The AI trade just had its first repricing of 2026.
The semiconductor index fell hard off a record Q2, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF dropped 5% in a single session, and the sector lost over $1 trillion in market value in under two months. Micron gave back 30% in three weeks. CoreWeave nearly halved. Nvidia shed a trillion on its own.
Here is what makes this moment interesting: the demand data kept getting stronger the whole way down.
The four largest hyperscalers are tracking ~$725B of 2026 capex, up 77% from $410B last year
Goldman now expects big-tech capex to pass $1 trillion in 2027
TSMC just beat, raised full-year guidance to 40%+ growth, and lifted capex to $60-64B, this week
Micron printed revenue up 346%, a record 84.6% gross margin, and guided higher, three weeks before the stock bottomed
The sell-off ran on sentiment: Meta’s plan to sell surplus compute, a hawkish new Fed chair, 4.48% yields, memory “peak” warnings, and Michael Burry’s disclosed shorts. Wedbush’s Dan Ives called the cycle “3rd inning, 1 out in a 9-inning game.” Jefferies’ Brent Thill called the bear thesis “garbage.”
When prices fall 30-48% while fundamentals accelerate, you get dislocations. Some are gifts. Some are traps wearing a low multiple. Telling them apart is the entire game, and I spent the week building the system that does it.
Behind the paywall, The AI Pullback Playbook:
▫️ The ranked opportunity table, every dislocated name scored on drawdown vs fundamentals, with the single best deep-value setup on the board
▫️ The anchor thesis, the one stock combining a 30% drawdown, a single-digit forward P/E, and $100B of contracted revenue, plus the full bear case against it, told straight
▫️ The quality pairing, the mega-cap at its cheapest forward multiple in seven years
▫️ The satellite lanes, the better-financed neocloud, the pick-and-shovel play, and the widest price-to-target gap in large-cap semis
▫️ The trap file, the names with optically cheap multiples and structurally broken stories, including the one to avoid outright
▫️ The threshold system, the exact data points that flip each thesis from value to trap, so you react to evidence instead of headlines
▫️ The sizing frame, how to structure core, satellite, and trading sleeves against the one number that keeps bulls honest
▫️ The calendar, the three dates in the next six weeks that settle the argument
One subscription unlocks every system
This is one build in a growing library. Premium opens all of them:
▫️ The Business and Investing library
▫️ The AI Tools and Models library
Plus 3 fresh systems every week. One avoided value trap pays for a decade of the subscription.
📉 The AI Pullback Playbook
The ranked table, the anchor thesis, the trap file, the threshold system, the sizing frame, and the dates that decide it, in one system.