GS Duttenhoefer Duttenhoefers Daily 25 Aug 2026

GS Duttenhoefer - Duttenhoefers Daily 25 Aug 2026 Johannes Duttenhoefer · Goldman Sachs · Executive Director, FICC & Equities Tue 25 Aug 2026, 1:47am ET

S&P -28bps @7653 (+12% ytd) with ongoing AI/Semis pressure ahead of Nvidia numbers; our Memory Basket -5%, Sox -3% and Kospi currently -1%; Brent $92, Gold $4626 and Bitcoin $80k; US 10yr rates at 4.71%; VIX +5% @16 (on tariff/Iran headline risk); Nvidia & Salesforce earnings (Wed) and Warsh keynote at Jackson Hole (Fr) in focus.

US x Iran: US will impose punishing sanctions on countries and entities that do business with Iran; Bessent unveiled the Iran "economic D-Day" with a secondary-sanctions package ("operation economic outcast"); targets shipping, oil and many more areas; there is no deadline.

Open-source AI: is rapidly gaining usage share (from 28% to 62% in just two months) even as OpenAI and Anthropic continue growing which is bullish for AI infrastructure; cheaper open models may compress model-layer margins, but every additional token still requires compute, driving GPU, data-center and power demand.

power demand: AI chip-driven electricity demand is projected to surge to a record ~315 gigawatts globally by 2033 (+1100% vs 2025); the US is expected to account for ~64% of this new AI electricity demand.

data center: Texas Gov. Abbott delivered one of the starkest warnings from a Republican to the AI industry saying data center companies "dug their own grave".

World Humanoid Robot Games: many videos going around the world showing the 2nd robot tournament; in the large-group 400-meter run final, a robot took gold in 38.15 seconds which is faster than the men's 400m world record of 43.03 seconds.

seasonality: during midterm election years, September has historically been the S&P 500's worst month. October and November tell a very different story.

Bitcoin: ETFs recorded their strongest weekly inflows since Oct25; attracted a combined $1.92bn in net inflows. Our crypto team: across 19-21 Aug, roughly $2.54b of short liquidations were recorded, with 19 Aug marking the largest short-liquidation event on record across crypto perpetuals.

Active ETFs: are growing in Europe and now close to $100bn in AUMs.

worth listening: interesting podcast on Robotics; Pete Florence (ex Deepmind; co-founder Generalist) joined American Optimist for a talk; robotics may now be at its "GPT-3 moment"; general-purpose AI models can be rapidly adapted to many different physical tasks instead of building bespoke software for every robot and task; progress could enable 10x faster experimentation.

Nvidia reports tmrw: we expect a solid quarter with meaningful upside to guidance supported by tight GPU supply/demand trends, but think the bar for the stock is elevated given its +12% move in two weeks.

CXMT: we initiate coverage on the DRAM leader (Buy); as global x-read, I was surprised to read that "we expect capacity to more than double by 2030E leading its conventional DRAM supply to reach 41%/50% of Samsung/SK Hynix by 2028E (from 28%/35% in 2025)".

software: still getting a lot of questions on our software pair trade (GSPUSFTX) which consists of going long software that AI cannot realistically displace (GSTMTSOL) vs going short software-tilted workflows that AI could increasingly automate (GSTMTSOS).

Stat of the Day: China chip volume self-sufficiency was at 70% in 2026 vs. only 38% in 2010; the R&D and Capex gap vs. global leader remains wide despite strong increases, suggesting more capital required to go global.

Chart of the Day: the chart below shows the market cap weight of the 10 largest S&P companies and their FCF yield over time (thanks Simon J.).

Source: Goldman Sachs FICC & Equities. Past performance is no indicator for future performance.