Monthly Market Update With Cathie Wood. The Biggest opportunity Of Our Lifetime.

AI Is Reshaping the Entire Economy

The biggest theme across this week’s session: artificial intelligence is not a trend — it’s a fundamental restructuring of how businesses operate.

What’s happening: AI is shifting power away from traditional “one-size-fits-all” software companies (known as SaaS) toward custom, AI-powered platforms that are tailor-made for individual businesses. Think of it like going from renting a generic office to building your own headquarters designed exactly for how you work.

Why it matters: Google, Tesla, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft are spending aggressively on AI infrastructure. Wood believes they absolutely should be, because agentic AI — AI that acts on your behalf (shopping, researching, booking, negotiating) — is going to fundamentally change how consumers interact with the internet. If your personal AI agent can find you the best deal anywhere online, does Amazon still have the same advantage?

The real-world proof:Palantir’s U.S. commercial revenue grew 142% while its sales team actually shrank. That’s an AI-driven productivity gain of over 140% in a single department. This is the future for every industry.

💰 Inflation Is Probably Much Lower Than You Think

One of the most powerful insights from this week: official government inflation numbers are likely overstating reality — and by a significant margin.

The headline data: The CPI (Consumer Price Index) has been stuck in the 2–3% range. But Trueflation, a real-time tracker that monitors 10,000 goods and services, shows inflation closer to 0.7%. That’s a massive gap.

What’s driving it down: Housing prices are softening (existing home price inflation is below 1%). Oil is down double digits year-over-year, partly because China’s shift to electric vehicles is reducing global demand. Food prices are finally deflating — eggs and other staples that spiked during COVID are coming back down.

The bombshell revision: Last year’s employment numbers were revised down by 861,000 jobs. That’s roughly 75,000 fewer jobs per month than originally reported. Because GDP stayed the same but fewer people produced it, productivity was actually much higher than reported — and inflation was much lower. The real inflation rate may be below 1%.

Why this matters for the Fed: Incoming Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has said something critical: real economic growth driven by technology does not cause inflation — it actually dampens it through productivity gains. If inflation turns negative (deflation) while the economy is growing, the Fed should be cutting rates aggressively. This could be a major tailwind for markets.

😔The Consumer Is Hurting — But Help Is on the Way

Let’s be real: not everything is rosy. Consumer sentiment is near historic lows, and for good reason.

The pain points: Many families are living paycheck to paycheck. Savings rates are low. Auto loan delinquencies (especially subprime) are rising. Existing home sales just hit new lows, even after mortgage rates dropped 90 basis points. People aren’t confident enough to buy homes yet — prices aren’t low enough and neither are interest rates.

The silver linings: Tax refund season is about to inject significant cash into households that need it most. The unemployment rate for 16–24 year olds has improved, dropping below 10%. And here’s an exciting development: ARK believes a lot of young people who can’t find traditional jobs are using AI tools to build their own businesses instead. An entrepreneurial explosion may be underway.

A stat to think about: 43% of CEOs say AI is saving them 8+ hours per week. Only 5% of workers report the same. As more people become entrepreneurs — essentially their own CEOs — that productivity gap should close dramatically.

₿ Bitcoin: Painful Now, Promising Long-Term – The Data Says We Should Be Building Now!

Bitcoin has been caught in the broader risk-off selling. Newer holders (especially through ETFs) have been selling first and asking questions later ( WHICH IS IGNORANT) Gold has outperformed Bitcoin recently, which has rattled the crypto community.

The key difference people are missing:Gold’s supply can grow (and is likely accelerating). Bitcoin’s supply mathematically cannot. For long-term store-of-value positioning, that distinction matters enormously.

The technical picture: Despite the pullback, Bitcoin’s general long-term uptrend of higher lows remains intact. For technicians, the current level sits near significant historical support zones.

What builders are doing: While prices are down, crypto developers are heads-down building. New infrastructure like Layer Zero is being designed to handle 2–4 million transactions per second (versus Ethereum’s 13), specifically for the agentic AI era where machine-to-machine transactions will explode.The real innovation happens during downturns. (Innovation solves problems, the companies that solve the biggest problems will have the largest returns!!)

🕒 We’re in 1996, Not 1999

Perhaps the most important framing from this week: ARK believes we’re at the equivalent of 1996 in the internet revolution — not 1999.

What that means: In 1996, the internet was clearly going to be transformative, but most people didn’t yet understand how big it would become. The speculative mania didn’t hit until 1999–2000. We’re still very early in AI’s trajectory. The market’s fear and skepticism today is exactly what was missing during the dot-com bubble — and that’s what makes this setup so much stronger.

The seasoned investors who lived through the tech bubble are the ones applying the most caution right now. Their scar tissue is keeping the market disciplined. That discipline, paradoxically, is what creates G.L.A.INVEST and Our Community’s Opportunity!!! Stay Tapped In!

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— The G.L.A Invest Research Team