Technology

The Trump slump is nearing a temporary reprieve, with a playable countertrend rally in stocks and a tactical rebound in the dollar. Go tactically long USD/SEK. For long-term investors though, the AI bubble still has a lot of air to come out.

This week, our three screeners cover equity plays in US defensives, US Tech, and European Small Cap Value.

DeepSeek's AI breakthrough will likely enhance China’s productivity gains. But does it justify a re-valuation in Chinese tech stocks? Sustaining the Chinese tech rally will require corporate profits to overcome the pressures of China’s deflationary cycle. Meanwhile, DeepSeek’s innovations may fuel greater competition, intensifying price wars and putting further strain on Chinese tech companies’ profit margins.

Jonathan provides an update on Canada following strong performance from Canadian stocks last year. On a tactical basis, underweight Canada versus global ex-US on the expectation of tariffs targeting Canada and Mexico. Following a sell off, or if a trade war is avoided, investors should place Canadian stocks on upgrade watch with the goal of moving to a modest overweight versus global ex-US.

GAI is a double-edged sword for S&S. Companies without GAI applications find that GAI crowds out their offering from IT budgets. In contrast, companies with GAI offering find that high inference costs make new products less lucrative than the cloud-subscription model that has propelled their margins to all-time highs. The effect of DeepSeek on the industry is generally positive, as it will help it lower costs of GAI-based software products.