The equity market has had a fifteen year tailwind of declining capital intensity, lower cost of debt, and higher margins fueling a debt and fcf driven equity shrink support to eps and multiples.
There is a generation of investors now that have not had to think much about capital intensity, capital cycles, return on capital, tightening liquidity.
Everyone is in agreement that AI is the most important thing. And AI can dramatically dwarf the capital cycle but the point is that this isn’t just about AI it’s AI vs the capital cycle. And the capital cycle can lose and the market can be fine. But if the capital cycle wins the equity market resets. The right tail is limited and somewhat reflexive based on whether AI would be purely additive or substitutive. The belly of the distribution curve of outcomes seems normal and the left tail seems increasingly fatter.