Welcome to The Log
I’ve spent the last few months doing what I’ve always done: digging through charts, Fed statements, and half-buried research at 11pm because I couldn’t sleep until the thesis made sense. The difference now is I’m writing it down somewhere other people can see it. After multiple tries and questionings, I knew I was not suited for that Miami course selling image.
That’s what The Log is. Not a signals group, not a course, not someone telling you what to buy. It’s a research journal, made public, the same digging I’d do for my own trading account, posted before I know if it’s right. Wins, losses, and the reasoning behind both.
The rule for this newsletter is simple: research first, opinions earned. If I can’t back a take with something concrete, it doesn’t get published.
I am also doing it for the love of the game and my college studies.
First take: the market is still pricing perfection, and two things just changed
Everyone’s positioned for the same story right now.
AI capex supercycle, strong earnings, S&P 500 targets getting raised into year-end. J.P. Morgan just took theirs up to 7,800. Two straight quarters of 20%+ earnings growth are doing a lot of work to justify it.
But two things moved in the last month that the “priced for perfection” crowd is underweighting.
First, the Fed just flipped. Coming into 2026, the conversation was about cuts. It isn’t anymore. Under new Chair Kevin Warsh, the Fed held at 3.50–3.75% at the June meeting, and the market has gone from pricing zero hikes to bracing for as many as three before year-end.
Bank of America has September, October, and December on the board. CME’s FedWatch has the odds of a hike at the July 29 meeting climbing fast. That’s a real repricing, not noise.
Second, the inflation and oil picture stopped cooperating. CPI briefly touched the Fed’s 2% target late last year and has since reaccelerated to 4.2%. At the same time, oil is back above $80 a barrel on renewed U.S.–Iran tensions. Higher energy input costs on top of sticky inflation is exactly the combination that kills a “higher-for-longer-but-fine” narrative and turns it into a real policy problem.
Here’s the part I think gets missed: market leadership is narrow, concentrated almost entirely in AI and energy names. Narrow leadership plus a hawkish repricing plus an oil shock is not historically a stable combination. It doesn’t mean the bull case is dead. It means the room for the Fed or oil to surprise to the downside just got a lot smaller, and the market isn’t priced like it knows that yet.
I’m not calling a top. I’m flagging that the two variables most likely to break this rally. Policy and energy, both moved against the consensus in the same month, and I want that on the record before the next FOMC print on July 29.
This is the first entry in what’s going to be a running log, not a one-off. If you want the real-time version where I post setups, the research that didn’t make the cut, and where other people drop their own research to get picked apart, the Discord will open soon. Link will be given on the next Log.
Not selling anything. Just keeping the receipts.
— Alexonomics