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Michael Santoli

@michaelsantoli.bsky.social
49K followers 229 following 1.2K posts

CNBC talking head. Markets, mostly. Maybe some baseball and movies.

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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Markets have punished the prudent lately. Prudence here means diversification across asset classes and among equities, rebalancing along the way to keep exposures in line. On a lookback basis, bonds have dragged on returns for a decade. Is this changing? New newsletter, free to read/subscribe.
cnbc.com
Investors who have shunned diversification face maybe the best buying opportunity for bonds in decades
No diversification needed: The 10-year total return stocks minus bonds is near the highest in history.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Cleveland Guardians, with the fourth-best AL record, gets a first-round bye, will play the winner of a series between teams that together were 165-159. The three best teams will fight for one ALCS slot. America in 2026: policy subsidizing heartland mediocrity at the expense of coastal meritocracy.
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Reposted by Michael Santoli
Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The Moe Greene maneuver: “I buy you out, you don’t buy me out.”
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The Moe Greene maneuver: “I buy you out, you don’t buy me out.”
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Where have we heard such an argument before?....
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
When there’s a strong undertow, the move is to swim sideways, parallel to the shore, to get beyond the narrow rip current’s pull. Has market successfully executed such a cautious, patient maneuver through a summer of churn? Or was Monday's propulsive tech rally a bit forced? New CNBC newsletter.
cnbc.com
Santoli: The S&P 500 is within striking distance of record as bull relies on familiar leadership
Rerun generation, Gen X, seems obsessed with finding parallels between today's market and past cycles, Mike Santoli writes.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Given this, a risk for stocks is that the enthusiastic growth projections of Warsh/FOMC starts to feel like a stale take given potential lagged effects of higher oil prices/bond yields on the economy and the likely deceleration (from hot levels) of corporate capex. Not today's business, maybe...
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Stocks have been white-knuckling it, the S&P 500 laboring to hold close to highs as the areas exposed to higher rates and oil prices (consumer, industrial) struggle and Big Tech undergoes an AI rethink. As often happens, stocks/bonds at key "fight-or-flight" levels heading into the Fed decision...
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
A year ago, a saturating worry was speculative enthusiasm building to an AI bubble. No more. Sentiment has reset toward skepticism, valuations have compressed, perceived hazards have the spotlight. Where that leaves us, as macro conditions turn more vexing. New newsletter, free to subscribe.
cnbc.com
Santoli: The youthful phase of AI is over. What it means for investors
The AI narrative has flipped to a focus on the risk with the tech unpopular with the public and projections of order backlogs beyond a few quarters now suspect.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The Fed raised interest rates at every meeting from March 2022 through the midterm election. Also hiked a few times in 2018 before a midterm election. Also hiked every meeting from June 2004 through a presidential election. And the Fed was tightening for all of 1994 prior to a midterm election.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
S&P 500 cracked the floor of the range that had held since the early August breakout. Higher oil prices/bond yields too much to be fully offset by strength in tech and healthcare. Equal-weight S&P taking it harder, as usual with macro stress. The "market broadening" cult relearns a tough lesson.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Strictly speaking this would be a leveraged-recap dividend. The private-equity guy from Cerberus who's now second in command at the Pentagon could tell him how it's done...
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
In today's formal launch of my Market Memo newsletter: -Wall Street exits summer with elevated exposure to stocks validated by a bend-don't-break tape for now. -Is fear of bonds overdone now at these yield levels? -Tech trade shifted toward AI consumption over AI construction, but remains fickle.
cnbc.com
Santoli: One key tech ETF may signal whether this bull market can keep marching on
The winds have shifted back in favor of AI consumption plays over AI construction proxies.
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Reposted by Michael Santoli
DataTrek's Nick Colas & Jessica Rabe @datatrekresearch.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
DataTrek co-founder Nick Colas was interviewed on @cnbc.com with @michaelsantoli.bsky.social about potential Fed rate hikes and the US labor market. Watch below! www.cnbc.com/video/2026/0...
cnbc.com
Fed Chair Warsh is right not to worry about the labor market, says DataTrek's Nicholas Colas
Nick Colas, DataTrek co-founder, joins 'Closing Bell Overtime' to talk what is ahead for the Federal Reserve as the market prices in a coin flip on rate moves.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The twitchy degen traders seem to be home starting the holiday weekend early to absord the Tesla cybercab event hype. TSLA and its ride-along speculative plays jumping today. Tesla still dead money since November 2021 though...
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
The S&P 500 tapping on the floor of its August breakout range as September begins. The market is trying to diffuse the pressure from higher bond yields to particular areas - housing, some industrials, newly rate-sensitive tech hardware. Orderly (so far), Apple/pharma/oil stocks acting as ballast.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
In markets as in movies, suspense builds through the slow, quiet scenes of the second act. Stocks did enough, on slim volumes and rotation, to exit August with uptrend intact. September opens with volatility, yields at consequential thresholds, a coin-toss Fed meeting in two weeks. New newsletter.
cnbc.com
Santoli: Why investors should be on high alert heading into September
Investors should be on high alert because various key market metrics are coiling near consequential thresholds.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
There aren't many of us left fighting this battle, but that makes it no less worthy an effort. Nvidia earnings week is always a high alert time for law of large numbers misuse. Don't fall into the trap. Ignorance of the law is not a valid defense...
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
The stock market's "dispersion engine" is revving hard again, with Treasury yields better-behaved. Almost perfectly offsetting up/down action holding the S&P 500 in its "breakout range," barely. Semis down, mega-cap tech platforms up, non-AI value having a day in the sun. Yawning, but watching...
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
It’s deepest summer in the American economy, and the AC thermostat hangs in the hottest room in the house: The bond market is working to offset the blistering demand for debt from governments and companies via higher yields. But might it overcool other parts of the economy? New CNBC newsletter...
cnbc.com
Santoli: Why all the fuss about bond yields is happening now
The textbooks say the cycle high in real yields should act as a restraint on economic growth and equity valuations.
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Reposted by Michael Santoli
Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Had a blast hanging with @downtownjoshbrown.bsky.social and @michaelbatnick.bsky.social. We hit the evolution of financial media, the bull market's resilience, the debt market's message, retail investors' impact and why the late-'60s tech craze is relevant now. Just glad they didn't call me Unc.
youtube.com
How to Play the Money Game | TCAF 256
YouTube video by The Compound
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Had a blast hanging with @downtownjoshbrown.bsky.social and @michaelbatnick.bsky.social. We hit the evolution of financial media, the bull market's resilience, the debt market's message, retail investors' impact and why the late-'60s tech craze is relevant now. Just glad they didn't call me Unc.
youtube.com
How to Play the Money Game | TCAF 256
YouTube video by The Compound
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
S&P 500 possibly forming a Loch Ness Monster pattern, head poked above the surface with risk that it ducks back under. Market still in "routine pullback/digestion mode" for now, though it's only another 0.7% down from here until it would undo the recent breakout and re-enter the former range...
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Revisiting the classic 1968 Wall Street chronicle, "The Money Game," by the writer who went by Adam Smith, a book that grew out of the mainframe-computer and space-travel growth stock craze of the '60s. For no particular reason...
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Back when pork belly futures still traded, the peak of the tomato harvest was a bullish tailwind for that market as "BLT season" arrived. When I briefly wrote a commodities column in the late-'90s, I was skeptical this was a real, tradeable pattern but sure enough it often worked...
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
S&P 500 +6% in 12 days in a Subtraction of All Fears rally. Punishment of AI spenders pauses, semis bounce after a 30% drop, Fed-hike odds ease. Bulls cheer gaudy earnings growth, feel virtuous about their fundamental resolve. Is there overbelief in overstated earnings, though? New newsletter.
cnbc.com
Santoli: Earnings bonanza that lifted market to record may not be all that it appears to be
The S&P 500 is up more than 6% in 12 trading days to record levels.
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Reposted by Michael Santoli
Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Fashion has circled back around to those of us who never quit dressing for the office and stuck with big-boy shoes…
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Fashion has circled back around to those of us who never quit dressing for the office and stuck with big-boy shoes…
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Pretty logical spot for the semiconductor rally to take a pause. Though, of course, logic often doesn't prevail in such matters...
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I'm launching a CNBC newsletter, Market Memo. The weekly dispatch is achored by my CNBC Pro column, which began in 2015 as a successor to columns I'd written since the late 1990s at Barron's. Additional market tidbits, exclusive charts and musings on GenX culture will be folded in. Free for now...
cnbc.com
Santoli: Stocks return to their winning ways. But was July's brief pain enough to satisfy the market gods?
The stock market's winning history – a hit rate of 100% over any past 20-year span - is well understood. But investors recognize – or need to – the genuine hazard in equities.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
A summer Friday on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange...
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Robinhood continues to do pretty well. Its clients, less so. The firm grew revenue and operating earnings 32% vs. a year earlier. Transaction-based revenue alone was up 44%. Yet excluding the contribution from "event contracts" - largely sports bets - annual transaction-revenue growth was 15%...
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Another wrinkle to the Warsh hive invoking Greenspan's "let it ride" stance as the late-'90s tech boom flourished: This benign restraint followed Greenspan's aggressive and intentionally surprising 1994 tightening campaign, which crashed the bond market and established his inflation-vigilance cred.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Semis try to bounce off their first contact with the 100-day moving average in nearly four months. Pretty symmetrical stampede higher and lower since early May. Enough for now?
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Fed Chair Warsh has invoked a tech-productivity miracle as cover to keep rates low, invoking the '90s Greenspan era. Yet much more than tech drove the '90s disinflationary boom: Fiscal conditions, demographics and globalization all helped. These are all pushing the other direction now. New column.
cnbc.com
Elevated energy prices, AI capex binge puts the Fed and Kevin Warsh in a tough spot
Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh and many of his devotees have argued that some short-term price pain can be tolerated in anticipation of AI eventually suppressing inflation.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Back in the days before smartphones, when people had to stand on city streets and look up at buldings to get their news. The Dow's annualized total return since then has been about 10%, just as I (probably) said it would be...
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Can earnings growth be too great for the market's own good? Annual growth of 20%+ is unusual in the middle of an economic expansion, and is associated with subpar forward equity returns. Also unusual coming with margins and profit share of GDP at record highs. New column, free with email signup.
cnbc.com
Mike Santoli: Why eye-popping earnings expectations have failed to lift the market for two months
The mantra heading into second-quarter results is that another display of stupendous growth of 24% over a year earlier makes equities appear quite reasonably priced.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Market continues to try to stay on the rails, refusing to overrread Iran headlines, allowing pressure on crowded/volatile semi stocks to dissipate through reallocation to non-tech, holding the broader uptrend - even as erratic flows threaten to knock something loose and the pattern grows indecisive.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Every cycle, it seems, people need to rediscover how markets treat exciting companies that might be over-earning from a generational investment boom relative to a boring one that has been paying dividends steadily for a century.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Market chatter dwells on structural quirks and mechanical flows the way World Cup talk fixates on officiating and bracket construction. SpaceX entering indexes, tiny flows from "Trump accounts," "systematic" trading triggers, leveraged ETFs. Why all the focus on noise over signals? New column.
cnbc.com
There's a lot of 'noise' making it harder for investors to read the true state of the stock market
Rarely has so much attention been placed on the mechanical impact of index inclusion, policy-driven investment flows and options-hedging impact.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
A nice quarter for stocks, divided neatly in halves: Tech-driven rip for six weeks, a peak in Mag7 coinciding with Cerebras IPO, followed by churn and rotation. Hard to fault the overall trend, but many anomalies and extremes show AI stocks threatening to outgrow their index containers. New column.
cnbc.com
Mike Santoli: A great first half, but some erratic behavior raises doubts about the rally's integrity
For the past few weeks, the stock market has been attempting to rediscover some equilibrium after a stretch of semiconductor dominance, a breakdown in Mag7 stalwarts and more recently rotation toward ...
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Was May 14 a consequential market moment? (S&P hits 7500, Cerebras IPO surge-and-fizzle, Cisco +14% as traders flail for marginal AI-plays.) As Kevin Warsh implicitly says asset markets have been too calm and strong due to some claimed result of a transparent, proactive Fed... New column.
cnbc.com
The big questions the bull market faces right now as the S&P 500 hits some turbulence
Mike Santoli addresses the big questions facing the stock market right now.
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Reposted by Michael Santoli
Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
It was great to catch up with Jonathan Boyar for a chat about the market’s reliance on AI, the threat to short-selling as a practice and Ryan Cohen’s bizarre beef with the media over coverage of the GsmeStop meme-stock frenzy. open.spotify.com/episode/3Aa8...
open.spotify.com
Casino Attached to a Church: Michael Santoli on Speculation, the AI Boom, and Echoes of 2021 and 1999
The World According to Boyar · Episode
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
It was great to catch up with Jonathan Boyar for a chat about the market’s reliance on AI, the threat to short-selling as a practice and Ryan Cohen’s bizarre beef with the media over coverage of the GsmeStop meme-stock frenzy. open.spotify.com/episode/3Aa8...
open.spotify.com
Casino Attached to a Church: Michael Santoli on Speculation, the AI Boom, and Echoes of 2021 and 1999
The World According to Boyar · Episode
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
My first day back in front of the screens in a week. That's right, fun's over.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Some professional investors who acknowledge that the proposed SpaceX IPO valuation is arbitrary and disconnected from the business as it exists today keep repeating, "But Elon has always made his investors money." Sort of, yes....
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Hyper-specific parameters ("When the market is up at least X% over this many days within X% of a record high") combined with narrowly defined time frames ("Strongest two-month rally since X years ago" only looking at calendar months, not all 60-day periods) make this sort of thing very noisy.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
First: The burden of proof is on those who insist it *is* 2000 - that we're at the craziest generational peak in a century, set up for the S&P to be cut in half, Nasdaq to fall 75% and negative returns for the next decade. If you believe all that and aren't in cash, do you *really* believe it?
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
The market's rising on an array of classic favorable drivers: Fast-rising earnings forecasts, semiconductor leadership, lots of independent movement among stocks, drum-tight credit spreads. When does a pileup of positives become too much of a good thing? New column, free to read with email signup.
cnbc.com
Can markets suffer from too much of a good thing?
The market’s extraordinary run to new highs over the past two months has been carried by an array of upbeat fundamental factors and favorable macro conditions.
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Michael Santoli @michaelsantoli.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Apollo today noting the number of ETFs exceeds that of stocks, as if this is something to fret over. The ETF industry has surely become a gimmicky runaway marketing juggernaut. But from a market-structure perspective it's no great worry. My response below from when indexes first eclipsed equities.
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