LT Weekly: Sep 25, 2026
It was a busy week with a lot of interesting updates across AI (of course), media entertainment, wearables, and cable (to name a few) but I’d say Meta’s Muse was of particular note given the breadth of its stock and market impact this week. While Meta shares themselves were up a stunning ~+13%, it also helped drive the SOX up +6.3%, while pressuring a slew of “consumer inertia” stocks (see Theme #2). All in all, Nasdaq hit a new record high earlier this week and the S&P 500 is only 1% from its August record high. However, small caps continue to be under pressure as interest rate yields maintained their ascent.
In this edition, we focused on the themes below:
- The AI Build As A % Of GDP Is Expected To Dwarf All Other Capx Booms In History
- Muse Takes Meta From The Penalty Box to Pole Position & Puts “Consumer Inertia” Stocks on Notice
- Paramount + WBD Moves A Big Step Closer To The Finish Line
- The Competition For Creators Is Getting Fiercer
- Meta’s Wearable Takeover Is Coming Into Shape
- Almost Across The Board, Cost Per Tokens Were Cut This Week…
- Grab Bag: Disney+ Price Hike / Apple Music Hall / Humanoid Robot Sales Reach 7k
- Stat Of The Week – Cable’s And FWA Diverging Customer Satisfaction Scores
Enoy the read and weekend!
Best,
Leslie
The AI Build As A % Of GDP Is Expected To Dwarf All Other Capx Booms In History
The cumulative AI buildout spend is expected to reach $10.3 trillion through 2032 or 3.63% of GDP per year on average, which is much higher than any other capital investment cycle in history and easily tops the Railroad buildout spend from 1870-1890, which reached 2.24% of GDP per year on average.
This data is based on a BPEA conference paper presented at Brookings on Sept 25 by Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a Belgian-American academic and economist who is a Professor of Real Estate at Columbia Business School. His paper, which made several headlines across the press this week, has some interesting analysis and food for thought that we wanted to highlight. He ultimately argues that increasingly opaque, off-balance-sheet financing structures are redistributing and potentially amplifying risk across the financial system coming from this unprecedented capital cycle ahead.
See the points and charts that we found particularly insightful below and see link to report for more.