GS Armbrust What Matters Today Ex AI Winners vs Hardware A Softer Economic D Day Meta Consumer AI Agent FTSE Rebalance 25 Aug 2026

GS Armbrust - What Matters Today: Ex AI Winners vs Hardware, A Softer Economic D Day, Meta to Launch a Consumer AI Agent, FTSE Rebalance in September 25 Aug 2026 Nelson Armbrust · Goldman Sachs · Managing Director, FICC & Equities Tue 25 Aug 2026, 8:01am ET

US Pension Rebalance: we estimate pensions to SELL $6bn of US equities (42nd percentile).

Financials are trading well, materials are trading well and industrials (ex the AI levered ones) are trading well. Throw healthcare in the same category, think AI spend is getting more useful for lower cost and the winners are those who spend the most on human capital who are currently spending the least on AI capex. The hardware complex is de-rating on the other side but at some point will be floored by earnings/revision.

On AI specifically, there are new models arriving at an almost weekly cadence. SSI is particularly interesting given the rumors around continual or self learning, but nothing has been officially released or demonstrated yet. If continual learning really works, it could be quite disruptive to the existing pretraining paradigm and reduce the need to continuously rerun ever larger training clusters.

I am much less convinced it means less compute overall….if anything, better models that continuously learn probably push substantially more activity into inference. So for hardware, potentially a shift in where compute gets consumed rather than outright demand destruction. Mixed to positive if it arrives soon. (TY Rich Privo)

Oil lower yesterday because, despite the “economic D Day” rhetoric on Iran, the actual package came with enough boundary conditions and enough time that it wasn’t an immediate change. “The Treasury Department did announce new sanctions on 60 individuals, entities and vessels, but the list did not include any of the Chinese financial institutions suspected of facilitating Iran’s oil trade.” (Reuters)

More importantly, Bessent basically told you the reflexivity himself. Asked why he stopped short of actually imposing penalties on Iran and declined to identify the countries that would be targeted, Bessent responded, “Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” (Reuters) All roads ultimately lead back to trying to keep the oil price as contained as possible. (TY Rich Privo)

3) Meta to Launch a Consumer AI Agent

Meta Platforms plans to launch its consumer version of the OpenClaw AI agent, dubbed Hatch internally, as soon as the next several weeks and is targeting October for its latest AI model, called Watermelon, according to internal documents reviewed by The Information.

Hatch is part of Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitions to monetize the company’s enormous AI investments and diversify its revenue streams beyond advertising. Meta has considered a tiered pricing system, as The Information previously reported, including charging up to $199.99 for a premium monthly subscription for the product that would include higher usage limits.

Hatch has been trained to access websites such as DoorDash, Etsy, Reddit, Yelp and Outlook. Based on early prototypes, it will have a customizable dashboard that displays tools or skills created by the agents, such as a fitness tracker or creating a travel itinerary. The documents said Hatch’s release is targeted for late August or early September.

4) FTSE Rebalance in September

The Takeaway: Position ahead of $25bn+ in gross flow reallocations across APAC and EM scheduled for implementation after market close on September 18.

Reclassifications: Vietnam gets promoted to Secondary Emerging Market (phased over 4 tranches), while Greece transitions to Developed Market status.

Country Winners & Losers: China (+$1.5bn), Korea (+$1.2bn), Taiwan (+$1.2bn), and India (+$0.7bn) will capture the largest net passive inflows, whereas Japan (-$1.0bn) faces the largest net passive selling pressure.

Sector Beneficiaries: Tech Hardware & Semis (+$3.4bn) and Capital Goods (+$0.5bn) command the largest share of net passive demand across Asia-Pacific. Source: Goldman Sachs FICC & Equities, FTSE Russell, FactSet, EPFR, as of 25 August 2026.