Author: Chasing Wind Trading Platform

This summer, the global market has been repeatedly tugged by three things: the high leverage positions in AI collapsing, long-term U.S. Treasury rates hitting a 19-year high during the interest rate cutting cycle, and the ceasefire agreement in the Strait of Hormuz being signed and then torn up again.

The three matters belong to three different markets and seem unrelated at first glance.

On August 10, Goldman Sachs placed them into the same framework: the global market may be transitioning from "over-saving" to "capital scarcity." AI is burning money, the government is borrowing, and the strait is blocking physical supply—three forces are consuming limited global capital simultaneously.

And over the past twenty years, the central banks responsible for continuously injecting liquidity into the market and lowering interest rates are finding their options diminishing.

This judgment does not imply that the three issues will continue to worsen. But it raises a question: if global capital is truly becoming more expensive and scarce, is the market ready? Even if any one of these three matters calms down, the competition for global capital may not disappear. The extreme volatility of the stock market in July, where it plummeted and then surged, U.S. Treasury rates rose instead of falling, and oil rebounded half of its drop in three days—may not be a one-off accident, but the beginning of a high volatility cycle.

AI Leverage: The Logic Is Correct, but the Leverage Is Wrong

Among the three matters, the first to implode was AI leverage.

The "AI stock god" Leopold Aschenbrenner's hedge fund saw its net worth soar by 439% in the first half of the year, relying on 4x leverage heavily investing in AI hardware and shorting software stocks. In July, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 28.6% in a single month, a double kill for both bulls and bears. A public position of $16 billion was entirely dumped onto Citadel—Millennium and Jane Street withdrew completely after evaluation, leaving only one buyer on Wall Street.

JPMorgan subsequently warned: the ability of institutions to take on AI assets has declined significantly. In the future, "it will only rely on retail investors to support the market."

But at the same time, TSMC's revenue in July grew by 44.7% year-on-year to a record high. The top three U.S. cloud providers have a total backlog of $2.3 trillion in orders. AI demand has not slowed. The direction is correct, the problem is that the money from buyers is disappearing.

A more essential signal comes from NVIDIA. On August 10, Jensen Huang did not push for faster chips, but instead brought in six major asset management firms like BlackRock and Blackstone to establish a financing platform—customers can no longer afford the chips and need NVIDIA to help them find money from institutions. The market did not buy it: the stock price dropped that day, and CDS approached historical highs.

The "doom doctor" Jim Chanos remarked that this was reminiscent of 2008. The market's reluctance is simple: if $500 billion essentially means "loaning money to clients to buy their own chips," how long can this cycle last? A sector that requires hundreds of billions in financial structuring to sustain itself is proof of being cash-strapped.

U.S. Treasury: An Explanation for the Ineffective Rate Cuts

AI is burning money, and the government is also borrowing record amounts.

The Federal Reserve has cut rates six times, totaling 175 basis points, yet the yield on 30-year U.S. Treasuries has risen continuously, reaching 5.27% on August 1—the highest since 2007. The market is no longer pricing in the Federal Reserve but is pricing in U.S. Treasury.

U.S. federal debt surpassed $40 trillion in August, with net interest expenses for FY2026 amounting to $1.039 trillion, exceeding the defense budget for the first time. For every $5 collected in taxes, $1 goes directly to paying interest. $15 trillion in debt needs to be refinanced within a year; for every 1% increase in the interest rate for new borrowing, the deficit automatically expands. The proportion of Treasuries held by foreign central banks has dropped from 34% to below 24%.

Goldman Sachs made it clear: the world has switched from "over-saving" to "extreme capital scarcity." AI infrastructure requires over $800 billion a year, while reindustrialization and defense restructuring are progressing simultaneously, with sovereign debt refinancing needs concentrated and exploding—these financing needs have collided with a Treasury market where buyers are retreating. With buyers pulling back and supply expanding, interest rates can only rise.

Even within the Federal Reserve, there is no unified stance. Chair Waller has reduced the forward guidance significantly, stating that "the market has already taken on most of the tightening work"—there is no urgency to raise rates; instead, let the market tighten itself. Cleveland Fed President Mester publicly disagrees: current rates "do not impose a clear constraint" and "may require multiple rate hikes." Goldman Sachs' judgment is that the Fed is more like a "passenger" than a "driver."

Aschenbrenner's 4x leverage is fragile, not only because of concentrated positions—also because the borrowed money may be becoming more expensive. The capital feast of AI has collided with the government's borrowing peak, while the central banks no longer have sufficient space to backstop both as they did in the past.

Hormuz: Why a Ceasefire Agreement Is No Longer Effective

The financial world is pricing capital scarcity, and the physical world is also sending out signals in parallel.

Since the outbreak of war between the U.S. and Iran at the end of February, Brent has gone through a repeatedly fluctuating curve: $126 (March war) → $72 (June ceasefire) → $85 (July breakdown) → $87.72 (August, Iran proposes 6 conditions, Trump returns to a "semi-negotiation state"). Each cycle of rise and fall repeats the same pattern: the market first prices in "it’s going to stop," and then re-prices "it has started again." After several repetitions, no one dares to easily bet "this time it's real."

The question is no longer "will there be fighting," but "how long can the ceasefire last." Iranian Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Zolghadr, said that if the U.S. does not change its behavior, the strait will remain closed. Trump responded that he is ready to increase economic pressure. Both sides are talking, and neither has retreated.

The OVX (Crude Oil Volatility Index) is currently around 60—3.2 times that of the VIX. The meaning of the options market is very clear: the greatest tail risk is not in U.S. stocks, but in waterways.

Complicating the situation is that the U.S. buffer is thinning. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has fallen to 298.7 million barrels, dropping below 300 million for the first time since 1983. Before the war, there were 415 million barrels, and after releasing 172 million barrels all at once in March, the net consumption has continued. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has characterized this as the "largest supply disruption in global oil market history." The next time an issue arises in the strait, the capacity of the U.S. government to release reserves to stabilize oil prices is the weakest it has been in forty years.

The Convergence of Three Underlying Forces: From "Over-Saving" to "Capital Scarcity"

The three matters may not be coincidental.

The collapse of AI leverage occurred because 4x leverage is unsustainable in a rising interest rate environment. The long-term interest rates of U.S. Treasuries spiked because the government and corporate entities are both competing with global investors for money. The problem in the Strait of Hormuz appears to be geopolitical, but at a deeper level, it is a sudden scarcity of the physical capital of oil. The three forces have different directions—stock market, bond market, commodities—but share the same root: there may be a structural reversal in the global capital supply-demand landscape.

Goldman Sachs calls this transformation "from over-saving to capital scarcity." The world after 2008 is one where there is plenty of savings, few projects, and low-interest rates. Central bank QE supported this, allowing governments to borrow nearly interest-free. This framework has lasted nearly twenty years.

By 2026, it will be breached on both ends. On the supply side, global central banks have turned from net buyers of Treasuries to net sellers. On the demand side, AI infrastructure, reindustrialization, defense spending, energy transition—four directions are simultaneously unleashing trillion-level capital demands. Goldman Sachs specially pointed out that AI capital expenditures are "the most significant upward pressure on interest rates" among these four forces—it simultaneously pushes up risk-free rates and credit spreads.

Even if the Strait of Hormuz is open tomorrow and all AI leverage positions are cleared, the structural pressure on interest rates will not disappear. The root cause lies not in the events, but in the paradigm.

Another Perspective: This Is a "Triple Kill of Liquidity"

The three forces, under another name, are three types of liquidity pressures. They have different directions but collided in time.

Trading liquidity was the first to encounter issues. The 4x leverage of AI funds faced short-term concentrated liquidations, leading to a -28.6% drop in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, with a pattern of "drop → liquidation → drop more → more liquidation"—resulting in all exposed funds being forced to stop losses.

Bond liquidity is a deeper well. $15 trillion in debt needs to be refinanced within a year, and FY2026 requires an additional net increase of about $2 trillion in new debt. The Treasury is siphoning off hundreds of billions from the market monthly, but buyers are retreating. Interest rates can only go up—the heavier the interest, the larger the deficit, the more new debt—this creates a self-reinforcing cycle.

Physical liquidity is the third knife. 27% of global maritime crude oil channels have been cut off, with no alternative routes, and the SPR buffer has been consumed down to a 40-year low.

The three liquidity pressures overlap significantly in time, creating a rare resonance known as the "triple kill of liquidity." The extreme market conditions in July—after six consecutive days of declines in the Nasdaq, a single-day rebound of 2.8%, a 19-year high in the 30-year yield, and Brent rebounding half of the drop after a two-week decline of 14%—are a price expression of this resonance.

This framework is not a predictive tool. It explains why July was so violent but cannot tell you what August will be like. The three pressures have different alleviation conditions: AI positions depend on when Citadel distributes to the market, U.S. Treasuries depend on the Treasury's issuance pace, and Hormuz depends on the rhythm of negotiation. The three are not synchronized. But their resonance is sufficient to explain one thing: why the volatility this summer feels more intense than any single indicator suggests.

After This Summer: High Volatility as a Preview of the New Normal

On the U.S. stock side, Q2 earnings reports have already validated AI demand side quite clearly—cloud providers are collectively hitting new highs in growth, and backlogged orders are setting records. However, the blow-up in July proved another facet: in a crowded and highly leveraged arena, there is a significant gap between having a "correct judgment" and "surviving to realize it." JPMorgan's warning is particularly worth remembering—once institutional absorption capacity declines, it can only rely on retail investors to support it, and the next round of adjustment will have even fewer buyers than in July.

On the U.S. Treasury side, Goldman Sachs' statement is worth revisiting: the Federal Reserve is a "passenger," not a "driver." If the fiscal path does not change, the structural pressures on long-term rates will not disappear just because of a few rate cuts. Whether the 10-year can return below 4% does not depend on the next FOMC, but on whether global savings are willing to flow back into Treasuries—this exceeds the Federal Reserve's capacity.

On the oil side, the risk premium in Hormuz has already transformed from a "one-off shock" to a "persistent discount." Even if a temporary ceasefire agreement is reached, the substantial price gap between OVX and VIX will not disappear in the short term. With the SPR at a 40-year low—the next time a supply-side surprise arrives, the market will be even more fragile, and the government's ability will be further weakened. Goldman Sachs' baseline judgment is that "neither side seems willing to escalate significantly, and energy prices should remain bounded," but this judgment itself is fragile—if the market moves too far in the opposite direction, "concerns can easily resurface."

The true legacy of summer 2026 will not be a price fluctuation of an asset. Instead, the market will finally begin to pay a premium for this new paradigm of "capital scarcity." The three forces are merely three facets of a grand narrative; they collided during the summer, but the underlying structural forces have not yet fully released.

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