie Witkoff and Jared Kushner spent 3 hours meeting with Iranian mediators in New York yesterday. Trump called it very productive. Iran state media said that Iran continues to demand the lifting of the naval blockade, unfreezing all Iranian assets, and ending the war on all fronts. Well, while we've heard this before, it's always encouraging when we hear it again. But remember, it ain't over till the fat lady sings. And so we wait and the market waits. Uh, uh, oil fell further yesterday, losing 2.7%. This morning it's down another 7/10. at 89.85. It is now down 12% since last week, and the chart suggests we could see it fall to the 85 range before it finds any support, right? Bonds remained essentially unchanged. The 10-year yielding 4.95%, the 30-year yielding 5.29%, really no change. And 30-year mortgages continue to hover around 7%. The VIX continues to push lower, closing down 6 cents at 14.15, leaving it at levels last seen in December before the whole Middle East conflict even began, which is a bit odd for me. But what it says is that investors are pushing this conflict, just like we did with Russia and Ukraine, to the back burner, right? With every tick lower in the VIX, the market and investors become increasingly more complacent, and complacency becomes an issue when the market begins pricing in almost no possibility of a negative surprise. Remember, low VIX is not by itself a sell signal. It can remain low for a long time and stocks will continue to rise. But what it does mean is that protection is relatively inexpensive and that investors may be underestimating the risks sitting directly in front of them, right? That you don't see it. It's too complacent. If, for instance, the talks do not— actually, if they do produce a ceasefire, then the market's right and investors are right and the VIX is okay. But if it blows up again and something suddenly happens, then the VIX is going to reprice very quickly and stocks will then get hit. All it means is it's not the time to go to bed. Now, gold is low this morning. It's down $44 at $4,315. The weakness is all about the reduced geopolitical anxiety and the Fed's continued higher-for-longer stance. We've discussed that. The chart shows that the short-term and intermediate-term trend lines are converging right here at the $4,306, $4,315 level. Right, right where it is. Now, today back at the UN, we're going to hear from a who's who list of AI CEOs as they brief the Security Council on the risks of AI, which is comical to me. We're gonna get Sam Altman and Dario Amadeo and, and, uh, Hugging Face, uh, CEO Clement Deluge to brief the Security Council on the risk that their advanced models pose to global security and humanity. China's DeepSeek and MuChuan have also been invited, making this a, uh, as much a US-China technology discussion as well as an AI safety debate. I mean, you can't even make this stuff up. So better yet, just grab the popcorn and sit down and watch the show. Today we're going to get the preliminary S&P Global Manufacturing and Services PMIs on the economic front, both expected to remain in the expansion zone. Tomorrow it's all about new home sales, which are expected to rise by 1.3%. This morning, US futures are mixed. Dow futures are flat, S&P's up 3, NASDAQ down 7, the Russell's down 8. European markets are also mixed as the churn continues there, right? We watch what happens at the UN and speeches and all that stuff. The S&P closed at 7,764, essentially flat on the day. As I said yesterday, we're now trading in that 7,720, 7,800 trading range. We're only 0.4% away from creating another new high on the S&P. Kissing 7,798 is not the same as breaking up and through it. A decisive close above 7,798 would open the door to another leg higher. A failure to pierce it will reinforce that level as resistance, and it'll keep us trapped lower in this current range. Now, if you'd like to discuss your goals or evaluate the risk in your portfolio, simply just get a second opinion. You can give me a call at 561-931-0190 Or better yet, you can go to the website, click on the slatestone.com contact us link, and the email will come right to me. I'm always happy to provide you with a complimentary portfolio review and risk assessment of your portfolio. Okay, so what do we have in dinner tonight? We're gonna have this thin sliced T-bone sautéed in white wine and onions. Now this dish hails from the northern region of Italy called Trentino Alto Adige. It's a complex place, has a variety of influences that are visible in the language, the food, and the culture. Now, during his rule over Italy, Napoleon Bonaparte annexed this land from Austria. He then renamed the region Adige, reflecting the Adige River that runs through it, as he sought to erase any historical affiliation to Austria. The people in that part of the country speak Italian, The Austro-Bavarian dialect of the German tongue. As a result, they appreciate foods with ingredients like sauerkraut, horseradish, and liverwurst. Foods much closer to the Austro-Hungarian Empire than to the Roman Empire. So yes, it is Italy, but the dish is not pasta polenta parmigiana. It has no cream and no tomatoes. It does have, though, garlic and white wine. It is a steak dish sautéed in onions. and white wine. It's easy to make. It's not fancy. It takes no more than 30 minutes to make and serve. So for this, you're gonna need thin sliced T-bones or some other thin sliced steak. You need butter, garlic, white wine, onions, flour, salt and pepper, and mushrooms. They're optional, but I always use 'em. I also add a shake of oregano because I like the way it tastes. You do you. Now you wanna start by slicing the onions and the mushrooms and the garlic and then sautéing them in butter and olive oil in a large frying pan Large enough to accommodate the steak, the meat that you're gonna use, the thin sliced meat. You're gonna keep the heat on medium so that you don't burn the butter or the onions. Next, while that's happening, you're gonna season your steaks with salt and pepper, lightly dredge them in flour after you season them and just set them aside. When the onions are soft and translucent, you're gonna turn up the heat, right? You're gonna add the steaks. It's the onions and the mushrooms and the garlic, right? The whole thing. Then you're gonna turn up the heat, add the steaks. You're gonna brown it on one side for about 3 minutes. 3 minutes. Turn it over, and then you're going to add the splash of white wine, maybe like a half a cup. Depends on how many steaks you're using. You're going to scrape the bottom of the pan, allow the wine to steam off a bit. If it all evaporates, feel free to add just a bit more. You want to cook the steaks for a max of 3 more minutes depending on the thickness. But remember, you're not going to use a thick steak for this dish, so be very careful. Maybe it's only 2 minutes. When it's done, you can serve it 3 ways. You can make a bed of onions and mushrooms and then place the steak on top. You can place the steak first and then cover it with a blanket of the onions and mushrooms, you know, the sweet wine that made it delicious. Or you can slice the steak on a diagonal and serve it family style surrounded by the onions and mushrooms. Either way, you can serve it with a garlic herb rice pilaf and a mixed green salad. Have plenty of Chianti available to your guests, right? You can also— this is a great dish to make if you're going to bring it to a potluck dinner hosted by your neighbor. As it's easy to make and it goes a long way, especially if you cut it at a diagonal and serve it on a big platter. It's easy, it presents well, people will love it, and they'll thank you for bringing it. Look, the sun is just coming up. It looks a little bit cloudy today, so it's not a clear, clear blue sky. We got a lot of rain yesterday. Oh my God, it was raining cats and dogs like I haven't seen in a long time. But until tomorrow, take good care. Take care.
