I understand this sentiment. I, too, have nostalgia for the simpler times we remember from the recent past. And then I remind myself they only seem simple now because we’ve already survived them. But the times were never simple, certain or “normal” as we ventured our way through them. It’s only the afterglow that allows us to think of the past that way.

This applies to markets and real life. I came across an old photograph of me with both kids on my lap. They must have been seven and four years old. In those days, we decided what time bedtime was and that was it. We called the shots on breakfast, lunch and dinner, weekend plans, family movie night, etc. It seems like it was so much simpler back then. Now those kids are 20 and 17. One of them is interning in Manhattan, taking a commuter train and then a subway every morning for the first time in her life. She’s in the world of adults, with all the conflict and confusion that comes along with it. The other one started driving a car last week and is out til midnight (or later, I’ll have to consult the Life360 app) every night since his junior year at high school ended. It’s going to be a long summer.

The problems ten years ago were about who needs a ride where, who broke whose toy, who called shotgun, where’s my soccer uniform, who took my ipad, and so on. Now it’s what party are they at, when are they coming home, which boy or girl are they “getting with”, which of their friends is most likely to get into drugs, are they drinking, are they smoking, will their grades improve, what will their SAT scores be and all sorts of stuff I wish I didn’t have to think about.

If I close my eyes it feels like yesterday when I would be able to physically carry them into a room and they hung on my every word. When the fights in our house were over a missing teddy bear. I was all-powerful when sorting out disputes and deciding the direction of the household (just kidding, I was the deputy, but still, it wasn’t nothing). Now when I speak a command (LOL) they either deliberately tune me out or I have just become part of the background noise to their young adult ears. I’m a piece of furniture in the house. My wife and I were the sun and the moon at the center of their universe. Now we’re a distant planet they occasionally check in with as the galaxy of their own lives begins to form around them. And so it goes.

Were things easier back then? Less complicated? Were we any more certain than we are now? Or does it only feel that way because we’re on the other side of it? Maybe it’s a little bit of both. In either case, there’s no going back. We are where we are. Better acclimate ourselves to it.

I think of the modern markets this way. We’re now witnessing the birth of predictions and binary outcome bets as a tool for both speculation and portfolio hedging. Were things simpler before these markets sprouted up? Yes? No? I’m not sure.

Robinhood is on the verge of facilitating over $50 billion in trade volume for these contracts. Anyione think they’ll stop there? Charles Schwab just went from red to green on predictions too. They’re coming to market with their partner CBOE after saying “no, not us” as recently as Future Proof’s March event at which I interviewed CEO Rick Wurster on stage. Never say never.

Is this normal? Well, it wasn’t last year but it will be by next year. And that’s how things advance. One abnormality at a time until we become more accustomed to it. I think what’s new these days is the speed at which these abnormalities come along. It feels faster.

That’s not just in finance and the markets. It’s everywhere. Weed and sports gambling were both legalized in the same two-year period after a century of being illegal. The world was one way when you went to sleep and then you woke up and it was completely the other way. Taboos completely shattered right before your eyes. There’s not a city neighborhood without a cannabis store almost anywhere I go. There’s not a sporting event or sports media property that isn’t being sponsored by a bookmaking app. Just like that.

This is normal now. The world you knew before is never coming back.

Michael Zezas is the Deputy Global Head of Research at Morgan Stanley. In the late 2010’s his team began talking about the ways in which the world had completely changed. The pandemic at the start of this decade only reinforced the validity of their ideas, followed as it was by the onshoring trend, the re-industrialization of America (and now Europe) and the tariffs. Moving from the post-Cold War consensus on global trade and cooperation to a multi-polar world has had massive investment ramifications for stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities and portfolio allocations. Michael has been proven right so far this decade. And his message to institutional investors is that to expect a rollback to the policies and priorities of the 80’s and 90’s would be naive. President Biden had the chance to rollback the Trump I administration’s tariffs on trade with the Chinese and he didn’t even attempt it.

We had a wide-ranging conversation with Michael in New York this week and you can watch or listen to it right now on an all new episode of The Compound and Friends. Links to YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts below!

The trade of the year so far has been away from the Mag 7 mega-caps, legging into the next few deciles down in market cap. Here are the top ten holdings in the equal-weight technology ETF, which is up nearly 40% year-to-date and crushing the tech sector (XLK), Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) and S&P 500 (SPY) - all of which are market cap-weighted:

Not every stock in the ETF has been a winner. You can see the attribution of the top and bottom stocks here:

Despite the detracting performance of the software names like Adobe and Intuit, it’s still been an incredible half a year for this strategy. The hyperscalers are the spenders on technology infrastructure. They’re spending so much they now have to borrow money from Wall Street with bond offerings or raise it with equity sales. And we thought seeing them spending every single dollar of cash flow was extreme. They’re going so far beyond that this year.

The companies at the top of the equal-weight tech ETF are the sellers. They’re feasting on all this capex activity. Earnings and revenue are booming as demand for what they sell skyrockets. There’s no sign of this slowing down at the moment. Earlier this week, PIMCO CIO Dan Ivascyn told us he thinks it’s actually going to accelerate.

Anyway, this is where the big winners of 2026 can be found. And there are a lot of stocks just like them further down the list.

Disclosure: Ritholtz Wealth Management currently owns SNDK, WDC, MU and KLAC for clients in our concentrated momentum strategy, Porterhouse. Nothing you read here should ever be considered investment advice. Additional disclaimer here.

THE COMPOUND & FRIENDS

Michael Batnick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Downtown Josh Brown⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are joined by Michael Zezas, Deputy Global Head of Research at Morgan Stanley, to discuss: AI capex, data centers, productivity gains, prediction markets, the 2026 midterms, the Fed, enterprise software, and why policy calls are so difficult to translate directly into investment outcomes.