• Quiet index, more rotations

• AI productivity and cyclical growth continue

• Trump cranks up the populist rhetoric, probably Art of the Deal

• Are Earnings expectations still too low?

• Divergences in Earnings growth

• Are higher interest rates helping equities? (No, but they are not hurting)

• Real Disposable Income Growth is accelerating (for now)

• Inflation is still cooling

• Housing Data is still not going anywhere

• Retail Sales are still good

• Quick Hits

• Where did all the crypto money go?

• Chart Crime of the week

• The economy is starting off 2026 like this guy

It was another quiet week on the headline index, but there were plenty of headlines and rotations under the surface.  The big picture points to the same theme we have been touting:  Stronger, more broad economic growth with cooling inflation.  And this growth still overlaps among Artificial Intelligence and traditionally cyclical sectors.  On the AI front, Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) reported great earnings and boosted its forecast over the foreseeable future.  As we have said many times, TSM sits at the center of the AI universe (more so than Nvidia now…which is saying a lot).  The rotation out of software continues.  Anthropic (one of the leaders in creating AI for businesses) is using its Claude Code engine to write code to improve its Claude Code engine.  And the economic data supports the cyclical acceleration:  Strong Retail Sales, strong Real Disposable Income growth, and cooling inflation are the headliners.  Even the flakey business surveys are showing improved sentiment (on top of the strong spending).